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“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.” —Sinclair Lewis
You Know You’re Living In a Fascist Dictatorship When…
an annotated poem by C. A. Matthews
You Know You’re Living In a Fascist Dictatorship When…
...You work full-time and yet still you are forced to make a choice between “heating or eating” and/or “eating or medicine” and/or “medicine or rent” and/or “rent or sleeping in your car” and/or “sleeping in your car or being arrested for homelessness” and/or “imprisoned for homelessness or heating and eating”… but no worries! The economy is going gangbusters—billionaires/oligarchs have made a killing in the stock market from rising oil prices.
You Know You’re Living In a Fascist Dictatorship When…
...You’re told you have to choose between two political parties to fill public offices but neither party represents you or even cares what actually happens to you as long as they’re allowed to rake in millions in campaign donations from billionaires and corporate lobbyists.
...Your leaders cry “election fraud!” every time things don’t quite go the way they expected. But never fear! It really won’t make much difference whoever is in power in most Western “democracies.” Genocide and endless war are always well-funded and heavily supported no matter who is in office. Investing in the military-industrial complex is very profitable for politicians and capitalists alike.
You Know You’re Living In a Fascist Dictatorship When…
...Your country takes in fleeing fascist wannabe dictators from other countries and offers them protection from extradition. (Welcome to the US, Mr. Bolsonaro!)
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Welcome to the
world of vaccine apartheid, a new way to keep poorer and developing economies
in debt to Western corporations and economies. It may not be considered racism per
se, but it sure comes darn close to it. "Elitism" or straight up
"disaster capitalism" might be more accurate terms, but does
terminology really matter when so many lives are at risk?
It's no
accident that, as the majority of the poor and working classes have suffered
financially and physically from the pandemic, the billionaires have prospered
more than ever. Can't go shopping in your local stores due to a Covid outbreak
and lockdown? Shop online via Amazon! Jeff Bezos, the first or second richest
individual on the planet, really appreciates your business. Don't forget you'll
need the latest in computer software and systems to do your online purchasing
and to please your boss (who's making you work twice as hard for half the pay
from the comfort of your heavily-mortgaged home) now. "Ka-ching! ka-ching!"
go the cash registers at Microsoft.
While you grow
poorer, they grow richer. And richer… And richer yet.
The coronavirus
pandemic is a windfall for capitalists like Gates and Bezos. Could this simple
fact alone explain "vaccine apartheid?" The more people become sick and the
longer the Covid-19 pandemic lasts, the more profits they realize? Why would
any self-respecting billionaire not want such a scenario to continue until they've
milked the last drop of revenue possible out of it?
The more one thinks about it, Bill Gates--who has worked hard to establish his philanthropist status--might actually want to make it difficult to impossible for certain
countries (or areas of the US) to obtain and purchase vaccines in order to make them dependent on
his benevolence. Perhaps he's buying up all the patents for Covid-19 vaccines even now
as you read this post. He stands to make a good profit or great publicity for his "causes" if he does. Either way,
Gates and his kind are exercising the ultimate control over life and death for
billions.
Control.Maybe that's
what billionaires and potential trillionaires want above all else? After all,
they own practically everything else. What's left for über-capitalists to compete over except power and control? Why stop at being "King of the World," as journalist Krystal Ball calls Bill Gates, when you can become "King of the Universe"?
I used to
wonder why billionaires like Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin) and Elon Musk (Space X)
are so eager to get into space exploration. I don't think it's just because they're visionaries who want to see man return to the moon surface or land on Mars in
the next decade. Not anymore. I have become somewhat jaded by their recent antics. I no longer trust their motives for spaceflight as I might have in the past.
Their motivations are cloudy, but one thing does stand out. Consider the
control these capitalists will enjoy on another planet such as Mars when they land
their corporations' spacecrafts on its surface. They won't be landing there for
"all mankind" as the Apollo astronauts claimed when they landed on the moon. Space X isn't going to build a United Nations' utopian space colony dedicated to pure science. No, they'll be landing
there to make a profit for their businesses--their mining, terraforming, or space
tourism businesses.
There won't be
any "police" stationed on Mars to tell them what they can or cannot do
to the planet itself or with the workers they bring from Earth to their new corporate
location. The only policing agencies will be the kind these corporations
provide themselves, private agencies akin to the Pinkertons. And it's not like we haven't
seen any evidence of wrongdoing by police working for private
corporations on Planet Earth already… Remember the cops working for the oil companies at Standing Rock?
Strip mine the
Moon or contaminate the atmosphere of Mars with your heavy industry, Mr. Musk?
Sure, why not? Refuse to provide a life-saving vaccine for an outbreak of
coronavirus to your workers because it'll eat into profits, Mr. Gates? Yeah,
that's allowable. Turn off the oxygen to the dome if you decide you can't have
your workers form a union on Mars and protest for better wages, Mr. Bezos? Go ahead! Who's there to stop you?
Already we've
seen how Covid-19 vaccines are being used as a genocidal weapon against a persecuted minority:
Palestinians haven't been vaccinated against the coronavirus at anywhere near the same rates as Israelis.
Using health care as a weapon or a threat (as in it can be denied to you by
your employer if you don't continue working under unsafe conditions) is nothing
new. Throw in some anti-vaxxer conspiracy talk, plenty of state-sponsored propaganda, an
authoritarian regime such as the current ones in Brazil or India, and a lack of
affordable patent-free Covid-19 vaccines and the death toll will continue to
rise. And rise...
Vaccine
apartheid. I'm afraid this won't be the last time you'll read these two words
together. We have to get out of our comfort zones and make some noise
about how worldwide Covid-19 death and hospitalization statistics
represent actual human beings... Human beings who aren't things to be used and then discarded by capitalists seeking to make
obscene profits. Health care is a human right and that will always mean people over profit. Period.
Links to articles to learn more about Covid-19 vaccine apartheid:
"The
US public poured billions of dollars into developing a COVID-19
vaccine, yet drug companies are reaping the profits and jealously
guarding the intellectual property from poor countries. Let the drug
companies cry: we should release the vaccines immediately."
"At issue, as the Washington Postreported Friday, is a proposal
India and South Africa submitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO)
last October to suspend Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPS) rules on Covid-19 vaccines and treatments to boost manufacturing
capacity. It’s now cosponsored by 60 nations and backed by over 100 countries as well as hundreds of U.S. and international civil society organizations, former world world leaders and Nobel laureates, and some U.S. lawmakers.
In addition to the U.S., other wealthy nations including the U.K. and
Canada are blocking the proposal — which needs consensus to pass."
"Brazil, which is lagging behind in vaccinations, has
suffered over 400,000 coronavirus-related deaths, one of the highest
tolls in the world, and has become an international pariah, as well as a
prime breeding ground for new variants of the disease. The collapse of health care systems and overflowing cemeteries have made global headlines and spread the devastation
across South America. Disentangling the whos, whats, and whys will be
no easy task, especially as the president’s allies will work to stymie
the investigation at every turn.
Of particular interest will be revealing why Brazil
ignored or rejected initial offers to procure millions of doses of
vaccines on at least 11 separate occasions,
as well as how much of Brazil’s failure to combat the disease has been
due to deliberate policy or administrative incompetence and ideological
delusion."
"Bill Gates, the billionaire philanthropist whose foundations help
manage the United States and Europe’s primary Covid-19 outreach efforts
to the developing world, known as Covax, was even more blunt.
“It’s not like there’s some idle vaccine factory, with regulatory
approval, that makes magically safe vaccines,” Gates said last weekend
by way of explaining to Sky News why he thought the recipe for making
coronavirus vaccine should not be shared.
Except it is exactly like that. Factory owners around the globe, from
Bangladesh to Canada, have said they stand ready to retrofit facilities
and move forward with vaccine production if given the chance.
“We have this production capacity and it’s not being used,” said John
Fulton, a spokesperson for Biolyse Pharma, a company based in St.
Catharines, Ontario, that produces injectable cancer treatments. Fulton
noted that Biolyse has spent years buying equipment to produce biologics
and is uniquely prepared to start getting ready to produce vaccines.
The company, which Fulton said is best suited for replicating the
Johnson & Johnson vaccine, could produce as many as 20 million
vaccines per year, he estimated."
“It is possible that some persons seeking Janssen COVVID-19 vaccination
could be more highly predisposed to anxiety-related events after being
vaccinated,” the authors of the study explained. “The stress of an
ongoing pandemic might also increase anxiety surrounding COVID-19
vaccination.”
Breaking
news: The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit just found that the
EPA illegally kept the toxic pesticide chlorpyrifos on the market. The
agency did too little to determine the pesticide is safe for children. Take action now.
The
court left the door open for continued use of chlorpyrifos. But this
pesticide damages children’s developing brains, harms farmworkers and is
toxic to bees and other pollinators. There is no safe use of
chlorpyrifos.
This is your chance to stop this toxic pesticide from harming people
and the planet. Can you help get it out of our food system for good?
Chlorpyrifos
is one of the most dangerous pesticides on the market. But for decades
the EPA has allowed it to continue to be used, despite the harm it
causes to children’s developing brains. People who are regularly
exposed to toxic pesticides -- farmworkers and their families -- have
an increased risk of severe neurological conditions.
The
EPA’s own scientists have twice recommended this chemical be banned.
Several states, including California, New York, Maryland, and Hawaii --
along with the European Union -- have taken steps to eliminate it.
This new court ruling provides an opening to push the EPA ban it once and for all across the U.S.
Use your voice: Tell the EPA that children are more important than pesticide profits.
Bees
and pollinators are responsible for one in three bites of food we eat
-- but they are dying at an alarming rate, in part thanks to
chlorpyrifos. And up to 97% of endangered species are at risk from
chlorpyrifos.
The evidence is clear: Chlorpyrifos only benefits the pesticide companies who make it. The risk of allowing its use are far too great.
Standing with you,
Jason Davidson,
Senior food & agriculture campaigner,
Friends of the Earth
***
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