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There's an aspect of the world crisis that I have not seen mich (or any) discussion of.
American leadership since the beginning of coronavirus has been invisible/ The result is that China is looking at the possibility of world economic dominance. I spent some time in China about 30 years ago, and I'm amazed now to see it's progress as well as the rapid improvements in Chinese higher education, living standards and all the other signs of a strong economy.
The U.S., the world's dominant power since 1945, is in freefall. And it appears now to be in outlcassing U.S. performance, and what has been something close to world rule. Now, countries in the middle east, Africa and Latin America increasingly look to Chinese leadership. And, as China's ally, Russia is sharing this challenge to American world dominance.
The U.S. centuries long attempt to rule the world is in serious danger. And this has come at a time when much of the world has lost its enthusiam for American world leadership.
But the U.S. might have one arrow left in it's armoury. It has a massive nuclear arsenal - and, even more threatening, it has that arsenal very close to Russian borders, and to parts of China. Chinese and Russian arsenals are by no means with such an advantage.
The temptation for U.S. capitalists to use that weaponry while it has an advantage must be very strong. The catch is to act on this very soon before even more of the world can turn against the U.S.
Such a leadership in destruction would destroy much of the world. But empires never have qualms about destruction no matter how savage.
Will American capitalists be greedy enough to unleash such carnage? Yes, Of course they will be. Like all empires in history - like the British, French, Roman and all the other empires, there are no limits to greed and murder.
And they know it will have to be soon - before the Russians and Chinese can catch up.
(Oh, I know this is a crazy thing to say. It's vicious; it's inhuman, it's savage.
But so all the empires in history have behaved. Yes, we should have used 1945 to begin a humane world order. But we didn't do it.)
We should be in a struggle to preserve our world. But we won't - and we never have.)
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/14/great-lockdown-coronavirus-to-rival-great-depression-with-3-hit-to-global-economy-says-imf
The great depression of the 1930s ended only with war in 1939. And that wouldn't work today. Any major war today would be too short to revive the economy. And too destructive for there to be anything to revive.
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Private medical care is for the profit of a very small number of the super wealthy. It's not for the health of a nation.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/14/healthcare-job-cuts-coronavirus-worker-layoffs
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/13/trump-us-coronavirus-briefing-latest-media
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/alberta-diary/2020/04/canadas-universal-single-payer-health-care-system-our-best
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https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/brent-patterson/2020/04/canada-poised-export-more-arms-after-endorsing-un-call-global
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https://www.thenation.com/article/world/universal-health-care-italy-coronavirus/
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https://www.thenation.com/article/society/coronavirus-trump-racism-voting/
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/14/complete-abomination-mega-rich-hedge-funds-swoop-down-grab-covid-19-small-business
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https://www.commondreams.org/further/2020/04/13/best-people-trump-appoints-inept-band-morons-re-open-country-governors-say-not-so
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https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/13/taxes-paid-billionaires-decreased-79-percent-1980-percentage-their-wealth
We haven't seen much about this mass theft of our money by our super-rich. What is has meant is mass poverty for very many of us. In the U.S., it has taken away to possibility of health care for the majority. It has meant enormous sacrfice of our needs to pay for wars which benefit only the super rich.
In general, this is true of both Canada and the U.S. as well as mass suffering for those who live under the plundering and cruelty and mass murder of the American empire.
It has meant taking away money from our schools. It has meant that higher education becomes immensely and even prohibitvely expensive for out dhildren.
It has meant families that sleep on our sidewalks.
What we have been watching is the crash of civilization under the brutal force of the greed of the super rich.
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https://consortiumnews.com/2020/04/13/patrick-lawrence-our-post-pandemic-future/
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https://countercurrents.org/2020/04/covid-19-is-a-sign-of-our-fate-if-we-do-not-take-radical-action-michael-d-yates
Capitalism has a long history of creating poverty. The British of their empire days saw the creation the wealthiest upper class in history - based on the creation of massive poverty in it's empire and in most of its own people. And that is exactly what is happening in the U.S. today. (And in Canada).
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https://countercurrents.org/2020/04/covid-19-is-a-sign-of-our-fate-if-we-do-not-take-radical-action-michael-d-yates
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https://countercurrents.org/2020/04/us-saudi-oil-clash-sets-stage-for-future-epic-battle
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Reader's should be warned. There are two site labelled countercurrentss.
There is the one I use, which is based in India.
There is another countercurrents in the U.S. It is dedicated to its editor's crusade to evict 'foreigners' from the U.S. - expecially blacks.
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A long one, but well worth the read.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/14/why-is-canada-refusing-cuban-doctors/
Will we really let Canadians die so we can please the U.S.?
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/illegal-united-states-allied-invasion-iraq-syria-reaches-crisis-point/5709595
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/sanders-formally-capitulates-corporatist-warmonger-biden/5709633
Well, this was inevitable. Sanders, though radical by American standards, was never all that radical by world standards. And the Democrat party? It's quite as corrupt and abusive as Republicans. So why should it matter which of them Americans would vote for?
You either stand for essential change or you don't. And Sanders doesn't. He might just as well have given his blessing to Trump.
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/venezuela-announces-6-month-rent-suspension-guarantees-workers-wages-bans-lay-offs/5709388
So far, the U.S. has done nothing for it's people - only for it's super rich.
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/cuban-missile-crisis-us-terrorist-campaigns-against-cuba/5709570
This was almost sixty years ago. Over those years, and despite constant American efforts to destroy it, Cuba , just off the the coast of the U.S. has sustained excellent living contitions for it's people, the best health care and, probably, the education in Latin America.
Before this, it was ruled by murderous dictators and American gangsters. It's workers were terribly exploited by American capitalists.
God bless America. Yeah!
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https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-pandemic-is-an-opening-for-the-once-unthinkables-like-basic-income
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55054.htm
The problem is that we have only rarely elected governments that placed a priority of meeting the needs of our whole society. Perhaps no countries, in this respect, have been more brutal in this han the British and American Empires.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55052.htm
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55058.htm
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India - where it's even worse....
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55051.htm
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https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/12/features/noam-chomsky-couple-generations-organized-human-society-may-not-survive-has-be
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https://theintercept.com/2020/04/14/trump-pr-stunt-falls-flat-white-house-video-exposes-failure-prepare-pandemic/
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https://thesaker.is/pity-post-corona-millennials-if-they-dont-openly-push-socialism/
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So - what do we have to look forward to?
My guess is that America's constant wars of the past seventy and more years have come to this crisis. The U.S. is increasingly losing it's hold militarily, and that's going to get worse very quickly. In particular, it is determined to hold onto it's dominance in world oil. But even Saudi Arabia is is getting sceptical about the joys of alliance with the U.S.
Add to that the fact that the U.S. is not and never has been democracy. As a true descendent of the British empire, it has always been ruled by agents of it's wealthiest people. That dominance by the very rich has always meant that it's only two parties are really the same. Trump is a fool? So is Biden.
So who will they help in it's time of political and economic chaos? That's already happening. There will be sprinklings, at best, for the poor. But all the lavish help will go to the very rich. That's already happening.
And the rich, like the rich of the days of British Empire, will demand wars to make themselves even richer. The first target might be something like Iran. But both the Russians and the Chinese would be sure to intervene. And such a war would be nuclear with few survivors.
The American public (much like the Canadian one) is politically pretty hopeless with most people voting for the traditional parties that have always been the servants of the super rich. The U.S. is somewhat worse because it has only two parties, both sustained by the odd notion that God is on the side of the biggest natioanl killer of our time, a nation built on slaughter since it's earliest days.
(That idea has almost always been supported by a population that is fervently religious without having the slightest ideas of what religion is about.
None of the above is exaggerated.
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