Mystery of the pig/bird/human flu virus
“Swine flu” is really a misleading term for the current pandemic, inasmuch as no single species serves as host of preference for the new virus. It does not need to mutate as it jumps from pig to human and back again. This is a fully trans-species disease. According to the findings of Canada’s National Microbiology…
The coronavirus, bats, and deforestation
Coronaviruses are not a new phenomenon, nor were they discovered only recently. They were first studied in detail by scientists in the 1960s. The name comes from the ‘corona’ or ‘crown’ of sugary proteins that protrude from the envelope of the virus. Coronaviruses exist in numerous varieties and infect birds and mammals, including bats, pigs,…
Nativism: Covert Racism
There are prominent politicians around the world who propagate a fallacious theory on immigration and, when extremists embrace such ideas, those politicians wash their hands of any culpability. The fear of immigrants is magnified by lies and language. Fear of migrants brings in votes for politicians. Politicians feed on the fear. Fear of migrants brings…
Fascism: Avoiding Anachronism
Anti-Fascism and Fascism What is fascism? Or, more pertinently, what was fascism, since the ideology and movement of that name developed in the specific historical conditions of the period between the last century’s two world wars. The word itself originated in Italy as the name given itself by an ultra-nationalist group opposed both to parliamentary…
Neo-Liberalism: Old Religion Repackaged
It’s not neo-liberalism that’s to blame – it’s capitalism In Marx’s day the doctrine that the government should not interfere in the operation of the capitalist economy was known as ‘Manchesterism’ after the city in the north of England where capitalist industry was then most developed and whose capitalists wanted to be free to pursue…
China: Points for Perfection
Credit and Control in China One consequence of new technology has been a vast increase in the extent of surveillance of people, whether by the state or private companies. CCTV, facial recognition, tracking the use of debit and credit cards, having access to phone records, cookies and other ways of recording a person’s use of…
“They’re killing us like dogs” — a massacre in Bolivia and a plea for help
The latest report from Bolivia speaks of strikes by workers and killings by the new authorities. From the Common Dreams website. I am writing from Bolivia just days after witnessing the November 19 military massacre at the Senkata gas plant in the indigenous city of El Alto and the tear-gassing of a peaceful funeral procession…
Bolivia – Morales comes up against capitalism
For many, the years following Evo Morales’s 2005 election in Bolivia were marked by jubilation and hope. For Bolivia’s indigenous people, support for Morales appeared to be paying off. The poverty rate dropped from 59.9 percent in 2006 to 36.4 percent. Access for indigenous communities to electricity, sewerage and water service all grew. Morales presided over…
The nuclear threat: resetting the doomsday clock
On the morning of 13 January 2018 a message was broadcast by the emergency alert system over television, radio and mobile phones to the people of Hawaii. The message stated that there was an incoming ballistic missile threat and advised residents to seek shelter, ending with: ‘this is not a drill.’ It seems the Hawaiian…
Hong Kong: the struggle for political democracy
Socialists can only applaud when workers around the world struggle for political democracy and freedom to organise as this is essential for the eventual struggle for socialism. After all, if workers are not willing to struggle for what they hold to be legitimate democratic rights, they are unlikely to strive for the transformation of society,…