From discussions online and articles from communist or “leftist” publications, I’ve seen an increase of anti-vax/mandate thinking, either being framed as

  • Pro-vaccine means you’re pro-big pharma
  • Pro-vaccine is inherently racist
  • Pro-mandate is bourgeois authority meant to dissuade organizing
  • Pro-COVID “hysteria” is a way to further oppress the working class

Other than a psyop meant to discredit the left, what about those that are genuine? I’ve seen online communists with seemingly good politics fall to this line of thinking, and even sources like Greyzone and MintPress have pushed out similar drivel. And of course I’ve only seen this from Western “leftists”, mostly from the US but not limited to them.

The pandemic has been a serious issue since the beginning, and now that rates of infection and hospitalizations are spiking well past the highs during the “peak” of the pandemic in the US, these voices have grown. The irresponsibility of these supposed comrades spouting out their hurtful rhetoric despite AES countries like China taking the necessary steps to continue to contain the pandemic speaks volumes to those privileged enough to be anti-health of the working class.

  • @gun@lemmy.ml
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    2 years ago

    Don’t forget Marxists like Richard Wolff too. And you fail to see things in a national context. The reason you see this amongst communists in the west is because the situation is completely different. There are different vaccines with different consequences, and the people are responding differently. China is a democracy, and the people their have faith in their government to fight coronavirus and agree with the measures taken. In the US, this is not the case. Even in left leaning places like New York, workers are striking against mandates. So will you impose your pie in the sky dreams of zero covid onto these workers based on pure reason? This is not how Marxists are supposed to think.

    We cannot blindly trust what Pfizer, Moderna, Bill Gates have to say about the vaccine or Liberal Science at all, we have to be critical. Liberal Science is based on the interests of the ruling class. In the case of big pharma it is to sell as many vaccines possible at the highest price. They will use the government to mandate several vaccines and foot the bill. Potential adverse side effects like myocarditis must be buried by the media so as not to encourage “vaccine hesitancy.” Already we are discussing a 4th shot only a year into the vaccines.

    So what is the point of a mandate in stopping the spread of covid? Each booster shot is outdated for this purpose upon arrival. The first vaccine was made useless by delta, the booster made useless by omicron. They are not effective at stopping the spread. They admit as such! And something we know for certain: Covid is not ever, ever going away, no matter how many vaccines people take. Like the Spanish Flu, it will become gradually less deadly over time. Case numbers already diverged from hospitilizations with Delta, and with the Omicron surge, you do not see the same increase in deaths from covid.

    You are also spreading misinformation. Cases are spiking past the old peaks true, but hospitilizations from covid are not even close to last years peak despite the surge in cases. And look, I got the booster too, and I would recommend people get the vaccine for their own safety. I am not anti-vax. The issue is whether we allow big pharma to use the government for their own profits or side with workers. Even if you don’t agree, why do you find it so important to propagandize on behalf of the vaccine, what the media and pharma are capable of doing themselves? Is the voice of communists really what people are waiting for to change their minds when they already disagree with the mainstream media? Instead, you are not convincing anyone, you are just losing credibility in the face of people’s real concerns.

    • savoyOP
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      92 years ago

      Not doxxing myself but where I live in the US, both cases and hospitalizations are spiking past their peak last summer. Omicron may not be as deadly right now as with the first two strains that hit big here, but it’s still an issue.

      Quoting how the workers in New York are against mandates should not affect our thinking. As Marxists-Leninists, we don’t take current working class sentiment/opinions/rhetoric as law. The majority in this country believe socialism to be evil at worst or “good on paper” at best; does this mean we drop the idea of a working-class revolution because the majority of the working class is seemingly against it? It’s an exaggerated example but the logic still fits.

      There is also zero “blind trust” for pharmaceutical companies. I have comrades in the medical field who face centrist excuses of “vaccine hesitancy” hidden under the guise of “levelheadedness” on a constant basis, and it’s absolutely infuriating. So what, should we just ignore doctors as science can become politicized and form our own opinion? No, serious health officials in this country AND in general in AES countries know that pandemic protocols must be in place to deter this. Going with “it’s never going away, might as well get used to it” is defeatist and explicitly anti-Marxist, while the thinking is “this is potentially never going away, protocols need to be in place to prevent more outbreaks.”

      Being a communist isn’t about being contrarian to anything that happens under a bourgeois capitalist society, it’s about looking at the situation critically and dialectically.

      • Muad'DibberM
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        52 years ago

        I have a friend that’s a nurse, and she’s also infuriated with having to deal with people all day long who went to google medical school. Its that kind of systemic ignorance that’s causing even “leftists” to have this selfish individualism with respect to the pandemic, even while the global north is doing their best to prevent everyone else in the world from getting access to vaccines.

      • @gun@lemmy.ml
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        12 years ago

        both cases and hospitalizations are spiking past their peak last summer

        I don’t know where you are getting your numbers, because covid cases and deaths didn’t peak last summer, they peaked winter 2020. And deaths in the US have not even surpassed the delta wave. On the global scale, you don’t even see an increase in deaths since omicron. This is how the pandemic ends. Each variant becomes more transmissible, less deadly, because being severe and deadly hurts the transmission of a virus obviously.

        Going with “it’s never going away, might as well get used to it” is defeatist

        But that’s the truth! What everyone is saying! If you think that covid can be completely eliminated like small pox, you do not have any friend in academia who will agree with you, not even Fauci. The approach has always been how to best deal with the virus, not how to eliminate it. So it’s not defeatist or anti-marxist, it’s just the truth.

        As Marxists-Leninists, we don’t take current working class sentiment/opinions/rhetoric as law. The majority in this country believe socialism to be evil at worst or “good on paper” at best; does this mean we drop the idea of a working-class revolution because the majority of the working class is seemingly against it?

        No, but you have to at the very least listen to what they are saying, understand their arguments. I get the impression that some of Marxists just want to dismiss the opinions of these people altogether instead of understanding the dialectic and learning from their concerns. They still arrive at their positions through pure reason and not through a dialectic relationship with the people. It is the job of Marxists to articulate the real concerns of the people, not to dictate.

        Being a communist isn’t about being contrarian to anything that happens under a bourgeois capitalist society, it’s about looking at the situation critically and dialectically.

        Which is what we are doing. We are not blindly antithetical to liberal ideology. I don’t just assume there are creatures with tentacles in the vaccine or that the vaccine is a genocide plot or other conspiracy theories. On the other hand, I wasn’t always skeptical either. My starting position was to trust what the news was saying about the vaccine and distrust other opinions.

        • @Josh_Drake@lemmygrad.ml
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          02 years ago

          ‘Everyone is saying it so it must be true’ that is not good reasoning and is anti-marxist and defeatist no matter how you spin it, because it is unscientific. You can’t just declare ‘it’s never gonna get cured’ because how do you know for sure it can’t be cured? We’ve said the same things about diseases such as polio for example. There should be absolutely no absolutism with declaring diseases ‘uncurable’.

          • @gun@lemmy.ml
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            -12 years ago

            That’s not my reasoning. But for those people who disagree with me, they’re point is always “trust the science, don’t think critically and do your own research.” So if these people want to trust liberal science, of course it should be pointed out when that science even contradicts the points they are making.

            And yes, with the vaccine technology we have today, it is impossible to completely eradicate covid. All means of preventing covid are based on increasing the correct antibodies to identify spike proteins on covid. The reason this doesn’t work for certain diseases is because these spike proteins are always changing through mutation. With covid, it is changing VERY quickly. With waves every 3 months, it suggests your immunity only lasts for 3 months. And in the case of Omicron, people seem to be getting reinfected after only 2 months. This is why we don’t vaccinate against the common cold either. Because it mutates too quickly.

            If you have a plan to eradicate covid worldwide, let’s hear it! Because our epidemiologists have nothing. Until you come up with something, you can stop being rude to me and stop calling me a defeatist and anti-marxist when the entire world is already working on this and has come to the same conclusion that I have. I’m just a realist. The sooner you see reality as it is, not as it should be, you will be best equipped to handle its challenges. But if you can’t, then you are the anti-marxist.

            • @Josh_Drake@lemmygrad.ml
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              -12 years ago

              Thanks for completely missing my point. The point was that you shouldn’t rush to conclusions in the field of science, whether it be vaccines or any other field of endeavor in the sciences, because it is unscientific and therefore anti-marxist to do so. You also pretty much undermined your (apparent) point with ‘with the vaccine technology we have today’. Solidifying one of my own points, which is that science is never set in stone. You never know what science is truly capable of. I have never claimed to have a solution to covid, that is for the great scientists of the world who have actual training to figure out, so you are appearing to poison the well on that front.

              You don’t seem to have a consistent point of your own, it seems: “trust the science, don’t think critically and do your own research.” and then you followed it up with why we shouldn’t trust ‘liberal science’? So which is it? I also love the presupposition that people who follow science are basically sheep. If that were the case, we couldn’t do literally anything without ‘being a sheep’. That just reeks of Alex Jones-level craziness.

              • @gun@lemmy.ml
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                02 years ago

                I’m not rushing to conclusions! These are the conclusions that have been reached after a hundred years!

                True, science is not set in stone, but it also takes years to develop new technologies, and these have to be in the realm of imagination first before they put billions into development. So where is even the hypothetical or proposed path to eradicate covid? You believe in magic! You are a magical thinker!

                You don’t seem to have a consistent point of your own, it seems: “trust the science, don’t think critically and do your own research.” and then you followed it up with why we shouldn’t trust ‘liberal science’?

                Reading comprehension bro. Why don’t you reread the context of where I put that quote carefully.

                I also love the presupposition that people who follow science are basically sheep. If that were the case, we couldn’t do literally anything without ‘being a sheep’.

                So would you trust the eugenicists of the early 20th century? If “science” told you that certain races are worse would you believe them uncritically? I’m not anti-science, you are, because you wouldn’t know what science is if it hit you in the face. Every real Marxist understands historiography, the history of philosophy and the history of science, and knows that the study of these things serves the interests of the ruling class. If science could reveal something disadvantageous to the ruling class, it would never be funded in the first place. REAL science, relies on criticism, and not just an appeal to authority FALLACY which you are invoking. It’s you who doesn’t believe in science.

                • @Josh_Drake@lemmygrad.ml
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                  12 years ago

                  ‘Reading comprehension bro. Why don’t you reread the context of where I put that quote carefully.’

                  The ‘context’ is that you uttered two incoherent points. The entirety of what you said in that bit is all the context you need. ‘Context’ seems to be a word you like to throw around when losing an argument.

                  ‘So would you trust the eugenicists of the early 20th century? If “science” told you that certain races are worse would you believe them uncritically? I’m not anti-science, you are, because you wouldn’t know what science is if it hit you in the face. Every real Marxist understands historiography, the history of philosophy and the history of science, and knows that the study of these things serves the interests of the ruling class. If science could reveal something disadvantageous to the ruling class, it would never be funded in the first place. REAL science, relies on criticism, and not just an appeal to authority FALLACY which you are invoking. It’s you who doesn’t believe in science.’

                  So many things to unravel from this trainwreck of a paragraph. Who is arguing ANY of this? This is a straight-up strawman. I have never argued for eugenics, science is not just limited to criticism, and Marxists can study all of the sciences you listed without being ‘anti-marxist’. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are philosophers, I guess they served the ruling class then, guess that means we have to ignore everything they said, which means I guess everything we’ve ever accomplished is history, and you continue to superimpose the western situation onto science as a whole, which includes Chinese science, so I don’t know what else to infer from this other than you are an arrogant western ‘leftist’ who believes in the superiority of the western world over nations like China.

    • “I know that a million of you are dead already, but its not a big deal, I swear. Sure, they were mostly poor people, but eh. I mean, can we trust Liberal medicine? I don’t have anything that shows significant harm done by the vaccines, but hey, the profit motive is super scary. Now, go back to work and die. I’m a communist by the way.”

      • @gun@lemmy.ml
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        -22 years ago

        Ah, I love day old accounts on my case. Whose alt are you? Too scared to show your real identity huh? Or maybe you are a fed?

        Now, go back to work and die. I’m a communist by the way.

        This is total projection. Because when workers go on strike against mandates from their bosses, I have solidarity with them. It is you who want them to go back to work. You have solidarity with the bosses.

        And you think being wary of the profit motive is an insult. What kind of communist are you? Profit is the essence of capitalism and all of its ills. How can you be a communist without being wary of the profit motive?

        • Because when workers go on strike against mandates from their bosses, I have solidarity with them.

          Would you have supported labor organizers in the thirties trying to excise minorities from their shops?

          • @gun@lemmy.ml
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            -22 years ago

            No. I am in favor of building a movement of the working class. That kind of behavior divides the working class so it is not in anyone’s interest but the ruling class. It’s objectively counterproductive.

            • Great.

              So you agree that just because a group of workers wants something, doesn’t mean it’s good and deserving of support, right? That a class of workers have interests that they, at the very least feel, align closer with the Bourgeois due to their position in the liberal meritocracy?

              • @gun@lemmy.ml
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                12 years ago

                Yes I agree. But this is not the case with the vaccine mandate protests. Richard Wolff explains it best https://twitter.com/profwolff/status/1454266810400972801?lang=en
                The tried and proven form of a workers movement is the harmony of the workers following the leadership of the communist party. The party learns from the people, the people follow the leadership of the party. If there is a misalignment, this process has failed somewhere and you do not have a successful workers movement.

                In the national context of the US, there are multiple communist parties, which is already a problem. And none of them have significance in politics. They are completely out of wack.

                And you take this error of factionalism further by individualizing it. I don’t care if you as an individual support or oppose mandates. Are you in a party and that is there position? If so, how successful are they at leading the workers? Not very, would be my guess. So what is the point of preaching pro-mandate if no one is listening to you or your party?

                Even if you think mandates are good, are your own fee-fees more important than what you would lose by alienating striking workers? You could be helping these people organize. Educating about the importance of unions. This is an opportunity! It’s also an opportunity for the ruling class if no one acts. It’s an opportunity to leverage the division in society to pass legislation against strikes on the basis of public health. It’s an opportunity to give employers more power over their workers. How can you not see this?

                • I don’t give a single, solitary fuck about your dogmatism, or idealism.

                  https://twitter.com/profwolff/status/1454266810400972801?lang=en

                  I also don’t particularly care what Wolff had to say here either, given it’s three months old and predates the return to a 9-11 every other day, and his conclusion seems spurious at best. If you want to cite something more relevant temporally, that would be fine.

                  There is no organized, strong communist presence in the US. You wanna know why? Because we’re still in decay. There won’t be an actual leftist reckoning until the final stages of the sublimation of the national Bourgeois into the international, and near complete proletarianization of my people.

                  So, no. I don’t particularly care for delusional counterfactuals about enticing the labor aristocracy.

                  And also, I’m not engaging with you. I don’t care what you think. I care about innoculating anyone here against blatant misinformation that’s killing people.

  • In the US at least I can see why people wouldn’t trust the healthcare industry or for that matter might not have that much experience with it. They’re not right to not get vaccinated, but I get it. This isn’t a country where people come first and even the most backwards wretch kind of innately understands that even if they don’t have the material context to explain it without using far right quackery. As for communists, again why would you trust your vaccines weren’t rushed out by the lowest bidder to get people to work, damn any consequences. That’s not an excuse not to get vaxxed, but I get the mistrust.

  • @a_Ha@lemmy.ml
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    -92 years ago

    There are very good vaccines in Western countries. There are also credible independent institutions there to guarantee this to be true.
    Most communist people live in communist countries. Some of those like China, Russia and Cuba develop and manufacture their own vaccines which have been reported to be less effective yet not dangerous. I bet it is difficult to have reliable information on this topic.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆
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      2 years ago

      Russia hasn’t been communist for like 30 years now bud. Meanwhile, Chinese and Cuban vaccines have been shown to be just as effective and there’s no suggestion that they’re any more dangerous than western ones. Please stop spreading misinformation.

    • We refuse to buy Sputnik or Sinovac because of backroom deals. Doctors here (first-world country) want as many vaccines as they can get their hands on, but politicians strictly want mRNA. I can only get Pfizer or Moderna. I think J&J is starting to get accepted, slowly (if I was any more cynical I would say it’s because it’s a single-dose vaccine lol). If I got any other vaccine (say while on vacation), I wouldn’t even get a certificate. And if China put out an mRNA vaccine, then politicians would find some other excuse to get western vaccines.

      And yes, the bourgeoisie feeds us this idea that “non-white” (let’s be honest, that’s what it boils down to) vaccines are not good, or that they are stealing technology to make theirs because we are much more advanced technologically than they are (China is now the world leader in number of research papers published per year, I imagine their biotech level is pretty advanced). It’s a white supremacist idea that they are playing on and feeding us because we’ll respond positively to it (I have heard those exact two arguments from family members).

      China was going to stage their phase 3 trials for Sinovac (I think it was sinovac, might have been sinopharm, the names are too similar for me to remember lol) in Brazil – there were not enough cases in China to make them there – but Bolsonaro kicked them out after the US asked him to. This is clearly about politics and not about fixing the pandemic. We’re talking about billions of people being vaccinated, this is a huge market and Pfizer would be a fool not to try and get something out of it. This is once in a lifetime. The vaccine was funded by public money and now the private sector reaps the benefits without any of the expenses.

      Speaking of Bolsonaro, he wanted to be paid 1$ for every vial he purchased of Moderna and Pfizer. Bolsonaro is an edge case because he doesn’t even care to hide his corruption, but he is certainly far from the only corrupt politician in the world. What kind of backroom deals have been made here? In any other situation making people choose between two providers would be considered a duopoly and broken up.

      And speaking of money, China and Russia are giving out vaccines to countries, free of charge. They pledged to a UN resolution to make vaccine patents public domain and when that failed, they started funding a public domain patent for a new one. Meanwhile the west and our private companies absolutely oppose any sort of handout or free patent (citing bullshit reasons such as "we can’t guarantee the quality of the vaccine if the patent is open, which is not the priority when people need the vaccine!)

      Cuba is working on their own vaccines since because of the embargo, they cannot get enough. Does the USA care? Not in the least. They have not lightened the (illegal) embargo on Cuba once since the beginning of the pandemic.

      91% efficacy is… honestly not great. If you had a plate of 100 m’n’ms and one of them gave you covid, would you eat 1 m’n’m? At this level of accuracy, anything short of 99.99% is functionally the same. Yes the number might make you feel safer than 74% but the point of the vaccine as this stage (none claim to completely shield you from the virus) is to reduce hospitalisations and long-term side effects (and then again, I’m honestly not sure that was ever the point). I’m okay with those goals. It’s better than nothing. But in that sense, Sinovac and Sputnik are not any worse than Pfizer or Moderna.

      • @AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
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        52 years ago

        The West doesn’t need to find an excuse to reject Chinese vaccines, or Chinese anything. “Chinese” is reason enough in their eyes, and the massive number of sinophobes in the population eat it up, too.

      • @a_Ha@lemmy.ml
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        -32 years ago

        More than 90 lines answer to my meager 9 lines ? Wow ! You are great people here (Communism@lemmygrad.ml) but a little bit stressed aren’t you ?

        China has completely surpassed the US … except in a few aspects, like : quality control ( too much of it ? ) to fit spoiled customers. When China’s superiority will be completely overwhelming, USA (& many other) will need to protect itself like it did with Japanese cars.

        Brazil went quite wrong. Sinovac was tested in other countries before that.

        As for that “99.99%” view & explanation you made, it goes (in part ?) against common knowledge.

        • @gun@lemmy.ml
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          42 years ago

          More than 90 lines answer to my meager 9 lines ? Wow ! You are great people here (Communism@lemmygrad.ml) but a little bit stressed aren’t you ?

          Brandolini’s Law: The amount of time needed to refute falsehood is an order of magnitude larger than is needed to produce it.

          Its really 36 what they wrote, so they are being concise according to this rule.

            • We gave you marxist answers. Anyone here would have written exactly what I or others have written. Lemmygrad doesn’t hide who we are or what we believe in. If you choose to close your eyes and believe you just stumbled in an echo chamber then that’s your prerogative, but don’t make it sound like it’s our problem.

              • @a_Ha@lemmy.ml
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                12 years ago

                i felt that the title of the post : “… alarming amount of anti-vax … among communists?”
                was inviting critical propositions …

                Now i feel we are so far apart that our discussion is unproductive.
                Still i appreciate your honesty and consistency.

                • Too often I meet people who chastise us for being communists, as if they expected that we were communists in name only or something.

                  Take care