Stormy Petrel #3 (2021-2022)

Anarchist Communist plaudits:

There is no doubt that an effective vaccine is one of the keys to turning the virus into another version of the yearly flu. Scientists over the world rushed to develop one and within a year, several had been given the good [sic] ahead. This is impressive. It is partly due to the dedication of many scientists but one of the main motivating factors has been the potential for pharmaceutical companies to make big profits. Pfizer, the first to develop a vaccine, has made billions in revenue (coronavirus jab has reaped revenues of $3.5bn for the biopharma giant in the first three months of 2021). All the companies stand to make much more as the pandemic continues, new variants emerge and boosters are needed.

Interesting cover art. A manicured hand dropping a surgical mask on a forest fire. Baffling smoke signals! What can it mean?

westartfromhere wrote: Interesting cover art. A manicured hand dropping a surgical mask on a forest fire. Baffling smoke signals! What can it mean?

How about you actually read the thing instead of making assumptions based on the cover page (i.e. that they're anti-maskers)? Just from glancing through it, all passages referencing masks are in support of these protective measures:

ACG wrote: University students caught the virus over the summer and brought it with them to campus where it ripped through student accommodation. Universities wanted fees and rents so they didn’t tell students not to come. The infections then spread out into the community. Schools opened up, with few having actually put in place measures to mitigate the virus, eg ventilation, face mask wearing, smaller classes.

ACG wrote: We are in a weak position. Despite the impressive examples of resistance, the working class response was largely ineffective due to the unwillingness of the mainstream trade unions to mount a campaign of action. And of course, many workers are in insecure and precarious jobs where it was difficult to do anything. To make matters worse, the sense of solidarity that characterised the activities of many, was not universal. The anti-lockdown movement put their individual personal freedom (wearing a mask is such a big imposition!) above any concern for those that would get infected and even die as a result. This movement emerged from the right, another aspect of their nationalistic, racist and generally myopic views, but the pandemic revealed that the left and those claiming to be anarchists harbour their share of conspiraloons [i.e. people like westartfromhere and Dialectical Delinquents]. To build up a working class resistance, these ideas will have to be challenged.

westartfromhere wrote: Anarchist Communist plaudits:

ACG wrote: There is no doubt that an effective vaccine is one of the keys to turning the virus into another version of the yearly flu. Scientists over the world rushed to develop one and within a year, several had been given the good [sic] ahead. This is impressive. It is partly due to the dedication of many scientists but one of the main motivating factors has been the potential for pharmaceutical companies to make big profits. Pfizer, the first to develop a vaccine, has made billions in revenue (coronavirus jab has reaped revenues of $3.5bn for the biopharma giant in the first three months of 2021). All the companies stand to make much more as the pandemic continues, new variants emerge and boosters are needed.

You (not ACG—who you're just misinterpreting) are also a complete idiot if you think that the pandemic was unequivocally beneficial to all industries and that therefore it was just some bourgeois hoax. Yes, pharma companies and other industries raked in big profits, but do you think shop owners who were forced to close or who went completely out of business benefited from the pandemic? How about the countless other stores and industries that saw decreases in sales? What about the food industry that simply destroyed their goods because it was less profitable to pay for transportation and other processing costs in order to give food away to people in need (which there was plenty of during the pandemic with people being simultaneously laid off—capitalism produces for profit, not need)? Do you think all of these industries benefited from the pandemic? Do you think the millions of people who were laid off during the pandemic was due to how business was supposedly "booming"? Take your covid conspiracies somewhere else.

After a lull of twenty years in appreciation of capital value, due in large part to the uprising of our class worldwide, 2020 marked the turning point. Under the pretext of a pandemic declared by the WHO, a large part of production was suspended, huge layoffs of labour implemented (a gain for capital/losses for our class), a blanket ban on large manifestations of our class, opening the field to wars resulting in millions of deaths on our side, correlating with a huge gain in the value of capital (FTSE 100 Index
9,698.37 +3,346.92 (+52.70%) past 5 years).

The Pandemic and the ensuing wars have not been beneficial to all businesses. Small businesses have been the losers. The anti-lockdown protests were largely motivated by the small business sector, whose interests were threatened.

The great gainer has been the bourgeoisie proper, the great looser, the working class.

Didn't interpret the frontispiece as being anti-mask wearing. I was truly baffled by it, and a little dismayed by its poor artistry.

I read more of that article than its substance justified. It is putrid. Narrow references to the UK bourgeois presses when great stuff was being composed elsewhere was the least of its problems. Utterly appalling piece of garbage rightfully consigned to the garbage bin this site is.

Don't engage with this person, Fozzie. A complete waste of space and time.