If there is an effective vaccine coming quickly that can save lives - and I truly hope there is - it will not be a legacy of the outgoing administration as much as an utter repudiation of neoliberal hegemony. 1/N

By this I mean the generation-long ruling ideology that there is no such thing as public money and that individuals acting selfishly will create the most common good.

This rapid vaccine process will demonstrate once again that we can collectively marshal available resources (of which there are many) to save and enrich more lives using timely and targeted deployment of our public money and administrative capacity.

For decades we have held back the power of public action and we see around us the shadows on the walls of what could have been - the diseases we could have cured, the urban infrastructure we could have built, the youth we could have educated, the workers we could have employed,

the ill and addicted we could have cared for, the oppressed we could have unshackled and restored.

Shadows of a more just society, a stronger economy, a healthier planet, a less violent world. Shadows of the caring & sharing communities we have not yet built.

It's not simple to say how we got here nor how we turn around.

We tossed in the towel on ourselves.

We acquiesced to the myth that we can't build good governance; that the public purse should be kept under lock & key except for the limited cause of maintaining hegemony through inequity & violence.

It cannot stay this way.

They say the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the next best time is now. We must awaken from our stupor today and begin to sow the seeds of public investment in public wellbeing.

Perhaps we won't all live to see the fruit ripen but a generation to come will thank us and build on a surer foundation that what was laid for us.

/END