Colin Powell at the Democratic National Convention: Democrats prepare administration of militarism and war

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/19/pers-a19.html

19 August 2020

In the second day of its national convention, the Democratic Party officially nominated Joe Biden as its candidate for president in the 2020 election. Overall, the four-day event has been a highly scripted act of political theater, full of trite clichés and empty rhetoric.

The most notable element of yesterday’s proceedings was the decision to feature remarks from former general Colin Powell and a video highlighting the “unlikely friendship” between Biden and former Republican presidential candidate and Senator John McCain.

A Biden/Harris administration, the Democrats emphasized, would be prepared to wage war.

In his remarks, Powell, who served as Secretary of State under the administration of George W. Bush, declared that Biden, as “commander-in-chief,” will “trust our intelligence agencies” and “stand up to our adversaries with strength and experience. They will know we mean business.”

Powell will forever be associated with the lies manufactured by the Bush administration to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. On February 5, 2003, Powell appeared before the United Nations to claim that the Iraqi government was stockpiling “weapons of mass destruction”—a claim that was false and he knew was false. It was the climax of the Bush administration’s campaign to justify an unprovoked invasion of Iraq, a horrific war crime that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed one of the most advanced societies in the Middle East.

The war in Iraq is associated with some of the most horrific atrocities, including the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the destruction of Fallujah and the massacre of civilians at Haditha in 2005. American society itself suffered terrible consequences, including the death of nearly 4,500 soldiers and the maiming of tens of thousands more.

Powell’s remarks were preceded by a speech from John Kerry, Secretary of State under Obama, who helped oversee the 2014 regime-change operation in Ukraine, spearheaded by fascistic groups, and the US-backed civil war in Syria. Kerry denounced Trump’s foreign policy, particularly focusing on what is seen within the military-intelligence agencies as the administration’s insufficiently aggressive attitude to Russia. “Our interests,” Kerry said, “can’t afford four more years of Donald Trump.”

Kerry referred to the strength of Biden’s “moral compass,” citing his support for war in Yugoslavia in the late 1990s, though avoiding reference to his vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq.

Kerry was followed with a video segment featuring Republican Chuck Hagel, along with career diplomats under both Republicans and Democrats, including Brett McGurk (the longest-serving civilian adviser overseeing the war in Iraq and Syria, going back to the Bush administration); Marie Yovanovitch (US ambassador to Ukraine under Trump and witness in last year’s impeachment trial); Jack Weinstein (US Air Force general and high-ranking nuclear weapons officer); and Rose Goetemoeller (former deputy secretary general of NATO until 2018).

In the ad, the officials insisted that Biden had “made the tough calls” (Yovanovitch, referring to the Obama administration’s operation in Ukraine) and there was “no one more qualified … to be sitting at the head of the table in the Situation Room” (Hagel). They criticized Trump for having “a love fest with dictators” (Goetemoeller, referring to Russia) and being “a danger to national security” (McGurk).

After Powell spoke, the Democrats aired the ad on the “unlikely friendship” with McCain, one of the most ferocious warmongers in the US Senate, who consistently advocated for aggression against Iran, Russia and China, before his death in 2018. Even though they were members of different parties, McCain’s daughter Cindy explained, the two enjoyed backyard dinner parties together.

One has the distinct impression that if the Democrats could get George W. Bush or John Bolton to speak at the convention, they would jump at the chance. Perhaps this is still to come.

Yesterday’s events underscore the character of the Democratic Party campaign and the entire framework of its opposition to Trump. In all of the calls at the convention for “unity” against Trump, the real appeal is to the military, Wall Street, and sections of the Republican Party to support the Democrats on the basis that Trump has proven to be a poor defender of the interests of the ruling class abroad.

As the WSWS has repeatedly stressed, the conflict within the state is a conflict within the ruling class, centered on issues of foreign policy. Over the past nearly four years, the Democrats have worked to suppress all popular opposition to the Trump administration and direct it behind the reactionary campaign for a more aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East and against Russia.

At every point, the Democrats ceded all opposition to Trump to the military and the generals, including when Trump staged his coup attempt on June 1, threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act and branding protests over police violence as “terrorist.” This is their most important constituency, along with Wall Street and the intelligence agencies.

When it came to basic elements of class policy—the expansion of military spending, tax cuts for the rich, attacks on immigrants—the Democrats facilitated and collaborated with Trump every step of the way. In the process, they continually downplayed and covered up the far-reaching danger that the Trump administration posed to the working class.

The concerns within the ruling class are expressed in the most recent edition of Foreign Affairs, a leading publication of US geopolitics, which worries that historians will not judge Trump’s handling of foreign policy “kindly.” It writes: “After nearly four years of turbulence, the country’s enemies are stronger, its friends are weaker, and the United States is increasingly isolated and prostrate.”

The Democrats’ effort to divert opposition to Trump behind the military and intelligence agencies is entirely compatible with the other element that will dominate the campaign and has been the focus of the convention: the politics of racial and gender identity. The “historic” character of the Democratic Party ticket is premised entirely on the background of Harris, an ex-prosecutor who had the enthusiastic support of Wall Street, who, if she were to become president, could become the first African American woman to be “commander-in-chief.”

In the 2020 elections, the contest between Trump and the Democrats is a contest between two reactionary factions of the ruling class.

In its election campaign, the Socialist Equality Party is oriented to the development of the class struggle. The pandemic is already producing an immense growth of social anger—among workers who have been forced to return to work, teachers who are being sent back to schools, tens of millions who are unemployed, thrown into poverty and facing eviction.

The coming weeks and months must be dedicated not to the election of Biden and Harris, but to the organization and unification of these struggles into a mass social and political movement against the entire ruling class and the capitalist system.

Joseph Kishore—SEP candidate for US president

U.S., FASCISTS SET SCOPES ON SOCIALIST-LEANING BELARUS

By Otis Grotewohl, Workers World.August 18, 2020

https://popularresistance.org/u-s-fascists-set-scopes-on-socialist-leaning-belarus/

Chinese President Xi Jingping And Russian President Vladimir Putin Congratulated Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko On His Reelection Aug. 9.

U.S. imperialism and the Western bourgeois media, however, wasted no time in denouncing Lukashenko’s victory as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo used saber-rattling language against Belarus by claiming the election was not “free and fair.” (Reuters, Aug. 10)

Since the mid-1990s, U.S. imperialism has targeted the Belarus government, which has had cordial relations with other anti-imperialist governments, such as Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

Lukashenko’s main electoral opponent, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who polled around 10% of the vote compared to Lukashenko’s 80%, refused to accept the election outcome. Her supporters and other opponents of the government from various centrist and right-wing parties, poured into the streets to denounce Lukashenko.

Shortly after protests started, demonstrators violently clashed with the police. Internet images have shown many of the demonstrators waving the anti-Communist red and white flag used by the Byelorussian Central Council, which collaborated with German Nazi occupiers from 1943 until 1944. The same flag was also flown by Belarusian counterrevolutionaries during the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
A ‘Maidan Movement’?

In 2014 a NATO-sponsored coup succeeded in overthrowing Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych. Pro-Western, anti-Semitic Ukrainian nationalists, including pro-fascist elements inside the “Maidan movement,” carried out this coup. At the time, Lukashenko warned the people of Belarus about such a movement developing there.

Today, Ukrainian fascists are openly lending their support to the Belarusian opposition movement.

Tikhanovskaya’s spouse, Sergei Tikhanovsky, initially intended to run against Lukashenko, but he was disqualified and arrested for participating in illegal, anti-government activities. Tikanovskaya became the main opposition candidate after his arrest. Corporate media reports that Tikhanovskaya fled to Lithuania on Aug 11.
Reason For Lukashenko’s Popular Support

Lukashenko’s reelection was the sixth one since 1994, when he also won 80% of the popular vote. In the book “The Last Soviet Republic: Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarus,” author Stewart Parker argues that Lukashenko’s mass popularity and electoral success derive from his tight connection with the former Soviet Union. Unlike the other former Soviet Republics, Belarus displays symbolism of the former Soviet Union (USSR).

The only political party that Lukashenko ever belonged to was the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. According to Parker, “Lukashenko’s positive opinion of the USSR, as well as the preservation of Soviet national holidays and a rejection of nationalism, have all found favor with the older generation.”

Despite the capitalist counterrevolution in 1991, Belarus was able to restore some of the socialist programs of the Soviet era. Parker points out that the first thing Lukashenko did upon election was double the minimum wage. All education is free, including higher education.

Parker adds, “Communist and socialist governments the world over have always had literacy and education programs as core principles. Belarus has continued in this tradition. This is in stark contrast to the decline in public service spending in the other former Soviet republics.

“Maternity leave in Belarus is also extended to those who adopt babies. … Few Belarusian pensioners will have luxury cars or the latest computers, but they will be able to afford food, fuel, and the essentials that allow them to enjoy a peaceful retirement. Belarusian life expectancy is higher than in all former Soviet states with the exception of Georgia.”
Imperialist Threats To Sovereignty And Stability

Belarus’s government has its contradictions. While Belarus still maintains features from its socialist history as part of the Soviet Union, it lost other socialist features during and after the USSR’s collapse. The people have some legitimate grievances against Lukashenko, especially regarding his response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Taking advantage of these grievances, Washington and the Belarus opposition use problems caused by the pandemic as a pretext against Belarus’s sovereignty — despite the U.S. government’s own mishandling of the pandemic crisis.

As of this writing, the opposition’s future is still hazy. What is clear, however, is that Lukashenko’s opposition welcomes support from the pro-fascist Maidan movement in Ukraine and from U.S. imperialism. This makes the Belarus opposition similar to the pro-capitalist protesters in Hong Kong, which U.S. imperialist politicians and Western white supremacists embrace.

Anti-imperialists and revolutionaries inside the U.S. must oppose any U.S. involvement in other countries’ affairs. Washington’s policies aim at instability in Belarus. Ukraine’s Maidan movement encourages a pro-fascist coup. These are both a threat to Belarus’s workers.

U.S. imperialist and fascist hands off Belarus!

MAKE CORPORATE LANDLORDS PAY FOR HOUSING CRISIS

By Sofia Lopez and Sara Myklebust, Inequality.August 18, 2020

https://popularresistance.org/make-corporate-landlords-pay-for-housing-crisis/

The Covid-19 crisis has both exposed and exacerbated racial and wealth inequality in the United States. As unemployment skyrockets and tens of millions of Americans struggle with a sudden loss of income, many are unable to pay rents or mortgages and are facing eviction, foreclosure, and possible homelessness.

We’ve seen this eviction crisis brewing for months, and despite platitudes about racial justice, our elected officials and corporate landlords haven’t taken any meaningful action to prevent it from hitting poor people of color hardest.

Latinx and Black workers have been hit hardest by job losses and are more likely to suffer evictions. In July 2020, Latinx unemployment was 12.9 percent, and Black unemployment was 14.6 percent, compared to 9.2 percent for white Americans. Given this, it’s not surprising that an Urban Institute analysis of U.S. Census survey data indicates about 44 percent and 41 percent of adult Latinx and Black renters, respectively, had little to no confidence they could pay next month’s rent, compared with about 21 percent of white renters who felt the same.

These job losses and higher eviction risk in addition to historic housing segregation and environmental racism, have contributed to greater risk of contracting Covid-19 for communities of color.

While so many of us struggle to survive, some of the richest billionaires in the world dominate the residential real estate industry in the United States. These corporate landlords are companies owned by extremely wealthy individuals, Wall Street entities like private equity firms and hedge funds, and institutional investors. At least six leading residential property owners — Essex Property Trust, Brookfield Property Partners, Equity Residential, Related Companies, Irvine Company, and Blackstone — have top executives on the Forbes billionaires list.


Other prominent corporate landlords include Kushner Companies, Mosser Capital, Starwood Capital, and CBRE. Across the country, these companies own large apartment complexes, office buildings, hotels, single-family homes, and a significant chunk of our mortgage debt. Corporate landlords do not pay their fair share in taxes at the local, state or federal level. Here’s why: for decades, they have successfully lobbied City Halls, state legislatures, and Congress to put their needs first, to create loopholes, special statuses, corporate welfare programs and other schemes to avoid taxes and regulation and boost their profits.

Amid the current crisis, some of these obscenely wealthy companies and individuals, many of which profited immensely during the Great Recession, are lobbying aggressively for taxpayer-funded assistance programs and making plans to exploit the pain of so many to grow even wealthier.
It’s Time To Make Them Pay

With millions of tenants, homeowners, and small property owners struggling to survive during the Covid-19 pandemic, hundreds of thousands of tenants, organized by low-income people of color, are taking action across the country to demand that Congress and state governments act immediately to require corporate landlords to pay for the cancellation of rent, mortgages, and utilities, and to provide financial relief to small property owners facing foreclosure.

These corporations are sitting on billions of dollars and will keep getting richer through tax breaks and giveaways, including in the federal stimulus packages. They can easily afford to cancel monthly housing-related expenses and debts for millions of Americans whose jobs and incomes have been destroyed by Covid-19. Making them pay will help stabilize the housing market, the national economy, and communities across the country. Relief can’t come soon enough.

This is the fairest and most pragmatic way to address the financial crisis that so many households face right now. It’s likely that many Americans will have no ability to pay rent, mortgages, and utilities for the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic. Those who can’t afford housing-related costs today won’t be able to afford them for the foreseeable future.

Well before the Covid-19 crisis hit, many American households, especially households of color, were spending huge proportions of their income on housing, leaving little left over for other necessities, and nothing for savings. For example, one in four Black households spent more than half their income on housing (compared to one in ten white households). Many cities were already experiencing housing affordability crises, with renters and owners struggling to pay rents and mortgages and homelessness skyrocketing, while corporate landlords and lenders prospered. The pandemic is turning the housing affordability crisis into a national catastrophe.

That’s why the full cancellation of housing-related expenses and debt is so important. Low-income Americans can’t afford to stay home from work, even if they’re feeling sick, unless their rent, mortgages, and utilities are canceled. And if low-income and unemployed people lose their homes to eviction or foreclosure, they will not be able to “stay home” at all.
Corporate Landlords Must Provide The Relief Millions Need

With Congress deadlocked on a new stimulus package, President Trump attempted to give the impression that he’d taken executive action to extend the current eviction moratorium. In reality, his memorandum merely directs federal agencies to “consider” measures to prevent evictions.

But even extending the moratorium wouldn’t be enough. Moratoriums do not alleviate the growing financial burden of unpaid rent, mortgage, utility, and other housing-related bills that will come due in the near future.

Tenants are demanding that Congress and state governments instead make corporate landlords pay for the cancellation of all housing-related expenses incurred during this pandemic, so households — and the economy more generally — can begin to recover financially. That’s the real policy response and solution to the current crisis. Anything short of full cancellation will continue to trigger mass evictions and an explosion in predatory debt, both of which hit communities of color hardest before Covid-19, and will only be compounded. And wealthy corporate landlords can afford it.
Federal Handouts And Giveaways To Corporate Landlords

The largest corporate landlords have siphoned money out of public budgets at all levels of government and are using Covid-19 as an opportunity to expand their riches even further.

The stimulus package Congress passed in March gives $170 billion in immediate tax benefits to real estate and millionaires. The CARES Act permits all businesses’ losses to be carried back — which allows immediate tax refunds — for five years from 2018, 2019, and 2020. Losses carried back to years before 2018 will generate refunds of already paid income taxes at the older, higher rates — previously 35 percent maximum for corporations (compared to current 21 percent) and 39.6 percent maximum for individuals (37 percent today).

The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimates that owners of pass-through businesses will receive $170 billion in tax benefits over the next 10 years. For 2020, the JCT estimates that roughly 43,000 taxpayers with at least $1 million in annual income will reap 82 percent of the benefits, with an average tax cut of more than $1.6 million. Which millionaires will come out on top? According to the Tax Policy Center, the key groups include real estate professionals and hedge fund investors, including developers — in other words, corporate landlords.

Real estate companies had already received nearly $50 billion from President Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). The TCJA allowed real estate investors to deduct 20 percent of pass-through business income to lower the effective tax rate on income if they have sufficient real estate assets. This benefits real estate companies as well as those investing in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Experts estimate this is worth $29 billion over the next 10 years.

The TCJA also created “opportunity zones” — zip codes where one can invest capital gains in real estate and businesses through designated opportunity funds and receive huge tax breaks. The tax cut was purportedly aimed at fostering economic rejuvenation of lower income areas but was so poorly designed and implemented that it provides tax breaks for developments that were already underway or in rapidly gentrifying areas, including corporate landlords like Related Companies and Stephen Ross. Real estate firms and developers are raising up to $5 billion for each opportunity fund and the JCT estimates opportunity zones will cost $3.5 billion a year from 2019 through 2022, for a total of $14 billion over those 4 years.

The TCJA also allowed real estate investors to deduct all of their interest payments on buildings from their income while other large businesses could only deduct 30 percent of their interest payments. Experts estimate this tax break is worth $16 billion over the next 10 years.

Even before the corporate tax giveaway of 2017, the federal tax code included real estate industry tax benefits that are worth nearly $250 billion over the next 10 years. For example, real estate investors have a special loophole, “like-kind exchanges,” to avoid paying capital gains taxes on profits from the sale of assets as long as these profits were reinvested in comparable assets. Essentially, profits from the sale of a building can be used to buy another building without paying any taxes. Experts believe this tax break is worth almost $134 billion over the next 10 years.

In 1986, tax reform prohibited businesses from investing in other business which generated losses in order to reduce their income for tax purposes. But in 1993, the real estate industry lobbied to exempt rental income from these passive loss rules, creating a tax benefit for these “money-losing” real estate investments. The Treasury estimates this tax break is worth $79 billion over 10 years.

Businesses can depreciate assets that lose value over time as the assets age, reflecting the declining value of things like machinery or vehicles. Real estate investors can depreciate their assets and reduce their taxes even though real estate values often rise over time, especially in more expensive or rising markets. This depreciation is counted against the value of the property when it is sold, reducing the capital gains taxes. The JCT estimates rental and other real estate at $21 billion over 5 years.

With a standard corporate structure, the government levies taxes twice—on the corporation’s profits and on employees’ incomes. But nearly all real estate operations are run through limited liability corporations (LLCs), which are allowed to pass profits to the owners who then pay income taxes on the money, while the corporation does not pay any taxes on the money at all.

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), created in the 1980s to encourage investment in real estate, are also treated as pass-through entities for tax purposes, which means they pay no corporate taxes in exchange for paying 90 percent of their taxable income to shareholders as dividends. As described above, the TCJA also allowed those that do have to pay tax on this “income” to deduct 20 percent.
State And Local Giveaways To Corporate Landlords

Many federal tax breaks for real estate firms have already been or will be enacted at the state level as well. For example, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) describes how, because nearly all states piggyback on the federal tax code’s definition of “gross income,” the opportunity zone tax breaks outlined above will automatically flow through to state individual and corporate income taxes unless states proactively “decouple” their law from these provisions. Corporate landlords and real estate investors are likely to see billions more at the state level from the giveaways described above, as well as others they have lobbied to create in each state.

Corporate landlords frequently also benefit from Tax Increment Financing (TIF), Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT), bonding, and other schemes at the municipal and local level connected both to single projects and broader development work. One example of this is Related Companies’ Hudson Yards in New York City. Research shows that Related’s project cost the city $2.2 billion, through a combination of subsidies, including over $350 million in property tax breaks for residential developers.

The tax breaks and schemes described above are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the myriad ways that corporate landlords, real estate investors, private equity and financial actors are and will continue to profit off the rental housing market in the U.S. Debt and mortgages are other key areas the industry exploits, including through government-financed agencies and programs, to maximize profit margins. These schemes are all the more galling in a moment when people don’t have enough money just to make ends meet and are being forced from their homes as a result.
Using Covid-19 As An Opportunity To Seek Billions More In Tax Breaks And Giveaways For Corporate Landlords

On top of these many handouts, industry lobbyists are using Covid-19 to ask for even more support. The National Multifamily Housing Council and National Apartment Association, which corporate landlords dominate, are pushing their wish-list of measures, including taxpayer-funded rental assistance, narrowing the already limited eviction moratorium criteria, expanding Payment Protection Program eligibility to all multifamily businesses, including the largest corporate landlords, and increasing tax relief for all multifamily residential businesses, which could go to corporate landlords that clearly don’t need it.

Their pitch also calls for expanding low-income housing tax credits, creating middle-income housing tax credits, increasing the breadth of opportunity zones, and enacting legislation to clear regulatory barriers for construction of more multi-family housing irrespective of cost. All of these would be immensely lucrative for the industry overall and corporate landlords in particular. They are examples of the broken “trickle-down” housing models that enrich those dominating residential real estate while exploiting our racialized housing system, hurting workers and families, and putting communities at risk across the country.
How Corporate Landlords Are Planning To Capitalize On Covid-19

Corporate landlords amassed enormous fortunes during the Great Recession and are now expressing excitement about the potential for profiteering post-pandemic. The president of a division of Fortress Investment Group said of the coming pain, “It’s kind of exciting times. I mean, this is what you live for.” These landlords certainly have the resources to exploit this new crisis—according to the Wall Street Journal, at the end of December 2019, real estate investment funds had $142 billion ready to spend on distressed and opportunistic real estate investments.

The Blackstone Group, Inc., Brookfield Asset Management, and Starwood Capital Group are “sitting on billions of dollars in cash and capital commitments they have raised from pensions, sovereign wealth funds and other big institutions” as the industry eyes hotels, retail properties, mortgage backed securities, and defaulting borrowers. On a 2020 Q1 Earnings call, Starwood Capital CEO Barry Stenlicht said, “when it’s really ugly, it’s a good time to invest.” Blackstone raised the largest commercial real estate fund ever in September with $20.5 billion, and as of December 2019 Brookfield held $15 billion.

People within the industry are saying “many [real estate investors] have been waiting for this for a decade.” The Kushner family has announced they are putting together a fund through Cadre, their real estate investment vehicle, to take advantage of “opportunities” during the pandemic. While Jared Kushner himself formally divested from the fund in February of 2020, it’s clear that a prominent corporate landlord with very close ties to the White House is gearing up to profit from the crisis and its effect on the real estate market.

The U.S. real estate industry is led by some of the richest, most powerful people in the world. They have profited handsomely from the last foreclosure crisis, the commodification of housing, and decades of racist housing policy, all while actively lobbying to avoid paying their fair share in taxes. The Covid-19 pandemic has magnified what we already knew: Corporate landlords’ bill is long past due. It’s time to make them pay for the cancellation of rent, mortgages, and utilities for the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic. Making them pay will help millions of tenants, homeowners, and struggling property owners who are struggling to survive.

BOLIVIA: THE SCREAM OF ÁÑEZ OUT!

By Ángel Guerra Cabrera, La Jornada.

August 18, 2020

https://popularresistance.org/bolivia-the-scream-of-anez-out/




Áñez Out is the main demand of the current popular protest mobilization in Bolivia. Barely a week ago the demand was: Elections, now! That was calling for September 6, agreed date by the political organizations and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), for the elections to be held. That was at the time against the new postponement of the elections for October 18 adopted by the TSE, which was the third one, with the excuse of protecting the population against the coronavirus, without having carried out any consultation with the political forces and the popular movement.

Since I wrote in La Jornada on July 30 against the postponement of the election act, a mobilization and open town hall was called in the city of El Alto by the Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB) and the Unity Pact (which brings together the peasant and indigenous social movements), which gave the TSE 72 hours to reopen the election on September 6 or else a general strike and road blockades would be declared until their request was granted.

On July 3, the measures announced by the COB and the social movements were implemented, and despite having met for hours with the electoral body, they have not managed to get the latter to advance the date of the elections. The president of the TSE has so far obeyed Áñez’s orders. The bases of the COB, the Unity Pact and other social forces feel ignored by the Áñez government, which is infuriating them because of the evident intention of the self-proclaimed to perpetuate herself in power, having dismantled and plundered the public companies, arbitrarily closing the school year and for its disastrous handling of the pandemic by disregarding the advice of the Medical Association, including a shortage of basic medicines and scandalous corruption in health purchases, such as 500 ventilators that no one seems to know where they are.

It should be recalled that Áñez proclaimed herself “interim” president, in violation of constitutional law, on November 12, 2019, but later agreed to pursue a peace agenda and call for elections on May 5, 2020. Let’s remember since then there have been three postponements on the pretext of the pandemic.

How was the coup d’état that enthroned Áñez forged? The United States and the local right-wing carried out a series of actions, before and after the October 2019 elections, to make a part of the urban population believe, through a delirious national and international media campaign, that the elections would be fraudulent and to encourage anti-indigenous racism in the urban middle classes and, consequently, demonize the leadership of Evo Morales.

Later on, they allowed Luis Almagro, OAS Secretary General, to throw a veil of doubt over the transparency of the electoral process and to demand that new elections be held. Accepted by Evo, despite knowing that it was an action of the empire to bring down his process of change, but in an attempt to cut the spiral of savage violence that the right had launched against officials of his government and their families. But the coup d’état was already unstoppable, organized by powerful local economic and geopolitical interests and the empire of the north eager to end an independent, prosperous and socially just Bolivia and to take over its natural resources, including its coveted lithium. They had the support of the police and especially the army, whose chiefs literally bought them with a million dollars. This ensured violent repression by the military of the indigenous and peasant opposition to the coup and led to the bloody massacres in Senkata and Sacaba.

The current situation is very explosive as the Áñez regime is extremely weakened by all that has already been said. So much so, that the lady has not yet signed the decree that the commander of the armed forces is demanding in order to act against the protests. On Wednesday it was announced that the political forces, including the majority MAS of Evo Morales, had agreed to approve a law in the Senate and Chamber of Deputies fixing the elections until October 18, at the latest, as the only and definitive date, with the participation of observers from the UN, the European Union, the Ombudsman’s Office and other national organizations. If this were to be approved, it would be necessary to know the opinion of the COB and of the forces that are in the blockades, with which this solution would have to be negotiated, since up to now many people are still demanding Áñez’s resignation.

Isolated and delegitimized, she does not control the situation. The problem for Washington and the Bolivian right is that, according to the polls, Luis Arce, the MAS candidate, would win the election in the first round, unless he is invalidated to compete. A waiting period has begun where the possibility of a civil-military self-coup is not excluded, as Evo Morales has warned.

The Democratic Platform and Medicare for All: A Nod Is as Good as a Wink (To a Blind Horse)

Medicare for All has won the battle of ideas. Now we have to win the battle against entrenched economic and political power.

August 18, 2020 Mark Dudzic COMMON DREAMS

https://portside.org/2020-08-18/democratic-platform-and-medicare-all-nod-good-wink-blind-horse

Whenever our overcoat is ragged

you come running up and say: this can’t continue,
you must be helped in every possible manner.
And, full of zeal, you run off to the bosses
while we who freeze are waiting.
And you come back and in triumph
show us what you have won for us:
a little patch.

—Bertolt Brecht

I’ve spent a good part of the last forty years in the trenches as a union organizer and union rep. Believe me, I know that there are many circumstances in which the best that you can hope for is a little patch. But this is not one of those times. We are enmeshed in one of those unique historic moments where systemic crisis and emerging popular movements have generated the possibility of transformative change. I am convinced that a Democratic candidate who ran on a Medicare for All platform could have defeated Donald Trump and set the stage for an administration that opened up new possibilities to advance the interests and concerns of working class Americans.

Sadly, the draft Democratic Platform fails to rise to this historic moment. The draft platform was overwhelmingly approved by the Platform Committee, which rejected an amendment to add Medicare for All. All four national union presidents on the Platform Committee—including the presidents of three unions that had endorsed the Medicare for All Act of 2019—voted against the amendment. The Platform is slated to be approved at this week’s Democratic Convention, although a significant number of delegates have vowed to vote against it.While party platforms are often ignored in the heat of political campaigns and rarely serve as a guide for governance for victorious candidates, it is important for the future strategic orientation of the Medicare for All movement to reflect on why it is so hard to win even a symbolic concession on this issue from the Democratic establishment.

In announcing his intention to vote against the Democratic Platform, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said, “…history teaches us that the Democratic Party has sometimes faced an issue so great that it alone should be the yardstick for measuring the wisdom of voting for or against the platform. This is one of those times.” The reason this defeat is so significant is because Medicare for All has become the defining issue between those who advocate for a progressive working class politics and those who seek to restore the neoliberal status quo ante Trump. As radio host Kyle Kulinski tweeted in response to the defeated platform amendment, “History will not judge this kindly.It’s like opposing the New Deal during the great depression. Unforgivable.”

What Good Is a Nod and a Wink?

It is true that the platform states that, “ We are proud that our party welcomes advocates who want to build on and strengthen the Affordable Care Act and those who support a Medicare for All approach.” Some progressives view this as a victory. The HuffPost proclaimed that, “Medicare for All Gets Nod In Democratic Platform for First Time Ever”. And Politico quoted the Sanders campaign political director, Analilia Mejia as saying, “Support for Medicare for All has never been mentioned in a Democratic Party platform. Its inclusion now is significant.” (While technically true—because they did not call it Medicare for All back in the day—it should be pointed out that robust support for “national health insurance” embodying the same principles as current Medicare for All legislative proposals was a regular part of Democratic Party platforms from the New Deal through 1980.)

This concession is weak tea indeed considering the depth of the crisis we are now in and the concomitant paradigm shift in Americans’ thinking about healthcare. Our for-profit, commodified healthcare system has proven woefully inadequate in the face of the worst public health disaster in over a century. The resulting economic crisis has accelerated the meltdown of our employment-based health insurance system. Workers will not soon forget how precarious their shrinking healthcare benefits really are. And the Black Lives Matter uprisings have brought to the fore the racial disparities that undergird the industrialized world’s most unequal healthcare system. Democratic primary voters overwhelmingly supported Medicare for All regardless of what candidate they voted for. A more recent poll conducted at the peak of the COVID pandemic pegged overall support at 68% with even 46% of Republicans supporting. So please excuse me for refusing to celebrate the nod and wink to the Medicare for All foot soldiers who will now be expected to do what it takes to elect a Democratic nominee who, at one point in the primary cycle, suggested he would veto Medicare for All legislation.

Don’t get me wrong. I fully understand the existential threat posed by the incompetent, authoritarian, racist madman in the White House. Come Labor Day I will do my part to work for his defeat. But first let’s take a moment to lament what could have been and figure out what needs to be done to advance the fight for healthcare justice in 2021 and beyond.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The draft Democratic Platform's healthcare provisions contain a number of substantial policy proposals worthy of support. It calls for a massive expansion of community health centers and rural clinics, greater access to mental health and substance abuse treatment, improvements in long term care and it proposes a workaround to cover the working poor ineligible for Medicaid because of their state’s refusal to accept federal funding for ACA Medicaid expansion. It would fully fund the Indian Health Service and it asserts all healthcare workers’ right to a living wage and to bargain collectively free from employer coercion.

Consistent with the Democratic Party’s historic stance on these issues, the Platform reaffirms support for the full range of reproductive health services, including access to abortion. It also proclaims the Party’s commitment to address the healthcare needs of the LGBTQ communities. It stakes out a strong position on ending price gouging by Big Pharma by calling for drug price negotiation authority for all public and private purchases and a crackdown on anti-competitive behavior “by any means available.”

It also includes some puzzling provisions that seem to indicate either a lack of understanding of healthcare policy or a deliberate attempt to undermine the very proposals it claims to be advocating. For example, it repeats Joe Biden’s campaign plank to lower the eligibility age for Medicare down to age 60 but then treats Medicare as if it were just another insurance product by making it one “choice” that older Americans would be allowed to make. And it appears to view racial disparities as a problem caused by its victims’ lack of adequate knowledge rather than the result of systemic inequalities baked into the healthcare system (“To help close the persistent racial gap in insurance rates, Democrats will expand funding for Affordable Care Act outreach and enrollment programs so every American knows their options for securing quality, affordable coverage.”)

One modest concession to single-payer aspirations is the Platform’s support for enhanced innovation waivers to remove “barriers to states that seek to experiment with statewide universal healthcare approaches.” A generous reading of this section might indicate that a Biden administration would support a single-payer-style reform such as the pending proposals in New York, California and other states. But even here the language is vague and fails to mention the actually existing legislative proposal to do just that: Ro Khanna’s State Based Universal Health Care Act.

What's Wrong With a Public Option?

The centerpiece of the Platform—which it claims will finally move us to the promised land of universal coverage—is the pledge to “give all Americans the choice to select a high-quality, affordable public option through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.” Like a bad penny, various iterations of this scheme always show up in corporate Democrats’ playbooks whenever a real Medicare for All solution is gaining momentum. The Platform proposes a fairly “robust” version that would be available to nearly everyone and cap premium costs at 8.5% of household income (although co-pays, deductibles and other out of pocket coasts could add substantial additional expenses).

The public option has been extensively critiqued (including here, here, and here). Suffice it to say that adding an additional public choice in a healthcare “marketplace” perpetuates the commodification of healthcare. There are intrinsic problems when public goods, like healthcare, are treated like commodities. A system designed to accommodate profit seeking and multiple payers can never achieve the efficiencies and cost savings of a social insurance model. Competing health plans with different costs, co-pays and deductibles reinforce inequality and disparity and make a single standard of care unachievable. Commodified health insurance products also generate all kinds of unanticipated consequences including the dreaded “adverse selection” in which decent coverage is undermined by shoddy insurance plans and for-profit insurers game the system by cherry picking the most healthy subscribers and finding ways to dump the sick ones on the hapless public plan.

Adding an additional choice will do nothing to bend the cost curve of the world’s most expensive healthcare system. Nearly all economists concur that Medicare for All would achieve 20%-30% savings because of lower administrative costs and limitations on profit taking. Without those cost savings, we would have to pay “market rates” to expand affordable coverage to the 40+ million uninsured Americans and the 50+ million underinsured ones. No one has even begun to calculate how much those additional costs would be.

Most importantly, the Democratic Platform does nothing to break the continued linkage of health insurance to employment. This failing system deprives working class Americans of the healthcare security that they want and deserve and is a major driver of wage stagnation. To seek to sustain such a system at a time when one million workers a week are losing their jobs—and hence any possibility to access employer-paid health coverage—is an indefensible failure of vision.


The stress test of the COVID pandemic has exposed all of the flaws of our dysfunctional healthcare system. It failed us at the time when we needed it the most. Reality calls for transformative change. The Democratic Platform offers up a few patches.

Fight for What We Want, Not What We Think We Can Get

I’m willing to bet that nearly all of the 125 DNC Platform Committee members who voted against the Medicare for All amendment would agree that a single payer Medicare for All system would cost less, cover more and deliver better healthcare. But they would maintain that Medicare for All is not politically feasible. Their mantra is, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” In effect, they are saying that the power of the medical industrial complex is so great that it can forever stifle the clearly articulated political will of the majority of the American people who support a demonstrably superior healthcare system.

The problem with this, as any shop steward who ever sat across the table from a boss knows, is that when you start negotiating by conceding your opponent’s points, you have nowhere to go but downhill. Frederick Douglass had it right: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you will find out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.”

Proponents of this approach believe that clever policy proposals will somehow get us to healthcare for all without the necessity of an all out fight. They are like Douglass’ sunshine soldiers who “want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.” But, as the history of the Affordable Care Act shows, once single-payer is taken off the table, the medical industrial complex will move to gut the public option and any restrictions on insurance and big pharma profits.

The Pathway to Victory


Michael Lighty, the mover of the Medicare for All amendment at both the 2016 and 2020 DNC platform hearings, said at this year's hearing, “It’s vital that we meet this moment that demands health justice and Medicare for All to address the health inequities exposed by the COVID 19 pandemic…Nobel Prize winning economist Angus Deaton has said has said that private insurance financing is an engine of inequality in our system…We cannot solve it with a public option.”

Medicare for All has won the battle of ideas. Now we have to win the battle against entrenched economic and political power. This fight won’t be made any easier by harboring illusions that we can somehow compromise our way to victory. Every country in the world that recognizes healthcare as a right for all of its citizens did so in response to a powerful working class movement backed by unions and grassroots organizations.

In the U.S., the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 was driven by an alliance between the labor movement and the civil rights movement. It was seen as the first down payment on the social and economic justice principles embodied in the Freedom Budget proposed by A. Phillip Randolph and Bayard Rustin. Our task today is to construct a similar movement that sees Medicare for all as the tip of the wedge in a broader fight for social and economic justice.

Such a movement will come together not in alliance with a deeply compromised Democratic establishment but in opposition to it. Labor must be central to this movement and part of our challenge is to work to extract union officials from their instrumental relationships with the Democratic Party. Likewise the movements for racial justice must contend with a Black political and managerial class that has made its own peace with neoliberalism.

Arguably these tasks will be somewhat easier when the country is not facing the stark political choice between barbarism and civilization. Furthermore the unfolding economic and public health crises will continue to thwart any return to normalcy. A newly installed Biden administration will face intense pressure to embrace an austerity program that will create immediate fissures in his electoral coalition and new opportunities for working class politics. These tensions cannot be papered over. This is why I am convinced that Medicare for All will continue to drive the political agenda no matter what the Democratic Platform or the Biden campaign has to say about it.

Let's Take Them at Their Word

So the Democratic Party “welcomes advocates of a Medicare for All approach”? Well then, why don’t we take them at their word?

We will do our part in working to drive this murderous regime from the White House.

We will work to turn this election into a referendum on the right of all Americans to healthcare. We will promote congressional and state-level candidates who have pledged to support real healthcare reform. We will continue to support robust social insurance fixes to the ongoing pandemic and economic crises such as the Health Care Emergency Guarantee Act.

On Election Day we will celebrate the defeat of Trump and work to excise Trumpism’s corrupting influences on our political institutions and civil society. And on Inauguration Day we will raise the flag of Medicare for All as the rallying cry for a new movement for social and economic justice.

How We Could Wind Up Banned from Discussing an October Surprise on Social Media this Election

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/08/18/how-we-could-wind-up-banned-from-discussing-an-october-surprise-on-social-media-this-election/







By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com

In what it calls an effort to make itself “a more reliable source for election-related news and information,” YouTube has announced that it will be removing “content that contains hacked information, the disclosure of which may interfere with democratic processes, such as elections and censuses.”

“For example, videos that contain hacked information about a political candidate shared with the intent to interfere in an election,” adds the Google-owned video sharing platform.




This by itself is an alarming assault on human communication and press freedom. If there is authentic information out there about either of the candidates who are up for the most powerful elected position on the planet, the world is entitled to know about it, regardless of how that information was acquired. Monopolistic tech oligarchs have no business barring us from learning about and discussing that information.

Immensely powerful people should not be permitted to have secrets from the public anyway. The amount of power one has should be directly inverse to the amount of secrecy they are permitted to have. If you’re anywhere near the presidency of the United States of America, the secrecy you are entitled to should be zero.

Our Information

If a hacker is able to get ahold of accurate information about Donald Trump or Joe Biden, that information is ours. We’re entitled to it. Anyone who tries to obstruct our access to that information is stealing from us. It’s absolutely ridiculous that we have a society where people are permitted to both rule over us and keep secrets from us as it is without government-aligned tech plutocrats silencing our attempts to learn what those secrets might be.

Moreover, no YouTube moderator will be in any position to definitively say whether most information that comes out is hacked. They’d only be able to do what the mass media did with the 2016 WikiLeaks drops and cite unproven assertions by opaque intelligence agencies who have a proven track record of lying, assertions which turned out to be far more dubious than most Americans realize. Documents or video could be leaked about a candidate and U.S. intelligence agencies could just declare it a “hack” and have any YouTube videos about it immediately censored.

As Alan MacLeod explains for MintPress News:


“[T]he great majority of leaked information — the lifeblood of investigative journalism — is anonymous. Often, like in the cases of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning or Reality Winner, whistleblowers face serious consequences if their names become attached to documents exposing government or corporate malfeasance. But without a name to go with a document, the difference between leaked data and hacked data is impossible to define. Thus, powerful people and organizations could claim data was hacked, rather than leaked, and simply block all discussion of the matter on the platform.”




So, this in and of itself is an outrage. But the way things are playing out it could wind up being a lot worse if damning information about a candidate surfaces prior to the November election.

Censorship Trend

We already know from experience that social media giants tend to follow in each other’s footsteps whenever there’s a significant step in the direction of censorship, like their coordinated cross-platform removals of alternative media outlets, accounts from US-targeted nations, and people who have been labeled “conspiracy theorists.”

There’s already reason to be concerned that YouTube’s new attack on press freedoms will spread to social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook. Add in the fact that these platforms are openly coordinating with each other and with the U.S. government to silence speech deemed “online meddling” and “election interference” and it looks a lot more likely.

The New York Times published an article last week headlined “Google, Facebook and Others Form Tech Coalition to Secure U.S. Election,” later changed to “Google, Facebook and Others Broaden Group to Secure U.S. Election.”

“Facebook, Google and other major tech companies said on Wednesday that they had added new partners and met with government agencies in their efforts to secure the November election,” NYT reports. “The group, which is seeking to prevent the kind of online meddling and foreign interference that sullied the 2016 presidential election, previously consisted of some of the large social media firms, including Twitter and Microsoft in addition to Facebook and Google. Among the new participants is the Wikimedia Foundation.”




So, if information emerges about a candidate in an “October surprise” in a way that can be credibly spun as a “hack” as the 2016 WikiLeaks drops were, it’s entirely likely that we will see some interference in people’s ability to communicate about it on not just one but multiple social media platforms. How much communication interference we’d be subjected to is unknown at this time, but it certainly looks like there are measures in place to at least implement some under certain circumstances.

Imagine if documents or video footage were posted online somewhere and we’d get blocked from sharing its URLs on Facebook or suspended for posting screenshots of it on Twitter. The way iron-fisted censorship practices are already unfolding, it’s a possibility that looks not at all remote.

Anyway, something to be on alert for.

Britain: Tories forced to u-turn after wave of student protests

Jack Tye Wilson18 August 2020

http://www.marxist.com/britain-tories-forced-to-u-turn-after-wave-of-student-protests.htm

After a weekend of militant protests and online campaigning against the A-level results fiasco, the government has backed down, scrapping the infamous ‘algorithm grades’ for both A-Level and GCSE students. This represents a victory for young people. But their anger will not subside so easily.

In the immediate aftermath of the exams fiasco – which saw close to 40% of A-level grades in England downgraded from their teachers’ predictions – Tory education secretary Gavin Williamson dug his heels in.

Williamson’s immediate response was to defend the grading system as the “fairest possible way” to assess students. Later, on Saturday, he stubbornly declared that there would be “no U-turn” and “no change”.

But pressure from below has today resulted in a “screeching U-turn”. Now, many young people are demanding that the Education Secretary be sacked for the disruption and dismay he has caused. Hashtags like #DowngradeGavin have been trending on social media.

Backed into a corner

As students gathered in their thousands in a number of cities over the weekend, the cracks began to show in the ranks of the Conservative Party. Over 20 Tory MPs raised concerns about the grading system, and Tory MP Simon Hoare said that the situation was “beyond a joke” and “smacks of naive incompetence”.

Even members of Ofqual – England’s exams regulator – were denouncing their own algorithm! Sources from the exam ‘watchdog’ rightly pointed out that their grading system had led to a “hemorrhaging of public trust”. They urged Downing Street to follow Scotland’s lead and scrap the calculated grades altogether.

Boris Johnson responded to the situation in his typical fumbling manner. The Prime Minister declared that both Ofqual and Williamson had his full support – despite each being at loggerheads with the other!

Under fire from all sides, the government had no choice but to back down. This U-turn serves to show the immense power that young people have when they organise, take to the street, and make their voices heard.

The chair of Ofqual, Roger Taylor, even admitted as much in his grovelling apology on BBC News. “What changed was seeing young peoples' distress and anxiety” Taylor stated. “Seeing this we realised we had taken the wrong road.”
Militancy pays!

It should come as no surprise that the systematic downgrading of students led to unfathomable levels of anxiety and distress. But far from this cowering students, these anxieties about the future – and an already seething resentment towards the Tories – exploded into hardened struggle.

Despite protests being called at the last minute, thousands gathered outside of the Department of Education HQ in Whitehall over the weekend. Chants of “justice for the working class” and “fuck the system” filled the streets. Student networks coordinating protests have since mushroomed.

This display of anger shows that young people see straight through the claims that this was simply a ‘mistake’ or a problem with this or that grading system. The class nature of this latest injustice is plain for all to see. This debacle is the product of a deeply classist education system, which is set up to fail working-class youth.

Inequalities in education

The education system ultimately reflects the needs of the capitalist system. Private schools simply would not exist if they did not confer an advantage onto those that come from more affluent backgrounds.

Similarly, those students that are set up to fail – year in year out – are what is required to keep the so-called ‘unskilled’ workforce in precarious, poorly-paid employment.

This reversal does nothing to address the deep-seated inequality in Britain's classrooms. Indeed, this Tory U-turn itself reveals the problems at the heart of the education system, as BTECs and other vocational qualifications are not included in the government’s latest decision.

We must demand that no student is left behind. The fact that the grading algorithm had to factor in attainment gaps between schools in the first place is a damning indictment of a broken system.


The truth is that the class divide begins at birth – and widens with every hurdle that the working class faces in order to achieve the same opportunities as those born into wealth.

After years of cuts, severe underfunding, and ever-inflating classroom sizes in state schools, the Tories would be mistaken to think they can wash their hands clean with one rushed policy change and a hollow apology.

And let us not forget that Centre Assessed Grades are far from immune to the biases that were present in the algorithm grades. Teachers from state schools are often pressured into not predicting grades that are ‘too high’ for their students. As a result, classism will inevitably remain present, even with the grades that students will now receive.

There is still much to be done to uproot the class divide in our schools. Ultimately, under capitalism, working-class students will always be at a disadvantage.

But this scandal has opened many people’s eyes to the fact that meritocracy is a myth – that hard work is not enough to overcome the systemic inequalities facing the working class.
Join the Marxists!

These latest events are another potent blow against this chaotic Tory government. And this, in turn, should give confidence to activists looking to fight back.

Young people – often a reliable barometer for the moods in society – have seen the power they possess by taking to the streets and demanding an end to injustice. This must now be a spark for a wider movement of workers and youth, against this rotten Tory government and their entire rigged system.

If this is what can be achieved with a weekend of hastily-arranged demonstrations, imagine what could be achieved if students joined up with the organised working class to create a mass fighting force.

We must continue the fightback against the ravaging cuts that have been carried out against our class. The first step must be to reach out to the teacher’s unions and labour movement at large. After all, teachers have already been on the frontline in the battle against Tory recklessness. And today’s students are tomorrow’s workers.

The measure of any decent society is the way it is able to nurture and prepare the next generation. A society that cannot offer young people a future is fundamentally flawed.

In the last instance, that is the lived and crushing experience of students and young workers today. With the recent NEU campaigning and UCU strike action as a backdrop, students are realising that organised, united, and militant struggle is our most powerful weapon.

The struggle for a free and fair education system – one that does away with classism and competition – is inextricably tied to the struggle for socialism. That is what the Marxist Student Federation is fighting for. Join us in the fightback!