On Revolutionary Medicine

by Ernesto Che Guevara

This simple celebration, another among the hundreds of public functions with which the Cuban people daily celebrate their liberty, the progress of all their revolutionary laws, and their advances along the road to complete independence, is of special interest to me.

Almost everyone knows that years ago I began my career as a doctor. And when I began as a doctor, when I began to study medicine, the majority of the concepts I have today, as a revolutionary, were absent from my store of ideals.

Like everyone, I wanted to succeed. I dreamed of becoming a famous medical research scientist; I dreamed of working indefatigably to discover something which would be used to help humanity, but which signified a personal triumph for me. I was, as we all are, a child of my environment.

After graduation, due to special circumstances and perhaps also to my character, I began to travel throughout America, and I became acquainted with all of it. Except for Haiti and Santo Domingo, I have visited, to some extent, all the other Latin American countries. Because of the circumstances in which I traveled, first as a student and later as a doctor, I came into close contact with poverty, hunger and disease; with the inability to treat a child because of lack of money; with the stupefaction provoked by the continual hunger and punishment, to the point that a father can accept the loss of a son as an unimportant accident, as occurs often in the downtrodden classes of our American homeland. And I began to realize at that time that there were things that were almost as important to me as becoming a famous or making a significant contribution to medical science: I wanted to help those people.

Fidel Castro’s speech on death of Che Guevara

The speech on Che Guevara delivered on October 18, 1967 by Fidel Castro in Havana.

I first met Che one day in July or August 1955. And in one night — as he recalls in his account — he became one of the future Granma expeditionaries, although at that time the expedition possessed neither ship, nor arms, nor troops. That was how, together with Raúl, Che became one of the first two on the Granma list.

Twelve years have passed since then; they have been 12 years filled with struggle and historical significance. During this time death has cut down many brave and invaluable lives. But at the same time, throughout those years of our revolution, extraordinary persons have arisen, forged from among the people of the revolution, and between them, bonds of affection and friendship have emerged that surpass all possible description.

Tonight we are meeting to try to express, in some degree, our feelings toward one who was among the closest, among the most admired, among the most beloved, and, without a doubt, the most extraordinary of our revolutionary comrades. We are here to express our feelings for him and for the heroes who have fought with him and fallen with him, his internationalist army that has been writing a glorious and indelible page of history.

Che

by Farooque Chowdhury

Countercurrents | June 14, 2017

Che is unvanquished. Proletarian revolutionaries and revolutions don’t get vanquished as they move from one phase to another through class struggle. So, the torch of liberation that Che Guevara carries never gets eliminated; the flame of freedom that Che ignites never gets extinguished; the dream of equality that Che livens never gets wiped out.

New Covid-19 spikes raise fears world headed for second wave

Morning Star | June 14, 2020

A policeman wearing a protective suit stands watch people living surrounding the Xinfadi wholesale market arrive to get a nucleic acid test at a stadium in Beijing

ARISE in new coronavirus cases in China and South Korea has sparked fears that the world is headed for a second wave of the deadly illness as lockdown eases.

Worldwide, in many cases the first wave is still building. India, Ukraine and Egypt have reported their highest numbers of new cases yet.

Johns Hopkins University in the US calculated that there were more than 100,000 new cases daily around the globe.

Movement grows against Trump’s looting of taxpayers

by Mark Gruenberg and John Wojcik

People’s World | June 12, 2020

Now the real looting starts: President Donald Trump smiles as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin hands over a Treasury Department debit card, May 19, 2020. With the help of Mnuchin and McConnell, Trump plans to hand over more Treasury funds to corporations and keep secret which companies have already received handouts under the cover of coronavirus relief. | Evan Vucci / AP

WASHINGTON—Progressives in Congress and in mass organizations, among them Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and the pro-worker group Public Citizen, are raising alarm over the Trump administration’s refusal to release the names of corporations that have received bailouts from the $500 billion coronavirus stimulus package passed recently, and over plans by GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to secretly give away even more to corporations in the next package.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin testified to Congress yesterday that he will not release the names of who got the funds. “We believe that’s proprietary, confidential information,” he said. There is no justification whatsoever, critics are saying, for giving away billions in taxpayer money and not letting the public know who is getting it.

Huge anti-government protests sweep Lebanon

Morning Star | June 14, 2020

Anti-government protesters march through in Beirut, Lebanon

HUGE protests swept Lebanon on Saturday as demonstrators called on the government to resign.

Demonstrators marched through Beirut demanding an end to the country’s sectarian political system, where positions of power are allocated between different factions, and action over an economic crisis that has seen the currency collapse and yawning inequality.

A bank was set alight in Tripoli while in Sidon banners denounced Central Bank governor Riad Salameh, calling him the “protector of all thieves in Lebanon.”

The next once-a-century pandemic is coming sooner than you think – but COVID-19 can help us get ready

by David Murdoch

The Conversation | June 15, 2020

COVID-19 is being referred to as a “once in a century event” – but the next pandemic is likely to hit sooner than you think.

In the next few decades, we will likely see other pandemics. We can predict that with reasonable confidence because of the recent increased frequency of major epidemics (such as SARS and Ebola), and because of social and environmental changes driven by humans that may have contributed to COVID-19’s emergence.

A COVID-19-type pandemic had long been predicted, but scientists’ warnings weren’t heeded. Right now, while we have the full attention of politicians and other key decision-makers, we need to start rethinking our approaches to future preparedness internationally and within our own nations. That includes countries like New Zealand, where – despite getting its active COVID-19 cases down to zero in June 2020 – big challenges remain.

It is all About Race: Awful Hypocrisy to Say it is Not!

by Andre Vltchek

While I am following closely various discussions on Western mass media and social media, simultaneously engaging in several direct exchanges, one overwhelming leitmotif that I see is clearly emerging: “What is happening in the United States (and the UK, France and other parts of Western Empire) is not really about the race. Let us protest peacefully, let us not allow ‘rioting’ to continue, and above all, please let us not single out the white race, Western culture as a sole villain. Let us have peace, love each other… Then things will miraculously improve; terrible occurrences will soon go away.”

I have worked and lived on all continents, from far away island nations of South Pacific (Oceania), to Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia. Of course, I lived in Europe and North America, too.

Project Venezuela: Right-Wing Activists Push Wikipedia to Blacklist MintPress, other Alternative Media

by Alan Macleod

MintPress News | June 12, 2020

Still unable to convince a sufficient number of their countryfolk to support them, the Venezuelan opposition has turned their efforts towards convincing an international audience – primarily Americans – to support their cause. Part of that is spending inordinate amounts of time online, arguing in English on social media, creating bot networks, and editing Wikipedia articles. Many Wikipedia articles on Venezuela are particularly biased towards the opposition, containing numerous inaccuracies, falsehoods and non-sequiturs.

Removing monuments to an imperial past is not the same for former colonies as it is for former empires

by Katie Pickles

The Conversation | June 15, 2020

The global furore about the meaning and relevance of statues, memorials and place names from a racist, imperial past presents a special challenge to Aotearoa-New Zealand. In this former colonial outpost we are dealing with a double burden: the memorialisation of unsavoury historical figures, and the fact that they were imported from elsewhere.

There is the added irony of this current debate having arrived here from overseas, too. Are we ready to craft our own decolonial exit strategy? Or will we weakly copy what’s taking place at the former imperial centre?

Examining all this drills to the very bedrock of colonial history. It shakes the imperial foundations.