April 9
GUEST: Sam Lewis, writer, union organizer, and member of Democratic Socialists of America, talks about the breakdown of American society under neoliberalism and COVID-19, and what might come from the collapse of public trust.If the Left Wants to Win Elections
Sam understands the peril to our existing system of a long lasting pandemic. There is also the peril to labor organizations, from US Postal Service employees to organized workers in the private sector. This unique time could see the ultimate assault on working people in a war based on disaster capitalism.
Real war, another pillar of our military industrial age, is just over the horizon. Now may be the time that the empire commits the ultimate war crimes of invading Iran or Venezuela. Trump has put together a pack of warmongering advisors who would have been comfortable in the Third Reich.
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COVID-19 has left many of us uncertain about our future. Sure, Trump was doing exactly the wrong things while being warned of a killer pandemic by a chorus of scientists and doctors. But the failings of American medicine can't be blamed on just one person. Both parties are owned by Big Pharma and the insurance lobby. Our profit driven medical system will excel at only one outcome in this crisis, the piling up of more bodies than any other country in the world.
There are other existential uncertainties lying just below the surface. Our leaders seem obsessed with militarism, with battles being waged in seven different countries. Iran and Venezuela are the next designated targets of the empire's war machine.
If that wasn't dangerous enough, the US has been shredding peace treaties like the Iran nuclear deal, the nuclear arms control treaties with Russia, and most recently the Open Skies Treaty. All of these agreements were put into place to avoid the type of nuclear conflagration that would end life as we know it on earth.
But here we sit in our houses because there is a raging pandemic outside our front door. Our foolhardy leaders have left us to face this killer alone. What makes us think that these same leaders won't let us stumble into a nuclear winter too?
The American system is run to make huge corporations billions of dollars. Nothing matters beyond this crude profit motive. Not we the people, nor our sweet land of liberty.
