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https://citizentruth.org/former-federal-reserve-governor-rebukes-central-bank-for-using-covid-19-lending-power-to-bail-out-dying-fossil-fuel-industry/
“If polluters want to deny the existence of the ongoing bailout, Congress should swiftly repeal these blatant corporate tax giveaways and make fossil fuels ineligible for stimulus lending programs.”
(By: Eoin Higgins, Common Dreams) A former Federal Reserve board of governors member on Thursday called on her former colleagues to stop using Covid-19 relief funds to bail out the “dying” fossil fuel industry, calling the decision a threat to the planet’s climate and a misguided use of taxpayer money.
“These concessions to the fossil fuel industry are a risky investment in the past,” Sarah Bloom Raskin wrote in a New York Times op-ed. “The Fed is ignoring clear warning signs about the economic repercussions of the impending climate crisis by taking action that will lead to increases in greenhouse gas emissions at a time when even in the short term, fossil fuels are a terrible investment.”
Collin Rees@collinrees
The last thing the Fed should be doing is bailing one of world's riskiest industries — fossil fuels.
We know Big Oil needs to cease existing very soon — spending billions rescuing it is unfathomably risky. #NoBigOilBailout
Great piece by @SBloomRaskin:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/opinion/fed-fossil-fuels.html …
Opinion | Why Is the Fed Spending So Much Money on a Dying Industry?
It should not be directing money to further entrench the carbon economy.nytimes.com
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Raskin’s opinion piece sparked praise from climate campaigners like 350.org co-founder Jamie Henn.
“This should cause some waves,” Henn tweeted.
Henn on Thursday penned an opinion piece for Common Dreams arguing that Mike Sommers, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute (API), is spewing lies to the public when he claims the industry doesn’t want—and hasn’t actively pushed for—a bailout from the Fed.
As Henn wrote:
The truth is that despite Sommer’s best efforts to spin a fairytale about oil companies tightening their belts and lifting themselves up by their bootstraps, corporate socialism is exactly what API wants. In fact, the fossil fuel industry, and the American Petroleum Institute in particular, have been at the forefront of corporate efforts to profit off the coronavirus pandemic and government relief efforts.
Climate advocacy group Friends of the Earth program manager Lukas Ross, in a statement Wednesday, also rejected Sommers’ protestations.
“Oil lobbyists are spewing blatant lies, and we have the receipts,” said Ross. “Big Oil has already nabbed $1.9 billion in giveaways thanks to corporate tax cuts from the last stimulus.”
“If polluters want to deny the existence of the ongoing bailout,” Ross added, “Congress should swiftly repeal these blatant corporate tax giveaways and make fossil fuels ineligible for stimulus lending programs.”
Western Values Project@Western_Values
Oil, gas, and coal companies are set to receive billions in federal aid from both the #PPP and #CARESAct. Many of these companies were in financial trouble long before the pandemic.
It’s simple: the @federalreserve is adding fuel to the climate crisis.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/opinion/fed-fossil-fuels.html …
Opinion | Why Is the Fed Spending So Much Money on a Dying Industry?
It should not be directing money to further entrench the carbon economy.nytimes.com
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The bailout is presenting taxpayers with a burden, Raskin wrote, citing the industry’s debt and unsustainable business model.
“For taxpayers, shouldering these liabilities is a bad deal,” wrote Raskin. “Buying this bad debt is not likely to support the creation of jobs or even ensure that existing jobs survive.”
Friends of the Earth agreed.
“Trump’s administration has been exploiting this pandemic to bailout Big Oil companies that have been struggling long before coronavirus,” the group tweeted.
The pandemic, wrote Raskin, “provides an unexpected opportunity to build an economy that is stronger in the long term.”
“The decisions that the Fed makes today will go a long way to determining whether tomorrow’s economy is one that remains susceptible to more chaos and vulnerability or builds economic security and resilience,” she wrote.
Alec Pronk May 29, 2020
https://citizentruth.org/president-trump-calls-for-looters-to-be-shot/
Twitter put a warning on the tweet for glorifying violence, while the fight for justice continues on the streets of Minneapolis and across the United States
In the wake of a cop murdering George Floyd, the streets of Minneapolis have been flooded by protestors fed up with the country’s inaction in the face of police brutality.
After announcing on Thursday that the FBI and Department of Justice would be investigating Floyd’s death, President Donald Trump has changed his town. In the late hours of Thursday night Trump tweeted out, “these THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Twitter put a warning on the tweet for glorifying violence, but the tweet is still accessible because it “may be in the public interest” according to Twitter. Trump is currently in a public feud with Twitter and announced an executive order to make it easier to sue social media companies.
The riots continued into Friday morning and the precinct of the cops who killed George Floyd, the 3rd precinct, was set ablaze. Images of stores and police stations on fire caught the attention of President Trump who has backed Democratic Governor Tim Walz’s activation of the National Guard.
Waiting on Charges
As of Friday morning, no charges have been brought against the four officers involved in the death of George Floyd, despite widely circulated video displaying excessive force and murder.
District Attorney Michael Freeman gave a press conference on Thursday and said the video was “graphic and terrible” before he continued, “there is other evidence that does not support a criminal charge.” Freeman’s office had to put out a statement that said, “evidence not favorable to our case needs to be carefully examined to understand the full picture of what actually happened.”
Local reports also revealed that Floyd and his killer Derek Chauvin worked security at the same night club for 17 years.
But many in Minneapolis and across the country say they have waited long enough. During Senator Amy Klobuchar’s term as chief prosecutor, the woman tipped by many to be Joe Biden’s VP pick refused to bring charges against the cop that killed George Floyd despite multiple complaints.
Similar protests have taken place across the country with police taking similar extreme measures to those in Minneapolis. Protests in Los Angeles, Denver, Columbus, Louisville, New York City, and more ended in police violence.
Police Brutality, Social Media, and Free Speech
Before Trump fired off his call for violence on Twitter, Minneapolis police had already been using excessive force to disperse crowds. Videos of tear gas, flashbangs, snipers, and indiscriminate pepper spray can be found all over social media.
The arrests and police actions have not been limited to protestors and demonstrators. Early Friday morning, CNN reporter Omar Jimenez and his crew were arrested live on air by Minneapolis police. CNN and other commentators were quick to point out that CNN had two reporters on the ground, Jimenez is black and the other reporter is white and was not arrested after speaking with the police.
Jimenez was released from custody, but CNN called the arrest “a clear violation of First Amendment rights.”
President Trump has accused Twitter of restricting free speech after Twitter labeled two of his tweets about mail-in voting with exclamation marks. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg went on television yesterday to say that he thinks social media companies should not fact-check political speech.
With Trump advocating for violence against American citizens and spatting with social media companies, and prominent Democrats entrenched in their own racial controversies, the fight for justice continues on the streets of Minneapolis and across the United States.
Alison Weir May 30, 2020
https://citizentruth.org/us-senate-quietly-approves-38-billion-for-israel-amid-historic-economic-downturn/
S.3176 was passed without being named, debated, or even discussed, even though it would set into law the largest such aid package in US history.
This article was originally published at IAK and Mintpress News on May 22nd
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee quietly passed a bill yesterday to give Israel a minimum of $38 billion over the next ten years despite the ongoing devastation to the U.S. economy caused by the coronavirus.
The bill – S.3176 – will now go before the full Senate. Since the legislation has already been passed by the House of Representatives, if the Senate passes the bill, it will then go to the president to be signed into law.
The bill was passed by the committee under two unusual circumstances and with almost no public awareness.
First, Senate Committee Chairman Jim Risch (R-Idaho) refused to allow a live stream of the meeting, despite the fact that the Senate Rules panel had recommended that extra efforts be taken to ensure public transparency while the Capitol is closed to the public and the presence of reporters is severely limited. The Senate’s Press Gallery Standing Committee of Correspondents had objected strongly to Risch’s decision.
Second, the bill was passed without being named, debated, or even discussed, even though it would set into law the largest such aid package in U.S. history. There has been no mention of the bill by most media in the United States.
The massive package is particularly noteworthy in light of the current devastation to the American taxpayers who will be footing the bill – over $10 million per day. In recent months approximately 30 million Americans have lost jobs, 100,000 small businesses have already closed forever, and over seven million are at risk of doing so.
The bill was voted on as part of a package of 15 bills that were voted on “en bloc” (all together).
After Senator Kaine said he didn’t know what the list contained, Risch responded: “I’m not trying to pull anything here… this was circulated among the staff.”
Risch then rapidly listed the numbers but did not give the titles. There was then a voice vote and the motion passed unanimously.
Democratic members of the committee had voiced strong objections to blocking a live stream of the meeting because of a different agenda item. After the meeting, Committee Ranking Member Robert Menendez (D-NJ) released a video of the meeting.
None, however, voiced any concern for giving a massive aid package to a country widely documented as a major violator of human rights.
Neither did any Democrats on the committee object to requiring American taxpayers to give Israel what amounts to over $7,000 per minute when many Americans are suffering catastrophic financial difficulties.
Democratic committee members Menendez, Ben Cardin, Cory Booker, and Chris Coons, like many of the Republican members, are particularly known for being under the influence of AIPAC and the Israel lobby and receiving pro-Israel campaign donations. Many of the members are co-sponsors of the bill.
The bill, entitled “United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2020,” expands and sets into law a memorandum of understanding agreement signed by the Obama administration with Israel in 2016. This agreement is nonbinding and not required by law. It also set the $38 billion as a ceiling.
The legislation just passed by the committee would make this disbursal legally required, and, in addition, it would make the $38 billion a floor rather than a ceiling. In other words, the amount of money could legally go even higher.
Given the power of the pro-Israel lobby, combined with the fact that U.S. media are not informing Americans of this use of their tax money, the likelihood is that U.S. money to Israel will go up in the future – possibly even this year.)
Most Americans say they feel the U.S. is giving Israel too much money. Israel has received more U.S. tax money than any other country – on average, about 7,000 times more per capita than others around the world.
The Council for the National Interest has posted a petition against this year’s installment, $3.8 billion. So far, it has been signed by close to 2,000 people.
https://citizentruth.org/media-elite-denounce-looting-even-as-billionaires-reap-record-profits-from-taxpayer-funded-bailouts/
A mountain of studies on wealth inequality have shown its corrosive effect on social cohesion, with the more unequal a society gets, the less likely people are to see themselves as participants in a community and view others as a threat.
(By: Alan Macleod, Mintpress News) The extrajudicial killing of African-American man George Floyd by Police Officer Derek Chauvin sparked a storm of protests both in Minneapolis and across the country. These have included large peaceful demonstrations, but also arson, destruction of property and looting. Police have abandoned multiple precincts in the face of overwhelming popular rage.
The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. consistently argued that looting is the language of the unheard and oppressed, a physical manifestation of their marginalization. However, many in the establishment, particularly on the right, have not interpreted the events as such, and appear scandalized by them.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson condemned the uprising as “a form of tyranny” and “oppression.” Referring to the suffocation of George Floyd, Carlson said police brutality was “bad;” “But none of it was nearly as bad as what you just saw. The indiscriminate use of violence by mobs is a threat to every American,” he said, calling for something to be done. President Trump was even more forthright, suggesting that the National Guard be sent in to open fire on “thugs” and “looters.” “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” he tweeted from both his personal and White House accounts.
molly conger@socialistdogmom
the president has just tweeted his support for using live fire on protesters in minneapolis
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Yet a new and updated report from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) reveals that the looting in Minneapolis pales into insignificance compared with the enormous wealth American’s billionaire class has managed to accrue during the pandemic. In the ten weeks since the nationwide lockdown first began, the group calculates that billionaires have increased their wealth by $485 billion – equal to 16.5 percent. This half-trillion-dollar rise, for Chuck Collins, Director of the IPS’ Program on Inequality and the Common Good, is something close to looting the whole economy.
“The wealthy are economically distancing from the rest of society. Worse, some are pandemic profiteering, looting government stimulus programs and taking advantage of market monopolies,” he told MintPress News.
The enormous explosion in wealth, even amidst a pandemic that has caused the economy to collapse, businesses to close, and demand to dwindle, is down in no small part to the passing of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, one of the greatest upwards transfers in wealth in history. While the bill, passed in late March, includes a check of up to $1,200 for most Americans, the vast majority of the benefits go to the ultra wealthy.
A report from the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), a nonpartisan congressional body, found that almost 82 percent of the tax breaks and other financial benefits go to those already earning over $1 million per year. In contrast, less than three percent will go to the great majority who earn under $100,000 annually. The loopholes around capital gains tax will especially benefit the richest few hundred Americans. The JCT also projects that the tax cut will add almost $170 billion to the deficit over the next ten years.
Some of the biggest winners in the last few weeks, according to the IPS, include Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (up over $34 billion in two months), Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg (up over $25 billion) and Microsoft’s Bill Gates, who increased his already enormous fortune by $8 billion. Meanwhile, Elon Musk, whose California Tesla car plant was closed for months, has seen his net worth increase by almost 50 percent, to over $36 billion. Even in the last week, America’s billionaires’ fortunes have increased by $50 billion.
At the same time, unemployment has surged to over 40 million, and food banks across the country are inundated with customers desperate for anything they can get. Around one third of renters in the United States failed to pay their rent in April and May.
“When the wealth of billionaires surges at the same time that tens of millions lose their lives and livelihoods, it undermines the solidarity required for us to pull together and help one another during a pandemic,” Collins added.
Peter Daou
✔@peterdaou
NO MORE LOOTING
I heard there was looting and I'm furious. Republicans and Democrats stealing from the poor to bail out the rich in a #pandemic. That kind of theft is unacceptable.
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While many among the elite may be aghast at the scenes of low level looting in Minneapolis, the enormous siphoning off of public funds to further enrich billionaires has gone largely unnoticed. A mountain of sociological studies on wealth inequality have shown that it has a corrosive effect on social cohesion, with the more unequal a society gets, the less likely people are to see themselves as participants in a community, viewing others as threats. More unequal societies also commonly favor more repressive policing tactics like the ones seen in Minneapolis this week. Although many might not realize it, the enormous looting by billionaires and the petty looting by protestors in Minneapolis might have more in common than first meets the eye.
By Ángel Guerra Cabrera on May 31, 2020
https://www.resumen-english.org/2020/05/the-us-a-failed-social-experiment/
“What we are witnessing in the United States is a failed social experiment,” the philosopher Cornel West said in an interview with CNN about the murder by the police of African-American George Floyd.
A disciple and follower of Martin Luther King, Harvard University professor and veteran social fighter, West, author of 20 books and actor in the Matrix film trilogy, explains: “What I mean is that the history of blacks for over 200 years in the United States has been one of seeing this country fail. Its capitalist economy could not generate and provide in such a way that people could live decent lives. The nation-state, its criminal… legal justice system, could not generate protection of rights and freedoms. And now our culture, of course, is so market-oriented – everything for sale, everybody for sale – that it can’t deliver the kind of nourishment for the soul, for meaning, for purpose”.
“But the point is that we must fight,” he concluded. “Even when we have a failed social experiment, we must fight. We must have an anti-fascist coalition against what is happening in the White House and in the Republican Party. And we have to tell the truth about the weak, cowardly activity that we see so often in the neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party… “When I saw those images in Atlanta, I could see Brother Martin (Luther King), right there in Atlanta, saying: ‘I warned you about militarism, about poverty. I warned them about materialism, about racism in all its forms. I warned you about xenophobia… You are reaping what you have sown. And at that moment you have Brother George (Floyd) – it is so clear – it was a lynching at the highest level. No one can deny it.”
According to West, the United States now faces a choice between a “nonviolent” revolution or continuing with the failures of the status quo. “And what I mean by revolution is the democratic sharing of power, resources, wealth, and respect. If we don’t have that, we’re going to have more violent explosions.”
“America’s Moment of Reckoning”: Cornel West Says Nationwide Uprising Is Sign of “Empire Imploding”
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/6/1/cornel_west_us_moment_of_reckoning
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Cornel West, could you respond to what professor Yamahtta Taylor said? You agree that, of course, the murder of George Floyd was a lynching. You’ve also said that his murder and the demonstrations that have followed show that America is a failed social experiment. So could you respond to that and also the way that the state and police forces have responded to the protests, following George Floyd’s killing, with the National Guard called out in so many cities and states across the country?
CORNEL WEST: Well, there’s no doubt that this is America’s moment of reckoning. But we want to make the connection between the local and the global, because, you see, when you sow the seeds of greed — domestically, inequality; globally, imperial tentacles, 800 military units abroad, violence and AFRICOM in Africa, supporting various regimes, dictatorial ones in Asia and so forth — there is a connection between the seeds that you sow of violence externally and internally. Same is true in terms of the seed of hatred, of white supremacy, hating Black people, anti-Blackness hatred having its own dynamic within the context of a predatory capitalist civilization obsessed with money, money, money, domination of workers, marginalization of those who don’t fit — gay brothers, lesbian sisters, trans and so forth. So, it’s precisely this convergence that my dear sister Professor Taylor is talking about of the ways in which the American Empire, imploding, its foundations being shaken, with uprisings from below.
The catalyst was certainly Brother George Floyd’s public lynching, but the failures of the predatory capitalist economy to provide the satisfaction of the basic needs of food and healthcare and quality education, jobs with a decent wage, at the same time the collapse of your political class, the collapse of your professional class. Their legitimacy has been radically called into question, and that’s multiracial. It’s the neofascist dimension in Trump. It’s the neoliberal dimension in Biden and Obama and the Clintons and so forth. And it includes much of the media. It includes many of the professors in universities. The young people are saying, “You all have been hypocritical. You haven’t been concerned about our suffering, our misery. And we no longer believe in your legitimacy.” And it spills over into violent explosion.
And it’s here. I won’t go on, but, I mean, it’s here, where I think Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer and Rabbi Heschel and Edward Said, and especially Brother Martin and Malcolm, their legacies, I think, become more central, because they provide the kind of truth telling. They provide the connection between justice and compassion in their example, in their organizing. And that’s what is needed right now. Rebellion is not the same thing in any way as revolution. And what we need is a nonviolent revolutionary project of full-scale democratic sharing — power, wealth, resources, respect, organizing — and a fundamental transformation of this American Empire.
AMY GOODMAN: And your thoughts, Professor West, on the governor of Minnesota saying they’re looking into white supremacist connections to the looting and the burning of the city, and then President Trump tweeting that he’s going to try to put antifa, the anti-fascist activists, on the terror list — which he cannot do — and William Barr emphasizing this, saying he’s going after the far left to investigate?
CORNEL WEST: No, I mean, that’s ridiculous. You know, you remember, Sister Amy — and I love and respect you so — that antifa saved my life in Charlottesville. There’s no doubt about it, that they provided the security, you see. So the very notion that they become candidates for a terrorist organization, but the people who were trying to kill us — the Nazis, the Klan — they’re not candidates for terrorist organization status — but that’s what you’re going to get. You’re going to get a Trump-led neofascist backlash and clampdown on what is going on. We ought to be very clear about that. The neofascism has that kind of obsession with militaristic imposition in the face of any kind of disorder. And so we’ve got to be fortified for that.
But most importantly, I think we’ve got to make sure that we preserve our own moral, spiritual, quality, fundamental focus on truth and justice, and keep track of legalized looting, Wall Street greed; legalized murder, police; legalized murder abroad in Yemen, in Pakistan, in Africa with AFRICOM, and so forth. That’s where our focus has to be, because with all of this rebellious energy, it’s got to be channeled through organizations rooted in a quest for truth and justice.
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/6/1/keeanga_yamahtta_taylor_protests_class_rebellion
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman in New York City, joined by my co-host Nermeen Shaikh from her home also here in New York City. Hi, Nermeen.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Good morning, Amy. And welcome to our listeners and viewers around the country and around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, in the largest nationwide uprising since the 1960s, protesters shut down cities across the United States over the weekend following the police killing of George Floyd, the 46-year-old African American man in Minneapolis.
PROTESTERS: George Floyd! Say his name! George Floyd! Say his name! George Floyd! Say his name! George Floyd!
What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now! What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now! If we don’t get it? Shut it down! If we don’t get it? Shut it down! If we don’t get it? Shut it down! What do we want? Justice!
AMY GOODMAN: George Floyd died one week ago, on Memorial Day, when Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin arrested him and pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as Floyd repeatedly gasped, “I can’t breathe,” and then stopped moving. On Friday, Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The three other officers involved have been fired along with Chauvin but not arrested. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has announced Attorney General Keith Ellison will take the lead in the investigation and any prosecutions related to George Floyd’s killing. At the Minneapolis intersection where Floyd was killed, people created a memorial and declared it a sacred space.
Meanwhile, protests continued throughout the weekend from coast to coast. The police erupted in violence in response to the widespread protests, arresting more than 4,000 people and attacking demonstrators with tear gas and rubber bullets in cities across the country. Police cars and buildings went up in flames as thousands braved the coronavirus and increasing police violence to demonstrate. In New York City alone, authorities said 47 police vehicles have been damaged. At least 40 cities have imposed curfews. The National Guard has been deployed in Minnesota, California, Illinois, Florida and other states. Police departments are facing increasing criticism for using excessive force on protesters and, in at least 50 separate incidents, attacking journalists.
The protests come as the nation’s dealing with its largest public health crisis in generations and the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression. During protests Friday, President Trump was moved to the White House’s underground bunker. On Saturday, he took to Twitter to threaten protesters with “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons.” He also tweeted he would designate antifa as a terrorist organization, even though legal experts say he lacks the authority to designate a domestic group as a terrorist organization, and warn such a move would violate the First Amendment.
Outrage over Floyd’s death comes after protests led to the arrest of two white men last month for the February shooting death of Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, and then a third man arrested, and after the Louisville police shooting death of Breonna Taylor in her home in March, which the FBI is now investigating.
The demonstrations have been mostly outside, with many people wearing masks, so it’s unclear if they’ll trigger spread of the coronavirus. But many protesters who were arrested were taken to jails that are COVID hot spots.
For more, we’re hosting a roundtable discussion with Dr. Cornel West, professor of the practice of public philosophy at Harvard University, author of many books, including Race Matters and Black Prophetic Fire. And we’re joined by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, assistant professor of African American studies at Princeton University. Her recent piece for The New York Times is headlined “Of Course There Are Protests. The State Is Failing Black People.” She’s also author of Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership and From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. And with us from Charlotte, North Carolina, Bakari Sellers is with us, an attorney and author of his new memoir, My Vanishing Country. He became the youngest African American elected official in the country when he was elected to the South Carolina state Legislature in 2006.
We welcome you all to Democracy Now! We’re going to begin with professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. If you can respond to the mass uprising that has happened around the country and the police response to it, as well as the original horror on Memorial Day, the killing of George Floyd?
KEEANGA-YAMAHTTA TAYLOR: Well, thank you, Amy, for letting me come on this morning to talk.
You know, I think part of what we are seeing is years and years of pent-up rage. Many people have referenced the 1960s, have referenced Ferguson in 2014, but I think it’s important to say that these are not just repeats of past events. These are the consequences of the failures of this government and the political establishment, the economic establishment of this country to resolve those crises, and so they build and accumulate over time. And we are watching the boiling over of that.
Imagine how angry, desperate, rage-filled you would have to be to come out and protest in the conditions of a historical pandemic that has already killed over 103,000 Americans, that has had a disproportionately horrendous impact in Black communities. I believe 23,000 or 24,000 Black people have died. To put it more bluntly, one in every 2,000 African Americans in the United States has died as the result of COVID. So imagine how difficult things have to be for people to come out in those conditions. So, I think that the buildup around police brutality, the continuation of police brutality, police abuse and violence and murder has compelled people to have to endure those conditions, because it is obvious that there is either nothing that our government can do about this or that the government is complicit and chooses not to do anything about this.
And I think that we have to add to that the crisis that is unfolding beyond police brutality in the country, as well, because we all know that the videotapes of police beatings, abuse, murder have never stopped. So, the movement that grew out of the Ferguson uprising, that became Black Lives Matter, the conditions that led to that never actually ended. And I think that what has reignited that is obviously the public lynching of George Floyd one week ago in Minneapolis, but also the conditions, the wider context within which that is spilling over. And because of that wider condition of mass unemployment, of the death that has been caused by the pandemic, that this is not just — I don’t believe these are just protests around or against police brutality.
But we see a lot of — hundreds, if not thousands, of young white people in these uprisings, making these multiracial rebellions, really. And I think that that is important. Some people have sort of described the participation of white people as outside agitators, or I know that there are reports of white supremacists infiltrating some of the demonstrations. And I think that those are things that we have to pay attention to, keep track of and try to understand. But I think we cannot dismiss in a widespread way the participation of young white people, because we have to see that what has happened over the last decade has gutted their lives, too. And there has been some discussion about this with perhaps their parents’ generation, with the description of deaths by despair.
So, we know that the life expectancy of ordinary white men and women has gone into reverse — something, by the way, that does not typically happen in the developed world. And it is driven by opioid addiction, alcoholism and suicide. And so, this generation, whose lives really — you know, if you’ve graduated from college, your life has been bracketed by war at the turn of the 21st century, by recession and now by a deadly pandemic. And so, I think we’re seeing the convergence of a class rebellion with racism and racial terrorism at the center of it. And in many ways, we are in uncharted territory in the United States.
