Mato's Blog

Humans are waging war against nature, and just as they think, that they are winning, nature forcefully fights back.

One has to admit, this is a master stroke to cut humans down to size and show them who really rules the world. Of all possible disasters, like war, nuclear reactor meltdowns, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wildfires, floods, storms, or an asteroid hitting earth, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has brought the most relieve to the natural world while letting natural systems unscathed. 

The situation is still bad enough, as we are in a situation of converging ecological crises. Deforestation, desertification, soil depletion, habitat loss, collapse of eco-systems (oceans, wetlands, rain forests), mass extinction, global warming, extreme weather (droughts, storms, floods), a thinning ozone layer, ocean acidification, overfishing, coral bleaching, algae blooms, dead zones, chemical and radioactive contamination of air, water, and soil are killing our fellow living beings and ourself. It will take a long time for nature to heal.

“You haughty, arrogant misanthrope,” shout the critics, “don’t you have any empathy? The people who are dying now are the most vulnerable, the disabled, ailing, marginalized, homeless, discriminated, impoverished. The robber barons, the slick politicians, all their lackeys and minions, the movers and shakers of the world, the people who are in the end responsible for natures destruction, they are fine, they have retreated to their superyachts, private islands, comfortable doomsday bunkers, and gated communities in the most idyllic places.” 

An argument which is wrong in several respects: 

a) The persons which initially were spreading the virus from Wuhan to all other places were not poor or marginalized. They were salesmen, managers, tourists, and they mostly travelled in airplanes. The affluent were infected first, their servants were second, the poor or marginalized were last.

b) Everybody who doesn’t fight relentlessly for the preservation of nature, for a frugal life, for waste reduction, for a reduction of harmful industrial activity, for an end of polluting and poisoning is as guilty as the perpetrators themselves. 

c) All other attempts to stop the war against nature have failed.

This will not go away quickly

Using the wave model of conditioning, governments will allow the public brief moments of breathing room in which lockdowns are lifted for a short time, maybe one or two month, followed by a resurgence of infections and then hard lockdowns again for another couple of months. This process is not going away anytime soon. There are over 7.8 billion people on the planet, and we have a long way to go before the majority of the population has either recovered from the virus or died from it.

This means endless cycles of reduced industrial activity, supply chain breakdowns, bankruptcies, job losses, impoverishment, and food scarcity.

US-residents who have been laid off or furloughed are facing the very real prospect of hunger, as the food is scarce and is getting more expensive. With supermarket shelves emptied of staples and cupboards increasingly bare, people are converging in record numbers at food pantries across the country. Charitable food distribution organizations are being overwhelmed: for instance six thousand lined up for a food distribution organized by the San Antonio Food Bank at Traders Village, hundreds lined up for free food handed out by the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, and hundreds waited for hours to receive two boxes of food being given out by the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.

Feeding America, a private network that operates 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs across the US, estimates that 1.4 billion US$ will be needed to feed US-America’s hungry during the coronavirus pandemic.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079049/big-pool-coronavirus-cases-going-undetected-german-researchers The global average detection rate might only be 6 percent.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/new-blood-tests-antibodies-could-show-true-scale-coronavirus-pandemic
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjd9gx/can-antibody-tests-prove-coronavirus-immunity The tests will not be available soon, they could be unreliable, and maybe not even tell if people are immune or still infectious.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8192015/Fifty-one-recovered-coronavirus-patients-test-positive-South-Korea.html
https://crosscut.com/2020/04/pandemic-could-empty-washington-food-banks-two-weeks
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3079365/coronavirus-disrupts-food-supply-chains-who-will-feed-china
https://www.grain.org/en/article/6437-new-research-suggests-industrial-livestock-not-wet-markets-might-be-origin-of-covid-19 Industrial meat farms could be the origin of SARS-CoV-2.
https://fair.org/home/you-dont-need-to-believe-china-about-chinas-coronavirus-success/ Hard to tell who is right. In China, India, Russia. the USA, and many other nations COVID-19 infections and resulting deaths are probably much higher than the official numbers.
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/04/new-figures-show-hidden-impact-of-coronavirus-on-dutch-death-toll/
https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/risks-remain-as-covert-cases-excluded-in-wuhan
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/31/epa-regulations-air-pollution-coronavirus/ Never let a good crisis go to waste.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27032020/coronavirus-covid-19-EPA-API-environmental-enforcement
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/brazil-scales-back-environmental-enforcement-coronavirus-outbreak-deforestation
https://publicintegrity.org/health/coronavirus-and-inequality/a-likely-but-hidden-coronavirus-risk-factor-pollution/
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/27/822407626/mystery-in-wuhan-recovered-coronavirus-patients-test-negative-then-positive?t=1585335809042
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3077113/wuhan-doctors-plan-long-term-look-coronavirus-impact-male-sex
A solution to overpopulation?
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pke94n/cancer-alley-has-some-of-the-highest-coronavirus-death-rates-in-the-country
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-rationing-food-fruit-vegetables-france-spain-supermarkets-a9418446.html
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23032020/coronavirus-zoonotic-diseases-climate-change-agriculture
https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/best-materials-make-diy-face-mask-virus/
https://medium.com/@trackernews/underlying-conditions-bad-worse-and-next-for-covid-19-a-few-words-about-bats-advice-43402e979ce3 Long read but worth it. It covers aspects of the coronavirus pandemic which mainstream media will not touch.

Conspiracy theories?

https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/why-france-is-hiding-a-cheap-and-tested-virus-cure/
https://www.globalresearch.ca/western-media-talks-big-pharma-search-coronavirus-vaccine-ignoring-use-high-dose-vitamin-c-save-lives-china/5707750
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/23/gilead-sciences-coronavirus-treatment-orphan-drug-status/
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/19/coronavirus-vaccine-medical-supplies-price-gouging/

Compassion and solidarity (or lack of)

Around 15 Ilyushin cargo planes arrived in Italy aircraft with medical equipment, military personnel headed by Major General Sergei Kikot, and a nuclear-biological-chemical (NBC) laboratory for bacteriological-chemical disinfection.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/china-and-cubas-medical-internationalism-shining-example-global-solidarity China and Russia send medical equipment abroad, Cuba sends doctors and cutting-edge drugs, but the US fails to provide its people, doctors and nurses with basic tools and protection.
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/17/us-sanctions-venezuelas-health-sector-coronavirus/#more-22287
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/17/italy-uk-help-cuba-china-venezuela-coronavirus-us-sanctions/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/03/17/cubas-contribution-to-combatting-covid-19/
https://www.greanvillepost.com/2020/03/15/cuba-has-medicines-for-thousands-of-possible-cases-of-covid-19/
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Cuban-Doctors-Arrive-in-Angola-to-Train-1500-Health-Technicians-20200411-0002.html
https://www.rt.com/news/485557-cuba-us-sanctions-covid
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/04/intel-us-oppose-emergency-covid19-loan-iran-imf-coronavirus.html
https://www.globalresearch.ca/quarter-world-population-under-us-sanctions-countries-appeal-un-intervene/5708040
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/23/trump-intensifies-murderous-iran-sanctions-during-covid-19-crisis/#more-22442
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/04/10/trump-self-isolates-with-barbaric-sanctions/
India rescinded its export ban of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine only after US President Donald Trump warned of retaliation.
https://www.rt.com/news/484935-us-takes-masks-germany/
https://www.rt.com/news/484723-us-france-face-masks/ US winning hearts and minds again.
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/piracy-or-america-first-us-customs-seize-all-exports-masks-gloves
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/eat-or-be-eaten-the-global-medical-products-market-has-gone-feral-a-e6f65515-c913-4837-a121-be6567372c42
http://alwaght.com/en/news/174328 Coronavirus-infected masks airdropped by Saudi-Arabia in Yemen.
https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=12041&cat_id=6 Considering Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, this is very plausible.
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/03/israel-benjamin-netanyahu-mossad-coronavirus-test-kits.html Israel winning hearts and minds.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-nhs-uk-doctors-gagged-england-a9433171.html
https://www.blackagendareport.com/time-plague-and-meltdown-mass-murder-corporate-duopoly
https://undark.org/2020/03/19/covid-19-health-worker-protection/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/disease-dodging-worried-wealthy-jet-off-to-disaster-bunkers
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/04/08/billionaire-human-rights-watch-sanctions-nicaragua-venezuela/ As Trump wants to restart the economy, and the second wave of coronavirus infections subsequently will hit hard (maybe even harder than the first wave), the populace needs to be destructed with some regime change wars (Venezuela, Nicaragua, Iran, Cuba, maybe reviving Syria and Afghanistan).

Economic impact

A United Nations study into the financial and human cost of the pandemic estimates that global poverty could increase by 400 – 600 million people. By the time the pandemic is over half of the world’s population of 7.8 billion could be living in poverty.

In industrialized economies, where roughly 70 percent of people work in services, businesses could fail in a rolling financial collapse that may eclipse the Great Depression. A WTO prediction sees global trade diminished by 32 percent.

Virus-related restrictions have diminished US economic activity by 30 percent and Goldman Sachs project a 34 percent unemployment rate. The lockdown measures showed up very clearly in the March data as the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a loss of 701,000 jobs and the employment-to-population ratio fell below 60 percent. 17 million US-citizens filed unemployment claims in the past four weeks, the number of unemployed could exceed 20 million. 31 percent of US tenants can’t pay the rent.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52192190
What a waste! Senseless, clueless, ignorant, negligent, and criminal. Produce and then destroy if the price is not right. While the poor have to starve because they cannot pay.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Kazakhstan-Ends-Bank-Bailouts-To-Rather-Wipe-Out-Debt-of-the-Poor-20190626-0022.html No bailouts, instead debt relief!
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/04/07/covid-19-wall-street-wins-again/
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/02/coronavirus-corporate-bailout-deal-161374 The disaster capitalists and their lobbyists are working overtime to get the bailouts right. The stock market is booming, because investors bet that the US Federal Reserve cornucopia will protect the long-term profitability of major companies.

Never let a good crisis go to waste! It took only a few days for the US-Congress to unanimously pass the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which will pay 2.2 trillion US$ in crisis relief, most of it going to Corporate America with nearly no strings attached. Beyond that, the Fed (Federal Reserve) is making over 4 trillion US$ available to banks, hedge funds, and other financial entities; it has reduced the Fed funds rate (the rate at which banks borrow from each other) to zero; and it has made 1.5 trillion US$ available to the repo market. This is the biggest monetary wealth transfer in history.

Jonathan Cook writes:

Under cover 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 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.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Saudi-Arabias-Oil-Price-War-Is-Backfiring.html In order to fend off relentless attacks by the US/NATO empire it is necessary for Russia to secure oil market shares. On the other hand, leaving oil and gas in the ground would reduce environmental destruction. Russia’s leading role in fossil fuel extraction and nuclear power generation is nothing to be proud of.
Personally I maintained always that reducing energy consumption (and resource consumption in general), by higher energy efficiency and reduced industrial activity should be the priority. Wind and solar have their downsides, hydroelectric dams destroy large habitats, nuclear energy leaves radioactive waste which is a burden for future generation.
https://www.ehn.org/coronavirus-oil-and-gas-2645520057.html
https://www.rt.com/business/484160-us-weekly-unemployment-record/
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/03/21/triage-starts-in-government-bailouts-who-will-get-the-money/
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/stop-coronavirus-corporate-coup-here-list-everyone-demanding-bail-out
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/02/the-dark-secrets-in-the-feds-last-wall-street-bailout-are-getting-a-devious-makeover-in-todays-bailout/ This article is tiresome to read, but if you have gone through it, you know that the global financial system is a fraud used by people who control the money flows to skim off wealth without contributing anything.

In the last years, below the surface, an epic debt bubble has been growing, fostered in part by record corporate debt levels. In 2009, as the economy was just beginning to show the first signs of emerging from the Great Recession, the average US company owed 2 US$ of debt for every 1 US$ it earned. Today that ratio is about 3 to 1. For some companies, it’s as high as 15 to 1. For Boeing, the second largest recipient of federal funding in this country, it’s 37 to 1.

The Federal Reserve said an additional 2.3 trillion US$ were available to support debt markets and it would act “forcefully, pro-actively, and aggressively” to combat an economic tidal wave. Though the central bank’s measures were temporary, there was “no limit” to the dollar amounts it could deploy for programs already on the books.

All this is fiat money, not backed by any physical assets. People know that and gold prices consequently hit a seven-year high with many investors still remaining cautious about the future of the global economy.

The dollar will lose value, causing painful price inflation, and eventually its global reserve status will be destroyed. But the elites already have all this figured out. Indeed, they actually benefit from it.

Small businesses will be crushed, and all assets absorbed into the banks and major corporations. Small business loans under the new government bailout will in most cases only cover employees pay for a short time during the lockdowns and will not necessarily ensure business survival. Just as in the Great Depression, when thousands of small private banks defaulted and were devoured by JP Morgan, trade and production during Great Depression II will be gobbled up and centralized into very few hands.

With the amount of fiat creation that is necessary to support almost the entirety of the US economy for the next several months, the dollar’s global reserve status may come under question before the end of the year.

With a dollar collapse, the populace will have little choice but to either bow down to a new digital system or go rogue and start building their own systems using their own production, barter, local scrip, and gold or silver.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/just-how-bad-it-going-get-jpmorgan-halts-all-non-government-guaranteed-small-business Debt will inevitably crash the system.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/485418-spain-italy-coronavirus-warnings Not many people will cry their eyes out if the EU breaks up.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52238932 This is not enough. No “coronabonds.” 

US business circles are absolutely terrified. They insist that if people do not immediately go back to work, and if the possibly quadrillions of dollars of derivatives start to rapidly implode, the subsequent economic crises will create a historically unprecedented collapse. If derivatives start to implode, the only solution for all major banks in the world will be immediate nationalization,

Deutsche Bank for instance has a 7 trillion euro derivatives exposure, twice the annual GDP of Germany.   

New economic models are touted revolving around AI computing; automated manufacturing; solar and wind energy; high-speed 5G-driven data transfer; and nanotechnology. All these technologies have their significant downsides. AI and assembly line robots make human workers obsolete, solar and wind need high investment and maintenance, 5G may be dangerous for health, and nanotechnology will introduce new potentially toxic materials.

The pandemic will accelerates automation, this is inevitable, but if it can be combined with a locally based subsistence economy, less trade, and less involvement of corporations, banks, and central governments, it would be an improvement

Social impact

The ever-growing chasm between the rich and the poor allows the elite to run for their superyachts, private islands, or well-stocked nuclear bunkers, hoping they can escape the virus, while half of humanity wonders how it will get the next meal if it can’t earn its daily wage to buy it.

The neo-liberal consumer society is a society of profit-maximisers. and even in the most affluent countries vulnerable people are not getting the help they need. The noble ideals of putting people’s human needs first, caring for neighbors, for the community, and the common good are overruled by selfishness, envy, and greed.

The changes which the coronavirus pandemic dictates could become a basis for a new, equitable social contract. We will have to decide where the tax bills should fall and how to provide public services for all and opportunities for the next generation. Business’s social license to operate should be re-examined and climate justice come centre stage.

The lack of accessible healthcare for millions in so-called “developed” countries like the USA, where the pharmaceutical and medical industry has been profiting shamelessly, and the impunity of the fossil fuel and military-industrial complex (the Pentagon alone being the world’s biggest carbon emitter) is more evident than ever before, but it will need a seismic shift and a dismantling of political and economic structures to end this injustice.

The changes which the coronavirus pandemic dictates could of course also lead to increased social tension and aggression (because of ordered isolation), increased manipulation (because of more screen time), and a fractured society easily being hijacked by unscrupulous manipulators, conmen, and fascist pied pipers.

The psychopaths and criminals of the world will not suddenly become peaceful, kind-hearted, benevolent, and good-natured, they will take their chances, as the disaster capitalists and demagogs at the top (Trump, Borsalino, Erdogan, Modi, just to name a few) do right now.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/10/mafia-distributes-food-to-italys-struggling-residents 

https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/will-italys-mafia-gain-control-after-covid While Covid-19 wreaks havoc on Italy, the mafia — from the historic Cosa Nostra in Sicily, to the powerful ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria, and trigger-happy Camorra in Naples — are eager to turn threats into opportunities. Mafia groups have begun taking control of struggling businesses and individuals desperate for some cash.
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/04/06/covid-19-the-bigger-picture-hiding-behind-the-virus/ 

Mass surveillance methods clearly save lives around the world, permitting authorities to track and curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2 with speed and accuracy not possible during prior pandemics.

And yet, the powers to be will seize upon any opportunities to roll out oppressive authoritarian policies under the pretense of protecting people, when in reality they’d been working on advancing those policies secretly long before a crisis occured.

One must not forget: The powerful are afraid of the public, they always have been. For as long as there has been government power, there has been the fear that the people will use their combined strength to overthrow the government.

Just like mass surveillance, internet censorship is being ramped up as well, with mass media demanding that big tech companies (Google, Apple) do more to combat “disinformation” (fake news).

Nature’s relief

Massive extraction of minerals and oil, humongous infrastructure slashing across landscapes, and industrial levels of natural resource use (hunting for the global market, monocultural commercial agriculture and fisheries), have disrupted natural systems irreversibly. 

But, as millions of people languish in coronavirus-induced lockdowns, it seems the natural world is enjoying the respite from humans, as, for instance,  two fin whales, second in size only to the blue whale, were spotted off the coast of France.

In China, emissions fell 25 percent as people were instructed to stay at home, factories shuttered and coal use fell by 40 percent. In Europe, satellite images show nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions disappearing over Italy, Spain, and the UK.

Transport emissions, which make up 23 percent of global carbon emissions, have fallen in countries where public health measures, such as keeping people in their homes, have cut unnecessary travel. Driving and aviation are key contributors to emissions from transport, contributing 72 and 11 percent of the transport sector’s greenhouse gas emissions.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/drop-in-air-pollution-over-northeast 

A change is gonna come

The drastic measures that are being implemented around the world will eventually end. While the dip in emissions caused by the sharp drop in travel and economic activity is likely to rebound once the pandemic passes, some carbon footprint-shrinking changes could prove more permanent, from increased teleconferencing and telecommuting to shortening global supply chains to avoid unnecessary travel (tourism) to increased local production.

This means in essence a reversal of economic globalization, which promised prosperity for all, but instead brought enormous distress, growing inequality, and ecological devastation. The integration of production, trade, and consumption into complex global systems has meant that no community or country is able to strive for self-reliance or protect its own livelihoods and environment from damage by multinational corporations and a corrupt political class bribed by them.

The time afforded by self-isolation is also an opportunity for people to take stock of their consumption patterns, realize how senseless and useless their daily routines were, and develop new lasting habits. The coronavirus outbreak forces people to travel less, shop less, and reduce  waste — especially food waste.

Many communities have taken big steps to protect each other from the health crisis. The speed and extent of the response has given some hope that rapid action could also be taken on climate change if the threat it poses was perceived as enormous as the pandemic.

Social models of self reliance like Murray Bookchin’s communalism could be implemented under local councils if the central government is weakened by suffocating debt, tax evasion, underfunded and understaffed government services (health care, social welfare), economic collapse, and the unraveling of international relations.

Thousands of initiatives at food, energy, water, and other forms of community sovereignty across the world show that local independence is achievable. Most of these initiatives have succeeded despite adverse macro-economic and political contexts.

These initiatives have of course to be accompanied by direct democracy, where people take political control in place-based collectives, rather than putting all their faith in elected parties, and by continued struggles for social justice and equality.

https://news.trust.org/item/20200407082542-5652d/ Urban farming.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90487006/how-to-grow-a-vegetable-garden-according-to-legendary-chef-alice-waters This is old news, but the pandemic may entice more people to grow their own food.
https://www.ehn.org/coronavirus-food-security-2645620103.html Bypass the industrial food production and distribution system.
https://meta.eeb.org/2020/04/07/future-farming-bringing-farm-closer-to-fork-in-belgium/

Yet, one should not be overly excited and exuberant, as the changes could go either way.

We have to remind ourselves that the predicament humans find themselves in is not a crisis of this or that social, political, and economic system, but rather a crisis of human self perception. Humans have exploited, enslaved, abused, and killed their fellow humans (and their fellow living beings) unscrupulous, impenitent, barbaric in tribal societies, in theocracies, military dictatorships, in feudalism, in capitalism, and in communism. We are in average not more compassionate that the most brutal wild beasts, and we are even more efficient in killing. For this very reason 60 percent of wildlife has disappeared in the last 40 years (according to a WWF study).

Because of this trait manipulators without empathy rise to the top; they’re willing to do whatever it takes and manipulate whoever they need to in order to get there. This problem is further compounded by the fact that wealth itself kills empathy. In a system where sociopaths are rewarded with wealth, and where wealth equals power, we naturally find ourselves ruled by sociopaths. They manipulate our faulty perceptions in order to amass wealth and power, power which they then use to grab even more.

The pandemic could easily result in societies of a very undesirable kind, in fascist dictatorships or failed states where warlords and mafia bosses rule. One cannot expect that the psychopaths and criminals of the world suddenly become peaceful, caring, tender, kind humanists, one cannot expect that idiots and delusional daydreamers suddenly understand how the world works.

Yet, we all have a say in this, if we stick together and support each other. We all have a say if we are vigilant, keep calm, and act wisely!