Manus Lenihan is a member of the Socialist Party (ISA in Ireland). Covid-19 has utterly changed the political landscape. Just one month ago, rent freezes were deemed “unconstitutional.” Today a rent freeze is in force, along with a ban on evictions. The healthcare system has been massively expanded. Private hospital beds and facilities have been […]
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For most of my adult life, I have been living paycheque to paycheque working at minimum wage jobs. Most recently, I was employed at a boutique soap store (which continues to stay open as it falls under the designation of an “essential service”). A non-unionized workplace, roughly 85% of its employees have been laid off […]
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On April 3, the Canadian government awarded Amazon the contract to distribute personal protective equipment and supplies during the COVID-19 disaster.A couple of days earlier Amazon had fired a New York worker, Chris Smalls, for helping to organize a strike over the lack of safety provision in Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse. On April 14, Amazon […]
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Harper Cleves is a member of the Socialist Party (ISA in Ireland). In the last weekend of March, images of a parking lot converted into a homeless shelter in Las Vegas, Nevada sparked outrage. The images of the make-shift shelter are stark and are illustrative of the grotesque inequalities that lie at the heart of […]
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Serge Jordan is a member of International Socialist Alternative. Capitalism and Imperialism in the dock The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown into sharp relief the profound social inequalities prevailing under modern capitalism. Nowhere more than in Africa. The Global Health Security (GHS) Index is a measured assessment of 195 countries’ capacity and readiness to face outbreaks […]
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Carmia Schoeman and Mametlwe Sebei are members of the Workers’ and Socialist Party (ISA in South Africa). Lockdown measures surpass those of 1987 Apartheid state of emergency South African president Cyril Ramaphosa announced on March 23, that the government’s “state of disaster” restrictions would be escalated to an unprecedented lockdown of the whole country. The […]
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On January 30, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that governments should be preparing immediately and taking precautions due to the virus. On February 24, the increasing number of cases outside China spurred the WHO to warn that the virus could become a global pandemic, and that all countries should prepare. On 27 February, the […]
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As we enter the second month of the COVID-19 lockdown, I will share my thoughts, as an inner-city general practitioner in Toronto. Firstly, I do not consider myself as working on the frontlines. I have the good fortune of a well-paying job, a home that I partially own, adequate food on the table, am a […]
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Apologists for capitalism claim that the system is doing the best it can faced with a new virus in today’s complex and interconnected world. These are, at best, only excuses that seek to hide the reality of global capitalism, which has turned a health emergency into a catastrophe. This article examines, in turn, these excuses: […]
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Aislinn O’Keeffe is a member of the Socialist Party (ISA in Ireland). According to a 2018 OECD survey, one in six people across Europe are living with a mental health problem, and more than 50% of people will experience mental health issues over the course of their lifetimes. Of the 36 countries surveyed, Ireland ranked […]
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