This crisis calls for us to challenge the government system that is failing us. Now is an opportunity for radical collective action.

This article by Simon Davis-Cohen and Tish O’Dell was published in Common Dreams on March 31st, 2020.

Since a national emergency was called in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the governor of Kentucky signed a bill (HB 44) that seeks to over-criminalize climate protests, the governor of South Dakota signed a bill to punish protesters and climate activists, and Pennsylvania designated pipeline construction an essential service.

On the federal level, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has effectively been suspended, America’s largest corporate employers (those with 500+ employees) were exempted from paid sick leave mandates in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, and government allies and corporate interests are treating the global pandemic as a business opportunity. Ahead of the emergency, members of Congress dumped their stocks—then made investments in companies that would benefit from a crisis (before alerting the public). Corporations are jacking up the price of potential treatments. BlackRock is facilitating the multi-trillion dollar government corporate bailout.

People are dying. The powerful are taking actions to protect themselves. And the government is doing their bidding.

Americans Denied Authority

Meanwhile, across issues, including pipeline construction, paid sick leave, basic public health policy making, and many worker rights, American people are told they have no authority to act. In communities Americans call home, judges and politicians claim residents are powerless to make decisions that infringe on the “liberty” of corporations.

State and corporate interests sue Texas communities when they attempt to pass paid sick leave. Missouri communities are blocked from voting on local minimum wage increases. Ohio communities are told they cannot protect freshwater. Colorado communities’ authority to stop fossil fuel extraction is denied by the state. The list is very long.

(To read the rest of this article at its original source please click HERE.)