What will We Demand?

Naomi Klein has talked in the Shock Doctrine about how the rich and powerful do planning around crisis', that they already know before the next hurricane happens or the next economic downturn what their moves will be to take full profitable advantage of that.  (Certainly look at how well the 2008 crash served various multi-national corporations.)  Elise Boulding, the founder of peace studies in the US, use to talk about pivot points.  These were critical moments in history, often crisis where what happened was a pivot point for society - where it went in a new direction.

What are some examples of this: The Great Depression resulted in our nation adopting both social security and unemployment, as well as public works projects.   These were pivots in public consciousness where we decided we had to have a safety net, that capitalism wasn't just going to take care of everyone.  Another example would be the anti-nuclear power movement had been saying for over a decade that nuclear power was not safe and then the Three Mile Island nuclear plant melt down happened, followed shortly after by Cherynobl.   It was not as much the organizing afterword but the constant framing that happened before that simply meant there was not investment money for new plants after that.  It was a pivot point.  Reality simply confirmed the framing.

So as Naomi has pointed out the Right has been very good at planning to take advantage of the crises, the Left has mostly hoped they will not happen, or that someone is government will do the right thing and fix these problems in a humane way.  Well that was probably never likely, but certainly with this current government that is a pipedream.

So the question becomes what will we demand?

Clearly this crisis has laid bare that our health care system is broken beyond belief (and let me be clear that I am talking about Obama Care before the Republicans started dismantling it)  It was a system that was run by insurance companies for profit.  Ask any health care worker, and they will tell you the horrors of it.   But certainly right now as we watch the even more consolidated health care conglomerates put doctors lives at risk because they don't have safety equipment, and watch patients die because we don't have enough hospital beds "because they weren't profitable" ....it should be crystal clear that we need health care for all.

So what will we demand?

It is also abundantly clear the MEGA flaw in not having generous paid sick leave in the US like in all other industrial nations.   We are seeing sick workers go to minimum wage jobs putting everyone they serve at risk because they don't have sick leave and are afraid of not making rent, or worse yet being fired for being off without "permission".   179 other countries have sick leave, only 3 industrial nations: the US, Japan and Canada don't. In other countries people who are sick would of course stay home.   We have put all our health's at risk by not providing for the health needs of hourly workers.

So what will we demand?

We have parents at wits ends from trying to both work from home and take care of their kids because they are out of schoo,l and we have school districts paying teachers who are not teaching and a nation of children who will receive only 2/3 of this years education- a hole in their educations that will not be remedied later.   Don't know about your state, but in mine, WA, the state has previously lost law suits about denying equal access to educational instruction to any student through policies that don't apply to all equally, so as a result though they could do online instruction for middle and HS students - but they cannot because a certain percentage of students don't have access to a computer at home or wifi or both.   What if we valued education enough that all students received these things (just like they receive history books or math worksheets in school.  What if we valued education enough to make it accessible to all?    How would we pay for that?   Well we are spending an awful lot of money right now on nuclear weapons which we hope never to use and contribute nothing to our well being?

So what will we demand?

And then there is the little matter of Climate Disruption.  If you think this is bad...this is temporary.  By the time Climate Crisis causes this level of disruption it will permanent, and there will be no turning back the hands of time.  So if we don't want to permanently live into mass unemployment, energy black outs, drought and famine, displaced cities full of citizens from ocean front communities or communities burned out from forest fires...then we must act now every day until the change is made for our communities to adopt mitigation plans that will bring down Green House Gas levels drastically and quickly.  We are the only nation that has pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord.

So what will we demand?

These crises of the moment do not dictate that we will get the changes we need - as we can see with the trillion dollars of "bail out" the rich again positioned themselves well for corporations to be bailed out while the unemployed waitress will get 1,200 (if meeting certain tax rules) and then what?  So if we are waiting for someone else to demand these things, or think about them, or figure out the strategy for how to get them.... then we will not get them.  It starts with us!  It starts with each of us thinking in the face of every problem we experience with this pandemic: WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED?   and then How can that happen?   I understand some of you have free time now- what are you trading it for?  This is not a vacation folks, this is an opportunity to dig in for the changes we need?  It's time to get our game on.

So what will we demand?