We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, October 7, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Thursday, October 7, 2021

1) There doesn't seem to be consensus about the risk/ benefit ratio of the COVID-19 vaccines to for younger age groups, so whey [sic] does there seem to be such certainty in the media? [my corrections]
 
2) If the vaccine trials were solid, why are certain brands of vaccine being put on hold almost a year after the vaccine roll out?
  • Moderna’s free ride by Vincent Kiezebrink from CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt). My reaction: Kiezebrink's points are supported by 75 documents. Regard item number two below, some of their contracts require $22.50 per dose, but they pay costs for production and marketing around $.20 per dose.
Key issues are that: (1) the development of Covid-19 vaccines was heavily subsidised by public funding; (2) current vaccine prices are relatively high compared to costs, and appear set to rise significantly, leading to massive profits for company shareholders paid for largely with public funds; and (3) the large profits that vaccine producer Moderna will make are likely to end up in tax havens Delaware and Switzerland. There is tangible economic injustice involved when taxpayers finance the development of a product, only to have it sold back to them at a hefty margin. The fact that resulting profits end up in tax havens, where they will almost certainly be taxed at a very low rate, if at all, compounds this injustice.
  • Guterres and the Great Reset: How Capitalism Became a Time Bomb by Matthew Ehret from Strategic Culture Foundation. My reaction to Ehret's statement: "The period of chaos launched in 1971 with the floating of the dollar was never capitalism." Ehret, like Michael Hudson, James Corbett, Ryan Cristián, and others, was always fond of capitalism when it was smaller, but transnational capitalism (sometimes referred to as "neoliberalism") of today is what Ehret dislikes and tries, in vain, to differentiate it from the smaller, primarily nationally based capitalism. Also, he doesn't see the de-facto US/Anglo/Zionist Empire and its directors, major capitalists, and a relatively few financiers (the Deep State of the Empire), who are doing their utmost to control and dominate the world. Instead, he see these people as corrupting capitalism or causing a deviation from it. What is different about this new advanced version of capitalism? Does it rid itself of the profit motive? No. Does it dispense with private, self-serving ownership (instead of public ownership and control) of productive property? No. How is it radically different? He doesn't have an answer to the last question.
The insistence of native peoples on acquiring a semblance of political influence in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia – countries carved out by criollos after the collapse of the Spanish colonial empire, where descendants of the conquered Incas still constitute the decisive majority of the population – is anathema not just to the local white ruling class but also to its North American protectors.
Their sophistry begins with statement that this NATO backed tribunal is a “peoples’ tribunal. It is not. It is a British-US government propaganda operation. It was not created by a demand from the world’s people but by the CIA-funded World Uyghur Congress. And unlike other international ‘peoples tribunals’ it targets not a country that is attacking another country but accuses a national government of crimes against its own people. The organisers could have called a tribunal about the genocide against the indigenous peoples of Canada, now notorious, and not denied by the Canadian government, which has failed to bring anyone to account. But they are not interested in targeting other NATO allies, only the chosen enemy of the day, China.

They even claim to be cut of the same cloth as the Russell ‘Stockholm’ or Vietnam Tribunal and that when state actors do not act in the face of ‘crimes’ then the ‘people’ must. 
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