Month: December 2020

By Z Petrosian

Despite progress being made in the development of COVID-19 vaccines, corporate profiteering is preventing access to a safe vaccine for all. To prevent many more deaths, the people need to organize to challenge the power of these companies.

Pharmaceutical executives should not be allowed to decide who lives and who dies of COVID-19.

Capitalism: companies hoard informaton and technology to maximize profits

After benefiting from billions in taxpayer money to develop COVID-19 vaccines, U.S. pharmaceutical companies plan to get rich by turning around and selling this life-saving medicine to the highest bidder. Pfizer and Moderna have already promised around 80% of doses to the richest governments, leaving working people around the world to die while waiting for the leftovers.

Worldwide, nearly 200 different vaccines are being developed independently of one another as capitalist companies compete for a marketable vaccine. In a reasonable society, scientists and other workers would share data, expertise, equipment, and distribution systems to make sure all of humanity has easy access to life-saving medical technology. If it is not attacked everywhere, COVID-19 will not be defeated.

Socialism: informaton and products are public resources for public good

In May, President Xi Jinping stated that China will treat a coronavirus vaccine as a “global public good.” China currently has five vaccines in late stage trials and two vaccines that are candidates for inclusion in COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility, an effort led in part by the World Health Organization to make sure that any safe and effective vaccines quickly reach humanity in an equitable way.

In October, China, South Africa, India, and other developing countries called on the World Trade Organization to suspend patents on all COVID-19-related vaccines and treatments. “This is a race against time, and we cannot allow the pursuit of profit to triumph over human need,” said Heidi Chow, of the advocacy group Global Justice Now. The U.S. government and the corporations it represents have opposed these efforts.

Any vaccine is a product of the collective labor of thousands of workers who have contributed to its development, production, and distribution. When a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine is found, it should be made accessible at no cost, first to those who most need it, and then to the general population. We must demand a peoples vaccine, free and safe for all!

In the United States, the COVID-19 infection rate is 5.5 times higher for incarcerated people, and a new report shows that prisoners are organizing in record numbers to fight for survival. In just the first 90 days of the COVID-19 pandemic, 119 instances of resistance were documented by Perilous Chronicle. Nearly a dozen of these uprisings and protests took place in Louisiana, which saw the most of any state.

Since these early efforts, thousands continue rebellions across the country’s jails, prisons, and especially in ICE concentration camps as adults and children bravely demand their rights to health and life. We must join this cause and also demand freedom: for non-violent people held in jails, prisons, and ICE concentration camps, we say #FreeThemAll!

Think back to the beginning of this year. A stay-at-home order has you trapped inside. Now imagine you have no phone, no computer, and no one to talk to. You are by yourself fourteen days in a row. This sort of prolonged isolation is a form of torture. It has been the daily life of thousands of incarcerated people since March.

In Orleans Parish jails, If you test positive for COVID-19, if you were in contact with someone who tested positive, if you are being treated for non-COVID-19 related illness, or medical staff simply deem it appropriate, you are forcibly subjected to fourteen days of solitary confinement. This policy has not stopped infections. As of October 16, 10 inmates in OPP were listed as positive for COVID-19.

The best policy to stop the spread of COVID-19 is also the most humane: free all nonviolent inmates and detainees! This applies to all jails, prisons, and so called “detention centers”. In the meantime, incarcerated people who have been denied visitations deserve a chance to video-conference with their families and communities. End the torture now!

Raises $170 Million to Pay for Golf Trips and Racist, Anti-Worker Organizing Runs Bribery Schemes for Pardons While He Lets 2,200 Die from COVID-19 Every Day

Trump knows he lost the election. But he can’t resist a good scam. So, he sat down with the equally corrupt Giuliani and started scheming. They decided to tell his duped loyal supporters that the election is rigged and call for donations to an election defense fund. The money goes into a personal PAC, “Save America” to use any way he wants. Give it to himself and his little darling children, host parties at Mar a Lago, or maybe buy another gold-plated toilet. This fund will also be used to organize racist, anti-worker attacks on the people by the likes of his “Proud Boys” and others, who are ultra-right-wing stooges for Wall Street.

He’s also running a bidding scheme for payoffs, going now for over one million dollars a pardon for people who are war criminals, banker thieves, scammers of seniors, slum lords, and people who generally would like to see workers’ wages dropped to $1 an hour. Oh, and course, who’d like to legalize child labor and end public schools.

Throughout his term in office, Trump and his rotten children have all profited personally as has his rabid dog, Giuliani. Melania, famed for saying who cares about migrant children in cages, has fared well for the time being. But Trump will probably dump her when she gets a gray hair. Time for a new model.

NO PARDON FOR TRUMP THE MURDERER!

Drug Dealing Billionaires Conspired to Sell More Oxycontin Despite 450,000 Dead from Opioid Overdoses

While thousands go to prisons for long sentences for dealing petty amounts of drugs, the billionaire Sackler family got off with no jail time despite pleading guilty to criminal charges of conspiracy to push Oxycontin—especially to doctors prescribing large amounts. The Sacklers even gave payments to doctors whose “patients” died. The Sacklers are celebrating what is really a win for them, as they siphoned off at least $10 billion from the company which is now in off- shore accounts. So, as they live it up, millions of family members mourn and workers at the company are left wondering whether they have jobs or pensions. This proves once again that prisons are mainly concentration camps for the poor and that the wealth of the rich buys them immunity for the crimes they commit.

By Ashlee Pintos

While politicians and the big business media promise that a coming COVID-19 vaccine will magically fix the economic crisis, over 12 million renters around the country will owe an average of $5,850 in back rent by January 1. In Orleans parish alone, some 30,000 households are vulnerable to evictions, and thousands more are on the brink of foreclosure. Even before COVID, working people have been struggling to make ends meet as rent prices and property taxes have skyrocketed as a result of gentrification. Now, millions of us are unemployed or have had our hours and wages cut and we’ve received little to no help with our mounting debts.

This issue is shaking the core of the entire country, with thousands of households in almost every large city facing possible evictions. the Democratic and Republican parties can agree on a trillion dollar war budget, but they can’t agree on relief for workers in some of our most desperate hours. Our only way out of this crisis is to organize ourselves, independent of the two parties of Wall Street and the Pentagon. this has taken a heavy toll on us workers but we must take heart at our massive numbers: would they dare to evict us if we banded together?

The Louisiana Movement for Workers Councils is an effort to unite all working people, employed and unemployed, to demand that the state and federal government provide us with what we need to survive this crisis, using our tax dollars. Looking back on the history of social security, food stamps, and unemployment insurance, we know that it has always been the struggle of the masses that has forced those in power to concede to our demands.

Time and time again, government officials cry that their hands are tied, that they cannot call a moratorium on evictions or provide extended unemployment insurance. But we are organizing to push back against the State Legislature that has given over $150 million in tax breaks to oil companies amid a pandemic. We’re organizing to demand that the Mayor and local politicians, whose sights are set on making New Orleans “the number one city to do business,” use their emergency powers to halt evictions and foreclosures. It is only our solidarity with one another that can keep us in our homes and win the relief we need.