Never Let a Serious Crisis go to Waste
Governments grab power and people organize resistance
Evidence-based decision making
During this emergency our behavior should be evidence-based. Facts and science should guide political leaders, policymakers, and our social and individual behavior.
True — but it is not always that simple. People can be irrational.
Fox News, President Trump, and his extreme rightwing supporters are not reliable sources of information or role models of behavior during this period.
Some of their recent actions pose serious health risks. For example, groups like the ‘Free Michigan’ movement with thousands of members on Facebook is growing daily and creating political pressure on the President.
Their recent demonstration in Michigan and other states defied state social distancing orders and created a potentially serious public risk. Trump’s twitter calls to ‘liberate’ states under Democratic Party leadership from social distancing requirements is irresponsible and very dangerous.
We should expect more protests like these and look for creative ways to counter-protest and push back against these extremist shock forces.
The facts tell us that social distancing is effective in reducing the spread of the virus. This pandemic is very real, and it’s deadly. It requires extraordinary action to slow its spread, contain it, and eventually defeat it.
Expanding government power and the loss of civil rights
It is also true that the government has limited our right to assemble and our right to free speech. We are under increased surveillance, our right to privacy is being undermined, and our personal data increasingly commoditized for profit.
Censorship has grown, and our access to public institutions such as schools and libraries are denied. Citizen access to federal, state, and local government meetings is too often restricted, and the government is making more decisions with only limited transparency and citizen participation.
We should be very concerned about the current state of our democracy.
This extraordinary growth of government powers is beyond anything we have seen in recent times. History teaches us that when governments get broad powers to monitor and control their populations, they do not always willingly give them up. We may have a fight on our hands in the post-pandemic world.
Defend democracy — even in an emergency
Given lessons learned, we should require sunset clauses in every emergency declaration requiring an automatic public review by an elected body after a set time frame has expired.
We should also demand the ability to terminate or restrict such extraordinary government authority by a legislative vote or popular referendum.
There should always be transparency, limits, accountability, and restrictions placed on otherwise unchecked government power, even in emergency situations.
The new normal — now and in the future
Given the ‘new normal’ and stay-at-home requirements, many responsible people are finding new ways to practice social distancing while continuing to be socially active using online technology. Expect some of this to be integrated into a new way of life for most people when the pandemic eases or is under control.
Protest safely while social distancing.
People are finding new and creative ways to communicate, worship, protest, and organize while social distancing and online during this period. The accelerated movement to online communication will potentially change forever how mass movements and organizations organize, pressure elected leaders, and participate in the democratic process.
Working people are experiencing greater decentralization and democratization of communication as more union members and co-workers go online to organize and stay connected, outside the physical workplace or while working remotely.
Such are the dialectics of this unique moment in America.
While democracy is at stake and civil rights are limited, millions of people are adapting, becoming creative, and finding new and effective ways to educate, socialize, build communities, organize, protest and resist by using online tools.
Now is a great time for organizations to experiment, learn, train, and master the world of online communication, organizing, and mass participation in the democratic process.
Organizations that are agile enough to adapt to this new space and style during the pandemic will be well-positioned to leverage that experience success in the many hard battles to come.
While organizations move increasingly to social media, let’s remember that the means of online communication are owned and controlled by big business and is used to harvest personal data to generate massive profits.
Social media and the internet are not a public service.
Any public value created is a secondary consideration to the profit or social control motive. Monopoly ownership over the means of social media creates its own free-speech limits and privacy issues for users.
Conclusion
The current pandemic will end. Unfortunately, the corresponding economic crisis may be long-lasting and profound, negatively affecting working people for some time to come. The battle for civil rights, economic rights, and fight to defend our democracy will be on-going.
The most immediate battlefield is the 2020 elections. Defeating Trump and his rightwing extremist agenda will help create better conditions for future struggles and should be priority number one in the electoral arena.
The fight to protect our civil rights and to defend democracy should include every sector of society. We must demand that our civil liberties be fully restored in the post-pandemic period. We should also require new limits on government power, greater accountability, checks-and-balances, and more government transparency during future emergencies based on the lessons learned during this pandemic.
