Although there was already plenty of evidence of the destructive nature of neoliberal economics to the ordinary citizens of the world, the pandemic pretty much stopped it in its tracks and everyone could see that the world did continue, the spell was broken. That was not the only way life could go on.
Not only that, but the Trump leadership had put economic recovery above the lives and survival of ordinary people; thus, adding a strange chapter to American exceptionalism with the highest number of COVID-19 cases and over a quarter of a million virus deaths in the United States. The result is an out-of-control and toxic social environment all to try to prop up a dying and unsustainable neoliberal economic system. People's lives were being sacrificed on the altar of economic recovery.
The Awakening:
Only after all that evidence did we begin to understand that if we want a sustainable and viable human society, we must stand up for ourselves and not wait for some great leader to tell us what to do or how to think about life and the world. This is a time for the empowerment of the citizen and for taking back our governance and our nation to save ourselves, our souls, and the planet.
We have been led down a long and painful path. Beginning with the assassinations of President Kennedy and followed by two other assassinations within the decade, the democratizing leadership was eliminated. The anger and frustration of those backing a more democratized solution erupted at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968 leading to a Nixon win and the imposition of "law and order", the forces of business politicized with the Powell Memo to the US Chamber of Commerce and the Supreme Court shifting toward business with Powell joining the Court. The ground had been prepared and with the Nixon election the "Quiet Coup" began, nearly coming to fruition with the autocratic leadership of Trump. There had been a "game afoot" for decades and the "game" had been to shift the leadership of this nation back to the control of an economic aristocracy. It had been a well-planned and devious business plan that nearly succeeded.
Through this difficult experience and the wake-up call of the pandemic we can now begin, refreshed, to rebuild our nation and our democracy. It has taken the death of a president and the deaths of two other democratizing leaders within that same decade, not to mention all of the deaths that our lack of concern for social justice has allowed. It has taken the hard lessons of the heartlessness of a society judged only on economic standards as well as seeing what happens if a society does not invest in social justice and public health. We have learned many lessons the hard way; we have been chastised by reality and still find the basic goodness of people in this nation. That is the basis upon which we can build a very human and sustainable future.
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