Sunday, May 03, 2009

When a Tiny Drop of Flu Eclipses the World's Misery...

..You know there's something very wrong with the realm of Denmark. Not that this is new, but it's worth underlining in this case.

Day after day after day, the TV news, the newspaper headlines are all the same: the H1N1/Mexican/Swine Flu is threatening the world! SOS! The WHO is rising its danger level to 5 on a scale of 6! Wow, you'd think a tsunami is about to wipe out hundreds of thousands of people. You'd think the Spanish Flu is about to kill millions in the world like it did in the early 1900s--except of course, the Spanish Flu happened a century ago, not now.

As a matter of fact, our very modest H1N1/Mexican/Swine Flu can only boast about less than 20 deaths and some pitiful hundred sick people all over the world. And this is what has the news obsessing? This is what has the governments meeting and worrying?

Please, give me a break.

Our regular, familiar yearly flu outbreak kills tens of thousands of people every winter. It makes hundreds of people sick each winter. And we're going "global quarantine" over less than 20 deaths and some pitiful hundred sick people?

Errrm, would anyone be so kind as to reassure me and explain that we're all on Candid Camera? No? Ah, my bad.

While governments spend billions to buy anti-viral medication which may, or may not be efficient (or simply be outdated)--regardless of the costs, when they're so worried about costs for our health care systems--thus making the huge global pharmaceutical companies happy, while we're all being brainwashed by TV, newspaper, radio and all the communication means available, the world keeps sinking.

Workers keep being laid off. Rightwing governments use the global crisis to justify cutting on expenses, slicing into worker rights, and furthering their objectives to serve the wealthy and the mighty. The powers-that-be reinforce their brutal reign, the financial sharks regain their wealth, their incomes and bonuses which would allow a family to live a whole life on a single year of a Wall Street "Wizard"'s salary.

No regulation measure is decided. No list of tax evasion countries has been drawn--well, no credible one anyway, but if you want to take the insulting joke flung at the world population's face by the G20, well, you're welcome to that. In essence, the whole financial world which dumped us in this mess and is making us pay for their swindling and thieving ways is saying "go on, people, move, nothing to see here, it's business as usual. Have faith, trust us, we're taking good care of everything."

And so, all is set for a repetition of the crisis we're going through. Except of course, the next one will be way worse, as is the way of capitalism's inner workings.

But then, fortunately, we don't need to think about all those depressing things: we have an oh-my-god-wow-it's-like-a-Hollywood-thriller potential flu pandemic on our hands, and the media won't let us forget about it.

I feel so much safer.