Can The Pandemic Lead To Peace?

Some people are going to consider me a monster for saying this. I hope the pandemic stretches on much longer, especially in the US.

Let me clarify. I am not wishing for or happy about any deaths caused by the pandemic. That’s not what I am saying.

What I really mean by this is that I want this pandemic to continue on long enough for people to awaken. I want people to pay attention to the priorities of our government. I want the comfortable middle class to become distinctly uncomfortable. I want them to know fear and desperation. I want them to know hunger and unfulfilled need. I want them to look up from their 401k’s and stock portfolios and know there are things far more important. I want them to know anxiety that their pills and alcohol don’t abate. I want them to feel denied and abandoned and forgotten. I want them to lose all sense of privilege. I want all the upper middle class to at least face the very real possibility of losing everything they have.

I want neoliberal centrists and right wing Conservatives to look in the mirror and feel the shame they have imposed upon others when they realize they are on welfare and food stamps and waiting in line for food banks. I want others who are more privileged to insult them and tell them how their life choices were all bad. Until the more privileged realize they are waiting in the welfare line as well. That they would have nothing without that welfare.

I want armchair warmongers to know the rage of seeing how much money our…