Author: redfireonline

Defend Civil Rights! Open the State Borders!

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Instances of police patrolling beaches is just one of the indicators of the virtual elimination of elementary rights. Image from http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz

Defend Civil Rights!  Open the State Borders!

30-05-2020: The Corona crisis is not caused by a virus. The deliberate destruction of the economy, the lockdown of healthy people inside their homes, the sacking of millions of workers, the decimation of small and medium sized businesses, the months long delay in vital medical treatment deemed “elective”, the abolition of basic civil and democratic rights – all of this and more was inflicted by politicians. In reality, behind them stands big capital, which stands to make a killing from the swallowing up of small and medium sized capital, enlarging what is already an effective monopoly. Whether they be Labor or Liberal, state Premiers or the Prime Minister, Australian politicians chose to inflict mass human suffering on innocent people. They must be stopped and stopped now.

Lockdowns have not saved a single life

There is not a shred of evidence which can confirm the brutal and inhumane lockdowns, absurd and logic defying “social-distancing” rules, and the sacking of around a million workers has saved even one human life. In fact, it stands to reason that the lockdowns and economic shutdowns themselves are taking lives.[1] Many of those who have lost their jobs are now in dire straits, despite Federal government emergency assistance. If workers are not allowed to work, understandably they cannot earn money to pay the rent, or even feed their families. Condescendingly, whole sections of the workforce have been labelled “non-essential”, and presumably therefore, expendable. This is a malicious lie – every worker is a vital part of the economy who contributes to the production and re-production of social life. Without workers going to work each day, capitalism collapses.

The elite politicians who are ordering fascistic lockdowns are on a power trip, and are seemingly deriving perverse pleasure from seeing just how far they can go. Queensland Labor Premier Anastacia Palaszczuk has taken the cake, vowing to keep the state borders closed until September. In a classic case of passing the buck, Palaszczuk claims that this is not her decision, but is based on the best health advice!![2]  Is that the health advice from arch-bureaucrat “Chief Medical Officer” Jeanette Young, who admitted in an interview that the closing of Queensland schools was not done for any scientific reason, but to “send a message”[3] about how supposedly serious Covid-19 was? These overpaid politicians and health bureaucrats – as opposed to genuine healthcare workers – have bullet-proof job security, and very comfortable retirements laid out for them, regardless of how many men, women and children are thrown into poverty and despair by their actions.

What is more, the closing of the state borders is an open and blatant violation of the Australian Constitution. Section 92 of the Constitution states that “intercourse among the states…shall be absolutely free”.[4] While well paid lawyers and academics claim that there are exceptions that can be made to the strict wording of the constitution for things like the protection of public health, it would stretch extreme limits of credibility to claim that closing state borders does this. For one thing, restricting the circulation of people prevents natural or herd immunity from being reached while it is in place – which reduces the health of everyone, rather than protecting it. For hundreds of thousands of years, natural or herd immunity is the way that humanity have dealt with viruses that are potentially harmful. There is no vaccine for Covid-19, it may be impossible to manufacture, and there is no guarantee that it would be effective anyway. More than this, many workers depend for their livelihood on businesses that need the flow of traffic across state borders. Border shutdowns endanger the physical health of people and imperils them economically.

Basic Civil Rights have been removed

Using the threadbare justification of the presence of one new coronavirus (in a family of 39!), which is allegedly the new Black Plague, elementary human, civil and political rights have been extinguished – without remorse. Although some lockdown measures are beginning to be lifted slowly, Orwellian social-distancing rules are still being enforced by police state measures. Social-distancing weakens immune systems for one thing and is only serving the other agenda behind the pre-manufactured Covid-19 crisis. This agenda is extreme ideological and political control, as well as the near total suppression of political activity of working people. In our view, this sets the stage for the possible launching of imperialist war by the Anglo/EURO/US Empire against Russia, China, Iran and others. A socially distanced, isolated, and house arrested population can scarcely oppose “their own” government waging what could be a civilisation ending conflagration.

Workers in the West assumed that they had achieved the basic rights of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association. Centuries of preceding political struggle had in fact only achieved implied rights. Even in the USA, where there was at one time a revolutionary struggle which produced a Bill of Rights, working people are discovering that state and federal governments are openly violating the black and white terms of the Bill of Rights. In the same way, the Australian state governments defile the very Constitution they claim to uphold. The forcible Covid-19 attack on working people has once and forever demonstrated that freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of association can be abolished any time that big capital senses it has little political opposition.

The prime culprit for the appalling political situation of virtually no left-wing opposition to the government rests with the mind-bogglingly conservative Union officialdom (as opposed to rank and file Union members), which has backed the government to the hilt in its Coronavirus hysteria. Trailing on their coattails have been all manner of “left” organisations, from self-described socialists to anarchists to liberals. This “left” is of course nothing of the sort. What is required is a united front of all forces across society demanding the ending of the lockdowns, the re-opening of the state borders, and the restoration of all civil and political rights. Out of this movement must emerge a Marxist vanguard party, which can help lead the charge for the removal of tyranny via a general uprising.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

http://www.redfireonline.com

E:  workersleague@redfireonline.com

PO  Box  66   NUNDAH   QLD   4012

[1] https://www.globalresearch.ca/corona-tyranny-death-famine/5711942 (23-05-2020)

[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-18/coronavirus-queensland-borders-closed-to-september-palaszczuk/2 (23-05-2020)

[3] https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/jeannette-young-who-is-the-woman-leading-queensland-s-fight-against-covid-19-20200406-p54hmd.html (23-05-2020)

[4] http://www.cefa.org.au/ccf/can-australian-states-lock-out-residents-other-states (23-05-2020)

End Corona Tyranny!

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Police arrest Fanos Panayides, a speaker at the May 10 Melbourne protest against the coronavirus lockdowns. Image from Malay Mail.

End Corona Tyranny!

17-05-2020: Coronavirus tyranny continues to impose its will on workers worldwide. This is despite many now openly questioning the logic and reasoning behind the dumping into unemployment of millions, the draconian lockdowns and absurd “social distancing” rules. Desperately needed protests against lockdowns are still happening in the United States,[1] while the largest demonstrations regularly occur in Germany, attended by thousands in Berlin, Munich and Stuttgart.[2] After months of hesitation, the dire circumstances have eventually led to anti-lockdown protests in Australia.[3] In one of the most gut-wrenching scenes, police in Sydney traumatised a young child by tearing him away from his mother, who was peacefully protesting for basic rights outside the New South Wales parliament.[4] This young child could suffer permanent psychological damage, and the memory of this appalling incident should send a shiver down the spine of anyone who retains a glimmer of humanity.

Dissociative denial

The intense propaganda barrage from Western politicians and its compliant corporate media has arguably reached a stage which leaves many in a dissociative psychological state. Many know and feel instinctively that Covid-19 (renamed from SARS-CoV-2) is not the Black Plague that it is made out to be, and certainly nothing that has the potential to kill millions of innocent people. Yet they are acting as if that is precisely what it is, seemingly just to avoid being ex-communicated from family, friends, workplaces, and society in general. As CJ Hopkins wrote, everyone knew that in 2003 Iraq did not possess “Weapons of Mass Destruction”. There were huge demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq, but after the US invaded, occupied and destroyed the lives of millions, people were seemingly no longer able to point out or argue that what was being done was wrong. The “War on Terror” narrative was in full swing, so everyone had to at least pretend to be against “terrorism”, even though they knew the Iraqis were not terrorists.[5]

Working people are bombarded each day with death figures and are told this is because of the coronavirus. This corporate media spin is a transparent subterfuge. Not a shred of context or a comparison with other causes of death or other explanation is offered. Yet a few keystrokes on a keyboard connected to the internet will reveal a dramatic false alarm. In Australia, approximately 438 people pass away each day from all causes.[6] This means that the 132 days so far this year have resulted in 57 816 deaths. Of these, if the figures can indeed be trusted, only 97 of these are due to Covid-19.[7] That is, 0.17% of the total deaths so far in Australia this year can be attributed to the coronavirus. Obviously, such a miniscule percentage cannot justify a “pandemic”.

Corporate media worldwide blew the coronavirus situation in Italy into something resembling Armageddon. The reality was again more deceptive coverage. It turns out that 99% of Italy’s coronavirus victims had other adverse and underlying health conditions. The average age of Italy’s Covid-19 fatalities (again assuming accurate figures) was 79.5 years. All of Italy’s victims under 40 have had serious co-morbid health conditions.[8] This scenario is replicated worldwide. Unless you are aged in your 70s, 80s or 90s, or you have a significant health condition which debilitates your immune system, Covid-19 is not a dangerous virus. There is a case for attempting to shield the elderly and the immune compromised from exposure to the virus in the first several weeks of its peak – while allowing the rest of the healthy population to continue to circulate. Yet there is no case for the lockdown and isolation of those who are not sick and who do not display any symptoms.

Covid-19 needs to exhaust itself

In fact, the separation and isolation of the otherwise healthy population will do two things which increases the danger. Firstly, it will prevent natural or herd immunity from being reached in ideal timeframe – five to six weeks. The virus will then hang around for longer in the community, endangering, and even contributing to more deaths of, the elderly and the immune compromised. Secondly, preventing the healthy population from being able to contract Covid-19 means that they will not develop the antibodies to fight the virus naturally, and will thus be more vulnerable to the virus as well as other viruses that will inevitably arrive.

This is where the bourgeois ideology of “stop the spread” and “social distancing” is revealed to be the dastardly sting for which it has been deviously designed. There are only two ways to deal with a virus. One is a vaccine, and the other is natural, or herd, immunity. A vaccine for Covid-19 may not be possible, or if it is, it could be two years away. There is also a strong case for not using vaccines at all, given the domination of vaccine production by Big Pharma. Natural or herd immunity, on the other hand, is the way that humanity deals with flu viruses (admittedly Covid-19 is not a flu virus per se) every single year. Some people get a flu shot, but most people deal with it through herd immunity. We know that if you catch the flu, you isolate yourself from others (and especially elderly relatives) for a week or so, until it has passed. This is practiced by everyone without even thinking about it, through collective experience.

Through intense propaganda, people are being conditioned to do anything to help “stop the spread”, that is to attempt to contain it completely. Yet this is the opposite of what will actually “stop the spread”. With a virus, the healthy population (those who are not elderly or have chronic health conditions) needs to contract it and develop the necessary anti-bodies. They then become immune to it, and they can no longer pass it on to anyone else.[9] It seems ironic, but this is what happens every single year, every single flu season. A virus needs to spread first, so that herd immunity can be reached, and then the virus burns itself out and no longer bothers humans. As much as it is the opposite of what the self-serving politicians tell us, if you are generally healthy and aged under 70, being infected with Covid-19 is not only a good thing, it is necessary to protect the immune-compromised, and to strengthen the immune systems of the community in general. It must be remembered that around 80% of those who contract the virus recover (i.e. develop natural immunity) without the need to go to hospital.[10] In other words, in order to reach its own stage of self-exhaustion, the virus must first be allowed to spread amongst those with healthy immune systems. The fact that the politicians have wilfully lied about this process strongly indicates an ulterior motive, and another agenda entirely.

Lockdowns kill

It is self-evident that lockdowns and the deliberate destruction of the economy will kill innocent human beings, in numbers that are difficult to quantify. In the US, one report has already predicted that there will be 75 000 “deaths of despair” related to the government response to Covid-19. Factors contributing to “deaths of despair” include loneliness, months long compulsory isolation and skyrocketing unemployment.[11] The lockdowns, police enforced social distancing, the crashing of the economy – this understandably leads many to excess deaths due to drug and alcohol abuse, as well as suicide. A report prepared for the Australian parliament described some of the devastating effects unemployment has, from entrenched poverty in retirement, negative generational effects on whole families, up to and including significantly higher mortality rates.[12] Today’s unemployment is not due a “virus”, but a premeditated shutdown of whole industries by politicians, with no conclusive scientific or medical evidence that such an act will save even one life.

In the United Kingdom (UK), 5% of the working age population have applied for unemployment benefits, while in the US 10% of the entire population have filed for social security.[13] None of this is due to a relatively weak virus – it is due to brutal lockdowns and an economic freeze ordered by their respective governments. Disallowing people to work obviously puts them and their families in a perilous situation, as many will not be able to afford to pay the rent or put food on the table. All this happens while much needed health care is cancelled or postponed, to make way in hospitals for Covid-19 patients who are all but mythical. In the UK, 40% of the beds in the public health system remain empty[14], in what is allegedly a “health crisis”. These beds could be taken up by those who have chronic health conditions, the treatment of which could prolong or save their lives. Needless to say, depriving people of the need to work, the need for human contact, and the need for healthcare is plainly not about “saving lives”. Lockdown mania is the wanton taking of lives, for political ends.

Working class political leadership is critical

Corona tyranny is evidently not about medicine, science, or the protection of anyone. As we have indicated previously, the real agenda is a preparation for fascism and imperialist war. This is why the Union bureaucracy – the spine of imperialism – has been used to politically suppress workers. The ultra-conservative and overpaid Union officials impose the false virus scaremongering on their own members, and the working class as a whole. Of course, they have done so under the facile rhetoric of “staying safe”. Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) President Michele O’Neil released an eight-point program which is a barely social-democratic wish list, with no intention to organise Union members to achieve it. The real aim of the elite ACTU officials was contained in the comments: “We look forward to working with governments, employers and communities (emphasis added) to develop the programs Australia needs to rebuild and make jobs more secure.”[15]  That is, Union officials (as opposed to rank-and-file members) at all levels will co-operate with the very forces enabling the onerous state repression against workers, under the guise of “rebuilding Australia”. In reality, the Union tops are very well aware that the ruling classes of the Anglo-US Empire are pushing for a catastrophic war against China, Russia, Iran and others, and are stepping up the deceit so that no Union member or worker steps out of line by questioning such insanity. Nor are workers meant to question the effective cancellation of rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly or freedom of association – despite these being crucial even just for the existence of Unions.

What is arguably worse is the fact that many parties of the so-called left have barely quibbled with the treacherous Union officials in the task of spreading obviously fake coronavirus hysteria, while pleading for a shopping list of reformist “demands”. Incredibly, these parties which call themselves socialist line up to oppose workers returning to work, while the conservative Liberal government is urging a restart. They appear to believe the world is an incredibly dangerous place now, while the Liberal government knew all along it was all for show. Toeing the coronavirus line we find: Socialist Alliance[16], Socialist Alternative[17], Solidarity[18], Trotskyist Platform[19], Communist Party of Australia[20], Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)[21], Australian Communist Party[22], and the Socialist Equality Party[23]. All of them, to one degree or another, fan the flames of corona hysteria while making derisory pleas for more funding for healthcare. In practice, all of them have run into the arms of the bourgeois class while acting as their lieutenants enforcing a police state.

Before the working class can take one step forward against the ideological onslaught, it must help organise and lead resistance to the monstrous lockdowns and inane social distancing. The left must combat the epic betrayal of the Union officials and the so-called left parties who currently seem unable to question corporate politicians and its servile media. Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of association are not abstract rights. Capital has used a fake pandemic to remove these rights and will not return them unless workers take them back using their own power. We seek to fill the vacuum of leadership by taking the first steps towards a Marxist vanguard party. Join us!

WORKERS  LEAGUE
www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

PO  Box  66   NUNDAH  QLD  4012

[1] https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article242129761.html (12-05-2020)

[2] https://www.dw.com/en/germany-thousands-of-protesters-slam-isolation-measures/a-53382891 (12-05-2020)

[3] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8299429/Anti-vaxxers-5G-conspiracy-theorists-protest-coronavirus-lockdown-Victoria-Mothers-Day (12-05-2020)

[4] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8303083/Dramatic-moment-mother-protesting-rights-arrested-son-Sydney (12-05-2020)

[5] https://off-guardian.org/2020/05/05/virus-of-mass-destruction/ (12-05-2020)

[6] https://realnewsaustralia.com/2020/04/18/covid-19-that-is-the-question/ (12-05-2020)

[7] https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers (12-05-2020)

[8] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says (12-05-2020)

[9] https://lovebreedsaccountability.com/2020/05/01/your-mask-is-making-you-meaner-dumber-more-afraid-less-safe/ (12-05-2020)

[10] https://www2.hse.ie/conditions/coronavirus/managing-coronavirus-at-home/treat-symptoms-at-home.html (13-05-2020)

[11] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-deaths-suicides-drugs-alcohol-pandemic-75000/ (13-05-2020)

[12] www.aphref.aph.gov.au_house_committee_ewr_owk_report_chapter2.pdf (13-05-2020)

[13] https://off-guardian.org/2020/05/12/opposing-lockdown-is-not-profits-before-people/ (13-05-2020)

[14] https://www.hsj.co.uk/acute-care/nhs-hospitals-have-four-times-more-empty-beds-than-normal/7027392.article (13-05-2020)

[15] https://www.actu.org.au/actu-media/media-releases/2020/australian-unions-call-for-2-million-new-secure-jobs-and-halving-of-job-insecurity-to-rebuild-economy (14-05-2020)

[16] https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/workers-must-fight-back-10-demands-make-sure-no-worker-left-behind (14-05-2020)

[17] https://redflag.org.au/node/7179 (14-05-2020)

[18] https://www.solidarity.net.au/highlights/may-1-convoy-protest-says-no-to-job-cuts-and-attacks-on-wages/ (14-05-2020)

[19] https://www.trotskyistplatform.com/no-job-cuts-no-unpaid-stand-downs/ (14-05-2020)

[20] https://cpa.org.au/guardian/2020/1914/01-profit.html (14-05-2020)

[21] https://www.cpaml.org/post4.php?id=1589275276&catitem1=People%27s%20Issues&catid1=19 (14-05-2020)

[22] https://www.auscp.org.au/militant-monthly/2020/4/23/covid19-and-the-dark-heart-of-capitalism (14-05-2020)

[23] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/12/viru-m12.html (14-05-2020)

Lebanon: Colour Revolution Redux

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Lebanese rioter launches a bottle bomb at a bank in Sidon. Image from Foreign Policy.com

Lebanon: Colour Revolution Redux

08-05-2020: The fake Coronavirus pandemic now comes with its first fake Coronavirus revolution. Lebanon’s colour revolution is driven by the same reactionary forces plundering the planet under the false pretext of saving it from a pathogen. For this, there are some dead giveaways. Firstly, if your “revolution” is backed by the US state department, invariably it is a counter-revolution – or one that will at the very least open up conditions which are the least beneficial for working people. Secondly, if your “revolution” has no demands but “the downfall of the regime”, “they all must go” etc. – with nothing positive suggested to take its place, ten to one it is backed by external forces who would benefit from the removal of an adversary. Thirdly, if your “revolution” is saturated by the waving of the national flag with few if any other symbols beside it, it is likely to be led by little more than petty-bourgeois nationalists playing with politics, and/or being played by, dangerous international actors infinitely more powerful than themselves.

Corporate media led “revolution”

On the 5th of May, the corporatised Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) aired a fatuous documentary on its Foreign Correspondent program, titled Revolution in the time of Corona.[1] Reporter Adam Harvey films what seems like dwindling crowds hurling stones over concrete fences erected to keep them away from the Lebanese parliament. Through the documentary, his key interviewees are a hotel owner and a nightclub owner – small time capitalists, in other words. They admit that the numbers of protesters have receded, they say, because people are tired of fighting. Some of those briefly interviewed say they will “fight to the end”. But for what cause? They were patently bereft of even basic political demands, save the demand that “we have had enough”. There appeared to be no political parties, no leaders, no speakers of note – with this being explained away with “this is not your typical revolution”.

This fraudulent “uprising” has the hallmarks of an attempt at imperialist backed regime change, but one that is aimed at Hezbollah – even though Hezbollah itself does not form the government or the state. As we reported last year, this “movement” is aimed against the Lebanese Shia resistance movement largely due to it’s anti-imperialist and progressive role in defending the Syrian Arab Republic against the proxy war of regime change waged against it by the US government and its allies in Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Australia, amongst others.[2] Hezbollah is the largest political organisation in Lebanon, with more power and influence than the government itself. It has earned its popular status through its armed wing repeatedly defeating the attempts of the Zionist Israeli state to destroy it. While Hezbollah combines nationalism and Shia Islamism, it should clearly be defended by working people of the world via the overall struggle to end the reign of terror US imperialism holds above the Middle East, and indeed over large parts of the globe.

The Corona “revolution” has not a shred of progressive content. Their only aim is the overthrow of the Lebanese government – a sure sign it is a contrived movement with links to the deep state of the US Empire. One need look no further than the Washington Post, with the Orwellian slogan “democracy dies in darkness” on its masthead. A Post article under the name of Kareem Chehayeb bemoans “horrific inequality” and unemployment approaching 50%.[3] There is no doubt there is a severe economic crisis in Lebanon, but how an overthrow of the state with nothing to replace it will help matters is of course unexplained. If the economic problems were the concerns of the protestors, they could do something like take over the banks and set up strike committees to administer them. Instead, we find protestors ransacking bank offices and setting fire to them.[4] This is a sure sign that the aim is simply to provoke chaos and destruction, which will then no doubt be used by “the international community” as a rationale for a “humanitarian intervention” , Pentagon style.

Hezbollah resists imperialist takeover

To the extent that it was able, Hezbollah resisted imperialist takeover of Lebanon’s economy via the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In February Hezbollah, which has a majority in the parliament, blocked a proposal to have the IMF “supervise” the financial crisis,[5] correctly fearing an effective handover. Hezbollah does approve of financial assistance from its Shia ally, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Even though the new Prime Minister Hassan Diab has the backing of Hezbollah, Diab was able to secure an IMF “rescue plan” in late April. The Lebanese state defaulted on its sovereign debt for the first time in March and is now seeking external financial support in excess of 10 billion dollars.[6]

It is not only the US state which is plotting against Hezbollah. On March 30, the German government declared Hezbollah a “Shiite terrorist organisation” and banned its activities on German soil. In response, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheik Hassan Nasrallah denounced the German government for giving in to pressure from the US and Israel. He said that Hezbollah has not been active in Europe for years, and that this was part of the US/Israeli war on resistance movements in the region.[7] This resistance axis includes Shia resistance movements such as Hezbollah, as well the Ansarallah movement in Yemen, and the states of Syria and Iran.

Workers the world over should be aware that the Anglo/US Empire is using the manufactured Coronavirus crisis to ramp up provocations, in their endless quest to light the flames of World War III. Unprincipled “uprisings” such as the current one in Lebanon could be one of many manipulated by imperialism as they strive to bring about the downfall of any force which it does not bow before it.

 

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

PO  Box  66  NUNDAH  QLD  4012

 

[1] https://www.abc.net.au/foreign/revolution-in-the-time-of-corona/12216964 (06-05-2020)

 

[2] https://redfireonline.com/2019/11/10/colour-revolution-stalks-lebanon/ (06-05-2020)

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/30/lebanons-riots-come-no-surprise-even-during-pandemic/ (06-05-2020)

[4] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/04/lebanon-coronavirus-pandemic-fire-lockdown-inflation/ (06-05-2020)

[5] https://www.neweurope.eu/article/hezbollah-rejects-imf-management-of-lebanon-crisis/ (07-05-2020)

[6] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-crisis-idUSKBN22C2FM (07-05-2020)

[7] https://www.dw.com/en/hezbollah-accuses-germany-of-giving-in-to-us-israel-with-ban/a-53329469 (07-05-2020)

Covid-19: The Looming Shadow of War

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Australian warship HMAS Parramatta joins the US in hostile sweeps of the South China Sea. Image from The Maritime Executive

Covid-19: The Looming Shadow of War

02-05-2020: As the coronavirus chicanery of the Western ruling classes begins to unravel, the real agenda behind the “pandemic” emerges from the shadows. Some restrictions enforcing the lockdown mania slowly begin to be lifted in some countries, giving working people across the planet some breathing space. The partial easing of some restrictions is NOT because manic lockdowns are “working” or “stopping the spread”. This is laughable. As Rob Slane demonstrates, there is NO correlation between the demand for soul destroying nation-wide lockdowns and a reduction in total deaths. Assuming all the reported “Covid-19 deaths” are correct (a huge IF), Sweden – with no lockdowns save very large gatherings – is actually doing a better job of reducing deaths than other European countries which have imposed lockdowns.[1] The lockdowns are beginning to be lifted by US and European countries for two main reasons. One is that there have been important protests against lockdowns and economic shutdowns. The other is that their legitimacy is falling apart at the seams and is being openly questioned by swathes of medical professionals and other workers.

The game is being exposed

A hot microphone in the US White House press briefing room caught an exchange between Fox News reporter John Roberts and a technician during set up. He jokes to the technician to take of his face mask, because a recent study in Los Angeles had confirmed a Covid-19 mortality rate of only 0.1% to 0.3%. To his credit, John Roberts asked the health official about this study in the press conference – who promptly dodged the question.[2] This may not have been reported if the people there had known that the microphone was on. Think about the significance of this – White House press reporters are joking about the real mortality rate of Covid-19 being “like the flu”, while millions across the globe have been thrown on the unemployment scrapheap AND placed under effective house arrest, on the spurious grounds that a deadly plague is trawling the globe.

The rubbery figures of Covid-19 “deaths” continue to be hyped by politicians and the compliant corporate media. Yet even their coverage sometimes cannot avoid revealing real howlers. The Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, Dr Ngozi Ezike, was emphatic in a recent interview that even “if you die of a clear alternative cause, it is still listed as a Covid death”.[3] In other words, there has been pressure by health authorities to vastly overinflate Covid-19 “death numbers”. The numbers are phony. While this is going on, critical health care is being halted, resulting in delayed treatment, prolonged suffering and even death from the foregoing of vital cancer screening, tumour biopsies and treatment for stroke and heart attack victims.[4] The reason? The clearing of entire wards of hospitals, and the suspension of “non-essential surgery” to make way for a supposed flood of Covid-19 patients – who never arrive.

Cover for war

It did not take long for one of the diabolical reasons for the over-hyped coronavirus neurosis to emerge. On April 19, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne publicly called for an independent investigation into the spread and origins of the coronavirus[5], with the strong implication that the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was lying. By “independent” she of course meant it should be conducted by anyone but China. The PRC immediately rejected these calls, which were a transparent provocation. This was followed days later by the news that the Australian frigate HMAS Parramatta had joined US warships in yet another incitement, sailing through the South China Sea.[6] If anything reveals the unwritten agenda of the Covid-19 hoodwinking, this is it.

As we have previously reported[7], Red China is also targeted by imperialism which hypocritically claims to defend the “human rights” of the Rohingya people in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. While US allies such as the Saudi Arabian monarchy fund and arm Rohingya separatists with open links to Al Qaeda, the Western “human rights” industry disingenuously accuse the Tatmadaw (the Myanmar military) of a genocidal attack on Rohingya in 2017. What actually happened were vicious attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on 30 police stations in pre-dawn raids, to which the Tatmadaw naturally had to respond. In the firefight, and also in fear of ultra-racist Buddhist “monks” bent on expelling Rohingya from Myanmar, many fled to neighbouring Bangladesh.

The US state has an intrinsic interest in fuelling murderous separatism in the Rakhine state, as it would supply the perfect pretext to send troops in to “protect” the Rohingya. In reality, it would be a beachhead to move US troops (or their proxy forces) close to the South Western border of the PRC. It would also potentially derail the China-Myanmar pipeline, which ends at the port of Kyauk Phyu in the middle of the Rakhine state. As if on cue, United Nations (UN) special rapporteur on human rights (don’t laugh!) claimed that the Tatmadaw is launching military attacks on the Rakhine and Chin states which MAY (they are sometimes careful not to lie too flagrantly) amount to “war crimes and crimes against humanity”.[8] In reality, with regard to the Chin state the Tatmadaw is responding to a long running armed anti-government insurgency by the Chin National Army (CNA) which works alongside US backed fronts such as the Free Burma Rangers.[9] Lest one imagine that the CNA is a “liberation” force backed by its people, even the US based Human Rights Watch has to admit that the CNA “extort money and commit other abuses against Chin civilians”.[10]

Washington (backed by Canberra) also targets the PRC via the Philippines. Recently the overwhelmingly popular President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte terminated the Visiting Forces Agreement with America[11], which gave US troops almost unfettered access to Filipino soil. This is part of a deliberate tilt away from the US and towards the PRC (and also Russia) which riles the Pentagon. It also marks the slow and steady decline of US hegemony in the Asia-Pacific, something Wall Street is desperate to reverse. Again, as if prompted, liberal Western media target President Duterte for….harsh coronavirus lockdowns!!  Knock us down with a feather. In a classic case of projection, Australian state media cites the aforementioned Human Rights Watch to criticise Filipino authorities of “taking a step too far” in policing the rules.[12] Yet it is plain that Australian police arresting people for sitting down in public parks is the same thing, or worse. The article also criticises one Filipino policeman for locking curfew breakers in a dog cage, but then has to admit that the officer will face disciplinary charges for doing so.[13]

US still seeks the destruction of the Middle East

Washington has not given up its attempts at regime change in Syria, despite suffering a heavy defeat via its ISIS proxies in the years from 2011 to 2019.  Russia, Syria, Iran and Hezbollah joined forces to defeat the deranged Al Qaeda mercenaries, which arguably led to the first defeat of the US in war since the liberation of Vietnam in 1975. This setback in turn fuelled desperate US attempts at regime change in Iran, Venezuela, Hong Kong, Sudan, Algeria, Lebanon and the DPRK – all of which went nowhere. This is one reason why the Western ruling classes decided to latch on to the opportunity presented by the discovery of a new (but essentially very weak) virus. They could not start the global war which MAY have saved Western capitalism, being stymied by a combination of the non and anti-imperialist states. Now, not only is patent coronavirus dishonesty being used to justify self-destruction of economies, it is also being used as a wafer-thin pretext for yet more imperialist war. Recently, a joint Russian and Syrian statement claimed the US was influencing the United Nations (UN) to accuse the Syrian Arab Republic of being unable to contain Covid-19,[14] over the issue of sending aid to the Rukban refugee camp. The implication being, of course, that US troops would be needed to “deliver aid” inside Syria, giving another faux justification for their continued (illegal) presence.

Nor has Washington’s 40-year long campaign for regime change in the Islamic Republic of Iran let up, even for a second. Not only had did the US government increase already crushing sanctions against Iran,[15] US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has even attempted to claim that the US still remains a participant state of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal – from which it unilaterally withdrew in May 2018. This would, at least in the head of Mr Pompeo, lead to a “snapback” of the UN enforced sanctions against Iran which were in place prior to the JCPOA. The Iranian ambassador to the UN, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, in response had little option but to label the attempt of the US to claim it was still a signatory to the JCPOA as “similar to a joke”.[16] This comes after the US blatantly assassinated leading Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in January.

NATO to “fight coronavirus” ?

Once again NATO tries in vain to justify its existence, this time by jumping on the coronavirus bandwagon. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg absurdly claimed that Russian military exercises in western Russia was a reason for NATO to be on its guard during the coronavirus crisis.[17] That is, NATO threatens the world with a nuclear war because Russia is conducting military exercises  – on its own soil. There is little else that exposes NATO as an anti-Russian Cold War relic. Meanwhile, hack anti-Russian journalists blame the Russian government for what appears in the Russian media, and conflates it with the position of the Russian government.[18] Yet what they are “accused” of in this case has some substance. Some in the Russian media speculate that the coronavirus was a US attempt to kneecap the Chinese economy, which certainly cannot be discounted. And in fact, the Chinese Ambassador to Russia made the announcement that the genome sequence of the coronavirus indicates that it was introduced to the Wuhan seafood market by an infected person – it was not the origin. Zhang Hanhui stated, after extensive research by five reputable Chinese scientific organisations, that the “grandpa” and “grandma” H13 and H38 haplotypes were never found in Wuhan, whereas the “father” H3 was found there, but not in the seafood market. Therefore, the H1 haplotype (Covid-19) had to have been introduced from elsewhere. The gene sequence cannot lie, stated Mr Zhang.[19]

Regardless of its origin, what is not in doubt is that the coronavirus could well be used by Washington and their allies in Canberra, Wellington, London, Paris and Berlin to launch a catastrophic global war against China, Russia, Iran, Syria, the DPRK, Venezuela and more. There was nothing spontaneous about the controlled demolition of parts of the national economies of the West – this was part of an ideological and political preparation in case the Western ruling classes found a (false) justification for launching civilisation threatening bloodshed. Hence the absurd dictums of “staying at home” and “social distancing”. Along with the openly illegal “temporary” elimination of civil and democratic rights, the imperialists were doing little else than testing the limits to which they could prevent political organising and social resistance by working people.

Of course, the imperialists did not do this themselves, but through their agents – which is how they constantly rule in the West. The number one agency they rely on for the political suppression of workers are the ultra-conservative Trade Union officials (not members) – who played their part in the Covid-19 buffoonery. Some of these careerist bureaucrats called on their own members to applaud the work of the frontline health workers – many of whom were themselves confronted with empty hospitals. The “crisis” was not Covid-19 – it was the clearing and vacating of hospital wards for coronavirus patients who never turned up. When it became obvious that the justification for lockdowns and a catastrophic shutdown of the economy was on shaky grounds, and was being questioned by many workers, the overpaid Union officials doubled down and sent out “reminders” to members about just how dangerous Covid-19 supposedly was. Like all claims based on fabrications, however, they fell flat.

Also assisting capitalist politicians and the corporate media were the centrist “left” parties, all of whom stridently defended the lockdowns and effective house arrest of entirely healthy people.[20] Many of these groups, who claim to be “revolutionary”, are already on board with the Anglo/US empire’s agenda of war against China, Russia, Iran and so on. However, so powerful is corporate state propaganda, it has even fooled some individuals amongst the usually anti-imperialist left. Needless to say, it defies logic that the same imperialists who annihilated Iraq and Afghanistan, who destroyed Green Libya, who waged atrocious proxy wars of regime change against Syria and Yemen, could then turn on their heels and – overnight –  be overwhelmingly concerned with the public health of “their own” people. Workers must be clear: a Marxist vanguard party can only be forged from the most advanced sections of its class, i.e., those who remain consistent in their rejection of bourgeois ideology. Such a party is needed to lead working people out of the Covid-19 abyss and onward to the disarming of the ruling class which is planning World War III. AUST/US troops: get out of the South China Sea! No to the Coronavirus wars!

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

PO Box 66  NUNDAH QLD 4012

 

[1] http://www.theblogmire.com/the-undeniable-correlation-between-lockdown-and-the-unprecedented-destruction-of-economies-jobs-and-lives/ (29-04-2020)

[2] https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/hoax-fox-news-john-roberts-caught-hot-mic-discussing-covid-19-mortality-rate-technician-like-flu-video/ (29-04-2020)

[3] https://nworeport.me/2020/04/26/if-you-die-of-a-clear-alternative-cause-its-still-listed-as-a-covid-death-dr-ngozi-ezike/ (29-04-2020)

[4] https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/494034-the-data-are-in-stop-the-panic-and-end-the-total-isolation? (29-04-2020)

[5] https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australia-and-china-clash-over-independent-inquiry-into-coronavirus-pandemic (30-04-2020)

[6] https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/04/22/australia-joins-us-ships-in-south-china-sea-amid-rising-tension.html (30-04-2020)

[7] https://redfireonline.com/2018/09/13/myanmar-rohingya-manipulated-for-the-wests-drive-to-war/ (30-04-2020)

[8] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/29/myanmar-military-may-be-repeating-crimes-against-humanity-un-rapporteur-warns (30-04-2020)

[9] https://www.freeburmarangers.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2018-FBR-Annual-Report-Web.pdf (30-04-2020)

[10] https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/01/27/we-are-forgotten-people/chin-people-burma-unsafe-burma-unprotected-india (30-04-2020)

[11] https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/manilas-defence-split-with-washington-will-be-dutertes-lasting-legacy/ (30-04-2020)

[12] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-29/philippines-social-volcano-threatening-to-erupt-amid-covid-19/12193188 (30-04-2020)

[13] https://www.philstar.com/nation/2020/03/21/2002637/barangay-captain-faces-raps-locking-curfew-violators-dog-cage (30-04-2020)

[14] https://nation.com.pk/22-Apr-2020/us-launches-campaign-to-accuse-syria-of-inability-to-curtail-coronavirus-claims-syrian-russian-joint-statement (02-05-2020)

[15] https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/iran/u-s-increases-iran-sanctions-seeks-release-of-americans-amid-coronavirus-outbreak-1.8685134 (02-05-2020)

[16] https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/05/02/624394/Iran-Majid-Takht-Ravanchi–arms-embargo (02-05-2020)

[17] https://www.rferl.org/a/with-eye-on-russia-nato-stresses-readiness-during-coronavirus-crisis/30523705.html (02-05-2020)

[18] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/14/russia-blame-america-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-disinformation/ (02-05-2020)

[19] https://tass.com/world/1146127?utm_source=tass.com_internal&utm_medium=internal&utm_campaign=tass.com_internal&utm_content=33196922&utm_term=309113 (02-05-2020)

[20] https://redfireonline.com/2020/04/25/the-left-and-the-coronavirus/ (02-05-2020)

The Left and the Coronavirus

/ redfireonline / 2 Comments

The Conversation

The Left and the Coronavirus

25-04-2020: The Coronavirus circus will go down as arguably the largest ruse ever perpetrated in history. Is Covid-19 highly infectious? Yes. Is Covid-19 highly dangerous? To a very small minority it might be, depending on a whole heap of variables. Does it justify a controlled implosion of the economy, the sacking of millions of workers, the shredding of constitutions, the elimination (perhaps permanent) of elementary democratic rights, house arrest, a police state and the deliberate creation of poverty and despair? Nothing can justify this. Not only is this a case of the “cure” being worse than the disease, but the “cure” – if allowed to continue – may well cause many, many more premature deaths than ANY virus has done since the time of Cro-Magnon man. As more and more evidence questioning the Covid-19 plot emerges, the working class must burn into their memory the extent to which the authorities, and all of their agents, lied and lied and lied.

Vaccine for Covid-19 may be impossible

Palpable evidence contradicting the politicians’ Covid-19 hysteria is now appearing directly in the mainstream corporate media. In a stunning interview with News.com, Immunologist Professor Ian Frazer outlined why it is extremely difficult to develop a vaccine for Covid-19, even though there are currently 100 attempts being made. Prof. Frazer stated that the coronavirus does not kill cells but makes them sick. Exactly how to eliminate a virus which does not itself eliminate other cells is the tricky part. The coronavirus, which is already very ineffective at making people sick, actually becomes less powerful as it moves from host to host.[1] In effect this means the intense propaganda about “stop the spread” is false even on its own terms. The most effective way to kill the virus, it would seem, is to allow it to spread. Prof. Frazer again reiterated what many other dissident doctors, who have been brave enough to tell the truth, have stated previously.  He said for “99 per cent of people who got coronavirus it was a trivial illness, but that was not the case for those in the vulnerable categories”.[2]

Despite this, almost all points of authority in the capitalist West trumpet long and hard about how the coronavirus is a plague of biblical proportions, which, if left unchecked, will decimate the global population. How true is this? Not at all. The Johns Hopkins (private) University is usually cited as an authoritative source on the coronavirus and its effects. Joshua Michael carried out a daily check of the figures of reported infections and death rates during the first four months of this year. Assuming the figures from Johns Hopkins University are all correct, he found that at least 99% of the population of China, Italy, the USA, Spain, Germany, Iran, France, Switzerland, the UK, South Korea, Sweden and Australia remain uninfected. Furthermore, assuming World Factbook’s figure of 152 000 deaths per day is correct, 98.99% of people who died since the beginning of the ‘outbreak’ did not die from Covid-19.[3] This coronavirus “pandemic” has become a re-run of the swine flu “pandemic” of 2009 – a complete fizzer. Of all of the frauds perpetrated against workers in the West, this one takes the cake.

Lockdowns are self-defeating

It is becoming self-evident, if it wasn’t already,  that the Covid-19 death toll per se is not really a Covid-19 death toll. What the coronavirus does is trigger organ and function failure in those with already existing morbidities. This includes, but is not limited to, advanced age, cancer, heart disease, obesity and so on. Data from New York, the supposed new epicentre of Covid-19, indicates that the mortality rate for those aged over 80 years is 222 times higher than for those under 50 years old.[4] No one is suggesting that there should not be some measures taken to protect, and maybe temporarily isolate, treat and assist the elderly and/or those with serious health conditions from Covid-19. But to lockdown entire societies, subject workers to effective house arrest, send police to raid children’s birthday parties and potentially kick-start the ruin of human civilisation over a relatively weak virus only makes sense once we realise that there is another agenda at play.

The World Health Organisation (WHO), which is constantly accused of high-level corruption, famously estimated the mortality rate of Covid-19 at 3.4%. Every study that has been done since then exposes this figure as pie-in-the-sky. Research from a group of blood donors in Denmark found 22 of the 1487 samples were positive for Covid-19. Extrapolating the estimated 127 000 Danes that have reportedly been infected with the known Covid-19 deaths in Denmark results in a mortality rate of only 0.16%.[5] In the US the MIT Tech Review covered the work of a recent Stanford University study which found that between 50 to 85 times more people are infected with the coronavirus than first thought. This means that the actual mortality rate of Covid-19 is astronomically lower than the WHO’s blustering. It is likely to be under 0.2% – about as “deadly” as the common flu.[6]

Dr John Lee, a recently retired professor of pathology, stated in an interview that the figures for Covid-19 themselves can be very unreliable, especially if they are from different countries and refer to deaths in isolation from other information. He said that as more and more data comes in, it actually strongly indicates that the coronavirus was not anywhere near as dangerous as first imagined. His opinion is that the case fatality rate could end up being as low as 0.1%. What is more, there is no scientific evidence that nation-wide lockdowns are actually doing anything that Western governments claim they are. The data from Sweden and other countries which are not carrying out full-scale lockdowns is roughly the same as those countries that are – such as the UK.[7]

Left parties chime in

The ramping up of racist attacks on Chinese/Asian citizens, the intense political repression, house arrest, the abolition of even a pretence of the right to free speech or freedom of association or freedom of assembly, mass unemployment for workers – all of this is the result of the actions of Western governments using Covid-19 as an excuse for a vicious assault on working people.  This has been inflicted on the masses with blatant fearmongering and junk science. Again, this is not to discount the fact that some rational safety measures MAY be justified. However, one would expect that the first section of society that would stand up and speak out would be the left, you know, those militant revolutionaries who swear adherence to “Marxism”. If you thought this, unfortunately you would be wrong. The majority of Australian left parties have not only NOT defended workers from an indescribable attack on their lives, they have in fact served as ideological gendarmes of the capitalist state. Incredibly, some have even demanded MORE lockdowns and MORE shutdowns than even the corporate elite have managed to inflict so far.

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) have been the most enthusiastic about OPPOSING a return to work[8] – something millions of unemployed and employed workers are desperate to do. The SEP, who trumpet their bland internationalism, funnel their resources into an international campaign…. to shutdown all non-essential services.  It’s as if they were employed by Western governments to act as wingmen to agitate for a position more outrageous than their own. The Socialist Alliance eclipses the SEP in the hysteria stakes, demanding a shutdown of schools in addition to non-essential industries, and a “regime” of tracing and quarantine.[9] As usual, it supplies a laundry list of reformist demands, topped by a radical call……for a parliamentary oversight committee![10]

To their credit, Solidarity do highlight the extreme attacks on workers and Unions that have been unleashed, using the coronavirus as a cover. They point out that the Retail Association has called for a 12-month wage freeze on the minimum wage, which is yet another real pay cut. They mention that the Australian Mines and Metals Association has written to the Federal Government demanding a suspension of all awards and enterprise agreements for six months – removing wages and conditions altogether.[11] At the same time, Solidarity in practice accept the premise for all of these attacks – that the world is facing a dire threat in the form of a coronavirus “pandemic”. Talk about fighting with one hand tied behind your back.

Socialist Alternative are perceptive enough to sense that the police state measures inflicted on working people are “going a bit far”, to say the least. They write that there is no proof that lockdowns and travel bans stop the spread of viruses and diseases, and that there is huge skepticism within the medical community about authoritarian quarantine measures.[12] While they correctly warn against accepting “inhumane authoritarian controls” as a sole means to deal with a crisis, they also fuel the panic-mongering initiated by the very governments they are criticising. For example, they even claim that 2000 people are dying daily from Covid-19.[13] If this was true, we might actually have a pandemic.

Socialist Action recognise that the vast majority (try something like 99.9999999%) will survive the coronavirus, but also claim that it is a catastrophe “ravaging the planet”. One cannot have it both ways. Like others on the left, they end up wistfully imploring the government and businesses to do a better job than they currently are.[14] The Trotskyist Platform correctly highlight the fact that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has reduced the number of community transmission of Covid-19 to almost zero. Undoubtedly, the PRC’s largely collectively owned and planned economy played a key role in this huge achievement. However, they also propel coronavirus paranoia by declaring the current period to be one of a “public health emergency”,[15] despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary.

The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) play into the contrived “pandemic” by condemning “neoliberalism”.[16] In other words, the CPA uses the opportunity to once again plead for minor reforms to the capitalist system. They appear oblivious that the Anglo/US Empire has used the coronavirus as cover for huge attacks on the working class. They see the “pandemic” as something separate from the government, which dovetails with the government’s ideological drive. That is, blame everything on a “virus”, so that anything will be accepted without question – even a police state.

The Australian Communist Party (ACP), an anti-China split from the CPA, do note that the government is using Covid-19 as a cover for mass surveillance, suspension of basic rights, and even proposing bans on protests and boycotts. However, their anti-socialist red baiting of the PRC is never far from the surface,[17] placing them in the company of the government they condemn. The Communist Party of Australia Marxist-Leninist (CPA-ML), through their ICOR international of “Marxist-Leninist” parties, also demand the shutdown of non-essential industries, combined with wage compensation for those who lose their jobs.[18] Like others on the left, they don’t seem to notice the irony of the demand – we want workers sacked with compensation!

End the insanity

“Staying at home saves lives….social-distancing….flatten the curve” – all of this is crystallised bourgeois propaganda. Yet much of the so-called left have imbibed the corporate media Kool-Aid, and thus play a simple role of finger wagging towards the capitalist robber barons they claim to oppose. “You should have done a better job with the (false) pandemic….you should fund health care….you should have made preparations”: and so on ad nauseam. This base liberalism contains not a skerrick of Marxism, which seeks to organise workers to establish their own state, administered by their own government. One can’t be the first in line to buy the “pandemic” fraud, and then claim to oppose the lockdowns, the police state, the house arrest, the abolition of democratic rights, the millions of job losses, the consequent poverty and more. Nor will you be armed to oppose the fascism or imperialist war that may very well follow in its path. For the “pandemic” is the pretext for all of this and more.

This “left” would have us believe, all of a sudden, that all politicians of Western governments, billionaire employers, the billionaire vaccinator-in-chief Bill Gates, the totally compromised WHO, NATO, the police, the capitalist state itself is – just this once – supremely concerned about the health and welfare of working people who at all other times they repress, hold in contempt, ruin, and drive into homelessness. Is this remotely plausible? To ask the question is to answer it. This “left” has swallowed the Covid-19 deception hook, line and sinker.

In August 1914, Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Russia were stunned to discover that almost every single social-democratic party at that time openly sided with the “Fatherland” instead of the workers, and signed on to the catastrophe of the inter-imperialist World War I. From that moment, on the basis of a final split with social-democrats and implacable opposition to the war, Leninism was born. It proceeded to lead the Russian proletariat in establishing the first workers’ state in history, beginning with the October Revolution in 1917. Today, the ostensible left repeat the crimes of the social democrats in August 1914. Not only do they not question the “pandemic”, they openly and willingly aid and assist “their own” capitalists in the process of installing a police state against workers. They even demand lockdowns spread further or remain in place for longer. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

Lenin’s co-leader of the October Revolution, L. Trotsky, once wrote that the essence of Menshevism (the Mensheviks were the mortal “left” opponents of the Bolsheviks) was total submission to the political leadership of the bourgeoisie, combined with open hostility and restraint towards the impulsive revolutionary acts of the working class. For the “Menshevism” of that time, we can today substitute the arrant reformism of the “we are all going to die if we don’t self-isolate” left. One wonders how this “left” would fare today against the the famously acerbic polemics of Lenin and Trotsky towards left pretenders.

What is now required is the organising of defiant demonstrations demanding the lifting of all lockdowns, the abolition of all anti-democratic Covid-19 legislation, the overturning of anti-worker Covid-19 provisions in workplace collective agreements, and the dropping of all charges and waiving of all fines of all those apprehended under draconian social-distancing and stay-at-home orders. There will be a revolt against the lockdowns – they have already started. If the left does not lead them, the right certainly will. To fill the vacuum, there is a dire need for a vanguard party based on genuine Leninism, which can lead the oppressed masses against the Covid-19 swindle and on to the urgent struggle for an internationally planned and collectivised economy – where truth, and not lies, will reign.

 

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

PO  Box  66  NUNDAH  QLD  4012

 

[1] https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/no-vaccine-for-coronavirus-a-possibility/news-story/34e678ae205b50ea983cc64ab2943608 (21-04-2020)

[2] Ibid, 1.

[3] https://www.sott.net/article/432806-Global-Madness-The-Official-Numbers-Prove-COVID-19-is-Benign (21-04-2020)

[4] www.informationclearinghouse.info/55069.htm (21-04-2020)

[5] https://www.rt.com/news/486017-denmark-covid19-mortality-study/ (21-04-2020)

[6] https://www.globalresearch.ca/mit-tech-review-smears-study-proving-covid-19-overhyped/5710088 (21-04-2020)

[7] https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/17/theres-no-direct-evidence-that-the-lockdowns-are-working/ (21-04-2020)

[8] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/18/stri-a18.html (22-04-2020)

[9] https://socialist-alliance.org/news/suppressing-spread-covid-19 (22-04-2020)

[10] https://socialist-alliance.org/news/covid-19-action-plan-confront-crisis (22-04-2020)

[11] https://www.solidarity.net.au/highlights/coronavirus-all-in-it-together/ (22-04-2020)

[12] https://redflag.org.au/node/7017 (22-04-2020)

[13] https://redflag.org.au/node/7140 (22-04-2020)

[14] https://thesocialist.org.au/capitalisms-covid-19-catastrophe/ (22-04-2020)

[15] https://www.trotskyistplatform.com/socialistic-china-is-overcoming-the-corona-virus-threat/ (22-04-2020)

[16] https://cpa.org.au/guardian/2020/1910/01-neoliberalism.html (22-04-2020)

[17] https://www.auscp.org.au/militant-monthly/2020/4/18/covid19-sledgehammer-attack-on-right-to-organise (22-04-2020)

[18] https://www.cpaml.org/post4.php?id=1585962975&catitem1=International&catid1=21 (22-04-2020)

Covid-19: Savage Assault Under the Guise of “Health”

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Covid-19: Savage Assault Under the Guise of “Health”

18-04-2020: Across Australia, the US and Europe, working people are being subjected to the heaviest assault on their working conditions and their standard of living since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The difference is that this time, the assault is being carried out under the false pretext of “healthcare” and “saving lives”. This would be funny if it was not so serious. Some kind of coronavirus exists and is circulating throughout the globe. To some, it could represent some level of danger. Yet this is what occurs every year without fail. There are flu strains and other viruses that come and go every winter. Some of those with advanced age and/or other serious health conditions are very unfortunately tipped over the edge by such things and lose their lives. Yet there is NO imminent threat to the overwhelming majority of people, who otherwise enjoy good health.

Cure is far worse than the disease

There is a crisis, but it is not caused by a coronavirus. It is caused by the ruling elites of the West, who have seized on the opportunity Covid-19 presents, to push down the price of labour power (wages) by imposing extreme ideological and political control. This enables them to carry out a controlled partial implosion of the production for private profit economies, so that the corporate class profits while working people endure psychological terror, grinding poverty and despair. This also allows them to impose a semi-fascist police state, with (so far) little or no opposition. Constitutional, democratic and civil rights are being extinguished without even an attempt to justify such draconian measures. As exiled whistle-blower Edward Snowden warns, the coronavirus will be temporary, but the political loss of rights may well be permanent.[1]

As we reported earlier, the coronavirus may well have been an attempt by Washington to collapse the powerhouse socialist economy of Red China, which backfired spectacularly.[2] The “free enterprise” economies of the West are essentially unable to compete with the gargantuan Chinese economy, whose relentless growth and expansion is underwritten by state owned banks, industry, finance and critical infrastructure. These pillars remain a legacy of the 1949 revolution, which established the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Yet the US also no longer has the level of hegemonic control it once had. Non-socialist but non-imperialist powers such as Russia and Iran cannot be controlled by Washington militarily or economically and are free to choose their own path. Unable to provoke the non-imperialist powers into a global war which may save Western capitalism, the ruling classes of the West have turned against “their own” working class.

Hence the Covid-19 plot – a frame up of epic proportions. Ostensibly due to a mortal threat, we are supposed to step aside and allow Western governments to order the sacking of tens of millions of workers, shutdown substantial portions of the economy, lockdown entirely healthy people under effective house arrest, suspend parliaments and elections, abolish elementary rights and impose a police state with powers of restraint that extend far beyond those that even the most ambitious Nazis of the Third Reich could dream. There is another agenda at play here – but it is not about “health”.

Compare coronavirus to its competitors

How dangerous is SARS-CoV-2 (known as Covid-19) compared to other viruses? To be frank, it’s not even on the same scale. The Ebola virus was first noted in 1976, but there was an outbreak in West Africa in 2014. Some strains of Ebola have a mortality rate of around 50%. That is, the fatality rate of those who contract the virus, is around half. The Sudan strain has a mortality rate of 71% – clearly one of the most deadly viruses on earth.[3] MERS-CoV, or MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), of which there was an outbreak in Saudi Arabia in 2012, has a mortality rate of between 30 and 40%.[4]

Now assess the mortality rate of Covid-19. The World Health Organisation (WHO), which has a string of ongoing corruption allegations standing against it,[5] estimates the mortality rate of Covid-19 at 3.4%. Yet this figure is controversial, and according to some dissident epidemiologists, the actual overall mortality rate of Covid-19 may be as low as 0.95%. Stanford University researcher Dr John Ioannidis says that some aspects of Covid-19 are serious, but the estimates are exaggerated. While around 60 million people on the planet pass away each year from all causes, he is concerned that those with financial or other interests may try to exploit Covid-19, to “take over the entire agenda”, which could put many more lives at risk.[6]

The key to the real Covid-19 mortality rate is age. Dr Ioannidis co-authored a recent academic paper precisely on this topic. The conclusion? “People (less than) 65 years (of age) have very small risks of Covid-19 death even in the hotbeds of the pandemic, and deaths for people (less than) 65 years of age without underlying predisposing conditions are remarkably uncommon. Strategies focusing specifically on protecting high-risk elderly individuals should be considered in managing the pandemic.”[7] In other words, if you are less than 65 years old and are in relatively good health, the risk of perishing is extremely small. If you are more than 65 years old, and/or have other serious health conditions, the risk is such which could justify special measures – such as temporary isolation. But that’s it.

In addition, the vast majority of those who contract Covid-19 make a full recovery. What is more, huge proportions of people who actually are “infected” with Covid-19 experience no symptoms at all.  In China, four-fifths of those who tested positive to Covid-19 experienced no symptoms, i.e., were relatively unaffected by it.[8] Iceland tested 10% of its population for Covid-19 at random, and found that of those who tested positive, 50% of them exhibited no symptoms.[9] That is, they had the virus without even realising it. Generally speaking, Covid-19 can be dangerous to certain demographics, and those with other serious and co-existing health conditions, but generally it is not an earth-shattering health and safety concern to the entire population.

What are the real coronavirus death numbers?

Lurid reports of escalating death counts allegedly from Covid-19 saturate the corporate media, with such intense repetition that it can be difficult to stop and think rationally. Thankfully, there are some who do question the “official” figures, which reveal wild distortions at the first sign of investigation. New York city is supposedly the new epicentre for the Coronavirus outbreak, yet authorities there recently dropped a howler. On the 4th of April, it was reported that New York city officials had increased its death toll by 3700 after officials decided to “include people who had never tested positive for the virus but were presumed to have died from it (!!)”.[10] In practice this means that the number of “Covid-19 deaths” include Covid-19 fatalities – along with many other fatalities!

A Montana based physician recently blew the whistle on the way in which the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in the US was exaggerating the Covid-19 death toll by manipulating death certificates. Without performing a detailed autopsy, doctors do not always know the exact cause of death. Yet the CDC, from their own website and as of the 4th of April, confirm that mortality data includes both confirmed and presumptive cases of Covid-19.[11] The assumption of Covid-19 death can be reported to the public as confirmed Covid-19 death. Then the statistical modelling of numbers of cases supposedly building up is done on what are wildly inaccurate figures.

Why does this happen? Senator Scott Jensen from Minnesota, who is also a doctor, reported that that the US Medicare system encourages doctors to overcount Covid-19 cases. What is more, Medicare in the US determines that a Covid-19 admission to a hospital will receive $13 000 in federal funding, whereas a Covid-19 admission which requires a ventilator will receive $39 000.[12] Further, he said he received a seven page document on how to fill out a death certificate with Covid-19 diagnosis, even when there is no lab test confirming the diagnosis.[13]

Many have made the basic point that there is a selection bias in the total number of coronavirus infections, let alone the death numbers. This is because only those who are sick enough to require hospitalisation will go to hospital. The overwhelming majority of those who contract Covid-19 experience no or mild symptoms, and they go on to a full recovery. In fact, the majority of the population will be infected, will survive, and will be unaware that they ever were a carrier of the virus.[14] But by only counting the number of people who are hospitalised with Covid-19, there is a gross overestimation of the percentage of infected people who die from Covid-19.

Here in Australia, the road toll (the number of fatalities on Australian roads from accidents, car crashes etc) over 2019 was 1182.[15] At the time of writing, the number of Covid-19 deaths so far this year in Australia is 63, out of 6447 cases.[16] And this is assuming these figures are accurate and reliable, for argument’s sake (which is extremely doubtful). So at the very most, Covid-19 deaths so far represent 5.3% of last year’s road toll. This is a pandemic? There is something else going on here.

Hospitals overwhelmed?

The corporate media bombards us with images of hospitals being overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients. But are they real? The CBS network in the US was forced to admit it used video footage from Italy while claiming to be reporting from New York, i.e., it was fake news.[17] In fact, hospitals in the US, UK, Spain and Italy are typically overrun each year with a regular winter blast of flu victims. In Lombardy in Italy, one of the world hotspots for Covid-19, their Intensive Care Units (ICUs) “…run at 85 to 90% capacity in the winter months”.[18] In Germany, some hospitals are in fact lacking patients[19], and others are applying for short-time work for their staff because they have too few patients.[20] What is occurring is that hospitals are clearing spaces, including in ICU units….for Covid-19 patients who never arrive. We are told that “bodies are piling up”, but then we come across some hospitals using their “flat to the boards” staff…. to film choreographed dance videos![21]  If you think something is fishy about all of this, you are not the only one.

Resist before it is too late

In Germany, citizens of Berlin are publicly challenging the lockdowns, which have not been justified on scientific or medical grounds. Incredibly, lawyer Beate Bahner was committed to a psychiatric ward by force for publicly demonstrating that the lockdowns are blatantly unconstitutional and illegal.[22] Workers need to be clear – the cruel and sadistic lockdowns imposed on innocent men, women and children by Western governments on the fabricated grounds of “public health” are driven by politics, not by science and not by medicine. This is the anti-working class politics of fascism and imperialist war, for which the Covid-19 farce appears to be a dry run. Rank and file Union members know full well that if an employer is allowed to fragrantly break the law, they will keep doing it until they are stopped by collective resistance. In the same way, Covid-19 lockdowns must be openly and publicly defied, following the lead of the brave from Berlin.

The fact that the entire Union bureaucracy and almost the entire purported “left” have not only not questioned the lockdowns, but have actually helped enforce them, and/or, demanded even more extreme lockdowns – speaks volumes to their political bankruptcy. What is urgently required is a Marxist vanguard party, forged out of resistance to contrived Covid-19 terror.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

PO  Box   66  NUNDAH   QLD   4012

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pcQFTzck_c (16-04-2020)

[2] https://redfireonline.com/2020/03/22/covid-19-natural-pathogen-or-biological-war/ (16-04-2020)

[3] https://www.livescience.com/56598-deadliest-viruses-on-earth.html (16-04-2020)

[4] Ibid, 3.

[5] https://www.globalresearch.ca/politics-corruption-who/5702045 (16-04-2020)

[6] https://www.straight.com/covid-19-pandemic/stanford-university-researcher-john-ioannidis-relies-on-data-to-puncture-some-of-myths-about (16-04-2020)

[7] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.05.20054361v1.full.pdf (16-04-2020)

[8] https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1375 (16-04-2020)

[9] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8210401/Iceland-finds-half-population-asymptomatic-infected-Covid-19.html (16-04-2020)

[10] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-deaths.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR10ck4Te4nFP-x7xDNxXGcS6-l75qUNUGkiMnDQQfGVET1pwzuRRxyclik (17-04-2020)

[11] https://greatgameindia.com/whistleblower-how-cdc-is-manipulating-covid-19-death-toll/ (17-04-2020)

[12] https://subterrnews.blogspot.com/2020/04/doc-hospitals-getting-paid-more-to.html (17-04-2020)

[13] Ibid, 12.

[14] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/we-could-be-vastly-overestimating-the-death-rate-for-covid-19-heres-why/ (17-04-2020)

[15] https://www.motoring.com.au/australian-road-toll-up-in-2019-122316/ (17-04-2020)

 

[16] https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers (17-04-2020)

[17] https://nypost.com/2020/04/01/cbs-admits-to-using-footage-from-italy-in-report-about-nyc/ (17-04-2020)

[18] https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/02/coronavirus-fact-check-1-flu-doesnt-overwhelm-our-hospitals/ (17-04-2020)

[19] https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/trotz-corona-pandemie-warum-kliniken-jetzt-kurzarbeit-anmelden-a-3dc61bc9-fb12-4298-8022-bb4c2be39d7d (17-04-2020)

[20] https://www.20min.ch/schweiz/news/story/Spitaeler-28949526 (17-04-2020)

[21] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQP5wRAJVnI&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR2hMU_RLvlwakbVi8uqLQdZ_Zz0SMp-N1mphP_haPhiL4VZrfR0n8zTlA0&app=desktop (17-04-2020)

[22] https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/coronavirus-lockdown-german-lawyer-detained-opposition?fbclid=IwAR0o7vw-G6vTFGX-W9GXe13IJuc1MozHySy6zUV6Ynwk1NTwlI7_jnS633o (17-04-2020)

No to House Arrest! Resist Martial Law!

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Image from Yahoo News Australia

No to House Arrest!  Resist Martial Law!

12-04-2020: Australia, the US and Europe stand on the precipice of “medical” martial law. Fascistic lockdowns which effectively amount to house arrest are in place, enforced by a beefed-up police presence, who are monitoring and controlling workers with measures that in any other circumstance would trigger a township rebellion. Western governments have not only shredded basic rights but have in many cases eliminated elementary human decency. Millions have been thrown onto the unemployment scrapheap, and the economy has been deliberately crashed, pushing people to the brink of despair. All this has been imposed on the basis of government and corporate media hysteria fuelled by a big lie – “we all gone die!”

There is little danger from a virus – the real danger is fascism and imperialist war. Fascism and imperialist war were the only way out for the capitalist economies during the 1930s, but workers cannot allow history to repeat itself today. The Anglo/US Empire has been itching for war against Russia and China for the last ten years. Due to extreme patience and skilled political moves, Russia and China (and Iran and the DPRK) have, so far, prevented Washington from plunging the globe into World War III. Unable to procure the war outcome through relentless provocations, imperialism has turned against “their own” workers. After imposing devastating sanctions on umpteen foreign countries, the Western ruling classes are now effectively applying starvation sanctions at home.

Truth is the first casualty

Working people must resist this genocidal course. As in the 1930s, and even more so today, the first prerequisite to a generalised fightback is a complete break with the current phase of bourgeois ideology. Its fundamental tenet is that millions of people will die from an alleged coronavirus unless “we” lockdown the entire society, throw millions out of work, detain workers under house arrest, and install a police state redolent of Nazi Germany. This bare-faced lie must be rejected before there can be moves made to resist the vulgar display of power. For, if one accepts the spurious claim of a “deadly coronavirus pandemic”, one cannot then go on to oppose the measures which the ruling class maintains are a response to it – job cuts, house arrest, martial law and Orwellian “social-distancing”. The lives of millions are NOT at stake, and half of humanity will NOT perish from a coronavirus (Covid-19) which contains some similarities to a seasonal flu.[1]

The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared a “pandemic” on March 11, after previously using the term PHEIC (Public Health Emergency of International Concern). Yet just as the 2009 “Swine flu” WHO declared pandemic was fake, so too is the coronavirus “pandemic”. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom is the first WHO director who is NOT a medical doctor. He is a doctor of philosophy and was previously an Ethiopian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Health.[2] He is a run-of-the-mill politician, in other words. A fake pandemic declared by a fake doctor! There’s one for the books.

Try as they might, Western governments cannot suppress facts about the coronavirus from emerging – facts which totally contradict their narrative. In Australia, PM Scott Morrison (“Scomo”) has every level of government, all health departments, all major parties, all corporate media, conservative Trade Union leaders (not members), most left parties, the intelligentsia etc – all on his side, fanning the flames of relentless panic-mongering. Yet the numbers and statistics to indicate a supposed mortal danger are just not there. This is not to say that some preventative health measures – arguably for temporarily isolating the most vulnerable – may be justified. However, a mass coronavirus die-off is a fantasy.

Pandemic’s rubbery figures

The world is a large place, inhabited by 7.8 billion people, of whom around 90 000 people pass away each day[3], from all causes. Dr John Lee states that over the first three months of this year, we could expect around 14 million people to pass away. Of that, the world’s 18 944 coronavirus deaths represent only 0.14% of that total.[4]  This mortality rate is lower than other infectious diseases, such as the seasonal flu, that we currently live with. In the United Kingdom (UK), on March 19, Covid-19 was downgraded as a danger, and was no longer considered a High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID).[5] Why? Due to a low mortality rate. Ironically, this was four days before the UK entered lockdown. Their lockdown appears to have been implemented for other (suspicious) reasons.

In the US Dr Anthony Fauci is the White House spokesperson on Covid-19. In public press conferences in front of the media, Dr Fauci speaks of a doomsday like coronavirus worst case scenario. Yet this is completely at odds with a report he co-authored on the coronavirus. That report explicitly states that “the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.”[6] Again the fatality rates of Covid-19 are nowhere near “pandemic” levels. In fact, a seasonal flu much more resembles a “pandemic”. So, while his own academic research (which most people will never see) says one thing, he says the opposite in a White House media scrum. Here we have a concrete example of medicos paid by the state skewing their public message to that of those who fund their careers.

In any other situation, the notion that workers could be confined to their homes and not be allowed to venture out unless for a “good reason”, on pain of arrest and prosecution, would be rejected as unimaginable tyranny. Yet this has been implemented in the US, UK and Australia, alongside “social distancing” measures for which little or no scientific or medical justification has been presented. In fact, there are some indications that social distancing may prolong the existence of the coronavirus, whereas if it was left to run its course, nature would allow humans to develop immunity in a matter of weeks. In a stunning interview, an epidemiologist with 35 years’ experience stated that the coronavirus could be exterminated by lifting the lockdowns, and only taking measures to temporarily isolate very vulnerable sections of society such as those with advanced age. Knutt Wittkowski, previously the long-time head of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design at Rockefeller University in New York, also stated that going outdoors is what kills every respiratory disease.[7] “Flattening the Curve”, used nowadays by government and the media to insane groupthink levels, and enforcing social distancing as part of that, can in fact make the disease hang around much longer than it should. Perversely, that seems to be the government’s aim – to keep us in lockdown and apart from each other for between six months to two years.

Social control, not social distancing

The big lie propaganda machine insists that social distancing will “stop the spread”, and that “staying at home saves lives”. How convenient for the authorities that such measures disorient and paralyse the masses, as well as generating spontaneous deference to the government. This is the same Scomo led government which, little more than a couple of months ago, was condemned from all quarters for displaying callous disregard for people and wildlife losing their lives and/or livelihoods in catastrophic global warming fuelled bushfires. Many have switched from believing that the government doesn’t care if we die, to the government is trying to save our lives – overnight. We can’t have it both ways.

A few examples of the absurdities of police enforcement demonstrate that social distancing is about social and political control, rather than about “stopping the spread”. In the US, a paddleboarder was arrested in Malibu for refusing to exit the water. He was paddling alone in the ocean, clearly distancing himself from anyone.[8] In Pennsylvania, a woman was fined for violating stay-at-home orders – when she was actually just driving alone.[9] She had gone for a drive to relieve the boredom of isolation, but had obviously maintained isolation. Closer to home, the Queensland Police Commissioner reaffirmed that over Easter, anyone “blatantly” just going for a drive – which is not “essential travel” – will if found be apprehended and fined.[10] Go for a drive, be punished by the state. There is clearly another agenda here; it cannot be about “health” or “safety”. This is about getting working people accustomed to blind and unthinking submission to authority, even when it is irrational and counterproductive.

Even some who retain some level of backing for certain restrictions have major reservations about the practice of the lockdowns. Professor Peter Collignon, of the Australian National University medical school, is concerned that Australia’s extreme measures against going outside “don’t even make biological sense”. He is another expert who says that people are safer from a virus when they are outside, as opposed to being locked inside.[11] He has called for the implementation of biologically plausible measures which do not cause social, mental or economic harm.[12] A man of science cannot be expected to imagine that the lockdowns are primarily motivated by anti-working class politics, rather than biology. The ruling elite of Australia, the US and Europe have separate aims.

False “Overwhelmed hospitals” news

In the US, the LA Times was exposed as distributing transparent fake news when it claimed that its city hospitals were “overwhelmed” with Covid-19 infected patients. When journalist Del Bigtree visited the hospitals himself just to check on this story, he found that the waiting areas and entrances to the hospitals were empty – hardly a soul in sight.[13] Here in Australia, we are not even allowed to check our hospitals here, because we are basically not allowed outside, on pain of prosecution! In addition, there are no media photos or video of hospitals or local GP wards here being flooded with coronavirus patients – no prizes for guessing why.

It needs emphasising over and over again, passing away WITH the coronavirus is not at all the same as passing away FROM the coronavirus. Time and time again, from various countries around the world, there emerge reports which confirm that medical statistics of Covid-19 “deaths” simply record IF the patient had Covid-19 present in their body at the time of their passing.[14] Whether it is the US, Europe or Australia, these skewed stats do not at all indicate to what extent the coronavirus contributed to their deteriorating condition or their eventual death. These skewed stats do not mention what other serious health conditions the patients had. Suffice to say, if there are ANY other serious health conditions, ANY flu strain or virus could be dangerous – but it is hardly the sole cause.

Drop the charges, waive the fines

Others have noted that martial law is not “law” at all. It is the abolition of any pretext of a legal process and is direct rule by the decree of the head of the armed forces. In a sense we have entered into a period of “medical” martial law, and effective house arrest. It is estimated that one million workers have been sacked, and many businesses have simply been forced to cease trading. The mental health of millions is now being threatened, and poverty is rising. Fascism and imperialist war launched by Washington (backed by Canberra) looms large. If this is not fought, the ruling classes will get away with even more than they have planned with the coronavirus diversion.

Tragically, left-wing leadership of the working class is all but absent. What has taken its place is a Union bureaucracy actively aiding the government itself[15], and so-called left parties who also act as government auxiliaries. Whomever falls for the Covid-19 psy-op is of no use to those who labour. What we demand is the dropping of all charges and the waiving of all fines against all those apprehended under the draconian “social-distancing” and “stay-at-home” orders. Out of resistance to the “health” fiasco must be forged a vanguard party of advanced workers, who will lead a struggle for a planned economy based on public ownership of the means of production.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

PO Box 66  NUNDAH  QLD  4012

[1] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-disease-2019-vs-the-flu (10-04-2020)

[2] https://journal-neo.org/2020/04/02/can-we-trust-the-who/ (10-04-2020)

[3] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ (10-04-2020)

[4] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/The-evidence-on-Covid-19-is-not-as-clear-as-we-think (10-04-2020)

[5] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid (10-04-2020)

[6] https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/04/02/ground-control-planet-lockdown-only-test/ (10-04-2020)

[7] https://www.thecollegefix.com/epidemiologist-coronavirus-could-be-exterminated-if-lockdowns-were-lifted (10-04-2020)

[8] https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/04/03/paddleboarder-arrested-in-malibu-for-refusing-to-exit-water/ (10-04-2020)

[9] https://reason.com/2020/04/07/to-enforce-social-distancing-rules-cops-fined-a-pennsylvania-woman-who-was-driving-alone/ (10-04-2020)

[10] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8190769/Top-cop-says-Australians-shouldnt-driving-amid-coronavirus-lockdown.html (10-04-2020)

[11] https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6707817/expert-pans-panic-decisions-that-dont-make-biological-sense/?fbclid=IwAR0vWHAgHVkTx3w2VKwBshpeX–TlH4L7x1-KdnAg0u4ZHOKrVwoML4hSNE (10-04-2020)

[12] https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/05/we-need-to-live-restricted-lives-for-at-least-six-months-police-enforced-lockdowns-are-unnecessary? (10-04-2020)

[13] https://www.sott.net/article/431750-Empty-Hospitals-Where-Are-All-The-Coronavirus-Patients (11-04-2020)

[14] https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/05/covid19-death-figures-a-substantial-over-estimate/ (11-04-2020)

[15] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOPNv2t0grQ  (11-04-2020)

Lift the Lockdowns! No to a Police State!

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Police patrol Coogee Beach in Sydney. Image from Reddit

Lift the Lockdowns! No to a Police State!

04-04-2020 – The rhetoric is health and safety; the reality is potential fascism and war. Under the pretext of “public health”, Australia’s elites are installing measures which – under any other circumstance – would be denounced as those of a totalitarian dictatorship. This is not to say that the Coronavirus (Covid-19) is not, at some level, a health concern. Yet the measures the Western ruling classes are implementing are likely to create health conditions far more dangerous than the virus itself. It appears the Coronavirus is being used as an excuse to exert extreme ideological and political control of working people, in order to wage economic and perhaps military war against those states who have the temerity to say no to imperialism. A police state, or a state of semi-fascism, would for the capitalist class provide the ideal conditions for the launching of a pre-emptive war against those countries they cannot control.

Lockdown the healthy?

Lockdowns and orders to stay at home are in place across Australia and other nations. Sweden, however, has not gone into lockdown mania. Life largely goes on as normal, with only gatherings of more than 500 people prohibited. Neighbouring Norway has a similar amount of cases (around 3000), and entered lockdowns weeks ago, which meant unemployment quadrupled.[1] Absurdly, the Australian government has banned gatherings of more than 2 (!) people, inside or outside. “Stage 3” lockdowns have been in place, with threats of “Stage 4”.[2]  Fines worth thousands of dollars are to be wielded by the police against those found violating the 2 person gathering limit or the “social distancing” measures.[3] Isolation of those infected with Coronavirus is rational advice, but an attempt to stop any form of social interaction amongst the healthy is deeply suspicious.

Some doctors are publicly questioning the lockdowns, which appear to be driven by a combination of government and corporate media fueled hysteria. Swedish doctor Anders Tegnell stated that older people and people with significant health concerns should be isolated, as well as anyone with slight cold symptoms, but that is all.[4] Indian doctor Anurag Agarwal claimed that physical distancing (rather than social distancing) is necessary, but lockdowns have dire effects not just in health terms.[5] It appears no timeframes are being given for the lockdowns, leaving some to wonder whether they will be semi-permanent. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison says six months will be needed. The political establishment and their staffers have no need to be concerned about changing their lifestyle very much at all within that time period. Workers and the now estimated 1 million unemployed workers in Australia, on the other hand, will have a much more difficult time dealing with the many restrictions.

The real dangers of the Coronavirus have been seriously exaggerated, as if there was an intention to frighten people. Television pictures from Italy appear to be serious, but what are the facts? A scientific paper published on the 17th of March reported that 87% of deaths in Italy have been patients over 70 years of age – the same as what happens every flu season.[6] The chief of Italy’s Superior Institute of Health reported that the majority of deaths from the Coronavirus have been among the very old – the average age being 80.3 years. The majority of deaths had three or more serious simultaneous health issues. Just two people under 40 perished, both were 39. But one had cancer, and the other had diabetes, obesity and other health problems prior to being infected.[7]

Even in the United States of America, where the Coronavirus appears to have spread significantly, the actual chance of losing your life is very low. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the US noted that of those who contract the Coronavirus, the death rate for those over 80 years of age is 10.4%, 5.35% for over 70s, 1.51% for over 60s, and 0.37% in the over 50s. There are lower rates for those younger, dropping to zero for those under 29.[8] Prudent advice would be for those in a vulnerable demographic to exercise more care, and perhaps avoid huge crowds. Usual health measures of eating well and exercising apply as at all times. Yet there is no serious threat to humanity from Covid-19.

Pandemic?

In an interview with Bonnie Faulkner, Professor Michel Chossudovsky relayed the fact that the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern” (PHEIC) on January 30, in relation to the Covid-19 events in Wuhan in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). At the time, there were only 150 confirmed cases of Covid-19 outside of China. The world’s population is 7.8 billion, take away China of 1.4 billion, leaves us with 6.4 billion. So only 150 cases out of 6.4 billion was declared a PHEIC[9], and later a “pandemic”. Under any description, 150 out of 6.4 billion cannot be a “pandemic”. There is another agenda at work here, and it reeks of imperial geopolitics.

As we have previously mentioned, there is a distinct possibility that the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan was actually an act of biological war launched by the Pentagon against the PRC.[10] The PRC government has not stated in official terms that it was, but some experts within China urged the US to release the health status of the US military athletes who visited Wuhan in October last year for the World Military Games[11], to help locate the original source. The Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp of Iran publicly stated that the coronavirus may well be a US biological weapon, first aimed at China, then Iran and other states.[12] The Russian government, like the PRC government, has restrained itself from publicly speculating whether Covid-19 was a US based attempt to attack China and/or Russia. Yet some Russian politicians and some Russian media outlets have published articles which claim exactly that.[13] It is speculation, but it is all in one direction.

Union officials, left parties act as arms of the state

Australia’s top Union officials (not members) have openly sided with the government and the state against “their own” workers. Australian Council of Trade Union (ACTU) secretary Sally McManus reportedly has had daily briefings with PM Scott Morrison. Incredibly, at the joint request of Union officials and employers, the Orwellian named Fair Work Commission ruled that worker’s hours can be reduced, and normal time hours be extended, at any time during the alleged Coronavirus crisis. The unaccountable officials of the Australian Services Union agreed with major employers that hours where penalty rates should not apply extend from 6am to 11pm.[14] The officials of the United Workers Union of hospitality staff agreed with large employers that they should be allowed to reduce full-time hours to as little as 22.8 hours per week.[15] No doubt these officials did not even bother to even consult their members about this before openly offering to abolish working conditions won over decades of struggle.

Workers know, from their own experience, that employers will use ANY excuse to reduce wages or abolish conditions. The alleged Coronavirus “pandemic” produces a golden opportunity for large, medium and small business owners to once again push down the price of labour power – workers’ wages. Yet some Australian left parties cripple the ability of workers to resist this drive by agreeing with the capitalist class that there is a “public health emergency”, and even call for more workers to be stood down – albeit with pay.  The danger is that if workers agree with the employers’ (fake) excuse for a stand down, they are scarcely able to bargain about the terms of the stand down.

Some left parties assist the scaremongering. Solidarity does highlight instances of workers and Unions fighting back, while spreading hysteria that “150 000 could die in a worst-case scenario”.[16] Socialist Alternative has correctly called out Union officials for working with the government to reduce workers conditions. Yet they have also organised the “Workers Organising Resistance in the Pandemic” group – which agitates for workplaces to be shut down![17] The Communist Party of Australia explicitly called for a 2 week shutdown,[18] to which the government immediately agreed – and effectively made it six months. The Socialist Alliance calls for an even “wider shutdown than what is being proposed now”, (!) albeit one without the “draconian police measures currently being deployed”.[19] (!!)

Shredding of elementary rights

Yet here is the rub – once you call for intervention of any sort by the capitalist state, workers cannot control how the ruling class will carry out such action. The government is not “ours”, and therefore its state cannot be used in the interests of working people. It is not only fruitless to call on the capitalist state to act on your behalf – to do so vastly strengthens and emboldens it. It has other aims it needs to implement in its interests. In this case the “draconian police measures” are vastly understated. Never in their wildest dreams did the fascists of Nazi Germany have the power to restrict indoor and outdoor gatherings to two people! Yet this is precisely what the Australian government has done today, along with the potential total closure of public beaches, public parks, gyms, pubs, clubs and so on. At a stroke, a police state has been implemented which severely curtails, if not abolishes, freedom of movement. In addition, under the (false) guise of “public health”, almost all political activity has been eliminated – something which could not be achieved without a global war – or a (fake) “pandemic”.

Some can see the immense danger this proposes. It is the descent into a police state which is far more frightening than any virus. Michael Bradley wrote that the situation is such that citizens now have to prove their innocence before they are arrested. He noted that people walking or being stationery now have to give a “reasonable excuse” to police why they are outside.[20] Former British diplomat Craig Murray noted that dictatorship usually begins with emergency measures to combat a threat. Once these measures are in place, a new threat is found to continue the “emergency” measures.[21]  Lawyers advocate Greg Barns correctly noted that laws created in a crisis (e.g. September 11, 2001, the “anti-terror” laws) are very rarely, if ever, lifted or rolled back.[22] Here lies the outcome of calls by some on the left for shutdowns and lockdowns!

There is another agenda being driven here, but it is not “public health”. Russia, China, Iran, the DPRK, Venezuela, Cuba – all took swift measures to contain the virus, which is a health issue to some extent. But, as far as we know, in these states which are relentlessly targeted by imperialism there were no workers thrown out of a job, no overblown hysteria, and no implementation of a police state. Ironically, all of these states are falsely accused by liberals in the West of “authoritarianism”, and even “tyranny”. Now, the boot is well and truly on the other foot, as the governments of Australia, the US and Europe emerge as even more authoritarian and tyrannical than those they accuse. Workers should be aware that the real agenda could be imperialist war launched by the Pentagon against the non-imperialist states, or any ally of China and Russia. Witness the fact that the US government, at the height of the coronavirus hysteria, has acted to tighten the murderous sanctions on Iran, and has indicted Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro on baseless and evidence free charges of “narco-terrorism”.[23]

What is required is a united front of action of all those forces opposed to lockdowns which have little or no medical basis, those opposed to the imposition of a police state, and those opposed to needless job cuts and the willful crashing of the economy. This may mean a temporary alliance with non-working class forces, but leftists should not at all discard the Marxist program. On the contrary, the forging of a vanguard party remains more critical than ever, as does the struggle for the socialisation of the major means of production, energy, transport and banking. Then, a truly public health care system can be established, free from all interference from agents of the corporate elite.

WORKERS   LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com
E: workersleague@redfireonline.com
PO Box 66  NUNDAH  QLD  4012

[1] https://news.yahoo.com/swedens-resistance-lockdown-raises-questions-155335578.html (01-04-2020)

[2] https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/coronavirus-australia-what-would-stage-four-lockdown-mean/news-story/eeb4e4b4a6c77ba8475aba9c5448e561 (01-04-2020)

[3] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-31/how-australian-states-are-enforcing-coronavirus-measures/12106774 (01-04-2020)

[4] https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/28/10-more-experts-criticising-the-coronavirus-panic/

[5] https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/now-is-not-the-time-for-lockdown-says-doctor-as-india-fights-coronavirus-outbreak/story-G71Cdbo3YJR9dGsikh8nfO.html (01-04-2020)

[6] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763401?guestAccessKey=72f61225-c3fd-4fb1-81fd-09b6a1666aaa&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=031720 (01-04-2020)

[7] https://www.sott.net/article/431559-First-Do-No-Harm-If-Primary-Healthcare-Remains-Shut-Down-Toll-on-Elderly-Will-be-Worse-Than-COVID-19 (01-04-2020)

[8] https://journal-neo.org/2020/03/27/covid-19-hysteria-vs-your-actual-very-low-chance-of-dying/ (01-04-2020)

[9] https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid-19-coronavirus-crisis/5706741 (02-04-2020)

[10] https://redfireonline.com/2020/03/22/covid-19-natural-pathogen-or-biological-war/ (02-04-2020)

[11] https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1183658.shtml (02-04-2020)

[12] https://tass.com/world/1127137 (02-04-2020)

[13] https://zvezdaweekly.ru/news/t/20201291341-AfM0x.html (02-04-2020)

[14] https://coronavirus.fairwork.gov.au/coronavirus-and-australian-workplace-laws/award-flexibility-during-coronavirus/clerks-award-flexibility-during-coronavirus (04-04-2020)

[15] https://coronavirus.fairwork.gov.au/coronavirus-and-australian-workplace-laws/award-flexibility-during-coronavirus/hospitality-award-flexibility-during-coronavirus (04-04-2020)

[16] https://www.solidarity.net.au/highlights/editorial-morrisons-failure-to-stop-the-virus-the-result-of-a-sick-system/ (04-04-2020)

[17] https://www.facebook.com/WorkersOrganisingResistance/ (04-04-2020)

[18] https://www.cpa.org.au/resources/party-statements/index.html (04-04-2020)

[19] https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/covid-19-mass-testing-shut-downs-and-guaranteed-incomes-all (04-04-2020)

[20] https://www.crikey.com.au/2020/04/01/new-world-citizens-rights-coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR2QIMcLE9Fmh7Oi80h9Qn9LWYc3aNXOkNM7c5l0SbC781Ze9EMhK85V_B (04-04-2020)

[21] https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/04/how-it-starts/?fbclid=IwAR3SbN9XZU9hUTG2gXYgaSuyO9X86MUMjtwJrMvxYUsTAHMPSxNPIE7z9CY (04-04-2020)

[22] https://www.smh.com.au/national/laws-created-in-a-crisis-are-very-rarely-rolled-back-20200331-p54foj.html?fbclid=IwAR2G0CszxjScB8q5BXfpyR25pqtuWgWeqSplwosmf7JduNoQ1uWBKtPcc0k (04-04-2020)

[23] https://www.newsweek.com/us-iran-sanctions-venezuela-president-indicted-coronavirus-1494522 (04-04-2020)

No Virus Recession!

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Queues form outside Centrelink Offices in the wake of overnight job losses. Image from abc.net.au

No Virus Recession!

 

26-03-2020 – Amidst the Coronavirus crisis, the civil and democratic rights of working people are fast becoming collateral damage. Australia’s Prime Minister yesterday announced the closure of pubs, clubs, gymnasiums, indoor sporting venues, cinemas and places of worship, and warned that these closures could be in place for six months.[1]  PM Scott Morrison feigned to apologise for the workers who would lose their jobs as a consequence. A recession, or more to the point, a worsening of an already dire economic malaise, is inevitable. Public gatherings of 500 or more, and indoor gatherings of 100 or more have already been banned. Incredibly, the PM put the blame for this situation on “young people” supposedly not abiding by the rules.

Tens of thousands of workers have been thrown out of employment overnight. The Virgin Australia airline stood down 8000 of its staff,[2] following QANTAS which stood down 20 000.[3] It is estimated that one million workers have lost their jobs following the closure of “non-essential” services. Queues have formed automatically at Centrelink, overwhelming their capacity to respond – but this is after years of funding and staffing cuts. Centrelink advised workers not to attempt to visit a Centrelink office, but to go to the MyGov website and lodge an “intent to claim” form online.[4] All this did was to cause the MyGov website to crash – twice.[5]

Corporate media and government fuel hysteria

It is vital that working people resist this enforced recession. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) effectively and swiftly dealt with the Coronavirus outbreak, and as far as we know, no workers were thrown out of work. This included temporary shutdowns of workplaces and temporary directions to stay at home. While the PRC and the SRV are weighed down by bureaucratic political leaderships which do not consistently defend workers’ interests, the contrast between the socialist response and the capitalist response to coronavirus could not be more stark. However deformed socialism may be in the PRC and the SRV, there was co-operation with the government measures there, because workers knew that it was unlikely that they would be the targets, and that they would not be asked to pay the costs. In capitalist Australia, on the other hand, many workers have already lost what is most vital to them – an income to keep food on the table. More than this, fear and uncertainty of the future grips workers in the West, engendering despair.

What is more, this has been done on the basis of wild distortions of scientific facts and realities. Coronavirus hysteria is pounding people non-stop, inducing fear. Yet, the government, the corporate media, bought and paid for medicos, employers, big business and obsequious Union officials are all vastly exaggerating the danger of the coronavirus. They have abominable political reasons for doing so. There is evidence that this may well have been an act of biological war by the Pentagon against China and Iran, and also Italy. The latter may well have been punished for being the first G7 (Group of seven most industrialised countries) to sign on to China’s gargantuan trade and infrastructure development project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI or “New Silk Road”).[6] It may well have backfired spectacularly on Washington, given that the virus appears to be rapidly spreading throughout the USA. Nonetheless, the ruling classes of the capitalist West from Australia to Europe to the US have seized on the opportunity the coronavirus presents to them. Their economy has been staggering along for ten years or so, but now there is a chance to throw millions of workers onto the scrapheap, and thereby push down the price of labour-power, or wages, even further than legal minimums. Moreover, it provides the opportunity to launch catastrophic war against China or whoever – with a crippled and disoriented working-class unwilling or unable to take political action against “their own” imperialism.

Lockdowns may worsen health conditions

Of concern is the fact that it is likely that lockdowns and closures of workplaces and places of recreation and needed social gatherings will lead to more unnecessary fatalities, not less. Not to speak of the mental health problems created by mass unemployment, the severe curtailing of social interaction for almost all purposes exacerbates the extent of the symptoms those with accompanying health conditions suffer. One medical specialist who, to his credit, is not bowing down to his government, has inferred that the social lockdowns are “collective suicide” that will shorten the lives of millions.[7] The cancellations of elective surgery, which has already occurred in Australia, by itself will mean prolonged suffering for those waiting – and even premature death.

The fact is that the numbers of cases of a virus are nowhere near “pandemic” levels. In addition, the vast majority of those infected with coronavirus will suffer mild symptoms and recover after a period of about two weeks. While reasonable and rational precautionary measures to counter this virus are justified, a full-scale economic recession and all of its life-extinguishing consequences needs to be avoided at all costs. What has to be recognised is that all points of authority within capitalist society are universally on board with the elite’s recession and war planning – for they will not suffer from it. Working people must grapple with the fact that fascism is a distinct possibility.

Workers must not despair, and must not fear, however. Throughout history, fascism has only triumphed in the absence of determined working class opposition, i.e. without a strong and organised left-wing. It is critical that a Marxist vanguard party is formed, now more than ever. Such a party can form out of mobilisations behind demands that can address parts of this crisis, and others besides. For a start, we urge workers to fight for:
1.  A six hour day!

2. Public ownership of energy, infrastructure, banks!

3. A Workers’ Government!

 

WORKERS  LEAGUE

http://www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

[1] http://www.mygc.com.au/australia-shut-down-pm-orders-pubs-restaurants-churches-gyms-to-close/ (23-03-2020)

[2] https://www.hepburnadvocate.com.au/story/6695892/virgin-australia-stands-down-8000-staff/ (25-03-2020)

[3] https://www.hcamag.com/au/specialisation/employee-engagement/qantas-stands-down-two-thirds-of-staff/217358 (25-03-2020)

[4] https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6144476072001 (25-03-2020)

[5] https://www.themercury.com.au/news/coronavirus/anxious-tasmanians-continue-to-line-up-at-centrelink-as-mygov-website-crashes-again/news-story/d2a20f022f52cae32052bceaf7962f8c (25-03-2020)

[6] https://redfireonline.com/2020/03/22/covid-19-natural-pathogen-or-biological-war/ (25-03-2020)

[7] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nhbO6vLdYsgJ:https://www.anti-empire.com/fantastic-video-interview-german-infectologist-govt-lockdowns-are-collective-suicide-will-shorten-the-lives-of-millions/%20&cd=1&hl=pt-BR&ct=clnk&gl=br&fbclid=IwAR0cr0zTLxTKRUNvDqPQoCmCcU2qSFkyyof971KVX0CLPiY0j6BiSzmeOGw (25-03-2020)

 

 

Covid-19: Natural Pathogen, or Biological War?

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Covid-19: Natural Pathogen, or Biological War?

22-03-2020 – As the Covid-19 (Corona Virus) crisis spreads further throughout the globe, the spectre of an unprecedented economic depression looms large. As with the Great Depression in the 1930s, the private-profit based economies at that time did not have a hope of a release from its grip. It was “resolved” the only way it could have been – through a World War. This outcome suspends itself over the planet now. Even without the Corona Virus outbreak, the capitalist economies of the United States (US), Europe, Japan and Australia had effectively limped along since the Great Recession of 2008. These desperately waning economic conditions drove the imperialist axis to wage regime change wars or attempted coups against Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or “North Korea”), Iran, Bolivia and Honduras, at the least. These hostile acts were pre-cursors to the real targets of Washington and their acolytes – the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China (PRC).  Workers should be aware that the US Empire’s dangerous hostility to Russia and China will not abate regardless of how the Corona Virus crisis plays out.

Where did Covid-19 come from?

The US Empire (backed by Paris, Berlin, London, Canberra) is desperate to slow or stop the indomitable economic rise of Red China, and the political and diplomatic power that flows therefrom. Washington knows that US corporations – during a virtual recession in the West – cannot compete against the giant socialist state backed industries within the PRC. It also knows that a military attempt at regime change in the PRC is impossible, given the size of China population wise, and the PRC’s possession of advanced nuclear weapons. Thus, the priority flows to political attempts to undermine the authority of the government, along with attempts to break away some of its component parts, such as Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet. Given the fact that these efforts had so far largely failed – even if they had fooled many liberals in the West – it is not unreasonable to suggest that Washington is trying something different with the Corona Virus, regardless of the eminently misanthropic consequences.

Despite attempts to paint Covid-19 as a “Chinese” virus, there is some evidence to suggest that it did not originate in the PRC at all. A report in the English language Global Times newspaper in China, first broke the story that a study by ChinaXiv, an open repository for Chinese scientific researchers, had indicated that the Huanan Seafood market in Wuhan was NOT the original source of the novel coronavirus. The study indicates that “patient zero” introduced the virus to the market last November, with the crowded market then providing grounds for its relatively rapid spread to others.[1]  A report on a Japanese TV station also made the claim that Covid-19 may have originated in the US. Apparently some 14 000 fatalities due to influenza over the previous period may have been due to Covid-19. Moreover, the Military World Games were held in Wuhan last October, with one social media user speculating that the virus had been brought with the US delegates.[2] Various theories are floating around the internet, mainly over whether the release of the virus was accidental or deliberate.

No less than Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian posted open questions on social media to the US government about the known extent of Corona Virus. He posted a video of Robert Redfield, a director of the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, admitting that some Americans who had died from influenza later tested positive to the Corona Virus. “When did patient zero begin in US?  How many people are infected? …. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!”[3] While the exact origin of the Corona Virus may not be able to be known, developments such as these raise pertinent questions. In the spirit of never believing anything until it is officially denied, US Secretary of State and arch war hawk Mike Pompeo swiftly shot back accusing Zhao Lijian, and China generally, of spreading “outlandish rumours”. A US state department official even stated that the spreading of “conspiracy theories” is dangerous.[4]

It takes some chutzpah for the US to accuse China of spreading “conspiracy theories” at the very same time as US government officials and corporate media fling baseless and evidence free claims of 1 million Uyghurs being detained in the Xinjiang province. And for all the whining from the West about “authoritarianism” in the PRC, the fact is that the Chinese government’s measures to contain and control the Corona Virus have been unmatched by any Western counterpart. China’s efforts to build a 1000 bed hospital from scratch in under two weeks[5] is by now well known. Western economies running on a for-profit basis with governments enthralled by private corporations would not even be able to contemplate, let alone attempt, such a feat. For all the misunderstanding about the PRC economy, the fact is that it does not operate primarily on the basis of production for profit, and the major and strategic means of production are state owned – a legacy of the victory of the 1949 socialist revolution.

Act of biological war?

Despite the distorted leadership of the PRC by the essentially nationalist Communist Party of China (CPC), the simple existence of the Chinese workers’ state and its still rising economic power spell the end of US primacy of the globe – something the US ruling class cannot afford to allow. They are prepared to use any measure to prevent other countries looking to China for economic and even political leadership. While it would be difficult to determine scientifically, it is feasible to suggest that the intention was to bring down the powerhouse Chinese economy, in order to give the ailing US economy some respite.  If so, this appears to have backfired, with the New York Mayor recently declaring that city to be the new epicenter of the Corona Virus.[6]  Yet the question must be posed as to why China, Iran and Italy, out of the 196 countries in the world, have been hardest hit. It has been mooted that Italy was the first G7 country to sign on to Red China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI or “New Silk Road), while Iran has been attempting to bypass the crippling US sanctions on its economy by importing from China while selling China its oil.[7] As the Chinarising website reports, at one point Iran had 10 000 cases of Corona Virus, while the countries between Iran and China had virtually nil. Also, India, with a similar population to China, but with hundreds of millions more people living in dire poverty and in many cases with poor sanitation, has been left almost unscathed.[8]

The US ruling class is known for its use of biological war against its declared enemies. During the Vietnam War, the US dumped Agent Orange by the gigalitre on an innocent people resisting the imperialist behemoth. Socialist Cuba has also been targeted. What is more, the Russian government had recently warned the world of its grave concerns that the US was developing biological weapons. In November last year, the Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, Nikolai Patrushev, sounded the alarm that the Pentagon had established some 200 biological laboratories which study infectious diseases and can be used to manufacture biological weapons. Many of these labs had been set up in the countries of the former Soviet Union, such as Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia.[9]

What acts of imperialist subterfuge can be determined is the fact that the US has increased already crippling sanctions against Iran, at the peak of the Corona Virus outbreak.[10] This at a time when the Russian and Chinese governments, amongst many others around the world, had been issuing pleas for the US to lift its sanctions on Iran, to assist global efforts against the Corona Virus.[11] Google, ever reliable as an arm of US foreign policy, chimed in by removing Iran’s Corona Virus app from the Google Play Store.[12] The app was released by the Iranian government to help detect patients. This makes a mockery of US government claims that it would offer Iran assistance for the outbreak.

Social and political control

That the Corona Virus is a pathogen which needs to be combatted is not in doubt. What is suspicious is the way in which it is being used to implement mass social and political control, which could be an attempt by the imperialist West to practice a test run of submission to authority for their ultimate goal – catastrophic war against Russia and China. The banning of mass gatherings, enforceable by the police, could easily become permanent measures if not resisted by workers. In Queensland, the police are now monitoring venues with indoor events that may exceed 100 people. Fines of up to $50 000 or 12 months in jail could be applied in different Australian states.[13] If society is at a stage where public meetings can be shut-down by the armed forces of the state – we must question what the difference is with fascism. The corporate media is now so practiced at deceiving masses of people with propaganda, it can induce almost whole populations to dance to its tune.

The corporate media acts as an arm of the governments that protect their profits. In “normal” times, many workers suspect and/or understand this. Yet this time, the capitalist class seems to be willing to trigger an economic recession by throwing millions of workers out of employment. It’s as if they were just itching for the chance to sack workers. QANTAS has stood down 20 000 of its workers, and even claimed that the viability of the airline could be at stake. While there has been a murmur of dissent from the Transport Workers Union officials, saying that this amounts to workers bailing out the airline,[14]  there were no moves to organise resistance to this move at airports or at other workplaces.

The top Union officials, remunerated to the tune of six-figure salaries at the expense of Union members, are once again playing their role as political police of rank and file workers. In Queensland, the Queensland Council of Union executive wasted no time in cancelling Labour Day marches planned for 2020.[15] On the unconvincing grounds of protecting “public safety”, the ultra-conservative QCU executive was only too happy to present itself as one with the government of the elites. No other provisions for even consulting workers, or organising smaller meetings where workers could discuss or plan a response, was provided. The only action component proposed was that workers sign a petition [!!] for leave for casual workers!  The virtual absence of democratic rights for workers within the Unions, enforced by careerist officials, results in such tragicomic outcomes.

Well-heeled Union officials, the corporate media, venture capitalists, and even left groups who usually parade their “socialist” convictions, are now lining up as one. Whether they call on the government to “take the crisis seriously” or encourage people to visit government approved websites, they are all in lockstep with what appears to be a preparation for World War III. The numbers are simply not there for a “pandemic”. The production for profit economy was already effectively in recession, and large and small employers were just itching for an excuse to cut their costs by laying off workers without resistance. What better opportunity than a supposed health crisis? Those with serious capital will not lose out by mass retrenchments of workers – in fact they could well make big money out of it.

Mass retrenchment of workers will cause immense hardship and suffering for the majority of workers who only earn enough to pay the bills, and many not even that. The goal of the rulers appears to have been to once again enforce submission to authority without question. US imperialism (backed by Canberra) was seriously defeated in their war of regime change against Syria. Standing in the way of the US juggernaut was Russia, and to a lesser extent, China. Unable to accept defeat, it is not unlikely to assume that Washington is turning to any method whatever – even the fueling of biological war – in a vain attempt to reassert its fast slipping global hegemony. While workers should participate in reasonable health precautions, docile submission to attacks on jobs and living standards should be resisted. Imperialist war provocations should be rejected, and preparations made for an internationally planned and collectively owned economy. A workers’ party which leads the masses against the never-ending crisis of the profit system remains the most urgent necessity.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

PO Box 66  NUNDAH  QLD  4012

 

[1] https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1180429.shtml (18-03-2020)

[2] http://en.people.cn/n3/2020/0223/c90000-9661026.html (18-03-2020)

[3] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/coronavirus-chinese-official-suggests-u-s-army-blame-outbreak-n1157826 (18-03-2020)

[4] https://thehill.com/policy/international/487853-pompeo-warns-china-against-spreading-outlandish-rumors-about-coronavirus (18-03-2020)

[5] https://www.france24.com/en/20200204-china-opens-virus-hospital-built-from-scratch-in-under-two-weeks (21-03-2020)

[6] https://abcnews.go.com/Health/coronavirus-live-updates-china-exonerates-whistleblower-doctor-warned/story?id=69702910 (21-03-2020)

[7] https://www.globalresearch.ca/more-than-just-virus/5706476 (21-03-2020)

[8] https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2020/03/16/kim-iverson-reports-the-same-geopolitical-observations-about-biowarfare-your-passport-has-a-lot-to-do-with-your-exposure-to-covid-19-the-ramifications-for-you-and-your-loved-ones-is-explained-china/ (21-03-2020)

[9] https://journal-neo.org/2020/02/20/us-wages-biological-war-against-china/(21-03-2020)

[10] https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/03/18/621105/US-fresh-sanctions-Iran-coronavirus-outbreak?fbclid=IwAR2F_ICOKi9ojx4QLMU3p-MMWFMdRznJp2FCKAvuEe6xcqTa0jkW7rjDrJg (21-03-2020)

[11] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/coronavirus-china-and-russia-call-us-lift-iran-sanctions?fbclid=IwAR2sE4qPdLeLb1uwjR3fvrvy-pKaM1MWckggdpNKpMScJF8cTxUvY959kPU (21-03-2020)

[12] https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/03/11/620625/Google-Iran-coronavirus-US-sanctions-Trump-medicine?fbclid=IwAR01LkXDjKo4Rxv4yAg3tzgpNF41IwYMkUOJqot4sfg0pR5kaRFRiZ31RF8 (21-03-2020)

[13] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-21/coronavirus-self-isolation-whos-making-sure-you-stay-indoors/12078074?fbclid=IwAR1T6YXt1AFDkk9bhpVHVYzelVrNOKKrgkScng6SRqbeWjbntHoFAbOW5To (22-03-2020)

[14] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-19/qantas-to-stand-down-two-thirds-of-employees-due-to-coronavirus/12069876?fbclid=IwAR17XkUVtnqbRoLeUlpQoUpIr2y9SecSoaS76J4zkoKO8T7PumEC_LhTh0Y (22-03-2020)

[15] https://www.queenslandunions.org/workers-put-community-health-and-safety-first-in-cancelling-labour-day-events/ (22-03-2020)