CoronaShock is a term that refers to how a virus struck the world with such gripping force; it refers to how the social order in the bourgeois state crumbled, while the social order in the socialist parts of the world appeared more resilient.
Author Archive | Vijay Prashad
The murder of George Floyd is normal in an abnormal society
There is no need to wonder why George Floyd (age 46) was murdered in broad daylight in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25, 2020. The script of his death is written deep in the ugly drama of U.S. history.
If you do not feel for humanity, you have forgotten to be human
The coronavirus continues its contagious march across the planet: almost 350,000 known deaths and over 5.4 million people infected. Meanwhile, in the Bay of Bengal, Cyclone Amphan makes its fierce landing, its immense energy tearing a corridor through Bangladesh and India (Odisha and West Bengal).
The Bouficha appeal against the preparations for war
On 23 March, the UN Secretary General António Guterres called for a ceasefire. ‘The fury of the virus’, he said, ‘illustrates the folly of war’. In a recent report, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) wrote that the ‘call for a global ceasefire has not had the desired result’.
How the United States Government failed to prepare for the Global Pandemic
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.
Hunger gnaws at the edges of the World
On 21 April, the head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) David Beasley said that the world was experiencing a ‘hunger pandemic’. That day, the Global Network Against Food Crises and the Food Security Information Network released the 2020 Global Report on Food Crises.
The U.S. Military is hell-bent on trying to overpower China
The absence of a strong world peace movement with the capacity to prevent this buildup by the United States is of considerable concern for the planet. The need for such a movement could not be greater.
It takes a revolution to make a solution
I admit upfront that this is a hard newsletter to read. It is about debt. There is a bloodless quality to the way that we talk about the debt of the poorer nations. There is nothing poetic here. The numbers are alienating, their outcome shocking.
Farewell to the god of plague
The Communists were determined to eradicate disease. In the 1930s, Mao joined the Chinese Communist Party’s Public Health Commission; in 1934, when he was in the Jiangxi Soviet, Mao placed public health at the top of the list for party work.
Leftword Books Editor Vijay Prashad on Life and Legacy of Italian Marxist Com. Antonio Gramsci
Leftword Books Editor Vijay Prashad on Life and Legacy of Italian Marxist Com. Antonio #Gramsci. #Bennito #Mussolini’s court stated, “For twenty years we must stop this brain from functioning” during the trail of Com Gramsci.
Either socialism will defeat the louse or the louse will defeat socialism
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that the Great Lockdown, which has no end date, could very well lead to a loss of $9 trillion to global Gross Domestic Product over the entirety of 2020 and 2021; this number is greater than the combined economies of Japan and Germany. This scenario, the Fund’s managing director […]
Blaming China for the COVID-19 crisis is deceitful
Vijay Prashad talks about China’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, especially in the light of the accusations that are being leveled against the country
How China broke the chain of infection
As information about coronavirus emerged, the Chinese government and Chinese society began to organize an immense campaign against its spread.
Without a country in which to live, a field to plant, a love to cherish or a voice to sing, one is dead
Local communities have demonstrated remarkable generosity, but cannot cope anymore. National capacities are overwhelmed. The approaching lean season, coupled with the armed conflict and the COVID-19, will generate further dramatic situations and displacements of populations. The clock is ticking; we have little time left.
Kerala is a model state in the Covid-19 fight
This overlooked region of India is a beacon to the world for taking on the coronavirus, with the leftist government setting the bar for testing, tracing and treatment standards.
Colombia’s government acts like a doormat for the United States—and its people aren’t going along with it
With the U.S. government now absurdly saying that Venezuela is the source of narco-trafficking, even though all evidence pointing to narco-trafficking is rooted in Colombia, the pressure on Colombia to deal with its drug problem is now lifted.
Femicide does not respect the quarantine
Days, weeks, months, an indeterminate amount of time as the world seems paralysed by the journey of SARS-CoV-2. The lack of certainty increases the anxiety. This virus, as Arundhati Roy writes, ‘seeks proliferation, not profit, and has, therefore, inadvertently, to some extent, reversed the direction of the flow [of capital].
How China learned about SARS-CoV-2 in the weeks before the global pandemic
In the early weeks when the virus emerged in Wuhan, the Chinese government neither suppressed evidence nor did their warning systems fail.
Trump sends gun boats to Venezuela while the World partners to fight a deadly pandemic
On April’s Fools Day, U.S. President Donald Trump gave a press conference where he announced a new “counter-narcotics effort” by U.S. Southern Command. “We’re deploying additional Navy destroyers, combat ships, aircrafts and helicopters, Coast Guard cutters…doubling our capabilities in the region,” he said
These migrant workers did not suddenly fall from the sky
Madness engulfs the planet. Hundreds of millions of people are in lockdown in their homes, millions of people who work in essential jobs–or who cannot afford to stay home without state assistance–continue to go to work, thousands of people lie in intensive-care beds taken care of by tens of thousands of medical professionals and caregivers […]
