Protect the People
A new campaign is being built for maximum action to stop the virus.
• We need isolation for everyone who is sick, treatment for everyone who needs it, and testing for everyone who asks for it. Now.
• Where we do not have the capacity, bend every sinew and spend every pound we can to create the capacity.
• We need the government and employers to pay people who have to stay home because they are sick or to look after children.
• We need to make sure everyone has food and medicines. All that will be expensive. So spend the money.
We cannot campaign in the usual ways. But there are ways to work both online and face to face. Please, we need your help, sign up here.
All over the country people are setting up support groups. Social solidarity is on the rise in a big way. Read more here.
Find details of mutual aid resources here.
The virus is global and so must our response to it be. Read the experience from Barcelona here. To see more on the Protect the People website visit here
To submit your experiences or actions locally please get in touch on contact@protectthepeople.co.uk
1 comment
One response to “Protect the People”
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I fully support the aims of this campaign.
But, I’d like to make just one observation. It is true that local online support groups are starting up everywhere. But I can’t communicate with any of them, because they are all on Facebook. It isn’t just that I don’t like Facebook (which I don’t). I was even prepared to waive my principles, because this is an emergency, to register with them. But, I can’t do it, anyway, because Facebook refuse to recognise my Linux browser (and I’m certainly not going to download a commercial browser), and because I don’t use a mobile phone (especially now that there is 5G, because of microwave radiation) – a land-line is no good because they have to send me a ‘text-message’ before I can register. – Also, if I registered, I would, no doubt, be open to all of usual spamming and surveillance, etc. If people have to use ‘social media’, why can’t we have, free software, peer-to-peer, social media – I argue that that would be more in line with anti-authoritarian socialist principles, too.
Also, I can’t get any food delivered, for the same reason. Some of them (such as the local organic vegetable growers), require us to sign up to Facebook. The rest of them aren’t taking any new customers.
The upshot of all this is, despite all of the talk about alleged ‘social media’ and ‘online support groups’, I remain completely isolated. I haven’t seen anyone for weeks. I, generally, quite like it that way, because of my hermit tendencies. It gives me a chance to get some writing done. But we can have too much of a good thing!