“Technique has taken over the whole of civilization. Death, procreation, birth all submit to technical efficiency and systemization.”
Jacques Ellul l

Softly have I roamed over fields of digital grass. Alas, alas the grass is made of glass. Awash in an ocean of propaganda, in 2020 Richard Olafson analyzes the social impact of the pandemic response with a judicious and discriminating attention to its affect on humanity. These poems and one article were written as politicians and institutions around the world declared a pandemic – despite a survival rate of 99.9997% for the young – and demand a complete transformation of society. As the New Normal unfolded, Olafson responds to the unravelling and revealing of the fascist, neo-feudal, bio-security, surveilance state which is to be the new reality for us all. Richard Olafson observes the transformation taking place: the digitization and financialization of nature; the cataloguing and colonization of the cells of our bodies; the divisions in society; the use of fear as a weapon of control; the attempt to capture our wealth by a handful of corporations. Are the rulers of our world still bitter about the Magna Carta? In our time, few have witnessed such an unprecedented bombardment of propaganda. As Jacques Ellul has said, the only way to defeat propaganda is through dialogue, which is now discouraged. It is through human expression that we can defeat the overarching digital tyranny; through joy and poetry we can assert our humanity.