Capitalism Has Failed in Fighting Coronavirus

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55041.htm

By Richard D. Wolff
Information Clearing House: April 10, 2020


As economies reel from the meltdown triggered by the novel coronavirus pandemic, governments scramble to build the system back up. But it’s the system that brought about the fall, and if we keep reviving it, will do so again.

The desperate policies of panic-driven governments involve throwing huge amounts of money at collapsed economies in response to the coronavirus threat. Monetary authorities create money and lend it at extremely low interest rates to the major corporations and especially big banks: “to get them through the crisis.” Government treasuries borrow vast sums to spend the collapsed economy back into what they imagine is “the normal, pre-virus economy.” Capitalism’s leaders are rushing into policy failures because of their ideological blinders.

Richard D. Wolff Interview: How the COVID-19 Crisis Is Reshaping Our Eco...

Announcing quarantine extension in Spain with verses from the famous Iranian poet

This is a quotation from the Prime Minister of Spain who considers himself to be a socialist. He recited the following poem by Saadi:

Andrew Bacevich's 'Age Of Illusions' Argues The Cold War 'Gave Definition To American Life'

Source: https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/03/31/andrew-bacevich-age-of-illusions

In his latest book, military analyst Andrew Bacevich surveys the period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the election of Donald Trump.

Within the pages of “The Age Of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory,” the professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University writes that the Cold War defined American life and citizens’ sense of purpose.

“Our purpose was to defend freedom and resist communism,” he says. “And therefore, when the Cold War ended, Americans were left kind of wondering, ‘What are we all about now?’ ”

دو نوشته Two Passages

When Corona arrived, it commanded to wash our hands. It proclaimed that the only way to be safe is to wash our hands.

And, there is a hidden message in this command. This message is not only for an individual but for all humanity. Because, humans’ hands are tainted. Humans’ hands are stained with murder. Murdering trees and destroying woods and jungles, killing animals and replacing their homes with concrete, animal genocide, drying up rivers and creeks, wars, and blood shedding and exploitation, filling every corner of the world with trash, spoiling laughter and kindness.

Nature had already warned humans in the past, for overflow of rivers and creeks, tsunami in oceans, earthquakes or in another word earth’s screams, dry outs, and reluctance.

But human being kept attacking the nature by riding on an unbridled speed… and now, people are washing their tarnished hands. The world is becoming calmer now. It is in the news that rivers in Venice are translucent again and one can see playing of fishes and other aquatic beings. Oceans are calm and blue. Stars are visible at night and atmosphere is so clear of pollution that one may be able to touch the sky. Autos are halted and factories don’t snore. The world is even free of congestion of sounds.

People are busy washing their hands while the world is pausing to breath afresh.

But these hands are still dirty. They cannot be clean while we are regretting and missing the past. We miss those bygone days. Such days that riding on speed, we kept polluting the atmosphere resulting such unfortunate condition.

Our hands are still dirty. We need to wash them more. Because we can still fight over a piece of bread or a package of crackers. We still want to own all the masks and gloves, pass others by and get more than our share.

Our hands are still dirty, still dirty, and we should wash them more.

When we hear the warning of the nature, and our hearts beat, not for the dilapidated past, but for the future, then Corona will leave us.

پیش گویی یا یاوه گویی

از زمانی که «پروژه قرن جدید امریکا» درسال ۱۹۹۷ به منصهُ ظهور رسید٬ که خود به دنبال طرح های موفقیت امیز ریگان در ایران و ال سالوادور بود٬ جهان چرخش عظیمی به سمت راست کرد.  سقوط شوروی جایگاه ابر قدرتیِ امریکا را تضمین کرد و سیاستهای جهانی توسط متمولین انگشت شمار امریکایی هر ساله در داووس پیاده شد. رئیس جمهور های امریکا که همواره از زمان کارتر به اسلامی کردن خاورمیانه و چنگ انداختن به ثروت هنگفت زیرزمینی چشم دوخته بودند٬ در این زمینه نیز پیروز شدند و زمانیکه بوش و یا اوباما با تبختر می‌بالیدند که “امریکا استثنایی و غیر قابل اجتناب است”٬ در عمل این پیش‌فرض به نیکی مشاهده شد. با توجه به سابقه دولت امریکا در تهیه و استفاده از بمب های شیمیایی که همچنان ادامه دارد )به عنوان نمونه در جنگ ایران و عراق(٬ تئوری توطئه ای که اخیراً مطرح میشود که ویروس کووید - ۱۹ با مهندسی دولت امریکا بوجود امده٬ و ارتشی هایی که ده روز پیش از شیوع کرونا به ووهان رفتند عامل پخش ان بودند٬ قابل تعمق میباشد.  ولی انچه که به این تئوری توطئه رنگ بیشتری میدهد دو کتاب میباشند که سالها پیش توسط دو نویسنده امریکایی نوشته شده بودند.

Lies My Teacher Told Me- Part Two- Ending

“When history textbooks leave out the Arawaks, they offend Native Americans. When they omit the possibility of African and Phoenician precursors to Columbus, they offend African Americans. When they glamorize explorers such as de Soto just because they were white, our histories offend all people of color. When they leave out Las Casas, they omit an interesting idealist with whom we all might identify. When they glorify Columbus, our textbooks prod us toward identifying with the oppressor. When textbook authors omit the causes and process of European world domination, they offer us a history whose purpose must be to keep us unaware of the important questions. Perhaps worst of all, when textbooks paint simplistic portraits of a pious heroic Columbus, they provide feel-good history that bores everyone”, (P.69). In fact, it seems like all these fabrications, omissions, and misstatements are not caused by negligence or even racism, but a cleverly thought process to maintain the same posture towards the world and continue pillage of resources, while slaving darker colored skins in the East, Africa, and South America. Such policy started in Europe, headed by England. Since the second world war, it has continued to this day with the leadership of the United States, once a subjugated nation itself. Before Westerners discovered Eastern and African nations, those countries had had commercial relationships with each other for centuries. Their relationship was equal, not based on domination that has been practiced by the West.

Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: Anti-Capitalist Politics in the Time of Covi...

قوت‌های جامعه ایرانی در برابر کرونا

محمد فاضلی

اسفند ۲۶, ۱۳۹۸

https://www.nedayeazadi.net/1398/12/31038

جامعه ایرانی مثل همه جوامع، ترکیبی از قوت‌ها و ضعف‌هاست. من در این یادداشت می‌خواهم شماری از قوت‌هایش را که در برابر کرونا آشکار شده است پررنگ کنم.

A Complete List of Trump’s Attempts to Play Down Coronavirus

By: David Leonhardt
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/opinion/trump-coronavirus.html
March 15, 2020

President Trump made his first public comments about the coronavirus on Jan. 22, in a television interview from Davos with CNBC’s Joe Kernen. The first American case had been announced the day before, and Kernen asked Trump, “Are there worries about a pandemic at this point?” The president responded: “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.” By this point, the seriousness of the virus was becoming clearer. It had spread from China to four other countries. China was starting to take drastic measures and was on the verge of closing off the city of Wuhan.

In the weeks that followed, Trump faced a series of choices. He could have taken aggressive measures to slow the spread of the virus. He could have insisted that the United States ramp up efforts to produce test kits. He could have emphasized the risks that the virus presented and urged Americans to take precautions if they had reason to believe they were sick. He could have used the powers of the presidency to reduce the number of people who would ultimately get sick.

He did none of those things.

Class: The Little Word the Elites Want You to Forget

By: Chris Hedges
https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/class-the-little-word-the-elites-want-you-to-forget/

Aristotle, Niccolò Machiavelli, Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam Smith and Karl Marx grounded their philosophies in the understanding that there is a natural antagonism between the rich and the rest of us. The interests of the rich are not our interests. The truths of the rich are not our truths. The lives of the rich are not our lives. Great wealth not only breeds contempt for those who do not have it but it empowers oligarchs to pay armies of lawyers, publicists, politicians, judges, academics and journalists to censure and control public debate and stifle dissent. Neoliberalism, deindustrialization, the destruction of labor unions, slashing and even eliminating the taxes of the rich and corporations, free trade, globalization, the surveillance state, endless war and austerity—the ideologies or tools used by the oligarchs to further their own interests — are presented to the public as natural law, the mechanisms for social and economic progress, even as the oligarchs dynamite the foundations of a liberal democracy and exacerbate a climate crisis that threatens to extinguish human life.

The oligarchs are happy to talk about race. They are happy to talk about sexual identity and gender. They are happy to talk about patriotism. They are happy to talk about religion. They are happy to talk about immigration. They are happy to talk about abortion. They are happy to talk about gun control. They are happy to talk about cultural degeneracy or cultural freedom. They are not happy to talk about class. Race, gender, religion, abortion, immigration, gun control, culture and patriotism are issues used to divide the public, to turn neighbor against neighbor, to fuel virulent hatreds and antagonisms. The culture wars give the oligarchs, both Democrats and Republicans, the cover to continue the pillage. There are few substantial differences between the two ruling political parties in the United States. This is why oligarchs like Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg can switch effortlessly from one party to the other. Once oligarchs seize power, Aristotle wrote, a society must either accept tyranny or choose revolution.

Four Numbers That Scream 'Vote for Bernie!'

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/03/03/four-numbers-scream-vote-bernie

The richest 10% are very interested in keeping things just the way they are.

By: Paul Buchheit

By the numbers, Bernie Sanders is the 'centrist' candidate. The families all the way up to the very center of America have actually lost wealth since the recession. The families from the center to the 90th percentile have seen their share of national wealth drop dramatically. This 90% of America needs a President who will focus on a living wage and affordable health care and the reduction of inequality. That's Bernie.