Of Leftists And Lockdowns

Topic of the Week

Ever since the US entered “lockdown”, those pushing for it to end have been labelled “selfish” or accused of putting profits before people. Meanwhile millions are unemployed and a global famine is on the horizon. The lockdown will kill more people than the virus, and needs to be ended.

Nevertheless, the usual “liberal” media suspects are up in arms about Trump “putting profits before people”.

In what is perhaps the greatest example of gaslighting in human history, we have “champions of the working class” arguing for mass unemployment, the shutting down of small businesses and the self-employed, and draconian police powers.

The same people who clamor for more and tighter lockdowns are attacking anybody who opposes the measures. Labelling them “psychopaths” or “far-right” or “extreme libertarians”.

You don’t need to be a supporter of capitalism to recognize that a collapsed economy always hurts the workers more than the owners. Where are all the students of Marx?

Reality check here for socialist: small businesses are currently going bust. The self-employed are seeing years of work destroyed in weeks. Unemployment is soaring.

In the US over 33 million people have claimed unemployment in the last month, that’s nearly 10% of the whole population. The knock-on effects of Western domestic policies will be enormous. Already there’s talk of the mega economic crash causing a third-world famine which may kill millions.

Because – and this is a concept those people who derisively spit the word fail to understand – “the economy” translates into the price of bread, rent and fuel. It is warm clothes and clean water. It is petrol and gas and electricity. It is education, infrastructure and opportunity. It’s being able to get a job and feed your children.

Those dreaming that this crash will be the destruction of the monied classes and the dawn of liberation for working people need to look back at Weimar era Germany, or Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.

How much liberation did they bring with them?

Did the people loading wheelbarrows with devalued currency to buy bread feel set free?

The economic consequences are catastrophic, but that’s not the end of the unnecessary human suffering being caused.

When society is stopped on a dime, when people are deprived of their livelihoods, when the sick and vulnerable are denied human contact and forced to sign documents declaring their lives meaningless, and when the health service stops servicing people’s health…that is the opposite of saving lives. That’s killing people.

The. Lockdown. Is. Killing. People.

Unemployment. Debt. Stress. Bankruptcy. These are not just “economic considerations”, they are life or death. The lockdown is bringing largescale poverty with it.

Poverty kills people. Millions of them every year.

And thanks to the policies enacted by global governments – and cheered on by so many on “the left” – those numbers are about to get bigger. A lot bigger. For this year, and many years to come.

Unless we stop it.

But what do you think, dear reader?

Will the pandemic trigger the worst economic collapse in recent history?

Hit reply and share your thoughts