A call to the working class! Stop Trump’s coup d’état!

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/04/pers-j04.html






4 June 2020

The White House is now the political nerve center of a conspiracy to establish a military dictatorship, overthrow the Constitution, abolish democratic rights and violently suppress the protests against police brutality that have swept across the United States.

The political crisis unleashed on Monday night—when Donald Trump ordered military police to attack peaceful protesters, threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, and deploy federal troops into states to establish martial law—is rapidly escalating.

Democracy in America is teetering on the brink of collapse. Trump’s attempt to carry out a military coup is unfolding in real time.

There is no other way to interpret the sequence of events that have occurred over the past 24 hours. In a series of extraordinary public statements, high level political and military figures leave no doubt that they believe that Trump is seeking to establish a military dictatorship.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper stated at a press conference that he opposed Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military throughout the country. The use of active-duty soldiers to patrol US cities, Esper said, should be a “last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of those situations now.” Trump, according to an official who spoke to the New York Times, “was angered by Mr. Esper’s remarks, and excoriated him later at the White House…” The White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, indicated that Esper may soon be dismissed from the president’s cabinet.

Responding to Trump’s threats, Esper has reversed himself and ordered 750 soldiers from the 82nd currently in Washington DC not be sent back to Fort Bragg, as had previously been announced.

Esper’s comments were followed by an extraordinary denunciation of Trump by former Marine General James Mattis, Trump’s first Secretary of Defense. We quote Mattis’ comments in some detail not because we give any political support to “mad dog Mattis,” who played a leading role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but because he provides a blunt assessment from someone who is intimately familiar with what is happening within the military.

Mattis accused Trump of attempting to overthrow the Constitution. “When I joined the military, some 50 years ago,” he writes, “I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”

Mattis continued:


We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.

Mattis concluded his statement by implicitly comparing Trump’s concept of the military to that of the Nazi regime.

Admiral Sandy Winnefeld, a retired vice chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, wrote in an email published in the New York Times: “We are at the most dangerous time for civil-military relations I’ve seen in my lifetime. It is especially important to reserve the use of federal forces for only the most dire circumstances that actually threaten the survival of the nation. Our senior-most military leaders need to ensure their political chain of command understands these things.”

None of these military figures are devoted adherents of democracy. Their statements are motivated by fear that Trump’s actions will be met with massive popular opposition, with disastrous political consequences.

“Senior Pentagon leaders,” the Times reports, “are now so concerned about losing public support—and that of their active duty and reserve personnel, 40 percent of whom are people of color—that Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, released a message to top military commanders on Wednesday affirming that every member of the armed forces swears an oath to defend the Constitution, which, he said, ‘gives Americans the right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.’”

Statements were also released by all the living former presidents—Obama, Clinton, Bush and Carter. These statements were far more circumspect and made no explicit warning of a coup. They called for no specific action against Trump. It was far less an appeal to the people than a cautious effort to dissuade military leaders from backing Trump.

On the side of the fascistic cabal around Trump, the Times published a comment by Senator Tom Cotton under the headline, “Send In the Troops.” This political conspirator declared, “One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers.” Since “delusional politicians” are refusing to do what is necessary, Cotton writes, it is necessary for Trump to invoke “the Insurrection Act [which] authorizes the president to employ the military ‘or any other means’ in ‘cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws.’”

The political situation is on a knife edge. Never in the history of the United States has the country been so close to a military takeover. Threatening military deployments are still underway. The Times reported on Wednesday night: “Despite calls for calm from senior Pentagon leaders, the troops on the ground in Washington on Wednesday night appeared to be ramping up for a more militarized show of force. National Guard units pushed solidly ahead of the police near the White House, almost becoming the public face of the security presence. They also blocked the streets with Army transport trucks and extended the perimeter against protesters.”

In the face of this unfolding political conspiracy, the Democratic party is acting with its habitual mixture of cowardice and complicity. Not a single major Democratic Party politician has openly denounced the dictatorial actions of the Trump administration. They are doing everything they can to keep the raging conflict within the state out of public view. The line from top Democrats is that Trump’s “rhetoric” is “unhelpful” and is serving to “inflame the situation.” Among the most pathetic responses to the crisis has come from Sen. Bernie Sanders, who merely retweeted the statement of Mattis, to which he attached the comment: “Interesting reading.”

During the long-forgotten impeachment trial that was held in January, the Democrats insisted that it was necessary to remove Trump immediately because he had allegedly withheld military aide to the Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. They advocated the removal of Trump because he was seen as insufficiently aggressive in his relations with Russia.

But now, when Trump is attempting to carry out a military coup and the overthrow of constitutional rule in the United States, the Democrats offer no serious opposition to Trump, let alone demand that he be removed from office. When it is a matter of upholding the global interests of American imperialism, the Democratic leaders are full of fire and brimstone. But when confronted with the direct threat of dictatorship, they are meek as church mice.

Underlying their cowardice are basic class interests. Whatever their tactical differences with Trump, the Democrats represent the same class interests. What they fear more than anything else is that opposition to Trump may assume revolutionary dimensions that threaten the interests of the capitalist financial-corporate oligarchy.

The target of the conspiracy in the White House is the working class. The corporate-financial oligarchy is terrified that the eruption of mass demonstrations against police violence will intersect with the immense social anger among workers over social inequality, which has been enormously intensified as a result of the ruling class’ response to the coronavirus pandemic and the homicidal back-to-work campaign.

Nothing could be more dangerous than to think that the crisis has passed. It has, rather, just begun. The working class must intervene in this unprecedented crisis as an independent social and political force. It must oppose the conspiracy in the White House through the methods of class struggle and socialist revolution.

The demonstrations that have taken place during the past week rank among the most significant events in American history. In every region and state, tens and hundreds of thousands of working people and youth, in an extraordinary display of multi-racial and multi-ethnic unity and solidarity, have taken to the streets to oppose the institutionalized racism and brutality of the police. The South—the old bastion of the Confederacy, Jim Crow laws, and lynch mobs—has been the scene of some of the largest of the demonstrations. The protesters are giving voice to the deep-rooted democratic and egalitarian sentiments that are the noble heritage of the great American Revolution of the eighteenth century and the Civil War of the nineteenth century.

The only viable answer to the criminal conspiracy being hatched in the White House is to raise the demand for the removal of Trump, Pence and their conspirators from office.

This can only be achieved through the intervention of the working class, which should join the protest demonstrations en masse and initiate a nation-wide political strike.

No to Dictatorship!

Trump and Pence must Go!

The Socialist Equality Party and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality Party call on all readers of the World Socialist Web Site to become active in this fight.

Statement of the Socialist Equality Party

European media outlets fear bitter class struggles in the US

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/04/medi-j04.html






By Peter Schwarz
4 June 2020

“The image of the United States as the centre of Western civilisation is collapsing before our eyes. Will it be possible to rebuild the old image again?,” commented the Polish daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita on Tuesday with reference to the recent events in the US.

This sums up the fear of substantial sections of the European ruling class. The claim that capitalist private property and the market economy provided the basis for freedom and democracy, and that altogether this amounted to “Western civilisation” has served as the ideological cement for capitalist rule in Europe—and the United States played not an insignificant part in this.

In Western Europe and Germany in particular, it was the US through its economic power and democratic traditions that helped revive the bourgeoisie following its discrediting due to its crimes during the war. In 1990, the American model, although somewhat tarnished even then, played an important role in Eastern Europe in selling the restoration of capitalism and its horrific social consequences as a step in the direction of freedom and democracy.

Reading through the European comments on Monday’s events, one senses that they are not particularly troubled by Donald Trump’s efforts to establish a presidential dictatorship. Rather, they fear the president’s provocative actions could provoke resistance and class struggles that will endanger the capitalist system and spread to Europe. After all, the social and political situation is no less explosive there.

With a few exceptions, the comments acknowledged that the nationwide protests are not just directed against racism, but are motivated by social oppression and exploitation and are being joined by people of all races and ethnicities. They accuse Trump of dividing instead of reconciling. By contrast, they hardly say a word about the mobilisation of the military and the preparations for dictatorship connected with this.

The Norwegian tabloid newspaper Verdens Gang wrote, “Once again it becomes clear how unequal US society is. These problems run deeper than Trump, but the US has never needed a unifying president more than now.”

Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung commented, “When the country goes up in flames, the president ought to mediate and unify.” But Trump doesn’t want to and cannot do so. He is “incapable of protecting and calming his compatriots.”

The Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) pointed to three key factors it believes are at work, “Racist police violence against blacks, a greater susceptibility of blacks to COVID-19, and an economic crisis that has hit minorities the hardest.” All of this is connected, it continued, adding, “Economic disadvantage leads to a lack of access to health care, which allows health problems to become chronic thus increasing the vulnerability to the lung disease. No wonder that frustration is widespread.”

A call to the working class! Stop Trump’s coup d’état!
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“In such a situation,” says another comment in the NZZ, “the US needs a unifying figure who can calm the country down, unify it, and lead it forward in cooperation with other political forces.” But Trump is doing what he does best, “polarising the country and inciting people against each other.”

The Tagesschau (a news and public affairs programme) on Germany’s public broadcaster ARD commented, “An uprising is the language of those not being listened to. With words of reconciliation, Donald Trump could calm things down quickly. Instead, he is escalating the situation with ruthless Rambo rhetoric.”

The suggestion that the situation could be brought under control if only Trump would give up his Rambo rhetoric is of course absurd. As the WSWS has explained in numerous analyses and comments, the preconditions for the current social explosion have been brewing for a long time. The Democrats have contributed no less to this process than the Republicans and Trump. The gulf between rich and poor increased more rapidly under Obama than any of his predecessors, and police violence continued apace.

The Democrats, much like the European media, fear that Trump could provoke a revolutionary uprising that could no longer be controlled. This is why they are doing everything to evade the issue and suppress the protests against Trump, with whom they agree on virtually every question of domestic, social and foreign policy. Like the German bourgeoisie in 1933, they fear a mass movement of the working class more than a fascist dictatorship.

In Europe, preparations for authoritarian forms of rule and dictatorship are already far advanced. In Hungary and Poland, the parties in power have suspended basic democratic rights. Italy’s far-right Lega, which was in government for a year-and-a-half, responded to Trump’s Twitter announcement that he would classify the Antifa organisation as a “terrorist group,” by marking the post with a “Like.”

In France, President Emmanuel Macron brutally suppressed Yellow Vest protests with the police and now attacks demonstrations in solidarity with George Floyd. In Germany, the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats made the far-right Alternative for Germany the official opposition in parliament and have implemented its policies in the grand coalition. Anyone who dares to criticise capitalism or resist the growth of militarism is branded a “left-wing extremist” and criminalised. At the same time, neo-Nazi structures within the state apparatus are built and covered up.

The crisis of American democracy, which is the underlying cause of Trump’s attempt to establish a personal dictatorship based on the military, is the product of unprecedented levels of social inequality and endless wars. It cannot be reversed on a capitalist basis. The same process is taking place in Europe. The struggle against the fascist danger requires the independent mobilisation of the working class, which must assume the leadership of the defence of democratic rights.

Georgia police officers charged after brutal assault on college students returning from protest

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/04/atla-j04.html






By Dan Conway
4 June 2020

Charges have been brought against six Atlanta, Georgia police officers involved in the brutal and unprovoked assault of two young college students returning from protests against the murder of George Floyd on Saturday. The two African American youths, 20-year-old Taniyah Pilgrim and 22-year-old Messiah Young, were driving on a congested street in a blue sedan and were seen interacting with another young man, Chancellor Meyers, who was on foot and apparently targeted by the police for arrest.

The police, after tackling and apprehending Meyers, turned their attention to Pilgrim and Young, while Meyers could be heard tearfully proclaiming his innocence in the background.

Young, the driver, was filming the incident on his phone, as would have been his right. With Meyers’ horrified screams in the background, Young pled with the officers to leave Meyers alone. Young asked the officers to allow Meyers to get into his vehicle to which one of the officers replied that he could “go or go to jail.” Young then drove away, fearing for his safety, repeating the phrase, “I’m not dying today.”

A short distance down the road, the car then got stuck in traffic. The officers easily caught up with Young and barked orders to put the car in park and open his windows, while beating the windows with their batons before completely smashing the driver’s window. The police then repeatedly screamed, “He has a gun! He has a gun!” and then tased the young man, forcing him out of the car. No gun was found in Young’s possession nor in the car after the incident.

A second group of officers confronted Pilgrim on the passenger side. Even though Pilgrim screamed that she was exiting the car, police deployed a taser against her anyway. The fact that several of the officers wore gas masks and issued muffled commands that could not easily be understood only added to the students’ horror and confusion. Pilgrim later told ABC News, “I thought both Messiah and I were going to die.” A video of the incident caught on police bodycam can be found here.

According to statements by lawyers for the pair, Pilgrim was detained in a police paddy wagon for several hours, sitting side by side with three other detained women in extremely hot and cramped conditions. Her requests for a face mask to prevent coronavirus infection were repeatedly ignored. In televised remarks, Pilgrim stated that the officer who led her away glibly told her she and Young were on the verge of being shot before exiting the car.

Young informed reporters and interviewers that the arresting officers punched him in the back 10 times after he exited the vehicle and that the arrest and brutal treatment at the hands of the police led to a massive gash on his forearm requiring 24 stitches. Video of the incident also shows an officer tasing Young even after he was already immobilized on the ground. Young also reported that one of the barbs from the taser gun remained in his back for six to eight hours while his requests to remove the barb were repeatedly ignored by police and staff.

Footage of the arrest was broadcast on live television and has been widely shared on social media, attracting national and international attention.

The city administration was thus compelled to act against six of the officers involved. Arrest warrants have been issued for officers Lonnie Hood, Willie Sauls, Ivory Streeter, Mark Gardner, Armond Jones and Roland Claud. The charges include aggravated assault of Young, aggravated assault of Pilgrim, as well as simple battery and criminal damage to property.

A call to the working class! Stop Trump’s coup d’état!
Read more

Pilgrim and Young were both pleased with the arrest of the officers. “I’m so happy they’re being held accountable for their actions. There was not one justifiable thing that they did,” Pilgrim told ABC News. “I feel a little safer now that these monsters are off the street and no longer able to terrorize anyone else from this point on,” said Young.

Two of the six officers, Streeter and Gardner, were terminated from their positions Sunday while the remainder have been reassigned to desk jobs with the department. All have until Friday to surrender with a $10,000 signature bond set for each. With a signature bond, a defendant will forfeit the bond amount if he or she does not appear in court, but a deposit is not required with the court beforehand. It is typically reserved for minor felony type cases involving defendants with no prior criminal history. However, the city of Atlanta is providing this concession to police officers whose actions led to severe unprovoked injury and trauma and nearly cost the lives of these two innocent young people.

It is notable that the two terminated officers having the most prominent roles in the assault, Streeter and Gardner, are both African American. Moreover, the city of Atlanta has a female chief of police, Erika Shields, and a black female mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, the latter considered to be a serious contender for the vice presidential nomination by Democratic presidential front runner, former Vice President Joe Biden. This gives the lie to claims that police brutality is simply a product of white racism even though it is certainly a factor in many instances of police brutality.

Biden has been particularly impressed by Bottoms’ “incredible” response to events in Atlanta last Friday in which she publicly lambasted “violent” protesters. “You are disgracing our city. You are disgracing the life of George Floyd and every other person who has been killed in this country,” she cried out. Her response to the officers involved in the assault on Young and Pilgrim, however, was far more muted and conciliatory. She agreed with Shields, who characterized the officers as good men who had just “made some mistakes.” Bottoms’ tenure on the city council and now as mayor has been marked by vicious attacks on the poor and working class, in particular, draconian legislation against panhandling by the homeless and attacks on city workers pensions.

Police brutality, as the events in Atlanta make clear, is fundamentally the product of capitalism. The shuffling of personnel within police departments and city halls on the basis of race, ethnicity or gender does nothing to address the problem.

Claims that police departments can be reformed, such as the #8cantwait campaign being pushed by Democratic Party activists and Hollywood celebrities, are likewise a dead end. Legislation changing use-of-force methods and requiring more stringent reporting of police misconduct, even if passed, will be largely ignored. The police are now acting, with the instigation of President Donald Trump and the full support of the Democrats and Republicans, as a domestic occupying army on behalf of the financial aristocracy. Use-of-force restrictions at home will be ignored, just as rules of engagement are ignored in wars abroad.

It should be noted that the implementation of body cams after a wave of high profile police killings sparked popular protests during the Obama administration did nothing to prevent the attack on Young and Pilgrim even though officers had their body cams in operation the whole time.

Furthermore, the attack on these two students is not isolated as the ruling elite is desperately trying to stamp out resistance and assert its authority over the working class. Not only protesters but uninvolved bystanders have been brutally assaulted: Seattle police pepper sprayed a seven-year-old girl; New York Police Department cruisers mowed down protesting pedestrians, and police fired rubber bullets at residents watching National Guard troop transports drive down city streets, to cite only a few examples.

Disgraced former UAW President Gary Jones pleads guilty to corruption charges

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/04/auto-j04.html






By Tom Hall
4 June 2020

Gary Jones, the disgraced former president of the United Auto Workers union, pleaded guilty Wednesday afternoon to embezzlement and conspiracy charges stemming from his role in stealing more than $1.5 million in union funds. The federal court hearing, held over video conference, was originally scheduled for March, but had been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Jones’ guilty plea brings the UAW corruption scandal to a new stage. The federal investigation has increasingly tightened around the highest echelons of the UAW over the last three years. To date, 10 UAW officials have been charged, including former UAW Vice Presidents Joe Ashton and Norwood Jewell.

Jones is in a position to implicate much of the union’s remaining top leadership, given both his role as union president and his previous post as head of the union’s District 5, which oversaw the lavish Palm Beach getaways for union officials. Jones’ predecessor, former UAW President Dennis Williams, is an unnamed co-conspirator in the complaint against Jones, according to sources cited by the Detroit News.

Former UAW President Gary Jones (left) and UAW GM Vice President Terry Dittes (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

As part of the plea deal, Jones entered into a cooperation agreement with federal prosecutors. In exchange for his help in investigations against other union officials, they are recommending that he serve a maximum of 57 months in prison and have indicated that they could reduce his sentence further.

According to the indictment, Jones conspired to embezzle and then falsify expense vouchers for more than $1 million in members’ dues money spent on high-end liquor, cigars, lavish meals and endless golf junkets. His co-conspirators include Vance Pearson, Jones’ successor as Region 5 Director, and Edward Robinson, another top regional official, in addition to then-president Dennis Williams.

As the noose tightened around Jones’ inner circle, a 2019 wiretap obtained through the cooperation of Robinson caught Jones declaring that they should have “burned” incriminating records. Only months later, a fire ripped through Solidarity House, the union’s headquarters in downtown Detroit, an event which has yet to be explained by investigators.

In a terse written response, which was not even posted on the UAW’s website as of this writing, current President Rory Gamble declared the corruption scandal an “obstacle” that union members would overcome “together.” Gamble repeated the absurd argument, initially made by Jones himself when he took over as head of the union in 2018, that corruption was only the product of a few bad apples and went “against everything we stand for as a union.”

As with his predecessor, Gamble made this claim even as he himself is reportedly under investigation. An article in the Detroit News in January revealed that federal investigators are looking into the role that Gamble and former UAW-Ford Vice President Jimmy Settles may have played in a kickback scheme for union merchandising contracts, with secret payments delivered at a Detroit strip club.

The Jones guilty plea is a further nail in the coffin for claims that the UAW remains, in spite of decades of sellouts and rampant corruption, a workers’ organization. It is in fact a criminal syndicate and labor contractor bought and paid for by the auto companies.

Last September, even after Jones’ house was raided by the FBI, the UAW executive board voted to keep Jones as president. Jones remained in the union leadership long enough to help engineer a sellout of the nationwide General Motors strike, which paved the way for a vast expansion in the use of temps at both Ford and Fiat Chrysler. Jones was only forced out weeks after the GM strike, with his indictment looming.

When the coronavirus pandemic was engulfing the US in March, the UAW worked hand in glove with the companies to threaten workers and keep them on the job as long as possible, a policy that has led to countless infections and the deaths of more than two dozen autoworkers. It was only after wildcat strikes and job actions broke out at plants in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Ontario, in rebellion against both management and the unions, that the companies shut down production for two months.

But the auto executives and union officials used this time to engineer a premature return to work late last month, with more than 20,000 new cases still confirmed in the United States every day, more than 10 times the rate when production stopped in mid-March.

The Jones plea increases the possibility that the government will move to exert direct control over the union using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, in the style of the federal takeover of the Teamsters beginning in the 1980s.

Government oversight of the UAW would not lead to the “democratization” or reform of the union any more that it did for the Teamsters, which is still controlled by the Hoffa dynasty and which overruled a majority vote in 2018 in order to enforce a sellout contract at UPS. Instead, federal intervention would be aimed at shoring up the authority of the UAW under conditions where it is widely discredited and losing its ability to suppress the class struggle among autoworkers.

The fundamental character of the state as an instrument of class rule is being increasingly exposed. The same FBI and Justice Department that would engineer a takeover of the UAW are playing a pivotal role in Trump’s plans to crush the mass protests by workers and youth and establish a presidential dictatorship. Branding demonstrators as “domestic terrorists,” Trump has directed the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force to carry out arrests and imprisonments. US Attorney General William Barr, head of the Justice Department, is himself orchestrating the deployment of troops and federal agents to occupy Washington, DC.

And as the protests against the murder of George Floyd spread throughout the country last week, UAW President Gamble released a statement which made clear the union’s support for the police. “We represent many police officers and they are truly untold heroes who go to work every day to keep all of us safe. They have bravely been on the front lines of this pandemic, as they are always on the front lines when our nation is in need. But in this case [emphasis added], things went terribly wrong.”

Workers were unsurprised but no less disgusted by Jones’ guilty plea. “Systemic corruption has left me with no hope that the UAW will act on the workers behalf,” a worker at Fiat Chrysler in Kokomo, Indiana told the WSWS. Saying he did not think a federal takeover would change things for the better for workers, he added, “We’re screwed either way.”

The UAW has long since proven that it is beyond reform. Now, it is up to autoworkers themselves to settle accounts with it and take their fate into their own hands.

New organizations, rank-and-file factory committees, are needed in order to establish workers’ democratic control over plant conditions and safety, to prepare the struggle against a new wave of restructuring, layoffs, and wage cuts in the auto industry, and to launch a counteroffensive against the antidemocratic and dictatorial moves of the ruling class.

To carry out a genuine and successful fight for workers’ interests, such committees must reject the pro-capitalist, nationalist orientation of the UAW and other unions, and instead take up the struggle for the international unity of workers and for the socialist reorganization of society to meet human need, not private profit.



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Economic effects of pandemic to last a decade

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/04/econ-j04.html






By Nick Beams
4 June 2020

The US Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan body, has put paid to claims by President Trump that the American economy will come “roaring back” once lockdowns and other restrictions to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic are lifted.

In a report issued earlier this week, it reduced its forecast for growth over the next decade by a cumulative $7.9 trillion, equivalent to 3 percent of gross domestic product, compared to the forecast it made in January. GDP growth will not catch up to its previous forecast until the last quarter of 2029, the CBO predicted.

The report was issued amid reports from organisations around the world that show that the impact of the pandemic will be long-lasting, even on the highly unlikely assumption that there are no further disruptions to the global economy.

Commenting on the CBO report, Michelle Meyer, chief US economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told the Wall Street Journal: “After you get the initial bounce of economic activity from simply removing the lockdowns, I think we’ll see an economy that is running at a level of activity notably below where we were prior to COVID. It’s going to take a long time to heal. There will be scars as a result of such a painful shock to the economy.”

The CBO said it expected the US economy to shrink by 5.6 percent in the fourth quarter of this year compared to a year earlier. At the end of 2019, it had forecast growth of 2.2 percent.

Surveys conducted by the data firm IHS Markit, which tracks global trends through its purchasing managers’ indexes, have indicated some recovery from the plunge in April, but the longer term is another question.

“Whether growth can achieve any serious momentum remains highly uncertain, however, as demand looks set to remain subdued by social-distancing measures, high unemployment and falling corporate profits for some time to some,” Chris Williamson, the chief business economist at IHS Markit, said.

Falling demand in the major economies is hitting manufacturing production around the world. For example, South Korea has reported that exports in May were down by 23.7 percent from a year earlier.

Last month, a report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) detailed both the extent of job losses and their severe impact on young people around the world. It found that one in six people surveyed aged 18 to 29 who had been employed before the pandemic struck said they had stopped working. Reporting on the data, the Financial Times estimated this amounted to 200 million people.

The ILO said the total number of hours worked by people of all ages would fall by 10.7 percent in the second quarter of this year, equivalent to the loss of 305 million full-time jobs.

It concluded that the economic effects of the pandemic were delivering a “triple shock” to young people. “Not only is it destroying their employment, but it is also disrupting their education and training, and placing major obstacles in the way of those seeking to enter the labour market or move between jobs,” it wrote.

Its grim warning was that the pandemic risked creating a “lockdown generation” of young people, with the effects lasting a decade.

“If we do not take significant and immediate action to improve their situation, the legacy of the virus could be with us for decades,” Guy Ryder, the director-general of the ILO said. But there is no sign of any such action.

Ryder warned that if the talent and energy of young people is sidelined, either by lack of opportunity or skills, then “it will damage all our futures and make it much more difficult to rebuild a better, post-COVID economy.”

A call to the working class! Stop Trump’s coup d’état!
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The ILO has said the Americas, now the epicentre of the pandemic, would incur the largest hit in terms of job losses.

Writing in the Financial Times this week, Andrés Velasco, dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics, warned that Latin America was heading for a repeat of the Great Depression, when it was rocked by a collapse in commodity prices, a slowdown in world trade and a massive capital outflow.

The same shocks were hitting the region today, with the added impact of a halt in remittances and a productivity freeze because of the lockdown.

Velasco noted that under the mildest scenario, Latin America’s economy would contract by 6.3 percent between 2020 and 2022, but under a more extreme case, “the cumulative contraction reaches 14.4 percent—not too different from what the region experienced in the Depression.”

The reports on the state of the US and global economy, indicating that there is no V-shaped recovery or anything remotely resembling it, underscore the widening divorce between the financial markets and the underlying real economy.

Yesterday, Wall Street’s Dow Jones index recorded another 500-point gain. The three major indexes, the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, have all recorded a 40 percent increase since their lows in the midst of the crisis in mid-March, when markets in all financial assets froze.

This prompted a massive intervention by the Fed. Over a few days it stepped in to act as the backstop for every financial market—an intervention the likes of which had never been seen in history.

The subsequent rise in the markets does not reflect a healthy US economy, but rather its diseased character. The boom is being fuelled by the flood of money coming from the government in the form of corporate bailouts and the trillions of dollars pumped out by the Fed.

The mountain of fictitious capital has no intrinsic value. In the final analysis, it is a claim on the future surplus value to be extracted from the working class. This process must be intensified while the trillions of dollars of government debt are paid down through the slashing of spending on social services.

This means a major restructuring of class and social relations, carried out through measures even more brutal than those implemented in the wake of the 2008 crisis. In the face of mass opposition, such measures can be carried out only by the development of authoritarian forms of rule. This is a driving force behind the extra-constitutional measures initiated this week by Trump, the representative of the financial oligarchy.



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[29 May 2020]

US nurses speak on dangers of COVID-19 exposure at their workplaces

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/04/cdcr-j04.html






By Katy Kinner
4 June 2020

New data released from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that more than 62,000 US health care workers have been infected with COVID-19, with deaths just short of 300. The CDC admits that these numbers are likely an underestimate due to low testing rates among health care workers. In addition, only 21 percent of those infected and surveyed identified their profession.

Nurses and other health care workers have been forced to work through the entirety of the pandemic under unsafe conditions with inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE), paltry sick days, and unorganized protocols. Nurses have protested across the globe, with recent protests erupting at 15 HCA Healthcare hospitals across the US. Many nurses have been reprimanded or fired for speaking out about unsafe conditions.

The WSWS spoke with nurses across the US about conditions in their workplaces and their thoughts on the new CDC data showing high rates of COVID-19 infections among health care workers.

Unless otherwise indicated, the nurses’ names have been changed to protect their identity.

Julia, a labor and delivery nurse on the West Coast, gave permission to use her Facebook comments from a discussion surrounding the topic of rising infection rates among health care workers. She wrote: “The CDC says we should have N95 and goggles when a patient is pushing in the second stage (of labor). Our hospital isn’t giving them to us. They are saying it’s a regional thing, and they’re looking into it.”

She added, “My coworkers and I are pissed and feel frustrated. Management is saying that until regional higher ups decide that we should wear N95s and eye protection then we will continue wearing surgical masks. I started putting my own N95 mask from home under my surgical mask because it’s better than nothing with any laboring patients who are huffing and puffing. I have to try my best to protect myself and my family.”

Kendra, a medical-surgical nurse at a major hospital in the Midwest spoke about the poorly organized system of notifying nurses if they have been exposed to COVID-19. “I’m sure the CDC infection count is an underestimate. So many of us at work have been exposed and nothing has been done. There are rules stating that if you are exposed without proper PPE you are supposed to get tested and not go to work if you develop symptoms, but what if we never know we’ve been exposed?,” she asked.

“In the beginning of the pandemic we were getting phone calls if you worked with a patient who later came down with COVID-19. Now, those occupational health centers have been overloaded or something because we don’t get calls anymore and if we do it’s weeks later. Imagine, in a few weeks, a nurse could have spread COVID to almost a hundred patients and coworkers. My friend works in the SICU (Surgical Intensive Care Unit), and she worked closely with a patient for a week before they were transferred to another unit and tested positive. My friend didn’t find out from occupational health. She found out from a coworker who private messaged her on Instagram!”

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Theresa, a home care attendant in Ohio, requested that her real name be used in this interview. She describes her title as “somewhere between a nurses’ aide and a nurse.” Theresa provides live-in care for a patient requiring 24-hour skilled nursing care.

When asked if PPE has been made available, Theresa said, “When the pandemic began, I remember reading an article from the Columbus Dispatch that included a quote from the Ohio State Department of Health that stated that home care providers do not need PPE. I was appalled. The department of health was telling us that we are supposed to ask our clients if they have a fever or if they have been exposed to COVID-19 and not to go into the home if they appear to be infected. First of all, I would lose my job if I did that. I couldn’t just leave my client.”

She added, “We haven’t received any assistance for masks or gloves. You have to figure out how to get your own. You have to pay for it yourself.”

Theresa also complained of a dangerous level of neglect on the part of her case manager, a point person who is responsible for checking in and assuring that the needs of the clients are being met. “It’s been weeks and we haven’t heard from the case manager. For all they know I’m not even showing up to care for my client. No one has checked in to find out if my client has the food he needs.”

Theresa explained that her client pays for his care under a Medicaid waiver, which also includes a program that pays and oversees necessary home repairs. “There is a wall in my client’s bedroom that is completely crumbling, but the case manager has taken weeks to respond. Now they are saying that they can’t fix it since we are in this pandemic. But this is an essential service.”

Theresa concluded by picturing what a second wave of the virus—widely expected by experts—would look like for her and her client. “There is more than enough evidence to know we shouldn’t be reopening. It’s going to require us to be home longer. He can only see his brothers through a screen door. He can’t have his usual [in-person] therapy. To think about this continuing is super stressful for the client, which makes it stressful for the provider.”

The lack of PPE, ventilators and sufficient staffing levels has outraged nurses, doctors, EMTs and other health care workers from the beginning of the pandemic. Despite the banners praising them as “heroes” and claims by politicians, hospital, pharmaceutical and insurance executives that “we’re all in this together,” health care workers have borne the health and psychological toll of this crisis, and to add insult to injury, many are now facing mass layoffs. Meanwhile the largest hospital chains have been the beneficiaries of the multitrillion-dollar corporate bailout, unanimously backed by both corporate-controlled parties.

The anger of health care workers over the criminal indifference to their safety and the lives of their patients is now merging with the growing outrage over the murder of George Floyd and other police killings and Trump’s unconstitutional threats to use the military to crush protests. In a Twitter video viewed nearly 4 million times, New York City nurses are seen standing on sidewalks to cheer on passing protesters who, in return, thanked the health care workers for their sacrifices. In Minneapolis, nurses finishing their hospital shifts joined the protests to treat rubber bullet and tear gas injuries.

After Nearly 10,000 Arrested During Week of Protest, Three Other Police Officers Finally Charged Over Murder of George Floyd

"All you had to do was arrest three more."


by
Eoin Higgins, staff writer




https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/03/after-nearly-10000-arrested-during-week-protest-three-other-police-officers-finally




Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced Wednesday that he has formally filed charges against the three remaining officers involved in last week's killing of George Floyd with "aiding and abetting" second-degree murder, a felony, and also filed a motion to elevate the charges against officer Derek Chauvin, already under arrest, from third-degree to second-degree murder.

"I strongly believe that these developments are in the interest of justice for Mr. Floyd, his family, our community, and our state," Ellison said.

Ellison said that arrest warrants had been issued for the newly-charged officers—Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng—and also made it clear he would be the lead prosecutor as the cases make their way through the courts.

Ellison held a press conference just before 4:00pm local time. Watch:



"Overdue but necessary justice," tweeted Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)


As NBC News reports:


Former officers Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng are facing charges of aiding and abetting murder, according to criminal complaints filed by the state of Minnesota on Wednesday. The murder charge against another former officer, Derek Chauvin, were also elevated to second-degree murder.

The Floyd family, in a statement through their attorney, Ben Crump, called the news of the charges a "bittersweet moment."


It's unclear if the arrests will calm an angry nation. Protesters around the country turned out Tuesday evening for the eighth consecutive night of demonstrations over Floyd's murder.

As the New York Times reported:


While demonstrators in many cities defied curfews, they did so peacefully.

They sang “We Shall Overcome” at the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn and a large crowd tried to cross over the Manhattan bridge in defiance of a curfew. Outside Wrigley Field in Chicago, crowds chanted "Hands up" as they raised their arms to the sky. In Los Angeles, even as hundreds were arrested throughout the city, a crowd gathered outside the home of Mayor Eric Garcetti, who earlier in the day had joined the demonstrations and taken a knee as he listened to pleas. On a bridge in Portland, Ore., hundreds lay face down, hands behind their backs, for a "die in" intended to emulate the death of George Floyd.

Mr. Floyd, a 46-year-old black security guard, died after his neck was pinned under a white police officer’s knee for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis last week. The officer has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The killing, captured on video, was the spark for the outpouring of anger and anguish expressed in demonstrations in more than 140 cities for over a week.

At least 9,300 U.S. civilians have been arrested due to their participation in an ongoing nationwide uprising against police violence and brutality sparked by Floyd's murder.


That tally comes from the Associated Press, which has been tracking the arrests around the country.

Activist group CodePink tweeted that the struggle was ongoing.

"This is just the beginning," the group said. "We must continue demanding #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd! #BlackLivesMatter."