Sick West
Goes Viral
By Finian
Cunningham
April 02,
2020 "Information
Clearing House"
- The world is in a sick place. We’re not
just talking about the escalating coronavirus
pandemic, serious though that is with global deaths
doubling over the past week. What is also sick is
the way gestures of solidarity are being cynically
twisted.
Take
the arrival of Russian medical aid to the US this
week. That was promptly arranged after US President
Donald Trump asked his Russian counterpart Vladimir
Putin in a phone call for help in coping with the
coronavirus crisis. Even before the Antonov-124
cargo plane touched down at JFK airport certain US
media outlets were
labelling the
gesture of solidarity as a “propaganda gimmick” by
the Kremlin.
It was
surmised that the Russian response to the US request
for aid was “to push efforts for relief from
sanctions” imposed by Washington. The cynical
inference is that supposed Russian conniving and
deceit knows no bounds in the black art of
manipulation.
How about
just simply acknowledging the evident fact that
Russia is sending vital medical help to the US at a
time of need motivating by no other sentiment than
basic humanitarian compassion? The fact that Russia
has been slapped with numerous US sanctions over
recent years since the Ukraine crisis as well as
stemming from bizarre claims of Moscow meddling in
the 2016 US presidential election – only goes to
show Russia’s capacity for magnanimity. Simple as
that folks.
The same
pathetic distortion was earlier voiced regarding
Russian and Chinese aid to Italy and other European
countries stricken with the deadly virus.
This
week a European Union so-called media watchdog
warned that Russia
and China were engaged in a disinformation campaign
to “undermine public trust in national health-care
systems”.
There
are also reports of
claims by US
intelligence and other officials that China is to
blame for spreading the disease because it
deliberately under-reported the outbreak that
initially occurred in December, thereby allegedly
leaving Western nations ill-prepared to withstand
the pandemic.
Those
claims are patently false. China had alerted the
world to the seriousness of the disease as early as
January when it was itself getting to grips with the
uncertain public health crisis.
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Western
nations had three months to learn from China’s
experience, as well as from neighboring South
Korea, where authorities clamped down on the
epidemic. But Western governments for various
reasons, no doubt primarily due to budgetary
costs, chose instead to ignore the threat.
Trump and
Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson in particular
showed stupendous nonchalance bordering on callous
indifference. Both of them dismissed the looming
Covid-19 crisis as a “passing flu”. Only last week
Trump was touting the US “getting back to business
by Easter”.
What is
abundantly evident is that the US, Britain and other
Western states are not prepared to deal with the
present crisis because of their rundown public
health services. That structural problem is a matter
of government neglect over many years to ensure that
their citizens are adequately protected in a time of
crisis. And that neglect stems from deliberate
policy choices, such as showering the rich with tax
breaks and squandering trillions on militarism,
while relentlessly cutting funds for public
services.
In
short, the coronavirus crisis is a reflection of a
deeper crisis in the capitalist system that prevails
among Western states, as American professor Richard
Wolff
explains. Societal
human needs are always sacrificed on the altar of
elite private profit.
The fact
that in the US and Britain there is a paltry number
of test kits for checking the disease and a dearth
of vital protective equipment for medical staff is a
national disgrace due to inherent political and
economic reasons. That is what needs to be focused
on. That is where the public anger should be
directed. Why have citizens been so abjectly
betrayed by their governments whose first duty of
care should be to protect them?
It is
absurd and contemptible for certain media and
pundits to try to distract from the central issue of
bankrupt democracy by seeking to disparage Russia
over humanitarian aid or scapegoat China for the
systemic failures of Western governments.
One
senses, however, that the ploys of Russophobia and
Chinaphobia have become hopelessly threadbare in
credibility. In Britain, for example, normally
Conservative-supporting media are
asking angry
questions on their front pages about government
dereliction. Are we to believe that such anger is
the result of Russia and China “sowing
disinformation to undermine public trust”?
No, it is
simply a case of citizens realizing – slowly and
painfully – that their governments and society
organized on capitalist priorities is a shambles
unworthy of the name “democracy”.
The
sickness of smearing and blaming others instead of
dealing honestly with inherent problems will only
embolden the public even more to exact retribution
from their culpable authorities. As millions of
workers and their families reap poverty and illness,
one senses too that the pitchforks are being taken
down from the barn roofs.
Sickness in
the West is going viral, but maybe some lasting
benefit may come from this crisis in the end, if
societies are overhauled for the greater good of
citizens.
Finian Cunningham
has written extensively on international affairs,
with articles published in several languages. He is
a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and
worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society
of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a
career in newspaper journalism. He is also a
musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he
worked as an editor and writer in major news media
organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and
Independent. - "Source"
