The 2020 US census is directly effected by the coronavirus. They hired thousands of workers to go door-to-door but that is no longer feasible & it will have to be done via mail or electronically. That makes it less reliable. State funding is determined by the census so there’s a cascade of effects, including on part-time employees who were counting on that income. Life is what happens when you’re making other plans, as the cliché goes.
Monthly Archives: April 2020
On March 19th, 2020, The Economist journal in the UK published an article titled “A tale of two viruses: Jihad is as contagious as covid-19 in the Maldives.” The article is behind a paywall but judging from several years of reports about the Maldives, we can gather what it’s about & why the relatively small archipelago is important to a financial journal. Classic ‘war on terror’ propaganda has been written about the region which reportedly has recruited a disproportionate number of fighters to ISIS in Iraq & Syria. This would be of concern to nearby India, at least in terms of its propaganda value. It would certainly be of concern to well-heeled tourists who want to vacation in a luxury resort without the fear of suicide bombers.
If it’s true that Maldivian youth are attracted in large numbers to ISIS, what’s required is not inflammatory propaganda impugning Sunni Muslims as a whole but a thorough economic, social, political analysis of the reasons why. Does it have to do with neoliberal policies turning the Maldives into a luxury resort destination & making hundreds of well-educated young people completely redundant, i.e., unemployed, except as busboys? Could that contribute to antisocial attitudes among young men? Or are we to assume there’s something in Sunni Islam that leads directly to the ISIS death cult?
We are fed up with ‘war on terror’ propaganda, especially after seeing its pernicious influence on the international antiwar movement which led to its complete collapse & its support for counterrevolution in Syria.
“CORONAVIRUS is making US realize big time that:
1. We are waves of the same sea.
2. Humanity is our basic religion and it’s the only thing that can shape our society to live peacefully.
3. Science is the only future
4. We live in a society, not in an economy.
5. Besides Almighty, It won’t be the celebrities and billionaires who can save us. But, janitors, doctors, grocery, food workers, daily wagers and activists.
6.Home & family are something that keeps us safe.”
–Kashmiri Zafar Iqbal
They thought they would silence Kashmiri voices. They thought wrong.
Afghan Sikhs were attacked today with a missile in the Kabul crematorium where they were about to cremate the bodies of over 25 Sikhs killed during morning prayers yesterday.
Even in quarantine, we cannot allow the forces of hate & death to dominate politics. We stand in solidarity with our Sikh brothers & sisters.
Like Indian occupying forces in Kashmir, the Indian police have their own way of dealing with the epidemic when it comes to working people: increase humiliation.
As noted earlier, Coronavirus would give the poor people less pain than police is giving to them.
Posted by Ashraf Bhat on Thursday, March 26, 2020
KABUL ATTACK
25 #killed in #Kabul #gurdwara #attack
By Mir Suhail Qadiri
Whilst most of the world in locked down unable to protest in groups more than ten, but with occupying armies still deployed, the oppressor nations are using the epidemic to fast-track expropriation & genocide.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200326-israel-soldiers-raid-and-demolish-jordan-valley-village/?
“Special Aircrafts for Indians stuck abroad.
But Poor migrant Daily Wage workers have to walk hundreds of kms to reach their hometowns.
They are walking with children, starving without food & water for hundreds of kms.”
Maybe some people don’t think the coronavirus is political, but when Black kids in the US are going hungry because the school free lunch programs are shut down, Dalit kids in India are eating grass because their parents can’t work, the homeless around the world have no home to quarantine in, & refugees without food & medical care are locked out of asylum, that is gruesome illustration of the inequality fault line inherent to capitalism. It doesn’t take a socialist to point the obvious out.