Carl,
It's all of a piece. One of the theories about the increasing number of
pandemics is that climate change has caused animals to lose their habitats and
as they move closer to humans, the viruses that infect them, move closer to
humans. The way in which western societies have handled their economic
development, has contributed to climate change. The US has been most aggressive
in the past 200 years. The US is also engaged in the development of biological
warfare weapons. It is the most active country doing this and it has refused to
sign any agreements banning them. There have been leakage from these labs in
the past.
Additionally, our current administration is refusing to cooperate with other
governments in working toward a cure for everyone and it has just defunded the
World Health Organization. It was given reports about this pandemic by China at
the beginning of January. But the past 2 administrations were told by
scientists about the probability of pandemics, starting in 2003 and made no
preparations. We have an economic system that precludes having medical
equipment and hospital beds that are waiting and not in use because that is a
waste of money. In our system, both economic and ethical, profit is more
important than the potential of saving human life.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Wednesday, May 6, 2020 9:49 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Democracy at Work
Four years ago, who would have thought there could be a more dangerous threat
to democracy than Donald Trump? Then along came COVID-19. It was the battle
of the Virus with a single mindedness versus the President with no mind at all.
We are leaderless at a time when we truly need leadership.
By the time our children are grandparents their world will seem like something
out of Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon. I never accepted the idea that our society
could ever be like the world of Star Wars, but it looks like I was wrong.
Think of a future where we still have princesses, alongside interstellar travel
and wars between planets.
Very likely Human extinction would be the preferred choice.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/6/20, miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Democracy at Work is the name of Richard Wolff's organization. Each
week now, on Loud and Clear, Richard Wolff gets a half hour to analyze
the economic news of the week. I just listened to the podcast from
last night's broadcast and I found what he had to say about where we
are and what will most probably happen next in terms of our economic
situation, to be truly
devastating: small businesses dying and being taken over by huge
corporations, the end of most stores with all shopping being done on
line (I've heard this before with a description of the death of
shopping malls), and on and on. In another segment of the podcast, I
heard the theory that this pandemic may be with us for 36 months or
forever with areas of disease popping up in various areas. I've also
heard that there are possibly two different strains, one more
contagious than the other. Richard Wolff reminded us that we used to
have an "excess profits" law which did not permit any business to make excess
profits during a war or catastrophe.
That
law is gone.
Miriam