Archive | May, 2020

Venezuelan former Vice President Elias Jaua calls for the government to rebuild the state and retake the reins of the economy.

On March 20, just after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global pandemic on March 11, the U.S. National Security Council (NSC) sent a cable to U.S. State Department instructing officials how they should speak about China and the novel coronavirus, according to the Daily Beast, which obtained the cable.

There is a view of human history which holds effectively that there is little difference in essentials between modern, capitalist society and the societies of the past.

Infections with SARS-CoV-2 are now widespread, and as of 11 March 2020, 121,564 cases have been confirmed in more than 110 countries, with 4,373 deaths.

Here in the U.S., agribusiness lines up with pharmaceutical and military contractors in terms of being a political force to be reckoned with and, in effect, help run the country. Their needs are protected so that these pathogens have the best lawyers on the planet.

IN A PANDEMIC, “ESSENTIAL” LABORERS ARE WORKING, BUT THE LABOR MARKET ISN’T.

Russia’s relationships with its client states have never been easy. Of course, managing client states is always a complicated exercise. The Kremlin’s cupboard is full of skeletons—Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), Cuba (1962), Afghanistan (1980), Ukraine (2014) and so on.

Just three years ago, Americans had a neutral view of China (and nine years ago it was strongly favorable). Today, the same polls show that 66 percent of Americans dislike the country.

OK, I’m done with all these trite catchphrases about all of us being in this mess together.

The problems facing Native American communities during this pandemic were decades in the making.

Mass deforestation, industrialised animal agriculture and reductions in biodiversity are among a number of factors which increase the likelihood of the emergence and spread of dangerous pathogens such as the coronavirus disease 2019, explains scientist Dr Rob Wallace in an exclusive interview with Sputnik.

In the age of COVID-19, poor and working-class people are susceptible not just to illness, but also to discrimination and disdain.

‘Another, probably more severe pandemic has been predicted. Scientists know how to prepare, but someone must act. If we choose not to learn the lessons that are right before our eyes, the consequences will be dire.”

During this fierce period of history, many people want clarity and leadership in suggesting concrete steps toward ending the daily oppressions of capitalism. We seek a path leading to a post-capitalist society that aims not to destroy mother earth, humanity, and other life forms. If that doesn’t happen, we face an ongoing transition to fascism and an accelerating environmental catastrophe.

The war on labour is a continuation of the attacks which the BJP has been launching on the religious minorities and dalits; its economic consequences will be disastrous.

The president and his secretary of state made a startling claim last week: that there is enough evidence to suggest with a high degree of confidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is the source of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Sarah Jaffe, with co-journalist Michelle Chan, interviews U.S. workers of all stripes for their podcast “Belabored” for Dissent Magazine. The following interviews are excerpts from their series on COVID-19 stories, republished with permission.

Scientists are struggling to understand how Covid-19 affects people differently. Socialist Worker shows that the construct of race has more basis in exploitation than biology.

In this episode, Maxx and Scott speak with legal scholar Sanjukta Paul about imagining alternative and more just forms of economic association in ways that denaturalize the 20th-century monopolistic firm. The key, Paul argues, is to reveal and contest the public “coordination rights” that legally structure all economic activity. Sanjukta Paul is Assistant Professor of […]

President Trump has revealed a plan to mobilize the US military to deliver mass vaccinations across the country, coupled with Operation Warp Speed, a “Manhattan project-style” race to produce a COVID-19 vaccine.