Coronavirus in Colombia: 'public health intermediaries plan to assign ICU's to highest bidder'

[Moral Compass]

2. This is the norm there

Colombia is as close to a pure oligarchy as you can find anywhere. If you get sick and have money the medical care is excellent. If you don’t have money well...

I lived there almost 50 years ago and this was normal then. There was 0 safety net. Orphans roaming the streets whose parents had made the oldest leave the family when the newest child was born. Homeless and skilled in theft and begging.

Utterly dirty because there was nowhere to bathe. The older ones taking care of the younger ones—forming into feral family units. Some of those boys and girls ultimately joining FARC and, after I left, became the cartels.

Colombia is why I’m an unreserved liberal social democrat. This is what the world that Grover Norquist and Newt and the Koch brothers want to create. If you are born into the right family life is very, very good indeed. If you are one of the campesinos the best you can do is serve your masters and hope that they are kind and just—but have no expectations at all.

And if you are below the campesinos then you exist in one of the vast shanty towns and live and breed like cattle without running water or electricity and human waste mixed with animal waste runs down the unpaved paths in torrents when it rains.

Colombia can be so beautiful and so awful. In the time of pandemic there will be little mercy to spare for the peasants.