Sovereignty is just not something that Dictators steal because the 1%'s corporations do it to.
Covid erected a hard border between our old and new lives in March 2020. That was the month Lockdown came to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Lockdown and all social distancing measures required to combat the pandemic separated us from our past existence, the way the Berlin Wall once divided East from West.
Three years on from the start of the 21st century's first but certainly not last viral plague, Lockdown is long gone. But the before times didn't return despite people longing to be reunited with their past way of life.
The way we existed in 2019 can not return like a love lost in youth to be rekindled in old age. Too much befell us, and our expectations were changed not so much by covid but by the 1% who exert control over our lives that has become almost feudal.
Humanity's baseline for what it should demand from "liberal democracy" was altered by the 1% from the start of Covid. It wasn't hard for the 1% to convince us that the economy had to remain working on all its cylinders during the deadliest phases of covid because they either own or control all of society's bully pulpits.
Most of our politicians owe their elected office to funding legally provided by the corporate class or foundations funded by the 1%. Our news media is also owned by the 1%, whether it be individual oligarchs or too-big-to-fail corporations.
Just like in the middle ages when information was controlled by Papal oligarchs or Kings that owed their power base to the lie that God granted them dominion over common people, the 1% convinced us, their well-being was our well-being. We get thrown a bone, now and then, to make us think their time is nigh. The pension riots in France, the rolling rail strikes in Britain and even the protests against Netanyahu in Tel Aviv. But they will come to nought as the news media has begun to delegitimise the reasons for these protests. It is only a matter of time before public support withers or is hijacked by the right.
In three years, a million and a half Americans died from Covid. Millions more will die from long covid in the next decade. But the ordinary citizens of America accepted the deaths of their loved ones, friends and co-workers without resistance or protest. In Canada, the UK and everywhere else, we did too.
Umbrage was reserved for vaccines, mask mandates and social distancing regulations which supporters of unmitigated capitalism told them was an infringement on their human right to be consumers.
This message wasn't unique to the USA. It spread with the same virulence to every country where the few hold dominion over the many during the first years of Covid. Nor was it created by foreign enemies like Russia or China to destabilise us unless you believe Big Business in America; who were against lockdowns, mask mandates, and mandatory vaccinations, are a Putin Pysops.
A Group think that is telling you; your death from covid or lack of public healthcare isn't as important as keeping the "economy running" for the benefit of the 1% is only possible when the entitled control media. And when the few own the means of disseminating information, democracy can not exist.
A news media, owned by Oligarchs, billion-dollar corporations and hedge funds is no more a free press than an economy owned by the 1% is a free market. It is authoritarianism by a different name because it limits your ability to fairly and accurately judge the reasons why the society you live in is oppressive unfair and exploitative.
I am not surprised to watch how easily public healthcare in the UK and Canada is being dismantled during a time when public healthcare is needed the most. We have no checks and balances to the avariciousness of capitalism. Politicians and well-paid journalists from legacy news media are sending a message from their homes in tony postal codes that the cupboard is bare, so healthcare must be monetised to pay for itself.
Yet, NATO member countries can afford to send millions of ammunition rounds along with other instruments of war to Ukraine to "defend" democracy, but tell their citizen they don't have enough money to pay nurses a living wage. How can you defend democracy anywhere; if you refuse to defend your citizens' right to healthcare, not conditional on their wealth.
Governments will subsidise corporate sports teams' ambitions to build billion-dollar stadiums. But when asked to construct public Long Term Care facilities, they pull out empty pockets.
We wouldn't have a doctor's shortage if the cost of tuition to become a physician wasn't prohibitive except for students from the wealthiest families.
Public healthcare won't be fixed because the 1% sees great profit in healthcare, and they are the ones having dinner with your MP, not you and your partner, who earn less than 100k combined.
The owners and shareholders of private healthcare corporations in the USA have been bleeding Americans dry for decades. Capitalism isn't satisfied with static profit; it seeks perpetual growth. Corporations are like 16th-century nations, colonisers of defenceless lands and their people. It is why you should be outraged that Putin invaded Ukraine but equally outraged when a hedge fund from abroad seeks to plunder your sovereign right to public healthcare for the benefit of their owners.
So whether it is American healthcare corporations like Kaiser Permanente fixing their eyes on buying chunks of the NHS or a Canadian oligarch like Galen Weston seeking to lobby for private healthcare in Canada; the outcome is the same for the ordinary person. You will be subjugated for the profits of the 1%.
The Before Times can never return as long as we think it is normal and unchangeable to live in a new Gilded Age, where Robber Barons roam the earth with impunity as if they were Tyranausorus Rex in The Cretaceous Period. The only way to end it is for us to be like the Comet was to the dinosaur and change the whole makeup of our earth.
As always, thank you for reading 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
