As I wrote yesterday, today is the day for #CapitalismIsThePandemic. One of many actions related to global mass strikes. This is a creative action, especially in these times when gatherings should be discouraged because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is an excellent opportunity to discuss capitalism and colonialism with others, especially young people. I think the view below is fairly common, which was a comment on my Facebook post about #CapitalismIsThePandemic:
What is Capitalism? Capitalism is a political, social and economic system where needed and wanted, goods and services are made available to the consumer because entrepreneurs have an INCENTIVE and the freedom to make a profit . Capitalism is a free market enterprise system where businesses compete to bring the best goods and services to the market at the best price the market will bear.” 101 Capitalism If you are greedy, unkind or dishonest it reflects on you as a person but doesn’t indicate a “bad” system.
My response was:
The problem I have with capitalism is it places a monetary value on everything, including things that can’t rightfully be owned. The most extreme being the idea that people could be purchased. That also extends to the idea that the commons can be “owned”. That natural resources can be owned and the owner allowed to do anything they want with “their” property. The idea that a company can own land with tar sands, and devastate the earth and water to mine them. Even as the burning of fossil fuels is killing Mother Earth and ourselves. The idea that a company should do anything it can to increase the profit of its shareholders regardless of the damage those policies might do. It is a system without morals. A system where success is defined by how much wealth you accumulate. Native peoples were living for thousands of years without a system like capitalism. So yes, I believe capitalism is a “bad” system.
Jeff Kisling
My friend Ronnie James says:
I’m of the firm opinion that a system that was built by stolen bodies on stolen land for the benefit of a few is a system that is not repairable. It is operating as designed, and small changes (which are the result of huge efforts) to lessen the blow on those it was not designed for are merely half measures that can’t ever fully succeed.
So the question is now, where do we go from here? Do we continue to make incremental changes while the wealthy hoard more wealth and the climate crisis deepens, or do we do something drastic that has never been done before? Can we envision and create a world where a class war from above isn’t a reality anymore?”
Ronnie James
Today, a 50’ sky banner visible to millions stating #CAPITALISMISTHEPANDEMIC will circle Manhattan–the US bedrock of capitalism and banking–to deliver a powerful message of protest against colonization and worker injustice in solidarity with essential workers who aren’t properly protected or supported.
There are several ways you can help support this action.
- One way is to use these hashtags for Facebook posts, twitter, or any other way you use social media to support this.
- #CapitalismIsThePandemic #CitizensInThePresent #SeedingSovereignty #CITP #COVID19 #Coronavirus #NationalWorkersDay #MayDay #ReturnStolenLand #GND #ImmigrantRights
- You can re-tweet the twitter posts below.
- You can share the press release: https://seedingsovereignty.org/press-release
- And you can share the graphics in the Media Toolkit. https://seedingsovereignty.org/media-tool-kit
According to Christine Nobiss, Decolonizer with Seeding Sovereignty, “Capitalism is the pandemic because, though we face COVID-19 together, the heightened economic imbalance is further exposing the deep racial divide in this country. Black, Latino/Latina, Indigenous, and immigrant communities are experiencing higher morbidity rates of COVID-19 due to pre-existing conditions created by the long-term global pandemic of colonial-capitalism.” These communities face strained and genocidal relationships with the American government and live with elevated rates of poverty, violence, unemployment, chronic illness, incarceration, deportation, water crises, inadequate housing, and food deserts—creating a perfect storm for mass infection.
https://seedingsovereignty.org/capitalism-is-the-pandemic
With this action, we demand an end the colonial-capitalist economy supported by institutionalized white supremacist and heteropatriarchal systems that have devastated our lands, climate, and peoples through ceaseless resource extraction, land occupation, border imperialism, misogyny, homophobia, enslavement, and genocide. This viral pandemic is part of a much larger problem as explained by Buffalo-based media artist, Jason Livingston, who conceived this action, “The crisis began before the virus, and the crisis will continue beyond the vaccine.”
Quakers, social justice and revolution 