lo posted:the chuang collective fellas have a book out that is all about covid and the state response to it in china, seems potentially very interesting although i haven't seen a pdf just yet so only going by the publisher's summary here https://www.akpress.org/social-contagion.html
if you're going to read anything from them I would do so with a critical eye.
aerdil posted:and he got covid literally the next day, congrats.
Everyone was always going to get COVID. We are not, as a species, going to gradually funnel all of creation into the ownership of fucking Pfizer.
aerdil posted:and he got covid literally the next day, congrats.
it had all the structure of a joke, the ink on the press release that was joining the team was barely dry before they had to announce he got COVID and was immediately put into protocols. like groundskeeper willie coming to rescue the children and getting axed in the back within seconds
Synergy posted:lo posted:
the chuang collective fellas have a book out that is all about covid and the state response to it in china, seems potentially very interesting although i haven't seen a pdf just yet so only going by the publisher's summary here https://www.akpress.org/social-contagion.html
if you're going to read anything from them I would do so with a critical eye.
But doesn't Dan Cohen write occasionally for the The Grayzone, an outlet founded by the anti-vaxxer son of a Clinton Foundation operative, an organization that likely receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy but I haven't hit cmd + f on their wikipedia page yet? I'm not alleging anything in particular because innuendo and suggestion is a lot easier than materialist critique or for that matter journalism but...the whole thing seems pretty spooky.
Edited by tentativelurkeraccount ()
90% of the population has received 1 dose, 83% both doses, for a nation under the world's most restrictive economic embargo and actually had trouble sourcing enough needles to administer vaccines earlier in the year.
those numbers are comparable to China, which is up to 88% 1 dose and 83% two dose. they have administered nearly 2.7B doses, 30% of the world's total doses.
they are both well ahead of any NATO country. even Vietnam, which had real trouble sourcing vaccines early on and got hit by delta, is now ahead of the United SnaKKKes and United KKKingdom in first dose %
vaccines are good and communist
sissyfuss posted:the parking lot of the urgent care was completely full with people getting emergency covid tests, so i had to park at the open crackerbarrel across the street.
Hope you made time for some delicious pink-in-the-middle prime rib
gay_swimmer posted:sissyfuss posted:the parking lot of the urgent care was completely full with people getting emergency covid tests, so i had to park at the open crackerbarrel across the street.
Hope you made time for some delicious pink-in-the-middle prime rib
i have never been to cracker barrel. only applebees.
elias posted:But doesn't Dan Cohen write occasionally for the The Grayzone, an outlet founded by the anti-vaxxer son of a Clinton Foundation operative, an organization that likely receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy but I haven't hit cmd + f on their wikipedia page yet? I'm not alleging anything in particular because innuendo and suggestion is a lot easier than materialist critique or for that matter journalism but...the whole thing seems pretty spooky.
Max Blumenthal's take seems to be that lockdowns aren't proven to be effective and hurt working people in nations that don't support them financially/materially. he and Stavroula Pabst wrote this long article on it that i skimmed but don't have the desire to investigate every piece of evidence. i don't think he's straight up anti-vax but his ambiguous take on vaccines certainly isn't helping matters. fortunately it hasn't had an impact on the rest of the Greyzone's anti-imperialist journalism, and AFAIK the other staff haven't promoted his views on that particular topic. i personally think we should provide critical support to the few media outlets that challenge the imperial core instead of cancelling them when they have a bad take every once in a while.
Julian Assange is responsible for as many American deaths as Omicron: zero https://t.co/FC3D0Q80uX
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) December 24, 2021
GZ isn’t entirely useless; Max is still good on Palestine, a place he has an actual material understanding of and deep knowledge in. On almost everything else, most of the time I’d rather be lied to by NYT and Wapo than have my intelligence insulted by GZ’s copy/paste schematized anti-materialist “anti-imperialism”.
If you haven't heard it -- don't miss @MaxBlumenthal of @TheGrayzoneNews.
— Trish Wood (@WoodReporting) December 24, 2021
His deep dive on #mandates, digital IDs and a social credit system is devastating. https://t.co/ajUQJ5FThs pic.twitter.com/sQMfq4hEpc
neoliberal fortress nationalism is not going to benefit the revolutionary left, there's no reason to support it
pogfan1996 posted:I think it is pretty unfair to characterize his stance as a denial that covid is bad or as a denial that covid exists, here's a quick clip on his thoughts
neoliberal fortress nationalism is not going to benefit the revolutionary left, there's no reason to support it
Sure if you rephrase what he’s saying until it’s a truism nobody would disagree with & cut out the other 70% that makes him sound like a lunatic, yeah I guess it sounds pretty reasonable.
I briefly scanned the episode and relevant to this thread, toward the end landed I landed on a bit about how pandemics are linked to capital which is really just horseshit. Flus are linked to capital because they transmit more readily in cities, and people are drawn to cities to work in factories. But "pandemics/epidemics" broadly are not, necessarily. It depends on the disease in question and thus economic particulars are a poor lens to look at them through. HIV and Ebola in Congo came from cannibalism among apes which is in turn transmitted to humans who eat the apes, Kuru in New Guinea comes from cannibalism as funerary ritual, and if we really wanna split hairs feudal societies are the most prone to create pandemic friendly conditions for diseases caused by widespread unsanitary living conditions, which create things like the cholera outbreaks in India in recent years.
But hey, don't mind all that, I know it's irreconcilable with the "bodies and spaces" horny online fetish nature of modern "(('*{leftism}*'))"
HIV, which scientists all pretty much agree was the result of a) colonial practices forcing people to resort to bushmeat b) a French vaccine program where they reused needles and did not sterilize, which combined what were initially disparate pathogens into something far more deadly than they probably would have on their own and c) forced dispersal of workers around the continent, ensuring that it spread as rapidly as possible
Edited by shapes ()
Over9000ft posted:But why are the people reading it on that linked podcast so bad, then...
I briefly scanned the episode and relevant to this thread, toward the end landed I landed on a bit about how pandemics are linked to capital which is really just horseshit.
Somebody didn't read Big Farms Make Big Flu
JohnBeige posted:Over9000ft posted:But why are the people reading it on that linked podcast so bad, then...
I briefly scanned the episode and relevant to this thread, toward the end landed I landed on a bit about how pandemics are linked to capital which is really just horseshit.Somebody didn't read Big Farms Make Big Flu
Monthly Review has also written some good articles about this subject, i.e. https://monthlyreview.org/2021/06/01/capital-and-the-ecology-of-disease/ and https://monthlyreview.org/2020/05/01/covid-19-and-circuits-of-capital/
coincidentally they printed an article warning about the danger of pandemics and disease linked to capital in the june issue of 2019, lol (although admittedly its more focused on disease from bacteria/antibiotics than viruses)
https://monthlyreview.org/2019/06/01/superbugs-in-the-anthropocene/
This does not mean that there is no economic or even political struggle between these ‘salaried aristocrats’ and capital in the Center. There is, and at times it is very bitter. Otherwise, this struggle has been very effective. Everything the salaried of the Center have won so far in the field of their economic and social advance they owe to this struggle. Moreover, the object of this struggle is also political power, and on this plane the salaried of the Center have also achieved notable success. Actually, if we abandon oversimplifications regarding the monolithic state that is integrally in the service of big capital, we see that in all the states of the Center, outside the area of questions of vital importance of the system in which big capital naturally reserves the last word for itself, there is an entire indeterminate zone in which the classes that are actually dominated, can casually and temporarily prevail on significant, but not decisive, issues. Bourgeois democracy and the parliamentary system are not a sheer farce. It is even conceivable that in one or another country of the Center the salaried aristocracy could one day defeat the existing capitalist class decisively and install a particular system that could possibly be christened ‘national socialism’, or something similar, but which would actually be an ad hoc system that assures its hegemony.
But these partial or ‘final’ victories over capital in the Center are not necessarily revolutionary from the standpoint of the interests of the international proletariat. Generally they materialize the other way around by means of the mechanism of unequal exchange, on the backs of the proletariat. In certain cases, which are becoming more and more common as the division of the world into North and South consolidates, the conflict between big capital and the ‘salaried aristocracy’ at the Center consists of the fact that the latter adopt an openly negative attitude to the Third World, ahead of, and in opposition to, their respective “imperialist” governments. A case in point is the latest Swiss referendum which rejected the government’s project for financial assistance to the Third World. All public opinion surveys show that a referendum of this kind would yield almost the same results in whatever country of the Center. But there is even worse.
Considering the vicissitudes of the long-lasting negotiations over Vietnam and the connection between the vacillations of the American government, on the one hand, and the demonstrations and election pressures in the USA itself on the other, I am convinced that had there not been pressure by the American working class in favor of a continuation of the war, that war would have been terminated a year or two earlier than it was.
Although the initiative for American aggression in Vietnam came at the outset from big capital, everything indicates that, from 1969/70 on, the latter actively sought disengagement, accepting the risk of the “communization” of the South. Apart from the stronger-than-was-anticipated resistance put up by the Vietnamese people, the principal reasons for this reversal were: a) world public opinion; b) the reaction of liberals in the USA itself and, especially, c) the gradually growing conviction that a communist Vietnam would not automatically fall into one of the two caps, the Chinese or Soviet, but would pursue an independent state policy.
After that time everything became more definite. During the long period of negotiations, the New York stock exchange kept a close watch on Paris. Systematically, regularly, without a single exception, every time it appeared that the peace talks were deadlocked, a drop in stock prices was registered; every time agency files announced progress, prices revived again. The rises and falls were so numerous and went on so long that no set of circumstances can explain them. The causal relationship is indisputable. American high finance wanted the end of the war.
If we go back a little in time we will find an even more characteristic example of what the working class is capable of doing when its own privileges are threatened. In 1921, the white working class of the South African Rand mounted an armed insurrection against the government in Pretoria, with the leaders of the left unions and communists at their helm. The slogan was: “Workers of the countries of the world unite for a white South Africa.” The aim of the rebellion was to topple the government which wanted to force employment of black workers in the mines under similar conditions to those for whites. South African fascist historians celebrate this ‘proletarian’ revolt as the birth date of the apartheid regime.
It follows from this that wage-earner status is not enough to make a social struggle, even a massive one, revolutionary. Engels and Lenin did not hesitate to condemn, on behalf of the interests of the international proletariat, such just struggles as the respective liberation struggles of the people of Alsace and the people of the Balkans because, in their view, these struggles were against the general interests of the international proletariat since they encouraged a rapprochement between France and Tsarist Russia. With even greater reason, we can today point to the adverse character of the struggles of the worker aristocracies of the Center to strengthen or enlarge their privileges.
Communists who understand the First-World/Third-World split should have no problem siding with the liberal state against the most reactionary elements of the labor aristocracy. Should have been clear in 2021, let's hope for 2022.
The passes will not go away. Not while most of the population is terrified of this thing. This is nothing at all like showing your ID to buy booze or whatever. How many people regularly get ID'd for booze anyway? Now everyone has to prove their right to buy a sandwich. The legitimate domain of this sort of authority has been extended from 'morally dubious' activities like getting drunk to every aspect of social life. Once this is habit, why will it not be extended to check immigration status, arrest warrants, debts?
The conflation of Chinese and Cuban vaccination programs with those of the core is also nothing but obfuscation. Cuba does not have pharmaceutical billionaires striking deals with its government - you give us billions and we'll give you a reason to extend your tendrils into the last few areas of life that were free of them. I do not see how one can support vaccination mandates or passes in the current situation in the core.
marimite posted:https://anti-imperialist.net/2018/07/30/the-socialist-project-in-a-disintegrated-capitalist-world/This does not mean that there is no economic or even political struggle between these ‘salaried aristocrats’ and capital in the Center. There is, and at times it is very bitter. Otherwise, this struggle has been very effective. Everything the salaried of the Center have won so far in the field of their economic and social advance they owe to this struggle. Moreover, the object of this struggle is also political power, and on this plane the salaried of the Center have also achieved notable success. Actually, if we abandon oversimplifications regarding the monolithic state that is integrally in the service of big capital, we see that in all the states of the Center, outside the area of questions of vital importance of the system in which big capital naturally reserves the last word for itself, there is an entire indeterminate zone in which the classes that are actually dominated, can casually and temporarily prevail on significant, but not decisive, issues. Bourgeois democracy and the parliamentary system are not a sheer farce. It is even conceivable that in one or another country of the Center the salaried aristocracy could one day defeat the existing capitalist class decisively and install a particular system that could possibly be christened ‘national socialism’, or something similar, but which would actually be an ad hoc system that assures its hegemony.
But these partial or ‘final’ victories over capital in the Center are not necessarily revolutionary from the standpoint of the interests of the international proletariat. Generally they materialize the other way around by means of the mechanism of unequal exchange, on the backs of the proletariat. In certain cases, which are becoming more and more common as the division of the world into North and South consolidates, the conflict between big capital and the ‘salaried aristocracy’ at the Center consists of the fact that the latter adopt an openly negative attitude to the Third World, ahead of, and in opposition to, their respective “imperialist” governments. A case in point is the latest Swiss referendum which rejected the government’s project for financial assistance to the Third World. All public opinion surveys show that a referendum of this kind would yield almost the same results in whatever country of the Center. But there is even worse.
Considering the vicissitudes of the long-lasting negotiations over Vietnam and the connection between the vacillations of the American government, on the one hand, and the demonstrations and election pressures in the USA itself on the other, I am convinced that had there not been pressure by the American working class in favor of a continuation of the war, that war would have been terminated a year or two earlier than it was.
Although the initiative for American aggression in Vietnam came at the outset from big capital, everything indicates that, from 1969/70 on, the latter actively sought disengagement, accepting the risk of the “communization” of the South. Apart from the stronger-than-was-anticipated resistance put up by the Vietnamese people, the principal reasons for this reversal were: a) world public opinion; b) the reaction of liberals in the USA itself and, especially, c) the gradually growing conviction that a communist Vietnam would not automatically fall into one of the two caps, the Chinese or Soviet, but would pursue an independent state policy.
After that time everything became more definite. During the long period of negotiations, the New York stock exchange kept a close watch on Paris. Systematically, regularly, without a single exception, every time it appeared that the peace talks were deadlocked, a drop in stock prices was registered; every time agency files announced progress, prices revived again. The rises and falls were so numerous and went on so long that no set of circumstances can explain them. The causal relationship is indisputable. American high finance wanted the end of the war.
If we go back a little in time we will find an even more characteristic example of what the working class is capable of doing when its own privileges are threatened. In 1921, the white working class of the South African Rand mounted an armed insurrection against the government in Pretoria, with the leaders of the left unions and communists at their helm. The slogan was: “Workers of the countries of the world unite for a white South Africa.” The aim of the rebellion was to topple the government which wanted to force employment of black workers in the mines under similar conditions to those for whites. South African fascist historians celebrate this ‘proletarian’ revolt as the birth date of the apartheid regime.
It follows from this that wage-earner status is not enough to make a social struggle, even a massive one, revolutionary. Engels and Lenin did not hesitate to condemn, on behalf of the interests of the international proletariat, such just struggles as the respective liberation struggles of the people of Alsace and the people of the Balkans because, in their view, these struggles were against the general interests of the international proletariat since they encouraged a rapprochement between France and Tsarist Russia. With even greater reason, we can today point to the adverse character of the struggles of the worker aristocracies of the Center to strengthen or enlarge their privileges.
Communists who understand the First-World/Third-World split should have no problem siding with the liberal state against the most reactionary elements of the labor aristocracy. Should have been clear in 2021, let's hope for 2022.
BRB, off siding with the liberal state until this movement can build enough power to take over ‘decisively.’ Still workshopping the name for our movement but really liking “national socialism” that was floated here, let me know if you all think there’s any problems with that.
(But sarcasm aside siding with the state against “reactionary elements” is a fools errand, and I can’t imagine how anyone who has witnessed the past 20 years of antiterrorism laws utilized against left wing protestors, or the more recent farce of police funding increases to “protect” us from trump insurrectionist could possibly imagine such an alliance playing out favorably. Gladio? Never heard of him.)
The vaccine is proven to result in lesser symptoms and far far fewer deaths. There has still been not a single piece of believable evidence that ties the creation, production, and administration of the vaccine to anything other than these positive outcomes. When an individual chooses to get the vaccine they can be nearly 100% sure that they will be receiving a safe and effective medical treatment and nothing else. They will be far less likely to be hospitalized or die from covid. All states in the world today whether they're capitalist, socialist, or revisionist (if that distinction matters to you right now) are making great efforts to vaccinate all of their citizens because of the undeniable efficacy of the vaccines. There is no materially sound argument against the state vaccinating people or for individuals who can be vaccinated to refuse vaccination. There was some more specific bullshit claims posted earlier in this thread on these points that I've been meaning to address but it's tedious so I'll get to it later.
The growth of technosurveillance and extension of state authority due to covid must be discussed with these facts already understood. If you're waving away covid as a flu then you have no right to speak on complex topics like that because you can't even grasp the basics.
sparklefeather posted:Where I live...
Where you live it's this way, but where I live the state government has pre-empted localities from taking any positive action in controlling the disease and actively sabotaged efforts to present accurate infection and death numbers to the public. It's a complex topic with very varied local conditions. Chinese, Cuban, European, and USAmerican experiences are all different. Different states in USAmerica are wildly different.
sparklefeather posted:Where I live, you'll soon have to present a QR code containing your vaccination info to be able to do anything more than get groceries.
sparklefeather posted:Now everyone has to prove their right to buy a sandwich.
not sure if you're looking for a solution or you just want to be heard, but if the former: i would suggest assembling your own sandwiches out of groceries
zhaoyao posted:where i live they pay a $1 bounty for masks you rip off a stranger's face. they wouldn't validate my parking ticket at the public library unless i coughed on the next person in line
and that restaurant's name? cracker barrel.
Well they looked at the data:
The index, which has been revised to reflect experience from the Covid-19 pandemic
and
karphead posted:what exactly are u dumbasses talking about
don’t know what the dumbasses are talking about, but i’m talking about the sudden wimpy-whine handwringing about calling fascism that nasty impolite swear word, “fascism”
JohnBeige posted:hush
anti-vaccine = anti-socialist