OHIO STUDENTS SIT-IN TO DEMAND UNIVERSITY CUT TIES WITH POLICE

By Graeme Massie, The Independent.

April 22, 2021

https://popularresistance.org/ohio-students-sit-in-to-demand-university-cut-ties-with-police/




NOTE: There were few articles about this action taken by the students at Ohio State. Note that the article seems to justify the murder of Ma’Khia Bryant, but we have many videos of police de-escalating situations in which a white person has a lethal weapon without shooting them. Ma’Khia’s family reports that it was Ma’Khia who called police for help. In a video that goes with the article (not included with this post), the media goes so far as to find a Black neighbor who defends the murder by police. – MF
Ma’Khia Bryant, A Black Teenager, Was Shot And Killed In The City As Police Responded To Reports Of Fight.

Students at Ohio State staged a sit-in protest and demanded that the university cut ties with Columbus Police in the wake of the killing of Ma’Khia Bryant.

The protest took place one day after a police officer shot and killed the 16-year-old girl in the city, just as the verdict in the George Floyd trial was reached.

Students staged their Wednesday protest in the Ohio Union before taking to the streets to march.

Some carried signs with the victim’s name, along with phrases like “say her name”, while another student had a sign that said, “Being Black shouldn’t be a death sentence.”

“Ohio State supports the right of our students, faculty and staff to peacefully express their views and to speak out about issues that are important to them,” the university said in a statement.

“Freedom of speech and civic engagement are central to our values as an institution of higher education.”

The university added that its own police force deals with campus security, and that they contract with CPD for specific services, mostly traffic control at sporting events.




Columbus police have defended the killing and named the officer involved as Nicholas Reardon.

Officials say that Officer Reardon has been a Columbus police officer since December 2019, and he has been placed on leave while the incident is investigated.

The body camera footage, which the department released within six hours of the killing, showed officers approaching a driveway at the home they had been called to.

There were several young women in the driveway, and one, now identified as Ma’Khia, appeared to have a knife in her hand and was approaching another young woman.

When the woman fell to the ground, Ma’Khia is seen moving towards another woman, who is against a car.

The officer then fired his weapon, with four shots being heard on the video, and Ma’Khia fell to the ground.

WE CAN SOLVE THE CLIMATE CRISIS!

By Tina Landis, Liberation News.April 22, 2021

https://popularresistance.org/we-can-solve-the-climate-crisis/

Today Is Earth Day — A Global Day Of Action To Demand The Protection Of The Environment And Fight For A Sustainable Future.

First held in 1970, Earth Day has taken on even deeper significance in recent years as catastrophic climate change plays out and the need for a new system that respects the people and the planet becomes ever more apparent.

Climate change is unfolding at an increasingly rapid rate with more severe droughts, storms, wildfires and floods impacting the globe. Yet, the capitalists continue to plunder the planet and extract fossil fuels, destroying ecosystems and increasing warming. The 2018 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report warned that we have 12 years to avert runaway catastrophe. That call to action becomes more urgent by the day while the majority of governments globally take limited actions that fail to meet the urgency of the crisis.

The very system of capitalism itself is the cause of climate change with the Global North holding the majority of responsibility due to earlier development and consumer lifestyles. Big Oil knew that fossil fuels were warming the planet as early as the 1950s, but did nothing to change course. To the capitalists, the immense profits to be made in the short term outweighed the looming disaster to come.

Capitalism requires endless growth and the maximization of profits. This is inherent to the system itself and cannot be altered. Corporations can be taxed and regulated, but their ultimate goal of increasing value for shareholders cannot be changed; any impediment to profits is just passed onto the consumer through higher costs. In the end this doesn’t alter the system of capitalist production that is based on what the billionaires can make a profit from rather than what is actually needed by society or what is sustainable for the planet. The incredibly wasteful system of capitalism is driving humanity and all life on the planet toward mass extinction.

We see today, in the United States and around the globe, transnationals continuing their plunder of the planet through resource extraction, oil and gas drilling and deforestation, despite all of science warning of the urgency to end these practices for our survival. Despite President Biden’s pause on drilling on federal lands — which constitutes only one-quarter of lands where fossil fuel extraction takes place — Big Oil continues to expand drilling on non-federal lands. For instance, permits were approved in March for up to 43,000 new oil wells in Kern County, Calif. And this is in California which has the most aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goals and some of the most stringent industry regulations in the country!

We are far beyond piecemeal solutions and waiting for industry to “do the right thing.” The laws of capitalism promote and allow endless plundering of the planet regardless of the impacts on humanity or other life on the planet.

We must call out capitalism for what it is — the cause of the climate crisis — and build a new eco-socialist system that puts the needs of humanity and all life first and works to restore the damage done by centuries of environmental destruction.
How Can We Solve The Crisis?

The answer is two fold. We must immediately shift from fossil fuels to wind, water and solar energy production. The technology exists to make the switch today and still meet all of the world’s energy needs. At the same time, we need to greatly reduce energy consumption and wasted energy by weatherizing buildings, providing the most energy-efficient appliances, lighting and heating to all, eliminating food waste — which is as high as 40% in the US — providing affordable housing near jobs and building an expanded zero-emission transit system nationwide to greatly reduce the need for cars.

At the same time we must restore the damage done to the planet from centuries of plunder by reforesting previously-forested lands, and restoring oceans, wetlands, mangrove swamps and grasslands to increase biodiversity and the natural carbon capture mechanisms of the planet. Healthy biodiverse ecosystems benefit us all by producing more oxygen, retaining more water and increasing carbon capture mechanisms.

We must also shift away from industrial agriculture and factory farming methods to regenerative agriculture and managed grazing of livestock, which has proven to produce higher yields at lower costs to farmers while increasing biodiversity, water retention, soil health and carbon capture. Projects and continuing research around the globe demonstrate that restoring these degraded ecosystems can cool the climate in just decades.

So why are these scientifically-proven practices not being implemented immediately on a mass scale? Because they are not profitable. Once the renewable energy infrastructure is built, there are few profits to be made beyond maintenance and replacement after decades of use, unlike ongoing profits made by the fossil fuel industry. Planting trees and restoring natural lands is not profitable, but rather will be a one-time cost and then the living systems will for the most part do the rest. Restoring oceans means ending industrial overfishing and eliminating the petrochemical industry that produces plastics that are choking the oceans — meaning major profits lost by those industries.

A shift to regenerative agriculture means the end of the highly-profitable GMO, synthetic fertilizer and pesticide companies. It would also spell the demise of Big Ag with the shift away from monoculture crops for feedlots and an end to the overproduction of livestock — 70% of agricultural land in the United States is used to grow corn, soy and hay for feedlots. The Amazon rainforest is also being cleared by transnationals for this same purpose as well as for crops for biofuel.

This is the reason for government inaction. It’s not that they don’t understand the problem. They are just unwilling and unable to make the shift due to the system itself that prioritizes profits above life itself. This is why only solutions that can make a profit along the way are even discussed by the Biden administration and the corporate-owned media, such as electric vehicles, carbon capture technologies (rather than biosequestration that uses plants to capture carbon), geoengineering schemes, and a heavy reliance on nuclear and biofuels as false forms of renewable energy.
How Socialism Can Implement The Changes Needed

Life on Earth is an interconnected web of species working together to optimize life for the whole. With the rise of class society, humanity strayed from our role of one intelligent species within an intelligent system to being a conqueror and exploiter of nature. Despite being only 5% of the world’s population, Indigenous-managed lands hold 80% of the world’s biodiversity. Indigenous communities worldwide hold ancestral knowledge of living in alignment with the entire ecosystem, holding a duty to protect the earth and all its inhabitants as a priority. It is crucial that Indigenous communities be equal partners in the restoration of the planet and climate solutions. We must replace the capitalist consumer culture with one that reflects this alignment with regenerative practices for the continuity of all life.

Socialism is that system. Under an eco-socialist planned economy — which is a truly participatory democracy — resources and human labor are pooled to meet the needs of society in an equitable way that aligns with the needs of all life for long term sustainability. Socialism is the opposite of capitalism. With socialism, everyone benefits equally from the labor and ingenuity of humanity, rather than a handful of people who don’t do the work, profiting off everyone else’s labor.

Through socialism, the changes that are needed to solve the climate crisis can be implemented in an efficient and comprehensive way in a relatively short time frame. Fossil fuel workers and those in other industries that are no longer needed can be retrained while getting paid a living wage in fields that benefit people and the planet, such as:
building the renewable energy infrastructure
ecological restoration work and clean up of polluted lands and waters
shifting to regenerative agriculture
retrofitting buildings and distributing energy efficient appliances
“greening” cities to be integrated into the ecosystem
building an expansive zero-emission public transit system including nationwide high speed rail

The implementation of what is needed in the pressing timeframe cannot occur under capitalism where changes that impede “business as usual” like the Green New Deal cannot even get a hearing in the halls of Congress. We must take the power away from the billionaires and their lackeys in government for the survival of humanity.

Not only will systemic change allow humanity to stem the climate crisis and regenerate the biosphere, it will allow for humanity to prepare and protect people from the impacts we are already experiencing. We can see just this past year how the U.S. government has done nothing to help the population prepare or recover for these crises. Look at COVID-19 and the extreme winter storms in Texas that left people to freeze to death in their homes.

Scientists have warned that viruses like COVID-19 are becoming more prevalent as the world warms and human encroachment into wildlands increases. The extreme storms in Texas were the result of the weakening jet stream that brought the polar vortex south, a direct result of climate change, which scientists have warned will become more frequent and erratic.

The current U.S. death toll from COVID is over 550,000, the highest death rate in the world. This was completely preventable with early action, universal healthcare and a guaranteed wage for all those left without work so they could quarantine safely. Also, vaccine development in a socialist world would have been more efficient with knowledge sharing across borders rather than patent rights held by individual corporations developing their own vaccines with profits as the priority.

The climate crisis will continue to worsen without effective global action and the working class and poor of the world will be hardest hit. In a socialist world, international cooperation in adaptation and mitigation efforts could greatly curb warming and help the planet rebalance and help all of the world’s people prepare for the near-future impacts.

Instead the U.S. empire continues with divisive imperialist policies and war that undermines countries’ ability to adapt to climate change and develop on a sustainable path. Reparations must be paid to oppressed communities and countries of the Global South for the centuries of plunder to bring about equity in the transition to a sustainable system. Through socialism, humanity can work collectively pooling resources and knowledge to overcome the greatest existential crisis we have ever faced.
How Do We Get There?

There are sparks of change happening from frontline communities fighting big polluters to Native struggles against pipelines and extractive industries. There is hope in the global youth movement against climate change, as well as in the multinational movement for racial justice. But we need to build a more organized and powerful people’s movement that impedes the profits of the ruling class, that forces major concessions, and in the end, overthrows capitalism.

We must unite together across borders and struggles to build a movement for systemic change — for socialism. All the problems faced by the poor and working class — from poverty to homelessness, unemployment, lack of health care, racism, police brutality, and environmental destruction — are caused by the system of capitalism that puts profits before all else, leaving more and more of us destitute each day while the billionaires get richer. We must build the people’s movement and educate others on the issues showing that humanity does have the knowledge and tools to stem climate change. We must call out capitalism as the cause of the climate crisis and socialism as the solution and make an evolutionary leap forward to a world that benefits all life. Together we can win. Join us.

PRESIDENT ZELENSKY SAYS UKRAINE ‘READY’ FOR WAR WITH RUSSIA

By Jason Melanovski and Clara Weiss, WSWS.

April 22, 2021

https://popularresistance.org/president-zelensky-says-ukraine-ready-for-war-with-russia/

Amid mounting tensions in the Black Sea region, President Volodymyr Zelensky declared on Tuesday night that Ukraine is “ready” for war with Russia. He warned that the country would “stand to the last man” in the event of a war.

Zelensky also signed a law allowing the Ukrainian army to mobilize its reservists without notice within 24 hours. Those avoiding the draft will be subject to criminal prosecution. The new law had been proposed by the Ukrainian General Staff.

Zelensky’s aggressive declarations came amidst reports of growing NATO activity near Russia’s borders.

On Wednesday, the Russian press reported that two NATO aircraft, an American P-8A Poseidon and a British RC-135W, and an American drone had conducted reconnaissance flights for several hours near the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea.

A French military aircraft carrier was spotted off the Romanian Black Sea coast, and several NATO aircraft carriers took off over Estonia, Latvia and Poland on Tuesday to intercept and escort Russian reconnaissance aircraft, fighters and bombers over the Baltic Sea. On April 19, Ukraine and NATO-member Romania had conducted joint military exercises in the Black Sea.

The Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported that more than 20 American F-16 and F-15 fighters had been suddenly deployed from the UK to Poland. It quoted a Russian military expert who indicated that two American missile destroyers, USS Donald Cook and USS Roosevelt, were “now in the northern part of the Aegean Sea [just off the Black Sea], participating in the maneuvers of NATO Rammstein Dust II 21.” Last week, the US canceled the deployment of two warships to the Black Sea at short notice but just days later, the UK sent two warships to the region.

Russia just concluded its own military exercises in the Black Sea, involving 20 warships from the Black Sea Fleet and over 50 fighter jets. Most of the troops and military equipment the Kremlin moved there for military exercises remain in the region.

On Monday, the Kremlin declared that large parts of Crimea, including its southern part where the naval base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is located, as well as parts of the Black Sea itself, would be “temporarily dangerous for aircraft flights.” Russia has also closed the sea passage between the Azov Sea and the Black Sea for foreign war ships from April 24 through October 31.

The activities by NATO dangerously heighten tensions in a region where the military situation is already on a knife edge. The last few weeks have seen an uptick in fighting between the Ukrainian army and Russian-backed separatists in East Ukraine.

A civil war has raged here since a February 2014 US- and German-backed coup in Kiev ousted the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovich. The war has killed an estimated 14,000 people and displaced millions. This year, over 30 Ukrainian soldiers have already been killed, compared to 50 Ukrainian troops during all of 2020.

On Monday, another Ukrainian soldier was killed just hours before representatives of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France were scheduled to meet in an attempt to renegotiate a failed ceasefire between the east Ukrainian separatists and the Ukrainian army. The talks reportedly accomplished little.

The immediate backdrop for the recent escalation of military clashes was the Ukrainian government’s adoption of a strategy to launch an offensive in the Donbass and “recover” Crimea. The peninsula in the Black Sea was annexed by Russia in March 2014, following the coup in Kiev and a popular referendum in which Crimea’s residents overwhelmingly voted in support of becoming a Russian territory.

Over the past few weeks, the Ukrainian government of Volodymyr Zelensky has aggressively lobbied the US and EU to accelerate Ukraine’s admission to NATO. However, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have refused to support Ukraine’s NATO admission at this point.

The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany has threatened that the Kiev government is considering the acquisition of nuclear weapons “on its own” should its request to join NATO not be granted. According to Russian press reports, the Ukrainian parliament is now also preparing a letter to the US Congress to request the status of “major non-NATO ally” (MNNA).

On Wednesday, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba revealed that he had asked US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to provide Ukraine “powerful means of electronic warfare” for its stand-off with Russia. He also said that he had called upon EU Foreign Ministers to cut Russia off the SWIFT system, an international communication system for banks and other financial institutions. Such a step is understood to potentially lead to the complete collapse of the Russian financial system.

The Ukrainian ruling class is also stepping up its domestic preparations for war. This Monday, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) announced that it would be carrying out “multi-stage anti-terrorist” drills across the country. In an indication that the government is preparing for martial law, the announcement said that “a special regime may be temporarily introduced in certain areas amid the drills, as well as restrictions or bans on the movement of motor vehicles and pedestrians, ID checks, and inspection of vehicles, etc.” A precedent for this was set by former President Petro Poroshenko in 2018, who declared martial law after staging a provocation in the Azov Sea.

At a meeting last Thursday with the country’s National Security and Defense Council, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky discussed the government’s military readiness. Urging citizens to “trust the official statements of our General Staff or the President’s Office only,” he stated. “The army is ready—that’s the most important thing.”

The press service of the city of Kiev had previously published a map of updated bomb shelters and revealed that government funds had been used to build civil defense structures to shelter the population in case of war.

Well aware that the continuation, let alone expansion, of the war in East Ukraine, is deeply unpopular, the Ukrainian ruling class is seeking to mobilize the country’s far right. Neo-Nazi forces have already played a central role in the 2014 coup and the subsequent civil war.

Last week Arsen Avakov, Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, a man close to the far right and one of the country’s most powerful politicians, appealed to these forces on Facebook. Calling them “patriots” and using fascistic language, he asked them to prepare for war and protect the “Motherland.” Avakov suggested that Ukraine would fare better than it did in 2014 due to the over $2 billion in military aid and equipment it has received from the US since.

As Minister of Internal Affairs, Avakov controls the country’s National Guard, which was created in 2014 and incorporated the neo-fascist Azov and Donbass battalions. In recent years, his ministry has played a central role in protecting and developing the country’s far-right forces. Organizations like the Azov Battalion and C-14 have carried out a number of deadly attacks on journalists and ethnic minorities, with near immunity from prosecution.

Within the Ukrainian press, the notion that the United States and NATO will militarily back Ukraine against Russia continues to be pushed. Much was made of recent comments by acting US Ambassador to Ukraine Kristina Kvien, who suggested that the US may consider deploying more troops to Ukraine in the event of a war with Russia.

While speaking with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal, Kvien stated, “We are constantly assessing the situation and making an assessment of the needs of the Ukrainian side. And we have a permanent presence of 160 American troops. And if, according to our estimates, the needs change and need to be increased, we will consider the issue.”

There is widespread opposition in the population to an all-out war between Ukraine and Russia, which threatens the lives of tens of millions. Thousands of Ukrainians have deserted the front in the civil war in East Ukraine. Zelensky himself was only elected in 2019 due to mass opposition to the former president’s rabidly anti-Russian policies and war mongering.

Whatever the decision of the United States and European imperialist powers in regards to Ukraine, the only way to stop the imperialist war drive is through the creation of an international, socialist antiwar movement of workers across Eastern Europe and the world opposed to the outdated and barbarous capitalist system.

WORLD ON THE VERGE OF CLIMATE CRISIS ‘ABYSS’

By Al Jazeera.

April 22, 2021

https://popularresistance.org/world-on-the-verge-of-climate-crisis-abyss/



UN Says World Is Running Out Of Time To Tackle The Climate Crisis, With 2020 One Of The Three Hottest Years On Record.

Time is fast running out to tackle the climate crisis, a United Nations report has warned, with the COVID-19 pandemic having failed to put the brakes on “relentless” climate change.

In a “double blow” to millions hit by the extreme climate events, lockdown restrictions linked to the global coronavirus pandemic also delayed crucial assistance in some regions, said the report by the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The UN stressed that the year 2021 must be the year of action for protecting people against the “disastrous” effects of climate change.

The call comes ahead of US President Joe Biden’s climate summit on Thursday and Friday.

Forty world leaders have been invited to attend Biden’s virtual talks aimed at galvanising efforts by the major economies to tackle the climate crisis.

“We are on the verge of the abyss,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a press conference as he unveiled the State of the Global Climate 2020 report by the WMO on Monday.

“This is truly a pivotal year for humanity’s future. And this report shows we have no time to waste, climate disruption is here,” Guterres said, as he urged countries to “end our war on nature”.

The report described 2020 as one of the hottest years on record, about 1.2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period, ranking it somewhere in the top three hottest years alongside 2016 and 2019, despite cooling La Niña conditions.

Concentrations of the major greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – continued to increase, the report said, despite the temporary reduction in emissions in 2020 related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which shredded economies.

Among the indicators highlighted were record low Arctic sea-ice extents in two months of 2020. About 80 percent of the ocean experienced at least one marine heatwave last year.

“This is the year for action. Countries need to commit to net zero emissions by 2050,” the UN chief said. “They need to act now to protect people against the disastrous effects of climate change.”
Hottest Years

Statistics showed that 2020 was one of the three warmest years on record. The past six years, including 2020, have been the six warmest on record.

Temperatures reached 38 Celsius at Verkhoyansk in Russia on June 20, the highest recorded temperature north of the Arctic Circle.

Last year featured “extreme weather and climate disruption, fuelled by anthropogenic climate change, affecting lives, destroying livelihoods and forcing many millions from their homes,” Guterres said.

The report said sea level rise was accelerating, while ocean heat storage and acidification is increasing, diminishing the ocean’s capacity to moderate climate change.

Extreme heatwaves, severe droughts and wildfires also led to tens of billions of dollars in economic losses and many deaths.

During 2020, the unprecedented number of 30 named Atlantic storms led to at least 400 fatalities and cost $41bn in damages.

Some 9.8 million displacements, largely due to hydrometeorological hazards and disasters – such as floods, droughts, hurricanes, and landslides – were recorded during the first half of 2020.

“This year is pivotal. At the United Nations climate conference, COP26, in November, we need to demonstrate that we are taking and planning bold action on mitigation and adaptation,” said Guterres.

But the 71-year-old UN chief stressed that reaching bold emissions reduction targets would mean “radical changes” in financing as well as prioritising efforts to help emerging regions like Africa and South Asia.

‘PEOPLE ARE NOT STARVING, THEY ARE BEING STARVED’

By Andrea Germanos, Commondreams.

April 22, 2021

The situation in Yemen is getting worse and it is projected that the population will experience alarming levels of acute malnutrition and food insecurity in Yemen which is the site of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, where over 24 million out of the country’s total population of 30 million need humanitarian aid, and one in five children in danger of malnutrition.




https://popularresistance.org/people-are-not-starving-they-are-being-starved/





NOTE: It is important to recognize that starving people is a choice and hunger can be ended, but ending hunger requires more than spending more money on food aid. There needs to be an end to the economic war, referred to as ‘sanctions,’ that the United States and its Western allies are waging on almost 40 nations. It requires ending corporate land grabs and government subsidies for factory farms that decimate smaller farmers. It requires ending the tactic of destroying and stealing food as the United States is doing in Syria. It requires ending economic support for the state of Israel that is blocking access to food and water in Gaza. And it requires ending wars and taking effective steps to mitigate the climate crisis. – MF
250+ Groups Demand Rich Nations Provide Urgent Food Assistance.

“It is human actions that are driving famine and hunger, and it is our actions that can stop the worst impacts.”

Over international 250 organizations are demanding urgent action from global governments to address the hunger and famine faced by hundreds of millions—a crisis the groups said is driven largely by policy choices including ignored appeals for a global ceasefire and humanitarian funding.

“These people are not starving, they are being starved,” the groups wrote in an open letter released Tuesday.

Referencing the countries where they operate—Yemen, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, DRC, Honduras, Venezuela, Nigeria, Haiti, CAR, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Sudan where they operate—the groups said, “These girls and boys, men and women, are being starved by conflict and violence; by inequality; by the impacts of climate change; by the loss of land, jobs, or prospects; by a fight against Covid-19 that has left them even further behind.”

The letter—signed by the International Council of Voluntary Agencies, Oxfam International, Danish Refugee Council, and Save the Children—was released a year after the World Food Programme (WFP) executive director David Beasley warned of the threat of “multiple famines of biblical proportions.” Despite that grave warning, the groups said in a statement that so far this year, donors have funded a mere 5% of the United Nations’ $7.8bn food security appeal for 2021.

“Every day, we share stories and evidence of hunger, starvation, and increasing humanitarian needs. Yet this does not prompt urgent action or sufficient funding,” they wrote.

“It is human actions that are driving famine and hunger,” the groups said, “and it is our actions that can stop the worst impacts.”




The letter asks the states to immediate provide $5.5 billion in food assistance to reach those “who are a step away from famine.”

That amount, the groups’ statement noted, is the equivalent of less than 26 hours of the $1.9 trillion of countries spend each year on the military.

Given conflicts’ role in driving hunger, global leaders must also work to “end conflict and violence in all its forms,” including by heeding U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’ call last year for a global ceasefire so that humanitarian assistance can reach those in need.

“There is no place for famine and starvation in the 21st century,” the open letter says. “History will judge us all by the actions we take today.”

Oxfam International executive director Gabriela Bucher said there’s no time to wait.

“The richest countries are slashing their food aid even as millions of people go hungry; this is an extraordinary political failure,” said Bucher, urging them to “urgently reverse these decisions.”

“And we must confront the fundamental drivers of starvation—global hunger is not about lack of food, but a lack of equality,” she added.

Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children, issued a similarly scathing statement.

“We have warned donors over and over again—their inaction is leading to death and despair among children, as we see in countries across the globe every single day,” Ashing said.

“That thousands of children will be dying of hunger and disease in 2021 is a political choice,” she added, “unless governments radically choose to help save the lives of children.”

WFP warned last year that 270 million people were on the brink of starvation.

Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in December on behalf of the organization, WFP’s Beasley said that the award was “more than a thank you. It is a call to action.”

Super League – Super Greed

STEVE JONES 20 APR 2021

https://www.socialist.net/super-league-super-greed.htm




“Total war in European football – the Super League is born.”

So read the headline of the Spanish newspaper El Pais yesterday morning, in response to the announcement by Europe’s most wealthy football clubs that plans are in place to form a breakaway European Super League, the ESL.

“The bonfire of greed,” stated La Gazzetta dello Sport in Italy, echoing what many feel.

Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Ander Herrera summed it up best, when he stated that the creation of the ESL was “the rich stealing what the people created”.
Business interests

Sunday’s long-expected announcement confirms what everybody already knew. 12 top clubs – including six from the Premier League – have already signed up, with three more expected to join them. You can guess the likely suspects.

These 15 clubs will have automatic membership of the new league, with five more joining based on actual merit. These clubs will play home and away fixtures in the league, followed by a knock-out structure to conclude the competition, with a final held at a neutral ground, as is the case with existing European competitions.

What is the rationale behind this latest proposal?

The initial joint statement from the Super 12 gives the game away: “The formation of the Super League comes at a time when the global pandemic has accelerated the instability in the existing European football economic model.”

This opening declaration goes on to say that the new competition will “provide significantly greater economic growth”.

If this sounds more like a business statement than a sports-based one, you would be correct.
Maximising profits

This is about generating huge additional sums from fans and TV – all aimed at maximising the profits for the rich few.

The suggested model is equivalent to the closed-shop franchise system used for professional team sports in the USA, with no promotion or relegation to worry the money men. This removes the inconvenient problem of having to have a good season on the pitch to get into elite Europe-wide competitions – albeit at everybody else's expense.

Consider the two-faced statement from Real Madrid president Florentino Perez, the first chairman of the ESL. Perez asserted that the new competition would “help football at every level…”

“Football is the only global sport in the world with more than four billion fans,” the Real Madrid boss continued, “and our responsibility as big clubs is to respond to their desires.”


What Perez really means is: The new competition will help football boards enrich themselves at the top level, making use of the fact that the game has four billion customers waiting to be further exploited.

This is a competition that will solely respond to the desires of the big club owners. These 15 teams (or brands) will always be in the competition, come what may – and to hell with the rest.
Backlash

Hostile reaction has come in thick and fast – not only from UEFA and FIFA, but also (more importantly) from fans and their organisations.

Football fans can see where this is leading. After all, this is a road that the professional game has been travelling down for a long time.

Protest banners have already started to appear on social media from fans around the country. But few expect those at the top to listen.


The hand-wringing and insult-shouting from UEFA is particularly dishonest. Indeed, this body had been set to announce a not-dissimilar reformatting of the current Champions League, aimed at heading off threats of a breakaway.

This plan never saw the light of day, however, due to a failure to find a format that would guarantee the inclusion – merit or not – of the big clubs. This lack of a guaranteed income source became a major sticking point. And for once, the normally slippery UEFA officials couldn't find a way around this.

With financial giant JP Morgan bankrolling the ESL, the rich clubs could see where the money was.

UEFA’s gripe is that they will be out of pocket when it comes to palm-greasing. They certainly are not worried about the fans’ concerns anymore than the ESL organisers are.
Culmination

The whole history of football over recent decades has been heading this way: turning the game from a mass spectator sport with roots in the communities into a multi-billion pound operation for wealthy investors.

First we had the introduction of live-screened games – just a few at first, then more and more with the arrival of satellite TV. Then we had the establishment of the Premier League, aimed at maximising TV income for those at the top, whilst reducing the trickle of cash to the lower leagues.

In Europe, we had the replacement of the three European cup competitions with the useless Europa League – now to have a second division, or ‘Conference’, as they call it from next season – alongside the Champions League itself.

The latter involves actual champions, plus a load of others – the “rich mates”, as one reporter put it at the time.

These bloated TV-friendly competitions were then spread over three days a week, rather than just one.

All this did not go unnoticed in company boardrooms. Money began to flow into the coffers of a few elite clubs. Huge corporations – and even countries – started buying clubs.

Matching this at every step were the major media companies. COVID-19 was a godsend for them. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, every game in Europe and the Premier League has been screened live: total football, seven days a week. This has opened a door that will not be easily closed.

The ESL will now be looking closely at what deals they can magic up with the television companies – especially the Americans, with the lucrative US market up for grabs.

At every stage, working-class fans and communities have been pushed further and further away. For football’s bosses, we are just walking credit cards; extras in a reality TV show.
What next?

The Tory government is talking about new legislation to block the ESL. But even if they succeed in scuppering these plans, we can guarantee that they won’t kick the billionaires out of football; nothing fundamental will change.

The fact is that we cannot rely on big business politicians or establishment figures to save our game. Instead, as Gary Neville has suggested, football fans should organise protests and boycotts immediately. And a grassroots campaign to kick capitalism out of football must be launched.

Maybe the league will go ahead; or maybe a deal will be brokered with international football organisations in order to keep existing competitions going – but certainly with critical changes that will leave us with something pretty similar to the private members’ club that is the ESL.

The losers, of course, will be us: ordinary football fans.

Expect other aspects of the game to change also. TV companies have already complained that games between-or-involving the top clubs attract higher viewing figures, and therefore greater advertising income. They will want ‘something’ done about this.

The elitist US-style format of the ESL may also provide a model for the next incarnation of the Premier League itself. Indeed, this has already been floated before.

FIFA is also rumoured to have a world club tournament in the works, aimed at cutting across UEFA.
Kick out capitalism

Real Madrid’s president claims that the ESL plan is about ‘saving football’. But why is football in danger? Because of the damage caused by capitalism. Upping the ante with more greed will only seal football’s fate.

The move to establish the ESL is just the next step in the process of profit destroying the ‘beautiful game’; the latest example of the corrosive influence of capitalism on football.

As with every other walk of life and sector of the economy, the result of capitalist competition is monopolisation and a concentration of wealth in the hands of a super-rich few.

Football is already being run by bodies riddled with corruption, cronyism, dodgy deals, and a total indifference to the interests of the fans. No wonder that when the FBI started looking into corruption inside FIFA some years ago, they found it easier to understand FIFA’s workings by comparing it to the Mafia. They certainly act like a bunch of gangsters.

The war now breaking out between UEFA, FIFA, and the new ESL is a war to decide how to divide up the spoils; to decide which group of rich bloodsuckers benefit from what is coming next.

This is not sport. It is big business, run under the ruthless logic of the capitalist system.

We need to kick capitalism out of football. The ESL, Premier League, UEFA, FIFA: It is all about making money and nothing else for these people.

The only league tables that interest these parasites are those in the company spreadsheets – profit and loss. They have no interest in the spirit or traditions of the game, as is proven by the guarantee against relegation in the ESL.

Instead of this destruction and profiteering, we must demand that clubs be brought under public ownership, run by-and-for fans, players, and local communities.

We say: No to the ESL! No to the bureaucrats and bosses running football! No to capitalism! Boot them all out to save our game!

Health Insurer Pressured Employees To Fight State Public Option

Video shows UnitedHealth exec slamming Connecticut proposal’s “artificially low premiums” and pushing employees to lobby against the bill.


Julia Rock
Apr 23




Editor’s note: In response to subscribers’ requests, this is the second in a multi-part series on state-level health care reform. Read the first story here.


Photo credit: Dawn Villella/Getty Images

This report was written by Julia Rock.

Health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group held a webinar to pressure its rank-and-file employees to mobilize against efforts in Connecticut to create a state-level public health insurance option, according to a video of the presentation obtained by The Daily Poster.

“It does sound like it’s just an option. But the problem is that it would exist on an unlevel playing field with private insurance,” Mishael Azam, a UnitedHealth Group vice president of external affairs, told employees on the February 24 webinar. “The public option really is the path to single-payer, where there is really no private option left.”

Azam slammed the public option proposal for potentially providing Connecticut residents “artificially low premiums.” She encouraged employees to call their legislators and express their concerns about Connecticut’s public option proposal, which is designed to create more insurance competition and reduce health insurance premiums for consumers.

“If you agree with anything that you’re hearing today, taking action and contacting your legislator really makes a difference. It did make a difference in 2019,” she said, referring to when the insurance industry successfully killed a previous public option effort in Connecticut.




UnitedHealth spokesperson Eric Hausman told The Daily Poster that employees’ attendance at the February webinar was voluntary. “While we do not discuss internal meetings, educational webinars on issues of importance to our industry and our communities, such as the proposed public option in Connecticut, are completely voluntary,” he said.
“They Think They Are Screwed”

The nation’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealth saw its profits boom last year during the COVID-19 pandemic, as people largely avoided going to the doctor and put off elective procedures, activities that cost insurers money.

The company reported more than $15 billion in profit in 2020, an 11 percent increase over the previous year. In the year prior to that, the company made headlines after its CEO netted more than $50 million. Now, UnitedHealth is taking action to protect its windfall, as lawmakers around the country weigh reforms to address soaring health care costs.

In Connecticut, where UnitedHealth asked regulators to approve large increases in premiums for this year, the company and other major insurers have undertaken a massive campaign to block a new legislative attempt at passing a state-level public option.

Hartford, the state capital, is a major hub for health insurers, which account for 25,000 jobs, according to the industry. The state has long been a battleground between the health insurance industry and those fighting for reforms.

In 2009, Connecticut passed a law that paved the way for the state to establish a public option. Six months later, though, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and the state never set up its own insurance option. Former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman played a key role in killing the public option provision in the ACA, refusing to support the bill if it included a public option.

Connecticut lawmakers proposed public option plans in 2019 and 2020. Once again, legislators in the Democratic-held state house are considering public option legislation, backed by state Comptroller Kevin Lembo, and the chair of the Senate insurance committee Sen. Matthew Lesser. The bill passed the Senate finance committee on Thursday, and will receive a vote on the floor of the Senate before going to the assembly.

The legislative proposal to create a public option in Connecticut would authorize the state comptroller to offer the state’s current health care plan for public employees to certain individuals, small businesses, and non-profit employers. The so-called Connecticut Partnership Plan is currently administered by Anthem.

Additionally, the proposal would raise funds for subsidies for those people by instituting a tax on health insurance companies, similar to the Affordable Care Act’s Health Insurance Tax. The Health Insurance Tax, which cost Connecticut health insurers $300 million annually, was repealed in 2019, and the repeal took effect earlier this year. The new tax would cost insurers in the state $50 million.

Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont opposes the legislature’s bill, and has instead proposed his own health insurance reform plan, which would tax insurance companies to fund more subsidies to buy health insurance on the state exchange.

Front group campaigns backed by the health insurance industry are working to kill the legislation, and they are spending millions of dollars to kill state-level public option legislation being considered in Colorado, too. They argue that if states set up even modest public option plans, it could be the start of a slippery slope towards a single-payer system where there’s no need for health insurance companies.

Hausman, the UnitedHealth Group spokesperson, additionally argued in an email that “public option proposals will disrupt current coverage platforms by reducing access to providers, shifting costs to small businesses, increasing taxes, and eliminating jobs.”

Tom Swan, the executive director of the Connecticut Citizen Action Group, a group advocating for the public option legislation, told The Daily Poster that health insurers “are so threatened by this because if a public option passes in the insurance capital of the United States, they think they are screwed. And we hope that’s true.”
“Really Grassroots”

During the webinar, Azam, the UnitedHealth Group vice president, claimed that a state-run health insurance option would create an “unlevel playing field” in competing against private insurers, claims that have been widely repeated in the industry’s campaign.

When asked by an employee attending the webinar what it means for the premiums to be artificially low, she responded, “When I say artificially low, I mean that we wouldn’t even be allowed to have premiums that low because we are required to have revenues match claims. Whereas the state is not requiring itself to do so. And taxes have been increased to cover those state costs.”

Azam was repeating the false claim propagated by the Connecticut Business & Industry Association that the state’s Connecticut Partnership Plan does not charge high enough premiums to cover costs.

Lembo, the state comptroller, debunked that claim in a February letter, explaining that a 2019 legislative fix had brought premiums on par with the cost of care. The actual reason the Partnership’s premiums are lower is that the difference between claims and premiums is not used to generate profits, according to a March report from the comptroller’s office.

In the presentation, Azam also laid out the company’s strategy for tanking the public option proposal. “We have three major coalitions in Connecticut in addition to our grassroots efforts,” she said.

The presentation slide listed the Stop The HIT national coalition, a group that was formed to push for the repeal of the original Health Insurance Tax in the ACA; Insurance Matters to Connecticut, a coalition of insurers, businesses, and trade groups in the state organizing against the public option; and Connecticut’s Health Care Future.

Connecticut’s Health Care Future is a campaign from the Partnership for America’s Healthcare Future Action, a state-focused affiliate of the health care industry front group set up to oppose Medicare for All and a public option at the federal level.

“This national group has major members including the American Hospital Association, AHIP [America’s Health Insurance Plans], physician groups, business groups, and the Connecticut arm of it is really grassroots,” Azam said.

Connecticut’s Health Care Future has made radio ad buys, and Azam said during the February webinar that it is also “aggressively engaged in letter writing campaigns.”

She added: “There are over 10,000 members of ‘My Care, My Choice,’ a grassroots platform in Connecticut, that are engaged in letter writing, and we also have a targeted letter writing campaign to key members of the Insurance Committee in the legislature.”

Azam said that other insurers and trade groups are working to deploy their employees against the Connecticut legislation.

“We also have trade groups doing employee engagements like this and member engagements. And the other carriers in Connecticut, the other major health insurance carriers, are doing engagements like we are today as well,” she said.

Azam noted that Connecticut’s Health Care Future had recently done polling in the state and found that “consumers are very concerned about a government takeover of health care.”

The group’s polling was conducted by Locust Street Group, a public relations and grassroots consulting firm. They claimed that only 36 percent of respondents support a Connecticut public option, and only 40 percent support the idea of a national public option plan.

Meanwhile, a Fox News Voter Analysis survey of the American electorate, conducted just before the 2020 election, found that 74 percent of Connecticut voters support the idea of “changing the health care system so that any American can buy into a government-run health care plan if they want to.”

While Azam had previously said that Connecticut’s Health Care Future is “really grassroots,” when an employee asked how they can get involved with the group, she responded: “I don't know that individuals can join the Connecticut for Health Care Future coalition. I think it's mostly businesses.”