the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jun 6, 2022
Millions of people remember loved ones lost as soldiers in various wars on Memorial Day each year, some laying flowers on their graves. Many politicians mention how much we owe to all these veterans of foreign wars at this time of year, never mentioning anything about the policies that led to those wars.
Another war has entered its third year, and a million families lost a loved one—the COVID war. The milestone was just noted by the president, and a million people dying from COVID-19 is an undercount of those lost. Yet each family, each friend, each person lost is mourned individually as if the entire world is not in the COVID war together.
The wars that veterans have fought are military policies carried out by the different countries to gain an advantage over some other country. Plenty of people living today wish these wars were not being fought, not creating new deaths, not causing suffering and homelessness and displacement for millions, both veteran and civilian.
In the COVID war, somehow people think if they are isolated, if they wear masks in crowded indoor places, if they get vaccinated, they will be protected. Unfortunately, that’s not how viruses work. The world is so tied together, in so many millions of ways by humans, by airplanes, by ships, by the very air we breathe, that when a virus erupts in one place, it will without any relief travel to another place, to another group of people it may kill. COVID didn’t just affect one million families in the U.S. Millions more around the world died in this same war.
It’s past time to use the world’s resources in a way that will end the world’s wars.