Wapanucka Journal: Observations on the Covid-19 Virus, 2020

The Human Species Reacts: Observations on the Covid-19 Virus

Bo McCarver, Hunkered Down in Greater Wapanucka Oklahoma, USA

March 2020

A new, mysterious disease springs from Asia and is rapidly spread by the “Jet Set,” the Earth’s ever-engorging bourgeoise who flit from party-to-party, continent-to-continent, oblivious of the ecological consequences of their consumption. Eager passengers in a culture of greed that ignores eco-rape, they assume their extravagance is normal; that “the inferior others” who struggle to survive from paycheck-to paycheck are hopelessly retarded and deserve to strangle in the kerosene fumes trailing in the wake of luxury airliners that rip through Earth’s stratosphere.

The lifestyles of these lucky souls are based on their collective assumption that conferences, vacations and pampered tours, were earned and deserved; that ritual sex and energy-rich consumption are the norm; and that Planet Earth can accommodate their ever-expanding fantasies.  

The rape of Earth’s fragile crust by the extravagant is nothing new, but their current assault had largely gone unfettered until the inevitable intervention of a hostile organism, Covid-19. Those who had previously raised the flag against ecological abuse, currently energized by a youth movement led by Greta ​Thunberg, are attacked by corporate flacks from the Wacky Right who hastily generate “news” to show Thunberg was warped by personal childhood struggles – then they quickly produce a young, pro-consumption queen to counter any concept that the planet’s carrying capacity could be exceeded. That some humans acknowledge and profess limits to the Earth’s ecological limits is cast aside by the corporate cronies -- flacks who are well-paid and who will be well-repaid to muddle the environmental arguments in personal attacks and conjured numbers.

But the harsh reality of the event emerges despite the Right’s usual lies: the assault of the Covid-19 virus has forced an International ban on “non-essential travel” -- nations, states, cities and counties now shut down the Carnival of the Rich. It is suddenly accepted that conferences, conventions, tours, and other clusters of the natty affluent present a risk to mankind-at-large, too great to further ignore. 

After shutting down “non-essential travel” the various levels of government shut down “non-essential businesses.”  Bars, florists and movie theaters are killed-off outright-- but Texas and other Neo-Nazi states keep the gun shops open for-business-as-usual for  paranoid patrons: the frantic fearful from all races and affluence line up and circle for blocks around corporate gun runners who pander assault rifles and pistols to assuage the fears of the panicked crazies.

Meanwhile, the Nation’s elected eldership passes a 2-Trillion Stimulus Bill that includes 

bailouts for idled airlines. For the sake of the Earth’s future, those opportunist corporations should be allowed to fold. They were never really needed; they have raped the Earth they soared over. 

At present, it appears that the deaths generated by Covid-19 will kill-off less than three percent of the world’s population and those will largely be the elderly and medically-vulnerable -- expendable humans who might have once been part of the Jet Set. But the disease has also revealed the corrupt economy of the landed. Survivors can easily choose to write-off the horrid, strangulated deaths as “collateral damage” of a random flu and the bad luck of society’s medical marginals. They had it coming.

For we frustrated peacefuls, who have for decades sadly monitored the abuse of our planet’s ecology by the unfettered rich, corporate magnates, stupid tourists; and as encouraged by the Irrational Right; this event presents an epochal demarcation at which the collective human species might, as its surviving members emerge from “hunkering down,” more carefully ponder their inclinations to further squander the Earth’s fragile crust. We just might get the right lesson from this event and pay more attention to our consumptive behavior – and accept and better prepare to travel with our fellow biological partners, of which Covid-19 is only the latest to make a dramatic appearance.