DiEM25 on Europe’s Public Health 

Pubblicato Dicembre 4th, 2020 di DiEM25 Coordinating Collective & inserito in Articles.

“All of Europe is surprised by the speed of the spread of the virus. We are overwhelmed by a second wave that is set to be harder and more deadly than the first.”

— Emmanuel Macron, 28th October, 2020

Except, Monsieur Macron, that, outside of Europe, not everyone was surprised or overwhelmed by the pandemic!

From New Zealand and Kerala in India to more populous Asian countries such as South Korea, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam, the spread of COVID-19 was suppressed through strong public health systems that included robust testing, contact tracing and isolation. Reinforced public health mechanisms did not eradicate but, crucially, suppressed the pandemic to the point where it was rendered manageable.

Europe’s failure is entirely due to the long-term process of privatising, fragmenting and diminishing our public health systems.

The key to success, besides a strong public health system, was adequate economic support for those who needed to isolate.    

The false dilemma between looking after the people’s health and damaging the economy is now fully exposed. The countries which, through strong public health and social welfare systems, suppressed the pandemic were also those whose economies suffered the least. In Europe, only Germany, which has had Europe’s best public track and tracing system has experienced relative fewer deaths and a lower economic decline. We knew all this since at least April 2020, as repeated WHO circulars prove. So, why was Mr Macron caught unawares by the second wave, while some of the world’s poorer and less powerful countries did better than the world’s richest and most powerful?

When COVID-19 struck, the originators of neoliberal campaigns against public health and welfare systems, Britain and the US in particular, were the first to resist lockdown on the basis of a false dilemma between health and the economy. As a result, they — and other countries that followed their lead — fared far worse on both counts: public ill health and economic damage.

The way to control COVID-19 is to take the pandemic seriously and defeat it. What is standing in the way?

Europe’s COVID-19 response, like that of the US, is a scandal reflecting years of privatisation under the cloak of neoliberal dogma. Throughout Europe, investment in the fundamental public good of public health has been ravaged by policies of austerity yielding the lethal consequences of grotesque inequality.

COVID-19 has exposed most European governments’ calculated depletion of public health systems in the interests of privateers, their calculated inaction once the pandemic hit, and the disastrous effects of their motivated thoughtlessness on people’s health, social bonds and sense of trust in organised society.

COVID-19 has revealed the stubborn loyalty of governments to financiers and speculators, even in the face of deaths which could have been prevented by the public health system they were dismantling at the behest of the corporate and financial oligarchy. We observe, with considerable horror, how the Pandemic is turned into an opportunity for private rent seeking, in particular the speedy digitisation of public health services by means of private contractors who monopolise not just Europe’s health data but also our state’s digital infrastructure.

Under a cloud of panic, governments did fork out huge sums temporarily to nationalise everything: from labour markets to private railway companies, airports and airlines. But, while they have no problem harvesting the central banks’ money tree, they are still determined to stick to their guns: To rule out permanent support for public health systems or for the weakest members of our societies.

Wasted Money

As the pandemic wrecked lives and the real economy, a tsunami of money was produced by central banks ostensibly to prop up our sinking societies. Tragically, it was all wasted on the ultra-rich, leaving communities, small business and workers unassisted.

Here is what they did:

The Central Bank (e.g. the ECB, the Bank of England, the Bank of Sweden etc.)  extended new liquidity to a commercial bank, say, Deutsche Bank, at almost zero interest. To profit from it, Deutsche Bank had to lend it on, although never to the “little” people whose circumstances – and ability to repay – were diminished. So, it lent to, say, Volkswagen which, awash with cash, was already restricting its investment into new cars fearing that the “little people”, hit by universal austerity, would not be able to buy them even before COVID-19. So, Volkswagen takes Deutsche Bank’s money (that was provided by the central bank of Europe) without ever intending to invest it. But why take it, then? To buy with it, at the stock exchange, Volkswagen shares! Why? Because in so doing its share price skyrockets and, with it, the bonuses of Volkswagen executives.

In short, European capitalism’s money tree has been working overtime, with not a penny finding its way in the direction our public health systems or, indeed into the pockets of people who need it or who plan to do useful things with it (e.g. invest in green jobs).

What about Europe’s Recovery Fund?

Commentators have waxed lyrical about the EU Recovery Fund, including many who were critical of European austerity before the pandemic. Alas, as DiEM25 warned from the outset, the EU Recovery Fund will do little to help Europeans recover either from the decade-long euro crisis or from the pandemic’s ill effects. Indeed, the EU Recovery Fund is proving part of the problem, not the solution. Why? For two reasons: Its size. And its structure.

Beginning with its size, despite the large numbers bundied about, it is macroeconomically puny. To be precise, even if it were to be spent tomorrow, its firepower is one tenth of what would be necessary to counter the macroeconomic impact of the economic pandemic. Not only that but, bundled as it is with the EU budget, it is so cumbersome that the monies will flow too slowly and, mostly, to those who do not deserve it (e.g. to large corporations that use it for purposes at odds with the public interest, rather than smaller companies investing in green jobs).

And then there is the fund’s structure: Agreed between governments representing Europe’s oligarchies, rather than Europeans, it will most likely confirm the fear of Northern European union-sceptics who claim, not without justification, that these transfers end up as monies taken from poor Germans and Dutch people to be given to Greek and Italian oligarchs.

A European response to pandemic’s effects on health & prosperity

What should the EU have done instead?

DiEM25’s answer, a 3-Point-Plan, came out on March 10th:

• 1) An ECB-bond of €1 trillion to cushion the blow across Europe

The European Council should ask the European Central Bank to issue an ECB-bond on behalf of the Eurozone for up to €1 trillion. If its maturity were to be set at 30 years, it would create a deadline effect so that Europeans would know we have three decades before we create a democratic political union (if we oppose, that is, the idea that, in 30 years-time, the ECB will print the money to repay its bond).

This €1 trillion would then be used for two purposes: To fund a European Health Union and to cushion the increases in the debt of member-states due to the pandemic, thus annulling the need for new austerity after 2021.

• 2) Implement a real Green New Deal for Europe by means of a coalition between the European Investment Bank and the ECB

Serious investment in creating a European Green Energy Union would replace many of the precarious jobs now lost to the pandemic with good quality green jobs across the continent, enhancing in the process the green capital of corporations that are now facing insolvency and zombification.

To this effect, the European Union Council should give the green light to the European Investment Bank to issue bonds up to 600 billion a year, with the ECB making the simple statement that it will stand behind them – as that would immediately mean that it will not need to do anything. (Note that all this is utterly compatible with the existing treaties, because the EIB issues bonds, and the ECB has been buying them since March, 2015.)

• 3) Supporting every European with a direct payment

Last March, the Hong Kong Government put in every resident’s bank account 1,250 US dollars. In 2009, the Australian Government became the only OECD country not to have a recession by crediting every household’s bank account with thousands of dollars. Our proposal was that the ECB should do likewise: Credit €2,000 euros in every resident’s bank account within the eurozone. The cost would have been €750 billion. (Nb. the ECB did print this sum, anyway, except that the money was wasted via the commercial banks — see above example featuring Deutsche Bank and Volkswagen). And then do it again if the lockdown was repeated or prolonged. That way, self-isolation would have been manageable even by people with few resources.

Health and the economy would benefit simultaneously in a manner that the oligarchy practises disallowed. Lastly, at the end of the financial year, rich Europeans (who did not need this ECB money) would be taxed close to the whole amount, at a special tax rate, thus benefiting too member-states’ treasuries.

DiEM25 calls upon progressive Europeans to join our ranks in demanding simple, rational, progressive policies that bolster existing public health systems, build a new European Health Union alongside a Green Energy Union, and press into the service of our communities and peoples European institutions and available public financial instruments. 

None of this will happen without European democrats organising transnationally to clash with the oligarchy-without-frontiers in control of our governments and of the European Union’s institutions.

Etichette: coronavirus COVID-19 COVID-19 economie isolation

The Progressive International launches The Internationalist with episode on Make Amazon Pay

Pubblicato Dicembre 4th, 2020 di DiEM25 Communications & inserito in Articles.

“We will win.” When the fascists began marching through Europe, this was the slogan that their occupying forces left as graffiti, even in the farthest islands of the Adriatic Sea: Vinceremo. “We will win”. Today, a reactionary international rises again. Like the fascists before them, they coordinate across borders, share tactics, and shake hands at international conferences. “There’s a class war, all right,” billionaire Warren Buffett has said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that is making war, and we’re winning.”

On 1 December, PI launched The Internationalist with a special show dedicated to the Make Amazon Pay campaign — it featured  Saskia Sassen (Columbia University), Christy Hoffman (UNI Global), and Casper Gelderblom (Progressive International).

Parliamentarians across the planet have been uniting to #MakeAmazonPay. This new global movement mobilized to demand justice from Amazon. Today, over 400 MPs across 34 countries pledge to stand with that movement in a letter to CEO Jeff Bezos.

A few highlights:

“Amazon offers a unique opportunity for progressive workers to come together around a pro-worker, pro-climate, tax justice, anti-monopoly, digital rights agenda because it really illustrates everything that’s wrong with our economic model. (…) We need Amazon to pay its fair share of the cost of recovery and taxes, and we can’t let it refuse to negotiate with workers and impose inhumane production quotas on workers.” — Christy Hoffman (UNI Global)

Christy Hoffman highlighted the various protests and worker-led actions of the Make Amazon campaign. She spoke of its global surveillance campaign against workers, their refusal to work with unions, and their dismal working conditions: “I think it’s fair to say that Amazon pushes workers to the brink of collapse and pushes some more — even pre-pandemic, the health and safety conditions in Amazon warehouses were notorious.” She mentions a study on injuries that observes that rather than ease the burden of their work, Amazon robots make it more dangerous for workers because of repetitive motions required.

“Amazon is elusive — how do the workers even begin to reach the higher levels? And then we have the media which is enamored with Amazon and all the little additions that happen every year. So, it is really a tough one. I am absolutely grateful that there are people who really are in the battle of exposing the unnecessary abuses of Amazon. Jeff Bezos is so rich — why can’t he?” — Saskia Sassen (Columbia University)

Saskia Sassen analysed the scope for resistance against Amazon and how this differs from the typical economic history of the last 20-30 years. The loss of power of labour unions in this period was intentional, according to Sassen. Furthermore, Amazon was a major reason for a lot of closures of small business. Overall: “With Amazon, we have many little injustices. Moreover, those little injustices operate in an enormous operational field which is all the sites that Amazon has. This is a monster.” But she highlights how ‘workers, in the long run, have victories’ and how in complex systems profound change is not always immediately visible.

Watch it now!

Etichette: Christy Hoffman Make Amazon Pay saskia sassen The Internationalist

International day of persons with disabilities: COVID-19 and human rights

Pubblicato Dicembre 3rd, 2020 di Taskforce on Feminism, Diversity and Disabilities & inserito in Articles.

61 million women and 47 million men in the European Union are living with disabilities.

The United Nations proposes in 2020 to ‘build back better’ “toward a disability-inclusive, accessible and sustainable post COVID-19 World”. For EU member states, the competence to act politically is shared between the bodies of the European Union, the States and each geographical level they have chosen, from the region to the city/village. In this report we will present some of the issues that people with disabilities face during the COVID-19 pandemic in the EU.

Since the Council of the European Communities in the 1970s, Europe has been investing in people with disabilities, and more ambitious projects  have begun more recently, such as: The European Disability Strategy 2010-2020. As planned, an end-of-stage report has been published, taking into account the COVID-19 pandemic.

The analysis we propose below was made using the human rights model of disability as a canvas (to be discussed later), although most of the countries in Europe have been using the social model of disability for thirty years. Indeed, “Instead of using the person with disability as ‘having something wrong’ that needs to be ‘fixed’, the social model sees society and the barriers it places to the aspirations and progress of people with disabilities as being at fault.”

The human rights model of disability recognizes that: “People with disability have the same rights as everyone else in society. Impairment must not be used as an excuse to deny or restrict people’s rights”. It should be considered an advantage for persons with disabilities to use both models to overcome barriers and discrimination, and sometimes segregation.

These Human Rights principles are set out in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and here is a map of the countries that have ratified it, you can include the European Union itself.

Without preventative public health policy, people with disabilities are more vulnerable when faced with pandemics.

Equality and non-discrimination – Article 5 – is the core of the Universal Human Rights. According to Amnesty International, “discrimination occurs when a person is unable to enjoy his or her human rights or other legal rights on an equal basis with others because of an unjustified distinction made in policy, law or treatment”.

It’s a double punishment, some people with disabilities and higher risk of complications as well as elderly people have an increased likelihood to die from COVID-19. And yet they were discriminated against! In France, part of our population was locked up in psychiatric institutions and staff were neither trained nor equipped to deal with any epidemic. It was the same when emergencies were called; institutionalised patients were told not to go to hospital!” What happened to the champion of public health? What happened to the preventive public health policy with its multiple pandemic plans?

The Taskforce for Feminism, Diversity and Disabilities and the ONG Inclusion Europe have also seen the need for governments to be deliberate and conscious when giving messages around vulnerable and at-risk groups so that they do not stigmatise or “other” these groups. Instead, we should always be explicitly recognised as an integral part of our communities.

Most countries are in breach of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the situation needs to change.

Equality before the law – Article 12 – is the instrument given to people to defend their interests and access legal services (including private services, such as banks). Guardianship and trusteeship should not be considered if it is imposed on people with mental health problems (a medical analysis is subjective and culturally dependent).

During the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the main concern was the medical relationship. Taskforce members and our relatives personally witnessed many cases of psychiatric and/or medical treatment given without the free and informed consent of the patient. And often without explaining or giving other choices, without empowerment, even if the patient was fully capable of understanding his or her condition.

With the exception of DiEM25 and its partners, no one has realised that healthcare and education cannot be thought of in neoliberal terms.

The participation of persons with disabilities, including children with disabilities, through their representative organizations, in the implementation and monitoring of the Convention – Articles 4.3 & 33.3

In the EU, there is a fundamental problem for the advancement of the rights of people with disabilities: one of the conclusions of the Disability Strategy 2010-2020 is that there is a “lack of a clear baseline data set” to monitor progress. The only way to evaluate is therefore through qualitative means. This is even more problematic given that it has been recognised from the outset that the strategy will take time to show results (see reference above).

As all our countries implement health care protection and education differently, there is no system in place for collating data from all EU partners. The social pillar of the EU that started in 2017 is the sad reason for this.

Persistent violence against women and girls with disabilities includes sexual violence and abuse, sexual and economic exploitation, forced sterilisation, institutionalisation.

Women and girls with disabilities – Article 6 – is one of the many forms of intersectional discrimination. It “recognizes that individuals do not experience discrimination as members of a homogenous group but, rather, as individuals with multidimensional layers of identities, statuses and life circumstances. It acknowledges the lived realities and experiences of heightened disadvantage of individuals caused by multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination […]”

Women with disabilities are composed of various groups — from different ethnic groups and/or are migrants, in detention, in poverty and/or are lesbian, bisexual, transgender.

Because sexual exploitation is slavery and it is a question of ethnicity, age, gender, social class, so many intersectional discriminations can be combined. And the more sexual violence strikes, the more deeply the brain and the body are dissociated. Although prostitution has probably decreased during the pandemic, because physical contact has been avoided, there is a strong need for health and financial support, because sex workers are stigmatised.

The pandemic has shown that communities of care are crucial for well being.

Living independently and being included in the community – Article 19. Independent living is “having the right level of support to do the things you want to do with your life” and it highlights the way in which we are interdependent with each other, in no way seeking a ‘paternalistic approach to service provision’.

During a pandemic, we rely on supporting networks of mutual aid at community level (such as family, neighbourhood shoppers, medication and food deliveries, local social media contact trees, nongovernmental organizations) so as to build and reinforce community cohesion.So does the DiEM25 Green New Deal for Europe, with the care income.

It follows that the state must foster community cohesion and provide free public health care to minorities on equal terms, equipped to deal with economic and health crisis.

Governments have implemented many temporary financial measures, such as the extension of financial aid, funds to support the additional purchase of medicines and protective elements. Has this basic income been so difficult to implement?

The extension of the obligation on employers to make “reasonable adjustments” for disabled employees so that it includes more options such as home working, flexible hours, especially for those people whose disability involves chronic energy depletion (e.g. chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis, systemic autoimmunity, fibromyalgia).

Accessibility – Article 9 – concerns including the physical environment such as transportation, information and communication services as open to the public. In the UK, our envoy pointed out that those “left-behind” and most “vulnerable” are poorly informed as to what to do during the crisis and not included in important decisions for example the impact of releasing the lockdown too early. In France, an advertisement by a non-governmental organisation set the framework by comparing social distancing with the situation of a person with disabilities: “Mobility, accessibility: now you know what it is.”

The disruption of the education system has exacerbated all the problems that children and their families face.

The right to inclusive education – Article 24. The inclusive education programme must be tailored to all forms of disability, made available in accessible places or media, in a spirit of acceptance for the benefits of all.

Although e-learning can benefit the child’s ability to search information personally, there is no guarantee that educational material is par for the course. Parents’ responsibilities have increased and social inclusion has decreased. There is therefore an urgent need to open schools with all support staff. And not to delay the opening of specialised schools or branches, as is the case in many countries.

We have seen some of the problems affecting people with disabilities in Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic with alternating periods of physical distancing.

Most of the cases show a negative impact that was probably worse for people with disabilities living on the street, migrants with disabilities, people with disabilities living in European countries facing an economic crisis. Two independent studies demonstrate that Europe was the highest contributor to the intercontinental spread of the virus. As 80% of people with disabilities live in emerging countries, it would have been wise to set the first wave of pandemic lockdowns much earlier in Europe.

On the international day of persons with disabilities, we call for an urgent revision of COVID-19 measures that not only take into account the various aspects mentioned in this article, but also include persons with disabilities in democratic processes of decision-making. The pandemic has also showcased that we can no longer “other” certain groups — everyone going through this health crisis can attest to the need for preventative public care, a care income and/or solidarity cash payment, and of investing in networks of mutual care and community cohesion.

At DiEM25, we address these issues through our proposal of a 3-Point-Plan tackling the pandemic, and our Green New Deal for Europe which emphasises intersectionality at the heart of a just transition. 

Photo Source: Photo by ELEVATE from Pexels.

Please contact the Taskforce for Feminism, Disabilities and Diversity, if you want to be further involved.

Etichette: 2020 Disabilities disability Diversity feminism human rights inclusion Taskforce

Last Month in DiEM25: November 2020

Pubblicato Dicembre 2nd, 2020 di DiEM25 Communications & inserito in Articles.

External Actions

We received 47 submissions for the first cycle of our Campaign Accelerator, a new project where we support individual DiEM25 members to design and run targeted campaigns on local issues they feel strongly about. 

Three submissions were chosen to receive customised support over the next few weeks: an initiative to block the construction of Yet Another Mall in Porto; an attempt to ensure a sustainable development model for a beautiful area in Northern Greece; and a push to stop arms companies running schools in the UK.

If you’re interested in working with these members on their campaigns, drop a note to [email protected]. And if there’s a local issue that outrages YOU that you’d like to send in for the project – a new round of submissions for Campaign Accelerator starts in January!

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After the US Elections, Brian Eno released a statement to the DiEM25 membership.

The Progressive International’s Make Amazon Pay campaign made headlines around the globe as artistic actions, protests and strikes happened on at least 4 continents. Read about DiEM25 members protesting in Luxembourg!

DiEM25 called for an international boycott of Amazon on 27 November 2020: Black Friday!

In order to pay tribute to the 1973 student uprising, 7 MeRA25 MPs marched in Athens while wearing masks and maintaining social distance. They marched for the doctors, nurses, teachers and students being abandoned by a “government that does not support them.”

The Rent-volution! Campaign is ongoing. This is an urgent matter due to the second wave of lockdowns spreading throughout Europe, and the continued precarious nature of many peoples’ work. As part of this campaign, a protest was held in Portugal by DiEM25 members in collaboration with Action for Housing.

We launched a new season of DiEMTV — our radically hopeful and constructive Television programme that has brought you guests such as Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein — on Monday 20 November!

The Taskforce for Feminism, Diversity and Disabilities has authored statements on the Gender Pay Gap during the pandemic, the discrimination of LGBTQIA+ students in the Netherlands, and Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Stay tuned and keep an eye on the announcements of the new series of Movement Coordination Calls! If you have joined DiEM25 in the last three months you can expect an invitation for the teleconference where we will get to know each other and the way DiEM25 operates.

Internal Actions

Monthly coordination calls are being organised by the CC with members from all corners of Europe! During these calls we focus on the two big pan-European initiatives of the CC, namely the Campaign Accelerator and the Peoples’ Gatherings. Here is the schedule for the calls, we hope to see you in one of them, soon (please keep the days in mind, as these calls will recur on the same day every month, using the same link):

Italy: Zoom on first Monday of the month

Spain: Zoom on first Tuesday of the month

Germany: Zoom on first Friday of the month

France: Zoom on second Monday of the month

UK (+Ireland): Zoom on second Tuesday of the month

Greece (+Cyprus): Zoom on second Friday of the month

Belgium (+ Netherlands and Luxembourg): Zoom on third Monday of the month

Portugal: Zoom on third Tuesday of the month

Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, Switzerland (even months) OR Scandinavia and Baltic States (odd months): Zoom on the third Friday of the month

Turkey: Zoom on fourth Monday of the month

Central and Eastern Europe: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, Ukraine: Zoom on fourth Tuesday of the month

Register for your country’s call through our calendar!

Continuing to build on our citizen engagement campaign (mentioned above) that sets out to build national programmes in collaboration with Europeans for DiEM25! We are now developing our Toolkit for organizers into a functional visual output! Are you from Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia, Switzerland orTurkey? Or do you have experience of living in these countries? We would love for you to send us your feedback about these countries using this form, so we can start developing the “Peoples’ Gatherings” project in these countries too!

A new DSC (DiEM25 Spontaneous Collective) was introduced in Stockholm! Welcome Stockholm 2 DSC to the DiEM25 community! Do you want to start a local group in your city or region? Contact us via [email protected]

This Month in DiEM25: December!

Our DiEMTV programme brings you four new series — check them out and register now!

Catch The 2020 Holberg Debate with Yanis Varoufakis vs. John Bolton: ‘Is Global Stability A Pipe Dream?’.

General Assembly for DiEM25 France members, register here.

If you wish to send a point to be included in the next newsletter, or want to help to draft it, please contact us at [email protected].

Etichette: 2020 Campaign Accelerator DiEM25

Owen Jones Meets Yanis Varoufakis: “We live under something far worse than capitalism”

Pubblicato Dicembre 2nd, 2020 di DiEM25 & inserito in Articles.

Owen Jones and Yanis Varoufakis discuss the ‘illiberal wave’ in Europe, COVID-19 as a ‘turbocharger’ of the crisis of capitalism, and more!

 

Etichette: capitalisme COVID-19 COVID-19 Owen Jones video Yanis Varoufakis

World AIDS Day: The power of unconventional politics

Pubblicato Dicembre 1st, 2020 di Taskforce on Feminism, Diversity and Disabilities & inserito in Articles.

The story of AIDS is a story of grassroots movements and pandemics.

There are LGBTQIA+ movements active worldwide in hundreds of local, national and transnational organisations that fight for the health,well-being and recognition of rainbow people all over. But few remember the catalyst for such a strong and powerful re-imagining: the stonewall riots and subsequent Pride marches — and most importantly, the grassroots movements and organisations that sprang up as a response to the AIDS pandemic that has, to date, claimed 35 million lives, making it one of the deadliest diseases in human history.

H2: The numbers: 38 million people live with HIV, 1,7 million people are infected annually, 690,000 die from HIV related causes every year and there are 12,6 Million people who have no access to treatment.

World AIDS Day, the first ever global health day, was established in 1988 after 7 years of intense activism that started in 1981 at gay playwright and activist Larry Kramer’s apartment. This led to the founding of Gay Men’s Health Crisis and later to ACT-UP.

The acceptance and mainstreaming of the LGBTQIA+ agenda had started before then and public opinion was changing. Strong and active communities had sprung up around the bars and clubs in San Francisco and New York before, and the LGBTQIA+ community had already started to organize itself around identity politics and was turning into a movement when the AIDS crisis hit.

This became an opportunity not only to come together and fight, but also a way to question what gay life meant and how it was constructed both from within and from without. Gay men and women had learned to make of marginalisation and insult a call to arms and a way of re-imagining identity.

 “If we behave like those on the other side, then we are the other side. Instead of changing the world, all we’ll achieve is a reflection of the one we want to destroy.”

— Jean Genet, The Balcony, 1956

The fight for political and social relevance, for survival, and the freedom to self-identify is an ongoing struggle for the LGBTQIA+.

The community has to constantly engage with these institutions and hostile governments as well as religious organisations world-wide.

There was a before and after Larry Kramer and ACT-UP in the world of medicine, as Dr. Fauci, who at the time was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health and is now on the Corona virus Task Force, has famously testified. It is a testament to what grass roots movements and political pressure organised around dissent can do. Inspired by the African American Civil Rights movement, ACT-UP used similar tactics to bring awareness and shift public opinion as well as force politicians to act: boycotts, non-violent civil disobedience, marches and demonstrations.

During the years of the Reagan administration and Thatcher  in the UK, AIDS was preponderantly affecting gay men, drug users, the black community and sex workers. Ultra conservatives dragged their feet and actively delayed acknowledging the epidemic. If we compare the timelines of COVID-19 to the responses to AIDS, it becomes glaringly transparent how political will creates and influences societal transformation as well as research and funding programs.

From the first cases of AIDS, popularly known as the ‘Gay Cancer’, in 1981 it took till October 1987 for Ronald Reagan to publicly acknowledge the epidemic, at which point close to 30,000 people had already died. It was a time of rampant homophobia and virulent attacks from the deeply conservative evangelical churches and pastors, who saw AIDS as a great opportunity to push their reactionary agenda and demonize homosexuality. Ronald Reagan was playing to his base, much as Trump has been doing, in denying to acknowledge and take action on a health crisis that affected marginalised and racialised communities the most.

These kinds of politics turned into administrative agendas and federal policies, meaning funding for research was lacking and education around sexual health was often prohibited on moral and religious grounds. This and the Catholic Church’s refusal to endorse safe sex practices globally have caused untold suffering and death for millions to this day.

“We have everything required to save our world except the will to do it. It should have been simple — fight for our rights, take care of ourselves and each other, be proud of ourselves, be proud we are gay. This should be what every gay person is fighting for, seven days each and every week.”

— Larry Kramer, 2019

Something we can all learn from the successes and failures of the fight against AIDS is the power of unconventional politics.

From the decades-long activism of ACT-UP and other organisations we can see how important it is that resistance, street politics and grassroots become a way to do politics and not just a way of reacting to the crisis politics of the neo-liberal agenda. Constant engagement, participation and democratic processes are effective: the development and deployment of experimental drugs to fight HIV was largely the result of the unconventional politics of activists and people-led organisations.

Just as with AIDS, it is in the marginalised and racialised populations that COVID has been shown to have the heaviest negative and destructive impact.  Populations that are likely to be last in the queue for the global roll-out of preventive action (see how COVID impacts populations transversely according to class, gender, race) as well as the vaccine

People living with HIV/Aids are more likely to live and work in conditions where physical distancing is not an option. Both of these epidemics run along the fault-lines of inequalities.

The theme for this year’s observance is “Ending the HIV/AIDS Epidemic: Resilience and Impact”.

Stigma around HIV and AIDS persists to this day and many are still ignorant of the facts around transmission and protection. Much has still to be done in research, education, advocacy campaigns and laws to protect the most vulnerable:

To understand more about World AIDS day, and show solidarity with the millions of people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, we suggest the following resources:

• World AIDS Day
• European resources for combating HIV and AIDS:

1. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
2. WHO Europe

Photo: Activists from ACT UP, a group co-founded in 1987 by Larry Kramer, shown in an archival photo from a demonstration.

Photo Source: Courtesy of HBO.

Etichette: ACT UP AIDS DiEM25 Disabilities Diversity feminism HIV LGBTQIA+ Taskforce

The Left must build a new green common-sense

Pubblicato Novembre 30th, 2020 di Jamie Davies & inserito in Articles.

One of the reasons for the failure of the mainstream Left in recent years has been its consistent inability to build a new common-sense.

One of the fundamental principles of any Green New Deal has to be how to build a new common-sense of thought and action around the ecological crisis.

It must, for example, re-frame the debate over air-travel/rail by working towards making less air-travel the norm; it must engage in a critical dialogue with the carefree way it is thought today. This is an essential question for any serious consideration of a post-capitalist economy, and one that the GNDE is tackling. As a People’s Green New Deal, it relies entirely on mobilising forces to act and think in a new way so as to fundamentally overturn how we think about capitalism and the ecological crisis.

A frame of thought (or common-sense) is fundamental. They structure our lives and the way we engage with the world. But they are not naturally occurring. Every frame of thought acts as a refraction or distillation of a particular dominant world view. This can be a profoundly positive occurrence. If the dominant world view is one of justice, equality, equity, fairness, then thought and action within such a world view will reflect that. Today the dominant common-sense is capitalist. As Frederic Jameson says, right now ‘it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.’

Yet today, the dominance of the capitalist common-sense is permeated with the possibility of constructing a new one. This is exemplified by air-travel. Commercial air-travel has reduced drastically throughout 2020 out of necessity, and this has provided an opportunity to finally seriously engage in a dialogue about the aviation industry, its devastating effect on the environment, and about the need to fly or travel as much. Air-travel’s ubiquity and naturalisation is, as a result of COVID-19, under much needed critique.

To build on this critique the Left must construct a new frame of thought and action that views the ecological crisis not as something that can be fixed by capitalism, but that understands and articulates that capitalism is fundamentally at issue. One that does not place the blame on an individual’s shoulders in the usual, neoliberal manner, but that recognises the necessity of structural change and where the real blame lies.

This common-sense must be an environment in which the destruction of our environment becomes unthinkable. As Felix Guattari argues, what is needed is a “collective and individual subjectivity that completely exceeds the limits of individualization, stagnation, identificatory closure, and will instead open itself up on all sides to the socius.”

The Left must work to alter the current common-sense around the ecological crisis which views it fundamentally as a ‘market failure’.

Something that with the right investment and the right technologies can be solved, as if the capitalist free-market were not fundamentally the problem.

This has a very real impact on how the world deals with and comprehends the ecological crisis, because the ecological crisis is, as many have argued, a crisis of imagination. It is also a crisis of unfathomable size and devastation for reality. But the two are linked. To separate them is a mistake we can no longer keep making. In other words, ‘The point is not to attain any special state of mind at all. The point is to go against the grain of dominant, normative ideas about nature, but to do so in the name of sentient beings suffering under catastrophic environmental conditions.’

Take the fact that 1% of the world’s population caused half of the aviation industry’s carbon emissions in 2018.

This extraordinary figure is not the result of some inherent malice in frequent fliers. It is a dual consequence of any lack of regulation on the aviation industry and a common-sense which is fundamentally unable to see the aftermath of many of its actions.

A globalised world is an accessible one, and an accessible one is made to be accessed, right? If it were immoral, why would it be possible?

These are natural responses to the argument against air-travel, and against much of what needs to be changed in order to mitigate the crisis we are already in. But this response is simply the distillation of the dominant worldview that has for too long successfully made invisible all of the consequences of our actions and that has again and again told us that there is nothing wrong with what you are doing. This obviously is a justification, and nothing more.

The GNDE’s policy recommendation to invest in high-speed rail and phase out ‘aeroplane flights with comparable times to rail alternatives’ is highly commendable but must also be met with an attempt to re-frame the debate over air-travel/rail.

To begin, alternatives must be thought up, they must be communicated, and in that process the naturalisation of the status quo is questioned. Once it has been questioned, it must not be allowed to go back to being unquestioned. It is no longer viable to say: ‘this cannot be done’, or ‘that is too much to ask’. This only an expression of a common-sense of inaction and disregard, and in repeating it this frame of thought is only cemented more.

All of this is possible and happening now, but it must be sustained. It is a momentous task, but one that cannot be ignored.

DiEM25 has wholeheartedly taken this task upon itself. The GNDE, as well as being a thorough alternative to the current capitalist response to the ecological crisis, offers the potential for building a new common-sense around how we live and interact with our world.

As a result, it offers a route for the Left too often forgotten; how to begin building a politics of emancipation that captures the imagination of the people.

Photo by SevenStorm JUHASZIMRUS from Pexels.

Etichette: airlines airplanes GPW Green New Deal for Europe green public works

Protestors at Amazon HQ in Luxembourg: “Amazon has to pay!”

Pubblicato Novembre 27th, 2020 di DSC Luxembourg 1 & inserito in Articles, Local News (English).

Protestors denounce mistreatment of warehouse workers, environmental damages and tax evasion in front of Amazon’s HQ in Luxembourg.

In this extraordinary year of 2020, marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent economic crisis, Black Friday has a whole different meaning, considering that Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos enriched himself beyond imagination and dodged millions of tax-money desperately needed for the economic recovery, while his workers risk their lives as essential workers. As described in the campaign “Make Amazon Pay”, the pandemic has exposed how Amazon places profits ahead of workers, society, and our planet. Amazon takes too much and gives back too little.

Luxembourg is known for its low tax burden and Amazon Luxembourg is the 2nd largest center of profit for the Amazon group.

In that sense, the DSC Luxembourg was contacted by the Progressive International about their “Make Amazon Pay” campaign and we soon began to organise a demonstration in front of the Amazon offices in Luxembourg-city together with several transnational groups (Collectif Tax Justice Letzebuerg, Stop Amazon Metz, Fakir Lorraine, Extinction Rebellion Luxembourg, Rise for Climate Luxembourg…), unions (ver.di) and the luxembourgish left party (Déi Lénk).

Photo: Due to COVID-19 restrictions, many activists from France or Germany wouldn’t be able to attend the demonstration and that’s how the idea came up to collect their pictures and display them at the demonstration.

Today, on the 27th of November 2020, over 30 people assisted in person to the first demonstration ever against Amazon in Luxembourg.

88 people were ‘present’ through their pictures. We would like to thank everyone for that. We were also honoured by the presence of a ridiculously large number of policemen, posted all around the block where Amazon has its offices. I think we can be proud to have created such a threatening effect on this big multinational. As Yanis Varoufakis said yesterday: “You see, Jeff Bezos, a very smart man, will take note. He will get it. Amazon’s days of impunity are over.”

DiEM25 member Brice Montagne made a speech during the event:

“Today we are in front of Amazon HQ Luxembourg. (…) We are here today because Jeff Bezos Amazon’s CEO has gained over 100 billion in personal wealth since the beginning of lockdowns due to COVID-19. (…) The model of Amazon is one in which workers are mistreated — we know that in warehouses in the north of France, there were no masks and social distancing. It’s a model in which the environment is mistreated, because products are moved across the world by plane. It’s a model in which taxes aren’t paid. Even though the little guy next door has to pay them and on top of that has to close. That’s why we are here with our comrades. Amazon has to pay. Amazon has to pay its workers, it has to pay for the environmental damage, and today it’s even more important to say today that there is a large cost to this crisis that billionaires that have gained immense wealth from this pandemic need to pay.”

This evening, several ‘Amazon experts’ will gather in an online conference to shed a light on Amazon´s multiple wrongdoings. Join us!

Among them, the European MP Leila Chaibi, the activist Alma Dufour from Les Amis de la Terre and the Luxembourgish MP David Wagner. The livestream can be followed in the Facebook event.

Authored by Sofia Fernandes, coordinator DSC Luxembourg.

Find out more about Make Amazon Pay and contribute to the strike fund here!

Etichette: Amazon Dsc Grassroots Luxembourg Make Amazon Pay

This Black Friday, let’s make Amazon pay!

Pubblicato Novembre 26th, 2020 di DiEM25 Communications & inserito in Articles.

Black Friday is here — and one man stands to profit most: Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.

Over the past decade, Amazon has expanded into a global empire, exploiting its workers, abusing the environment, and stealing our most intimate data. Today, Amazon has also made major profits during the COVID-19 pandemic as businesses have struggled to cope with fluctuating measures.

Amazon’s disruptive practices are a threat to workers rights and democracy in the EU.

Reigning in corporate oligarchies like Amazon who are clearly profiting from tax evasion and anticompetitive practices is crucial to democratize Europe. Amazon has been the subject of an Antitrust Case led by the European Commission due to concern over its big data practices and how the platform leverages these to marginalize other sellers in the EU. But while the EU goes after Amazon for its use of big data and its anticompetitive practices, it has done little to address tax evasion and other issues highlighted by European labour leaders.

The demands of workers unions in Europe must be heard by politicians in order to address their poor labour practices – the latest being their lack of proper health and safety measures during the pandemic, such as in France where “the company obviously ignored its obligations to the security and health of its workers.” Workers in Italy, France and Spain were forced to go to their government authorities or go on strike in order to make the retail giant respect the measures.

Amazon clearly thinks that it can act above EU law and set its own standards. Internal Amazon reports have revealed the company’s ‘obsessive monitoring of organized labor and social and environmental movements’ in Europe. It has even hired operatives to spy on their own warehouse workers and prevent strikes. The EU needs to listen to workers who have been demanding action against the Amazon empire which is known for prioritising higher profit margins at the expense of their safety and well-being.

We are calling on you to get involved!

DiEM25 invites you to join a coalition of warehouse workers, environmental activists, and citizens from around the world in a global campaign to #MakeAmazonPay. On Black Friday, we will mobilize in a Global Day of Action to demand justice from Amazon — with strikes in Amazon warehouses and solidarity actions all around the world.

• SIGN the Common Demands to make your voice heard.
• SUPPORT Amazon workers with a donation to the Strike Fund.
• BOYCOTT Amazon’s Black Friday bargains.

We will be collecting images of DiEMers in their homes and out on the streets mobilizing to #MakeAmazonPay. So send yours in to [email protected]!

Etichette: Amazon Black Friday DiEM25 Grassroots

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