Members of the foreign policy establishment have leapt to Biden’s defense, pointing out that China has also used its vaccines as a bargaining chip. They insist that Biden’s 'vaccine diplomacy' has been a force for good. But it is Washington, its European allies, and US pharmaceutical companies — not China — that have blocked most of the world from obtaining vaccines.

The US government has refused to share the vaccine recipes that it paid Moderna and Pfizer billions to develop. The European Union has opposed a temporary waiver of intellectual property rights for vaccine technologies, preventing other countries from producing their own vaccine doses. (The Biden administration says it supports such a waiver, but has failed to use its considerable influence to pressure the EU to come to the table.)

And while Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson initially sold 90 percent of their vaccines to rich countries and subsequently lobbied for moneymaking booster shots, Moderna outdid them by charging poor countries twice what it charges rich countries for vaccines. Pfizer and Moderna raked in record profits, but only 1 percent of vaccine doses have been administered in poor countries, leaving little prospect of vaccinating the world before 2025.

The United States’ near monopoly on mRNA vaccines gives it enormous leverage in negotiations with foreign governments. And it has not been shy about using that power.

At last year’s meetings of the Quad — a new anti-China military alliance between the United States, India, Japan, and Australia — the countries collectively pledged to produce 1 billion vaccines and spend nearly $4 billion on vaccination in Asia to undercut China. When three US senators visited Taiwan in June, they committed to sending 750,000 doses to Taiwan in order to reduce its reliance on Beijing. Biden separately committed to sharing existing doses with countries in Asia, but Cambodia and Myanmar were excluded from the program because their governments favor China.

The US has also blocked vaccines from reaching countries whose governments it has actively worked to topple, such as Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has falsely claimed the United States 'won’t trade shots in arms for political favors. This is about saving lives.'

To be sure, China has also used its vaccines for geopolitical ends. Last year, Beijing donated vaccines to Algeria in exchange for a promise that the country would soften its stance on human rights violations in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. China has also tried to force countries to cut ties with Taiwan in exchange for vaccine access.

But there are two important distinctions between American and Chinese efforts to use vaccines to bend other countries to their will. First, US pharmaceutical companies, not the Communist Party of China, have imposed a system of vaccine apartheid through international institutions such as the World Trade Organization. Second, mRNA vaccines are significantly more effective than China’s viral vector vaccines, meaning that Biden could end the pandemic if he chose to, whereas Xi Jinping could not.

Vaccine apartheid has bolstered the United States’ mythical role as the 'indispensable nation' upon which the Global South must depend for economic development and security. By maintaining the precarity of poor countries, the United States ensures that it can keep them under its thumb.

Consider the actions of US-dominated international financial institutions during the pandemic. The World Bank and the IMF have ignored calls for a debt jubilee that would free up public resources for vaccinations. Meanwhile, nearly half of all jobs in Africa are at risk of being lost as a result of the pandemic and its concomitant economic shocks.

After significant outcry from world leaders, the World Bank and the IMF agreed to defer poor countries’ debt payments. But deferred debt payments still eat into government budgets and still leave countries at the United States’ mercy. Washington has a long history of wielding countries’ debts against them, using the World Bank and the IMF to force debtor nations to enact austerity measures and reduce trade barriers to US firms. Post-pandemic structural adjustment programs are likely to be just as swift and merciless...

'Vaccine diplomacy' is nothing more than doublespeak. The reality is that Washington has exacerbated the pandemic by jealously guarding its power. In doing so, it has prolonged a global crisis and killed scores of people, all to reinforce US empire."

Cory Doctorow: The IMF is a loan shark, preying on the global south.

In sociology, the East–West dichotomy is the perceived difference between the Eastern and the Western worlds. The division is more in regard to culture or social structures rather than geographical. Therefore, the boundaries of East and West depend on where the focus lies (in consideration to criteria, purpose, time).

[What follows below the cut are pieces of information from a few sources.]

Celebrity-you make them higher than god, see even their bad movies/products (making huge companies bigger), and think they can do no wrong AND THEY EXPLOIT THAT! How many products do celebs sell/endorse they have NO REAL experience in? People know they can use their fans! And sports are stupid. Fuck all athletes. Being in shape and doing something fast doesn't make the world get better ever. NEVER!

Fandom-unless it's for some underground, small thing, it's owned by a rich large company, and you blindly supporting them makes them richer. They care NOTHING of your fandom, only your wallet. Look at star trek. It's fucking awful.

Political-only this ONE person can do the right thing (when majority have believed that for HUNDREDS of years, and it has only gotten worse. There are more bad apples than good...) Also, putting blind faith into a government owned by the rich (oligarchy)...not the smartest idea.

Rich people-they ALL stole their wealth. 60% of all wealth WORLDWIDE is inherited, for GENERATIONS. And if you go back to when they first 'earned' it, they killed/stole it. A VAST MAJORITY of the time. Fuck-the new president of the Philippines's family ROBBED AND KILLED tons, fled, and now a few decades later EVERYONE forgot, and then they voted their son into full power...when they only returned like 1/10 of what they stole! NO ONE DOES A BILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF WORK. THEY STEAL IT WHILE WE DO ALL THE WORK!

Just...kill all your heroes. Kill your culture. That doesn't mean forget it all. It means take the bits and pieces you like, that help you better understand and appreciate the world, and get rid of the rest that is garbage. Which is most of it.

You can like tom hanks's movies, but accept he went to child rape murder island.

You can like star wars, but admit disney ruined it, raped it, and the books were better.

You can like bernie, but point out he has basically never openly went against ANY war bill. Meaning he has blood on his hands.

And you can say musk is interesting...but acknowledge he is a BULLY and that's how he got most of what he has (slave labor, digital banking, forcing his way into tesla, then paying for all electric car repairs as long as they sign an NDA so they won't tell people how BAD they really are.)