[Peace-discuss] The Bigger Picture is Hiding Behind a Virus

[Brussel, Morton K]

Jonathn Cook writes:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55020.htm

…But again the object of our attention is not as much ours as we may believe. While we focus on graphs, while we twitch the curtains to see if neighbors are going for a second run<https://twitter.com/consent_factory/status/1244186217408856064> or whether families are out in the garden celebrating a birthday<https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/29/stephen-kinnock-targeted-by-police-for-visiting-father-neil> distant from an elderly parent, we are much less likely to be thinking about how well the crisis is being handled. The detail, the mundane is again crowding out the important, the big picture.

Our current fear is an enemy to our developing and maintaining a critical perspective. The more we are frightened by graphs, by deaths, the more we are likely to submit to whatever we are told will keep us safe.

Undercover of the public’s fear, and of justified concerns about the state of the economy and future employment, countries like the US are transferring huge sums of public money to the biggest corporations. Politicians controlled by big business and media owned by big business are pushing through this corporate robbery<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/25/senate-corporate-bailout-package-robbery-progress-warn-critics> without scrutiny – and for reasons that should be self-explanatory.

They know our attention is too overwhelmed by the virus for us to assess intentionally mystifying arguments about the supposed economic benefits, about yet more illusory trickle-down.

There are many other dramatic changes being introduced, almost too many and too rapidly for us to follow them properly. Bans on movement<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/spain-government-set-to-order-nationwide-coronavirus-lockdown>. Intensified surveillance<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/world/middleeast/israel-coronavirus-cellphone-tracking.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage>. Censorship<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/19/twitter-to-remove-harmful-fake-news-about-coronavirus>.

The transfer of draconian powers<https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/19/woman-bundled-ground-police-breaking-lockdown-paris-12423747/?fbclid=IwAR2Fgfx3vO7erYFzdBfWwoppe4g5c_yKUdxYNS2DMxaklIGEjD1BWlyyWM4> to the police, and preparations for the deployment of soldiers<https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-more-than-10-000-armed-forces-staff-put-on-standby-11958144> on the streets. Detention without trial<https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/21/doj-coronavirus-emergency-powers-140023>. Martial law<https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-california-prepared-enact-martial-215237009.html>. Measures that might have terrified us when Trump was our main worry, or Brexit, or Russia, may now seem a price worth paying for a “return to normality”.

Paradoxically, a craving for the old-normal may mean we are prepared to submit to a new normal that could permanently deny us any chance of returning to the old-normal.

The point is not just that things are far more provisional than most of us are ready to contemplate; it’s that our window on what we think of as “the real world”, as “normal”, is almost entirely manufactured for us.

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