No one wants to die, but hey, who wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice their life to protect someone’s patent monopoly? That is a question that is implicitly raised in this New York Times piece on the race to develop an effective vaccine against the coronavirus. Near the beginning the piece tells readers: “In an era More
Source: How Many People Will Patent Monopolies Kill This Pandemic? – CounterPunch.org
Our best path out of the Trump China box is to put him in a box he can’t get out of. .. As Covid-19 deaths and unemployment soar, Trump’s reelection chances depend on three factors: 1) the Democrats
On April 14, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump addressed a news conference at the White House, where he said that his administration would “halt [all] funding” for the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO, founded in 1948, is the principal United Nations agency tasked with the improvement of the health of the world; it is also widely acknowledged as an agency that is best suited to deal with health emergencies. More
We have indirectly addressed this question many times here: liberal capitalism and authoritarian pseudo-communism plus capitalism isn’t a choice, it is two failures.
Our ideas of DMNC attempt to correctly blend robust economies under a Commons not controlled by a state…
Source: A Spectre Is Haunting the West–the Spectre of Authoritarian Capitalism | Common Dreams Views
Ah, the holiday season: friends, family, good cheer and cheap disposable goods at every turn. This wryly festive short by the UK filmmaker Toby Smith takes us on a brief tour of what are known as ‘just-in-time’ factories in Yuwe in China, facilities that produce seasonally themed commodities for consumption in the West. Set to a children’s choir belting out an insistently cheerful Cantonese rendition of ‘Jingle Bells’, Xmas Unwrapped shows one stop on the supply chain of items such as candied apples, Christmas hats and other assorted seasonal trinkets with limited shelf lives. Depending on one’s ideological bent, it can be seen as a takedown of holiday wastefulness or an oddball celebration of global commerce. Far less ambiguous, however, is Smith, for whom the film is ‘a jab at Western consumption’.
Source: Christmas is coming and Santa’s Chinese workshops have been on the case since summer | Aeon Videos
China’s failure to kick a long-standing addiction to coal has thrown a knockout punch to the Paris Agreement of 2015, including its 195 signatories. Suddenly, out of the blue, the world has turned upside down! Sixteen months ago July 16th, 2018: “China and the European Union on Monday reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris climate More
