The class adventure of a virus

If a person was to assert that the coronavirus is equally dangerous for people of all classes upon hearing some “businessmen” and politicians also have got sick, with some even dying due to  this pandemic, not only would it be the case that they have not said the truth, but this would also constitute a failure to see the truth on their part. The reality is that a disease virus capable of international prevalence does not also lead to consequences, which are immune to class distinctions. Cases in exception are misleading. As for policies implemented, they serve to explain and clarify. It is necessary to consider the spread of the “credit and aid packages” announced. Those who do not regard the attacks against the workers demanding protective measures in workplaces or the situation of those sacked, swayed by the veils of bourgeois manipulative propaganda, will be deceived.

While virus-related assessment and debates, which have already been coined as "Corona days" in journalistic-magazine writing continue unbound, news agencies have announced that US President Donald Trump “has signed the decree that allows allowing space mining and exclusive use of extra-terrestrial sources”. According to the decree, which includes his "elaborate sign of depression" signature, Trump was permitting the use of water and mineral resources in space by private companies and individuals. The US Presidential Decree of April 6, which Russia immediately described and opposed as an "unacceptable" initiative, opens the use of water and mines in the moon and other celestial bodies to private companies and individuals; it informed us that competition and conflict over world resources is now being carried to extra-terrestrial "worlds".

At a time when the bourgeois imperialist chiefs have declared that the whole world is “at war” with coronavirus, signing a "sales contract" for the resources of other planets such as Mars and the Moon, resembles the scene of a butcher sharpening a knife while "the sheep struggles for life", hoping that the reader will tolerate the analogy. The likes of Trump, who sit on the top of the military bureaucratic state apparatus, while the peoples of the countries they rule are literally spitting blood, are enacting the 'greedy' shrewd, issuing tenders as they are for the acquisition of space resources, or using the corona campaigns to ransack the bread and water money of workers, as though the exploitation of their labour is not enough.

Although it is unclear to what extent and when the water, mineral resources etc. envisaged by the Trump endorsed pillage decree will be appropriated by the companies of shrewd billionaires like E. Musk, it is a blindingly stark indicator of the characteristic of capitalist barbarism that the administration of a country which comes to mind first in considering world capitalism and can be said to be its leader does not neglect ‘parcelling’ earth and space at such a time when ‘concern for survival’ have reached massive proportions. . The USA, not seeing itself bound by the "rules" stipulated by the "Moon Treaty" (the Treaty Regulating the Activities of the States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies "- 1979), which is impossible for most people to be aware of, while putting the commercial value of space resources into auction, has also been resorting to the shrewd trader practice of benefitting from the 'capture of brains' by the pandemic declared “mortal” in all countries and the state of all attention being diverted to Covid-19!

Whatever the differences in between Trump's personality traits as an oligarch who is the organic element of monopolistic capital or between the US "system of values" and those of rulers of other capitalist countries and the "national priorities" they foreground, it has been laid bare one after another that they are enacting the "Pirates of the Caribbean". The theft of 'masks' which the scientists specified as useful against coronavirus attack is just one of the examples. Newspapers and news agencies reported that USA tried to snatch by offering three times higher price or confiscate the 1.5 and 2 million masks en route to France and Germany which they respectively placed orders to China. Germany's Interior Minister of the State of Berlin has rightly accused the United States of "modern piracy”. This piracy can also be seen as the actualisation of the bourgeois individualistic selfishness on state level.

The bourgeois crying "For me first - always for me!", the capitalist demanding transfer of more resources to his company pointing to decrease in his profits, the manager who follows growth policies with the young labour force, having sacrificed the aged population, they are all now naked before us!

At exactly a time like this, the U.S. military power is in motion in Europe and Africa in its thousands and tens of thousands. It maintains hostility to Cuba, intrigues to overthrow Maduro in Venezuela, and does all at its disposal to bring Iran down with the Zionists. Those who rule Turkey continue to keep the army in ruined locations in Syria, fully aware of the possibility for the disease to among soldiers. Those who transferred 98 million lira to the capitalists in the name of "war against" the corona, are mobilising judges by accusing those who point to the impasse of economic policies, including the health policy they are implementing as opposition to "national interest". It became routine to disarm all opposing voices with the “conspiracy” discourse, given how effective it has been. The examples are obviously valid with similar arguments for all capitalist governments.  In India, the whip is in force, in the Philippines to "shoot".

What all this means is that along with the calls and hectoring of "we have to win the war with this virus in unity, stay home and keep quiet, keep your hands clean, be an individual, don't stand by side", the bourgeois state powers, which continue to turn the capitalist wheel by rendering the suffering of workers and labourers filling factories and businesses invisible, “continue to tread their way” without compromising their attack policies for the interests of capital at home and abroad.

(Translated by Ceren DELİBAS)