Cambridge MA (USA) Protest at Moderna headquarters
Build ICWP Collectives to Reach Angry Masses
SEATTLE (US)— “This is the next war,” said K as he contemplated an increasingly deadly global pandemic. He gets weekly reports from Iran about those close to him who have died.
Many Boeing friends are shocked at surges in cases (over 800,000/day), deaths (15,000/day), and new variants that threaten to escape vaccines, These place collective (“herd”) immunity out of reach everywhere. These deadly surges are spreading, not only in India, but throughout southeast Asia, eastern Europe and South America. Other industrial workers noted that more variants mean a worldwide multi-year pandemic.
Last May, US capitalists assured this catastrophic outcome. Bill Gates and Big Pharma sabotaged a World Health Organization (WHO) initiative to create an international intellectual property (IP) pool for vaccines.
Two days before the scheduled WHO announcement, five pharmaceutical CEOs and the Gates Foundation preempted it. After praising Gates as an inspiration, Pfizer CEO Bourla denounced the pooling of IP as “dangerous” and “nonsense.” The ruling class pushed through a public-private partnership based on “philanthropy” and industrial enticements.
In contrast, a communist society would have immediately mobilized the world’s workers to manufacture vaccines massively. A year ago, the ICWP would have already been mobilizing masses to construct medical production facilities, disseminate production processes globally, train workers and build the necessary supply chains.
Profit-making wouldn’t have been on the table. Communism produces for our collective needs, never for profits. Communism will abolish intellectual property rights and patents. All knowledge will be “owned” by the masses and used to benefit our global working-class family.
By early May, 1.16 billion doses of Covid vaccine had been administered. Only 0.2 percent had gone to the poor majority of the global population.
Workers are outraged. In response, the U.S. has temporarily supported a waiver of vaccine IP rights and sent token aid to India. Even while paying lip service to a vaccine waiver, the U.S. government put India on a priority watch list for “stealing” intellectual property.
The vice-president of the International Trade and Finance Association called the new U.S. stance a “symbolic move.” It is a classic case of “too little, too late.” Negotiations will drag on for months or more. “Compromises” already on the table will gut the benefits of any waiver. No accelerated production will start until at least a year after these negotiations end.
Biden hopes this symbolic reform will placate incensed workers. Rebellions are spreading. U.S. imperialist alliances will be shaken if the US government looks like it is holding back on fighting the pandemic.
Billionaire Gates, the Vaccine Monster, Hated the World Over
Meanwhile, Gates compares his critics to spoiled children demanding ice cream before dinner. (April 12, 2021) “What a jerk,” responded friends at the May Day march.
Another comrade’s friends agreed that Gates and Microsoft abused their workers, but they thought that at least he now was doing something “good” with his money.
“Why should Gates decide what kind of healthcare people get?” she answered. Gates’ role in the pandemic catastrophe has opened peoples’ eyes. She is going to revisit this discussion, emphasizing communist solutions and the need to build the party.
Another comrade has been discussing Gates, capitalism and the pandemic with his extended family in the U.S. and India. He contrasted Gates’ role in the pandemic catastrophe with what communism will do for the health of the masses.
He argued that in a communist world, the probability of pandemics will be highly reduced because the environment will not be destroyed for profits. Workers will produce what is needed, when it is needed, and it will be available free to everyone.
No Time to Waste: Building ICWP Is Urgent
Early in the pandemic, a Boeing worker visited her family in China. “Some here say communism is bad,” she began. “But with this pandemic, communist ideology is good. People are not just doing what they are forced to. They believe in collectively helping each other.”
Even though the Cultural Revolution was overturned and capitalism restored, she thinks this collectivity was its greatest legacy.
K is right. We have a war on our hands. To defeat the capitalists in this war and many more to come, we have to step up the fight for communism.
This includes strengthening our ties with the workers we know who are incensed by capitalism’s impotence in the face of the spreading pandemic. As these workers join party collectives, we will build the strength to reach the outraged millions.
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