We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, March 23, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Monday, March 23, 2020 (Added content to Children's Health Defense article at 4:50 PM CT))

  • Climate gentrification threatens Miami's last affordable housing by Irina Ivanova from CBS News. (Note: This may be a harbinger of things to come that illustrate class-based social consequences of rising sea levels that are caused by global warming. As always in a capitalist system the poor will be initially impacted far more than the rich.)
  • Does the Coronavirus Pandemic Serve a Global Agenda? by Senta Depuydt from Children's Health Defense. (Note: Depuydt provides evidence of the overwhelming influence of major pharmaceutical corporations and political bias against the Empire's opponents like China. She puts less emphasis on the availability of testing for coronavirus (which I think is of critical importance) and the ineffectiveness of quarantining, but she does write the following in one paragraph:
The current power struggle in France about coronavirus strategies between health officials and the country’s leading expert is truly eye opening. Professor Didier Raoult, who is one of the world’s top 5 scientists on communicable diseases and leads the high tech research center on infectious diseases, IHU – mediterranée Marseilles, argued that the approach of mass quarantine is both inefficient and outdated and that large scale testing and treatment of suspected cases achieves far better results.
The author puts much more emphasis on effective, low cost treatment of the virus that Chinese experience has proven.  But can we be surprised with evidence of capitalist ruling classes protecting their own interests of profit and power in their strategies to combat this virus?
At one point Depuydt provides us with this insightful comment:
It is undeniable that the coronavirus epidemic has come on the scene at a crucial moment, when people everywhere are in revolt against the power of international financial institutions and multinational pharmaceutical corporations, whose stranglehold on governments is no longer hidden. Many scandals have shaken confidence. The bankruptcy of an aberrant economic system is accelerating, and attempts to start a third world war are multiplying. While it is impossible to know how the “coronavirus pandemic” will influence the redistribution of power, it is certain that many are seeking to have Covid-19 serve the political interests of a global governance project. [Her emphasis.]
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