12 May, 2020

Why was there NO Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)?




Surely, in a dangerous pandemic, the number one priority has to be a vast increase in the provision of PPE, both to protect the as yet uninfected, and to isolate the infected, to prevent ever more general contagion?

Why didn't that happen in the UK?

Well it wasn't for the reasons given at all!

Imagine if large amounts of such PPE had been made widely available. All NHS staff would be suitably equipped. As would all those care workers looking after the elderly and infirm in Care Homes. All those still having to be involved in all forms of Public Transport would also be equipped and protected! Any lockdown would only need to be temporary as small local areas could be provided with the right Protection, to allow a local raising of the Lockdown.

And a sequence of short term Lockdowns - followed by fully PPE-equipped free movement areas could have been instituted! The worldwide Pandemic could have been controlled and even greatly minimised in its most disastrous effects!

So why was it not quickly established as The Priority Policy from the Start?

It is obvious why didn't it happen! It was because the ideal place to lock up the entire population was in their own homes ON PAIN OF DEATH!

Otherwise safe behind appropriate PPE, The People could be ON THE STREETS DEMONSTRATING - and that, for the Powers that be would be the Worst Case Scenario!





Even the avalanche of deaths, particularly of the old (and even if a majority of those are reliable Tory voters) would be a better outcome for them than armies of masked and angry citizens taking to the streets.

Instead of being isolated from each other and limited to their own homes, they would be meeting outside their places of work, or demonstrating in enormous joint actions demanding the safety of workers be put first. 

Low paid key workers would finally realise their power and number.

They would walk out of places of work which were dangerous to their health! New organisations and groups would spring up out of Trades Unions and Political Parties.

NO! There are far too many of them! Such a crisis as this could be what triggers a World-Wide REVOLUTION, and the Many could finally replace the Few!

It could be the End of Capitalism!

Better to keep the lockdowns and restrict PPE than risk that...


05 May, 2020

Transcending the Lockdown in a Revolutionary Way




There can be NO solution to the Coronavirus Pandemic via the conceptions and means of our current Capitalist Governments. 

The entire Ethos and Economic Imperatives of those involved had-to-be, and indeed have-been undermined, by their endless seeking of larger profits no matter what the cost!

And those means, and their costs, are not only soaring ever higher, but are also totally unable to cope with that other range of ever-mounting crises that even threaten Mankind's continued existence upon the planet. For, the unavoidable growth of both Personal & Governmental Debt is not only unsustainable, but also, it now appears, totally unavoidable.

And, at the very same time, Global Warming and the poisoning of both the atmosphere and the oceans appears to be unstoppable, and incapable of even maintaining the current situation.

Finally, the lack of any real National Health Service, in most countries of the World, including the USA, means that the Covid disease doesn't even look like being overcome.

The universally subscribed-to General Consciousness is incapable of dealing with these seemingly Terminal Crises. And, there are NO means currently-available for the People under Lockdown to challenge the powers that be.

...unless you're a fanatical far right American that is.

The only protest is coming from the Right - but they can't see a way out of this besides returning to the economic normal - and they don't seem to care about infecting people and / or deny the seriousness of the contagion. 

And, there are NO universally shared ideas of what to do about it all!

The Bottom Line of corporations and the Capitalist class maximising their profit, inexorably determines everything that Governments can do!

Societies in all Past Human History arrived at only one possible solution to such terminal Crises!


REVOLUTION


And that means putting the People, the Planet and their Future FIRST.

And there is a task that only the People can be trusted with - surviving the lockdown!

The NHS in the UK hasn't been top-down-directed in its efforts to combat the Coronavirus: it has been, in fact, an amalgam of the very best of the People, and taken along with the self-discipline of all the Rest of the People, keeping rigidly to the need for Social Distancing.

ALL gains have been achieved just in those two areas alone!

Give The People the task of administering adequate Personal Protection Equipment, within small local areas, run by their own democratically elected committees, and THEY will build a safe Country - built up area-by-area