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.
Jeffrey Epstein’s confidante Ghislaine Maxwell relocated to federal jail in New York City
[Wonder if her guards are sleepy?]
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/07/08/maxw-j08.html
By Kevin Reed
8 July 2020
Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime partner of convicted sex offender and wealthy New Yorker Jeffrey Epstein, has been relocated to a federal jail in Brooklyn where she will appear via remote video before a Manhattan judge on July 14.
Federal Bureau of Prison officials disclosed on Monday that Maxwell was transferred from Merrimack County Jail in New Hampshire to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn but did not say on what day she was relocated. Prosecutors have indicated that Maxwell is a flight risk and any request for bail will be denied.
On July 2, US Department of Justice officials announced that Maxwell had been arrested and charged on four counts of enticing minors to engage in illegal sexual activity and two counts of perjury, in connection with her role in grooming girls as young as 14 for abuse by Epstein and to be trafficked in his international sex ring during the 1990s.
Last year, Jeffrey Epstein was awaiting trial on multiple counts of sex trafficking and abuse of minors when he was found dead in his jail cell in the Manhattan Correction Center on August 10. Although the New York City medical examiner determined that Epstein committed suicide by hanging, the circumstances at the prison indicated and the opinion of other medical experts was that he had been strangled to death.
Although authorities, including Attorney General William Barr, claimed at the time that a vigorous investigation of Epstein’s sexual abuse of young girls would be continued, it took nearly eleven months for Maxwell to be arrested
One of the reasons given for the delay was that authorities were uncertain where Maxwell was or if she was even in the United States. However, more than twenty armed agents and police reportedly raided her million-dollar mansion called Tucked Away on a 156-acre property in rural Bradford, New Hampshire on July 2, breaking down the front door and bringing Maxwell out in handcuffs.
According to the unsealed indictment, between 1994 and 1997, Maxwell and Epstein, “enticed and caused minor victims to travel to Epstein’s residences in different states, which Maxwell knew and intended would result in their grooming for and subjection to sexual abuse. Moreover, in an effort to conceal her crimes, Maxwell repeatedly lied when questioned about her conduct, including in relation to some of the minors described herein, when providing testimony under oath in 2016.”
Ghislaine Maxwell, 58, is the youngest daughter of the British media baron Robert Maxwell, who owned the Mirror Group Newspapers before he drowned under suspicious circumstances near his yacht called Lady Ghislaine in the North Atlantic off the coast of the Canary Islands in 1991.
Shortly after Robert’s death, Ghislaine moved to New York City and met the investment advisor, multimillionaire and well-connected socialite Jeffrey Epstein with whom she developed a close relationship.
Over the next two decades, Maxwell and Epstein—with her connections to European royalty and wealthy elite and with his connections to US celebrities and the financial and political elite—established a social network through lavish parties and get-togethers at Epstein’s residences in Palm Beach, Manhattan, New Mexico and his private island in the US Virgin Islands that involved sex with young girls.
A measure of the connections that Epstein had was revealed on Tuesday when the New York State Department of Financial Services announced that Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $150 million in fines to settle allegations that it “inexcusably failed to detect or prevent millions of dollars of suspicious transactions,” despite knowing Epstein’s “terrible criminal history.”
According to a report in the Washington Post, “The German bank’s ties to Epstein began in 2013, years after the billionaire pleaded guilty to two prostitution charges in Florida, according to the consent decree filed by the New York regulator. Deutsche Bank knew about Epstein’s past, classifying him as a ‘high-risk’ client, but also considered the relationship potentially lucrative—$100 million to $300 million in revenue over time.”
In 2014, the report says, bank officials met with Epstein at his New York City mansion after reports emerged about his activities. “The bank ultimately decided to continue doing business with Epstein but established new safeguards, which were largely ignored, according to the consent decree.” The bank processed more than $7 million in settlement payments that Epstein made to alleged coconspirators.
Clearly, the role of Deutsche Bank is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to corporate, financial and government participation in facilitating and covering up Epstein’s criminal activities. In 2008, after dozens of young girls had given statements to Palm Beach law enforcement officials that Epstein had both sexually abused them and also paid them to help recruit a network of teenagers for his trafficking operation, the federal government intervened and blocked the local case from going forward.
At that time, US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alex Acosta, worked out a plea deal with Epstein’s legal team that included a “non-prosecution agreement” stipulating that Epstein and none of his coconspirators could be charged in the future for any crimes related to his guilt in “procuring a minor for prostitution.” Ghislaine Maxwell was named as one of his coconspirators in that agreement.
Spanish unions isolate Nissan workers’ struggle
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/07/08/niss-j08.html
By Alice Summers
8 July 2020
Hundreds of Nissan autoworkers have demonstrated outside the company’s Cantabria factory in protest at the planned closure of its Barcelona plant. The closure will lead to the loss of more than 2,500 jobs at the factory, with at least 20,000 more indirectly threatened.
Around 300 autoworkers and their families from the Barcelona factory travelled to the town of Los Corrales de Buelna in the northern Spanish region of Cantabria for a multi-day demonstration beginning Tuesday June 30. Workers also travelled to the Cantabrian regional capital of Santander on Thursday July 2 to continue their protest. The more than 500 workers at the Los Corrales plant produce vehicle parts for factories in the Nissan-Renault Alliance across Europe.
This was the latest in a series of token actions organized by the unions, designed to allow workers to let off steam amid mounting opposition to Nissan’s attacks on jobs, and to hide their own complicity in pushing through wage and job cuts. The unions aim to isolate and wear down the indefinite strike called by autoworkers on May 4, when Nissan demanded the resumption of production in Spain. Workers at the Barcelona plant remain on strike after more than two months in opposition to the planned plant closures.
The trade unions are trying to sow illusions that negotiations with Nissan remain open, and that workers can win an isolated, national struggle against the international Nissan-Renault Alliance. They have isolated the struggle of Nissan workers even within Spain, limiting the strike to just the Barcelona plant and leaving workers at the company’s two other Spanish factories, in Cantabria and Ávila, to continue production.
While the Cantabria protest was organised by the Barcelona factory committee, run by the Podemos-linked Workers Commissions (CCOO) and pro-PSOE (Socialist Party) General Union of Labour (UGT) unions, to “strengthen our collaboration” with the Cantabria factory and “show the necessary solidarity,” union representatives in Los Corrales could barely conceal their hostility to the mobilization of workers.
Seeking to divide workers from the two Nissan factories, a spokesperson for the factory committee at the Cantabria plant, Eduardo Seco (UGT), claimed workers there were “very unhappy” about the demonstration and that the inhabitants of Los Corrales are “quite uneasy” about it. The plant would run at its “normal pace,” stated Seco, with the factory committee having taken measures to ensure that the protest affected the Cantabria plant “as little as possible.”
The CCOO representative in the committee, José Ángel de la Peña, also tried to distance himself from the protesters, saying that they had come to Cantabria of “their own accord.” There is “not much point protesting in front of the Cantabrian plant,” said de la Peña, because “it is not going to do damage to Renault like they [the Barcelona workers] claim.”
Meanwhile, Ángel Anibarro, the president of the Cantabria factory committee, which is dominated by the CCOO, claimed to support the protest, but only “as long as everything goes ahead peacefully.” Protesters responded with hostility to this slanderous suggestion that they were intent on violence, shouting “Get out!” and “That was out of order!”
Despite claims from union officials that Nissan workers and the wider population of Los Corrales were hostile to the protest by Barcelona autoworkers, the delegation was met with applause and raised fists by assembled inhabitants as they entered the town. Workers leaving the Cantabria factory at the 2 p.m. shift change also applauded and thanked the Barcelona protesters, with many coming to greet them and show their solidarity.
Under the pretence of concern over the impact of the protest on the spread of COVID-19, the PSOE regional government delegate for Cantabria, Ainoa Quiñones, mobilised a massive police presence to the small town. In addition to local police, Quiñones brought in an extra 40 police force members from outside the region, including from the anti-riot GRS division of the paramilitary Guardia Civil.
Riot police lined the streets near the Los Corrales factory, with a police helicopter also seen circling overhead in an obvious attempt to intimidate protesters. Shouts of “We are workers, not terrorists!” were heard in response to this massive display of state force.
Whatever the rhetoric of low-level bureaucrats in factory committees, the unions have made it clear that they intend to block any attempts to organise a coordinated struggle against Nissan’s attacks on pay and terms. Workers from Nissan’s Spanish plants are being set against each other in order to drive down conditions for all autoworkers.
At the end of June, union representatives at the Los Corrales de Buelna factory came to a sell-out agreement with Nissan to keep the plant open, using the threat of the factory closure in Barcelona to force workers into accepting worse pay and conditions.
The so-called “ultra-competitiveness” agreement will see workers’ hours slashed by 5 percent as of January 2021, with a corresponding reduction in wages. Pay will be frozen at this lower level for the duration of the 2021-23 plan. This will be accompanied by a massive production-line speed-up, aiming to reduce costs per part by as much as 28 percent.
The 2021-23 plan also proposes to invest €40 million into the plant which would, among other things, apparently be used to finance new technologies to increase speed and output
The viability of the Cantabria factory remains unclear: 90 percent of the parts manufactured there are for vehicles put together in the Zona Franca industrial region of Barcelona, where the soon-to-be-closed Nissan factory is located, according to CCOO representative José Ángel de la Peña.
The jobs massacre planned at Renault-Nissan is only an initial indication of the brutal assault on the working class being planned by Spanish businesses and government, in conjunction with the unions.
According to a study by financial consultancy firm KPMG, 60 percent of Spanish companies will cut or freeze worker pay in the next six months, with only 4 percent indicating that salaries could increase. Twenty-seven percent of companies plan to modify workers’ terms and conditions, 18 percent will rescind contracts of outsourced workers and 34 percent will cancel new hires and promotions.
Thousands of job cuts have already been planned across Spain, including nearly 900 at Airbus and over 200 at the Siemens Gamesa renewable energy plant in Navarra. More than 500 jobs will be slashed by aluminium manufacturer Alcoa from their San Cibrao factory in north-western Spain. Engineering company SENER is also planning on laying off over 100 workers from Las Arenas, Madrid and Barcelona.
Nearly 4 million (3,862,883) Spaniards are already unemployed as of the end of June, the highest figure since 2016. This does not include the 1.8 million workers still furloughed under the PSOE-Podemos government’s ERTE scheme, many of whom will find themselves added to the unemployment rolls when the program ends in September. Youth unemployment in Spain reached a staggering 32.9 percent in May.
The fight against this assault on jobs and working conditions cannot be carried out through the bankrupt national framework of the trade unions, but requires the construction of an international movement of the working class. Workers at Nissan and elsewhere in Spain must join their struggles with those of workers across Europe and internationally, in a cross-border fight against the transnational corporations, which shift production from one country to another to maximise profits.
This requires building rank-and-file committees of action independent of the nationalist and pro-capitalist trade unions.
French bus driver left brain-dead after asking passengers to wear masks
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/07/08/fran-j08.html
By Will Morrow
8 July 2020
A bus driver in the southern French city of Bayonne has been left brain-dead from a brutal assault, after he ordered a group of passengers to either wear masks or get off the bus, on Sunday evening.
According to police accounts, the driver, Philippe Monguillot, 59 years old, was attacked by one or multiple passengers at a stop. He had told one passenger attempting to get on the bus that he would not be allowed on without wearing a coronavirus mask, which is required by law on public transport. At the same stop he reportedly told three other passengers on the bus that they would have to get off if they did not put on masks.
After the assault, Monguillot was transported unconscious to a hospital and placed on life support, but was declared brain-dead. He has a wife and three adult daughters. On Sunday, a 34-year-old man was placed under arrest and remains in police custody. Four other men were arrested on Monday, one of whom is a minor and has subsequently been released. The prosecutor reported last night that two men would be charged with intentional murder.
On Monday, the bus drivers at Chronoplus, where Monguillot worked, announced that they were on strike until after Monguillot’s funeral service. Chronoplus serves bus routes in Bayonne, Anglet and Biarritz, a sea-side resort on the south-west Atlantic coast of France. Routes in all three areas were stopped on yesterday. The drivers are demanding greater protection.
The bus unions met with Chronoplus management on Monday evening, and are seeking to reach a deal to end the strike and return drivers to work.
Yesterday Macron administration’s minister for transport, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, travelled to Bayonne and spoke with drivers, cynically proclaiming the government’s grief at the tragic incident.
These crocodile tears will not make anyone forget that the Macron administration’s policies are directly responsible for tens of thousands of deaths throughout the pandemic.
At the beginning of the pandemic, while telling lies to the population that the virus was unlikely to reach France, the government refused to organize any large-scale testing. Because it had organized no testing infrastructure, it insisted that testing was unnecessary. Those who presented with symptoms to their local doctor were told they probably had the virus should go home and self-isolate.
The government declared that wearing masks was unnecessary, trying to cover up the fact that it had destroyed its stock of masks over the previous decade in order to cut health care costs. Government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye contemptuously announced on March 20, “You know what? I don’t know how to use a mask.”
The ending of the lock-down on May 11, the restarting of public transport, and the full reopening of the economy, has been determined by the economic demands of the capitalists for a resumption of profit-making activities.
Whatever protective measures existed for workers in the immediate aftermath of the lock-down have since been ended. On June 24, Labor Minister Muriel Pénicaud released a new set of guidelines for employers, no longer requiring a four square-meter surface area allocation for each employee. This has been replaced with a non-binding “guide” recommending one meter of separation, with the requirement of wearing a mask if even this cannot be maintained.
At the same time, schools, restaurants and bars have all been reopened.
The trade unions and the government maintain no central list of the number of bus drivers or public transport workers who have been infected or died from the coronavirus. But between March and April the Paris-area public transport operator (RATP) had confirmed four deaths in that region alone. On May 12, the head of RATP Catherine Gouillouard admitted that nine RATP employees had died from the coronavirus. Bus drivers reported receiving no masks at all, and only one pair of gloves per shift.
Between June 30 and July 3, three coronavirus infections were detected among RATP maintenance workers in workshops in Javel, located in Paris’ 15th district. The site employs more than 70 workers.
Responsibility for this situation lies above all with the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) and the other trade unions. They have worked to suppress workers’ anger over the lack of protective equipment and safe conditions for bus and public transport workers.
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