A damning new report shows that one of the leading COVID-19 vaccine makers appears to have played a role in restricting access to those very vaccines. The report, “Pfizer’s Power,” published this week by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, examines Pfizer’s contracts with the United States, United Kingdom, European Commission, Albania, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Dominican Republic and Peru. They offer a rare glimpse into the power Pfizer has to silence governments, throttle supply, shift risk and maximize profits in the middle of a public health crisis.
If there’s one thing we know about power, it’s that it is most effective when it is obscured; we do not question what we cannot see, what we take for natural. This is something which the UC system depends on, positioning itself as a space of accessible education and “inclusive excellence” while refusing to engage with the way that the very infrastructure maintaining the UC is inherently antithetical to these goals. Wildcat strikers and organizers for the COLA4ALL movement currently sweeping through the UC system have done much to excavate these oppressive systems and contradictions foundational to the UC through the fight for a COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) and the simultaneous refusal to disconnect this specific goal from the need to address the broader violence of the institution.
For those unfamiliar, the movement initially started at UC Santa Cruz. UCSC graduate students, like nearly all UC graduate students, are rent burdened. During the Fall 2019 quarter, graduate student instructors began a wildcat grade strike, calling attention to the contradiction between the university’s dependence on graduate student labor to function and the university’s refusal to provide graduate students with a reasonable standard of living through a refusal to submit grades. The movement quickly spread, and now spans all 10 UC campuses (many of which are on a full or partial strike). COLA4ALL’s overall vision, taken from the inter-campus website StrikeUniversity.org, centers free and accessible public education for everyone (without student debt), critical thinking and skills that are not bound to the imperatives of the market, replacing competitive models with communities of care and shared struggle, brilliance that refuses hierarchical models of “experts,” and the decolonization, democratization, queering, and abolishing of the university.
The UC has responded to COLA organizers with violence which is deeply revealing of the anti-black, carceral power foundational to the entire system. Militarized police presence has been prevalent at COLA picket lines, walk outs, and other organizing events. During a COLA rally on February 20, 2020 at UC Irvine campus police officer Trish Harding tackled and arrested a Black alumna who was not even involved with COLA and simply on campus trying to pick up her transcripts (please sign the UCI Black Student Union’s petition demanding accountability). UC-wide, many students have been harassed, assaulted, and arrested for daring to tell administration that they cannot survive under “business as usual”.
Recently a student in one of my classes asked the professor about their stance on UC graduate students organizing for a COLA; the professor said that it was up to us as their students, asking if we would be willing to have our grades withheld. Framing the issue as one of undergraduate willingness to go without grades fundamentally misrepresents what is going on. None of us want our grades withheld. Many of us cannot afford to have our grades withheld. But the consequences of having our grades withheld only exist within the context of institutional intransigence, not graduate students going on a wildcat strike.
It is imperative that graduate students be paid fairly and the university reevaluates the oppressive model it is currently operating under.
One of the things that stands out to me in the way that COLA4ALL is discussed is the emphasis put on the fact that the strike is illegal because UAW 2865, the graduate student union, has not voted to strike. As those of us who have critically engaged with criminality and the construction of “illegal”, part of the discourse surrounding illegality is an undermining of the value and contributions of those who are positioned as “illegal.” This is something which is, of course, multiply impactful to those who are already criminalized, as we can see clearly in police response to Black alumni existence on campus. The law is so often unjust and frequently sides with those who hold power and money. Why is it illegal for workers to organize outside of a singular union? Why is it legal for the UC system to put union busting measures into their contracts? Why do we talk about the wildcat strikes in terms of legality instead of engaging critically with the University as an institution?
The extraction of wealth from students is central to the current operation of the UC. This is evident in the high cost of tuition and the rate of student debt, and further heightened through the multitude of ways in which the UC system profits off of its students; while we can think about this in the insane cost of parking, the use of work-study to maintain a labor force of minimum wage workers, the denial of sick pay to undergraduate student workers, the tokenization and marketing of students, and the obviously inflated prices at on-campus stores like The Hill or Zot-n-Go, no where is it more apparent than in housing. Focusing on graduate students, since COLA4ALL is currently focused on improving pay and labor conditions for graduate students, not only are the majority of students extremely rent burdened, but many are living in “subsidized” campus housing, paying large portions of their paychecks back to the very institution already underpaying them and exploiting their labor. It very much feels like company scrip.
Under the social distancing/remote learning model being deployed in response to COVID-19 many of these already untenable circumstances are only being heightened. Housing insecurity, a major problem for many undergraduate and graduate students alike, is significantly increased through the rise in un-and-under-employment resulting from shelter-in-place closures; meanwhile, the UC system is encouraging students to leave campus while doing nothing to assist those who live in off-campus housing who are now not only rent burdened and frequently living in highly crowded living quarters during a pandemic, but given no option to break their lease without penalty and are still required to somehow continue paying rent despite changes in their ability to work.
Similarly, while some campus employees are now able to telecommute to work the administration obviously has no intention of allowing those working in food services, maintenance, custodial services, etc to “conference in”, leaving them at continued risk while prioritizing the safety of those in higher wage positions. Additionally, graduate students and professors without access to the technology needed to teach from their homes are being encouraged to continue to come to campus and teach from classroom spaces. What this means is that those with the resources (stable housing, internet access, a computer with a webcam and mic) can work safely from home, while the most marginalized (those most in need of a COLA) will have to risk exposure.
Furthermore, many telecommuting workers are being told they must sign a contract which includes the provision that employees are “responsible for establishing and maintaining a safe, ergonomically sound, and secure work environment. The employee will establish a functional workspace, including appropriate computer and communications equipment within their telecommuting worksite.” Forcing workers to sign this contract creates a situation where the UC is not obligated to ensure students/workers have access to either the tools they need to work remotely or paid leave, and further establishes that the UC is not responsible for work-related damage to the health and personal equipment of workers. It also makes it possible for the UC to fire those who are not able to independently establish and maintain said work environment.
The level of exploitation and discriminatory violence on this campus and in the UC system is unethical and untenable. The fact that a billion dollar institution would rather negatively impact graduate and undergraduate students, would rather pay for a militarized police presence at the picket line, would rather heighten the risk to their most marginalized students and employees, would rather arrest a Black alumna than pay graduate student workers a living wage speaks for itself. This is not about whether undergraduate students can afford to go without grades, it is about refusing a system where the interests of graduate student workers and the interests of undergraduate students are falsely constructed as oppositional.
The stakes are too high not to speak candidly. I hope you will consider openly standing in solidarity with COLA4ALL.
Itaewon has become famous with a hit K-drama Itaewon Class 이태원 클라쓰 (2020 JTBC), but the current situation in Itaewon is a real mess.
When South Koreans believed that the corona virus crisis is almost ending here in South Korea, an IT office worker popped out of nowhere and was turned out to have infected almost 2000 people during last week’s golden holidays.
The 29-year-old man went to five gay clubs in Itaewon over a night (May 2, 2020) without wearing a mask, and was confirmed to be positive a few days later. He seems to have infected nearly 2,000 people there. So far about 40+ confirmed patients have been infected by this one super spreader.
Korean CDC simply announced that he went to ‘clubs’ that night, but some conservative Christian media immediately reported that they were all gay clubs. This can be seen as a kind of accumulated conflict exploding. So far, Christians had been condemned by the public as well as the leftists as a hotbed of the epidemic after the mass infection of Sincheonji cult church of Jesus in Daegu city. The conservatives including Christians have complained that the government was not cracking down on nightclubs at all while shutting down churches, schools, and gyms.
Anyways, as a result of the media report, almost every infected people from now on will be outed as a gay to their family, neighbors, or workplace. Moreover, it seems to be difficult to find them. it was compulsory for the clubs to get their guests’ name and contact numbers in front of the club’s door, but almost 1,300 of the 2,000 guests have left fake numbers. Of course general public got mad and criticized them as selfish idiots for not wearing a mask in the clubs and leaving fake numbers.
The mayor of Seoul is a liberal leftist. He took a strong stance toward conservative churches and forcibly seized the list of the Shincheonji church members in the name of “For public safety”. I don’t know what he would do this time. If he does the same thing, it will be criticized as a serious violation of the privacy of homosexuals who are actually his political supporters. If he doesn’t, he will be criticized as a hypocrite.
The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.
Donald J. Trump, February 24, 2020
First image: An event staff member walks past the empty chairs on display to represent the 200,000 lives lost due to COVID-19 at the National COVID-19 Remembrance, on the ellipse behind the White House in Washington, DC on October 4. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Image
Second image: Reporter walks among the empty chairs on display at The National Covid-19 Remembrance on the ellipse, behind the White House on October 04, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
This post is a continuation about life in “Quarantine”. I put it into quotation marks because the reality is, my life has not changed that dramatically. We’ve hit a month since the state of California had the order to shut everything down and although it was definitely a weird shift… I think a lot of us are getting used to a rhythm of life.
Hope that everyone is doing well, staying healthy and most importantly staying at home. These are definitely some weird times we are in. Everything continues to be shut down in California. I think, that for the most part, people are doing a good job with the “stay at home order”. There are still a few people that insist on going out even though it is not necessary.
Have you ever stroked a stranger’s hair when they’re sick and told them it’s going to be okay even though you know what the numbers on the screen mean? Holding someone’s hand while they’re crying and telling you they’re scared runs a chill down your spine. Have you ever called someone by a name on a armband but wondered if that’s what their family calls them? Have you ever seen someone close their eyes and wonder if they’ll ever open them again? Have you ever forgotten what color someone’s eyes are? Have you ever been the place holder for their wife, husband, children, mother, or father? Have you ever cried telling that stranger that their family says they love them and that they’re praying for them even when they can’t be there with them? You ever tell that stranger that you’re praying for them too?
Nurses everywhere are tired. Emotionally. Mentally. Physically. We’re all tired.
These recent months have been tough for many people around the world. I myself, have gone through some troubling times and unfortunately have had to sell my beloved cameras (pictured above) to make rent this month. To the anonymous buyer somewhere in Malaysia, please take care of my babies.
“The most important distinction anyone can ever make in their life is between who they are as an individual and their connection with others.” ―Anné Linden
An Austrian prospective buyer of a Tuscan estate has recently wrote to an Italian local realtor, he was in contact with, asking for a 55% discount on a property, which he was interested in, due to the “imminent bankrupcy” of the Italian economy because of the Coronavirus pandemic.
This has been the response of the real estate agent:
«I am very grateful for your interest, however we do not expect the possibility to give you a 55% discount, as desired.
You see, my dear Sir, our Country always got up from the most difficult of trials that the history has subjected to it, and we got up once again.
Among other things, we have 70% of historical, artistic, and cultural global heritage.
The world’s greatest ancient civilizations flowered around the Mediterranean Sea. Civilizations that shared culture, progress and knowledge.
I suppose you are in your home too, so you surely have time to translate this mail, so I write to you in Italian, and also I invite you to translate this old saying: “On the dead lion, the dogs celebrate. But the lions remain lions, and the dogs, dogs”. Best wishes»
