Covid-19 In Perspective: An Open Letter

The following letter I wrote and sent out in response to a virtual town hall meeting this evening with our local MP and a local environmental group. I am sharing it here because I think it summarizes a contextualization of covid-19 and other major issues which is critically and urgently needed. Our society is facing a pandemic loss of perspective, above all, I would argue, and that is the most deadly and dangerous pandemic of all.

The ruling business elite don’t care about issues of public health, justice, inclusion, peace, or the environment. They have proven by their actions that they care about power and wealth for themselves, above all; and everything else, and everyone else, is expendable. That means, we must remove them from power.

That means, we either address and resist the “new normal” which is corporate-run authoritarianism, and restore constitutional democracy, or we can forget about all our dreams of justice, health, or environmental protection, for they will be nothing but dreams, while our world is destroyed, along with our freedoms, while the middle class, the poor and the Earth continue to be devoured by the billionaire plutocrats who now rule the world. This is the new normal we must face, or we can forget about having any claim to be living in the real world, much less changing it.

This is not dystopian fiction. This is the real world. This is happening. We need to snap the people out of their stupor – and now.

JTR,
June 23, 2020

 

Hello to all,

Thank you to all for your time and thoughts. Philip, I am glad to hear your support for local economies, local farms, and buy-local and buy-Canadian programs and economic shifts, in particular, I want to say firstly. Rebuilding local, regional and national economies is critical; as is the greening of our economy, communities and society. But that is not what I want to focus on in this open letter.

I want to address something that will present a difficult conversation for a number of people, and I am glad to hear that you, Philip, emphasize that such conversations are essential to have in a mature and democratic society. They are.

My views are expressed more systematically, at length and in depth in my first two published books, and in more than 450 published essays. But I will summarize briefly here, echoing what others have mentioned in terms of the need for justice and balance.

Briefly, we cannot separate issues of power, from issues of justice, peace, health, or the environment. If we wish for positive change in any of these or other areas of our society, we must, most centrally, address issues of power.

That may sound vague at first, but what I am referring to is the growing hyper-concentration of power in society – and a corresponding crisis of democracy – particularly over the past 50 years of neoliberalism and corporate globalization. The great sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote of this decades ago, in his monumental work, The Power Elite. Noam Chomsky has written of it extensively. See Necessary Illusions, Year 501, Class Warfare, and, Requiem For The American Dream. Peter Phillips also wrote a definitive work recently, called Giants: The Global Power Elite.

In short, the richest 1%, and actually the richest fraction of a percent, have acquired vast, unaccountable, oligarchic power; and democracy, constitutional rule, and freedom, are dying as a result.

Swiss systems analysis of the global economy, US ivy league studies, the best geopolitical, economic and sociological analysis, and even the Financial Times of London, have confirmed it: democracy is dying – that is, being destroyed – while we are being driven, at break-neck speed, into a new empire of global neo-feudal corporate oligarchy.

Now, in 2020, we have gone from a world which former Canadian Governor General John Ralston Saul described as being effectively ruled by the corporate elite at Davos – which he called, “the new royal court”, and “the new Palace of Versailles”, and which the world’s leading business journal called, “the de facto world government” – to an openly authoritarian society.

In response to a crisis, out of fear, we have imported the authoritarian social model of China – or allowed it to be foisted upon us. That should be deeply concerning to us all. Why is this not being discussed?

If we are concerned with human health, then we must: 1. halt environmental pollution and degradation, and stop climate change; 2. end poverty and malnutrition; 3. educate people on healthy diets and lifestyles; and most obviously, 4. fully fund health care in Canada – and restore the funding which has been repeatedly slashed over the past four decades, by both Liberal and Conservative governments, by the two dominant parties and our political elites, who frankly care so deeply about our health, that they had to massively de-fund and undermine our public health care system.

(It is called blatant hypocrisy, of course. Or sheer deceit. And of course, the situation is similar or worse in the UK and the US, regarding elite concerns for public health, where “austerity” programs likewise rule, while the feeding trough for the elite is bottomless.)

More deeply and more centrally, if we do not address the growing hyper-concentration of power, and the new normal of authoritarianism, then we will have no functioning democracy with which to address any other issue: including health, peace, justice, economics, or the environment.

What will you do, most fundamentally, to uphold constitutional rights and freedoms, as well as democracy, in a time when they are being swept aside in the name of security?

Let us remember the wise words, “Those who are willing to sacrifice a little liberty for a little security, deserve neither, and will lose both.” And we are now losing both, make no mistake.

And by the way, this statement and question is directed to all of us, and not only our local Member of Parliament.

This question, to me, is absolutely fundamental; and it is shocking, I must say, and deeply disturbing, that this most fundamental issue is being brushed aside. This must change, and immediately.

Respectfully,
J. Todd Ring,

Author of:

Enlightened Democracy: Visions For A New Millennium

and

The People vs The Elite:
A Manifesto For Democratic Revolution,
Or, Survival In the 21st Century and Beyond