https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBPG-GXkO7k&ab_channel=TheRationalNational
Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Labour’s ouster of MP Jeremy Corbyn aims to crush criticism of Israel
https://www.workers.org/2020/11/52161/
By Susan Abulhawa posted on November 3, 2020
Member of Parliament and former leader of the Labour Party (2015-2020), Jeremy Corbyn was ousted from his own party by its new leader, Keir Starmer, who has clearly allied with right-wing and neoliberal forces to destroy the socialist left in Britain and beyond.
While Workers World Party has disagreed with Corbyn on some of his political positions in the past, we recognize that he has been the target of a witch hunt meant to crush antiestablishment and anti-imperialist positions — particularly those that aim to hold Israel accountable for what has been called “incremental genocide” of the Palestinian population, whose homeland is the Holy Land.
Jeremy Corbyn has been a Member of Parliament since 1983, representing Islington North with consistent leftist, anti-imperialist and pro-working-class positions throughout his political career. His meteoric rise to the leadership of the Labour Party in 2015 in a 60% landslide victory against three other candidates shook up the establishment ruling class in Britain. The Sept. 12 Guardian newspaper described Corbyn as “one of the most left-wing, antiestablishment leaders in [Labour’s] history.”
Corbyn’s emphasis on protecting the working class, opposing the war industry and holding the powerful accountable for their crimes made him a target of right-wing and neoliberal forces that are loath to see empowerment of the masses. In particular, Corbyn became a target after he made a move to end arms sales to Israel, as a minimal measure of solidarity with Indigenous Palestinians who are fighting an existential struggle for their survival.
Workers World Party rejects the unfounded allegations of anti-Semitism against Corbyn. We have seen similar tactics used here in the United States against leaders who fight alongside the masses for the right to live dignified lives — including those who stand in solidarity with Indigenous Palestinians in their struggle for self determination.
How COVID-19 reveals inequalities in the U.S. economy
https://www.workers.org/2020/11/52175/
By G. Dunkel posted on November 3, 2020
The Trump administration has admitted it has no plan to get COVID-19 under control. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told CNN Oct. 25 that “We are not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas.”
This a very risky strategy, given that the vaccines and therapeutics don’t yet exist. What Meadows is really saying is more workers will be risking their lives as they are forced back to work to make ends meet, and the government will do nothing to help them. The workers facing the greatest challenge are those who started with the lowest wages and those who face systemic oppression. That’s what the statistics reveal.
Workers in the U.S. have faced unemployment rates as high as 14.9% in 2020. In September it was 8.9% for all workers — and those rates omit underemployed and discouraged workers.
If you look at unemployment rates for workers of color, as reported by the Current Population Survey, the inequalities jump out: 7.2% for white workers, Latinx workers 11.2%, Black workers 13.2% — almost double the rate for white workers. For all women, the unemployment rate is higher than for men.
A large percentage of Black and Latinx women are concentrated in service and retail jobs and have been hit especially hard. Under the pressures of e-commerce and the pandemic, nearly a million retail workers have lost their jobs, which were low-paying to begin with. Even when restaurants and stores are open, customers stay away out of fear of becoming infected. This creates additional hardship for workers dependent on tips or sales commission.
The lowest-paid workers — with little to no emergency savings — now face the highest unemployment. The number of jobs for workers who were making less than $14 an hour has dropped by 20% since January. The number of jobs paying between $14 and $20 an hour has fallen by almost as much — 16%, while the number of jobs for workers making $32 or more per hour has increased by 2%. (Current Population Survey)
Bosses get richer, workers get sick
While workers are suffering under the lash of unemployment and being forced to take dangerous, low-paid jobs to survive, the rich are getting richer. Google’s third quarter revenue amounted to $46.02 billion, up from $37.99 billion in the preceding quarter. Amazon reported revenue for its third fiscal quarter of 2020 up 37% from 2019, to $96.1 billion.
One area of retail still operating at full capacity is grocery stores, including the Amazon-owned Whole Foods. While their owners are raking in billions in profits, grocery workers still face deadly risks every day — even though the bosses cut off their “hazard bonus” pay.
According to the Washington Post (Aug. 12), “At least 130 U.S. grocery workers have died, and more than 8,200 have tested positive for the novel coronavirus since late March.” Hazard pay or no hazard pay, given the current high unemployment rates, workers are willing to take the jobs.
The big bosses — who know how desperate workers are to put food on the table for their families and keep a roof over their heads — pile on the work, cut hours and force workers to deal with customers without masks who won’t heed social distancing. Some workers are so disgusted at their treatment that they quit mid-shift. But others are so desperate that they come to work sick.
U.S. statistics compared with China’s
The Commerce Department reported that the U.S. output of goods and services, Gross Domestic Product, fell off the cliff in the second quarter (April, May, June). It declined by 9.5%, about $450 billion. This was the biggest percentage decline since 1875. This followed a first quarter decline.
Even after the U.S. GDP grew by 7% in the third quarter, aided by the March stimulus package, the U.S. economy has declined by 3.5% since the beginning of January.
Compare this to China’s growth rate of 1.9% according to the World Bank. China, which has had 4,746 deaths from 91,921 COVID-19 cases according to WHO, has managed to control the pandemic there.
China has exhibited an orderly, scientific and highly organized response on a national scale. China’s government still plans to end poverty before 2021 despite the pandemic. It plans to arrive at a moderately prosperous society for all by 2030 and reach a developed, socialist economy by 2050.
What is clear is that U.S. workers need a new approach to control this pandemic and its economic impact. China might provide a good example of what is needed.
Se genera impulso para huelga general si Trump intenta golpe de estado
https://www.workers.org/2020/11/52172/
By Martha Grevatt posted on November 3, 2020
Un movimiento ha estado creciendo desde la resolución del Consejo Laboral de Rochester del 8 de octubre apoyando una huelga general si Trump se niega a dejar el cargo. Esta audaz iniciativa fue seguida por una resolución similar de la Federación Laboral de Wisconsin Central. Ambos grupos llamaron a la AFL-CIO a lanzar la huelga general para frustrar un golpe de estado derechista, racista y anti obrero de Trump.
Ahora el empuje es para que los trabajadores retengan su trabajo en defensa de sus derechos democráticos básicos. La Federación Laboral del Área Oeste de Massachusetts aprobó una resolución el 19 de octubre para una huelga general y otras “acciones no violentas”, si “Donald Trump y sus partidarios republicanos intentan obstruir, subvertir, sabotear, anular o rechazar un recuento justo y completo de votos presidenciales”. La organizadora de la Federación, Lydia Wood, explicó: “Consideramos que es la herramienta más poderosa que tiene el movimiento”. Hay 30 sindicatos miembros en la federación.
El 21 de octubre, el Consejo Laboral de MLK, que cubre el condado de King alrededor e incluyendo Seattle, resolvió “trabajar con aliados en los movimientos antirracistas, de justicia ambiental, feministas y de los pueblos pobres, así como con los LGBTQ+, las minorías religiosas y las comunidades de inmigrantes para hacer planes de contingencia en respuesta a las acciones antidemocráticas del presidente Trump y sus aliados”.
El consejo resolvió además que “el sindicato MLK tomará medidas para prepararse para una acción no violenta generalizada, incluyendo protestas y paros laborales, coordinando la capacitación de las fuerzas de paz y otros entrenamientos necesarios”. AFSCME Local 304, representando a los trabajadores del estado, había aprobado una resolución dos días antes instando al Consejo a tomar esta posición.
El 20 de octubre, un seminario web para discutir la estrategia de la huelga general presentó a la Presidenta de la Asociación de Auxiliares de Vuelo-CWA, Sara Nelson, una posible candidata a suceder al Presidente de la AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka. Decenas de miles de sindicalistas de base han firmado un compromiso de “defender la democracia” para tomar las calles y cerrar el país, si es necesario para evitar un golpe de estado. La sucursal del área de Detroit del Sindicato de Trabajadores Postales Americanos apeló a sus miembros para que firmaran el compromiso.
Trumka aún no ha tomado una posición sobre los llamados a la huelga general. Pero, como afirma Doreen McGrath, miembro de Portland Electrical Workers (IBEW): “Hay mucha corriente de trabajadores de base que presionan a la dirección del sindicato para que aprueben estas resoluciones.”
Las huelgas generales – paros laborales colectivos que involucran a una gran sección de trabajadores en un área o país en particular – son poco comunes en los Estados Unidos. Además del Primero de Mayo de 2006, las huelgas generales más conocidas tuvieron lugar en Seattle en 1919 y en Minneapolis y San Francisco en 1934. Otras ocurrieron en Terre Haute, Ind., en 1935, Lansing, Mich., en 1937 y Oakland, Calif., en 1946 – todas hace mucho tiempo.
Seguramente vendrán más llamados a “no hacer negocios como de costumbre” si Trump no respeta el voto de los trabajadores y la gente oprimida. Esta huelga general sería una de las pocas huelgas políticas –a diferencia de las huelgas económicas– en la historia laboral de EE.UU. La más reciente fue la huelga masiva de trabajadores inmigrantes el 1 de mayo de 2006. En 1947, 250.000 trabajadores de la industria automotriz abandonaron el trabajo para protestar por la Ley Taft-Hartley, que se oponía a los sindicatos, y que condujo a la destrucción de sindicatos en todo el país en las décadas siguientes. Recientemente, atletas profesionales hicieron una huelga en solidaridad con Black Lives Matter.
Una huelga general en todo el país –o incluso en lugares dispersos– por una crisis política intensificaría la lucha de clases de maneras nunca vistas en décadas.
Remember those who cops shot during mental health crisis
By Princess Harmony posted on November 3, 2020
https://www.workers.org/2020/11/52163/
I’m angry. I’m a mentally ill person tired of seeing people like us die. I’m angry that no matter what we do, police intervene where they are not wanted and not trained and don’t give a damn about us. So many people in the middle of a mental health break have been murdered by police that I can’t list them all. But I hope that people will learn about the thousands I couldn’t write about. And say their names.
Eleanor Bumpurs, in 1984, was scheduled for eviction from her public housing unit, where she refused rent payments to protest maintenance problems. The psychiatrist sent by New York City Housing Authority to speak to her judged her psychotic, unable to care for herself and needing hospitalization.
That Oct. 29, faced with eviction and hospitalization, Bumpers threatened to throw boiling lye at whoever approached. When called for assistance, the New York Police Department Emergency Service Unit, purportedly trained to control emotionally and mentally disturbed individuals, barged into her apartment. They found Bumpurs in her living room holding a 10-inch knife. Instead of seeking to subdue her without violence, officer Stephen Sullivan fired two shots from his 12-gauge shotgun, killing her.
Police killing is part of a pattern of failure that police departments have with the mentally ill, particularly if they are Black and Brown. The numbers themselves should shock: The mentally ill are 16 times more likely to be killed by police than people without mental illness. (Treatment Advocacy Center, December 2015)
Aug. 1, 2016. In Randallstown, Md., police came to Korryn Gaines’s home to serve a warrant for a traffic violation. According to the Washington Post, Gaines suffered from lead poisoning and had another unrelated mental illness. Believing that police were there to kidnap her and her son, she pulled out a gun.
More police gathered through the day. Paranoid that police were the devil, Gaines barricaded further. Police Officer Royce Ruby Jr., believing she was firing her shotgun toward the police, fired on her and killed her.
If the descriptions of that day are accurate, Gaines might be diagnosed as paranoid and potentially experiencing a psychotic disorder at the time. One key tool for de-escalating a crisis is to avoid challenging psychotic thinking. But police didn’t do that. They just fired wildly, hitting Gaines’s son in the process.
There was even a police unit in Randallstown dedicated to serving the needs of the mentally ill, but were they called in? No. Gaines was failed by a system built to harm more than help.
Killing people in crisis
A man with bipolar disorder, Earl “Shaleek” Pinckney was shot by police in August 2016 in Harrisburg, Pa. Police claimed Pinckney was holding a knife, threatening his mother. Shaleek’s mother, Kim Thomas, emphatically denied that this was the case. (Pennlive.com, Aug. 8, 2016)
Pinckney’s death at the hands of police highlights a complete failure to reach out to the mentally ill as people in crisis. Instead of taking the time to de-escalate the potential violence — potential because his mother only categorized it as a little fight — they amped up the violence and killed him. They lied to his mother, claiming he was only tased, but the truth was that he was shot through the heart. Pinckney left behind a two-week-old child.
On Oct. 26, people called emergency services in Philadelphia to come for Walter Wallace Jr., a mentally ill man and father experiencing a mental health crisis. According to his mother, police first laughed at him and her. The next time his mother called, she specifically asked for an ambulance. It didn’t come.
When Wallace decided to step off his porch, the police drew their guns, his mother begging them not to shoot him. They fired 13 bullets at him, killing him.
Instead of sending trained people who deal with mentally ill people, Philadelphia’s emergency systems sent cops who have a history of mistreating Black people. They knew he was mentally ill, and they killed him anyway.
Gary Page was a white man who had a history of schizophrenia and depression, and he treated these symptoms on his own with alcohol. But something in March 2015 broke him. He drank and became drunk and decided to slit his wrists; he grabbed a starter pistol and literally begged the cops to shoot him.
Instead of responding to this very obvious mental illness incident with care and competent treatment, the police obliged him and shot him in the head and torso.
Say their names!
These are only a few of the people with mental health issues whom police have killed.
Having and using trained mental health counselors, who have experience working with oppressed people on such calls, is a good start to avoiding these tragedies. Having anyone with mental-illness experience, operating as an emergency unit would be a good start. Ambulance crews with training in mental illness would be a good start. That is not happening.
Police are called the guardians of society. But they really serve the ruling class and protect this class’ property interests. They are not oriented toward defusing a mental health crisis. We cannot pretend as though police are the solution.
We must continue to honor the memory of Eleanor Bumpurs, Korryn Gaines, Earl “Shaleek” Pinckney, Walter Wallace Jr., Gary Page — and others too numerous to name — by fighting for revolutionary new ways of seeing mental health crises and mental illness and people who are experiencing them.
The repressive force of the state is unsuitable for defusing a crisis. Really, we need a revolutionary people’s mental health care unit.
Until then, we must speak their names loudly until we drown out the police and forces change.
Keep the pressure on for justice!
Say their names!
Message from Represent.Us
President Trump’s preemptive declaration of victory and calls to stop the vote count due to “voter fraud” (which has been proven to not exist!) is a clear attempt to ignore the voters and steal the election.
With millions of votes – both Republican and Democrat – still uncounted, the winner of the presidential election is still unknown.
Any attempt to stop the vote count is a serious threat to our democracy. Will you call your state lawmakers right now, and demand that every vote be counted?
Counting votes is the foundation of our democracy, and it’s imperative that our elections officials continue to do so. Democracy means the votes decide the outcome of the election, and we must keep counting – because every vote matters when it comes to deciding our next president.
We must let election officials – not the courts – continue to do their jobs and determine the rightful winner of the presidential election. Every ballot must be validated and counted.
Any action to stop the vote count would start with state lawmakers ordering election officials to leave votes uncounted.
There’s no time to waste. Leave a voicemail for your state lawmaker right now and demand that every vote be counted.
We’ll be continuing to monitor the situation – so we can be ready to take action, together, to protect our democracy.
Thank you for doing whatever you can to protect our democracy in this critical moment.
The US economy – some facts
by michael roberts
As we await the result of the US presidential election, here are some facts about the US economy within a world context.
Share of world GDP
In 1980, it looked like this:
The US had more than twice of the share of global GDP than Japan, and more than Japan, Germany and France combined. China’s share was less than 2% and virtually the same as India.
Now in 2019, pre-COVID, it looked like this:
The US still has the largest in constant dollar terms. Although the share has declined, the US share is larger than the rest of the G7 combined. But China has rocketed up to over 16%, leaving India in its tracks.
GDP per capita growth rate 1980-2020
The US real GDP per person growth rate has averaged less than 3% a year and has been slowing consistently, while China’s has averaged around three times as much.
Share of world manufacturing output
At the start of the 1980s, US manufacturing had more than 25% of world output, with Japan at 11% and Germany 7%. China was nowhere. By 2017, the US share had slipped to about 18%, with both Japan and Germany below 10%. China had rocketed to over 25%.
Share of world exports
The US share of world exports in 1980 was over 13% with Germany and Japan well behind. China had only 1% of world exports.
In 2019, China overtook the US with nearly an 11% share while the US share slipped to 10%
Life expectancy
Life expectancy is an important measure of the quality of life. Back in 1980, the US was 21st in the world with life expectancy at birth of 73.6 years, behind most European countries and even Cuba.
By 2019, the US had dropped to 43 in the rankings with 78.5 years and China was catching up at 76.7 years.
Inequality of income and wealth
Of the G7 economies, the US has the most unequal distribution of both personal wealth and incomes.
Military expenditure
The US spends three times as much on military expenditure than China and more than the rest of the world put together!
Carbon emissions per head
The US is the world leader in carbon emissions per person, followed by the energy and minerals exporters, Australia and Canada. China’s emissions per head are less than half that of the US.
Robots per capita
Korea leads the world in robot density with more than three times the number per 10,000 employees than the US. The US lags behind Germany, Japan and Sweden. China is catching up fast and will surpass the US next year.
Homicide rate
The US has the highest homicide rate among the G7 economies, with nearly five times the average G7 rate and nine times the rate in China.
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