Long Covid will be the issue that lights the fuse sparking a 1789 year for us.
Thirty-eight months have elapsed since the Before Times concluded with a whimper. The now we live in resembles the old way of our world as much as a lift with its cables cut resembles a functioning elevator. Everything looks the same, except the passengers are plunging to their deaths.
Politics is polarised, mass mortality from the plague, famine, and war is ubiquitous, housing is insecure in the developed world, and many forgo meals to keep ahead of debts incurred from their labour being undervalued.
The war in Europe has a sense of forever to it while refugees in their millions- are on the march to our borders. On the Homefront, fascism is now well-steeped in the bread-and-butter facts that life for too many is unaffordable. Voters are easy prey to political charlatans because neoliberalism never thought much about making citizens, no matter their economic class, well-educated in history, politics or empathy.
The horizon is bleak for most of us. 2023 has been rubbed raw with economic and social injustice. It is a new gilded age, and it sucks to be alive in this time like it sucked to be alive- in 1930 or 1890; if you lack assets or skills, the rich need to maintain their power base.
A few days ago, while on a walk; I encountered a young homeless man at the bottom of a hill. He was overwhelmed by the weight and unwieldiness of his life's detritus heaped into a shopping cart and a suitcase. I offered to drag his suitcase, on wheels, up the incline as if he was a harried traveller at an airport rushing for a departure gate.
I was in his company for no more than a few minutes but could tell he had not chosen homelessness as his lifestyle; neoliberalism had chosen it for him because he was mentally ill. He didn't come from a family whose income or position in society would protect him from the disease that afflicted him, so society tossed him out to the pavement like, he was a chewing gum wrapper.
When Capitalism no longer accepts or tolerates adequate taxation of society's richest members to make life decent for all its inhabitants, it becomes an enemy of democracy, just as much as Putin and Xi Jinping.
The West is ticking too many boxes that historically heralded a collapse of, if not civilisation, at least its society.
The tipping point is nigh, and your money should be on Long Covid being the issue that lights the fuse sparking a 1789 year for us.
It has exacerbated the already out-of-control housing crisis, food insecurity crisis; and healthcare crisis as millions of once productive working people are now unemployable whilst governments kick the problem into the long grass.
In the USA over 16 million are struggling with symptoms of long covid, and 4 million are so debilitated by it; they are incapable of earning a paycheque.
The numbers are just as dire in the UK, where more than a million are unfit for work because of Long Covid. The University of Portsmouth recently published a study; that suggested Long Covid has created massive holes in the workforce, threatening the economy's ability to grow.
Corporations aren't going to self-correct labour shortages- by increasing pay or demanding the government remove all tuition fees to retool Britain's youth to meet its future because this government or the next Labour government aren't interested in the puny lives of us. They will always have first the backs of the 1% because politicians don't want to be slumming it upon retirement in the world of the middle class..
The solution under neoliberalism to labour shortages caused by Covid will be to use both short and long-term immigration policies because it means undertaxed corporations aren't burdened by lower quarterly profit returns by increasing base salaries to non-executive employees.
In Canada, where I now live, things are no better when- it comes to dealing with the effects of Long Covid for both the sufferers and the economy. Long Covid is estimated to have affected 1.4 million Canadians. But there is little reporting on it as its news media is preoccupied with creating a "Reds under the Beds" scare for the 21st century over China's alleged manipulation of the nation's electoral process. That the Canadian news media, along with right-wing politicians, have that nation's eyes turned to China rather than its conservative provincial governments, who are rapidly privatising their healthcare systems and expropriating green land to benefit development companies that are cash friendly to conservative political parties, indicates fascism knows the bait and switch as well as any slick grifter.
What is before us as the future was written in the history of past tumultuous times. Democracy isn't on the ropes but down for the count, and we are coming close to it being declared a knock out. Political gradualism won't stop either the anarchy of civil unrest or the darkness at noon of authoritarianism that is veering into us. We have the solutions to stop all of this but the entitled won't listen to common sense. Enjoy the summer but fear the barricades to come- in the autumn unless we take action now.
As always, thank you for reading my substack posts because I really need your help this month. Your subscriptions to Harry’s Last Stand keep the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith alive and me housed. This month is proving to be real scramble to get next months together. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. Take Care, John
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