Socialism

Barefaced Lies Enable Lockdown Catastrophe

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Image from Al Jazeera

Barefaced Lies Enable Lockdown Catastrophe

05-08-2020 – “Dictator Dan” Andrews, the Premier of Victoria, has declared a “state of disaster” in Australia’s second most populous state. Unleashing the harshest lockdown yet, draconian new rules will mean people can exercise for only one hour per day, only one person from each household will be permitted to go to the shops each day for food, and people will not be permitted to travel more than 5 kilometres from home. Incredibly, a nightly curfew between 8pm and 5pm will be enforced.[1] Many “non-essential” businesses will be forced to close, sending them to the wall. It is unknown how many workers will lose their jobs and will be pushed into the misery of unemployment. Undeniably, a tsunami of anxiety and depression will decimate the mental health of perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent people. To top it off, residents of Melbourne are already forced to wear facemasks in public, or face state prosecution. It can be plausibly argued that this scenario exceeds the totalitarianism experienced in the worst days of Nazi Germany during the 1930s.

Lockdown lies

The claim that lockdowns, facemasks and social distancing are needed to deal with a coronavirus cannot be made with a straight face. Yet this is the official justification for the largest and most terrifying assault on working people this century. A curfew from 8pm to 5am quite obviously has nothing to do with a virus, or healthcare – it is little more than a vulgar display of power, with an ulterior motive. Lockdowns kill indiscriminately, even just from the increase in unemployment. Higher mortality rates result from higher unemployment, without any additional factors. A study quoted by United Nations officials – who are hardly radicals – found that 10 000 children per month would be likely to be killed by the lockdowns and school closures.[2] The study, published in the prestigious The Lancet medical journal, estimated that physical distancing, school closures, trade restrictions and country-wide lockdowns will significantly worsen global child malnutrition. Many doctors have spoken out against lockdowns, warning that they will cause more death than the coronavirus itself.

There is not a skerrick of scientific evidence for state or national border shutdowns, but this is precisely what has been enacted. This has almost wiped out the travel and tourism industry, throwing untold number of workers on the scrapheap. Virgin Australia has just announced that 3000 of its 9000 strong workforce would be sacked, and warned that there could be more job losses.[3] Virgin airlines took on many of the domestic flights within Australia, many of which have been halted due to state border shutdowns. Such job cuts would scarcely be tolerated by workers and their Unions if it was not for the false cover of “Covid-19”. In fact, it is not difficult to see that the coronavirus excuse has been used by many employers and various sections of capital to take an axe to workers’ jobs and wages.

While many workers understandably reel from the repeated body blows, big capital’s state media rapidly increase censorship of views which contradict lockdown fascism, even from those most qualified to do so. A group referred to as the Frontline Doctors in the US conducted a press conference on the steps of Capital Hill, where they relayed their experiences of treating Covid-19 affected patients with Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), Zinc and Azithromycin. HCQ is an anti-malarial drug which is cheap and has been used effectively for around 70 years. The Frontline Doctors claimed that HCQ not only helps inhibit the Covid-19 respiratory illness (not the virus itself), but can cure it. They stated that of the hundreds of Covid-19 patients they have treated, not one has passed away.[4] They were adamant that no one needs to die from this latest coronavirus.

There was an instant take up of viewers of this video online, until in stepped Facebook, Twitter and Youtube – who removed it!  These Big Tech giants, operating on behalf of big capital, joined with Big Pharma to censor vital information that could be used to alleviate or even end the lockdown nightmare. For their part, once the Frontline Doctors knew about this censorship, they once again risked their careers to hold another press conference reaffirming that the public has a right to know about a cure for Covid-19.[5] Harvey Risch, a Professor of Epidemiology at Yale University, stresses that a cure for Covid-19 exists (HCQ), and we need to start using it. He also said that Hydroxychloroquine is being used in the media to define who is “left-wing” and who is “right-wing”.[6] This is of course NOT how any study of medicine should proceed.

The ABC state media immediately pounced and tried to counter a possible groundswell of support for HCQ. One of its articles claimed that HCQ is a poor treatment for Covid-19, and that it has become “right-wing ideology”[7] !!  The absurdity of claiming that denial of the preventative and healing qualities of HCQ in relation to Covid-19 is “left-wing” should be apparent to all. HCQ is being censored by the corporatised ABC for nothing if not the obvious fact that it destroys the mantra that the governments of the imperialist West have been repeating for months – that the only way Covid-19 can be dealt with is via a vaccine.  At the same time, there are some indications that the US government is in on the attempted cover up of HCQ, by purchasing huge quantities of Remsdesivir – a drug which, at best, has only minimal effectiveness as an anti-viral. The US Department of Health and Human Services recently spent $1.6 billion buying up supplies of Gilead corporation’s Remsdesivir, at a cost of $3200 per dose – compared to $12 to $18 for a normal flu vaccine.[8] The global architects of lockdown will pay almost any price to prevent their exposure.

“Conspiracy theory” lies

Even the notion of people protesting against the adverse health effects of radiation from the 5G telecommunications networks is used by the ABC to slur protestors as allegedly pro-Kremlin conspiracy theorists.[9] The alternative website Global Research is slammed as being “pro-Kremlin” for having the temerity to question the Anglo/US Empire’s relentless war provocations against Russia. This is despite the fact that the Russian government itself enforced harsh lockdowns and would thereby cease to be an object of admiration of the anti-lockdown movement – if it ever was. The ABC and the entire liberal establishment cannot tolerate information such as that which Global Research disseminates. It contains a mixture of views, but generally speaking its material is anti-war and anti-imperialist. It may also contain unsubstantiated “conspiracy theories”, but of course many “conspiracy theories” also contain many facts. What the liberal political establishment cannot allow is information which condemns the entirety of the bourgeois political system and seeks answers outside it. “Conspiracy theorists” do not believe in any form of (capitalist) liberal democracy, with good reason. This is the main reason why they are besmirched as being weird non-conformists by liberal reformers of the establishment, which includes the lockdown left.[10]

The unfortunate fact is that lockdown fascism, like all forms of fascism, cannot tolerate dissenting views, let alone civil debate. The “Corona Nazis” arrogantly claim that science is on their side, despite reacting viscerally to the slightest suggestion that there might be a better way to deal with Covid-19. Lockdown fanatics also dismiss out of hand the very real concerns the anti-lockdown movement has about the loss of civil and democratic rights, the loss of privacy and the intrusion of the (capitalist) state into virtually all facets of human interaction with society. The lockdown left, suffering from an extreme case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, denigrate anyone opposing lockdowns for being right-wing hacks and conspiracy theorists. They of course have not the ghost of an idea how right-wing their own political position is – strengthening the very system which has to resort to a form of fascism simply in order to survive.

Testing lies

The diabolical Corona repression in Melbourne is primarily motivated by one huge lie – that a positive test for Covid-19 indicates something traumatic or dangerous. It is difficult to describe the extent of the distortion of science of “testing” repeated endlessly by capitalist politicians, the corporate media, overpaid Union officials, self-described “left” parties and those who have simply been terrorised into repeating logical contradictions. For one thing, the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) laboratory technique which is supposedly used to “test” for Covid-19 was never intended as a diagnosis. Its inventor, Dr Kary Mullis, repeatedly stressed throughout his career that the detection of a viral strain using the PCR technique is not to be confused with a diagnosis of any disease which may have some relation to a virus.[11] The high sensitivity of the PCR technique can produce false positive results, while its high specificity may produce false negative results. A whole range of other clinical data referring to the individual must be considered as a whole BEFORE any diagnosis can be attempted.[12] The most important is the question of whether the individual displays any symptoms, are they feeling sick enough to see a doctor or go to a hospital, and so on.

More to the point, the PCR technique is NOT a test for the Covid-19 disease. Even if the PCR “test” does correctly identify the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, this does not at all mean that the individual will at any time develop the Covid-19 respiratory illness. That outcome is only one, largely remote, possibility. The PCR “test” may also simply be detecting part of the viral remnants of SARS-CoV-2 which have already been combatted and defeated by the individual’s immune system. The PCR technique is also an amplification process, rather like the “blowing up” of small text to a readable level on a photocopier. The increase in small amounts of a viral strain so they can be observed by the human eye presents an obvious distortion for analytical purposes. One vital indicator of the chance of developing the Covid-19 respiratory illness is the viral load (somewhat like the total amount) the individual is carrying. Yet the PCR test cannot determine this. In short, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, even if correctly identified, may be a world away from the Covid-19 respiratory illness.[13] From the false positives, false negatives, lack of assessment of overall health and medical history, the disjuncture of the virus from the illness, to the inability to tally viral load, the Covid-19 PCR tests are scientifically meaningless.[14]

Anti-lockdown movement must combat lies

It is not enough to expose the lies of Dictator Dan, the politicians, the corporate media, conservative Union officials and their fake “left” acolytes. The lies must be combatted, and the anti-lockdown movement is in an ideal situation to do this. It is unfortunate that the disparate small groups and individuals who oppose lockdown fascism are forced to fend for themselves, where they should be assisted by anyone who imagines themselves to stand for workers’ rights. However, we have witnessed a level of class treachery from the Union officials and the lockdown left[15] which is simply staggering to consider in terms of a qualitative and quantitative assessment. This is the primary reason why the anti-lockdown movement may appear, on the surface, to be a combination of “right-wing” nationalists, “conspiracy theorists” and supporters of US President Trump. Yet this is an illusion.

Lockdown fascism uses lies, fear and bullying to enforce submission. However, the anti-lockdown movement must not be intimidated, for the obvious and glaring logical contradictions of the Corona fanatics are easily exposed. They are best exposed by mass public demonstrations which confront and condemn the blatantly illegal lockdown measures. The German people are taking the lead in this vital work, with perhaps 1 million marching against lockdown restrictions on August 1.[16] From observation, these and other demonstrations have included ALL those opposed to the lockdowns, whether they be left or “right”, opponents of 5G telecommunications, forced vaccinations, peace and anti-war activists, socialists or nationalists, civil and democratic rights defenders and more. That is the basis of its strength, and this must be replicated internationally.

Marxists are confronted with the task of working within the anti-lockdown movement, both in order to help it win victory, and also to influence it towards socialism. Given the perfidious antics of the lockdown left, it is understandable that sections of the anti-lockdown movement peremptorily dismiss what they see as “socialism”. Despite this, large sections of the working class would be willing to fight lockdown fascism if they saw a movement against the totalitarian Corona nightmare making gains, welcoming all those willing to stand for basic rights, and providing a lead for working and oppressed people.

Manufactured Corona terrorism is ultimately an expression of capitalist imperialism devouring itself. It can be difficult given onerous lockdown oppression, but workers should not despair. There is reason for hope, and there are already signs that many others are risking police harassment and persecution to help win freedom from unjust and virtually uncontrolled state crackdowns. Underground organising may be required to link those who instinctively lead struggles for liberation. A harmonious, rational and humane society is on offer provided working people are prepared to fight the ideological darkness of lockdown tyranny.

 

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

PO Box 66  NUNDAH  QLD  4012

 

 

 

[1] https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6860277/victoria-declares-state-of-disaster-and-increases-restrictions-to-stage-four/ (05-08-2020)

[2] https://summit.news/2020/07/29/un-officials-cite-study-that-finds-lockdowns-school-closures-killing-more-children-than-covid/ (05-08-2020)

[3] https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/virgin-to-shift-headquarters-to-south-brisbane-as-massive-job-losses-bite-20200805-p55iss.html (05-08-2020)

[4] https://www.bitchute.com/video/0rIIAs9UCMV6/ (05-08-2020)

 

[5] https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/07/29/frontline-doctors-on-censorship-were-coming-after-you-big-tech-we-will-not-be-silenced/ (05-08-2020)

[6] https://www.newsweek.com/key-defeating-covid-19-already-exists-we-need-start-using-it-opinion-1519535?fbclid=IwAR0SNQAzBt4xuadKsAWTJCjNA1xLjlfHTqoZuENr3ReCrSKfwgqtpABLO2k (05-08-2020)

[7] https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-08-01/hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-drug-now-right-wing-ideology/12510812 (05-08-2020)

[8] https://www.globalresearch.ca/remdesivir-covid-19-1-6-billion-modestly-beneficial-drug/5717690 (05-08-2020)

[9] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-03/5g-conspiracy-theory-investigation-coronavirus-health/12507368 (05-08-2020)

[10] https://redfireonline.com/2020/04/25/the-left-and-the-coronavirus/ (10-08-2020)

[11] https://degraw.substack.com/ (09-08-2020)

[12] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2654605/ (09-08-2020)

[13] https://virologydownunder.com/covid-19-is-not-a-virus-but-sars-cov-2-is/ (09-08-2020)

[14] https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/27/covid19-pcr-tests-are-scientifically-meaningless/ (09-08-2020)

[15] https://redfireonline.com/2020/07/13/the-covid-19-siege-of-melbourne/ (09-08-2020)

[16] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/thousands-germans-protest-coronavirus-restrictions-200801161142837.html (09-08-2020)

 

The Covid-19 Siege of Melbourne

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Police “guard” public housing towers in Melbourne. Image from http://www.sbs.com.au

The Covid-19 Siege of Melbourne

12-07-2020: Melbourne is currently enduring a medieval siege by the state, with a return to “stage 3” lockdowns for the whole city, and “hard” lockdowns for nine public housing towers, including Flemington and North Melbourne. No notice was given[1], and police were deployed to prevent residents leaving for any reason. Police effectively barricaded people inside their own units and were often deployed to each floor of the towers. The flimsy rationale for such action was an alleged increase in coronavirus “cases”, supposedly found amongst some residents after “testing positive” for Covid-19. This, along with the entire Covid-19 narrative, is little more than a torrent of lies. Even the moderate Australian Greens, who nonetheless back nonsensical lockdowns, wrote a letter to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews complaining that there was no notice given to the public housing residents, who were locked in their homes without any information as to how they would secure essential provisions such as food and medicine.[2] The full force of the state has been levied against some of the most socially disadvantaged in the community, who have been made scapegoats in a vicious political game.

Public housing residents aware they are an easy target

Covid-19 is a false pretext for the largest assault on the conditions of the working class since the 1930s.[3] The removal of basic civil and democratic rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, not to speak of freedom of movement, is selectively applied so as to intimidate working people, not their “masters”. For example, billionaire Seven West owner Kerry Stokes was granted an exemption for hotel quarantine on his return to Western Australia, in his private jet, after holidaying on the ski slopes of Aspen, Colorado.[4] Meanwhile, participants of a birthday party in Melbourne were raided by police after being tipped off by paramedics ordering Kentucky Fried Chicken themselves in the early hours. The ambulance officers overheard others ordering 20 meals and reported it, so police then traced motor vehicle licence plates to locate an address. They stormed the residence and issued 16 people with $1652.00 fines, totaling around $26 000.[5] This mind-boggling repression for entirely innocent recreational activity is an indication of the scale and gravity of Covid-19 political repression.

The public housing residents of Melbourne subjected to the brutal siege are more than aware of why they were chosen as guinea-pigs. Such a siege could not have been carried out against wealthy residents of well-heeled suburbs such as Toorak or Malvern. Only public housing residents – some of the most marginalised in society – could be given four sausage rolls over 48 hours for food without provoking a mass outcry. The public housing residents resisted in whichever way they could, with some posting placards at their windows reading..”Treat Us As Humans!…not as caged animals… end this lockdown!….Effective immediately..”.[6]  Public housing residents of African origin in Melbourne, especially some in Flemington, had previously been harassed by police over alleged gang violence.

Denial of science

Even a fleeting glance at alternative media will reveal the grand deception which is taking place under the rubric of Covid-19. A still more brief sojourn investigating the science of viruses exposes the sheer criminality of Western politicians, which have unfortunately been mimicked by the politicians governing many independent countries who remain in the cross hairs of imperialism. The corporate media has given up trying to scare people with death counts, as the real numbers of deaths solely attributed to Covid-19 is numerically insignificant. Assuming the federal governments figures are correct, even they admit only 107 deaths currently attributed to Covid-19.[7]  107 is virtually nothing compared to the overall mortality rate, even on a daily basis. Due to Australia’s population, one person passes away every 3 minutes and 15 seconds from all causes.[8] Put another way, around 450 people in Australia pass away every single day. If there have been 107 TOTAL deaths from Covid-19 over a seven-month period, this represents 0.1% of the approximately 94 500 deaths that have occurred this year. No matter which way the numbers are counted, Covid-19 “deaths” are infinitesimal.

This is why the corporate media has switched to flashing numbers of “cases” of Covid-19, figuring that these numbers will be higher, and this will be able to be more easily spun into a web of fear. Yet again,  here there are only more brazen lies spewing forth from politicians and bought out health officials. They are deeming anyone who “tests positive” to Covid-19 as a “case”. For one thing, the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique which is being used to detect Covid-19 was never meant to be used as a means of diagnosing illness. It was invented as a laboratory technique to help identify viral strains. Its inventor, the Nobel Prize winning Kary Mullis, passed away last year.[9] If he was with us today, he would be horrified at the PCR technique being used as a test for anything. As someone who did not withhold his opinions for fear of offending “official” science or society, Kary Mullis would today be screaming about the misuse of the PCR technique if he had lived until 2020. The PCR technique may be able to detect the presence of some indicator of the Covid-19 viral strain, but it cannot indicate whether someone will develop the disease that could potentially be associated with the virus.

In fact, medicos have to use the Reverse Transcription PCR technique (RT-PCR), because Covid-19 is only present in RNA, not DNA. Even if it does detect Covid-19 in someone’s RNA, it cannot identify the viral load, or how much of the virus is present. Huge amounts of the virus are required for anyone to develop any discernable symptoms, let alone begin to feel ill. Then there is the question of asymptomatic carriers, which even the totally compromised World Health Organisation (WHO) admits, can only spread the virus “very rarely”.[10] In reality, those who have no symptoms are not contagious.

Yet even if it was, natural or herd immunity remains the best way to deal with a virus. A virus must be allowed to spread amongst those with healthy immune systems (those aged under 65, and without underlying health conditions) in order to reach the herd immunity threshold (HIT). The HIT is the point at which a virus exhausts itself because it can no longer find enough carriers who have not already developed natural immunity. And we now know that the HIT for Covid-19 is as low as between 10-20%, NOT 70% as originally thought.[11]  It is most likely that Covid-19 had time to circulate, and therefore reach the quite low HIT, BEFORE the end of March, which was when the absurd lockdown and illogical social-distancing measures started to be enforced. The isolation measures therefore did not contain the virus, as this was scarcely the intention. They did, however, destroy the economies of many countries and many lives through unemployment, poverty, loneliness, depression, untreated illness, anxiety, famine and so on.[12]

Class position of lockdowns

It is not that the lockdown left (self-proclaimed “socialists”), following the lead of the overpaid Union officialdom, are scientifically illiterate per se – though they currently demonstrate this in spades. The lockdown left have strongly advocated for lockdowns – and by extension, for a police state, for the elimination of civil and democratic rights for working people, for the abolition of freedom of movement, i.e., for capitalism and imperialism – due to the fact that the question of the lockdowns most immediately defines one’s class position. That is to say, those who oppose the lockdowns stand with the working and oppressed masses, while those who defend the lockdowns stand with big capital. This remains the case irrespective of the claimed or self-identifying political viewpoints of those on either side of the lockdown barricades.

It is a huge error to assume that the left-wing position on the contrived coronavirus hysteria is the advocacy and policing of lockdowns and social distancing. This is only the position of the lockdown “left”, who occupy a universe light years away from even a basic defence of working class interests, let alone socialism.[13] No party can claim even the smallest grain of loyalty to “Marxism” while simultaneously assisting the entire apparatus of the capitalist state in its drive to enforce severe political repression against workers. To take the bourgeoisie at its word with claims that lockdowns and social distancing are “public health measures” is but a tragicomical farce. The fact that the lockdown left deeply believe the Covid-19 lies of the uber elite is proof positive that they act as the activist wing of social-democracy, i.e., the “liberal” wing of the ruling class.

Due to the fact that capitalism has long ceased to be in a period of expansion – this period arguably ended around 1975 – social-democratic liberalism is no longer progressive in any political sense. The 1970s was probably the last era that Marxists and liberals could potentially work together as allies against political conservatives. In that time, it was arguably even possible for socialists to work within the Labor Party. Obviously, those times are long gone, but the lockdown left has hung on to formulas which were possibly applicable four decades ago. This is one reason why they have steadily moved to the right over the last 20 years. What used to be social democracy is now indistinguishable from the conservatives they formerly opposed. The lockdown left is still tied to this right-wing social democracy, despite claiming in words to stand for some type of “socialism”. This has caused much political disorientation amongst workers and has even caused many workers to reject this false leftism and move towards the political right.

What this has also led to is the fact that working-class opposition to the Covid-19 assault has been expressed through some who are unfairly labelled as “conspiracy theorists” and even those associated with the nationalist right. Yet it is entirely inappropriate to label opponents of lockdowns as “right-wing anti-science nutters” – as the liberal lockdown left is wont to do. As we have indicated, it is in fact the lockdown left who deny the basic science of viruses. While there are those amongst the anti-lockdown movement who research so-called conspiracy theories, and those who have quite principled grounds for opposition to forced vaccinations and the lack of safety precautions for the expansion of the 5G telecommunications network, these views are not universal. Rather, the overwhelming majority of the anti-lockdown movement are composed of those who are rightly concerned about the increasing political power of the state over individuals, and the concomitant removal of civil and democratic rights which were formerly taken for granted.

Build the anti-lockdown movement

It is evident that the forces of what has historically been regarded as the “left” are now mere appendages of the state, and are therefore entrenched in the capitalist right, regardless of their proclamations. The treacherous Union bureaucracy enforced the specious Covid-19 narrative on their members and workers generally, fully aware that it was part of a preparation for imperialist war against China, Russia, Iran and any real or imagined enemy of Anglo/US imperialism. They were slavishly tailed by the lockdown left, i.e., putative “left” parties, who plumbed new depths of class treason by parroting the Prime Minister, every state Premier and the corporate media as they imposed pitiless lockdowns against workers. Patently, these turncoats must be unmasked before the masses.

The horror of re-imposed lockdowns in Melbourne may be extended to other states, new facemask rules introduced, semi-permanent social-distancing and contract tracing, and much more, unless and until there are sustained protests and/or a popular uprising against Corona tyranny. The ruling class will not cede political authority gained through deception unless it is torn from them through struggle. Working people must resist the “new normal”, and forge bonds which break through the traditional labels of “left” and “right”. All those who oppose lockdowns must be united into a powerful movement.

At the same time, the tasks for socialists in such a movement are two-fold. Tactically, there is a need to work alongside those who oppose lockdowns even if they also hold views usually seen as antithetical to Marxism, e.g., anti-China, “pro-life”, a denial of climate collapse, or endorsement of US President Donald Trump. Strategically, there is a vital need to find the ways and means to convince opponents of lockdowns that there will be no escape from Corona tyranny, and whatever they are preparing us for, until the working class is mobilised to overthrow the rule of finance capital and replace it with a socialist order. As difficult as this task is, the forging of a vanguard party based on genuine Leninism will lower the political barriers and could unleash the power the millions strong proletariat.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

PO  Box  66   NUNDAH  QLD  4012

[1] https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2020/jul/melbourne-tower-lockdowns (11-07-2020)

[2] https://www.corowafreepress.com.au/national/2020/07/10/1441159/demand-for-melbourne-tower-lockdown-probe (11-07-2020)

[3] https://redfireonline.com/2020/04/18/covid-19-savage-assault-under-the-guise-of-health/ (11-07-2020)

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/23/kerry-stokes-near-aspen-colorado-quarantine-exemption-private-jet-perth (11-07-2020)

[5] https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/illegal-house-party-unravelled-by-observant-paramedics-on-a-kfc-run-c-1158022 (11-07-2020)

6 https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2020/07/09/public-housing-coronavirus-test/?fbclid=IwAR1TVQNT7bZGS-TIdrwBcFNc3FWM-8OEVKx4pc5d3xlTzQRFno7aFbokqyw (11-07-2020)

[7] https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers (11-07-2020)

[8]https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs%40.nsf/94713ad445ff1425ca25682000192af2/1647509ef7e25faaca2568a900154b63?OpenDocument (11-07-2020)

[9] https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/kary-mullis–inventor-of-the-pcr-technique–dies-66256 (11-07-2020)

[10] https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/who-official-clarifies-misleading-position-on-asym (11-07-2020)

[11] https://off-guardian.org/2020/07/07/second-wave-not-even-close/ (11-07-2020)

[12] https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-test-set-another-brick-in-the-covid-19-disinformation-game-plan/5717040 (11-07-2020)

[13] https://redfireonline.com/2020/04/25/the-left-and-the-coronavirus/ (12-07-2020)

 

Repeal the “Foreign Interference Laws”!

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ASIO raid on the Labor Party MP’s home, for mild pro-China comments. Image from Yahoo News.

Repeal the “Foreign Interference Laws”!

30-06-2020: In a disturbing precedent, New South Wales (NSW) Labor Party MP Shaoquett Moselmane has had Federal Police and ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation – the equivalent of the FBI in the US) officers raid his home in Rockdale, Sydney on June 26.[1] It is the first investigation to take place using the “Foreign Interference” laws passed by the Federal Parliament in 2018. Mr Moselmane’s “crime” is to make very minor pro-China (People’s Republic of China or PRC) comments praising the response of the PRC government’s response to the alleged Covid-19 “pandemic”. Apparently Mr Moselmane had also made a few previous trips to the Chinese mainland – along with literally millions of other humans, and thousands of other Australians. Allegations that Mr Moselmane is working for the Communist Party of China (CPC) or the government of the PRC, or is attempting to subvert the Australian government on behalf of “China”  are so absurd it would barely be worth commenting on, unless the ramifications were dire. Yet on unproven and farcical allegations Mr Moselmane has had his NSW Labor Party membership suspended, has been removed from the Labor parliamentary caucus, and faces being expelled from parliament altogether.

“Foreign Interference” laws prepare for war

As we wrote at the time of its introduction, the National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Bill 2018 potentially outlaws political opinion, political activity and journalism.[2] In the case of Mr Moselmane, it has outlawed the ability of an MP to praise the PRC for anything. It also threatens years or decades in jail for the “crime” of politically criticising foreign policy, or not being sufficiently “onside” with far-fetched New Cold War hysteria. The Prime Minister at the time stressed that the bill was not just about China, but about other states that interfere, including Russia, Iran and North Korea!! The reality is of course the opposite. It is the US Empire which is enacting a wicked crusade against these independent states, for the “crime” of being able to make their own political decisions independent of Washington. With Canberra’s assent, the “Foreign Interference” laws seek to normalise the preparations of the US Empire for a catastrophic World War III. Needless to say, sanity resides with those who question the march towards a global conflagration.

However, the international political situation in 2020 is different to that which existed when the “Foreign Interference” Bill was passed by Canberra politicians in 2018. Now, there is an unbridled attack on the working class which has taken place under the cover of a fake and pre-manufactured Coronavirus “pandemic”, which distorts science beyond recognition.[3] The Covid-19 fraud was not only a capitalist attack on the living standards of working people, it was a pretext for a previously unimaginable increase of state power as well as a dress rehearsal for the launching of imperialist war.  To enable this, Washington, London, Paris and Berlin joined forces to eliminate basic civil and political rights.

Lockdown left offers its services

Unfortunately, instead of launching a counter-response to a new phase of capital’s class war against the downtrodden, almost all Australian left parties signed up as volunteers on the wrong side of the barricades.[4] Taking their cue from overpaid Union officials, the “lockdown left” accepted the corporate politicians’ Covid-19 subterfuge as good coin, and enthusiastically deputised themselves as un-uniformed lieutenants barking out orders to the great unwashed. They shepherded everyone into inhumane lockdowns and policed absurd “social-distancing” rules – which have no basis in medicine. That is to say, the lockdown left and the sell-out Union officials today act as paramilitary contractors to the capitalist state. They offer their dastardly misdeeds to the imperialists – free of charge.

Raising the alarm about the ASIO raids on Mr Moselmane’s home, Trotskyist Platform correctly point out that these acts are a dramatic attack on democratic rights.[5] About this there is no disagreement. Yet who is it that has enabled this attack on democratic rights by assisting the capitalist state in its’ Covid-19 panic mongering? The lockdown left – of which Trotskyist Platform is a card-carrying member. As the Workers League repeatedly warned, swallowing the “coronavirus” narrative of the ruling class of the Western world has extremely dangerous political consequences. To endorse the sham Covid-19 chronicles of the billionaire media and the marionette politicians who serve them not only fans the flames of baseless fear. Crucially, it hands even more political power to the capitalist state than it had previously. And as soon as this state is handed more political authority than it is usually afforded in “normal” times, it will use this power for diabolical ends.

In their naivete, the lockdown left imagined that the capitalist state could be trusted in the area of “health”, while it could be opposed on all other planes. Of course, this flies in the face of basic politics  in a class divided society. While it is true that workers must be treated in a hospital if they suffer serious illness, it does not at all follow that the health bureaucrats salaried by the state will follow medical science regardless of their pay-slips. It does not at all follow that a police officer enforcing medically risible lockdowns will also therefore protect democratic and political rights. If the capitalist state is afforded political backing by workers, especially by mistake, it will use this political power against the basic human, political and civil rights it hypocritically “upholds”. In other words, the regurgitation of the Covid-19 pork pie by the liberal lockdown left is precisely what has empowered ALL arms of the capitalist state – up to and including ASIO operatives.

All of this is beyond the comprehension of the lockdown left. Thankfully, there are those who reject the overblown Covid-19 mania and suspect there is an unstated agenda. It is the task of the genuine left to link up with these workers, many of whom have been active in the anti-lockdown movement. Advanced workers must be forged into a political force which can lead the masses away from a totalitarian nightmare and imperialist war towards an egalitarian and harmonious socialist order.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E:workersleague@redfireonline.com

[1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-australian-politicians-home-and-parliamentary-office-raided-in/ (28-06-2020)

[2] https://redfireonline.com/2018/07/15/repeal-the-espionage-and-interference-act-no-war-on-china/ (28-06-2020)

[3] https://redfireonline.com/2020/06/06/covid-19-the-corruption-of-science/ (28-06-2020)

[4] https://redfireonline.com/2020/04/25/the-left-and-the-coronavirus/ (28-06-2020)

[5] https://www.facebook.com/TrotskyistPlatform/?epa=SEARCH_BOX (28-06-2020)

No Fees for Degrees!

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Image : Noosa News

No Fees for Degrees!

26-06-2020: Not content with running Universities into the ground through decades of funding cuts, the Federal Government is now blatantly embarking on another multi-pronged attack on the higher education sector. In a speech to the National Press Club, Liberal National Party (LNP) Minister for Education Dan Tehan announced massive fee hikes for Arts, Law and Commerce degrees alongside large fee reductions for degrees in Maths and Agriculture (by 62%). Teaching, nursing, clinical psychology, English and languages fees will drop by 46%. In an obviously targeted blast, tuition fees for Humanities degrees will more than double (by 113%). Fees for Law and Commerce degrees will increase by 28%, while fees for medical, dentistry and veterinary science will not change. Science, health, architecture, environmental science, IT and Engineering degrees will cost 20% less than what they were previously.[1]

Falling behind Red China

Some have commented that conservative governments routinely denigrate faculties such as the Humanities as “useless”, and favour University studies for “real” work like Engineering, and this latest move is a continuation of that trend. Though there is much in this critique that is true, it is also the case that the booming socialist economy of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)– despite being saddled with a conservative and nationalist political leadership – is leaving the flailing economies of the capitalist West in the dust. This is particularly apparent in the stupendous advances in science and technology that the PRC is demonstrating on a regular basis. For example, no country has been able to attempt, let alone effect, a soft landing on the dark side of the moon – apart from the PRC. In early January 2019 the China National Space Administration (CNSA) successfully landed the lunar rover Chang’e-4 on the far side of the moon,[2] where the USA and the USSR never managed to tread. The PRC is now a scientific power, accompanying its rise as an economic and, therefore, political power.

The PRC aims to become a global innovator by 2050, and its largely collectivised and planned economy enables billions of yuan (China’s currency) to be fed into state backed science and technology research and development. The results are plain to see. It is estimated that by 2017, some 8 million students had graduated from Chinese universities, which was a ten-fold increase over the previous 20-year period, and doubled the number graduating from US universities. China’s share of global scientific papers virtually tripled from 6.4% in 2003 to 18.2% in 2013 – second only to the US at 18.8%.[3]  A glance at such stats reveals some of the real basis for Western anti-China hysteria.

Australia’s lack of student performance in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) is largely a result of the dire lack of tertiary education funding, for which both Labor and Liberal governments have been to blame. This crisis has alarmed sections of the Australian ruling class itself, as it was glaring. As far back as 2015, the Australian Industry Group explicitly called for the implementation of strategies to increase the number of undergraduates in the STEM disciplines.[4]

Coronavirus used as a false pretext

Covid-19 manufactured hysteria is clearly being used as a cover for the most severe attack on working class people since the Great Depression of the 1930s.[5] Inhumane and life-taking lockdowns, economic shutdowns, and wave after wave of job cuts have been blamed on a “virus”. It is nothing of the sort. Covid-19 is, at worst, a mild illness which may possibly contribute to a slightly increased danger for those with very advanced age and/or chronic adverse health conditions. In reality, the ruling elites of the West have been gunning for imperialist war against China, Russia, Iran and others for at least ten years. Having been blocked in this quest by Russia, Syria, Iran and the DPRK, the billionaire class used the opportunity of a coronavirus to instead wage war against “their own” workers. The current assault by Canberra on the right of working people to tertiary education should be seen in this context.

This is the main reason why all those who stand in opposition to the latest funding cuts to higher education must at the same time shed any allegiance to the fake “pandemic” narrative. The very same politicians that are now ripping more taxpayer dollars from Universities are the very same ones which have enacted a totalitarian nightmare against the masses from one end of the country to another. These very same politicians who are now attempting to discourage students from studying the Humanities are the very same ones who have effectively abolished freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association and freedom of movement under the truthless slogan of “staying safe”. Infatuated with the amount of power handed to them, these politicians have attempted to enforce blind and unthinking submission to authority on a disoriented populace.

Without exception, and without asking, the corporate politicians have received willing assistance in the waging of a vicious attack on working people by treacherous Union officials and the clueless parties of the “lockdown left”. Abandoning even a display of token defiance to the capitalism they claim to oppose, these charlatans have been the most enthusiastic enforcers of the absurd and logic-defying Covid-19 rules such as isolation of the healthy and “social-distancing”. That is, they did not hesitate to act as state troopers against workers who so much as questioned the coronavirus fairytales.

Education is a right which must be fought for. It must be free, from kindergarten to the most advanced University tuition. Students should not be burdened with onerous debts while the 600 largest corporations in Australia pay little or no tax. If capitalism in the 21st century cannot provide free education, then let it perish. What is required is a working-class fightback against every manifestation of the onslaught waged under the cover of a pathogen, from lockdowns to job cuts, to university fee hikes, to imperialist war. Socialism offers the only salvation from a world in crisis, but it must be built by workers who are free from those who would force them to wear face masks – the mark of a slave.                         NO FEES FOR DEGREES!   FOR FREE EDUCATION!

 

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

PO  Box  66   NUNDAH   QLD  4012

[1] https://au.news.yahoo.com/uni-degree-fees-shakeup-012452222.html (24-06-2020)

[2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/01/china-change-4-historic-landing-moon-far-side-explained/ (24-06-2020)

[3] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0195347 (24-06-2020)

[4] (Australian Industry Group – Progressing STEM Skills in Australia (2015))

[5] https://redfireonline.com/2020/04/18/covid-19-savage-assault-under-the-guise-of-health/ (25-06-2020)

 

The Left and the Coronavirus

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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)

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)

IWD 2020: For the Real Liberation of Women

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IWD 2020: For the Real Liberation of Women

08-03-2020: March 8 marks International Women’s Day (IWD), which began its history as International Working Women’s Day. Originally a movement for the redress of the oppression of women through class-struggle socialism, IWD has unfortunately over time been watered down into something eminently acceptable, and even promoted, by sections of today’s capitalist ruling classes. IWD corporate breakfasts, fun runs, commercial dinners and more are now all held by conservative business groups, charity foundations and other bodies which would bitterly oppose workers and other oppressed groups posing fighting for real women’s liberation through socialism.

Corporate rule offers nothing for working women

At times the agents of the ruling class attempt to recognise the gross disadvantages working women encounter throughout their lives under the profit system. For example, recently it has been highlighted that women are retiring from the workforce with an average 47% less superannuation than men. Despite comprising 46.9% of the workforce, 44% of women rely on their partner’s income as the main source of funds for their retirement. 40% of older single women live in poverty or experience significant insecurity in retirement.[1] Statistics like these graphically demonstrate the structural oppression of women which is built into capitalism. However, the response of some figures in the establishment, such as Victorian Labor Party Premier Daniel Andrews, is to push for superannuation for all workers to be pushed up from the current 9.5% to 15% as soon as possible.[2] The aim is supposed to be a measure of compensation for women who generally accumulate less superannuation throughout their working lives, due to factors such as taking time out of work to raise children, support their families and by working part-time.

Enlightened political elites can only offer a “solution” which will mainly enrich corporate magnates, rather than allow extra savings to accumulate for women workers. The superannuation industry itself is a giant honey pot, with chunks of workers’ wages being compulsorily diverted into billion-dollar funds which are then gambled on the stock market. Venture capitalists reap the windfall and hand out crumbs to workers when they retire. At best, an increase of compulsory superannuation may slightly lift the average savings women retire with, but it won’t address the gender gap. This is due to the reliance of the capitalist system on the unpaid labour of women in the home, largely as a result of the reinforcement of the nuclear family as class society’s smallest repressive unit. The real liberation of women can only come about once the duties of the family (child rearing, care for the sick and elderly, food, shelter, education assistance and so on) are collectively taken over by society itself. Women would then be able to participate as true equals in the basic elements of production.

TERFs and SWERFs divert from the real issues

In recent times, the feminist movement has been swamped by bitter conflicts between those who wish to exclude transgender women (TERF – Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism) and sex workers (SWERF – Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminism) from the movement for women’s liberation. This is a huge discussion best held elsewhere. Suffice to say that while it is not in the interests of a working women’s movement for liberation to exclude transgender women or sex workers, these issues should not be the central issues defining the struggle for women’s liberation. The fact that they have become central issues speaks to the vast shortcomings of feminism. Feminism is not just an idea; it is a political program which is limited to fighting for the rights of women within the confines of the capitalist system. This is one reason why feminism as such cannot actually lead to the liberation of women but can in fact stand in the way. Women’s oppression is bound up with the family, private property and the state, as laid down by one of the founders of scientific socialism, Frederick Engels, in his 1884 treatise. It is these three pillars of class society which must be swept aside to enable the liberation of women from their second-class status under capitalism. Therefore, working women must ally themselves with working class men (and working-class transgender folk) in a pitch battle for the construction of a workers’ state – the first step towards the classless society.

For Women’s Liberation!

Practically, the most essential missing ingredient for the establishment of workers’ democracy is the Marxist vanguard party which can lead the working masses in the struggle to shatter the chains of capitalist wage slavery. This is therefore also the most pressing task of the movement for women’s liberation. A multi-gendered workers’ vanguard party would seek to assist the building and consolidation of a pro working-class movement for women’s liberation as part of the last-ditch effort to prevent the termination of humanity through climate collapse and/or nuclear war. But this perspective is light years away from all wings of the feminist movement, which is currently embroiled in unwinnable squabbles about issues which can appear esoteric to whole swathes of working people.

To be sure, there are women who sincerely believe in building a feminist movement who see themselves as anti-capitalist, and even socialist. Such pro-worker women staunchly resist the encroachments of the conservative and bourgeois feminists who only “fight” for more women members of parliament or more female CEOs in corporate boardrooms. But as long as feminism seeks to serve all women, regardless of class, it will be bogged down forever in a game to bridge the unbridgeable chasm between the ultra-rich and the very poor. As this divide cannot be united, screaming arguments ensue over issues which in themselves are important – but none of which question the rule of capital.

What is required is a pro-worker movement for women’s liberation as opposed to a cross (or upper) class feminist movement which debates the limited options available while the banks remain privately owned. It would fight for demands such as: free 24-hour childcare – to enable women to truly participate as equals in all parts of society. It would demand abortion services as part of a free healthcare system for all. It would demand free and expanded public transport to enable working women to travel anywhere at any time.  It ultimately demand the end of the profit system.

 

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

PO  Box  66  NUNDAH  QLD  4012

[1] https://www.womeninsuper.com.au/content/the-facts-about-women-and-super/gjumzs (26-02-2020)

[2] https://www.medianet.com.au/releases/184209/ (26-02-2020)