Saturday, October 30, 2021

Scintilla: "Green Pass" to discriminate, divide, and rule!

I received this translation of an article in Scintilla [Spark], published by the Italian organization Union of Struggle for the Communist Party (Unione di lotta per il Partitio comunista).  It was posted originally at:  unionedilottaperilpartitocomunista.org/2021/10/02/green-pass-discrimina-divide-et-impera/   I made a few minor cosmetic edits looking at a machine translation.  



Scintilla, October 2021  



"Green pass": to discriminate, divide and rule!  


With Covid-19, the vaccine has arrived. In the interest of the multinationals, the government had to somehow impose the vaccine without taking responsibility for its side effects, therefore without obligation. This means: those who want to can do it, those who do not want do not have to. We remind you that the contracts between the EU and 'Big pharma' are secret and there are no penalties in case of non-delivery.  

Despite the assignment by the Draghi government of General F.P. Figliuolo, former commander of NATO troops in Kosovo and Afghanistan, as Special Commissioner for the Covid 19 emergency, the vaccination campaign is marking time and meeting with resistance. For the government there was the risk of new lockdowns, of hospital admissions beyond the percentage established on the basis of available beds, of clogging of the health-care service which, despite the emergency, remained as lacking as before.  

The capitalists and the governments in office are not interested in the fact that workers are falling ill and dying, but that production and exploitation, the source of their profits, are not interrupted. Faced with the 'Covid-19' they stand as champions of healthcare after having destroyed it in favor of privatization, they are responsible for thousands of workplace deaths, the massacres in the nursing homes, of disabled people, of occupational diseases, air pollution (the cause of 60,000 deaths a year). For the government there is only the revival of the economy and profound restructuring of the production system, to keep up with international competition.  

There is an acceleration of "lasting and sustainable" activity, as Draghi said at the assembly of the General Confederation of Italian Industry - involved with the Economic Activity (ATECO) scam to keep large companies open, including arms companies, essential services during the first phase of the pandemic (sic!) – hoping for an "economic, productive and social pact of the country". The program was greeted by open applause by the industrialists, in tune with the political and trade union forces of the regime.  

After continuous appeals by Mattarella and Draghi (supported by the mass media, scientists and doctors on their payroll) on the sense of duty, which placed on the masses the responsibility for the health-care and sanitary deficiencies, and on individual behavior, canceling the freedom of choice, the decree has arrived that obliges the green pass also in the workplace.  

The green pass: a propaganda operation and a class-based tool of discrimination and coercion. It does not serve to stop the spread of the infection, it does not "make the environments safer", it does not protect one’s health. It is a weapon of "mass distraction" to hide social problems, from unemployment to the high cost of living.  

It divides and opposes workers, popular masses and families to one another; it is in the interest of the bosses, who have repeatedly invoked it. There is a penalty for those who do not recognize the validity of the vaccine or cannot carry it out, who are prevented from doing it: from sitting for coffee at the bar to using the library and other facilities and services. It is discrimination against the "scapegoats" of the pandemic, the workers who yesterday were defined as "heroes" and today as "infectors".  

Long-distance travel is not possible without the green pass, but you can travel on overcrowded public transport. You cannot access the canteens at the workplace, but you can work side by side as in the lockdown, without those adequate protection measures that the owners can now avoid thanks to the green pass.  

The unvaccinated worker will have to undergo the swab every two days at his own expense and be deprived of his salary, fined, suspended for non-compliance with the forced vaccination and replaced (in small companies this means dismissal).  

The teachers will be subjected to the "traffic light", without having solved the problem of the shortage of staff, of the "chicken coop" classes and public transport. Despite the green pass, INPS [Italian Public Retirement System], due to lack of funds (government oversight, etc.), will not provide sick pay to workers in quarantine for contacts with positive cases (this is retroactive to 1/1/21). The same fate for vulnerable workers: immuno-suppressed, cancer patients, those subject to life-saving therapies, the severely disabled. Isolation is imposed for public health reasons at the expense of those who have to stay at home.  

Enough with the cynical government exploitation of the pandemic! 

FOR public health care against its commodification and privatization.  

Prevention, research, early anti-Covid treatment and therapies, free swabs and PPEs, home care, local public health structures, measures corresponding to the needs of the sick.  

NO to layoffs, NO to wage cuts and suspensions. 

Wages at the expense of bosses and the State, in the face of quarantine, suspensions, interruptions or limitations of production.  

Organize and mobilize TO: 

– unmask those who, in the name of the "freedom" of the individual, think of doing what they want, favoring the infiltration of fascists, obscurantist forces, religious fanatics, who do not put the system on the dock, thus feeding authoritarian solutions for the benefit of big capital.  

– Reject authoritarian and subversive tendencies, all forms of repression, the demonization of freedom of criticism and dissent.  

September 30, 2021  

Union of struggle for the Communist Party  

https://unionedilottaperilpartitocomunista.org  

unionedilottaperilpartitocomunista [at] tutanota [dotcom]  



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