Thursday, July 9, 2020
Chicago mayor uses rise in social distress, violent crime to advance “law and order” policing
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/07/08/crim-j08.html
By Kristina Betinis
8 July 2020
As the public health and social disaster triggered by the coronavirus pandemic has taken an ever-greater toll on the jobs, lives and physical and mental health of millions across the United States, a number of cities have seen a surge in violent crime and shootings.
A grim spate of gun violence in Chicago in recent weeks has taken the lives of more than 140 people, including several young children, after several years of declining homicides since 2016. Seventy-nine people were shot in Chicago over the July 4th holiday weekend, with reports indicating that 15 were killed and 64 wounded.
Twelve of the victims were children under 18, including seven-year-old Natalia Wallace, shot and killed in a drive-by shooting at a July 4th celebration in the west side neighborhood of Austin, and 14-year-old Vernado Jones Jr. in Englewood.
The last weekend in June saw 65 people shot, 18 of whom were killed. Three young children were killed in the last 10 days of June, including 20-month-old Sincere Gaston in Englewood, three-year-old Mekhi James in Austin, and ten-year-old Lena Nunez Anaya in Logan Square.
Already in the first half of 2020, more than 300 people have been killed in Chicago, many from the gang-related gun violence that plagues the African American neighborhoods hit hardest by deindustrialization and cuts to basic social services. The New York Times reports the city is on track to reach roughly the same number of murders as in 2016, when 776 were killed. The neighborhoods suffering the highest rates of coronavirus infection and death are the areas suffering the highest levels of gun violence.
The pandemic has worsened every measure of poverty and social distress, which were already at epidemic levels in the poorest communities in US cities such as Chicago. Many workers have been unable to file for unemployment benefits with state agencies overwhelmed by the flood of claims. Some families receiving the $600 weekly federal unemployment bonus have received a cut in their Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (food stamp) benefit due to their very temporary rise in income.
Under these conditions, the Trump administration and both Republican and Democratic officials at the state and local level are using the spurt in violent crime, coinciding with the ongoing protests against police violence, to justify a heightening of police repression.
In Chicago, Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot has responded to the pandemic and the anti-police violence protests with substantial increases in the numbers of police on the streets and more aggressive policies, while rejecting calls to “defund” police and divert a portion of the $1.8 billion dollars allotted to the Chicago Police Department in 2020 to increase funding for social services.
While the political right wing has long attempted to portray the city of Chicago as chaotic and lawless, the violence tends to be centered in deeply impoverished neighborhoods that have the most gang activity. These are neighborhoods that have been hit hardest by deindustrialization and the closure of schools, mental health facilities and other social services—policies carried out by the city’s Democratic Party machine in the service of corporate interests.
Now, Mayor Lightfoot is criticizing the press for reporting statements made by recently appointed Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown. On June 29, Brown announced that preemptive arrests of youth would be made ahead of the July Fourth holiday weekend.
Brown told reporters that the Chicago Police Department would round up teenagers who are hanging around what he called “drug corners.” To carry out the arrests, the city announced that an additional 1,200 officers would be deployed to the poorest sections of the city on Chicago’s south and west sides.
In response to critics of the plan for the sweeps, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois and the Chicago Community Bond Fund, Mayor Lightfoot said, “You need to have your attitude adjusted.”
Lightfoot later complained that the local press had taken Brown’s statements out of context. “That is not what he said,” Lightfoot said last Thursday afternoon, insisting that the preemptive arrests were aimed at adults and not minor children.
Local public radio station WBEZ answered Lightfoot’s criticism by publishing a transcript of Brown’s remarks in their entirety, in which he clearly named “kids” and identified the ages of minor children to be picked up by police. He also implored the courts and the jails to agree to hold the youth for the duration of the weekend.
Referring to “these evil bastards behind those guns,” Brown demanded longer sentences, higher bond amounts and more electronic monitoring.
Brown said, “We are tapping every resource at our disposal to ensure these killers never have a chance to get their hands on another gun and take another life. But make no mistake. As I said last week, and as I continue to repeat, we cannot do this alone. We need the help of the entire criminal justice system, our city partners and, most importantly, our community members, to step up and not only help us identify these perpetrators of violence, but to keep them off our streets until they get their day in court and to keep these violent offenders locked up and off our streets. The street corner, open-air drug market is the pipeline to shootings and murders in Chicago…”
Brown acknowledged the desperate social conditions underlying petty crime and gang activity, pointing to “the failures in many social services” and lack of jobs, but then complained that despite “cops arresting these young people—15, 16, 17, 18 years old,” the youth were too quickly released from custody.
Even before the pandemic, Lightfoot had been a “law and order” candidate. A corporate lawyer and former federal prosecutor, she was appointed by her predecessor Rahm Emanuel to whitewash rampant violence and murder by the Chicago Police Department and ran her election campaign for mayor in part on promises to bring corruption under control.
Meanwhile, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp on Monday declared a state of emergency and ordered 1,000 National Guard troops to Atlanta, citing as justification a series of shootings over the July 4th weekend. Thirty-one people were shot and five killed in 11 separate shooting incidents across the city. Among the victims was an eight-year-old girl who was shot and killed in a parking lot in the same area where Atlanta police killed Rayshard Brooks last month.
In a deliberate effort to conflate the random acts of violence in a city reeling from both the health and economic impacts of the pandemic crisis with ongoing protests against police killings, Kemp, a Republican, said that “city officials have failed to quell ongoing violence, with armed individuals threatening citizens, shooting at passersby, blocking streets, destroying local businesses and defying orders to disperse.” He continued, “This lawlessness must be stopped, and order restored in our capital city.”
The Democratic mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, who backed the deployment of the National Guard when protests first erupted against the May 25 police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, denounced the new deployment, which is in line with Trump’s repeated threats to mobilize troops to restore “law and order” in Democratic-controlled states and cities.
India takes economic reprisals against China as border frictions continue
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/07/08/indi-j01.html
By Deepal Jayasekera and Keith Jones
7 July 2020
New Delhi has responded to the bloodiest border clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers since 1967 by taking economic reprisals against Beijing. The measures, coupled with a military build-up on both sides of the mountainous disputed border region, underscore that the danger of a catastrophic war between the two nuclear-armed rivals remains very real.
The violent clash occurred on June 15 in the Galwan Valley, where Indian-held Ladakh abuts Chinese-controlled Aksai Chin. It left 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of their Chinese counterparts dead.
On June 29, India responded by banning 59 apps made by Chinese-based companies, including several such as TikTok and US Browser with more than 100 million users. The prohibition was justified with claims that the apps were involved in “activities which are prejudicial to [the] sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order.”
Emphasizing that the app ban is part of New Delhi’s geopolitical offensive against Beijing, Indian Law, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad characterized it as “a digital strike” against China at a rally held by the ruling Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in West Bengal on July 2. Inciting anti-China chauvinism still further, Prasad warned, “If somebody casts an evil eye on India, we will give a befitting reply.”
The following day, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a “surprise” visit to Ladakh with Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat and Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane. They met with senior military officers at a forward position in Nimu.
Without directly naming China, Modi used his highly publicized visit to whip up anti-Chinese chauvinism. In an address to troops, he said that the “era of expansionism is over” and “history is witness that such forces have been wiped out, or have been forced to turn around.” Taking an indirect jab at Beijing, he added that the “enemies of India have seen the fire and fury of our forces,” and warned that “India’s commitment to peace should not be seen as its weakness.”
Although several rounds of talks between military and diplomatic personnel have been held, both New Delhi and Beijing have increased their military presence in the Ladakh/Aksai Chin region and beyond. Thousands of troops, artillery guns, tanks and fighter planes have been deployed at multiple locations along the 3,488 kilometre/2167 mile long disputed border.
A military official told the Hindu yesterday that Indian and Chinese forces have implemented a “disengagement” plan in several places including the Galwan Valley. Chinese troops have retreated 2 kilometres and Indian troops 1.5 kilometres from the June 15 clash site. However, the official warned that this could not serve as a “permanent solution” to the dispute, since India is adamant that the entire Galwan Valley is rightfully hers. In this regard, it is important to remember that the June 15 clash occurred during what was supposed to be a “de-escalation” initiated after a series of violent but non-lethal border clashes dating back to May 5.
The decades-long Sino-Indian border dispute is rooted in the neighbours’ competing geostrategic interests. However, it has taken on vastly greater significance as a result of US imperialism’s ever-escalating drive to strategically encircle China and thwart its emergence as a competitor in high-value-added and high-tech economic sectors—a drive which has been accompanied by aggressive efforts by Washington to harness India to its strategic agenda.
The Indo-US “global strategic partnership” that the previous Congress Party-led government struck with the George W. Bush administration in 2006 has been taken to a qualitatively higher level during the last six years of BJP government. Under Modi, India has emerged as a frontline state in the US military-strategic offensive against China. New Delhi has signed a basing agreement with Washington, throwing open its air and naval bases for the latter’s military, and joined a series of anti-China bilateral and multilateral strategic partnerships and security dialogues with the US and its principal Asia-Pacific allies, Japan and Australia.
In return for India’s ever closer integration into the US war drive against China, Washington has granted New Delhi a series of strategic favours, including securing India access to civilian nuclear fuel and technology, enabling it to focus its indigenous nuclear program on developing its arsenal of nuclear weapons. India has also been designated by the US as a “major defence partner,” which allows New Delhi to purchase high-tech US weapons systems available only to Washington’s closest partners. These developments have encouraged the Indian ruling elite to take a more aggressive stance in its dealings with China and its historic arch-rival, Pakistan.
At the same time, the American political establishment enthusiastically encourages India’s rivalry against China, calculating that an escalation will further integrate India into Washington’s military-strategic offensive.
Whatever the immediate fate of the border dispute and the avowals from both New Delhi and Beijing that they want to de-escalate, the crisis is being exploited by the Indian elite to whip up hostility against China so as to overcome popular opposition to an even closer partnership with US imperialism.
In this, the Congress Party is playing a particularly foul role. Senior party leaders have repeatedly attacked Modi from the right for purportedly failing to stand up firmly enough to Beijing, and the General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee’s International Department, Manesh Tiwari, has called for India to make the Quad—a US-led anti-China grouping—the “nucleus” of a “pan-Asian strategic framework.”
An editorial in the July 2 Hindustan Times titled “The great Indian strategic debate: Chinese aggression has resolved it in favour of India-US ties” argued that China’s border “aggression” has “now answered the question” whether China’s behaviour is a result of India-US proximity, or vice versa. It went on to state, “Whether India desires it or not, it will end up as one of the frontline states which will have to step up to contain Chinese power, not because of a third power, but because its own interests are at stake. This will mean India has no choice but to deepen its partnerships with other countries, particularly the US.”
A remark made by Modi during his visit to Ladakh is highly significant in this regard. According to press accounts, he said, “Indian soldiers had a long history of bravery and competence in global military campaigns, including in the two World Wars.”
Indian soldiers fought in the two imperialist world wars of the 20th century, as part of the British Indian Army and to uphold the interest of the British Empire, including India’s continued subjugation to Britain. That Modi chooses to celebrate this and cite it as evidence of Indian soldiers’ competence in “global military campaigns” underscores the readiness of his government and the Indian bourgeoisie as a whole to serve as satraps for US imperialism as it charts course for a catastrophic war with China.
When border tensions flared between India and China in May, Washington quickly rushed to signal its support for India, denouncing Chinese aggression and tying it to the South China Sea dispute. This has only escalated since the June 15 border clashes, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other US officials repeatedly railing against Beijing.
Last Wednesday, White House spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany reported Trump as having said “China’s aggressive stance along the India-China border fits with the larger pattern of Chinese aggression in other parts of the world.”
Pompeo, meanwhile, has applauded India’s ban on Chinese apps, branding them as “appendages of the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance state.” He added that New Delhi’s “clean app approach will boost India’s sovereignty and boost integrity and national security.”
There is strong bipartisan support within the US ruling elite for the Trump administration using the border crisis to strengthen Washington’s strategic partnership with New Delhi against Beijing. In recent weeks, more than a dozen US Congress members, Republican and Democrat alike, have expressed their support for India resisting purported Chinese “aggression.”
Under conditions of stepped up military and diplomatic provocations by Washington against China, including naval exercises in the South China Sea, Beijing has responded cautiously to India’s economic reprisals. Last Thursday, Chinese Commerce Ministry Spokesman Gao Feng issued a statement on India’s banning of Chinese apps that said, “China has not taken any restrictive and discriminatory measures against Indian products and services,” and accused India of violating World Trade Organization rules.
At the same time, China has moved to assert its territorial claims in the region against Bhutan, a tiny landlocked state that India has traditionally treated as a protectorate. Responding to questions about China’s recent attempt to block the UN Development Program’s Global Environment Facility (GEF) from providing funding for the Sakteng wildlife sanctuary on the grounds that it related to “disputed” territory, a Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry statement said, “The boundary between China and Bhutan has never been delimited. There have been disputes over the eastern, central and western sectors for a long time.”
To appreciate the explosive potential of such an assertion, it is worth recalling the military stand-off that occurred between India and China for over two months in 2017 due to a still unresolved territorial dispute between China and Bhutan over the Doklam plateau, a remote unpopulated Himalayan ridge.
US billionaires, politicians cash in on “small business” loan program
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/07/08/loan-j08.html
By Jacob Crosse
8 July 2020
After resisting lawsuits by 11 media organizations, including the Washington Post, ProPublica and the New York Times, the US Treasury and Small Business Administration (SBA) on Monday released an 18-page report providing information on the 660,000 recipients of over $521.5 billion in funds distributed through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
In a statement announcing the release of the data, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin commented: “Today’s release of loan data strikes the appropriate balance of providing the American people with transparency, while protecting sensitive payroll and personal income information of small businesses, sole proprietors, and independent contractors.”
The limited “transparency” gives some insight into the grotesque levels of corruption and self-dealing carried out by politicians, corporate heads and well-connected individuals who took advantage of the program, which was presented as a lifeline to small businesses and employees hit by the COVID-19 lockdown. Among the members of Congress linked to businesses that received low interest, forgivable loans was Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House.
While it is true that thousands of businesses have been able to make use of the loan program to stay afloat, a study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 3.3 million, or nearly 22 percent, of US small businesses closed their doors permanently between February and April of this year.
The SBA report claimed that the program “saved” an estimated 51 million jobs. Under the PPP, loans can be turned into grants if more than 60 percent of the loan is used for payroll. What Mnuchin neglected to mention at his Monday press conference is that nearly 90,000 companies either left the job retention question on the loan application blank or reported retaining zero jobs in the dataset.
In addition, the National Federation of Independent Businesses reported last week that some 70,000 businesses that received PPP loans plan to lay off at least 10 workers each--more than 700,000 in all--once the program expires.
President Trump signed a bill on Saturday extending until August 8 the corporate-government slush fund, with an estimated $132 billion left in its coffers, after the House and Senate voted unanimously for the extension. The day before, Congress adjourned until July 20 without taking any action to extend the federal $600 weekly unemployment supplement, which has kept millions of workers and their families in their homes and able to afford basic necessities and is set to expire on July 25.
The PPP was established as part of the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. That legislation, which was passed unanimously in the Senate and by a near-majority voice vote in the House, launched the program, which got underway in early April with $349 billion in funding.
These funds were depleted in less than two weeks, and Congress moved quickly to approve another $310 billion in funding despite widespread reports of abuse and fraud. In the first round of the program, sports teams, restaurant and hotel chains, and other billion-dollar businesses collected millions of dollars in loans, while small “mom and pop” businesses were frozen out. Wall Street banks such as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America took in billions in loan processing fees.
The SBA and Treasury information released by Mnuchin on Monday includes the names of all the organizations that received PPP loans of $150,000 or more, as well as some data, but not the names, of those that received less than $150,000.
Mnuchin attempted to shield the fact that nearly three-fourths of the total loan dollars went to companies and businesses requesting more than $150,000. He said, “The average loan size is approximately $100,000, demonstrating that the program is serving the smallest of businesses.” The SBA report notes that the average loan amount was $107,000.
The release of the report revealed that of the 4,885,388 loans approved, 86.5 percent were for less than $150,000. However, those loans accounted for only 27.2 percent of the money distributed. An Associated Press report concluded that nearly half of all PPP support for major industries was utilized by the health care, professional, construction and manufacturing sectors. Four states, California, Texas, New York and Florida, accounted for one-third of all loans approved.
A large majority of the loans approved, 3,262,529, or roughly 66.8 percent, were for under $50,000, yet they made up only 11.2 percent of the total dollar amount. The distribution was geared toward large borrowers, with nearly 22 percent of the loan amount issued to borrowers requesting between $350,000 and $1,000,000. And while loans between $1 and $5 million made up only 1.6 percent of the total, they accounted for 28.3 percent of the total dollar amount.
Multimillionaires, businesses connected to the Trump family, governors of at least eight states as well as members of Congress from both parties received loans anywhere from $150,000 to $10 million. Political organizations such as the Ohio Democratic Party and the Black Republican Caucus in Florida got at least $150,000 each, while the Florida Democratic Party Building Fund and the Women’s National Republican Club of New York received at least $350,000.
The Ayn Rand Institute, named for the libertarian arch reactionary, was approved for a PPP loan between $350,000 and $1,000,000. The Catholic Church also got in on the action, with the Archdiocese of New York receiving a loan between $5 and $10 million. Catholic charities of the archdioceses of San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York and Boston all received loans valued at more than $2 million.
The Associated Press reported that as much as $273 million was loaned out to over 100 companies that are owned or operated by donors to the Trump campaign. Of the businesses approved, only eight had to wait until early May, after the second round of funding was approved by Congress, to receive their loans. Trump supporters who run these companies have contributed at least $11.1 million since May 2015 to Trump’s campaign committee, the Republican National Committee or the America First Action super PAC that has been endorsed by Trump.
A Forbes report found that at least 44 companies backed by 15 billionaires received loans. This includes billionaire clothes designer, potential presidential candidate and rapper Kanye West and Hobby Lobby founder David Green, worth an estimated $7.9 billion. Green’s son chairs the board of the Washington, D.C.-based museum known as “The Museum of the Bible,” which received a PPP loan of between $2 million and $5 million supposedly to retain 249 jobs.
The richest person in the state of West Virginia, Governor Jim Justice, with a reported net worth of $1.2 billion, also made generous use of the program. Companies owned by the Justice family received at least $11.1 million from the federal relief program. Of those companies, four, including the inherited luxury resort Greenbrier Hotel and coal companies such as Blackstone Energy Ltd., Bluestone Coke, LLC and Justice Energy Company Inc., took out millions in loans yet reported retaining zero jobs. The largest loan in the state, between $5 million and $10 million, went to Justice’s luxury membership club, the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, while Justice’s Greenbrier Sporting Club took out a loan worth between $1 million and $2 million, while reportedly retaining only 120 jobs.
In addition to Justice, businesses linked to Republican governors Mike DeWine of Ohio, Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, Larry Hogan of Maryland and Tate Reeves of Mississippi received loans. Businesses tied to Democratic governors Phil Murphy of New Jersey, Gavin Newsom of California and Ralph Northam of Virginia also received loans.
Monday’s report also revealed that Republican Representatives Kevin Hern and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, and Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania were loan recipients.
Democratic Party House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, was also on the gravy train. Paul Pelosi is an investor in the firm EDI Associates, which received a loan of between $350,000 and $1,000,000.
Previous disclosures had revealed that Republican Representatives Roger Williams of Texas and Vicky Hartzler of Missouri, as well as Democratic Representatives Susie Lee of Nevada and Debbie Mucarsel Powell of Florida, were connected to businesses that received PPP loans.
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