Coronavirus: God and Mammon

23 March 2020: As cases of coronavirus continue to rise, President Donald Trump said Monday that he wants to reopen the country for business in weeks, not months, as he claimed, without evidence, that continued closures could result in more deaths than the pandemic itself. “Life is fragile and economies are fragile,” Trump said, insisting he could protect both. While he acknowledged there were trade-offs — “there’s no question about that” — he claimed that, if closures stretch on for months, there would be “probably more death from that than anything that we’re talking about with respect to the virus.”

The comments were further evidence that Trump has grown impatient with the pandemic, even before it has reached its expected peak. In recent days, tensions have been rising between those who argue the country needs to get back up and running to prevent a deep economic depression, and medical experts who warn that, unless more extreme action is taken, the human cost will be catastrophic. “We can’t shut in the economy. The economic cost to individuals is just too great,” Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser, said in an interview Monday on Fox News Channel. “The president is right. The cure can’t be worse than the disease, and we’re going to have to make some difficult trade-offs.”

Here we see the beating heart of Late Stage Capitalism: the life is not in the blood, but in the economy.  Life is put on the scale and measured against economy. . .

Jesus well said:

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

In America, the rulers clearly serve mammon.  They choose inorganic economy over life. . .

And I suppose not a few of the American pew-warmers also choose to serve mammon.  In this, they would earn the hatred of David, the king known for being a man after God's own heart:

I have hated them that regard lying vanities: but I trust in the Lord.

It really shouldn't even be a tough judgment to make.  It's absurd and anti-Christ to even put economy on the scale. . .

As Jesus instructed: 

I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?  Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.  Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Is not the life more than the economy?

Of course, no one in Late State Capitalism believes this, not even the pew-warmers.  Mammon is served.  Even the poor, of whom Jesus (and I imagine Him wearily pronouncing this) said we would always have with us, serve a system which little benefits them, but, so afraid, so caught up in taking thought for the morrow, for what they shall eat or for how they shall be clothed, bow to the scraps of mammon that keep them (mechanically and anxiously) alive.

The truth is, almost all of what is called economy can be put down and taken up again, without consequence.  Money, which, to their likely eternal shame, even the pew-warmers worship, isn't even real.  In a matter of a few minutes 1.5 trillion *dollars* were conjured from thin air by the Federal Reserve to loan to financial institutions, which will then lend this *money* to debtors who are expected to pay back even more imaginary money (with interest, fees, etc).

The economy, the false god, can be shut down and started up over and over and over again.  

The reason for the rush back to economy is simple: the rich want to preserve their wealth, they have no desire to start all over again.  That's more important than the deaths of some old people, people who have lived past their usefulness to economy, anyway.

It's obvious Jesus would value life over economy, He took workers out of economy to follow Him.  Jesus repudiated the world system and instead preached the kingdom of God.  

It's just as obvious most, even among the pew-warmers, wouldn't follow Jesus today.  To them, it's the money that is real, not the Gospel.  It's the money that animates their life, nearly from birth to death taught first and foremost to chase a *good job* to fund their entirely material existence.  The Gospel is just a noble, but impractical, philosophy.

Well, in our coronavirus days, the following saying of Jesus may have an immediate, as well as eternal, fulfillment:

Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.




{And from the what should it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, but lose his soul School of Economics, we have the Texas Lt Governor, an old man named Dan Patrick who told Tucker Carlson on his 23 March broadcast he would be willing to die a coronavirus death in order to save the economy for his grandchildren! OK. Let's hope in this case wisdom isn't justified by her children, and Patrick's grandkids tell gramps to go fuck his shitty economy. Patrick is a self-proclaimed Christian, and here we see a sterling example of the pew-warmer I mentioned above who treasures economy more than life. Patrick made the remarkable statement the biggest gift we give our children, our grandchildren is the legacy of our country. Patrick treasures economy over the Gospel. Patrick is a loser in the profoundest respect.}


Take no thought for the economy of tomorrow, sufficient unto the day is the coronavirus. . .

The Sickness Unto Death: Tom Hanks

The novel coronavirus (and why can't they just call it the new coronavirus?  Why call it novel, like it was created by Charles Dickens or Emile Zola??) has infected Tom Hanks. . .

Tom Hanks. . .of the privileged class.  

Tom Hanks. . .of the monarchy of celebrity.

Can you imagine his shock?  His utter and complete shock?

This is a man who has lived for decades in the parallel reality of the über leisure class.  The rough edges of the lumpen life have long since been smoothed away.

But a little molecule, tiny, electron microscopic, more than a 1000 times less than the width of a hair. . .this invisible biological agent infiltrated Tom Hanks.

One moment, Tom Hanks was living as deliciously as one can on this earth.  Then in the next moment, he felt just a little bit tired, had a little bit of a body ache. . .and, presto!, just like that, Tom Hanks is infected with a new reality.

It has to be hard for him to believe, to accept. . .

That a tiny molecule from some grubby oriental food stall was able to leapfrog the entire globe, and find Tom Hanks, find The Tom Hanks, and penetrate him, and then rape his healthy cells, leaving him pregnant with the viral offspring. . .an alien horde marching toward his lungs, leaving a cellular tidal wave of fluid and pus that may eventually drown his respiratory system and strip him of his privilege and leave him a corpse. . .

Tom Hanks had no way to see it coming. . .and now he must be sitting in quarantine dumbfounded it could all be over in two or three or four days.  

For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. . .

His mind has to be racing in existential dread, trying to reconcile his startling reversal of fortune. . .

Isolated, surrounded by strangers wearing masks and gloves, he has become an unclean thing that even the lowliest hospital janitor now lords it over him. . .

How can one come to grips with such a novel state?

Pity the man. . .




And then, much harder to pity, there is this:

The Little Iconoclast Who Almost Could

Pretty sad how easily Bernie Sanders was swept aside. . .

Like a fly the democrat donkey shooed from its ass with a swish of its tail. . .

The party bosses just had to make a few phone calls:

Hey, Mayor Queer, time to drop out. If Biden wins, he'll make you ambassador to Fairy Island. 

Hey, Klobot, drop out now and you'll be VP. 

Hey, Pochahontas, make sure you stay in at least through Super Tuesday, and you can be Treasury Secretary.

The democrats are just kicking the *socialist* can down the road, to their own further irrelevance. What are they gonna do in 8 years when AOC can run?  She won't be nearly so EZ to dismiss.

Sanders could destroy the democrat party right now.  Simply end the political theater that is the democrat primary and announce he is leaving the democrat stage show to begin a third party candidacy.  Trump would win in a landslide and the republicans would also regain the House of Representatives.  The democrats wouldn't have a pot to piss in, and would have to come to grips with their own fraudulence.  They'd have four years to find a real Democrat to rebuild around. . .and frankly, they would do well to pick this brick shithouse:

But back to 2020. . .

I don't think Sanders has the balls to light a match to the democrats, though that would be in the long-term best interest of the country.  I have a feeling Bernie wants to enjoy his sunset years with the niche he has created for himself as The Little Iconoclast Who Almost Could.  He can bask in the glow of being The Elder Statesmen of kOOks while he and his wife enjoy their *hard-earned* millions.

But Sanders revenge might be out there, lurking in a different form: the novel coronavirus.    

The virus could have been Sanders meal ticket, but the democrat party bosses were too stupid to see the big picture. You have to imagine the donkey bosses kicking their own asses when poor people start dropping like flies while waiting in line for their spicy chicken sandwich at Popeye's cuz they can't afford to get screened or go to the doctor cuz they got no insurance.  When the poor start coughing in harmony, the US will be exposed for the broken-down empire it is. China will have the virus under control by the time Americans start pushing up mass daisies, and China's *socialist* health care system will look like a model for the future, while America's absurd and feeble for-profit system is exposed as a plan that only works for the 1%.  

[I used to think there were no dumber people anywhere in the world than white republicans, you know, those poor people who faithfully vote against their own best interest every four years. . .now they may have a contender for the imbecile's crown: the idiot southern blacks who voted for Obama's water boy.]   

Wuhan Coronavirus Massacre

BEIJING (Reuters) - President Xi Jinping said China was facing a “grave situation” as the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak jumped to 41, overshadowing celebrations of the Lunar New Year that began on Saturday. China also announced further transport restrictions. With more than 1,400 people infected worldwide, most of them in China, Hong Kong declared a virus emergency, scrapped celebrations and restricted links to mainland China. Australia confirmed its first four cases on Saturday, Malaysia confirmed four and France reported Europe’s first cases on Friday, as health authorities around the world scrambled to prevent a pandemic.

The Chinese love to brag how powerful they have become.  Powerful in economy, technology and science.  And let's give credit where credit is due: it was a Chinaman who created the world's first CRISPR baby, which is a cuter way of saying Frankenstein baby. The Chinaman disregarded Western scientific ethics and protocols and just went ahead and tinkered with the genes of twins in utero (while crossing his fingers, I guess).  Hey, national prestige is at stake.  And the Chinese have given us TikTok, too.  So, yeah, China has done a few modern things.

But. . .

The Chinese seriously need to upgrade the way they pick up their evening dinners before we permanently move them from peasant class.  Can they get a Trader Joe's or at least an Aldi over there before they spread every fucking kind of animal pestilence all over the world?  Yeah, that's right, this latest Chinese germ, just like the last one, originated in one of their infamous *wet markets.*  Here's the details:

The coronavirus spreading in China and the SARS outbreak of 2003 have two things in common: Both are from the coronavirus family, and both started in wet markets. At such markets, outdoor stalls are squeezed together to form narrow lanes, where locals and visitors shop for cuts of meat and ripe produce. A stall selling hundreds of caged chickens may abut a butcher counter, where uncooked meat is chopped as nearby dogs watch hungrily. Vendors hock skinned hares, while seafood stalls display glistening fish and shrimp. Wet markets put people and live and dead animals — dogs, chickens, pigs, snakes, civets, and more — in constant close contact. That makes it easy for a virus to jump from animal to human. The specific market where the outbreak is believed to have begun is the Huanan Seafood Market. The coronavirus that emerged there has so far killed 26 people and infected more than 900. Coronaviruses are zoonotic diseases, meaning they spread to people from animals. In the case of SARS, and likely this Wuhan coronavirus outbreak as well, bats were the original hosts. The bats then infected other animals, which transmitted the virus to humans. "Poorly regulated, live animal markets mixed with illegal wildlife trade offer a unique opportunity for viruses to spillover from wildlife hosts into the human population," the Wildlife Conservation Society said in a statement.

Anyway. . .

Whenever one of these viruses breakout in China (or Africa, like ebola, remember?), they become big stories in the West, for FEAR of the virus reaching its antiseptic shores. . .

The coronavirus ain't nothing much more than a bad cold, unless it spreads to your lungs, where it can then cause pneumonia and kill weaklings (old people, particularly). 

Even if the virus were to become pandemic, most people who get it will survive. . .

People die from the flu every year, and though there is usually a flu scare in the news at the beginning of every flu season (get your flu shot, citizen!), it doesn't grab the headlines like this coronavirus.  Why?  

Because this coronavirus is a NEW threat of death. . .

Any new threat of death always provokes anxiety. . .

Most people are terrified of death, and spend life disassociated from it.  

Flu, cancer, heart disease, pianos falling on our heads, all the known ways we can die are packed safely away in the closet of our subconscious, like Christmas decorations stored in the basement until Jingle Bells are heard and then the tree and the lights pop back up into our conscious mind.  The coronavirus is a death knell, and its bells ring up our inevitable funeral march. . .

People desperately try to live as if they won't die. . .and then along comes this Chinese firecracker virus to remind us otherwise.

But. . .

Is death so bad?

I suspect most people believe there is nothing after death.

Well, there was nothing before existence, and we didn't seem to mind that.  Of course you say, well, now we have tasted existence, and don't want to say goodbye to ourselves and go back into nothingness.  

But you won't even know you are nothing. . .in that regard, you are eternal, you will never be aware of your nothingness.  

That's if there is nothing after death. . .

If there is something after death, one can only imagine.  The possibilities are limitless.  Some good, some bad.  The unknown outcome is dreadful.  Better to stay here, no matter how awful our lives are, than risk the unknown outcome.  That is why so few people kill themselves.  Better to stay here, where we can hope *things will get better,* which is the dominant world-wide faith.

There are other faiths, more substantial than the faith of *things will getter.*  These are also known as *religions.*  I don't know enough about the Eastern religions and Islam to know if they provide their followers any relief from the fear of death.  

Christianity promises a glorious life-after-death to its adherents. . .and yet most Christians, at least, American Christians, seem just as terrified of death as infidels.  They have themselves hooked up to every hospital gadget, pump themselves full of every chemical treatment, just like infidels, to avoid being with Jesus.  Does that make sense?  Only if most Christians really have no faith, that their *religion* is just some sort of cultural ID bracelet to distinguish themselves from the others, and, like a rabbit's foot, perhaps bring them some life-after-death good luck.

What about the True Christian Believer?  Could a True Christian Believer have any fear of death?  You may offer Matthew 7:21 - 23:

Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity. 

Thus a True Christian Believer may have only deceived himself his whole life, only to be exposed and condemned by the Lord *in that day.*  Isn't this enough to cause even the supposed True Christian Believer to tremble?

I think not.  Because for one to imagine himself a True Christian Believer, he must have the awareness Jesus' judgment is true.  True and unquestionable.  Therefore, if *in that day,* His Lord exposes him as a fraud, he will nonetheless have the eternal comfort in outer darkness that justice has been served.  He will thank Jesus for forcing him to see the truth about himself.  For as Jesus said:

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. . .