Dear friends and comrades,
The continuing progression of the coronavirus pandemic higlights the critical importance of taking a scientific view both of the virus and more fundamentally of the structure and dynamics of the capitalist-imperialist society that is bringing about so much unnecessary death and suffering all over the world. There is the imperialist politicians’ disgusting, chauvinistic disregard for the plight of the oppressed in all this – the millions of prisoners and immigrants in the US, the prospects of the horror the pandemic is certain to inflict on the hundreds of millions forced to live in the crowded slums of the Third World. We see the imperialists fighting like rats over vital life-saving medical supplies, for “my people”… turning their back callously on the crying need for global cooperation in the face of a global pandemic.
Structuring all this is a world of savage inequalities, driven by the workings of a global system of exploitation and oppression. All this highlights the need for a vision – a radical, emancipatory vision grounded in a scientific analysis of what is necessary, possible and viable – a real alternative to this world of horrors. And such a vision exists. Here is a short presentation of how the revolution would deal with pandemics like this in Communique 4 from the national Revolution Nothing Less team in the US.
Let me know what you think about this and other articles I’m sending you, what ideas do they provoke? How are you seeing the system at work where you are? And not least, what are your ideas abgout what is needed in the face of all this? It’s critical that in the face of our unprecedented social isolation, people like you who want a radically different and better world overcome distances and divisions to exchange thoughts and insights so as to sharpen a common understanding and figure out together how to help others to join in this process.
So stay well, stay in touch, and stay in the forefront of the fight for a radically different and much better world!
Lili Adams
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Communiqué #4 from the Revcoms:
We Need a Whole Different World
How the Revolution Would Deal with Epidemics
March 30, 2020 | revcom.us
Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/641/how-the-revolution-would-deal-with-epidemics-en.html
Right now, horrifying scenes are happening all over.
In New York, sick people stack up in emergency rooms. Many die because there are no ventilators to help them breathe when their lungs can’t function. Doctors, nurses, and hospital workers get sick and even die because they don’t have the basic protective gear that they need. In the slave-ship prisons and immigrant detention centers, where people are packed like sardines, the virus looms like a hurricane. Millions in America have lost their jobs and children go hungry.
Billions more, around the world, face a choice of starvation or repression, with very little protection against the disease or access to health care if they get it.
The rulers of the world, and of America, fight between themselves, with no real answers – while the masses suffer horribly.
But it does not have to be this way! We are organizing now for an actual revolution – an overthrow of this system, not a facelift. We are fighting for a whole new state power – the New Socialist Republic in North America. And here is what THAT socialist society would do:
One. The revolutionary power would prepare for disasters like this, not leave society defenseless.
The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian, states the following:
Research and other work will be done to anticipate, as much as possible, and to prevent to the greatest degree possible, outbreaks of disease and epidemics, and to detect and treat such outbreaks and epidemics as quickly and effectively as possible where and when they cannot be prevented.
Just compare that to what the current system did. The government knew for years that a virus like this could easily hit. They even did studies that told them what they would need: extra hospital beds for emergencies. Research to prepare new vaccines. Protective equipment like masks and emergency machines like ventilators. Planning ahead how to tide people over in emergency without millions going hungry or worse. But very little of that was done.
Why? Because the system we live under – capitalism-imperialism – is NOT set up to meet people’s needs. It is a system of cutthroat competition between those who own the means of creating wealth, a system in which nothing happens unless someone can profit off it. Planning for emergencies, stockpiling critical supplies, and producing vaccines that may be needed in the future are just not “profitable” in the short term. And instead of Trump and the Democratic governors competing for resources like we see today, the socialist state would coordinate resources and response nationally—with an economy oriented towards people’s needs, NOT profit.
Two. The new socialist state would draw on the knowledge of scientists and ordinary people all over the world to defeat the epidemic. To again quote the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America:
In keeping with a scientific approach, as well as an internationalist orientation, research and development, and practical developments, in the field of medicine shall be shared, as fully as possible, with people in this (and related) fields in other parts of the world, and cooperation shall be promoted and effected in detecting, combating and preventing outbreaks of disease and epidemics…
But look at what this system we are under now is doing: companies hoarding knowledge to use for profit, imperialist powers fighting to get a new vaccine first and use it against its rivals… and meanwhile people will die for lack of a vaccine.
Three: The masses of people will not only be truthfully informed of the whole situation, their intelligence, creativity and spirit of self-sacrifice will be brought to bear. Again, from the future Constitution:
In the treatment of disease, and in other aspects of medicine, the sensibilities, as well as the experience and knowledge, of patients, and of the people broadly, shall be taken into account and drawn on fully as a basic requirement and a basic resource in the practice of medicine and the development and application of medical science.
Compare that to the system we live under now, where most people are kept ignorant of science and kept passive during a crisis like now.
Last, but hardly least – because social production would be geared to meet people’s needs, and not for the profit of this or that capitalist, necessities could be stockpiled in advance and shared in an equitable way when a disaster like this DID strike. Compare that to this system, when millions don’t have the money for rent, or even groceries, and will either go homeless or hungry.
The world envisioned in this Constitution is possible. But to bring that world into being we need an actual revolution. There is the leadership for that revolution, in Bob Avakian, BA. And there is a strategy he has developed which, through hard struggle, can get us there.
The fact that we have such a leader and the vision and strategy is a huge plus. What is needed, right now more than ever, is YOU!
Learn about, and be part of, this movement. Get into BA. Go to our website at revcom.us and find out more. Tune into our YouTube program The RNL Show. And follow us on social media.
Read Communique #3:
The Coronavirus and the Attacks on Immigrants: We Need a Revolution!
Read Communique #2:
The Coronavirus… and the Savage Inequalities of America
Read Communique #1:
Real Truth on the Coronavirus: What It Is and How to Confront It
The RNL Show—Revolution, Nothing Less!
The RNL Show is a new weekly YouTube show rooted in the new communism forged by the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian that launched on Thursday, March 26. It is hosted by Andy Zee along with other members of the Revolution Tour. The world is a nightmare for the masses of people worldwide, but it doesn’t have to be. Revolution and a whole better world IS possible.
Watch, share, subscribe & donate at patreon.com/therevcoms
Episode 2 of The RNL Show—Revolution, Nothing Less! is now available on YouTube. Featuring: What Is an Actual Revolution; Covid19 and Immigrants; Bob Avakian on “Why Do People Come Here from All Over the World?”; Special post-script from host Andy Zee.