Iit might sound weird but the current
pandemic induced isolation brings me
back to a loosely remembered part of my
childhood you see this isn't the first
time my government told me to stay
inside and isolate it isn't the first
time I've identified the outside world
with potential deadly consequences but
that's not where all the similarities
end
additionally this one just like my
previous crisis signaled a change so
profound that my little childish mind
back then and my grown-ass brain now has
never or will ever predict of course I'm
talking about the bombing of my country
towards the end of the previous
millennium if it's your first time
watching my videos I'm from the Balkans
and if you really insist on dwelling on
such backwards ideas as ethnicity I
prefer to just be called a Slav and yes
sure it was more difficult and a hell of
a lot more boring back then to stay
inside no internet no video games no
girlfriend and a bunch of boomers
crowding up the place having to run down
into the basement a few times during the
day whenever the bombing raid would
start is nothing in comparison to the
animalistic infighting of alpha males
over toilet paper in her local
supermarkets
the only thing comparable to the eery
quiet you hear after the walls shake
hoping the bomb fell far enough away
from the walls not to come down on you
is just how dry and sometimes itchy my
hands have gotten from using too much
goddamn Disinfectant. Jokes aside I was
too young to really understand the
danger we were in the way I am too daft
to understand the danger I am in today
just like those bombs signaled the end
of a conflict and therefore the definite
end of what was once called Yugoslavia
forever changing the lives of my parents
and taking away my chance to experience
what they had so does covid 19 knock
on our door it's time to vacate
these unstable disease-ridden premises
we like to call late stage capitalism
now if you're sitting comfortably at
home watching this in-between your
online classes cooming sessions or work
at home job tasks you need to understand
that your predicament comes with a grain
of privilege you're not forced by your
employer to go to work you're not a
caretaker a delivery driver a doctor
nurse or hygiene professional and the
amount of danger you're in is
incomparable to that of your peers in
so-called essential jobs some of your
countries might have done a better job
than others I'm looking at you America
jesus what a fucking shitfest and some
of you might be more scared than others
at the current moment but also about
what is to come and I'll just be direct
it's going to be like the 2007-8 crisis
but most likely much much worse like the
Great Depression this experience will
leave most of the world with a different
view towards normality towards what is
considered privilege and most
importantly on how we govern our states
our continents our towns and our very
own lives people from all over the
political spectrum which do not fall
in the center have always understood one
key thing that through crisis new worlds
are created new systems are forged and
ideas considered mainstream are tossed
out with the bathwater or sanitizer
which would be more fitting in this case
so what should we expect as workers
citizens people young and old from the
coming months years and decades well a
choice will be presented before us
between barbarism or socialism or as
Zizek
calls it barbarism with a human face
versus war time comments this pandemic
is like the trailer or what the world
will experience once the environmental
crisis begins to reach it's peak. An
event so unavoidable if we continue
following the gods of the free market into our own carefully constructed abyss if
we compare the coronavirus to something
knocking on your door waking us up from
a long nap and giving us a reality check
then the environmental crisis will be
more like a t-34 tank being driven by a
drunk Russian through the middle of your
living room
the first mistake would enter make when
analyzing the situation is thinking that
it's some sort of spiritual and physical
moment of karmic justice against the
human species that its consequence of
our mistreatment of Earth and all of
life this inherently egoistic
perspective still relies on the idea
that the world evolves around us and it
simply put doesn't as Zizek states in
his latest book even if our very
survival is threatened
there is something reassuring in the
fact that we are punished that the
universe is engaging with us we matter
in some profound way the really
difficult thing to accept is the fact
that the ongoing pandemic is a result of
natural contingency at its purest that
it just happened and hides no deeper
meaning. In the larger order of things
we are just a species with no special
importance
of course I couldn't put it exactly as
Zizek said it because Zizek talks
like nobody else does but it's only when
we understand and embrace this fact that
we can begin to understand just how
fragile our very way of life is and this
reality check leads to my next point
that things could very easily turn to
the worse or do the better last week I
received a 25% cut at my job for the
duration of the pandemic my life
standard fell by 1/4 making everything
25% more difficult and what did it take
one phone call from my superiors one
economic crisis caused by one of the
least developed forms of life on earth a
pathetic virus my 25% are someone's 100
for some it means homelessness or going
hungry for days on end going jobless or
not being able to afford retirement or
starting school this all of this caused
by something which can barely be defined
is alive something all professionals
were warning us against for over a
decade
this shook this this shook the very
foundation of what we consider normality
and should teach us to never again
accept what was called normal just a few
months ago if the way we organize our
world is so fragile then it's only
rational to not want to go back to the
way it was before if your car breaks
down every time you hit a pothole you
would want to change it if your ceiling
leaks you would want to fix it if your
window breaks whenever there's a storm
you just go out and get new ones why is
it so difficult for the brainwashed
masses of late-stage capitalism to
understand that the same logic must be
applied to systems of governments and
economic models I guess it really is
easier to imagine the end of the world
than the end of capitalism the coming
months will not be easy for the
most of us
and what the nearer future holds nobody
can really claim to know Bernie was
someone the Western left could have
rallied behind and Corbin before him
they were never going to be a massive
win we knew we needed but they sure as
hell could have been a good start we no
longer even have that the reserve a
project is suffering to say the least
and with a few exceptions the Marxist
project in most parts of the world is
enveloped in taking the Doomer pill and
simply accepting things as they are if
any of the previously mentioned were a
bit more successful we could have had
more of a footing and our prospects for
utilizing this time of crisis could have
been much more likely it could have
allowed us to introduce an alternative
to the way things have been run until
now on a global scale but it is how it
is yet giving up is not an option the
future is no longer going to be this
middle of the ground under heavy
quotation marks neoliberal system it's
brilliance was in keeping us subservient
by giving the so-called mythical middle
class just enough not to complain and
the working class enough not to starve. It
was crumbs but it at least gave us that
now dear comrades even the bread
crumbs will have a higher price when an
animal is cornered it bites back the
hardest and if we want to admit it or
not capital as an idea as a concept as
the fuel which runs the world
haha fuel, get it? is quite literally
licking its wounds and picking its new
prey it has already managed to introduce
reactionary rhetoric to a biological
instrument to a virus it's no longer
covered 19 but rather the Chinese virus
an attack on the Western world by the
oriental they are either the Savage
who eats bats or the cunning evil which
creates diseases in labs out of
jealousy towards the greatly more
developed Western world Chinese virus
the Chinese virus this use of
nationalistic rhetoric is simply the
beginning not more than 50,000 people
have died in the u.s. as of making of
this video and we already reached this
stage what happens when 100,000 die when
50 million are left without work the
reactionaries have certainly deserved
their name because it is in their
cunning sometimes mislead but mostly
evil natured skill to shift blame from
the system over to a cultural ethnic
religious racial issue this is what we
are dealing with this is what we are
against a constant machine which has the
ability to create arguments relying on
tribal feelings to explain away poverty
crime violence hatred famine and war I'm
not trying to be all doom and gloom here
I really ain't dr. Rajesh but the anger
you felt up until now daily by seeing
the most backwards ideas and the most
brain numbing worldviews dominating the
modern mainstream will be multiplied
many many many many many times for
example a lot of you watching this are
like me and you work in an office you
believe that your college degree or
cunning has allowed you to avoid being a
manual or factory worker no my friend
the outsourcing of these more laborious
jobs is what allows Google and Microsoft
to set up nice inclusive diverse
colorful open-minded office positions in
the West where creativity is freely
handed out to all its happy faced Karen
employees. Neoliberalism gave you this
comfort but exported the majority of
more shall we said heavy-duty jobs to
the developing world working for Apple
and Chicago might be fun at putting
together 500 I phones a day over in
rural China isn't this can't last
forever and is increasingly stressed
with every new form of economic disaster
because if stressed enough companies
won't start giving its shareholders
lower returns on investment since they
can simply take Karen from HR and make
her Karen line worker number six six
four three one seven - C. I've always
known that the looming chaos of
environmental and economic disaster was
almost unavoidable but I guess just like
most of you it was supposed to be in
some far far future away from comforts
of everyday life it no longer is when
something that isn't even alive or dead
when a health crisis can introduce this
amount of radical change to our lives
especially to the lives of working-class
people and people of developing nations
then what's coming afterwards should
fucking terrify us but the night is
darkest before dawn the Bolshevik
Revolution no matter if you're critical
of it or not began during some of the
most difficult if not most difficult
times for the Russian Empire the First
World War
wrapped in famine and served with a side
dish of monarchic mania and it was
through the suffering and the struggle
of people like us that made the idea of
a new world not only imaginable but
unavoidably necessary
it was either revolution or the
continuation of suffering revolution or
death it is in poor taste to compare the
suffering we are feeling today to that
of those in the ditches during World War
one that is not what I am trying
to do but every time has its moments of
strife its moments of pain and loss and
therefore it's moments of opportunity
this is ours this is our moment
if the pandemic shows even 50% of what
is to come with the economic
consequences of environmental disaster
we will be left with no choice but stand
up or wither away
I'm very grateful that you made it to
the end of this video and I'd like to
take this opportunity to extend my
gratitude to all my patrons especially
Kooten and baguette without you guys
these videos would not be made any even
the slightest of contributions do
influence my life in a positive manner
and allow me to dedicate more time to
this channel if you've ever considered
supporting it now would be the perfect
time for the cost of half of a can
appear a month you could help this
channel grow into something bigger thank
you for your time and have a good one
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