Children who experienced compassionate parenting are more generous than peers

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201201103626.htm



Is It Better To Give Than To Receive?



Young children who have experienced compassionate love and empathy from their mothers may be more willing to turn thoughts into action by being generous to others, a University of California, Davis, study suggests.


In lab studies, children tested at ages 4 and 6 showed more willingness to give up the tokens they had earned to fictional children in need when two conditions were present -- if they showed bodily changes when given the opportunity to share and had experienced positive parenting that modeled such kindness. The study initially included 74 preschool-age children and their mothers. They were invited back two years later, resulting in 54 mother-child pairs whose behaviors and reactions were analyzed when the children were 6.

"At both ages, children with better physiological regulation and with mothers who expressed stronger compassionate love were likely to donate more of their earnings," said Paul Hastings, UC Davis professor of psychology and the mentor of the doctoral student who led the study. "Compassionate mothers likely develop emotionally close relationships with their children while also providing an early example of prosocial orientation toward the needs of others," researchers said in the study.

The study was published in November in Frontiers in Psychology: Emotion Science. Co-authors were Jonas G. Miller, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University (who was a UC Davis doctoral student when the study was written); Sarah Kahle of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UC Davis; and Natalie R. Troxel, now at Facebook.

In each lab exercise, after attaching a monitor to record children's heart-rate activity, the examiner told the children they would be earning tokens for a variety of activities, and that the tokens could be turned in for a prize. The tokens were put into a box, and each child eventually earned 20 prize tokens. Then before the session ended, children were told they could donate all or part of their tokens to other children (in the first instance, they were told these were for sick children who couldn't come and play the game, and in the second instance, they were told the children were experiencing a hardship.)

At the same time, mothers answered questions about their compassionate love for their children and for others in general. The mothers selected phrases in a survey such as:
"I would rather engage in actions that help my child than engage in actions that would help me."
"Those whom I encounter through my work and public life can assume that I will be there if they need me."
"I would rather suffer myself than see someone else (a stranger) suffer."

Taken together, the findings showed that children's generosity is supported by the combination of their socialization experiences -- their mothers' compassionate love -- and their physiological regulation, and that these work like "internal and external supports for the capacity to act prosocially that build on each other."

The results were similar at ages 4 and 6.

In addition to observing the children's propensity to donate their game earnings, the researchers observed that being more generous also seemed to benefit the children. At both ages 4 and 6, the physiological recording showed that children who donated more tokens were calmer after the activity, compared to the children who donated no or few tokens. They wrote that "prosocial behaviors may be intrinsically effective for soothing one's own arousal." Hastings suggested that "being in a calmer state after sharing could reinforce the generous behavior that produced that good feeling."

This work was supported by the Fetzer Institute, Mindfulness Connections, and the National Institute of Mental Health.






Story Source:

Materials provided by University of California - Davis. Original written by Karen Nikos-Rose. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:
Jonas G. Miller, Sarah Kahle, Natalie R. Troxel, Paul D. Hastings. The Development of Generosity From 4 to 6 Years: Examining Stability and the Biopsychosocial Contributions of Children’s Vagal Flexibility and Mothers’ Compassion. Frontiers in Psychology, 2020; 11 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.590384

What’s Between 30 Million Americans and an Eviction Tsunami?

Only government intervention can keep millions of Americans housed.




December 2, 2020 Francesca Mari THE NEW YORK TIMES




https://portside.org/2020-12-02/whats-between-30-million-americans-and-eviction-tsunami




We’ve all been so concerned about the transition on Jan. 20 that many of us have forgotten another critical date for American democracy: Dec. 31. That’s when the federal eviction moratorium — which has held the pandemic-related eviction tsunami at bay — expires. After that date, more than 30 million Americans are at risk of losing their homes. Congress must act to stabilize the country’s rental market, prevent widespread displacement and curtail the growing domination of housing by big corporations.

More than half of renters pay 30 percent or more of their income on rent, according to the 2019 American Housing Survey, and more than half of lowest-income renter households reported some loss of employment income between mid-March and mid-September. Although CARES money has been flowing to states, which have established various rental assistance programs, all of them are oversubscribed.

“I can’t point to a city that says we’ve got this figured out,” Mary Cunningham, vice president for metropolitan housing and communities policy at the Urban Institute, told me. “It’s really the role of the federal government to provide. They’re the ones with the ability to match the need.”

“Cancel rent,” the movement calling for rent strikes, is a useful tactic against the most notorious, fee-gouging corporate landlords. But close to half of the country’s 47.5 million rental units aren’t corporate-owned, as of 2015. These units, typically single-family homes or apartments in smaller multifamily buildings, are owned by individuals with their own mortgages and bills. And the units they rent in their smaller complexes generally cost less. Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, introduced a Rent and Mortgage Cancellation bill. But that bill, which proposed government reimbursement for landlords and lenders who agree to adhere to fair practices, has been all but ignored. Congress isn’t going to pick up the bag and pay the difference, so widespread canceling of rent is a sure path to displacement: either the landlord will evict, or the landlord will be forced to sell.

Cue the vulture investors who have been circling from the start. Private equity entered the pandemic with more “dry powder” than ever before. That’s the industry term for money earmarked for a certain type of investment, like real estate, but not yet invested. It’s money waiting for a great opportunity, one that the Trump administration’s catastrophic management of the pandemic will surely provide. During the last financial crisis, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made millions buying a failed bank that proceeded to foreclose on homeowners using methods that regulators accused of being “unsafe or unsound.” Other private equity funds amassed foreclosed homes and created single-family rental home empires. As the home values recovered, private equity cashed out of the companies, reaping maximum profits. Now those rental companies, like Invitation Homes, which has 80,000 houses concentrated in 17 markets, told investors that it hopes to ramp up acquisitions.

As of September, 9 percent of the nation’s 48 million homeowners with mortgages were behind on their housing payments, according to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. By late October, close to 6 percent of those with mortgages were in forbearance. Many are house rich and cash poor. Distressed sales are expected, leaving housing stock up for grabs at a time when most Americans cannot afford to take on new mortgages. Black and Latino people, who disproportionately work in service industries most impacted by the pandemic and who were deprived of generational wealth by racist housing policies, are most at risk.

The easiest way to prevent distressed sales and corporate acquisitions is to empower individuals. One efficient solution would be a short-term universal basic income for everyone who falls below a certain threshold. The $1,200 stimulus check was that. And the $600 weekly supplement to unemployment insurance was essentially that, too. Both were extremely effective. The majority of recipients used some of that money toward rent or mortgage payments. Because the supplement wasn’t earmarked for housing, it didn’t create openings for landlords or other entities to exploit, and the housing market wasn’t adversely affected. In July, the share of apartment households who didn’t pay rent increased by only roughly one percentage point compared to last year, from 3.4 to 4.3 percent, according to a survey of 11.5 million units. The problem with the supplement was that it was tied to being unemployed, leading some to turn down low-paying or part-time work that paid less.

Another viable (and more moderate) plan calls for the government to finance 10-year-long low-interest-rate loans to tenants so that they can pay their accrued back rent. The program, proposed by Gary Painter, director of the U.S.C. Price Center for Social Innovation and the Homelessness Policy Research Institute, ideally would be progressively subsidized and negotiated with landlords. That would mean those with lower incomes who rent modest, lower-cost places would pay a smaller percentage of their accrued rental liability than those with higher incomes who rent fancier places. The key would be to make the application as accessible and easy as possible. “Everyone would be giving up something,” Mr. Painter told me. “The tenants would have to pay something. Landlords aren’t going to be happy because they’d only get a percentage of the rent. But in the long run, if you had a plan, everyone could negotiate accordingly.”

Most critically: For those properties that do hit the market, especially hotel and apartment buildings, we need a government-sponsored affordable housing acquisition fund and legislation that gives it first priority to scoop up properties. The cost of not acting is too high. In 2018, there were only 10 million affordable rentals on the private market and almost 18 million households with very low incomes that needed them. Without government intervention, affordable units are prone to be converted into condos, further vexing the rental situation in cities like Los Angeles, which already have low vacancy rates.

Critics and conservatives will cry “moral hazard!” at the prospect of a universal basic income or financing loans to struggling renters. This is the same complaint that was lodged against bailing out homeowners during the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. The government provided a swift and generous bailout to the banks that caused the crisis. But programs to support underwater homeowners, the Home Affordable Modification Program and the Home Affordable Refinance Program, under-delivered: HAMP permanently reduced mortgages for less than half of the recipients the program was intended to help, and HARP initially only helped about a million borrowers. Because there was so much concern that homeowners would cheat the system, loan reduction and modification applications were prohibitively cumbersome. When homes went to foreclosure auction, vulture investors snagged them up at steep discounts. Those who went through foreclosure not only had their lives upended but they have lost trust in the government and, some studies have shown, have been less likely to vote.

The housing crisis we face now is fundamentally different from the one in 2008, not the result of spurious new financial instruments, but a sort of natural disaster (and home prices have only gone up, not down). In that sense, it’s easier, if even more costly, to fix. Renters need an outlay of “federal pandemic insurance,” as Mr. Painter likes to call it. While the eviction moratoriums are still in place, Congress has a choice: prepare a rental recovery program that builds trust or allow mass eviction, displacement, foreclosure, corporate consolidation and increased inequality. It is a choice with repercussions not just for individual citizens, but for the survival of a real democracy.

A Union’s Strength Comes from the Power to Strike

Here is a book on union organizing that seems about to become a classic for our times.




December 2, 2020 Derek Ludovici THE INDYPENDENT



https://portside.org/2020-12-02/unions-strength-comes-power-strike




No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age
Jane McAlevey
Oxford University Press, 2016
ISBN: 9780190624712

The COVID-19 fiscal crisis is wreaking havoc on the public sector. Mayor de Blasio has threatened to terminate as many as 22,000 city employees. At the City University of New York around 3,000 of my fellow adjuncts have been laid off and CUNY is running on a month-to-month budget as the prospect of more state budget cuts looms over us. While the cause of this crisis is novel, the continued assault on labor and the public good is not. What is our way out?

Halting production by withdrawing labor collectively is the strongest weapon that workers have. Bringing back strike-ready and practicing unions is the only way to bring about structural changes that challenge decades of neoliberal logic. This is Jane McAlevey’s assertion in her 2016 book No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age. As the title suggests, the book is about the organizing needed to strike.

McAlevey has been a labor organizer and negotiator for more than 20 years. She played a key role in turning Nevada into a strong union state (in spite of so-called right-to-work laws) in the mid-2000s while much of the rest of the union movement continued its long decline. In her book, she draws on her experiences to make her

foundational argument — unions declined because their strategies shifted from doing deep organizing of the rank-and-file membership and fostering workers’ agency, to that of mobilizing activists to carry out campaigns, relying much less on workers themselves. In doing so, unions ignored workers and their organic community ties, something from which unions once drew strength. She argues the difference between these approaches matter because they determine what possible victories a union can achieve.
Back in the day

She compares the organizing of the Congress of Industrial Organizations in the 1930s compared to the AFL-CIO today. Unlike the American Federation of Labor, which at the time focused only on skilled workers, the CIO actively attempted to bring all workers in a company, no matter their skill level, into one union. To accomplish this, leftwing union organizers, often hired from the Communist Party, would actively attempt to identify “organic leaders” among rank-and-file workers. These were often the workers that peers would come to for advice. Organizers would then have a one-on-one conversation with the organic leader, letting the leader do most of the talking, only asking critical questions meant to let the worker convince themselves of their own exploitation and move them towards union sympathy.

The author is clear to note that these leaders were rarely activists who approached the union, but rather folks who had the clout to help lead the workshop floor through a successful membership drive. McAlevey stresses organic leaders were co-organizers with the union’s staff.

McAlevey argues that when the New Voices slate, a slate of mainly service sector unions, won the first ever contested AFL-CIO election in 1995 this changed. Neoliberalism and its assault on labor had hollowed out the membership, leading the federation’s unions to focus on winning new members, yet they did so through mobilizing campaigns meant to decrease opposition to unionization. By placing mobilization front and center unions had in fact shifted the focus of union staff to the employer rather than the worker.

While the book is full of different approaches that have been taken to win, McAlevey stresses that organizing to win means organizing with workers and their communities, or the “whole worker” as CIO organizers would say. She supports this argument through four case studies including one focusing on homecare workers and another on the efforts of Make the Road New York. However, the two that stand out the most are a unionizing campaign of a slaughterhouse in the right-to-work Deep South and the Chicago teachers strike of 2012.
From the slaughterhouse to the schoolhouse

In the former McAlevey shows the hard fight of unionizing the Smithfield Meat Packing plant in Tar Hills, North Carolina — the largest pig processing plant in the world and a workplace with high turnover, where the management would intentionally stoke racial divides and use ICE as publicly funded Pinkertons. Interference by Smithfield was so brazen during unionization efforts that the National Labor Relations Board nullified two elections.

After Hispanic workers walked off the job due to management asking for immigration papers, forcing management to negotiate their return, organizers were able to start helping these organic leaders to organize the rest of the plant. The chapter is the most exciting in the book, detailing the various ways organizers mapped not just the physical plant but also the social relations of the workers. Ultimately, through public campaigns and work stoppages, the employees were able to unionize and have their pay raised to $15 per hour. McAlevey uses this case to show that 1930s CIO organizing model of organizing the “whole worker” is not only possible, but necessary.

The case of the Chicago Teachers Union focuses on how CTU went from being strike allergic to taking on one of the nation’s most powerful mayors, Rahm Emanual, President Obama’s former chief of staff. Key to CTU’s success was that a group of teachers formed to make the labor leadership “act like a union” and when that failed they ran for and were elected to lead the union themselves.

The Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE) rise came during a moment of disarray, but through their victory they were able to change the union’s approach from managed capitulation to active organizing. CTU organizers began organizing teachers. Teachers in turn used their organic ties to their school communities to talk with parents about how a strike that included demands for more school funding was for the good of their children. In September 2012 the union went on strike and won a decisive victory. So successful was the approach that not only did the teachers win their demands, CTU President Karen Lewis polled as the most popular Chicagoan.

In the book’s conclusion McAlevey stresses that labor needs to focus on “strategic sectors,” workplaces that can’t easily be moved or offshored. Health and education are the two she underscores. As an adjunct lecturer at the City University of New York I find these chapters especially inspiring. Many rank-and-file organizers at CUNY have participated in reading groups or McAlevey’s online strike school in recent months. There is a growing conviction that union power and strike preparedness is built from below, through members organizing each other. At my university this has meant having earnest conversations across job titles to understand grievances, as well as vulnerabilities of others. It also means building solidarity with our students that extends outside the classroom.

At best mobilizing will slow the rate of non-reappointments and layoffs. To truly fund education and other public goods, to abolish anti-labor legislation will not take a miracle but active, rank-and-file organizing.

250 MILLION PEOPLE PARTICIPATE IN COUNTRYWIDE STRIKE IN INDIA

https://popularresistance.org/250-million-people-participate-in-countrywide-strike-in-india/



By People's Dispatch.December 2, 2020
| RESIST!









Despite Police Repression And The COVID-19 Pandemic, Workers And Farmers And Their Allies Across India Participated In The Pan-India Strike Action Against The Recent Neoliberal Reforms Pushed Through By The Narendra Modi Government.

On Thursday, November 26, India witnessed the biggest organized strike in human history. Over 250 million workers and farmers, along with their allies among students, feminists and civil society groups participated in the nationwide strike. The strike coincides with India’s Constitution Day, which commemorates the adoption of the constitution in 1949, and comes in the background of an unprecedented attack on workers’ rights and farmers’ protections by the right-wing government of prime minister Narendra Modi.

The protest by farmers in States around Delhi continued late into the night on Thursday and early Friday. Thousands of farmers have broken blockade after blockade and are marching to the city. The police have used water canons on them repeatedly but have failed to break their spirit. They are expected to reach the borders of Delhi on Friday.

The strike was organized by a coalition of workers’ and farmers’ movements, with 10 national trade confederations and the umbrella group, All India Kisan Sangharsh [Farmers’ Struggle] Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), that consists of over 200 farmers’ groups across India. Women’s rights groups, students unions and various civil society organizations also participated in the strike. The strike also received support from Left parties and several opposition groups.

Some of the key demands contained in the 12-point charter put forward by the organizers include withdrawal of a series of laws recently passed by the Modi government repealing key labor and farm price protections, a rollback in the recent disinvestment policies in major government-owned enterprises, implementation of existing welfare schemes for rural workers, and expanding welfare policies to aid the masses affected by the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thousands of farmers, along with members of trade union groups and other movements, from across India, also led a rally to the national capital of Delhi. The rally was met with a fierce repression from the Delhi police who made use of a blockade, baton charges and water canons to stop the march. Eventually, the blockade was breached


In similar confrontation with the authorities, workers and farmers groups brought major metropolitan cities like Kolkata and Mumbai to a standstill, with sit-ins organized on key transport routes. The industrial and mining belt across East and Central India also witnessed a virtual shutdown.

Organizers have stated that the strike is a build-up to more upcoming struggles in the country. “The workers and peasants will not rest till the disastrous and disruptive policies of the BJP government are reversed. The strike today is only a beginning. Much more intense struggles will follow,” said Tapan Sen, general secretary of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), one of the trade union confederations participating in the strike.

The strike comes at a time when the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed India into a veritable recession, exacerbating existing inequalities and deprivation. India’s gross domestic product (GDP) has declined by a record 23.9%, while unemployment has soared to an unprecedented 27%.

Amidst such an all-round crisis, the right-wing government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party has implemented new amendments to labor codes and introduced farm bills that have reversed major historical progresses made in workers’ rights and farm protections.

Despite police attempts to suppress the strike in several, massive rallies were held across the country. Members of the Health Employees Union along with workers of Jawaharlal Nehru Port, a major port of India’s commercial capital, Mumbai, participate in a strike.

Trade unionists blockaded the National Highway 31, a major roadway that connects the city of Kolkata, in the state of West Bengal.

Blockade of key railway lines was also witnessed in major cities across India.

Refineries in Assam, the northeastern state rich in oil and natural gas reserve, were shut down by the strike.

Police in the state of Haryana detain participants of the protest rally on their way to the national capital, Delhi. Delhi’s two neighboring States of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh coordinated attempts, with the Delhi police, to prevent protesters from entering the capital.

In the meanwhile, the protesting farmers held counter blockades in Uttar Pradesh on routes leading to Delhi.

Massive protests were also held in southern states.

Protests were also held across Jammu and Kashmir, which has been under a virtual government-imposed lockdown for over a year and repressive government policies have made mobilizing extremely difficult.




See the original article for images of the protests.

IRAN CALLS ON THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO CONFRONT ISRAEL

By Telesur English.

December 2, 2020




https://popularresistance.org/iran-calls-on-the-international-community-to-confront-israel/





NOTE: Palestine Chronicle reports that the United Nations Human Rights Office is calling for Israel to conduct an investigation of Israeli occupation forces shooting Palestinian children in violation of international law.

Iran is asking the international community to confront the Israeli regime’s actions, “a murderer of children” and “a violator of human rights.”

In a message sent on Tuesday to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Iranian President Hasan Rohani has declared Iran’s strong support for the Palestinian people to achieve their ideals.

Rohani condemned the recent actions of the Israeli regime against the Palestinians, including the killing of Palestinians in custody and the torture of prisoners, especially women and children, as well the so-called ‘deal of the century’ and the continuing siege of the Gaza Strip, and stressed the need for urgent action by Islamic countries and the international community to find a solution to end these aggressions.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran […] urges the international community to confront the actions of the Zionist regime, which is murdering children and violating human rights, as well as the provisions of several United Nations resolutions,” he said.




The Iranian leader also said that “the end of the long-term conflicts and disputes in Western Asia and the establishment of a just and lasting peace will not be achieved until the Palestinian question is resolved and there is an end to the seizure of all the occupied territories, granting the right to self-determination to the Palestinian people.”

According to Rohani, the Israeli regime is endangering peace and stability in the West Asian region by adopting aggressive actions and policies in that area, especially in Syria and Lebanon, and by secretly planning the production of weapons of mass destruction.

The President of Iran has also rejected the latest agreements of normalization of ties with Israel by some countries of the region, stating that they constitute a “betrayal” of the Palestinian cause when the regime in Tel Aviv is increasing its inhumane acts against the Palestinians.

In September, Baréin and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed pacts for the normalization of ties with Israel in the White House, under the watchful eye of US President Donald Trump, who is seeking, according to the Israeli media, Arutz Sheva, to put pressure, through the emirates, on other countries in the region to do the same.

In this sense, Sudan has recently joined the states mentioned above and reconciled with Israel after several weeks of dialogue, conversations in which Washington played a crucial role.

“[Disregard for the rights of the Palestinians] will not only aggravate the situation in the occupied territories but will also have far-reaching consequences for regional and international security,” Rohani added.

MORE PEOPLE IN THE US ARE PAYING RENT ON CREDIT CARDS

By Chris Arnold, WBUR.

December 2, 2020




https://popularresistance.org/more-people-in-the-us-are-paying-rent-on-credit-cards/



Lawmakers Fail To Pass Relief Bill.

With their savings running out, many Americans are being forced to use credit cards to pay for bills they can’t afford — even their rent. Housing experts and economists say this is a blinking-red warning light that without more relief from Congress, the economy is headed for even more serious trouble.

There’s been as much as a 70% percent increase from last year in people paying rent on a credit card, according to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

“If you’re putting your rent payments on to a credit card, that shows you’re really at risk of eviction,” says Shamus Roller, executive director of the nonprofit National Housing Law Project. “That means you’ve run out of savings; you’ve probably run out of calls to family members to get them to loan you money.”

Marine Madesclaire could be faced with the choice of paying her rent on credit, too.

Before the pandemic hit, she felt like she was hitting her stride. The 29-year-old Los Angeles actor was doing lots of auditions and managing to land at least some quick appearances in Hollywood films.

To pay the bills, she had a gig doing modeling work at Las Vegas trade shows. “You go to the conventions, and you stand and look pretty next to, insert product,” she says. “And it paid very, very well. I had been traveling.”

But all that stopped in March. Since then, Madesclaire has been among millions of unlucky people who’ve faced long delays getting unemployment benefits. It appears she should qualify. But it’s been more than six months, and she still hasn’t received any unemployment money.

“It’s been so long that I don’t cry about it anymore,” she says. “I used to, like, have full-blown meltdowns about it.”

She depleted her savings just to eat and pay bills. She’s run up more than $10,000 in credit card debt.

Madesclaire has asked her card issuer Chase for help. But she says except for waiving some late fees, the bank hasn’t done much to help her. She says the 16% interest is sinking her even deeper into debt.

“They’re charging me interest and late fees,” she says. “And up until like a week ago, they also were calling me like five times a day until I told them to please stop.”

Chase said in a statement to NPR that it has enrolled many customer accounts in “payment assistance” plans. The bank says it doesn’t charge them late fees, but it does keep charging interest.

Madesclaire was finally able to find a low-wage job at a computer repair store. But while that just barely covers her monthly bills, she’s still four months behind on her rent.

A state eviction moratorium in California will protect her until the end of January, or she says she would have paid her rent on a credit card, too.

“If the choice is debt or homelessness,” she says, “I’m going to go in as much debt as I can.”

Some people just pay that way for convenience. But for many others it’s an act of desperation.

The National Housing Law Project’s Roller notes that there’s a federal order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aimed at preventing evictions. But it’s not an outright ban, and many people don’t know the order exists or how it can protect them. So he says it’s not working very well. There have already been thousands of evictions in Houston, Memphis, Tenn., Richmond, Va., Columbus, Ohio, and other areas, Roller says.

“It’s bad for public health, it’s bad for the families that are involved,” he says. “It’s bad for all of us as a country.”

It could also be just the tip of the iceberg. And it’s not just housing rights groups that are worried.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, estimates about 10 million Americans owe back rent. And without another robust relief bill from Congress, he expects to see “mass eviction” starting early next year.

“Just think about that for a second,” he says. “This is all going to be happening in the dead of winter, in the middle of a raging pandemic. I mean, I can’t even construct a darker scenario.”

Zandi says even if they don’t lose their housing, millions of other Americans will fall deeper into debt. And he says so many people continuing to suffer financially will hurt the whole economy.

“I think odds are very high that we’re going to go back into recession,” he says, “if lawmakers can’t get it together early next year and pass a fiscal rescue package.”

Zandi says, “It’s absolutely critical that lawmakers step up.”

As part of the federal aid, he and Roller would both like to see an effective nationwide eviction moratorium, combined with money to pay landlords the rent they are owed to keep them from going under, too.

Facebook speech falsely claims massive vote fraud

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/03/pers-d03.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws




Facebook speech falsely claims massive vote fraud

Donald Trump’s Mein Kampf

Patrick Martin
8 hours ago







The speech by Donald Trump posted on his personal Facebook page Wednesday afternoon was a declaration of war on American democracy. It was a scarcely veiled call for a right-wing insurrection to overthrow the election results and maintain in the White House a president who has been repudiated by the American people.

The 46-minute diatribe, which Trump called “the most important speech I’ve ever made,” embraced all the bogus charges of vote fraud, ballot-stuffing and the use of computer software to “switch” votes promoted by Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell over the past three weeks. These allegations have been laughed out of court for lack of any shred of evidence, in state after state, by Republican and Democratic judges alike.

Trump declared that the November election was “rigged” and demanded that the US Supreme Court intervene to overturn the results in all the battleground states, declare him the winner, and award him their electoral votes and thus a second term as president.

However, the main purpose of the speech, which brands the Democratic Party and most state election officials as criminals, was to incite Trump’s most fervent followers to stage violent attacks against anyone targeted by the would-be führer in the White House. Denouncing those who “desire to hurt the president of the United States,” Trump demanded that “something should happen.” He added, “These entrenched interests oppose our movement, because we put America first.”

The language of the speech, and its sweeping and anti-democratic line of argument, suggest that it was written by Stephen Miller, the spearhead of Trump’s war on immigrants, perhaps with an assist from Steve Bannon, Trump’s former top political counselor. Miller and Bannon have been the leading advocates for Trump to transform the Republican Party into an openly fascistic movement, with himself as its boss, whether inside or outside the White House.

White House officials indicated that Trump recorded the speech last week, before Attorney General William Barr, one of his most obedient political servants, conceded in an interview Tuesday: “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” That admission alone demonstrates that Trump’s speech was devised on the principles of Hitler and Goebbels: the bigger the lie, the better.

The timing of the speech’s release was significant. It came barely 24 hours after a press conference where a top Georgia election administrator, a longtime Republican loyalist, made an extraordinary public denunciation of Trump personally, blaming him for mounting threats of violence. Gabriel Sterling cited the noose left at the home of one election IT worker and thousands of death threats directed at Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Raffensperger’s wife, Sterling himself and many others involved in counting and tabulating votes in the state.

Sterling’s comments blamed Trump explicitly. “Mr. President, you have not condemned this language or these actions,” he said. “This has to stop.” He also denounced Georgia’s two Republican senators, who have both called for Raffensperger’s resignation and backed Trump’s attack on Georgia’s conduct of the Nov. 3 election.

“Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions,” he said. “Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence.” Sterling said Trump appeared to have lost Georgia’s 16 electoral votes—he trails Biden by about 13,000 votes after two recounts—while the two Republican senators each failed to gain a majority and will face Democratic challengers in a runoff election on Jan. 5.

The Georgia Republican official also condemned comments by Joe diGenova, a lawyer for the Trump campaign, who called for former federal cybersecurity chief Christopher Krebs to be “shot at sunrise” because he declared there had been no successful hacking of the vote. “Someone’s going to get hurt,” Sterling concluded. “Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed.”

In the context of this criticism, which dominated US media coverage of the election aftermath for 24 hours, Trump’s Facebook speech has a clear meaning: he is deliberately encouraging the violence against which Sterling and other officials have warned.

There is a dialogue taking place between the criminal in the White House and his most violent and reactionary followers outside it. On Tuesday, the Washington Times, the ultra-right daily newspaper in the US capital, published a full-page ad purchased by an Ohio-based fascist group, the We The People Convention, calling on Trump to declare martial law and order a new election under the supervision of the US military.

The ad denounced the “threat to our United States by the international and domestic socialist/communist left,” warned of the existence of “well-funded, armed and trained marxists in ANTIFA and BLM strategically positioned in our major cities,” and denounced the election as “corrupt and provably fraudulent.”

Not only did the newspaper agree to publish this demented screed, but two figures closely identified with Trump immediately tweeted their endorsement of its call for martial law: retired General Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security advisor, just pardoned by Trump last week after pleading guilty to perjury charges; and Lin Wood, a lawyer who has led Trump campaign challenges in several states. Wood also represents Kyle Rittenhouse, the pro-Trump vigilante who gunned down two people protesting police violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Both Flynn and Wood declared that America was “headed to civil war” and claimed that the Democratic Party was in league with “Communist China” in seeking to overthrow the Trump administration. Wood also claimed that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, was “a traitor & a criminal” who had received kickbacks from China to throw the election to Biden.

The Democratic Party and the pro-Democratic sections of the media have responded with silence to Trump’s open declaration that he won the election and would continue in office. As of this writing, the Biden campaign had issued no statement, nor had leading congressional Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or senators Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. There was little or no reporting on the evening network news broadcasts about the president of the United States declaring that the election in which he was defeated was a fraud. The cable networks dismissed Trump’s speech as a rehash of previous discredited claims, without great significance.

This dovetails with the position taken by Biden and the Democrats after fascist Trump supporters in Michigan were arrested as they prepared to kidnap and murder the Democratic governor of the state. Gretchen Whitmer had been the target of numerous Trump attacks, including a tweet calling on his followers to “liberate Michigan” from the coronavirus lockdown imposed—but long since lifted—by the governor.

The Democrats fear not Trump’s threats of violence and dictatorship, but the mass popular revolt that would be touched off if Trump actually attempts to carry out his long-threatened election coup. The Democrats know very well that America is a social powder keg, deeply divided between the fabulously wealthy financial aristocracy, which both Democrats and Republicans serve, and the vast majority of the population, struggling to survive.

Trump’s latest threats take place as the coronavirus pandemic is spiraling out of control as a result of the homicidal policies of the ruling class. The average number of daily deaths is approaching the previous peak in the spring, and hospitals throughout the country are overflowing. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield warned on Wednesday that the next several months will be among “the most difficult in the public health history of this nation.”

Two weeks ago, long after the television networks and other media had “called” the election for Biden, and the Democrat was beginning to assemble his cabinet and White House staff, the Socialist Equality Party warned:


Trump remains president, at the summit of executive power in the United States, for another 65 days, and the political situation can move in different directions. And if he is removed from office, Trump is creating a “stab in the back” narrative that the election was illegitimate and that he remains the rightful president.

This warning has been more than vindicated, not only in Trump’s fascistic Facebook speech, but in his reshuffling the Pentagon leadership to place US military forces under the direction of his own personal loyalists, and his efforts to ignite an international crisis—such as a war with Iran—that could provide a pretext for the declaration of a state of emergency at home and the unleashing of mass repression.

The central question remains: the working class must intervene into this raging crisis of the American ruling class as an independent political force. Workers and young people cannot rely for a minute on the opposition to Trump on the part of a Democratic Party that is a thoroughly reactionary instrument of the financial oligarchy. The working class must oppose the conspiracies of the Trump White House and its fascist thugs through the methods of class struggle and the political fight for socialism.