Aug. 14: People in ICE detention at Pine Prairie, LA hold signs reading “HELP” and “WE ARE INNOCENTS”
by A Scribe Called Quess?
“We are like a slave under a master with no place to go. The master[…] is ICE.” So said some of the 43 Cameroonian men detained in an ICE concentration camp in Pine Prairie, LA in a video published on Juneteenth this year. The men have been locked up by ICE for as much as 19 months with no end in sight. Racist Judge Scott Laragy has dismissed or “lost” evidence presented by the men while abusively telling them to shut up and trying to intimidate them into signing voluntary deportation during trials, adding to the 20% rate of African migrants facing deportation versus other immigrant groups with larger populations in the US. In response, they waged a 10-day hunger strike that landed them in solitary confinement where they were forced to drink toilet water. All this in a concentration camp where one out of five detainees have tested positive for COVID. The treatment of the men is illegal, as they qualify to seek asylum in the U.S., a right guaranteed by the Constitution for non-citizens fleeing political persecution in their homelands.
In their native Cameroon, a civil war has been waged by the dominant French-speaking government against the Southern, English-speaking region of Cameroon since 2016. This genocidal war is rooted in 55-year-old tensions between the two regions that have existed since British Cameroon established independence in 1961 and joined French Cameroon. Colonization left a deep divide that has festered over time as the French-speaking majority has tried to dominate the English-speaking minority to control their oil supply. This type of capitalistic oppression born of European colonization is all too common in the motherland. And its effects lead to refugee crises and migrants seeking safety in the U.S., the very country that helps perpetuate the oppression that led to the migrants’ crisis in the first place.
Aug. 14: New Orleans Worker’s Group leads protest of the illegal and brutal detention of migrants at GEO Group’s for-profit ICE detention center in Pine Prairie, LA.
As U.S. citizens, we can use our privilege to raise up the voices of our oppressed workers overseas. When interviewed by WV, Divine of the Cameroonian 40 encouraged folks on the outside to help the world hear their cry by contacting them for interviews, sharing their story on social media, and waging demonstrations on their behalf as New Orleans Worker’s Group comrades did on August 14th when they drove a motorcade to Pine Prairie and raised their voices in solidarity with the men. To learn more ways to support, email neworleansworkersgroup@gmail.com.
This August marks 75 years since the United States’ horrific nuclear bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was the first and so far only deliberate use of atomic bombs against a human population in history. Over 220,000 Japanese civilians lost their lives in the span of two days. Survivors reported seeing charred heads and limbs of loved ones and neighbors strewn through the streets. The cities were flattened within a matter of seconds. Survivors faced a decades-long struggle to recover from the fallout, including nuclear contamination of water and agricultural fields, cancer, and birth defects.
75 years later, despite the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Trump administration and the Pentagon are systematically withdrawing from international treaties that limit the use of nuclear aggression. The Trump administration declined to renew the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in August of 2019. That same year 22 billion in tax payer dollars were budgeted towards the further development and accumulation of the nuclear arsenal. The likelihood that the U.S. will renew the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in 2021 seems increasingly remote.
Despite the irreversible destruction that nuclear weapons pose to the very existence of our planet and human life, the Trump administration, Pentagon and allies are forging ahead to expand the US nuclear arsenal program over the next decade to the tune of $1.7 trillion in American taxpayer dollars. Congress has approved the 2020 National Defense Military Act, which will allot $740.5 billion to military spending (the most US military spending since WWII) to further develop and amass a nuclear arsenal to be stored in US military bases around the world. This same act hypocritically renews sanctions on North Korea due to their ownership of nuclear weapons. The Federation of American Scientists report that while the US has nearly 7,000 nuclear weapons, it is estimated that North Korea has 30 to 60 at most.
It’s clear the National Defense Act has nothing to do with defending the American people and everything to do defending American capitalist profits abroad, through war and fear-mongering. With only a fraction of what the Pentagon is proposing for weapons of mass destruction, every person in the US could have quality healthcare, safe jobs or universal income.
It’s time for the resurgence of a mass movement in the US to demand that working people are no longer looted to fatten the wallets of arms manufacturers and war-hungry CEOs. The wealth American working people create must be used to feed and protect the people, not to export mass destruction and terror on other working people of the world.
Bolivian national strike and nationwide road blockades were called for by the Bolivian trade union center, the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) in August.
by Adam Pedesclaux
For the past few weeks, tens of thousands have been marching, striking, and blocking traffic along many of the major highways across Bolivia. They are demanding the resignation of the coup government of Jeanine Áñez. Áñez’ fascist government has carried out cuts to social programs and privatizations, which have wrecked the national healthcare system, killing thousands. It has brutally repressed and massacred workers, peasants, and indigenous people who have stood up to defend themselves. Using the pandemic as an excuse, her government has postponed elections to maintain its grip on power.
On November 2019, with U.S. backing, Áñez’s right wing government of the rich removed the democratically elected president Evo Morales and other high ranking officials of the MAS (Movement for Socialism) party of Bolivia. The ultra-rich in Bolivia are deeply racist and want to crush the historic liberation of the Indigenous masses in Bolivia, which Morales’ party stood for. Morales’ party had also worked to guarantee universal healthcare, improve literacy, and return land to the indigenous people that had been stolen by the rich. Áñez government is attempting to reverse every last one of these progressive reforms but the trade unions, indigenous and peasant organizations in the streets are determined to fight back.
Fascist Coup in Bolivia the Work of Billionaires
Bolivia has one of the world’s largest reserves of lithium, a mineral needed for the production for batteries.
The U.S. company Tesla requires vast amounts of lithium to maintain production of its electric cars.
When it was recently reported that Tesla’s billionaire CEO, Elon Musk, might have played a role in supporting the right-wing coup in Bolivia, Musk replied: “ We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” These are the words of the same billionaire who called the covid lockdown “fascist,” as thousands of predominantly Black, Latinx, and Indigenous frontline workers were succumbing to the virus and who vocally opposed any government relief for workers. In moments like these, the real motives of the U.S. ruling class are revealed. We know that U.S. billionaires are conscious of their role in oppression and misery around the world, but rarely are they so frank.
The future of the world’ peoples should be in their own hands, not in the hands of billionaire creeps like Elon Musk.
There is a sense of impending doom hanging over the company. The fourth positive COVID test sends rumors through the staff, but there’s no word from management except to a select few. No one is given a chance to decide for themselves whether they’ve been exposed.
Everyone is confused and upset: “Why are they making us come in when it’s not safe? Why won’t they let us work from home? Who’s going to be next?”
The lack of information only makes the terror worse. The bosses want the company to remain open no matter what danger it brings to workers. The measures taken to protect the workers are the bare minimum and clearly not adequate. When someone gets sick, the managers insist the exposure didn’t happen at the company. “We don’t know what they do in their free time” is a mantra they repeat, as if it will wash the blood off their hands.
“This is the new normal,” they claim, despite many other countries getting the pandemic under control. “We’re following the guidelines,” they insist, despite multiple people being sick.
They pass the blame onto workers while putting a metaphorical gun to our head, forcing us to work or be fired. As eviction courts reopen and the unemployment rate skyrockets, the alternative is to find another job in a dead job market or risk quitting and becoming homeless.
They twist every word to keep the company open. They ignore the fact that the guidelines have failed to stop the pandemic, that there are more than a thousand deaths per day around the country. They have the ability to make the workers safer, but they refuse, all in the name of making money. They don’t care that their excuses don’t make sense. To call them “irresponsible” is to suggest they don’t know exactly what they’re doing. They have prioritized profits over people.
Workers have little choice, unless we’re organized. In many places, management has kept people isolated, disorganized, and terrified of causing trouble. Throughout the city, the infection rate increases as workers are forced into danger. Workers feel powerless to stand up for themselves against manipulative bosses. But the truth is, the bosses are scared. They got a glimpse of what the world would look like if workers took back their power, organized, and refused to work when the pandemic forced them to shut down initially. They have called people back in a desperate attempt to save their businesses, knowing that if we unite and fight back, there’s nothing they can do.
We Need Farmworkers, We Don’t Need Greedy Capitalists
by Jennifer Lin
COVID-19 is killing migrant farmworkers across the country. Farmworkers cannot socially distance as they work closely together and live in overcrowded housing. Many do not have access to bathrooms or clean water. While these essential workers risk their lives during a pandemic to put food on everyone’s tables, corporate farmers are denying them masks, paid leave, and hazard pay. How dare they, when Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture gave corporate “farmers” over $19 BILLION to boost their profits.
Over 70% of farmworkers are migrants. Even though they feed us all they do not get unemployment benefits or stimulus checks, food stamps or Medicaid. Because of their terrible working conditions, which can be taken away if unemployed, working or staying home is equally a death sentence. Now racist politicians are blaming them for spreading COVID-19.
Florida governor DeSantis is scapegoating migrant farmworkers for the state’s record surge in COVID-19 cases. He said these workers are “overwhelmingly Hispanic” and “you don’t want those folks mixing with the general public.” DeSantis is not just racist, he’s a liar. The state health department did not provide data to back his claims, and according to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, most new cases have occurred in areas with little agriculture and is due to bosses bowing to corporate pressure to reopen and refusing to carry out measures to stop the spread. Beaches, bars, and right-wing churches are packed disease-spreaders. COVID-19 cases in Florida are spreading in migrant communities at a deadly rate because DeSantis and the capitalists do not care about the people. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (farmworkers), have been demanding tests, contact tracing, quarantine spaces, PPE, and relief funds for the county’s farmworkers since April. DeSantis has ignored their demands.
Farmworkers are joining hundreds of meatpacking workers, warehouse workers, healthcare workers, hospitality workers, teachers, firefighters, longshore workers, and more in strikes to demand essential protections. In Wasco, CA, workers in the union United Farm Workers organized a strike and picket line after 150 of 200 workers at Primex Farms, a nut company, tested positive for COVID-19. After ignoring workers’ demands for PPE, social distancing, and sick leave, Primex retaliated against the workers by firing them. But these workers will not back down; they demand to return to their jobs under safe conditions. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the United Farm Workers have started petitions around their demands.
Trump and Democrat politicians are killing essential workers. They are giving billions to agribusiness and Agribanks but withholding benefits to farmworkers. They do not care if we starve or die; they want to send us all back to work so that they get can get rich off our backs. These greedy capitalists are waging war on us, and farmworkers and other essential workers are on the frontline, fighting back. Without farmworkers, we don’t eat. It’s time we stand in solidarity with farmworkers and demand protection for them and all the essential workers who keep us alive!
On August 5, members of National Nurses United (NNU) held more than 200 actions inside and outside hospital facilities across the country. They are demanding emergency production of PPE and cash payments, extended unemployment benefits, and daycare subsidies through the end of 2020 to support families in crisis.
“Nurses know that this country’s rampant social, economic, and racial injustice has been killing our patients all along. COVID-19 is just forcing us as a society to face these problems,” said Bonnie Castillo, RN and NNU executive director. “These recent COVID surges and uncontrolled infections and deaths, the failure of employers to protect our nurses and other workers, the outrageously high rates of unemployment and hunger, the totalitarian crackdown on protesters — every crisis we are seeing now can be traced back to our failure to value human lives over profit.”
“Nurses are still at risk,” said Mary C. Turner, an intensive care unit RN and president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, whose members are participating in the actions. “We still reuse PPE that was meant to be discarded. We still care for COVID-19 patients and non-COVID patients at the same time. And we still struggle to protect ourselves so we can protect our patients.“
“COVID has exposed everything that has been wrong with our system,” said Zenei Cortez, RN and a president of NNU. “The old way was a huge failure. Now is the time to reenvision a world based on nurses’ values of caring, compassion, and community.”
With a 97% yes vote for the union, childcare workers will be able to negotiate with the state for living wages, health care, and support services.
Nancy Harvey, childcare worker, said “We need a livable wage. It’s unfair and unjust for us to be caring for families and yet no one is caring for us.”
The union, Child Care Providers United, was supported by two unions, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
Preschool childcare workers carry out one of the most important jobs yet they are grossly underpaid. Preschool teachers are six times more likely to live in poverty than K-12 teachers.
In California these workers receive payments from the state when they care for children from low-income families. Their union is fighting to get more funding for families. As of now, only 1 in 9 low income families receive subsidized care.
“For far too long, the needs of parents have been pitted against the needs of providers,” said Mary Ignatius, statewide organizer for Parent Voices California, a parent-led organization that advocates for more childcare subsidies. “Our providers are always sacrificing for families. I know that as they are getting to the table to improve their wages and livelihoods, I know at the same time they’ll be doing everything they can to improve access, because that’s who they want to serve, the most vulnerable children.” (Source: edsource.org)
President-elect Donald J. Trump shakes hands with Vice President Joe Biden as he arrives for his inauguration on January 20, 2017 in Washington, D.C. Photo by: Pat Benic/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
by Sally Jane Black
“Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners. The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in [Congress].” – V.I. Lenin
In 2014, Ukraine announced it would not exclusively sell its natural gas to NATO countries but would also sell to Russia. For this, the Obama administration backed a coup that put a fascist government in power in the country. Six years later, the Ukrainian military is sporting swastikas, burning trade union offices, and passing anti-Jewish and anti-LGBTQ laws. Joe Biden, as Vice President, backed and celebrated the fascist takeover because the capitalists that funded the Democratic Party asked for it.
As workers face crisis, it is understandable to place hope in those who promise relief. And we organize to demand that relief. It is understandable to look at Trump’s never-ending assault on our lives and cling to any contender. Compared to the fascist, racist, sexual predator Donald Trump, even a racist, sexual predator like Joe Biden may seem to offer a sliver of hope.
We know that Trump is a fascist and dangerous. He has unleashed anti-worker, racist hatred and encouraged police repression. The question is will voting for Biden stop the growth of fascism? The same Biden who supported a coup against the elected Indigenous leader of Bolivia, Evo Morales, who supports Bolivia’s extreme right-wing oligarchy, which is carrying out mass killings, arrests and cuts to social programs amid a pandemic? Can we count on him to restrain these forces at home? Will Biden, former vice president to deporter-in-chief Obama offer relief to the most oppressed among us? Trump is an outgrowth of the years of promoting oil, chemical, and military profiteering by the Democratic Party along with Republicans. Trump is an executive of the capitalist class, not just an insane individual.
To promote the capitalist Democratic party rather than our own independent party is to ignore the policies they have carried out for decades on behalf of the ultra-rich including the slashing of social programs. Massive deadly unjust wars were carried out by “Democrats” along with the growth of racist mass incarceration, privatization of prisons, and the drug wars designed to fill prison profiteers’ pockets with the fruits of enslaved labor.
Must Trump go? Yes! But the tragedy of the last four years has been to put faith in the Democratic Party instead of forcing Trump out with massive street demonstrations. While pouring millions into the Democrat coffers, the unions have failed to mount one major anti-Trump demonstration while he strips workers of all safety and rights.
We defend the right to vote as we fight against attacks on all civil rights, union rights or threats to the environment. But we have seen that the Democrats are not the opposition party to the Republicans. Their role is not to resist fascism, but to maintain exploitation and help quash the mass movement by false promises. Biden has a history of embracing racist, homophobic, sexist, and anti-worker policies, supporting (and even drafting legislation for) everything from segregation to mass incarceration. In the midst of a pandemic, he has denounced universal healthcare, and in his time as vice president, he supported the rise of ICE. His vice presidency set the groundwork for the federal police forces we face today. He is not the answer to fascism; he has shown already that he supports it when it benefits the capitalist class at home and abroad.
Over 40 million people took to the streets to oppose police terror, and the Democrats picked a “top cop” as Biden’s vice president, who incarcerated thousands, put trans people in wrong-gendered prisons and denied them healthcare, and criminalized truancy in California schools. The Democrats serve the rich ruling class, who want to put down the uprisings and force workers to die for profits.
Change comes from the struggle, not from politicians. The uprisings represent change. The Democrats and Republicans represent the status quo (the dictatorship of the capitalists). We should fear four more years of Trump. But we should also fear Biden’s drive to World War III against China which would destroy us all.
Let the power of the people speak, let us vote with our feet and our bodies to force back not only Trump but the capitalist drive to war, destruction of the planet, and impoverishment of the people.
Biden’s role is not to save the people from Trump. It is to save the capitalists from the people’s anger at Trump. Organizing a working-class movement, creating a working-class party, and fighting for working class interests will win us far more, no matter who is in office.
Workers cannot put our faith in the courts. Not only is it clear that the court system is skewed to the rich–what worker can afford to go to court against their bosses?–but the courts themselves only decide in favor of the workers when they are forced to by the struggle. The courts are designed to distract us, to draw our desperation away from the struggle and hinge our hopes on nine members of the rich, ruling class.
“Our humanity does not begin and end with the courts,” said Joseph Coco, a queer, trans essential worker. “They are a tool that’s been forced onto us by the rich ruling class. A tool that doesn’t truly belong to the people is a tool that can never grant us true liberation.”
While workers around the country celebrated the defeat of anti-abortion laws, unanimous jury verdicts, and discrimination of LGBTQ people in the courts this summer, the undemocratic, unelected Supreme Court ruled in favor of several anti-worker causes that will especially harm women and all LGBTQ people, including allowing employers to discriminate on “religious or moral grounds,” leaving the door wide open to refusing to serve LGBTQ people at businesses, denying birth control to workers, or discriminating against almost anyone for anything on a “moral” basis.
Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Title VII protecting LGBTQ rights, the Trump administration enacted a policy that shelters could refuse homeless trans people on “religious or moral grounds” as well. The court decision for Title VII means nothing to the Trump administartion’s assault on our rights, nor to the rich ruling class they serve.
They have made it clear that no court decision will stop them from using their power to divide and control workers, pitting LGBTQ workers against religious workers, limiting our ability to engage with society, and making it harder for us to survive. Only a united working class movement can force the courts to bend in our favor.
The United States has only 4% percent of the world’s population but the highest number of cases and deaths in the world. “It is what it is,” Trump said in August. Meanwhile socialist countries around the world have pursued a different path: “We have a responsibility to protect human lives and the entire social fabric with serenity, realism, and objectivity,” said Cuban President Díaz-Canel.
Socialist States Put People Over Profits
The U.S. government’s COVID-19 policy is geared towards protecting the profits of billionaires. Meanwhile, socialist states have taken a scientific approach aimed at protecting life and avoiding social trauma and desperation.
Vietnam, population 96 million, has had only 26 deaths and 989 infections due to swift, scientific measures instituted immediately by the Vietnamese Communist Party, including a country-wide lock down, information campaign, mask mandate, free hand sanitizer, early closure of schools and religious institutions, and extensive testing. At the same time, they continued to meet the needs of the population.
While certain parts of the U.S. have enacted preventive measures such as mask mandates, free testing, contract tracing, and the closure of all but essential businesses, these policies are doomed to fail if people are not guaranteed essential means of survival such as housing, food, and healthcare. U.S. residents have to weigh potential financial ruin (and for some of us, deportation) against the need to self-isolate or to seek out medical care.
Socialist states showed another way. The Indian state of Kerala— governed by the elected Communist Party of India (Marxist)—made testing and treatment free and available to everyone in the state. For those unable to safely quarantine at home, centers were set up, and temporary housing was constructed for migrant workers needing safer housing and healthcare.
Socialist countries provide cash assistance, food, housing, and medical care. There are no evictions. This is in stark contrast to the U.S. policy of providing temporary and partial relief to some while showering private corporations and banks with trillions of dollars.
PPE, Health Care for the Public Good Not Profits
At the onset of the pandemic, the U.S. flat-out rejected test kits from the World Health Organization. Socialist countries, including China and Vietnam, directed their public sector to produce PPE and healthcare equipment for their own people and also sent these products around the world. China built hospitals in as few as ten days.
Socialism: A System of Solidarity and Internationalism
In Kerala, government employees, trade union members, youth and student activists, participate in relief efforts. Through government sponsored and civilian organized Social Volunteer Forces, hundreds of thousands of youth identify needs and coordinate the provision of goods and services to communities and hospitals.
Socialist countries demonstrate solidarity at home and internationally. Cuba has dispatched doctors around the world, as has China. Vietnam sent hundreds of thousands of units of PPE to the United States. These countries understand that if humanity is going to survive this pandemic and future disasters, worldwide cooperation is required.
Workers Must Get Rid of the Murderous Capitalist System
The causes of the high rate of deaths and illness in the U.S. predate the virus. We must reject the centuries-old U.S. policy of sacrificing workers at the altar of capitalist profit, with the worst harm falling on our Indigenous and Black siblings. We must stand up and get rid of a system that says our lives and our families are disposable. Together, we must dispose of the capitalists for the sake of all humanity and the planet.
