As close readers of Cosmonaut know, I have been paying close attention to the SARS-2 pandemic for some time, writing twice in its pages on the state of the pandemic. In December 2021, I wrote an extensive breakdown of the evidence that mild infections may cause cognitive dysfunction in a large number of patients.1 In June 2022, I attempted to psychoanalyze the public and noted that economic damage was occurring not only due to the massive number of dead, but due to millions of previously working people disabled with Long COVID as noted by the various western financial institutions.2 Somehow, we ended up with the beginning of a financial crisis. For some reason.
The White House, an institution that speaks God’s own truth unerringly, has declared our independence from the virus3, but sadly without the daring fighter pilot action sequences we’ve come to expect from our greatest Presidents like Thomas J. Whitmore.4 Even if one were inclined to heretical thoughts, for example, that the pandemic might still be happening, it is difficult to believe that the government would make such a serious error in judgment. After all, they have the most advanced science, budgets, and technology in the history of humanity at their fingertips and the moral authority to summon nearly whomever they wish to advise the President. Our great father, the King, has our best interests at heart. If he were to err, it would be only because of a coterie of scoundrels and harpies whispering in his ear, begging him to make their wallets whole.
Nonetheless, I am here to speak a shocking, scandalous, and embarrassing truth that I wish were not. I am saddened to tell you that the true state of the pandemic is not-so-good.
I would go on to tell you all the ways in which it is not-so-good, but fortunately, I have a piece of paper in my pocket for you that will explain everything. Here it is.
More straightforwardly, I’m writing to tell you about a resolution intended for the 2023 DSA National Convention that I co-authored with several comrades in cooperation with the DSA National Disability Working Group titled “DSA Organizing for Pandemic Justice.” This resolution provides a near-comprehensive political strategy for combating the pandemic as only DSA, the largest socialist organization in America, can.
The degree of exhaustion, hopelessness, and gaslighting we’ve all experienced with this crisis are real, stretching now unbelievably into its fourth year. At this point everyone is constantly sick and getting sicker, medically vulnerable people are either de facto imprisoned or near death, everything is terrible no matter how we try to ignore it, and people seem to be losing their minds, especially when one mentions the-virus-that-must-not-be-named. The level of unprocessed sickness, death, and general trauma are unreal. Yet, no matter where you are on Earth, the virus follows. There is no escape.
Comrades, it is time for a change! You mustn’t live like this. Together, we can defeat this common enemy of humanity, despite its collaborators in high society. We have the technology to stop transmission, we simply need the will. Our resolution provides a focal point for organizing within DSA for a better world than 2019, one not only free of the “mild” dread virus SARS-CoV-2, but one with reduced transmission of respiratory pathogens overall.
Now, what’s in this resolution? Here are a few highlights.
- We explain that the massively deadly, disabling, and whitewashed COVID-19 pandemic is still ongoing at a high level. People do not understand the mode of transmission, true impact, or how to protect themselves. Immunocompromised people are increasingly trapped at home and workers are exposed to elevated risk on-the-job that increases with each infection. Inequities worsen as POC, disabled, and LGBT people are impacted disproportionately.
- DSA has a responsibility to protect our comrades and the public from this passive eugenics campaign that benefits the capitalist class by forcing workers back to their jobs. Our resolution refocuses DSA on continuing to fight the virus, centers the health of our comrades and emphasizes doing mutual aid to provide PPE, air filters, and education to the public.
- It assigns the National Disability Working Group as the center for coordinating pandemic organizing in DSA.
- We reorient DSA to a fighting posture by demanding a true end to the pandemic though public policy changes to sustain and extend health, financial, and housing protections won early in the pandemic, research money for Long COVID, a second Operation Warp Speed to find a vaccine that blocks transmission durably, a peoples’ tribunal to adjudicate the deadly decisions made by the U.S. government, and by denouncing attempts to pin the blame for the pandemic on China to further aggressive U.S. geostrategy.
- We reaffirm the call for Medicare for All, a nationalized pharmaceuticals industry, and nationalized arms manufacturing.
- We also call for establishing a Health and Safety Committee in each chapter, in coordination with the national Disability Working Group (DWG), to halt transmission of COVID-19 within DSA and report collaboratively developed statistics periodically.
- Chapters adopting strong pandemic health and safety resolutions are eligible for $950 in subsidies for safety equipment.
As you can see, we are simply calling for socialism! Broken down even more simply, I see it as containing these essential elements.
- We educate and keep our comrades safe.
- We educate and keep the public safe.
- We replace broken functions of government with our own parallel health and safety system and judicial proceedings.
- We propose a progressive, vital, and aggressive A to Z public policy platform that DSA can fight for.
- The U.S. government can fuck off trying to deflect blame for over a million dead people and counting, one of the worst results in the world in the world’s richest country.
In order to get this resolution to the convention, we need a total of 300 signatures from DSA members in good standing.
Comrade! Can we count on you to help us get this to the convention floor? Sign on to the resolution here:
https://actionnetwork.org/forms/disability-working-group-resolutions-for-dsa-convention-2023
We additionally ask you, please circulate this resolution within your chapter and get it into your weekly newsletter.
Let me end by quoting from the text:
…the COVID-19 crisis and the deadly response to it by the international capitalist class demands that we rise to the challenges of our moment in history and engage in collective struggle and sacrifice, not merely to restore the world of 2019, but to create a better one for the sake of the working class and all of society…
Together we can end the pandemic and finally—ourselves—give the speech we expected from our President.5
William Silversmith
- Silversmith. COVID’s Hidden Cost: Why Living with the Virus is Not an Option. Cosmonaut. December 2021. https://cosmonautmag.com/2021/12/covids-hidden-cost-why-living-with-the-virus-is-not-an-option/
- Silversmith. We Will Return to Pandemic Protections Within a Year. Cosmonaut. June 2022. https://cosmonautmag.com/2022/06/we-will-return-to-pandemic-protections-within-a-year/
- Jacobs and Cai. “Biden Declares Success in Beating Pandemic in July 4 Speech.” Bloomberg. July 4, 2021. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-04/biden-to-appeal-for-vaccinations-after-u-s-missed-july-4-target
- They did shoot down a weather balloon as though that was supposed to satisfy us.
- “Mankind.” That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it’s fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom… Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution… but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: “We will not go quietly into the night!” We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!—Bill Pullman, Independence Day (1996)