Social distancing. Lockdown. If you’re like thousands — no, millions — of people around the world, you are most likely at home, avoiding physical contact with the outside world, in the hopes of escaping the coronavirus. EVERYTHING is shut down.
As of March 12, 2020, the worldwide coronavirus death toll currently stands at over 4,961, with 133,759 reported cases yet no vaccine or diagnostic breakthrough in sight.
This pandemic is bringing to light several things at once:
The failure of capitalism
Border imperialism
Racism against Asians is real
Disaster capitalism is about to be rampant
The failure of a profit-driven healthcare system and the calls for Medicare 4 All means we need Bernie Sanders more than ever.
The failure of capitalism.
Capitalism is at its weakest since the 1930s. What we are witnessing right now in America is a collective realization that capitalism was never meant to benefit the 99%.
"The dangers of income inequality, immense hoarding of wealth and denial of basic resources to people are more stark than ever during the spread of this pandemic." (Sarah Kendzior, Gaslit Nation)
When it comes to the markets, the coronavirus might be a blessing in disguise by showing people that money isn’t real. That’s right. A ton of Americans have been brainwashed to think they are rich because they own multiple properties or stock options, or have a 401k or Roth IRA fund, a time share, or a yacht. After seeing the stock market take the biggest dip since 2008 earlier this week, more people should understand. There were several reports in the news about how the coronavirus wiped more than $5 trillion from global stocks. I had to laugh out loud. Where does this money exist? Did someone take a pile of $5 trillion in cash and burn the whole thing? Of course not.
Banking is nothing more than an elaborate magic trick, money is not scarce and all you need is a keyboard to create more of it. You can’t run out of it. MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) is correct. Money and debt are social constructs to oppress people, not a material reality.
The truth is that the $5 trillion in question doesn’t even exist except in the stock market, which is just toy money for rich people and corporations. Americans have long been bamboozled into an illusion of money, value and debt.
So many Americans believe the myth of “the millionaire next door.” Here’s more truth: if it’s not cash, it’s not money. If you can’t spend it, it’s not money. If you can’t write a check for a million dollars, you’re not a millionaire.
To help out Wall Street, today the Federal Reserve said it would inject more than $1.5 trillion into Wall Street corporations today and tomorrow in order “to prevent ominous trading conditions from creating a sharper economic contraction.”
BUT HOW DID THEY PAY FOR IT? Yes, the government has never had any trouble paying for war or Wall Street bailouts. (In case you were wondering, the student loan debt total is $1.5 trillion also.) In fact, not only do they magically make the money appear, they roll it out that same day! Funny, that.
MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) is right. You cannot run out of money and money and debt are nothing more than social constructs.
Thanks to the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011, young people have opened their eyes to the illusion of money and debt. The same way the Obama administration was able to bail out the banks on Wall Street, pay for drone strikes and finance wars in the name of capitalism, the government is just as capable of wiping student loan debt, medical debt, fixing the housing crisis, and providing a universal basic income (a proposal first introduced by Richard Nixon in 1970).
“If the coronavirus didn't teach us as a society that capitalism is killing us, and that we should maybe have necessities like water, housing, electricity, internet, health care, etc as a public domain, free, and accessible to ALL people, I don't know what will.” (Ashley Stevens, organizer for Bernie Sanders)
In a bold move, The New York Times today made all of their coverage of the coronavirus free after complaints that much of their vital information was locked behind a paywall and inaccessible to the people who needed it the most. I’ve talked about the ethics of capitalism and journalism in panels on free press — when The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and more trusted, established publications lock their content behind paywalls — where will the mass majority of Americans get their information? They will get it from free but unreliable online sources like Fox News, Infowars, and MSNBC. I have not been a fan of The New York Times for years but will give them credit where it’s due — this is an admirable move I hope they eventually extend to the rest of its content. The news should be publicly funded — another reason we need socialism in this country.
Border Imperialism isn’t talked about enough.
How did it spread to so many countries so quickly?
A few weeks ago, I started seeing a certain news item trending. It was about how African nations were the last to see any coronavirus cases. This was early on before it was declared a global pandemic. I saw a lot of theories but the one that stuck with me had to do with border imperialism. Border imperialism allows certain ethnicities and nationalities to travel more freely than others. It also has a lot to do with which countries have residents affluent enough to travel abroad and whose passports could easily cross any border. In the early stages of the global pandemic, it was affecting tourists. But while customs and border officials were turning away anyone who looked Asian or was coming from an Asian country, the didn’t bother to take a second look at another group of travelers: wealthy tourists. The kinds of people on luxury cruise-liners and pricey European vacations.
Nigeria’s first case was a person who was traveling from Milan, Italy. South Africa’s first case was a 38 year old man who had recently traveled to Italy with his wife.
“How are we supposed to have responsible discourses about international pandemic without considering the politics and infrastructures that allow only certain people to travel the world more freely and with less institutional restriction than others? Imperialism, racism, border technologies, and class-based access to testing/treatment/quarantine all feel like deliberate and glaring omissions here.” (Zoe Samudzi, writer, medical sociology PhD candidate)
How many people from the global south are able to travel to Europe and the US without first having to apply for a tourist visa? Also, what are the odds of visa rejection depending on nationality? I think about my family in the Philippines often. Even if they did have the means to travel here, they’d have to apply and then wait months for a visa. It’s also expensive to apply for a tourist visa and those costs are on top of the already high-priced airfare. And the possibility of rejection is high because of racism and the attempts to curb immigration from that area of the world.
Racism against Asians is real and there has been a surge in hate-crimes against East Asians especially.
Here’s a few things to consider: if you’re avoiding eating Asian food because of the coronavirus, you might be a racist. If you are avoiding Asian people and get nervous if an Asian person so much a coughs in your vicinity, you might be a racist. If you think Chinese people eat “weird” food while simultaneously thinking that your western diet is perfectly normal, you might be a racist. If you think Asian people eating with their hands is considered bad manners, you might be a racist.
The coronavirus has become a racialized illness and as a result, anti-Asian racism is spreading faster than the virus itself. It didn’t help that during so much of the coverage of the pandemic, every news headline featured a photo of an East Asian person wearing a surgeon mask, even if the story was about Italians testing positive for the virus.
This is an unpopular opinion, but in a way I’m glad that Americans are (once again) showing their true colors. Asians have been resented and rejected by American society but in very passive-aggressive ways and too many Asian Americans have either been gaslit or in denial that it happens. Now that the resentment has become overt as a result to the coronavirus, it will be a long-needed wakeup call for many of us: stop being proud to be an American. You are not American to anyone else. You are seen as a perpetual foreigner. You are not welcome here. You owe America nothing.
Afraid to cough on the subway, denied an Uber ride, and being asked for a mask at a hospital because there’s “just so many Chinese people here.” These are just some of the experiences Chinese-Canadians have faced as Coronavirus spreads across the globe. Nearly 2,800 people worldwide have died of Coronavirus that originated in Hubei, China. But as fears of the virus grow, Chinese and Asian communities around the world are reporting incidents of racism and xenophobia.
Disaster capitalism is about to be rampant.
Who profits from all the fear? Disaster capitalism is a term coined by Naomi Klein — an author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization and of capitalism. It describes how global corporations make money off every crisis: financial, public health and natural/environmental. Corporations will sweep in after a disaster strikes, offer their goods and services, and then soak up all the aid money. Countries are then forced to sell their public assets to cover their debts. This strategy also allows corporations to avoid paying taxes.
Some of the most egregious examples of disaster capitalism are marketing efforts to prey on insecurities or fears that consumers hold. For example, an insurance company may use graphic displays of the aftereffects of a tornado or flood as a means of encouraging potential customers to purchase insurance coverage should the same event happen in their area. In another example, a company selling camping equipment and supplies may go with a marketing campaign that stresses preparation in an event where access to water, electricity, and other utilities would be cut off after a hurricane or even some type of man-made disaster.
Right now, Republicans in Congress are holding up progress on the Coronavirus Bill because it won’t allow pharmaceutical companies to charge outrageous prices for a vaccine. Not only that but they are also refusing to approve paid emergency medical leave extended unemployment insurance, and food assistance. Your elected officials are more worried about how much money pharmaceutical companies can make over the health of the masses.
(Also notable: After Joe Biden’s strong showing over Bernie Sanders in Super Tuesday's Democratic primary elections on March 3rd, stocks were soaring, particularly among insurance and pharmaceutical companies. United Health Group led the Dow Jones. Big Pharma LOVES Joe Biden. That should be an early warning sign and a giant red flag.)
The failure of a profit-driven healthcare system and the call for Medicare 4 All means we need Bernie Sanders more than ever.
The most important take from the coronavirus should be that everyone backs Bernie Sanders. Honestly, he's the only one offering and fighting for basic needs and healthcare for all. We're staring down at a global pandemic with Biden and Trump telling you they won't give the American people healthcare. Joe Biden has specifically said he will veto Medicare 4 All if he becomes the president. Not only will they not provide free testing for the virus, they won’t provide treatment, they won’t offer paid leave for those out of work because of the epidemic (those in the service industry are particularly hard-hit).
If you believe that Medicare 4 All will bankrupt the country or will raise your taxes so high, all your income will be gone, stop drinking the Fox News kool-aid. You’re smarter than that. The vast majority of Americans will only see their taxes increase by about 3-4%. If you make more than $10 million, you’ll get taxed 52%. And if you still think that’s high, I have news for you. That is conservative.
Bernie is right. We need a revolution. And he is not even a radical. He’s actually a sensible policy expert.
“America's crap medical system is a major reason why we are so vulnerable to pandemics in the first place. Without universal coverage, it is very difficult to contain an incipient virus outbreak, because if it infects an uninsured or underinsured person, they may avoid getting tested or quarantined due to costs. One single person can create a ‘super-spreader’ event that seeds an out-of-control epidemic. The US is a hideously expensive, dysfunctional, Kafkaesque bureaucratic tangle of ruthless insurance companies and profiteering medical providers. It would be far easier to coordinate an emergency outbreak response if we did not have to worry about basic payment for and access to medical care that other countries figured out 50-100 years ago.
Bernie Sanders doesn’t fuss about nonexistent deficit concerns in his coronavirus response plan, which would drastically expand testing, directly purchase additional medical equipment, prevent price-gouging from pharmaceutical companies, and more. The rest of his program includes many trillions of dollars in new programs: Medicare-for-all, paid family and sick leave, a Green New Deal to tackle climate change, increased disability and unemployment insurance, and much more. That's the kind of thing needed not just to stop the current pandemic, but also to make America much more resistant to the next one. As we are learning once again, gigantic crises and recessions are hugely wasteful — keeping the status quo would be more expensive in the long run than following the Sanders agenda.” (Ryan Cooper, The Week)
Millennials and Gen Z-ers, you can convince the elders in your life to come around to seeing the overall benefits of democratic socialism. If I managed to convince my 80 year old dad to become a full-on Bernie Bro, you can do it too. Invite them to attend rallies and meetings with you, watch YouTube videos, and read up as much as you can from credentialed sources. I’ve even convinced my three children to be Bernie Bros and have been talking to them about the benefits of democratic socialism.
(My next blog post will be about the history of socialism in the United States and its current rise in popularity among Americans under the age of 45. US socialism is currently stronger now than any time since 1948.)
Senator Bernie Sanders speaks on President Trump's mistakes handling the coronavirus pandemic, what he thinks the current administration should do to combat the illness.
Recent Posts
I usually do a write up of the events I’ve organized or hosted and my most-read articles at the end of the year. This was an unusual year (obviously, there is no need to go into it here) so I didn’t bother. Instead I want to highlight a project of mine that I am particularly proud of — it’s my new podcast show, Unverified Accounts, that I cohost with my frequent collaborators, Chris Jesu Lee and Filip Guo. If you're a big movie/TV/book buff, have leftist sympathies, but can't stand 'wokeness' dumbing down our culture, then we're the podcast for you. So far in our 25 episodes, we’ve covered a range of contentious topics.