I wrote this article over four years ago in 2016 for the purpose of challenging left liberals to face the fact that they have no party. In re-reading it today, everything I said in the original article remains true. In fact, the Democratic Party has leaned even further to the right over the last four years.
Greta Acosta Reyes (Cuba), Neoliberalism, 2020.
Dear Friends,
Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
Beirut, mon amour.
The right to have a slave implies the right in some one to make the slave; that right must be equal and mutual, and this would resolve society into a state of perpetual war.
— William Seward, from the “Freedom in the New Territories” speech, March 11, 1850
As these words are bing written the Covid-19 Pandemic is cooling down in many countries. Signs for social distancing are starting to fade in the sunlight and grocery store employees are now the only ones still wearing masks. The Mainstream Media however, is prepping the masses for a “second wave” of the Coronavirus which should hit in early autumn. And so as vacation weather subsides we may have to go back into our homes for another stint of isolation.
Once again the media focuses on salacious details rather than the big picture.
While TV and newspapers have focused on the whiff of corruption surrounding the government’s $900 million contract with the WE Charity, some broader points have been ignored. Whatever the Trudeau and Morneau families have pocketed from WE, the deleterious impact that NGO has had on social services and young Canadians’ understanding of global inequities is much more significant.
The many similarities in the unfolding narrative of Covid-19 to that of September 11, 2001 — the mass hysteria, the banker bailouts, the insider trading, the censorship of dissent, the apparent foreknowledge (Lockstep, Event 201, PNAC, Catastrophic Terrorism, A Clean Break etc), the rollout of mass surveillance measures and more — make the two seem like parallel conspiracies. Covid-19 could also be compared to 9-11 in that it seems to be a ‘controlled demolition’ of the world economy by the global financial powers, one that was either planned, or at very least allowed to happen.
For decades, one of the main strategies used by neoliberals to destroy public enterprises and eliminate the public interest has been: Starve It, Demonize It, Discredit It, Privatize it.
Since the late 1970s, neoliberals and their state have made greater use of the “Takeover” reporting method to justify wrecking and privatizing social programs and public enterprises, especially public education.
While other continents have largely dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, much of Latin America is in meltdown, as cases soar, bodies pile up, and anger mounts. Its new wave of neoliberal leaders, mistrustful of collective action in any situation and extolling the virtues of individualism in a collective public health crisis, are making the problem far worse.
