Nurses rallied at the entrance to Rikers Island jail in Queens, New York, this year.
Think back to the beginning of this year. A stay-at-home order has you trapped inside. Now imagine you have no phone, no computer, and no one to talk to. You are by yourself fourteen days in a row. This sort of prolonged isolation is a form of torture. It has been the daily life of thousands of incarcerated people since March.
In Orleans Parish jails, If you test positive for COVID-19, if you were in contact with someone who tested positive, if you are being treated for non-COVID-19 related illness, or medical staff simply deem it appropriate, you are forcibly subjected to fourteen days of solitary confinement. This policy has not stopped infections. As of October 16, 10 inmates in OPP were listed as positive for COVID-19.
The best policy to stop the spread of COVID-19 is also the most humane: free all nonviolent inmates and detainees! This applies to all jails, prisons, and so called “detention centers”. In the meantime, incarcerated people who have been denied visitations deserve a chance to video-conference with their families and communities. End the torture now!
Raises $170 Million to Pay for Golf Trips and Racist, Anti-Worker Organizing Runs Bribery Schemes for Pardons While He Lets 2,200 Die from COVID-19 Every Day
Trump knows he lost the election. But he can’t resist a good scam. So, he sat down with the equally corrupt Giuliani and started scheming. They decided to tell his duped loyal supporters that the election is rigged and call for donations to an election defense fund. The money goes into a personal PAC, “Save America” to use any way he wants. Give it to himself and his little darling children, host parties at Mar a Lago, or maybe buy another gold-plated toilet. This fund will also be used to organize racist, anti-worker attacks on the people by the likes of his “Proud Boys” and others, who are ultra-right-wing stooges for Wall Street.
He’s also running a bidding scheme for payoffs, going now for over one million dollars a pardon for people who are war criminals, banker thieves, scammers of seniors, slum lords, and people who generally would like to see workers’ wages dropped to $1 an hour. Oh, and course, who’d like to legalize child labor and end public schools.
Throughout his term in office, Trump and his rotten children have all profited personally as has his rabid dog, Giuliani. Melania, famed for saying who cares about migrant children in cages, has fared well for the time being. But Trump will probably dump her when she gets a gray hair. Time for a new model.
Drug Dealing Billionaires Conspired to Sell More Oxycontin Despite 450,000 Dead from Opioid Overdoses
While thousands go to prisons for long sentences for dealing petty amounts of drugs, the billionaire Sackler family got off with no jail time despite pleading guilty to criminal charges of conspiracy to push Oxycontin—especially to doctors prescribing large amounts. The Sacklers even gave payments to doctors whose “patients” died. The Sacklers are celebrating what is really a win for them, as they siphoned off at least $10 billion from the company which is now in off- shore accounts. So, as they live it up, millions of family members mourn and workers at the company are left wondering whether they have jobs or pensions. This proves once again that prisons are mainly concentration camps for the poor and that the wealth of the rich buys them immunity for the crimes they commit.
Louisiana Movement for Workers Councils leads anti-eviction march on Sept. 8.
By Ashlee Pintos
While politicians and the big business media promise that a coming COVID-19 vaccine will magically fix the economic crisis, over 12 million renters around the country will owe an average of $5,850 in back rent by January 1. In Orleans parish alone, some 30,000 households are vulnerable to evictions, and thousands more are on the brink of foreclosure. Even before COVID, working people have been struggling to make ends meet as rent prices and property taxes have skyrocketed as a result of gentrification. Now, millions of us are unemployed or have had our hours and wages cut and we’ve received little to no help with our mounting debts.
This issue is shaking the core of the entire country, with thousands of households in almost every large city facing possible evictions. the Democratic and Republican parties can agree on a trillion dollar war budget, but they can’t agree on relief for workers in some of our most desperate hours. Our only way out of this crisis is to organize ourselves, independent of the two parties of Wall Street and the Pentagon. this has taken a heavy toll on us workers but we must take heart at our massive numbers: would they dare to evict us if we banded together?
The Louisiana Movement for Workers Councils is an effort to unite all working people, employed and unemployed, to demand that the state and federal government provide us with what we need to survive this crisis, using our tax dollars. Looking back on the history of social security, food stamps, and unemployment insurance, we know that it has always been the struggle of the masses that has forced those in power to concede to our demands.
Time and time again, government officials cry that their hands are tied, that they cannot call a moratorium on evictions or provide extended unemployment insurance. But we are organizing to push back against the State Legislature that has given over $150 million in tax breaks to oil companies amid a pandemic. We’re organizing to demand that the Mayor and local politicians, whose sights are set on making New Orleans “the number one city to do business,” use their emergency powers to halt evictions and foreclosures. It is only our solidarity with one another that can keep us in our homes and win the relief we need.
