With a name taken from science fiction
Operation Warp Speed promises amazing results
Produced by competing capitalist pharmaceuticals
Getting guaranteed government purchase payments
Considering all the hype from the hucksters
Promoting false hope for unproven COVID remedies
The talk of a vaccine ready to deploy next month
Presents as yet another untrue assertion
But there is good reason to expect a vaccine soon
Made in China where science is preeminent
Where multiple vaccine types are in advanced development
Scheduled for full production in December
Imagine the utter consternation here
Just three months from now if China has it
And the United States does not
And the whole world goes to China to get it
An event so much more momentous than Sputnik
When the whole world watched it twinkling across the night sky
Amazed as the Soviets sent Yuri Gagarin orbiting the earth
While the ironically named Vanguard rockets failed to launch
This is about human lives and the comparison is stark
Between the ongoing systemic failure here to contain the virus
And China's achievement keeping the pandemic under control
With forty times fewer deaths despite four times greater population
To those apologists who ask what's the alternative
Defenders of this corrupt government putting profits before people
The obvious answer cries out loud and clear
Choose between socialist success or capitalist failure
