Pandemic

Solidarity With Tribal Nations Exercising Sovereignty And Protecting Citizens

May 17, 2020 NDN Collective, Indianz.com. Resist! COVID-19, Indigenous Rights, Pandemic, Sovereignty

Rapid City, SD– As an Indigenous organization dedicated to supporting Indigenous self-determination and building Indigenous power, the NDN Collective stands in unwavering solidarity with the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes in their efforts to protect their people and to assert their rights as sovereign Nations during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the novel Coronavirus spreads its reach to vulnerable Indigenous communities, Tribal Nations across the country have taken measures to protect their people, their knowledge-keepers, and their cultures. In South Dakota, checkpoints have been established at the borders of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home to the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, home to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, ensuring that all who enter are vetted, screened, and practicing safe measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Redacted Tonight VIP: How The Virus Beat The US

May 16, 2020 Lee Camp, Redacted Tonight. Resistance Report COVID-19, Global Recession, Pandemic, Unemployment

Lee Camp sits down with Vijay Prashad, the executive director of The Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. They discuss how the US failed in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, the growing cohort of working people who have been dubbed the 'precariat' because of their precarious employment, what people can do to help limit this crisis, and how foreign countries such as India and Cuba are handling the crisis. Naomi Karavani rips into the massive corporations that took all of the money from the small business loan program that was part of the coronavirus stimulus bill. This move illustrates why a capitalist system cannot solve a crisis that requires people to work together. Natalie McGill dips into a strange plague that struck the world between the 14th and 17th centuries.

A Healthcare Worker Answers Governor Cuomo’s ‘Conundrum’

May 14, 2020 Mike Pappas, Left Voice. Educate! COVID-19, Essential worker, Pandemic, Working Class

In a recent press conference Governor Andrew Cuomo highlighted information from a new analysis of COVID-19 data finding a majority of the new patients being admitted were staying at home. Cuomo described the new data as a “surprise” to him as it was initially thought exposed frontline healthcare workers would be the brunt of new admissions. According to Cuomo discussing the new patient cases, “They’re not working, they’re not traveling, they’re predominantly downstate, predominantly minority, predominantly older, predominantly nonessential employees.” As Newsday reported, this gives the state “a conundrum” of how to stop the viral spread. “A conundrum,” you say? A surprise? For those of the working class, this new data is probably no surprise whatsoever...

China’s International Solidarity Aid To The World During The COVID19 Pandemic

May 14, 2020 Stansfield Smith, Popular Resistsance. Educate! China, COVID-19, International Solidarity, Pandemic

China’s worldwide assistance and medical aid to other countries to combat the coronavirus is barely covered in the corporate press. Instead, the US has ramped up its anti-China campaign to cover up its own incompetence in combating the virus. As John Pilger shows in his Obama era film The Coming War on China, this is no new campaign. The US empire realizes that China is slowly putting the US out of business around the world. If the point comes where the US can no longer impose the dollar as the medium of international exchange – still a long way away – it would rapidly go the way of the old British empire. The rise of China also signifies the setting of the white man’s bloody 500-year world hegemony. China displayed before the world its effective strategy in shutting down the coronavirus. In contrast, every day Washington shows the world it is incapable of effective response and cannot control of the situation.

To Re-Open Safely We Need A ‘Health Force’ Of Disease Detectives

May 14, 2020 By Sandy Smith-Nonini, PhD, Portside. Create! COVID-19, Pandemic, Public Health, Reopen Economy

Conservative governors are now openly at odds with epidemiologists as plans move ahead for more than half the states to loosen social distancing and permit many businesses to re-open this month despite none of them meeting White House Coronavirus Taskforce guidelines. Unlike re-openings in China, Hong Kong and South Korea where new cases fell rapidly after aggressive containment efforts, the United States, with nearly 1.4 million cases and over 81,000 COVID-19 deaths (as of May 11), must follow a different model. Many critics blame the Trump Administration’s laggard scale-up of testing for the dilemma. But studies of past emerging disease epidemics have taught us that testing alone will not prevent new outbreaks. To re-open the economy we must undertake the most massive effort to trace and isolate new infections in history.

#GeneralStrike2020: How To Participate

This prolonged and broad campaign will organize around a list of basic demands, as outlined here. Not on the list, but included is the demand to save the US Postal Service. The campaign will follow a three-prong strategy - resistance through noncompliance, mutual aid and building alternative systems in our communities rooted in cooperation, solidarity and participatory democracy. On the next national day of action, June 1, there will be many activities. Read through and decide how you can best participate in the actions. There is something for everyone to do. Be creative!

The COVID-19 Risks – Know Them – Avoid Them

May 13, 2020 Erin Bromage. Educate! COVID-19, health, Pandemic, Reopen Economy

It seems many people are breathing some relief, and I’m not sure why. An epidemic curve has a relatively predictable upslope and once the peak is reached, the back slope can also be predicted. We have robust data from the outbreaks in China and Italy, that shows the backside of the mortality curve declines slowly, with deaths persisting for months. Assuming we have just crested in deaths at 70k, it is possible that we lose another 70,000 people over the next 6 weeks as we come off that peak. That's what's going to happen with a lockdown. As states reopen, and we give the virus more fuel, all bets are off. I understand the reasons for reopening the economy, but I've said before, if you don't solve the biology, the economy won't recover. There are very few states that have demonstrated a sustained decline in numbers of new infections.

Coronavirus May Accelerate The Demise Of Rural America

May 13, 2020 By Olugbenga Ajilore, Inside Source. Educate! COVID-19, Health Care, Pandemic, Rural

Over the last two months the coronavirus pandemic has brought nation’s largest, and most powerful cities to their knees. But as curves show signs of flattening in many urban areas, and governors have begun the process of “reopening” their economies, new hotspots are emerging in places like southwest Georgia, the Navajo nation, and in and around meatpacking plants in Iowa and the Texas panhandle. Rural communities like these lack the healthcare infrastructure and financial resources of larger cities, while at the same time are home to and older and sicker populations, more likely to suffer serious complications or death due to the virus. That is why governors who are reopening their economies prematurely are not only misguided but also could end up driving the devastation of rural America.

COVID-19 Can Trigger Revolution—Here’s How!

May 12, 2020 By Isa Benros, Phil Wilmot and Søren Warburg, International Center for Nonviolent Conflict. Strategize! COVID-19, Pandemic, Recession, Trigger Moment

COVID-19 is an example of what movement analysts call a “trigger event.” When shocking events of immense scale occur suddenly—such as natural disasters, military coups, economic collapse, or virus pandemics—they drastically alter life as we know it, and radically shift public sentiment. The previously unimaginable quickly becomes reality. Trigger events create confusion and unease, but they also present tremendous opportunities for those who have a plan and know how to use the moment to push their agendas. Those in power and private interest groups are already doing this to ensure that they will come out of the crisis with their wealth and position still intact. Activists must push an agenda that represents the public interest—the imperative of a just society and the rights of ordinary people—with effective strategies for advancing relevant new policies.

In The Classroom That Zoom Built

May 12, 2020 By Belle Chesler, Tom Dispatch. Educate! Education, Internet Access, Pandemic, Teachers

Do you hear that silence? That’s the absence of footsteps echoing through our nation’s public school hallways. It’s the silence of teaching in a virtual space populated with students on mute who lack a physical presence. It’s the crushing silence of those who are now missing, who can’t attend the classroom that Zoom and Google built. Maybe you heard the shouted pleas of teachers across the country last year as we walked out of our classrooms and into the streets, begging for affordable housing, health care, and access to equitable funding and resources for our students? Or maybe you heard the impassioned screams of frightened kids as they stormed into the streets and onto the news, demanding safety and an end to the threat of gun violence in our nation’s school buildings? Now, there’s nothing left to hear.

China, South Korea And Germany Report New COVID-19 Outbreaks

May 12, 2020 Bryan Dyne, WSWS. Educate! China, COVID-19, Pandemic, Reopen Economy

China, Germany and South Korea have all reported substantial new outbreaks of COVID-19 after they eased lockdowns, sparking warnings that efforts to lift lockdowns in Europe and the United States risk a major new resurgence of the disease. There are now nearly 4.2 million reported infections of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus worldwide, and just under 284,000 deaths caused by the resulting disease. The number of daily new cases has risen from a two-week low on April 27 of about 66,000 to more than 80,000 yesterday, as the pandemic continues to spread from its current epicenters in Western Europe and the United States to Africa, South America, South Asia and countries of the former Soviet Union. Two new clusters of coronavirus cases were reported in China over the weekend, as well as a single larger outbreak in Seoul, South Korea. Concurrently, the German government reported that outbreaks had begun to grow exponentially again.

Solidarity Key To Post COVID-19 Response

May 11, 2020 By Obiora C. Okafor, Open Global Rights. Strategize! COVID-19, Human Rights, International Solidarity, Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has left a massive amount of disease, death and despair in its stride, and will continue to seriously trouble the world even in its wake. As the result, it has posed a formidable threat to the enjoyment of human rights around the world. More specifically, as is widely recognized, the pandemic (and many of the measures taken to end it) have seriously threatened or harmed the enjoyment by billions of people across the world of the human rights to health, life, education, food, shelter, work, freedom of movement, liberty, and freedom of assembly. Less obvious to many is the fact that the pandemic (and the dominant responses to it) can also constitute serious harm to the enjoyment of the rights to development and democracy, and to freedom from discrimination and gender-based violence. Even more troubling is the fact that these dangers and impacts tend to be exacerbated in the Global South, and in relation to the poor and the racially marginalized everywhere.

‘Plandemic’ Conspiracy Video Has Been Thoroughly Debunked

May 10, 2020 Annie Reneau, Upworthy. Educate! Conspiracies, COVID-19, health, Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has brought out a whole slew of interesting human tendencies, including a veritable tsunami of conspiracy theories. Like, holy cow, folks. When did everyone start pulling out their tinfoil hats? There are several reasons for this, from the emotional and psychological needs that conspiracy theories fulfill (especially during such an uncertain time), to the intellectual habits that enable people to fall prey to such theories. And of course, there's always a shred of truth in any conspiracy theory, which pulls people in. But just as a shred of fabric doesn't make a shirt, a shred of truth in a conspiracy theory doesn't make it credible or true. By now, you've undoubtedly seen or at least heard about the Plandemic video making the rounds. YouTube keeps taking it down because of its policy against spreading harmful misinformation about the coronavirus, but that of course just fuels the fire of conspiracy theorists who think the truth is being silenced.

Amazon Labor Activism Goes International

May 10, 2020 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. Organize! Amazon, International Solidarity, Pandemic, Workers Rights and Jobs

Amazon worker organizing is going international. A new coalition of Amazon employee activists from Spain, France, German, Poland and America has announced itself with a list of demands for improved pay and safety—and they say that this is just the beginning. The new group, called Amazon Workers International (AWI), is a significant new formal attempt to combine the well-established labor activism of Amazon workers in Europe with the grassroots organizing that has targeted Amazon in America in recent months. The group’s letter, sent to CEO Jeff Bezos and Stefano Perego, the VP of Europe Customer Fulfillment, asks the company to lock in temporary gains that workers have made during the pandemic, and for broader improvements in Amazon’s historically poor relationship with its warehouse workers.

How Permaculture Can Build Resilience And Meet Basic Needs

May 10, 2020 Marina Martinez, Waging Nonviolence. Create! Food and Agriculture, Food Security, Pandemic, Permaculture

Despite their urgency, coronavirus outbreaks, health crises and failing institutions are just some of the problems our global society is facing today. Billions of people worldwide still lack access to healthy food, clean water and sanitation services — being unable to properly wash hands and stay safe in the midst of a pandemic. And we are still trapped in an economic system that fuels environmental damage, from biodiversity loss to climate change, which is threatening the quality and sustainability of life on Earth. Now, more than ever, it is crucial that we rethink and redesign our modes of living and doing things in society. Permaculture, or “permanent culture” systems thinking, a set of ethical principles and DIY techniques, conceptualized by Australian scientist Bill Mollison, provides a way forward to address those issues.

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