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COVID-19: U.S. 170,000 Deaths, 5.5 million infections; Socialist Vietnam, 26 Deaths, 989 infections

by Z Petrosian

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.

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Hurricane Katrina and COVID-19: The Wealthy Swoop in to Profit While We Suffer

Plans for tax exempt luxury housing at Charity Hospital include a swimming pool and private parking while we’re struggling with broken roads, poor schools, and low wages. Charity was the second-oldest public hospital in the United States before being sabotaged after Katrina.

New Orleanians have not forgotten how the wealthy weaponized Hurricane Katrina to dispossess tens of thousands of workers of our jobs, homes, and livelihoods. We watched (and continue to watch) giveaways to developers, business owners, and tourism executives while our community remains displaced, impoverished, and denied basic rights to jobs, healthcare, public transportation, public housing, and public education.

For reasons the wealthy would like us to forget, New Orleanians, more than most Americans, are poised to see the COVID-19 pandemic for what it is. We know that disasters are always in part human-made: when we talk about Katrina, when we speak of the Storm, we aren’t just talking about wind and water. And when we talk about COVID-19, we know this disaster is more than a virus; it’s also a scheme of the rich ruling class.

Like Katrina, COVID-19 is being weaponized against the working class in the United States. As we see corporate bail-outs shower our exploiters with money, the working class is told to be satisfied with one-time payments and unemployment checks (which many workers still don’t qualify for) while we face mounting debts, evictions, and hunger.

With COVID-19, we currently face a disaster on two fronts: there is the immediate threat of the virus itself and the imminent and ongoing threat to our lives that the ruling class, using the virus as cover, is opportunistically organizing.

We New Orleanians must position ourselves to fight both the current and coming disaster. We must organize to ensure that our city and country are not further re-made by the wicked hands of the rich. As the ruling class weaponizes this terrible virus, the working class must organize in solidarity with one another to fight the real disease: capitalism.

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Take Down All Symbols to White Supremacy; Drop the Charges Against Wassell & Davis.

At a Take Back Pride demonstration on June 13, hundreds of protestors joined the worldwide movement to rid the earth of monuments to white supremacy. Carrying out the people’s mandate, they toppled a long despised statue of slaveholder and segregationist John McDonogh in Duncan Plaza. John McDonogh amassed a vast fortune off the backs of enslaved African people. Upon his death, some of this money went to the city to ensure a racially segregated school system. For their mere presence at the scene of this righteous demonstration of people power, Protestors Caleb Wassell and Michaela Davis were wrongfully singled out, arrested and face serious charges.

The City of New Orleans government should be arrested for continuing to allow the emulation of slaveholders to litter the city. It is long past time that all racist monuments to slavery be taken down. For years the City has ignored people’s demands to remove these statues. Just as all civil disobedience arose out of justice denied, people are rising up to push society forward. The national uprisings that were sparked by the public lynching of George Floyd are not over. Too many of our people are being repressed by police and jailed for exercising their right to rebel. We refuse to have our tax dollars used to imprison anyone standing up for freedom. We demand that all charges against Caleb and Michaela be dropped.

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Jefferson Parish School Staff & Parents Continue Fight

School Staff and Parents Fight to Keep Schools Closed as School Infections Skyrocket Across the Country

by John Guzda; History Teacher, Jefferson Parish

On August 10th, the Jefferson Parish School Superintendent announced that the reopening of schools was pushed back from August 12th to August 26th. This decision was made in direct response to the people of Jefferson Parish standing up and speaking out! Three rallies, threats of sick-outs, press statements, emails to school board members and district leaders, interviews with the media, and an unwavering determination to love and protect students and education workers pushed the business-controlled school board and district administration back. This moment has proved once again, that when we fight, we win!

Unquestionably, this pushback has prevented countless cases of sickness and even deaths. Though we recognize this victory, as we continue to see more cases of sickness and death in children across the country occur due to the reopening of schools, we know that this fight is far from over! As Louisiana continues to remain number one in the country for per capita COVID-19 infections during this global pandemic, we will continue to demand that the lives and safety of our children and education workers must be protected! We will continue to demand that schools not reopen until there are at least 14 consecutive days of zero cases in any given parish, and that education leaders in the Greater New Orleans area move to end the digital divide now! Every student needs to be provided with a free high-quality computer, and free high-quality internet access during this time away from brick and mortar schools. Money should be provided to working parents for home child care and assistance. Access to a 21st century education is a human right and not something that should be paid for. The struggle continues…

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Black August is a Time of Righteous Rebellion

by Malcolm Suber

Creating a revolutionary culture that highlights the sacrifices and achievements of freedom fighters is a vital part of the working class struggle for complete emancipation. These commemorative dates allow us to remember as well as to plan for a future free of capitalist oppression and exploitation. Black August is such a commemoration that deserves the support of the working class. This commemoration was created by revolutionary fighters incarcerated in California.

Each year since 1979, organizers from the Black liberation movement (BLM) have used the month of August to focus on the oppressive conditions inside the state run gulags and concentration camps the U.S. calls prisons. We concentrate our efforts on the fight to free all political prisoners and to abolish the capitalist prison industrial complex. We struggle to expose the forced slavery conditions that our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and other loved ones who are held captive by the racist legal system. We also celebrate Black August to educate each other about the revolutionaries who have been held in isolation decade after decade.

The historical roots of Black August can be traced to the actions of Jonathan Jackson who was gunned down outside the Marin County courthouse on August 7, 1970 as he attempted to liberate three imprisoned Black Liberation Fighters: James McClain, William Christmas, and Ruchell Magee.

George Jackson was assassinated on August 21, 1971 by San Quentin prison guards. The assassination was a deliberate move on behalf of the US government to eliminate the revolutionary leadership of George Jackson.

Khatari Gaulden was murdered by San Quentin prison guards on August 1, 1978. Khatari was one of the key intellectual architects of the Black August tradition and a prominent leader of the Black Guerilla Family after comrade George was assassinated. He was murdered to eliminate his leadership and destroy the growing prison resistance movement.

In 1979 the first official Black August took place. Supporters wore black armbands on their left arms and studied revolutionary books, particularly those of George Jackson. During the month the brothers did not watch TV or listen to the radio. The use of drugs and alcohol was prohibited, and they held daily exercises to sharpen their minds, bodies and spirits. They honored the collective principles of self-sacrifice and revolutionary discipline needed to advance the struggle for freedom and self-determination of the Black nation. Black August therefore became a commemorative event urging on the BLM to fight for complete freedom.

It is important that we continue on the revolutionary path set by freedom fighters who made August a month of righteous rebellion. Reaffirm your resolve to struggle until the white supremacist billionaire ruling class is overthrown and the African American Nation is free!

A sampling of the racist oppression and righteous rebellion and resistance to oppression that defines this commemorative month include:

  • August 1619 – arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Jamestown, VA
  • August 1791 – start of the great Haitian Revolution
  • August 30, 1800 – Gabriel Prosser’s Rebellion in Richmond, VA
  • August 21, 1831 – Nat Turner Rebellion, Southampton County, VA
  • August, 1963 – March on Washington, DC
  • August, 1965 – Watts Rebellion
  • August 18, 1971 – Republic of New Africa shootout with FBI, Jackson, MS
  • August 8, 1978 – Philadelphia police attack MOVE family
  • August 9, 2014 – Rebellion breaks out in Ferguson, MO after the murder of Michael Brown
  • August 2020 – Millions of people in the U.S. follow the lead of rebels in Minneapolis who have sparked a world-wide movement against racist police terror
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Editorial – Oppose Trump’s Attempt to Disenfranchise US Voters

Protect, Fund the US Postal Service

Donald Trump’s brazen attempt to hold onto office has no bounds. He is trying his best to convince the US public that a now sabotaged Post Office is incapable of distributing and returning mail-in ballots. Trump has admitted that he is trying to sabotage the Postal Service to limit how many US voters can vote by mail during the pandemic. This goes along with massive voter suppression in many states.

The headlines in the capitalist media in the past weeks have increasingly reported on how Trump’s crony Louis DeJoy, a millionaire North Carolina competitor of the postal service and Trump donor, is on a mission to destroy the USPS. He has ordered slow processing times, removed mailboxes from city streets, and reduced the number of sorting machines. 46 states and the District of Columbia have been warned that the USPS cannot guarantee that all ballots cast by mail will arrive in time to be counted on election day.

On Thursday, August 16th, Trump vowed to continue blocking aid for the USPS. DeJoy has been on a tear to remove many of the top managers at the Postal Service, reassigning 33 of them. He banned postal workers from making extra trips to ensure same day delivery, leading to long delays in mail delivery across the country to turn the public against the service.

We all must rally to oppose this attempt to disenfranchise millions of voters. The right to vote is a fundamental right and must be protected. The postal system must be saved from the big capitalists who are trying to starve the USPS, privatize it, and destroy the postal worker unions and their jobs. We must force the politicians of both the Democratic and Republican capitalist-controlled parties to stop fiddling while the USPS burns.

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No Layoff of City Workers!

When the city was pulling in almost $10 billion just from tourism, very little of the dough went to city, hospitality, or other workers. Now we workers are being forced to carry the whole burden of the COVID crisis while super-rich get even richer.

Before the pandemic, the city was directing an annual $180 million in tourism taxes straight into the corporate accounts of private hospitality companies. Now, citing a $170 million deficit, City Hall has announced it plans to lay off 20% of workforce.

As thousands of New Orleans residents are being put out on the street, the city is going ahead with its plans to spend $400 million to renovate the Superdome so the Bensons and other super rich capitalists can make huge profits and pay no taxes.

For decades the city has exempted real estate developers, corporations, and luxury condo owners from taxes while we workers saw our rents, taxes, and utility costs go up and up. Now instead of making the rich pay up, they’re asking workers to sacrifice our lives.

The total wealth of US billionaires, like Jeff Bezos, of Amazon has soared $685 billion since the pandemic in the middle of March to a combined $3.65 trillion. We saw that after Katrina, school owners, developers, capitalists got rich while the people suffer still to this day. We say No More! Make the Rich Pay!

Stop putting the Crisis on our backs

The New Orleans Workers Group demands of the City:

  • 50% salary cut, an end to credit cards, cars & perks for the mayor, city council, financial officers, lawyers and all their personal staff
  • End all tax breaks for real estate developers and corporations
  • Redirect our tax money from Superdome renovation to the people
  • Return the years of stolen taxes ($180 million a year) by New Orleans & Company, the Sports Authority, and the Tourism Bureau
  • Reinstate eviction & foreclosure ban
  • Outlaw the purchase of our homes by developers

Put the people first, not last!

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Movement for Louisiana Workers Councils Is Getting Fired Up

by Gavrielle Gemma

We have two choices. We can resign ourselves, our families and our children to a future of unemployment, low wages, no health care, hunger, and evictions while a select few capitalists live in luxury.

Or we can unite, employed and unemployed, workers of all nationalities, to fight for what we need and deserve.

Employed one week, unemployed the next. In our apartment or home one month and facing eviction or foreclosure the next. Already we’re seeing our wages fall and our hours cut as the bosses hire desperate people for less money.

It didn’t have to be this way. The government could have put into action a scientific plan to crush the virus but Wall Street’s concern for “the economy” won out. When they say they want to save “the economy,” they mean their profits.

The Democrats have put forward relief proposals but have allowed months to go by, all while conceding more and more to the Republicans. We workers are bleeding out while they politely negotiate with one another.

Billionaire Trump told us the virus would disappear or else that we could drink bleach. If it weren’t for the fact that he and his ultra-rich golf buddies needed our labor to increase their wealth, he’d have us all drink bleach and die.

It’s time to get real: we are not in this together. It’s us against them.

Independent Mass Action by Workers and Youth is Urgently Needed

Every last cent in the national, state, and city budgets comes from our labor. The CEOs, the bankers, the Trumps with all their lavish inheritances have never lifted a finger to “earn” their wealth. While we work, they spend their days counting the money we make for them.

Through struggle we can win back the wealth that they steal from us. Pensions, minimum wages (now criminally low), health care, unemployment insurance, and SNAP were all won by mass action. We’ve had to pressure the rich for each on of these concessions—by organizing, marching, and speaking up to demand what we need.

Join the Louisiana Movement for Workers Councils (LMWC)

The Louisiana Movement for Workers Councils has just started. They are demanding to restore and expand emergency $600 a week unemployment for all workers, including youth, home care and migrant workers; to reinstate the ban on evictions and foreclosures as well as the ban on utility shutoffs. They demand safe, living wage jobs or a guaranteed income for all.

You can begin a chapter in your own neighborhood, town, or city. Your voice, your ideas, your involvement is needed. When we fight, we win! Contact us at LouisianaWorkersCouncils@gmail.com or at 504-671-7853.

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Stop Sentencing Incarcerated People to Death By COVID-19

Video Footage by Marion Hill

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, The New Orleans Workers Group called a Car Rally today in solidarity with all incarcerated people. While we practiced social distancing rules, our motorcade was over 70 cars long and drove several times around the Juvenile Justice Court, Orleans Parish Prison, New Orleans I.C.E. Office and City Hall. This effort was to demand the immediate release of all people in ICE detention centers, jails, and prisons who are not convicted of violent crimes. We know that the inhumane conditions in these institutions are ripe for death and horror, all the worse with COVID-19 ravaging the state of Louisiana. We are also calling for an immediate moratorium on all arrests, deportations, and ICE raids. Orleans Parish Prison Reform Coalition, VOTE Louisiana, New Orleans Center for Racial Justice also participated in the rally.

Today, the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office confirmed that 15 incarcerated people have tested positive for the Coronavirus. We also know that the numbers of positive cases are quickly rising in youth detention, ICE detention, and prisons all over the state. We cannot let this happen to our community members. While the State government has no shortage of prison beds, there are shortages of hospital beds and ventilators during the COVID-19 crisis. Year in and year out, our local and state budgets reflect the priorities of the government: mass incarceration and violent policing of our communities. Instead of wasting millions of our tax dollars on prisons, detention centers (concentration camps), and police, these funds should be used to fulfill the needs of the people, especially during the pandemic. Containment of this virus and survival are of top importance to us, and we know that this is impossible as long as there are people locked in prisons.

#FreeThemAll!