Month: April 2020

The Dangers of Relying on Philanthropists During Pandemics

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The Dangers of Relying on Philanthropists During Pandemics

In April 2018, Gates met with President Donald Trump to urge him to follow past presidents and bolster the U.S. pandemic response infrastructure. In response to Ebola outbreaks in 2014, President Barack Obama launched the Global Health Security Agenda, directing over $1 billion to global disease prevention and response. President George W. Bush before him echoed Gates’ talking points—the importance of detecting outbreaks, stockpiling vaccines, and emergency planning—in announcing $7.1 billion plans on pandemic influenza preparations. Exactly the threat we face today in Covid-19.

Instead of bolstering or even maintaining these initiatives, Trump disbanded the National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense. Even before meeting with Gates, Trump declined to renew $600 million of funding to the Center for Disease Control to prevent global pandemics, which had been approved under Obama. The Trump administration also pushed out homeland security advisor Tom Bossert, who reportedly called for “comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics.”
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Social Democracy: What it is & how Communists relate to it

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Source: Social Democracy: What it is & how Communists relate to it

“When Lenin came back from exile to Russia that was in its revolutionary crisis, he urged the Bolsheviks to stop calling themselves Socialists and Social Democrats because he didn’t want them to be confused with the sellout parties of the Second International. The parties that had supported World War I and sold out the revolution. So the Bolsheviks started calling themselves Communists to distinguish themselves from the parties of the Second International.” — Caleb Maupin

The decline of neoliberal globalization and the fascistic restructuring of American capitalism

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The decline of neoliberal globalization and the fascistic restructuring of American capitalism

The future these oligarchs and corporate giants want is one where living standards are improved enough for workers and poor people to stop organizing, and where dissension is kept in check by intensive surveillance and a militarized police state. This is the repressive, extremely unequal, and globally isolated version of American capitalism that’s going to follow the country’s era as a hegemonic power.