West Africa has an Ebola outbreak. It has become global. Hysteria abounds. It is not theirs alone. It is now humanity’s outbreak which has no borders. However, in fact, everything in the world today transcends borders: from the Internet to capitalism to climate change to wars.
In West Africa, there is also the capitalism outbreak and it is as rampant as the Ebola crisis. Their gold mines and rubber resources make huge profits for global capitalists (profiteers). In the United States much of the GDP [Gross Domestic Product] goes into the military for worldwide “protection.” Very little money is spent for a vaccine, which has probably been available, to combat Ebola as too costly. One nation, Nigeria, stopped Ebola in its tracks because it had the money and an infrastructure willing to do so. The poorer nations in West Africa do not.
In West Africa, there is little hysteria, but in the United States, where there is much hysteria, it seems to be treated as a crime. We have a world system that puts profit before purchasing vaccines, free trade before national sovereignty, and war before peace. Where are the politics of sustainability and world stability? They are being blindsided and are not working.
Humanity’s struggle isn’t only about diseases like Ebola. It is about how much money is directed toward the few who profit and the rest of us who suffer and die when we invest in the wrong initiatives. That promotes my hysteria and should promote yours.
Elaine Peters
