Thank God it’s over.

The 2020 U.S. presidential election provided a perfect example of contemporary political degeneration. Two highly unpopular politicians, Joe Biden and Donald Trump―both backed by wealthy corporations and billionaire donors including Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the fossil fuel industry, Big Pharma, the military industrial complex and corporate agribusiness―squared off against one another in a multi-billion billion-dollar mudslinging contest for the White House.

As the candidates traded blows on the campaign trail, the climate emergency, food and farming, institutional racism, deteriorating public health, environmental destruction, 1.6 trillion dollars in student debt, a crumbling infrastructure and how to get 30 million unemployed people back to work were barely discussed except in rhetorical soundbites depicting the other as “dangerous communist” or “Nazi-like demagogue.”  

Ignoring the issues

Exit polls showed that, along with climate change and the economy, COVID-19 and its devastating effects was uppermost in voters’ minds. Yet, in the midst of a frightening global pandemic and economic meltdown, neither candidate seemed willing to talk frankly and calmly about how the SARS-CoV-2 virus actually emerged, who is mainly suffering (the poor, the working class, people of color, small businesses and disenfranchised youth) and who is benefitting (Silicon Valley, the billionaires, Big Pharma, multinational corporations and China).

Neither mentioned the crucial difference between a so-called positive reading on an imprecise, non-diagnostic PCR lab test and an active infection or “case” of COVID-19. Neither explained to a panicky public why COVID-19 presents a 1000 to 1 more serious threat to people in nursing homes and those with serious chronic disease, than it does to children, students and people in good health.

Instead Biden and Trump attacked one another for their statements relating to travel to and from China back in the early stages of the pandemic. They argued non-stop whether this state or that state emerged from lockdown too soon or too late, or whether non-surgical cloth masks actually prevent the spread of the highly-aerosolized virus outside of hospital or nursing home settings.

Neither seemed willing to discuss the health status of our nation: the vast numbers of elderly and seriously health-impaired Americans (94% on their death certificates, according to the CDC) who were suffering from an epidemic of diet and environmental-related chronic disease and comorbidities (obesity, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease, dementia and hypertension) before the highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 virus overcame their weakened immune systems, magnified and exacerbated their pre-existing medical conditions and hospitalized or killed them.

Neither candidate seemed willing to discuss why so many Americans, according to polls, are reluctant to line up for one of Big Pharma’s experimental, genetically engineered vaccines against COVID-19―vaccines being rushed to market (“Operation Warp Speed” in Trump’s propaganda) without being properly safety-tested and with no liability whatsoever for vaccine injuries or deaths.

Ignoring the truth

Both Trump and Biden have deliberately ignored the mounting evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was engineered in a Chinese military-controlled bioweapons lab in Wuhan. That lab―a joint project of U.S. and Chinese gene-engineers and virologists hell-bent on weaponizing viruses―masquerades as biomedical vaccine research and is funded, aided and abetted by Anthony Fauci’s National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the U.S. military and Big Pharma-funded EcoHealth Alliance.

Although the release of the SARS-CoV-2 virus appears to have been accidental, rather than deliberate, it is nonetheless the deadly consequence of a decades-long biological arms race carried out by the past six U.S. administrations: Reagan, Clinton, Bush Sr., Bush Jr., Obama and now Trump.

Trump at times titillated his base by calling COVID-19 the “Chinese Flu,” but, of course, he never once admitted that the Wuhan “gain-of-function” (actually “gain-of-threat”) experimentation on bat viruses was actually funded by his administration, after three years of a “pause” on this type of reckless experimentation during the Obama administration 2014-2017.  

Neither Biden nor Trump has said a word about the fact that this insane biological arms race is still going forward, with experiments on weaponizing Anthrax and SARS CoV-2 and measles and SARS-CoV-2 in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, as well as in numerous other non-regulated, accident-prone labs across the world.

Neither stood up to the transnational cabal that first predicted and then began manipulating the COVID-19 pandemic. These would-be overlords include uber-powerful Big Tech corporations (Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Amazon), Big Pharma, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the global public health elite led by Bill Gates, vaccine entrepreneurs, indentured politicians and scientists from across the political spectrum and a shadowy network of military contractors and bioweapons specialists, hiding behind the façade of biomedical and vaccine research.

Back to our roots

But now that this election from hell is over, perhaps we can get down to the radical origins (radix being the original Latin word for root) of our life or death dilemma.

First, we need to acknowledge that what we are facing is not just a series of minor problems that can easily be remedied by small changes to business as usual (President-elect Biden, are you listening?). We are facing a radical, multifaceted crisis―a climate emergency, a political emergency, escalating poverty, unemployment, forced migration, deteriorating human health, environmental destruction, political polarization, endless wars, reckless science and an all-out power grab by massive Big Tech companies and a global public health elite hell-bent on surveillance, censorship and total control.

COVID-19 is relevant to all of these issues because, as Robert Kennedy Jr. of Children’s Health Defense points out, the Machiavellian manipulation of the pandemic amounts to nothing less than an attempted “coup d’état by big data, by big telecom, by big tech, by the big oil and chemical companies and by the global public health cartel led by Bill Gates and the WHO that … wants to magnify and amplify its wealth and its power over our lives, over our liberties, that wants to subvert our democracies and to destroy our sovereignty and our control over our lives and our children’s health.”

We need radical change and a radical uprising, starting in our everyday lives in the 40,000 towns and cities and rural counties in the U.S. where we live and work.

This means getting involved in changing local consciousness, local politics and local policies as well as making changes on the regional, national and eventually international levels.

If we want to win people over and inspire them with hope, we need to be able to point to positive examples of regenerative food, farming and natural health practices, landscape management, resource management, renewable energy and education, in our local communities or regions that embody the principles that we’re talking about.

We’re not going to be able to inspire a critical mass of people with just stories about renewable energy or regenerative and organic farms or ranches, reforestation projects, or participatory democracy across the continent or across the world. We need to be able to point to working and replicable examples of the positive alternatives that we’re talking about in our local communities.

We need to educate and elect public officials (of whom there are 500,000+ in the U.S. alone) at the local and state, as well as the federal level, who understand regenerative principles and are willing to enact regenerative policies and practices, rather than maintaining our suicidal business as usual.

We certainly need to emphasize, over and over again, that we are facing a global state of emergency that requires a World War II-scale campaign of mobilization and cooperation.

A global awakening

The battle against severe climate change, environmental destruction, deteriorating public health, poverty, political authoritarianism and societal alienation will be fought and won based upon what we do (or don’t do) in our local communities as part of a global awakening and paradigm shift.

We must think, act and organize locally, while cultivating a global vision and global solidarity.

The time-bomb and the next pandemic that we call the future is ticking away even as we consider these matters.

It makes a great deal of difference what you and I do as individuals in our everyday lives. It makes a difference how you and I behave in the marketplace and in the realm of civil society and politics.

How we act, what we talk about to family, friends, neighbors and co-workers. How we spend our money and our precious spare time. How we raise our children. What we read and share and write as we sit in front of our computers and cell phone screens. What groups we join, support and donate money to, what politicians we lobby and vote for.

Never underestimate the power of one individual―yourself. But please understand, at the same time, that what we do as individuals will never be enough. We’ve got to get organized and we’ve got to help others, in our community, in our region, in our nation and everywhere build a powerful grassroots Regeneration Movement.

We must prepare ourselves now and get organized. Take back control over your health, your diet and your time. We have no choice but to stand up and resist the current attempt at a coup d’état by our would-be global overlords.

The time to begin this Great Uprising is now.

Ronnie Cummins is co-founder of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) and Regeneration International, and the author of “Grassroots Rising: A Call to Action on Food, Farming, Climate and a Green New Deal.”

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