COVID VACCINE
Class-based politics in Canada’s healthcare
I would like to point out that even in Canada, where publicly funded medical care is the norm, Covid-19 vaccination distribution is not exempt from political interference [Vaccine distribution fiasco makes the case for public healthcare, Vol. 42, No. 2].
In Ontario, for example, many pharmacies have been approved to provide mass inoculation clinics free of cost. Predictably however, those pharmacies are not equally approved across all city areas, with inner-city regions having few or no approved pharmacy clinics.
Such clinics are found mostly in suburban middle-class neighbourhoods. Furthermore, the majority of such approved pharmacy clinics are located in electoral districts that are held by members of the ruling Conservative Party as opposed to areas held by more liberal parties that generally represent low-income voters or vulnerable populations.
Even in Canada free healthcare does not mean equal healthcare, and it is not immune from class-based politics.
Mark Davies, Windsor, Canada
MEXICO WOMEN
Excellent analysis
Lois Danks, it is great to be seeing you in print, if not in person. National Public Radio (NPR) has provided some reporting of the events in Mexico, but as usual, insufficient analysis [Pain turns to rage as Mexico women fight to stop femicide, Vol. 42, No. 1].
I was aware of the historically rampant violence against women in the border towns, but to see it’s reached a national scale is even more appalling. Some serious militant organizing is direly needed. These poor women will likely need to take justice into their own hands, and develop a reputation for revenge violence before the corrupt authorities move.
On another note, NPR has had plenty of coverage of the Capitol insurrection, but nobody follows the money, as your article did [Follow the money: the billionaire backers of the attack on Congress, Vol. 42, No. 2].
It’s a national epidemic of misdirected anger in dire need of dialogue, but our local mainstream media is nowhere near being up to the task.
Dave McKee, Port Angeles, Washington
ISRAEL
A way out of the dilemma
Thanks to Adrienne Weller for “Israeli ‘peace pacts’: no balm for regional turmoil” [Vol. 42, No. 2], a fine article on a painful topic.
Israel — such a wonderful dream born from the hideous reality of pogroms and the Holocaust, but tragically just a dream, impossible from the start, now a nightmare.
Anti-Zionist Jews know that true Zion is a nation of the mind and heart but not on someone else’s land. With factual depth and graceful prose Adrienne shows us the way out of the deadly Mideast dilemma through socialist solidarity: “Arabs and Jews allied can build a shared and liberated Palestine, from the river to the sea.”
William Hathaway, Oldenburg, Germany
Israel and Western Sahara
Good article in the April-May edition on Israeli peace pacts, especially regarding the Western Sahara.
Do you have a link you could send me to this so I can get it put on the Australian Western Sahara Association Facebook page?
Ron Guy, Coimadai, Australia
Editor’s note: Melbourne FSP provided the requested link.
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
Free him now!
After 40 years of criminally negligent healthcare while in prison for a crime he did not commit, Mumia Abu-Jamal has a host of health problems. This spring he survived heart surgery, but his overall health is poor.
Now is the time to free Mumia and all political prisoners. No one should die due to chronic neglect.
Margie Swift, Rochester, New York
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