Covid-19: A Socialist View toward Vaccines, Public Health Policy & the Failures of Capitalism
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 16 September 2021
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Coronavirus pandemic coupled with the capitalist system has caused unspeakable suffering in the United States and around the globe. Failures to adequately prepare and respond to the public health emergency led to massive unemployment, hunger, poverty and death. And now that vaccines capable of ending the pandemic are being mass produced, far right political forces are seeking to cynically mobilize people against the most basic public health measures. How should socialists react to this phenomenon?
Brian is joined by by Eugene Puryear. He is the host of the podcast The Punch Out on BreakThrough News and host of the weekly live show The Freedom Side on BreakThrough News, which airs every Thursday on YouTube.com/BreakThroughNews at 3 p.m. Eastern/12 p.m. Pacific.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | COVID-19 is rampaging in the United States and around the world. |
| 0:06.4 | Hospitals have run out of intensive care beds in multiple cities and towns. |
| 0:11.8 | Today we'll talk about COVID-19, COVID vaccines, a health care system dominated by capitalism |
| 0:19.1 | and capitalists. We will talk about the political campaign |
| 0:23.3 | against vaccinations and mask wearing. We will talk about vaccine imperialism that has prevented |
| 0:29.7 | vast parts of Africa and the developing world from gaining access to vaccines while the dominant |
| 0:36.2 | imperialist countries have an abundance. |
| 0:39.7 | We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand that which may have sounded |
| 0:45.9 | impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. |
| 1:22.2 | Thank you. but an imperative necessity. Welcome to The Real Story on the Socialist program. I'm your host, Brian Becker. I'm joined today by Eugene Peir. Eugene is the host of the podcast, The Punch Out. He is also the host of the weekly live show |
| 1:30.1 | The Freedom Side on Breakthrough News, which airs every Thursday on YouTube.com forward slash |
| 1:37.1 | breakthrough news at 3 p.m. Eastern. Eugene, welcome back to the show. Well, Brian, I'm always honored |
| 1:43.8 | to be here and I really appreciate you having me back on. Yeah, thank you so much. Eugene, welcome back to the show. Well, Brian, I'm always honored to be here and I really |
| 1:44.7 | appreciate you having me back on. Yeah, thank you so much. Eugene, the reason I really wanted to |
| 1:50.1 | talk with you about this topic is that I heard your punch out, your podcast that you do every day. |
| 1:58.1 | It came from last Friday, just about a week ago, where you talked about the campaign |
| 2:03.9 | that was directed against vaccinations or against mask wearing. And some parts of the campaigners, |
| 2:12.4 | not everyone, but some parts of them are making and have been making the argument that a substantial part of the |
| 2:19.0 | African American population shares their opposition to vaccinations or mask wearing, etc. |
| 2:25.8 | In other words, to sort of have as a support, as a prop for their position that, quote, |
| 2:33.7 | black people support their position. And you did a |
| 2:37.3 | very effective critique of that argument. And in fact, I thought it was so effective. It's 14 minutes long. |
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