Edgy Jewish reflections on a Covid-19 exit strategy
JVL Introduction
Robert A.H.Cohen writes about the the mental lock-down so many are suffering at present.
As he struggles to find a way out, he reflects that: “Some ways of thinking, some political ideologies, some religious attitudes will not serve us well in the years ahead. When it comes to my blogging ‘beat’, I’ve said before that Climate change makes Zionism obsolete as a strategy for Jewish security. Pandemics make it redundant too. Fortress states based on ethnic privileges are no longer practical responses to the greatest challenges we face.”
But he also finds a way through his writer’s block, turning the language of pandemics into creative metaphors.
To find out more, read on…
This article was originally published by Patheos on Sat 18 Apr 2020. Read the original here.
Edgy Jewish reflections on a Covid-19 exit strategy
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A fine deep thoughtful read, with edginess indeed.
I have been striving to avoid the coronavirus crisis and I am trying, as a usually edgy person, to be normal. Mainstream media is being unhelpful, in my opinion, by wilfully racking up a feeling of disaster. As the writer says, the virus is an exposer. The essential selfishness of seemingly above all caring all about ourselves in well-off Britain comes across in our deplorable mainstream media, such as in the ridiculous BBC so-called news summaries.
Like the writer, I guess, I anticipate a following-on mental health crisis, caused by the imposed unnatural conditions. And an obesity crisis, in which I am myself well ahead with.
Beautifully written and deeply true. Thank you
This is such an inspiring piece ! As much for what is strongly implied as stated. It gives a beautiful framework for our actions for the better! I will be circulating this article widely.
I 100% agree with John Bowley’s comment above.
I also found this to be a moving and thought-provoking piece. Just a shame it was partly spoiled by a repetition of the Govt’s trite mantra at the end. If only it was as simple as we’re being told; and if this Tory Govt were that bothered about protecting the NHS, they wouldn’t have set about destroying it ‘by stealth’ (see John Pilger’s recent excellent documentary) over these past years & decades. Oh, and the consistently brilliant writer Johnathan Cook’s name has no ‘e’ on the end.
Yes, if only there was an exit strategy from the insane world we live in, the wars, the poverty, the suffering, the destruction and polluting and poisoning of our ‘Mother’, but our reality is what it is, and our history what it was, because Psychopaths have ALWAYS been in control, and on a ‘local’ level, they have just shown many of us – those of us whose eyes are open – what they can do to someone who would try to transform our reality, by ‘transforming’ HIM, in the minds of millions, into the opposite of what he is. And it was all an endless source of amusement to them.
Brilliant. Thank you so much
“Corona virus is ….
… a further extension of the control of narrative”
(By which I don’t mean that it isn’t be a nasty virus with no available vaccine and that it is harmless. But it’s not difficult to see the continuum between the exclusion of the actual Jeremy Corbyn and the exclusion of balanced reporting in the ‘Panic!’ narrative.
But likewise, other views are available.)
Robert, I don’t know if you’ll get to read these comments, but by way of saying thanks for your thoughts, I thought I’d post you a link to one of my favourite albums. But FIRST, a track I just happened to come across earlier, shortly after I posted my earlier comment, and given the title of the song I just had to check it out, and it mirrored my sentiments earlier perfectly. It’s by Killing Joke and the track is called I Am The Virus. It’s on the heavy side musically, and I’d advise to find the lyrics in another tab before playing it as they’re a bit hard to discern. And the album is The Man In the Bowler Hat by Stackridge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Ho_lNTatk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vg5KN57WSI