Thread by @shaunjlawson

And now for a rant. It's not about coronavirus. It's not even about the stock market crashing - that was only ever a matter of time. It's about the epic, relentless, never-ending stupidity of the human race.

We don't just live under a financial system which can fall apart around everyone's ears at literally any moment - and is now doing so.

We've spent the last 40 years plus thinking that the answer to everything, absolutely everything, is business and profit.

We live in a world in which when it snows - when the police ask people to stay at home - their bosses demand they come in, endangering everyone else.

We live in a system specifically designed to make people work to live; not live to work. So what's going to happen now?

1. Watch the worst bosses do their damndest not to pay people who self-quarantine.

2. In turn, watch that lead people to come into work and infect others.

3. Watch whole countries who've privatised everyfuckingthing fall apart now the authorities have to step in and act.

4. As more and more people stay at home, and the media spreads ever further panic and hysteria, watch economies crumble: as just in time supply chains grind to a halt, international travel stops, X cannot pay Y so Y cannot pay Z.

5. Then watch the absolute worst of us - the profiteers, the leeches - send the prices for basic masks skyrocketing while they cash in; buy up everything in supermarkets; get into punch-ups in queues as they make off with all the water, all the non-perishables.

6. Watch a whole country, the UK, which has spent the last decade conducting war on the poor and the infirm, cry crocodile tears as the latter drop dead; and the former are left to starve.

7. Watch another whole country, the US, which denies its people basic healthcare crumble as infected individuals, terrified of disgusting insurance companies and bills which bankrupt them, don't go to see a doctor to be checked... and unwittingly spread the virus.

8. Watch businesspeople act like the only thing that matters is THEIR plane trip, THEIR conference; and watch governments terrified of what's going to happen to the economy fail to stop them getting their way... and unwittingly spreading the virus.

9. Watch most people be wholly unable to cope as food stocks run short, medical supplies run out, many others drop dead of other illnesses because doctors and hospitals will become so overwhelmed: including by many who aren't ill.

10. Watch the media shame those with the virus one minute, and blame immigrants the next... all the while ignoring the chronic Tory defunding of the National Health Service, which in the whole of England, has 15 beds available for the most acute respiratory illnesses.

We've spent the last two generations living under a system which has insisted that only greed and short-termism matters. Don't invest in the future! Don't care about others! The market will decide everything!

Well, indeed. And the market has turned its thumbs down, big time.

People who think we don't need to invest in public services, we don't need to look out for one another, and life is all about getting rich and screwing everyone else are about to get the most almighty shock.

Societies can collapse in a flash. Ours may well be about to.

And finally: if this doesn't wake the American people the fuck up and make them realise once and for all that healthcare is a universal human right, nothing ever will.

The American system is a bust. Neoliberalism is a bust. Societies which don't care for everyone will implode.

And nature always, always, ALWAYS has the last laugh. I don't think Mother Nature's been too impressed with the way humanity's been behaving for an awfully long time now. But what we sow, we reap.

May you live in interesting times? The next few weeks are going to test that proposition like never before.

Welcome to the biggest global crisis of our lifetimes. Hold on tight folks; it's gonna get very, very bumpy.