BLOG OF PUBLIC SECRETS

Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek on Ukraine

 

 

A recent panel discussion on the war in Ukraine, and featuring Slavoj Žižek, was posted on March 15 on Simon Gros’s YouTube channel. I wrote a lengthy reply to Žižek’s analysis in the comments section and this was blocked by the channel host, possibly because YouTube flags as spam lengthy comments that are cut and pasted, which is something I just discovered.1 I sometimes write YouTube comments instead of writing blog posts, as this allows me to focus on other things. I am posting my blocked comment here but will preface this with a summary of Alain Badiou’s reflections on the conflict in Ukraine from March 18, 2022.2 Whereas Badiou’s thoughts about Ukraine are consistent with his philosophy and previous work, Žižek’s position is inconsistent with much of his work and with his communist politics.

 

In Alain Badiou’s series for the Commune CDN Aubervillliers titled “How to Live and Think in a Time of Absolute Disorientation?,” the March 18, 2022, lecture focused on the relation of the conflict in Ukraine to Badiou’s philosophy more generally. He begins by asking what we should do so as to not become victims of both sides. How can one stay calm in the context of propaganda? Dialectical reason generally avoids ideas that depend on two camps. One finds this as well in Žižek’s Lacanian formula of 1+1+a, namely: the conflict between labour and capital does not take place directly but is mediated by a third element, for example, xenophobia, or, in “progressive” neoliberalism, anti-patriarchy and anti-racism. According to Badiou, a third term renders differences and similarities intelligible. This is why the postulate that all people are the same or that all people are different is by itself meaningless. Without a third term, the opposition between the two terms is reducible to sterile, empirical facts. What one wants to know is the meaning of the conflict, its future and its scope. The opposition of “evil” Russia and “legitimate” Ukraine is, from the perspective of universality, a contradiction of differentiated negative terms.

Badiou reminds us that the Maidan revolt of 2014 was manipulated by the United States and by nationalist forces. We should add that this took place as communism was being outlawed and far-right forces were entering parliament. At the present moment, organized workers have no collective bargaining rights and Ukrainian workers are the most exploited in all of Europe. This will only increase as the war continues and after it ends. For such reasons, Badiou argues, the war in Ukraine has no affirmative positivity at the level of politics. The meaning of communism is opposition to nationalist stagnation. The current conflict is therefore a crisis of universality and of genuine values. Politics, in the current situation, is exclusively a matter of domination. The old idea of camps that is in play annuls third terms. It partakes in the “cancer” of identity and thereby cancels the universality of judgements.

Badiou proposes six theses with which to understand the concept of universality as a third term.

1) All universal judgements or elements have their origins in an event. (Event is here understood in the specific ways that Badiou deploys that term.) The third term is not implicit in a conflict but emerges from out of that conflict.

2) All universal judgements or elements first emerge as a matter of decision and where previously universal judgements were undecidable. The universal is not reducible to existing knowledge. Although the universal is attached to knowledge, it goes beyond knowledge.

3) The universal has an implicative structure in the sense that it can tell us what can engender something else. The universal is implicated by the movement of thought in the conjunctures of time.

4) Like antagonisms, the universal is a univocal judgement. One cannot know the pertinence, limits or purposes of univocal judgements.

5) All universal singularities are open and limitless propositions that engage us to determine their consequences. Universal singularities cannot be limited to observed phenomena.

6) Universality is the faithful construction of a generic and infinite multiple.

Badiou follows this presentation of six theses on universality with further reflections. The event is intransitive to the particularities of the situation. The universal and the event therefore have a fundamental relation. Fidelity to the event is not a matter of doctrine. Fidelity is oriented towards an event and eventuality (l’évènementiel). The negation of universality requires more than propaganda. One should add that the negation of universality also requires more than the empirical facts of domination. Unlike discourse theory, Badiou’s philosophy of communism is not an alibi for the use and abuse of power. Counter-revolution, he argues, is a form of evental revisionism which requires a systematic critique of the elements to which universality is faithful.

We are witness today to the systematic deconstruction of emancipatory political events. This takes the form of a critique and denial of the existence of political truths. For example, François Furet viewed the French Revolution as useless and pointless. One can see the same logic at work in the New York Times’ 1619 Project. The nouveaux philosophes of French postwar theory likewise viewed communist revolution as a matter of totalitarianism. The May 68 uprising is reduced to the theme of sexual liberation, etc.

The problem with the deconstruction of third terms is that this brings us back to one of the two terms, or the stabilization of terms. Such an operation is essentially designed to attack anything that is new. A new universality creates a militant subjectivity – not a belligerent reaction. Identity dominates today in all fields. In politics, identitarianism takes the form of nationalism. Its objective is hegemonic power. Universality is opposed to conflictual configurations of identity. Universality, in contrast to identity, experiments with differences subtractively. Although identitarians argue that knowledge is not neutral, knowledge is today conceived as identitarian and neutral at the same time. The contemporary focus on difference coincides with undecidability. The universal, in contrast, imposes itself as new knowledge, a decision on the undecidable. The encyclopaedia is the general system of knowledges. Such knowledge is uncertain and anonymous. It does not provide solutions to problems of politics, or culture, for example. It rather exists as equanimity: maybe God exists; maybe immigrants belong here. Decisions are not reflections of the state of things. Universality is the consequence or subjectivization of an evental decision.

The current goal of Western neocolonialism is to weaken Russia. Once the war is over, the countries will return to their real problems – problems that are masked by the war and that existed before the war began. The world must avoid a scenario like World War II from being re-enacted once again. We can do this by looking for the evental and its universal pertinence. Universality will be internationalist and anti-nationalist.

 

 

Below is my comment on Žižek’s statement during the recent ASLEF-sponsored discussion. Note that I have also written to the organizers at DiEM25, suggesting that they should host a panel discussion among Western and East European leftists since the Western left’s critiques of NATO and U.S./E.U. imperialism do not coincide with the views of many East European leftists who focus solely on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These comments of course do not summarize Žižek’s arguments in his talk, which is supported by his many online articles on the subject.

 

For followers of Badiou, see his YouTube talk at La Commune Aubervilliers March 18 2022 for a counterpoint to Žižek’s position on the conflict. You do not have to be a supporter of Putin and you can condemn the Russian invasion while at the same time acknowledging the following: how the West manipulated the Maidan uprising along with nationalists, many of them far-right and anti-communist; how the assault on ethnic Russians in the East of Ukraine is a real problem (divisions within the country that were not dealt with in a democratic way, to say the least); how the people in the Crimea voted unanimously (90%) to unite with Russia; how NATO and the U.S. want to weaken and divide Russia so that it can then challenge the economic power of China; how foreign investors and the West are economically colonizing Ukraine (which will not be able repay its war debt for countless generations); how the U.S. is economically forcing Europe to do its bidding, going so far as to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline (and powers like Germany and Japan will use this to regain their military power, if nothing else); how this protracted conflict with Russia and China will do nothing to address global problems of militarism, ecology, economic inequality, etc. 

Rather than criticize the left’s “symptomal” readings of the conflict, why does Žižek not address the double blackmail of Ukraine vs Russia and why does he avoid the standard internationalist leftist class critique of wars manufactured in the interest of the ruling elites and oligarchies on all sides. This does not mean you are pacifist; it means that communists do not call on workers to kill workers from other nations for the sake of the class of investors who profit from war, oil, gas, tech, etc. All Marxists understand this. It would be good for Žižek to distinguish between the radical, socialist, communist left, and the liberal left (progressive liberals, social democrats, NSM left, New Left, postmodernists) and those around establishment sources like The Guardian and New York Times, or the Green Party in Germany. Why conflate the left with Western liberal democrats – especially since, in the case of the Ukraine conflict, almost exclusively, Žižek comes across as more cosmopolitan than internationalist? In Žižek’s terms, the left is either perplexed (liberal left) or non-perplexed (academic left). When is the left ever correct, or is there always an infinitely demanding number of paradoxes that only philosophy can address? I ask this as a follower of Žižek, and not as a Noam Chomsky, Gabriel Rockwell or Norman Finkelstein pseudo-critic of his work. If the citizen philosopher wants the bureaucracy to take care of things so that people can go about their daily activities, why would he not also allow the broad internationalist left have the correct position on this issue?

Regarding peace: when the left calls for peace, it does not avoid political differences. As Badiou puts it, the left calls for peace because the war is a way of avoiding the necessary and difficult decisions that will have to be taken once the war is over, and that existed before the war started. In other words, war is a way of avoiding political deadlocks around ecology, economic inequality, social equality and political corruption. Calls for peace are not pathetic. Why should making things worse (choosing the option of war) be the only way of clarifying the choices and decisions that need to be made? Jeffrey Sachs is a mixed bag, and not a good example of leftism. Same with Judith Butler. The left does not call for NATO out of Ukraine, the left calls for the dismantling of NATO as a relic of the Cold War and now part of the arsenal of the U.S. military. Because of this proxy war, we will likely see a Russia-China alliance that will make a formidable bloc against NATO. At least two thirds of the countries of the world reject NATO plans for war against Russia and China. This proxy war in Ukraine is a problem of imperialism. The shift to financialization is part of this problem. The idea that Finland and Sweden should be afraid of Russia – same for Ukraine – is in fact ridiculous, especially since around 1989 Russia sought to join NATO and the U.S./E.U. has preferred to make it more useful as a permanent enemy, which is good for the deep state that does not want leftist movements to develop. We have also learned that the Minsk I and II agreements were undertaken in bad faith by Western powers. The argument advanced is that Russia should have no security concerns, as more and more countries are absorbed into NATO, and as official U.S. policy is great power conflict with Russia and China, and this, not for security reasons, but for economic reasons that are redefined as security concerns. 

The conflict in Ukraine is in fact a proxy war, no less than in Syria. Ukraine no longer makes its own military decisions without U.S. command and the U.S./E.U. is bankrolling the Ukrainian government, which no longer functions independently. How does sending more soldiers on both sides to their deaths help anyone, that is to say, at the level of universality and emancipation? Moreover, it’s not that Ukraine should not win, but that it cannot win, objectively speaking and in military terms. Why bait leftists with the idea that Ukrainians are stupid, as Žižek does here? Ukraine has Stepan Bandera statues and place names appearing everywhere. Does that mean that the left believes in Putin’s de-Nazification argument? No. The internationalist left is not as stupid as Žižek seems to think.

One question I have, and I think we need more discussion on this, is why are the Western left and the East European left so at odds on this issue? I tend to think that East Europeans have a Soviet hangover and cannot see how the working majority in all the countries of Eurasia, and elsewhere, have common interests. Many East European comrades are in a human rights, dissident and anti-Putin mode that makes them advocates of democracy and NSM radical democracy, which Žižek does not advocate elsewhere. It would be better to argue with and against actual left arguments, based on facts and on principles, than against some of these strawman representations of the left that Žižek brings up and that create more confusion than clarity. 

Will Europe die for Ukraine? Not likely. Europe has not died for Greece either. This conflict is not like the time of the international brigades who went to fight in Spain against the fascists during the civil war. (If Žižek goes to Ukraine, he will not be carrying a rifle.) It’s closer to the opposite, with fascists, mercenaries and conscripted soldiers involved in a futile conflict that has no universal truth. Helping Ukraine, to the extent that that will occur, will only happen after a peace is negotiated. And it will not happen through predatory foreign capitals.

How can one be fully Ukrainian by being pushed into being so by Putin, as Žižek suggests here? How is this consistent with his philosophy? Did Russia and the U.S. make Afghanistan more fully itself? Did the Nazis make Jews more fully themselves? This is grotesque logic that even Žižek does not adhere to in his work. To think that the left can only support Ukraine by taking the pro-NATO neoliberal line is confusing to me. Not to get into deeper waters, but Lenin not only defended nations (to the death, as he wrote); he also took the position that Muslim satellite nations that do not have a socialist base should not be given too much independence. (On this, see the book by M. Renault, L’empire de la révolution.) How is canceling all Russian culture a proper measure? Because this happened in WWII, as Žižek suggests? Žižek likes Wagner, without any pseudo-Marxist reductionism. Why should we not reject the ratcheting up of anti-Russian sentiment? Also, why limit Russia to Putin and his ideologues, or for that matter, the U.S. to Trump and Bannon & co? Žižek is correct: the conflict is not just about a piece of land. It is, in fact, about Russia's legitimate security concerns, and this is something that the U.S., with its provocations, understands better than Žižek. Notice that the U.S. has now legislated government positions against socialism, and we see this also in U.K. education, and so I see no reason to become complacent about Western designs regarding Russia. John McDonnell is selling out and it’s sad to see Žižek agreeing with Paul Mason as he becomes ever less a friend of the left. Notice that almost the entire U.S. left is critical of Bernie Sanders and the squad for going along with weapons and billions to Ukraine at the same time that U.S. infrastructure is crumbling and ecological shifts are wreaking havoc. It’s the same struggle all around. There is such a thing as “bourgeois luxury,” as Yuliya Yurchenko says in this discussion, but in this case, in the West, it’s not among the leftists who want peace, it’s among the hipster liberal “leftists” like Bono and Sean Penn who want unthinking, beautiful soul, support for Ukraine. 

About awakening (which by the way is not only something fascists say, as Žižek suggests in one of his recent lectures, and Žižek himself says we need to wake up often enough, like in his recent book, Surplus-Enjoyment, on page 3 and 122, and elsewhere) ... notice how New York City advertisements about what to do in case of a nuclear attack are not only accidentally absurdly ineffective but designed to make people accept this new proxy war, and the planned war against China, as part of our normal routines (war as usual, like in 1984’s Oceania), more or less the way governments wanted us to accept herd immunity and living with COVID-19, which means dying from COVID. It’s bourgeois luxury to produce Ukrainian cannon fodder to make life good for Americans and weapons manufacturers. Authentic leftists DO condemn the Russian invasion and DO support universal rights and values. The struggle is universal. Indeed. The genuine left does NOT see the Ukraine conflict as a clash of civilizations. 

I never tire of reminding left comrades about how important Žižek’s work has been for exiting postmodernism and critiquing post-politics as well as identity politics. On the issue of Ukraine, though, I think he is contradicting much of his previous work so that Ukrainians do not feel abandoned and with only reactionaries and neoliberals on their side, which would cause them to reject leftism, and so that during and after the war, they keep thinking progressively about how to struggle for democracy in desperate circumstances. It’s paternalistic to some extent and sells short the idea of communism. What would Lenin do?

 

 

Sources

1. Simon Gros, “Ukraine, Invasion, Resistance and the Struggle for Freedom (with Slavoj Žižek),” YouTube (March 15, 2023), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8HdCWOuJNU.

2. La Commune CDN Aubervilliers, “14/03/22 – Comment vivre et penser un temps d’absolue disorientation ?” YouTube(Mars 18, 2022), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhk264iTfFc.

 

Call for Papers - A&thePS - The Struggle Before Us

 

 

It's Lab Leak Day ... Again

 

 

In May of 2021 the Biden administration began to peddle lies that were started by Stephen Bannon and his anti-communist allies in China that the COVID-19 virus was the result of a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Without a shred of evidence, the American media began to spread the story. Since that time, the media has engaged in a search for scapegoats to accompany this big lie. Even progressive media, like The Intercept, the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, the journalists Thomas Frank and Max Blumenthal, and the public policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs, have given credence to the lab leak hypothesis, neglecting to follow up on their conjecture, or the mistakes of their guests, with accurate and up-to-date information on the overwhelming consensus within the scientific community that there is more than enough evidence to conclude that COVID-19 was the result of zoonotic transfer and also that there is no evidence that it was the result of a lab leak. Jon Stewart is now an out-and-out neoliberal and so no one needs to worry about his confusing Late Show pantomime in 2021.

Since the Democratic Party took up the lab leak hypothesis to pursue its strategic goal of engaging China in military conflict, doubt has been cast by the U.S. government and the media on the Chinese scientists at the WIV, on the reports about the origins of COVID-19 from the World Health Organization, on Anthony Fauci and the National Institute of Health, on the practice of ‘gain of function’ research, and on the work of Peter Daszak and the EcoHealth Alliance. The charade goes on and on. While some scientists say that it’s important to keep an open mind, some only pay attention to the first half of Carl Sagan’s dictum that “it pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.” The effectiveness of the zero COVID policy that was pursued by China for two years is a repudiation of the herd immunity policies pursued by Western and world governments in the interest of short-term profits over human lives. Even if Paul Krugman considers it a Cold War victory that China eventually abandoned its zero COVID policy, it’s hard to see how more than one million deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S., and 20 million cases of Long COVID, is anything to celebrate.1

The recent February 2023 wave of reporting on the lab leak was caused by a story in the Wall Street Journal published on February 26.2 Just as the Seymour Hersh story on the Biden administration’s bombing of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines – an act of terrorism committed by the U.S. against a NATO ally – was being ignored by the mainstream press, this story has arrived with its pedigree of conspiratorial notoriety already built-in for popular consumption and viral spread.3 The headline, “Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says,” is misleading to say the least. Besides the fact that the Department of Energy has indeed put out this information, the article should nevertheless have read: “Lab Leak is LEAST Likely Origin of COVID-19, Despite What the DOE Now Says.” Since the DOE has not released any evidence to back up its claim, and even the DOE does not defend its own allegation, referring to it as a “low confidence assessment,” it is unlikely that it will. According to National Intelligence guidelines, a “low confidence” report means that the information used by the DOE to draw its conclusion, that the virus “likely” came from a lab, is “scant, questionable, fragmented, or that solid analytical conclusions cannot be inferred from the information, or that the IC has significant concerns or problems with the information sources.” The only explanation for its likelihood, therefore, as with the conjecture as to whether the weather balloons that were recently shot down were spy balloons – which I’m sad to say Daniel Ellsberg believes they were, or could have been – is the fact that the small team of researchers in the DOE who issued this report – the DOE’s Z Division – are the same people who investigate chemical, biochemical or nuclear weapons and are directly implicated in U.S. foreign policy. The DOE and the Director of National Intelligence have nevertheless refused to comment on their assessment.

In 2021 only one out of nine intelligence departments responded to the Biden administration’s request for an assessment of the origin of COVID-19 with the view that it “could” have been a lab accident. That department was the FBI. The CIA continues the say that there is not enough evidence for the leak hypothesis. At present, other departments of the U.S. state acknowledge that there is no evidence for a lab leak and maintain that natural, evolutionary spillover is the most likely scenario. The majority of intelligence agencies in the U.S. continue to favour the spillover scenario because that is what the science, not the politics, indicates. So far so good, but what would people believe if, against scientific opinion, they all start reporting low confidence assessments? Because the Biden administration refuses to accept that zero evidence is zero evidence, it continues to hang on to the “no one really knows” argument. The U.S. continues to blame China for preventing independent researchers from gaining access to their labs, which is a lie that ignores the investigations that have already been satisfactorily conducted. The misconstrued notion that there is no conclusive evidence for either scenario is what makes it attractive to spooks in Washington D.C. This is now playing into the hands of the right-wing zealots in Congress that are setting up wartime committees against the Communist Party of China.

That leaves everything where it stands and where it stood already two years ago. If Fauci now tells reporters that we may never know the origins of COVID-19, he is only saying something that scientists have been saying for two years already. What the DOE’s statement does do is blow smoke up the ass of the American and world public after several embarrassing multi-million-dollar attacks on $200 weather balloons, hyped up as UFOs.4 This comes after the Hersh article, after the U.S. increased the number of troops stationed in Taiwan, after the East Palestine train disaster, and after Biden cut food stamp allocations. As it turns out, one of the authors of the Wall Street Journal’s report is Michael R. Gordon, a journalist who was fired from the New York Times for disreputable reporting. In September 2002, Gordon dutifully and fraudulently reported in the Times that Saddam Hussein was seeking to build a nuclear weapon.5 The error was corrected by the newspaper after the second war against Iraq had begun and Hussein had been killed.   

For some time now the science has been out on the 99 percent likelihood of zoonotic transfer as the source of COVID-19 and the total absence of any evidence that the virus came from a lab. The world will never be 100 percent certain that the virus did not emerge from a lab, but the world will also never have 1 percent of evidence that it did. As with their reporting on the January 6 Capital assault and on the New York Times’ ‘1619 Project,’ the World Socialist Web Site has been out front on this issue because instead of chasing dollars and clicks they have allowed science and scientists to guide their reporting. Below are two clusters of articles on the lab leak scandal, some of which I have cited in previous posts on Blog of Public Secrets. One set is from science journals and magazines, and another set if from the WSWS. By pointing this out, I’m not seeking to establish the credibility of the WSWS, which many people assess, and ignore, or censor, on the basis of its function as an organ of the Socialist Equality Party. What I am saying is that reporting that corresponds to what science tells us and that assesses sources according to interests makes sense.

Also below are several messages that I sent to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour on this issue. Those were sent with relevant article links added. I was told on November 28 by Stephen Skrovan to take up the issue with Andrew Kimbrell, who was the first guest on the RNRH to discuss this issue and who attacked gain of function research, a line of inquiry that seems to have gone nowhere but was being hyped at the time by the liberal press because very few people know what it is. As it happens, I had earlier written to Mr. Kimbrell and he never replied. The purpose of Skrovan’s message was basically to let me know that despite my persistent efforts to have this issue addressed on the RNRH, they were not going to cover the topic thoroughly. On February 25, 2023, the RNRH had a programme that featured Seymour Hersh on his Nord Stream article.6 That episode also included an interview with Mickey Huff of Project Censored. Huff suggested in passing, and only one day before the media covered the DOE report, that the pandemic was caused by a lab leak. To his credit, I suppose, Nader ignored the statement. However, his show has not once stated what the consensus is in the scientific community on this issue, even if on one occasion, one of his guests, Dr. Michael Osterholm, did backpedal on the idea that gain of function research is to blame for the virus. Why are journalists on the American left so sleepy on this issue? Reporters should comment on mainstream propaganda, but they should also, when it comes to matters of health and science, seek to establish the difference between fact and conjecture.

The origins of COVID-19 is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the politics around global agribusiness, development and deforestation, pandemic mitigation and public health care provision. In the form of a lab leak theory, COVID-19 is being weaponized as the tip of a spear against any democratic or socialist reform to the system of global capitalism, especially in the U.S., where authoritarianism, militarism and fascism are being engineered by the state to fend off worker struggles. This story, and also the fact that American journalists ignore the reporting of the WSWS because it’s produced by Trotskyist journalists, would make a valid subject for students of media and democracy. One would have to bear in mind that post-representational neoliberal governments like the Biden administration do not want citizens to believe that government works for anyone other than billionaire shareholders and campaign donors. The same goes for the mainstream press.

 

Notes

1. Paul Krugman, “How China Lost the Covid War,” The New York Times (November 28, 2022), https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/opinion/china-covid-autocracy-democracy.html.

2. Michael R. Gordon and Warren P. Strobel, “Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says,” The Wall Street Journal (February 26, 2023), https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/covid-origin-china-lab-leak-807b7b0a.

3. Seymour Hersh, “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline,” substack (February 8, 2023), https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream.

4. Ben Norton, “US admits weather pushed Chinese balloon off course, US shot down hobbyists’ $12 balloon in $2M missile attack,” Geopolitical Economy (February 18, 2023), https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/02/18/us-weather-chinese-balloon-hobbyist/. See also Live on the Fly with Randy Credico, “Dan Ellsberg, Scott Ritter & Matthew Hoh,” YouTube (February 13, 2023), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqrCrX7nC58.

5. Andre Damon, “The Wuhan lab lie: ‘Weapons of mass destruction’ redux,” World Socialist Web Site (February 29, 2023), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/28/wuci-f28.html. See also Joby Warrick et al., “Little-known scientific team behind new assessment on covid-19 origins,” The Washington Post (February 27/28, 2023), https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/02/27/little-known-scientific-team-behind-new-assessment-covid-19-origins/, and Nicola Davis and Amy Hawkins, “How seriously should we take the US DoE’s Covid lab leak theory? Department of Energy’s updated report on origins of coronavirus jars with most scientists’ assessments,” The Guardian (February 27, 2023), https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/27/how-seriously-should-we-take-the-us-does-covid-lab-leak-theory.

6. Ralph Nader Nadio Hour, “Seymour Hersh on Nordstream – Ralph Nader Radio Hour,” YouTube (February 25, 2023), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0isgDtqoAoY. See also Ralph Nader Radio Hour, “Did Covid-19 Come From a Lab?” YouTube (July 18, 2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vwtM29P8d0, Ralph Nader Radio Hour, “Eugenics/Wuhan Lab Leak?/Donziger Update,” YouTube (August 14, 2021), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rytcwf-zYPQ; Ralph Nader Radio Hour, “Covid Update/Student Activists,” YouTube (May 28, 2022), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ImdICBRhuY.

 

 

Articles from the Scientific Community on the Origin of the COVID-19 Virus

Kristian G. Andersen et al., “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” Nature (March 17, 2020), https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9.

Steve Wylie, “How do viruses mutate and jump species? And why are ‘spillovers’ becoming more common?” The Conversation (April 5, 2020), https://theconversation.com/how-do-viruses-mutate-and-jump-species-and-why-are-spillovers-becoming-more-common-134656.

Edward C. Holmes et al., “The Origins of SARS-CoV-2: A Critical Review,” Zenodo (July 7, 2021), https://zenodo.org/record/5075888#.YRhTKC2cYWq.

Marion Koopmans et al., “Origins of SARS-CoV-2: window is closing for key scientific studies,” Nature (August 25, 2021), https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02263-6.

Joshua Cho, “Corporate Media Politicize WHO Investigation on Covid Origins to Vilify China,” FAIR (August 25, 2021), https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.09.21263359v1.

Cecilia A. Sánchez, “A strategy to assess spillover risk of bat-SARS-related coronaviruses in Southeast Asia,” medRxiv (September 14, 2021), https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.09.21263359v1.

Edward C. Holmes, “The origins of SARS-CoV-2: A critical review,” ScienceDirect (September 16, 2021), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867421009910.

Smriti Mallapaty, “Closest known relatives of virus behind COVID-19 found in Laos,” Nature (September 24/27, 2021), https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02596-2.

Letter by Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance on reporting requirements, October 26, 2021, available at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02263-6.

Gao Lei, “Clamor over gain-of-function research misses a more crucial issue in the US,” Global Times (October 27, 2021), https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02263-6.

Jon Cohen, “Prophet in Purgatory: EcoHealth Alliance’s Peter Daszak is fighting accusations that his pandemic prevention work helped spark COVID-19,” Science (November 17, 2021), https://www.science.org/content/article/we-ve-done-nothing-wrong-ecohealth-leader-fights-charges-his-research-helped-spark-covid-19.

Michael Worobey, “Dissecting the early COVID-19 cases in Wuhan,” Science (November 18, 2021), https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm4454.

Colin J. Carlson et al., “Climate change increases cross-species viral transmission risk,” Nature (April 28, 2022), https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02263-6.

Michael Worobey et al., “The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Science (July 26, 2022), https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02263-6.

Jonathan E. Pekar et al., “The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2,” Science (July 26, 2022), https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02263-6.

Edward C. Holmes, “The COVID lab leak theory is dead. Here’s how we know the virus came from a Wuhan market,” The Conversation (August 14, 2022), https://theconversation.com/the-covid-lab-leak-theory-is-dead-heres-how-we-know-the-virus-came-from-a-wuhan-market-188163.

Xiaowei Jiang and Ruoqi Wang, “Wildlife trade is likely source of SARS-CoV-2,” Science (August 25, 2022), https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add8384.

Dan Ladden-Hall, “Lancet Report Claiming COVID Could Have Come From U.S. Lab Met With Uproar,” The Daily Beast (September 15, 2022), https://www.thedailybeast.com/lancet-report-claiming-covid-could-have-come-from-us-lab-met-with-uproar?ref=home.

Jeffrey D. Sachs et al., “The Lancet Commission on lessons for the future from the COVID-19 pandemic,” The Lancet (October 8, 2022), https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01585-9/fulltext.

Gerald T. Keusch, “Pandemic origins and a One Health approach to preparedness and prevention: Solutions based on SARS-CoV-2 and other RNA viruses,” PNAS (October 10, 2022), https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2202871119.

 

 

Selection of Articles from the WSWS on the Origins of COVID-19 and the Lab Leak Hypothesis

Andre Damon, “Science vs propaganda: World Health Organization report exposes ‘Wuhan laboratory’ lie,” World Socialist Web Site (March 30, 2021), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/31/pers-m31.html.

Bryan Dyne, “White House embraces ‘Wuhan Lab’ conspiracy theory,” World Socialist Web Site (May 26, 2021), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/05/27/pers-m27.html.

Andre Damon, “How the US media declared the ‘Wuhan lab’ lie ‘credible’,” World Socialist Web Site (May 30, 2021), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/05/31/wuha-m31.html.

Andre Damon, “Author of Wall Street Journal ‘Wuhan lab’ story wrote lies about Iraqi ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’,” World Socialist Web Site (June 1, 2021), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/01/wuha-j02.html

Andre Damon, “Scientists take a stand against ‘Wuhan lab’ witch hunt,” World Socialist Web Site (June 3, 2021), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/03/wuha-j03.html.

Andre Damon, “‘Wuhan lab’ theory proponent Nicholas Wade pushed racist pseudo-science in 2014 book,” World Socialist Web Site (June 6, 2021), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/07/wade-j07.html.  

Benjamin Mateus, “How science demolishes the right-wing fiction of a Wuhan ‘lab-leak’ as the source of coronavirus – Part 1,” World Socialist Web Site (June 20, 2021), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/21/sci1-j21.html.

Benjamin Mateus, “How science demolishes the right-wing fiction of a Wuhan ‘lab leak’ as the source of coronavirus – Part 2,” World Socialist Web Site (June 21, 2021), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/22/sci2-j22.html.

Benjamin Mateus, “How science demolishes the right-wing fiction of a Wuhan ‘lab leak’ as the source of coronavirus – Part 3,” World Socialist Web Site (June 22, 2021), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/23/sci3-j23.html.

Andre Damon, “From censor to conspiracy theorist: Zeynep Tufecki promotes the Wuhan Lab lie,” World Socialist Web Site (June 29, 2021), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/29/tufe-j29.html.

Andre Damon, “US fails to provide evidence for COVID-19 ‘lab leak’ claims,” World Socialist Web Site (August 25, 2021), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/08/26/pers-a26.html.

Andre Damon, “The Wuhan Lab lie: Who is to blame for the COVID-19 pandemic?” World Socialist Web Site (August 31, 2021), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/09/01/lect-s01.html.

Andre Damon, “Stop the witch-hunt against scientist Peter Daszak,” World Socialist Web Site (October 27, 2021), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/10/27/pers-o27.html.

Andre Damon, “Scientist Peter Daszak refutes false media allegations about Wuhan research,” World Socialist Web Site (October 29, 2021), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/10/29/dasz-o29.html.

Andre Damon, “New study supports natural origins of COVID-19, sources close to WHO team say,” World Socialist Web Site (November 20, 2021), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/11/20/wuha-n20.html.

Andre Damon, “A disgraced liar accuses scientists: Matt Ridley’s Viral,” World Socialist Web Site (November 24, 2021), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/11/25/ridl-n25.html. 

Benjamin Mateus, “Three international studies into the origins of coronavirus refute the fabricated Wuhan ‘lab leak’ claim,” World Socialist Web Site (February 28, 2022), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/02/28/wuha-f28.html.

Andre Damon, “Washington Post promotes Trump’s other ‘big lie’: The Wuhan Lab theory,” World Socialist Web Site (June 10, 2022), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/06/11/csiv-j11.html.

Frank Gaglioti, “Two recent papers further confirm natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 virus,” World Socialist Web Site (August 16, 2022), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/08/17/lbac-a17.html.

Benjamin Mateus, “Independent Task Force on COVID-19 calls for urgent action to combat emerging diseases,” World Socialist Web Site (October 16, 2022), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/17/scie-o17.html.

Evan Blake, “The historical background of the COVID-19 pandemic and the fight for global elimination,” World Socialist Web Site (October 17, 2022), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/15/edfd-o15.html.

Benjamin Mateus, “Boston University study on Omicron variant smeared as dangerous gain-of-function research by right-wing reactionaries,” World Socialist Web Site (November 1, 2022), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/11/01/fcnh-n01.html.

Andre Damon, “Washington Post backs Republican-led witch-hunt against scientists,” World Socialist Web Site (November 18, 2022), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/11/19/sopj-n19.html.

Andre Damon, “Anthony Fauci gives aid and comfort to COVID-19 ‘lab leak’ conspiracy theory,” World Socialist Web Site (November 28, 2022), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/11/28/uwgx-n28.html.

Benjamin Mateus, “Republicans revive discredited Wuhan Lab Leak theory and call Anthony Fauci to testify,” World Socialist Web Site (February 16, 2023), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/17/sjcr-f17.html.

Benjamin Mateus, “The Wuhan Lab Leak slander being resurrected to bolster US war drive against China,” World Socialist Web Site (February 26, 2023), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/27/uqbg-f27.html.

Andre Damon, “The Wuhan lab lie: ‘Weapons of mass destruction’ redux,” World Socialist Web Site (February 27, 2023), https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/28/wuci-f28.html.

 

 

Messages Sent to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour

August 14, 2021

Dear Ralph,

Although I am not a scientist, I’ve always taken the work of Stephen Jay Gould as the best intellectual orientation when it comes to genetics. I agree with your guest, Andrew Kimbrell, on this. I do not agree with your episode, however, when it comes to the inflation of the lab leak hypothesis. Because gain of function research exists is not evidence that the virus was leaked from the WIV. Many things could have happened but unless you have proof, there is no basis for your claim. It is ironic that your guest was discussing genetics when the scientist who legitimized the re-emergence of the hypothesis, Nicholas Wade, is known by scientists for pandering the same kind of racist pseudo-science as Charles Murray. Why did Kimbrell not mention this fact? The New York Times have been petitioned by scientists about their support of his work. Is this a bad joke? The Wade article has been discredited by the below article in Zenodo. Your guest talks as though the Chinese have been uncooperative when that is not accurate. American and Chinese scientists involved in Wuhan have been more than glad to give interviews about the issue. You probably could do some yourself. I would recommend you interview Peter Daszak, since your guest has smeared his reputation. You say that you lost count of the number of scientists who agree with the leak hypothesis. Please tell us who they are, since, as far as I’m aware, more scientists, including the WHO, agree with the zoonotic transfer hypothesis and refute the leak hypothesis as highly unlikely and consider it resolved. This story should not be inflated by scientists who are against gain of function research, which is a different matter. Yes, gain of function research was done on Sars-Cov viruses – no one denies that – but nothing of Covid-19 shows signs of human tampering, which is easy enough for scientists to detect. The future research that will be done with WHO participation has to do with the emergence of the virus in the Wuhan region, where Cov viruses are common, but this has nothing to do with a leak coming from research at the WIV. One reason experts agree it could not have been a leak is because the WIV was not working on any Sars-Cov viruses that have anything in common with Covid-19 – and all of its equipment and staff was tested. The likely reason that the US is pushing this line of thought is due to the high death rate that it shamefully allowed, like most other neoliberal regimes that promoted herd immunity. The Monthly Review has also published insightful information on why pandemics like these spread, which has to do with agribusiness, clearcutting and global integration, etc, and not lab leak conspiracy theories that at this point cannot be disproven for the simple reason that there is no proof of any leak. So this entire story is at this point tilting at windmills. As Kimbrell admits, there is no smoking gun. Demands for a moratorium on gain of function research is not proof of a lab leak. Scientists at the WHO do not say it is possible and probable, as your guest suggests, but highly unlikely. A witch hunt against Fauci and others is not an answer. There are all kinds of Sars-Cov viruses in existence. To blame individuals for their existence misses the point. What seems “knee-jerk” in this discussion is creating non-scientific panic around science.

As you may know, the World Socialist Web Site did the best research discrediting the main claims of the ‘1619 Project.’ They were reluctantly acknowledged by the mainstream and conservative media for this work, who just as often referred to them as fringe. They did this by interviewing the most prominent American historians. They did the same thing for the lab leak hypothesis, with scientists, and have presented far more convincing information than anything mentioned on your show. I will list here the main articles they posted on the subject and I would invite you or your guest to comment on these. If they are not convincing to you, I would invite you to say why not. Also, you indicated that you are aware of the right-wing sources of this narrative. This story has been picked up by the Biden administration, most likely for the simple reason that the US is engaged in a massive superpower conflict with China. This story is along the same lines as the Uyghur genocide, which has been greatly inflated by the bellicose National Endowment for Democracy. I present these links to you here and hope that you let your listeners know what you think of this reporting, which goes well beyond the abracadabra of using the scary phrase “gain of function” or “gain of threat” to get people to go against what scientists say is a fabrication. If you can’t do better, then I would say you have lost the argument. Of course, I do not expect you to agree with the SEP’s Trotskyist politics. That goes without saying. The dangerous idea that was discussed here is genetics, not capitalism.

Sincerely, Marc James Léger

...

August 26, 2021

Dear Ralph,

I wrote to the RNRH on August 14 about your interview with Andrew Kimbrell. I wrote to mention that Kimbrell was inverting the important science as well as politics reporting on the World Socialist Web Site about the lab leak issue and provided you with links, including the Zenodo article signed by an international team of scientists which refutes the leak hypothesis. You did not respond to my letter and so I have written to Peter Daszak, who was smeared by your guest, and I wrote to Andrew Kimbrell. Neither one has responded to me so far. The WSWS did report today on articles in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal that keep the conspiracy going but at the same time acknowledge that there is no evidence of a lab leak. But we have no reason to trust those sources. Today’s WSWS article reports on an article published in Nature by the authors of the March WHO report. This team includes Peter Daszak but not Andrew Kimbrell. They approvingly cite the Zenodo article I sent you and despite showing due reverence for the directives of his majesty Joe Biden, argue that not only is there no evidence of a leak from the WIV, the Chinese have cooperated with the WHO, and furthermore, all the extra research they will do on the zoonotic transfer aspect will be yielding diminishing returns as time goes on. So the lab leak story, like the Malaysia Flight 17 over Ukraine BUK missile story, is going nowhere fast. I think it would be responsible for you to acknowledge that there is NO evidence of a lab leak, that the WHO and responsible scientists consider the lab leak hypothesis highly improbable, that there is plenty of evidence that this story was initially concocted by far-right elements in China and the US, and that the main science source for the re-issue of the leak hypothesis, Nicholas Wade, has been denounced by other scientists for writing racist pseudo-science, as reported by the WSWS but not by your guest. To say, as you did, that countless scientists have lined up with the leak hypothesis misinforms listeners and confuses the kind of media b.s. we’re seeing around the Afghanistan withdrawal and actual science reporting. Even Thomas Frank in The Guardian took the bait, intimidating readers with the phrase “gain of function,” whereas the WSWS gave us much more science to think about, including the traces of human tampering that gain of function research actually leaves behind, none of which has been found of the SARS-COV-2 virus. Many people seem desperate to think Biden is doing a great job. Your co-hosts were correct to press Kimbrell on the fact that his agenda to stop “gain of function” research is mixing apples and oranges. They were also correct to mention the importance of this WMDs fake new story coming from the White House as part of its Great Power Conflict with China. Playing the devil’s advocate in this case is like the discrediting of the Iowa poll, on account of one error, that gave Buttigieg a leg up on Sanders. We don’t need this kind of jockeying when responsibility for herd immunity policies falls squarely on our governments.

Sincerely, Marc James Léger

...

October 25, 2021

Dear Ralph,

I have written to the RNRH a few times about your episodes with Andrew Kimbrell and the fact that you have propped up the lab leak hypothesis, which goes against scientific opinion. See the attached article from Nature magazine, August 2021, which tells you most of what you need to know. Kimbrell smeared Peter Daszak and Daszak is now being targeted by The Washington Post, as reported in the linked article by the WSWS. See also my recent blog post on the subject. I think you should do something to correct what your show has contributed to. I suggest you invite Daszak on to your show so that he can explain that there is nothing hidden about gain of function research and that nothing about COVID-19 has anything to do with that research. Daszak thanked the WSWS for the interview they did with him more than a year ago. It seems the US media prefers peddling conspiracy on this subject than listening to the scientists.

best, Marc James Léger

...

October 29, 2021

Dear Ralph,

Sorry to pester you. Here is another WSWS report on how Peter Daszak and EcoHealth are being wrongly scapegoated by the NIH. See Daszak’s letter to the NIH linked in the article. This misinformation has been and will be repeated in the mainstream media in order to keep the lab leak theory going and to displace blame for the mishandling of the pandemic through herd immunity policies etc, with the US having 20+ percent of the world’s covid deaths – not to mention the US government’s Cold War anti-China policy, started with Obama’s s “pivot to Asia.” Since Andrew Kimbrell’s statements on your show contributed to this misinformation, you might seek to rectify the facts in some way. I would recommend you interview Daszak.

best, Marc James Léger

...

November 20, 2021

Dear Ralph,

Sorry to pester you some more with this subject, but there was an article published recently in Science magazine that provides further evidence to support zoonotic transfer – though it seems that article is being spun in the opposite way by the mainstream press. There was also an article in Science that defends Peter Daszak against the kinds of smears that your guest Andrew Kimbrell promoted. I still think you should have Daszak on your show.

best, Marc James Léger

...

November 25, 2021

Dear Ralph,

Sorry to pester you once again about this issue but as far as I know, your show hasn’t done anything to correct the record about the moribund lab leak hypothesis or to apologize to Peter Daszak, who was defamed by your guest Andrew Kimbrell. A book called Viral, which advances the LL hypothesis, was recently published by a fascist British aristocrat, who is known for bankrupting the Northern Rock bank and attributing AIDS to polio vaccines. The below WSWS article on this book also has links to related articles that continue to lay waste to the leak hypothesis. Is it not time for the liberal left to drop this leak narrative and clarify matters for the general public? Answer: yes. 

quote: “Scientists have found three viruses in bats in Laos that are more similar to SARS-CoV-2 than any known viruses. Researchers say that parts of their genetic code bolster claims that the virus behind COVID-19 has a natural origin – but their discovery also raises fears that there are numerous coronaviruses with the potential to infect people. ... “When SARS-CoV-2 was first sequenced, the receptor binding domain didn’t really look like anything we’d seen before,” says Edward Holmes, a virologist at the University of Sydney in Australia. This caused some people to speculate that the virus had been created in a laboratory. But the Laos coronaviruses confirm these parts of SARS-CoV-2 exist in nature, he says.” (source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02596-2)

quote: “As for the vast majority of human viruses, the most parsimonious explanation for the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is a zoonotic event. The documented epidemiological history of the virus is comparable to previous animal market-associated outbreaks of coronaviruses with a simple route for human exposure. The contact tracing of SARS-CoV-2 to markets in Wuhan exhibits striking similarities to the early spread of SARS-CoV to markets in Guangdong, where humans infected early in the epidemic lived near or worked in animal markets. Zoonotic spillover by definition selects for viruses able to infect humans. Although strong safeguards should be consistently employed to minimize the likelihood of laboratory accidents in virological research, those laboratory escapes documented to date have almost exclusively involved viruses brought into laboratories specifically because of their known human infectivity. There is currently no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 has a laboratory origin. There is no evidence that any early cases had any connection to the WIV, in contrast to the clear epidemiological links to animal markets in Wuhan, nor evidence that the WIV possessed or worked on a progenitor of SARS-CoV-2 prior to the pandemic. The suspicion that SARS-CoV-2 might have a laboratory origin stems from the coincidence that it was first detected in a city that houses a major virological laboratory that studies coronaviruses. Wuhan is the largest city in central China with multiple animal markets and is a major hub for travel and commerce, well connected to other areas both within China and internationally. The link to Wuhan therefore more likely reflects the fact that pathogens often require heavily populated areas to become established. We contend that although the animal reservoir for SARS-CoV- 2 has not been identified and the key species may not have been tested, in contrast to other scenarios there is a substantial body of scientific evidence supporting a zoonotic origin. Although the possibility of a laboratory accident cannot be entirely dismissed, and may be near impossible to falsify, this conduit for emergence is highly unlikely relative to the numerous and repeated human-animal contacts that occur routinely in the wildlife trade. Failure to comprehensively investigate the zoonotic origin through collaborative and carefully coordinated studies would leave the world vulnerable to future pandemics arising from the same human activities that have repeatedly put us on a collision course with novel viruses.” (source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867421009910)

best, Marc James Léger