capitalism
Image: Graffitti on lamppost, "Capitalism is the Virus"
Oligarch Projects
The Great Barrington Declaration, the Urgency of Normal, punditry, and so on
It's the job of experts and trusted voices to convey the truth and give you guidance. Not only have they failed at this, they have engaged in an active disinformation campaign dedicated to making the pandemic “disappear”. This has not been the result of a classic caricature of conspiracy — some tiny council of elites, gathered in the shadows to craft policy out of whole cloth. What we’re actually witnessing is the quiet collusion of class interest. This form of conspiracy is a feature of cultural hegemony, and it has aligned itself in direct opposition to public health and scientific reality. A “conspiracy” of this sort takes place in full view of the public. Every actor within it has openly telegraphed motivations that we are all taught to see as acceptable: keeping the current economic system intact at all costs.
A Right-Wing Think Tank Is Behind the Controversial Great Barrington Declaration Calling for COVID-19 Herd Immunity (DeSmog Oct 2020)
Known as the Great Barrington Declaration, this statement advocating for herd immunity was introduced in early October [2020] at an event hosted by the American Institute for Economic Research, a conservative free-market think tank located in the western Massachusetts town of Great Barrington. This think tank, funded in part through a corporate investment firm with holdings in major oil and petrochemical companies, operates a network for the international business community that partners with other institutions backed by Koch and fossil fuel cash.
Multiple stories on the GBD from Science Based Medicine Blog
Organisers of anti-lockdown declaration have track record of promoting denial of health and environmental risks (LSE Oct 2020)
COVIDeniers: Anti-Science Coronavirus Denial Overlaps with Climate Denial (DeSmog 2020-2021)
Covid-19 and the New Merchants of Doubt (BMJ, Sept 2021)
Government’s Mass Infection Plan pushed by Great Barrington Declaration Lobbying Effort to End COVID Protections (Byline Times, July 2021)
ALEC Leading Right-Wing Campaign to Reopen the Economy Despite COVID-19 (ExposedbyCMD, April 2020)
Koch-Funded Legal Group Fights to Protect Online Covid Misinformation (Exposed by CMD, Nov 2022)
The Plan Is to Save Capital and Let the People Die (InTheseTimes, April 2020)
The Morbid Ideology Behind the Drive to Reopen America (The New Republic, April 2020)
“The Beyblade Strategy” or: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Focused Protection (The New Inquiry Feb 2022)
Impact Memo for Democratic Party Operatives
Delta Airlines asked CDC for shorter isolation
Image: 1950s-style illustration of white-male-appearing doctor in white coat using a stethescope on a amiling white male-appearing child as a femme-appearing person looks on. Text: You're a Goner, Billy, But the Economy is GoingTo Be Just Swell.
Why Is This Group of Doctors So Intent on Unmasking Kids? (The New Republic, Feb 2022)
The physicians and scientists of the Urgency of Normal are cherry-picking data in their push to end pandemic precautions, but are getting favorable mainstream media attention and support from wealthy, white communities that never felt the full brunt of Covid-19.
How Dark Money Shaped The School Safety Debate (The Lever, March 2022)
Motivated Reasoning: Emily Oster's COVID Narratives and the Attack on Public Education (Protean Magazine, March 2022)
They Wanted Them Infected (Science Based Medicine, Nov 2023)
Image: Cartoon by David Rees of person on the phone saying "Hello, is this History? You are gonna judge these people, right?"
History Lessons
Origins of the pandemic and precedents for the response
Dead Epidemiologists: On the Origins of COVID-19 (Monthly Review, Sept 2020)
How Global Agriculture Grew a Pandemic The COVID-19 crisis was preventable—if only we’d listened to the epidemiologists sounding the alarm (The American Scholar Mar 2020)
U.S. mishandling of COVID echoes the 20th century eugenics movement (Crosscut Dec 2020)
Pandemics disable people — the history lesson that policymakers ignore (Nature Feb 2022)
Pandemics and the survival of the fittest (The Hill April 2020)
Image: The Vertlartnic EDITORIAL with image of the US White House: "The Powerful Deserve Protection From The Thing That We Told You Is No Longer A Problem"
#DavosSafe
The rich are different (they have clean air and health care)
Davos Safety Guidance (WEF January 23)
Billionaires at Davos don't think COVID is a cold (The Gauntlet January 2023)
Covid19 Precautions at World Economic Forum (Forbes January 2023)
Far UV for the US Defense Department, Military (April 2023)
COVID-19 Testing Protocols Remain In Place For Anyone Meeting With The President (July 2023)
Top image: canary resuscitator (for saving the canary in the coal mine), including (presumably stuffed) canary in glass and metal chamber with gas (oxygen) canister attached.
Bottom image: ACT-UP style graphic in pink, white, and black, with repeated text: LIVING WITH COVID=DYING FOR CAPITALISM.
Social Murder
Depoliticizing Social Murder in the COVID-19 Pandemic (Bill of Health March 2022)
Poverty and Long COVID Go Together (Capital & Main November 2023)
COVID-19 as Social Murder (Spectre April 2020)
Covid-19: Social murder, they wrote—elected, unaccountable, and unrepentant (BMJ Feb 21)
Despair and Disparity: The Uneven Burdens of COVID-19
Collection of Articles addressing how the pandemic intersects with issues of social, economic, environmental, racial, gender and disability justice. (Truthout)
Pandemic of Greed (Oxfam Mar 22)
Racism: The Most Dangerous Pre-Existing Condition (Al Jazeera Apr 2020)
Highlighting COVID-19 racial disparities can reduce support for safety precautions among White U.S. residents (Social Science & Medicine May 22)
A Pandemic of the Poor (Counterpunch Apr 22)
Joint Effects of Socioeconomic Position, Race/Ethnicity, and Gender on COVID-19 Mortality among Working-Age Adults in the United States (Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health Apr 2022)
The New American Death Sentence (New Republic Apr 20)
Excess deaths soared in US prisons during first year of COVID-19 (CIDRAP Dec 2023)
The Disproportionate Impacts of COVID-19 on LGBTQ Households in the U.S. (MAP Aug 2020)
Top image: Covid-19 Strike Wave Interactive Map (screenshot with link to map): continental USA map very dense with pins indicating strike locations.
Bottom image: Tweet from @miamingus from Sep 2022: "Look, I wish the government would do more re pandemic safety, but they aren't. Why can't 'We Keep Us Safe' also apply to covid? monkey pox? Why does it only seem to apply to some forms of harm (e.g. police, gentrification, domestic/sexual violence) and not others (i.e. covid)? "
Resistance & Solidarity
Socialist COVID-19 Organizing Resistance and Education (2023)
How Black & Brown Workers Are Redefining Strikes in the Digital COVID Age (Payday Report, July 2020)
COVID-19 STRIKE DOCUMENT (2020)
The Global Workers' Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic (WSWS)
What is Mutual Aid? A Covid-19 Primer from Pandemic Research for the People
Autonomous Groups Are Mobilizing Mutual Aid Initiatives to Combat the Coronavirus (It's Going Down Mar 2020)
COVID Advocacy Groups Directory in US and Canada
Covid Isnt Over Community Calendar
COVID-Conscious Therapist Directory
Actually solving the pandemic was never in the cards for the U.S. and the rest of the capitalist world. It would have necessitated deep international cooperation, massive investment in clean air infrastructure, a persistent information campaign (and censoring of hazardous misinformation), efforts to build public trust in government, guaranteed paid leave, nationalization of key industries, and more. Basically, it would involve massively undercutting the philosophy of free market capitalism.
Instead, the explicit goal of the ruling class has been to make the pandemic simply disappear from public perception. Any reminder of the existence of a highly-transmissible, highly-dangerous, mass-disabling disease could trigger panic, or worse: organized, militant labor action. Averting this crisis required a careful campaign of culture-crafting; the people themselves needed to become convinced that there was no reason to fight. Consent for protracted mass infection needed to be manufactured.