The coronavirus has not disappeared, as Donald Trump has promised. Nor has it been successfully contained, as Europe has discovered. A new global record for infections is being set every day. Everyone waits for a vaccine, to restore some semblance of normalcy to life.
But life before COVID-19 was not normal. Like the proverbial frog in the pot, humans had simply become accustomed to the abnormality. By exposing the unsustainability of the previous status quo, the pandemic has been a wake-up call.
In rapid succession, COVID-19 demonstrated the uselessness of the military, the unfairness of the economic system, and the harmful impact of carbon emissions. These pillars of the status quo – hyper-capitalism, the military-industrial complex, and the dirty energy that runs them both – were in a trice revealed to be very abnormal indeed.
