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The economy in this country looks to be headed into a tailspin because of the COVID-19 crisis. Government action in the manner proposed by the Trump administration and both chambers of the U.S. Congress looks to be more than necessary for us citizens to keep our heads above water.

But understand this, special loans and payments to small businesses, bailouts to big corporations like airline companies, even government checks mailed to individuals without any requirement for repayment is socialism.

Payouts like this are not part of free-market capitalism. There is no mechanism in pure capitalism to guarantee recovery from disasters. Now, present considerations of payouts from the government are in keeping with socialist democracy, rather than socialist authoritarianism, because those making the decisions about to whom payments will be made and how much should be allotted are elected officials. Im grateful to them and to the ideals of socialist democracy.

So, be ashamed, all you pundits and fear-mongers who contributed to the demise of Bernie Sanders candidacy through red-baiting.

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Stimulus? Spell it socialism, by Tom Weldon | Letters To The Editor - The Keene Sentinel

Corbynistas have reached a new low. They now hope that a horrible virus will help them to achieve what they failed to achieve at the ballot box. They are openly describing Covid-19 as a phenomenon that vindicates their worldview and which might even usher in the political vision contained in their 2019 manifesto. And judging from the gusto with which they are partaking in this grim opportunism, this ghoulish use of a terrible virus to promote their political agenda, they have no idea just how anti-democratic and even anti-human it all sounds.

Jeremy Corbyn himself has moved to the forefront of Covid opportunism. He took the opportunity of one of his last major interviews as Labour leader he formally steps down next week to say that the Covid-19 crisis proves that he was absolutely right in terms of the ideas he has been pushing in recent years. In the words of the BBC, with whom Corbyn was talking, he feels vindicated by the virus crisis. He argues that the unprecedented intervention of the state into economic and everyday life, as spearheaded by Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak in recent days, shows that the government has come around to a lot of [my] position and realised that we must invest in the state.

Im sorry, but if your overarching thought upon observing a crisis of this magnitude is to feel vindicated, almost to welcome the crisis as an opportunity to promote your political worldview, there is something wrong with you. We have got used to Corbyn and his cheerleaders saying they really won elections that they actually lost witness their unhinged excitement about coming second in 2017, or their claim that they lost the election but won the argument in 2019 but this politicisation of a virus as a means of bigging-up their lame state socialism really is something else. It is the weaponisation of disease to political ends. It is the socialism of ghouls.

Corbyn was only saying in milder terms what Labour chairman Ian Lavery said more openly a few days ago. In a talk to thousands of young Labour members virtually, of course Lavery described the Covid-19 crisis as a great opportunity for Labour. [W]hen something like this happens, were going to see lots of our own dying as a consequence, he said, but it is also a great opportunity to show why Labour is best when it gets on the front foot and best when it brings people together. Many people are of course responding to this crisis with a great sense of social solidarity, helping their neighbours and assisting the NHS. But Lavery is talking about something else. To him, this could be a propaganda victory, a means of showing that Labour is good. He sees a party opportunity in this human disaster.

In the liberal media, meanwhile, there is much musing over how Covid-19 will propel Britain in a more socialist direction. A writer for the Guardian sounds almost gleeful when he says that matters of life and death often cause more drastic shifts in policy than economic indicators ever can. And Covid-19 might just reopen a sense of possibility for the statist left, apparently. Corbynistas have openly celebrated reports that private schools could be hit hard by the Covid-19 crisis and some may even need to close, with not a passing thought for the thousands of teachers, IT workers, cleaners and others who would lose their jobs as a result. Ash Sarkar, the pseudo-urban spokesperson for Corbynisms middle-class youths, says: Coronavirus said you gonna GET a Labour manifesto whether you like it or not.

Of course, that is partly tongue in cheek. But only partly. We know this for a fact because this is merely a cruder, more callous version of what much of the degraded left that makes up the Corbyn movement has been saying over the past couple of weeks: that this sickness could help to deliver Corbynomics and Corbyn-style politics to the UK. Whether you like it or not that is key here. These people really do spy in this disease a means of circumventing the pesky populace, who so thoroughly rejected the Malthusian, identitarian and anti-Brexit worldview of the Corbyn set in the election in December. If the people refuse to approve our political outlook, maybe germs will do it instead? Who needs democracy when you have disease. This is genuinely a new low for the British left.

The idea that what we are currently living through is something to celebrate is ridiculous. Most people accept the need for extraordinary measures right now. Most of us, apart from a few free-market ideologues, welcome the huge government bailout of the people. But we all want this to be temporary. We want an end to the lockdown, we want to earn our living, and we want to go back to being free, connected citizens. If Corbynistas think their vision is embodied in this locked-down, atomised country in which working people can no longer work and vast numbers have been turned into objects of state largesse overnight, then that only shows how morally impoverished and politically dispiriting their vision was. Being largely from the public-sector or academic middle classes, they might think that a nation under lockdown and reliant on welfare is a good thing, but the rest of desire agency, work, community and life. The more they discuss this terrible situation as proof that they were right, the more we know they were wrong.

Their utterly un-revolutionary nature has been exposed. The idea that an objective condition such as the arrival of a new virus could transform society in a more progressive direction (as they see it) is nonsense. People change society, not diseases. It wasnt the Black Deaths arrival in England in 1348 that eventually led to social and political improvements it was the Peasants Revolt a few decades later when people rose up against the stringent post-Black Death economic measures introduced by the authorities. But its hardly any wonder that Corbynistas see pandemics rather than peasants as the true force for change, since we know from the past five years just how much they loathe and distrust ordinary people. We have disappointed them maybe the virus wont.

Brendan ONeill is editor of spiked and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan ONeill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy

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The Socialism of Ghouls - Spiked

JEREMY CORBYNS opening of the opposition day debate on community, following his last Prime Ministers Questions as head of the Labour Party, shows how much the labour movement is going to miss his leadership.

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed how hollow are the values drummed into Britain by four decades of neoliberalism.

It is a matter of weeks since Home Secretary Priti Patel was redesigning our immigration system, welcoming skilledand turning a cold shoulder on unskilledworkers: a distinction which, as her Labour shadow Diane Abbott observed, she thought she could make based on how much they were paid.

As Corbyn notes, in this time of crisis, society is forced to recognise how much it relies on the refuse workers, the supermarket shelf-stackers, the delivery drivers, the cleanersand how little on the billionaire hedge-fund manager.

That we are in the midst of what has to be a collective national effort to protect people from Covid-19 is undeniable.

At the same time the crisis is highlighting deep-rooted structural problems in our economy which make the case for radical, permanent change.

Corbyn made the point powerfully with regard to homelessness: If we can house people in a crisis, then we can keep them housed when it is over.

In order to keep the wheels of capitalism turning, the government has been forced to abandon Thatcherite verities although it should be noted that Chancellor Rishi Sunaks first Budget, announced before the scale of the coronavirus crisis became clear, showed the Conservative leadership was already moving away from them.

That has involved taking a number of measures we can welcome, including the support for the wages of employees whose employersincomes are drying up announced by Sunak after late-night talks with businesses and trade unions and, belatedly, the commitment to deliver mass testing.

Its failings when it comes to these measures are equally obvious. Delays in provision of emergency support for wages are leaving staff at the mercy of unscrupulous bosses, as JD Wetherspoons Tim Martin demonstrated this week.

Millions of self-employed people have been left out of any significant support, being shunted instead into an unfit-for-purpose benefits system expressly designed to humiliate, browbeat and punish vulnerable people during the years of so-called austerity.

As for the testing kits, the government has dithered for weeks with undoubtedly lethal consequences and has still to make clear how tests are to be made available first to those who need them most.

As Labours Jonathan Ashworth notes, a panicked scramble to buy tests from high street chemists and online is the last thing we need.

But Labour needs to go further than pointing out the gaps in the governments strategy to look to how it can ensure we emerge from this pandemic a stronger and a fairer society.

It must champion and work to strengthen the collective and community responses that have seen a quarter of a million people volunteer to help the NHS in a single day and that involve people delivering food and essentials to vulnerable neighbours across our islands.

It should not engage in a competition to look tough by advocating draconian restrictions on liberty by the state, when the vast majority of unsocialbehaviour has been down to mixed messaging from the government or is exacerbated by the inflexibility of just-in-timesupply systems that see supermarkets run out of stock when a sufficient number of shoppers take the sensible precaution of buying more than usual because they have been told not to leave their homes unless absolutely necessary.

Above all, it must make the case that the shift towards state intervention in and direction of the economy is insufficient without public control and accountability.

As we redirect transport, production and supply to meet common goals, we can demonstrate the necessity of economic democracy and a socialist future.

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Coronavirus and the case for socialism - Morning Star Online

Twenty-second clips of Solidarity Forever, 9 to 5, Joe Hill, Guantanamera, and more.

"Your Majesty, please... I don't like to complain, But down here below, we are feeling great pain."'Yertle the Turtle,' Dr. Seuss

To protect yourself and your family from coronavirus, we suggest socialism, and also handwashingthe Centers for Disease Controlrecommends you scrubyour hands for at least 20 seconds.

If you have nothing to think about, 20 seconds can feellike an eternity. Here are20-second socialist and revolutionary songs, poems and quotes to get your fighting spirit up.

SONGS

Solidarity forever /1915

Solidarity forever

Solidarity forever

Solidarity forever

For the union makes us strong

We shall overcome / Pete Seeger / 1963

We shall overcome

We shall overcome

We shall overcome, some day

Union Maid / 1941

Oh, you can't scare me, I'm sticking to the union,

I'm sticking to the union, I'm sticking to the union.

Oh, you can't scare me, I'm sticking to the union,

I'm sticking to the union 'til the day I die.

9 to 5 / Dolly Parton / 1980

Workin' 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin'

Barely gettin' by, it's all takin' and no givin'

They just use your mind and you never get the credit

It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it

This Land is Your Land / 1951

This land is your land, this land is my land

From the California to the New York island

From the Redwood Forest, to the gulf stream waters

This land was made for you and me

Internationale - American / 1900

Arise ye prisners of starvation

Arise ye wretched of the earth

For justice thunders condemnation

A better worlds in birth!

Bread and roses / 1988

As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days,

The rising of the women means the rising of the race.

No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,

But a sharing of life's glories, bread and roses, bread and roses.

There Is Power In A Union /1913

There is power in a factory, power in the land

Power in the hand of the worker

But it all amounts to nothing

If together we don't stand

There is power in a Union

Not Ready to Make Nice / Dixie Chicks / 2006

I'm not ready to make nice

I'm not ready to back down

I'm still mad as hell, and I don't have time

To go 'round and 'round and 'round

It's too late to make it right

I probably wouldn't if I could

'Cause I'm mad as hell

Can't bring myself to do what it is

You think I should

Running with the Wild things / Against the Current / 2016

We got too big for the cage, you locked us up in

Let's mark this down as the day, that we started something

So open the gate, open the gate cause when we

Finally escape, finally escape we'll be

Tearing through the streets

Running with the wild things

Aint done nothing if you ain't been called a red / 1984

Well you ain't done nothin' if you ain't been called a red

if you've marched or agitated, you're bound to hear it said

so you might as well ignore it, or love the word instead

cause you ain't been doin' nothin' if you ain't been called a red

Worker's Song /1981

We're the first ones to starve, we're the first ones to die

The first ones in line for that pie-in-the-sky

And we're always the last when the cream is shared out

For the worker is working when the fat cat's about

Bella Ciao / 1906

Una mattina mi sono svegliato,

o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!

Una mattina mi sono svegliato,

e ho trovato l'invasor.

O partigiano, portami via,

o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!

O partigiano, portami via,

ch mi sento di morir.

I'll Dance On Your Grave Mrs Thatcher / 2013

And we'll dance

Yes we'll dance

We'll dance on your grave Mrs. Thatcher

We'll dance

Yes, we'll dance

We'll dance on your grave Mrs. Thatcher

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30 Socialist Songs and Sayings To Wash Your Hands To - In These Times

After Britney Spears shared a quote amid the coronavirus pandemic rallying for the redistribution of wealth, and many have dubbed her "comrade Britney" as a result. (Instagram/Michelangelo Di Battista/Sony/RCA via Getty Images)

What were you doing the day that Britney Spears rallied for workers to break free from the chains of their socio-economic oppression and unite?

OK, so, maybe the singer didnt quite say that, but when Spears shared a quote penned by writer and artist Mimi Zhu which calls for mutual aid, wealth redistribution and a general strike, well, safe to say it got people talking.

As the coronavirus pandemic pelts the economy, stampedes businesses and rampantly redefines daily life for workers, Comrade Britney Spears has been a light in these truly dark times.

The utter surrealness of a millionaire pop star sharing a quote salted with communist values amid a viral outbreak is only something that 2020 can cook up, to be honest.

While were not sure whether Britney Spears is now part of a Marxist reading group, swoons over Young Stalin or has an ironic poster of Che Guevara hanging up in her bedroom, but looking back at her music, maybe the clues were there all along that she was a socialist?

Consider the following an introduction to Marxism-Leninism-Spearism.

Now, reader, this is an obvious one.

In her 2013 banger, Spears espouses the values penned by the father of communism himself, Karl Marx.

If a worker wants a hot body, a Bugatti, a Maserati, indeed, they better work, b***h.

For under Marxs theory of labour, the value of a commodity, such as a living fancy, living in a big mansion, or partying in France, can be objectively measured by the average number of labour hours required to produce that commodity.

Spears is clearly showing this is all an illusion by satirising how fetishised luxury living is.

Im A Slave 4 U is a song all about the plight of the titular wage slave.

Capital is elusive to us, yet were all slaves to the cogs of the economy, it just feels right / it just feels good, comrade Spears wrote, but we cannot hold it / cannot control it.

She explained in the tune that as much as the lower class wants to dance next to the ruling class, to another time and place, perhaps a socialist utopia, nevertheless, all we are are slaves to capitalism.

Theres no escape from late-stage capitalism which, Spears writes, is toxic.

This system of commodities we live in needs a warning, Britney urges. But the bourgeoisie those who own the means of production should listen, as baby, cant you see / Im calling.

Yes, the workers are calling for a revolution.

When Spear sings about this economic model of growth at all costs, the workers will forever be slippin under the hierarchy as they try to taste the poison paradise of the lifestyle of the rich.

In this song on the eponymous 2008 album, Spears begins with: Theres only two types of people in the world / the ones that entertain, and the ones that observe.

As Marx asserted, there are, in fact, only two types of people in the world, capitalists, or bourgeoisie, and workers, or proletariat.

The bourgeoisie observe the labour, or entrainment, of the proletariat. In presenting herself as a put-on-a-show kinda girl, perhaps Spears is showing that all it takes for this hierarchy to be overthrown is a revolutionary figure, one Britney Spears.

This classic 2007 era Britney can be read in two ways.

Are lyrics such as gimme, gimme more, gimme more, gimme, gimme more showing the seductive power of consumerism and capital? That all were conditioned to want is more things that we dont actually need but think we do?

Or are other lyrics, such as gimme, gimme more, gimme more, gimme more, a rallying cry for workers to demand higher wages through collective bargaining through unions and strikes?

Yes, we all do it again, and again, and again. Toil away as the rich get richer, Spears argues in her 2004 song.

You see my problem is this /Im dreaming away / wishing that heroes, they truly exist, in belting this out, Spears yearns for the days when heroes, such as Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong and Fide Castro truly existed.

The workers take a sip from the devils cup and accept their place in the world.

But in manipulating the listener, Spears suddenly adopts the role of the capitalist for the songs chorus.

Workers feel that their bosses are sent from above, but they simply are not that innocent, they played with the heart of the proletariat their joy and sense of what being human and get lost in the game of alienating the masses.

Anyway, we seriously doubt Britney Spears is a socialist, let alone a communist. But we hope you enjoyed this welcome distraction from the coronavirus.

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6 Britney Spears bangers that are actually probably about socialism - PinkNews