Mutual Aid: building networks of solidarity not charity
By Margaret Flowers and Kevin ZeeseMay 11, 2020
In the face of the twin crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic collapse, people are organizing mutual aid networks to provide food, medicines and other basics to those in need. This is done in the spirit of solidarity, not charity, a non-hierarchical empowering approach versus a hierarchical exploitative approach.
Continue reading
Trump Wins! Completing Obama's Asian pivot and confrontation with China
The Trump Administration is determined to "Put China In Its Place," a white supremacist mindset that will inevitably lead to monumental errors of judgment.
Even before becoming the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump had one consistent foreign enemy – China. Partly fueled by his intrinsic white supremacy and his antipathy for the liberal elite "globalists" who evoked his personal inferiority complex, Trump has never wavered from his fierce opposition to what he saw as the "yellow peril" from China.
Continue reading
Ranked-Choice Voting: an idea whose time has come
Climate activist Bill McKibben took to the New Yorker recently to advise me and the Green Party to stand down our presidential campaign and instead work for ranked-choice voting (RCV) so we don’t “spoil” the election for Joe Biden (“Instead of Challenging Joe Biden, Maybe the Green Party Could Help Change Our Democracy,” April 15).
The problem with McKibben’s advice is that the Green Party’s demand for replacing the Electoral College with a ranked-choice national popular vote for president will not even be raised in the presidential campaign if the Greens are not in the race.
Continue reading
Cuba: from AIDS, Dengue, and Ebola to COVID-19
By Don Fitz
Preparing for a pandemic requires understanding that a change in the relationship between people is primary and the production of things is secondary and flows from social factors. Investors in profit-based medicine cannot comprehend this concept. Nothing could exemplify it more clearly than Cuba’s response to the corona virus (COVID-19).
The US dawdled for months before reacting. Cuba’s preparation for COVID-19 began on January 1, 1959. On that day, over sixty years before the pandemic, Cuba laid the foundations for what would become the discovery of novel drugs, bringing patients to the island, and sending medical aid abroad.
Continue reading
Green Party Message To Sanders Campaign Supporters
We believe everyday people must have a party to call home that is politically and financially independent of the capitalist power structure dominated by the parties of War and Wall Street. We say to you: the Green Party could be your home
Continue reading
COVID-19 and Black Workers
The gross inequalities and declining standards of life in the United States are magnified by the corona crisis, pushing already marginalized populations to the brink.
There is an old saying that if America catches a cold, black people get pneumonia. The communicable disease reference is especially relevant now that the COVID-19 corona virus pandemic has created a crisis in this country. A privatized health care system worsened a medical emergency whose impact could have been mitigated if the United States was as advanced as it claims to be.
Continue reading
A Green Puerto Rico
I think a lot about the future of Puerto Rico. Especially after the hurricanes and recent earthquakes. Puerto Rico has been in a recession the last twelve years. It also has been plagued by corruption and the imposition of the Junta (financial control board) has just made matters worse.
Continue reading
Saving humanity from coronavirus and climate change
Death stalks us.
Fear Grows.
Humanity is threatened at both the micro and macro levels. Covid-19. Climate change.
Underlying all of this is inequality, fueled by robber-baron capitalism. And a lack of democracy.
Continue reading
US can learn from the world - 3 encouraging things!
By Laura Wells
During this coronavirus pandemic, it is easy to see that many other countries have responded more quickly and with better and more available testing and treatment than the US has.
It is also easy to see that we would benefit by shifting away from acting as if the US is a world unto itself, toward an attitude of learning from other countries. Ironically, as the three examples in this post will show, even if we only consider solutions the US has practiced in history, we would be better off now.
Continue reading
Corona Virus and the Failed American State
The United States has none of the systems or infrastructure that would allow it to accomplish what China has done to fight mass infection.
The only thing more frightening than the COVID-19 virus spreading around the world is the knowledge that this country is woefully unprepared to protect people from it. The response to the epidemic would be funny if it were not so dangerous.
Continue reading