I remember early in the pandemic when I was still on non-political boards’ politics sections and the most left leaning person there, who I got on with quite well, kept saying he was pissed at what he called Third Worldists who wanted a nation other than the US to find a cure. It already seemed stupid to complain about people merely wishing for China or idk even SA to find a vaccine that works, but he would get really firm about it when I asked “well if it has to be somebody wouldn’t it be better if it is someone who won’t try to use it as a cudgel?”

In hindsight I feel very vindicated, this is the exact shit that one could predict would happen. The US no matter who made a cure, would hold it over poor countrys’ heads and try to prevent usage of a vaccine if it is made by their enemies. You cannot hold the apolitical “I just hope someone, anyone, finds a vaccine” because we do not live in a world in which something so life-saving is going to be treated as property of all of humanity. It cannot be apolitical, it cannot be separated from the empire and its goals