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Trump and Modi Unleash Fascist Violence in India Socialists Organize Fightback

The Dehli Solidarity and Relief Committee volunteers went to areas affected by the attacks to provide relief work and to survey affected areas and families. Brinda Karat (center) met the grieving family of Faizan, a Muslim man, who had been beaten and made to sing the national anthem while he was in a seriously injured condition. The Dehli police kept him in their custody instead of allowing him treatment. He was released when his condition became critical. Later he succumbed to his injuries.

By Gregory William

At the end of February, Trump spent two days in India, being regaled at lavish events by far-right president, Narendra Modi. They held a mass rally at a sports stadium in Gujarat, where Trump declared that the two countries are united in a fight against “radical Islamic terrorism.” But this is an extreme distortion of what both the Indian and U.S. governments are doing, and we must call this event what it was: a fascist rally.

While Trump was in the country whipping up hatred, at least 40 people were killed and thousands injured as anti-Muslim violence swept the streets of Delhi. Mosques, Muslim-owned businesses, and homes were set on fire, and multiple people were burned alive or lynched. These events parallel Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), a wave of anti-Jewish violence unleashed by the Nazis in November 1938. This was a prelude to the Holocaust.

Since coming to power in 2014, Modi has carried out assaults on workers on behalf of big business, pushing through cuts to healthcare, education, and more. All the while, he has stirred up ethnic conflict. Hate crimes in India dramatically spiked, as in the U.S. after Trump’s election. In December 2019, the Indian parliament passed a citizenship law that discriminates against Muslims. They have imposed military occupation on the semi-autonomous, Muslim majority states of Jammu and Kashmir.

Trump and Modi are birds of a feather and are leaders in the right-wing nationalist movement that is happening in many countries. Both have nothing to offer the masses of the people except division and hatred. This only benefits the ultra-rich who would rather see workers fighting each other than fighting against them.

In opposition to the violence, socialist and communist parties organized demonstrations across India, from Kerala to Kolkata. The parties have also organized aid for those affected. For example, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has organized solidarity and relief committees that are collecting funds and working directly with victims.

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Organizing Gig Workers: Interview with Vanessa Bain, Instacart Organizer

Workers picket outside of Instacart headquarters in San Francisco on September 5, 2019, to demand a $15/hr minimum pay rate, ane nd to employer tip theft, and a line-item breakdown of earnings and expenses.

Instacart is the Uber of grocery shopping. It is a delivery service where customers order through a digital grocery list. Orders are shopped, checked out, and delivered by workers like Vanessa Bain of Palo Alto, California.

Vanessa Bain (VB): I used to work in education and was experiencing burnout. Around four years ago, I decided that I needed to do something different. Things were decent for the first 6-7 months. I was making more money working less hours than I did when I was teaching. I wasn’t coming home totally drained, which was a new feeling for me. I loved it at first.

Around September of 2016, they told us they were going to be taking tips out of our apps. Tips accounted for about 50% of my income. I was devastated, and I knew that I couldn’t take this lying down. I typed “#BoycottInstacart” into Instagram and found somebody else who was thinking like me, and we started organizing together. That was my entry into organizing.

Overcoming the obstacles of organizing in the gig economy

VB: There are a lot of obstacles to organizing in the gig economy:
1) We’re misclassified as independent contractors, so we have no protections under the National Labor Relations Act. This also means we’re not entitled to a minimum wage, overtime, rest, and meal breaks. We’re not entitled to draw from programs like workers compensation, unemployment insurance, and disability insurance.

2) The other major hurdle is that we have no centralized workplace. When organizing typically happens, you’re organizing with people in close proximity who you see on a regular basis. Instacart shoppers and Uber drivers are an atomized workforce. There could be a month or two months at a time where you don’t run into someone else who’s doing the same work. The infrastructure that is necessary to organize in a meaningful way is intentionally absent.

The companies want to pit us against each other and call it the hustle and say that we’re our own boss and our own CEO. This is bullshit. They don’t want us to see ourselves as coworkers who could fight back together. Camaraderie breeds collective action, unionizing, and feeling like we’re interconnected. That interconnectivity between folks and the feeling of being accountable to your fellow worker is incredibly important for organizing. The way in which they are implementing this structure is new, but this is centuries’ old bullshit that was regulated away in decades past, but they’re finding ways to bring it back.

Workers Voice (WV): Capitalists would like to see the whole economy go in this direction. They want to radically increase exploitation, thus increasing their profits. So venture capitalists just threw money at startup companies like Uber and Instacart.

VB: Totally. And none of these are profitable business models. In a nutshell the gig economy is a Ponzi scheme. Not to sound conspiratorial, but that’s really what it is.

Vanessa uses the internet plus face-to-face organizing
WV: How did you face the challenges?

VB: Our organizing is necessarily going to be a hybrid of doing things in person and doing things digitally because we don’t have a centralized workplace. We don’t have a break room, for example. We have to create the equivalent of that online, but not everybody is plugged into social media, so how do you organize? You’re going to have to do it in person. We’re lucky that we do have some sense of shared workspace in grocery stores.

Instacart workers have carried out four walk offs since 2016
VB: Our very first walk off had a couple hundred participants. When we started organizing I don’t think we had the intention of continuing to do this. We did walk outs in 2016 and 2017 and 2019. We did a work slowdown in 2018.
The company has caved to some worker demands, but they are still on the offensive.

VB: Historically, when we do an action, the company gives it about a month and then implements our demands, acting as though it had nothing to do with our action. They don’t want to seem as if they’re responding to worker grievances because workers will see that this works, and we should keep doing it.

The last time they responded by cutting pay. We had a quality bonus, a measly $3 that we were paid for each order when customers rated their experience five stars. It seems like a small sum of money, but a batch can pay as little as $7.00 when you’re shopping and delivering for three customers, so $3 is a big deal. When they cut the quality bonus, it disproportionately hurt people who had done this the longest and were the best at their jobs because it is ostensibly a performance bonus.

Solidarity between shoppers and customers
VB: This outraged a lot of customers. So that was like a secondary boycott. Customers were on Twitter and FB sharing the hashtag “DeleteInstacart.” Instacart’s tactics backfired. Instacart is nothing without shoppers and customers. Pissing off both is really a bad business tactic.

I think that solidarity between customers and shoppers is natural because Instacart is just a software program, but we’re the face of it. Customers have more loyalty to the human being than they do to the company that employs them. And if we’re unhappy, customers know.

Instacart began as a luxury service but it’s becoming more of a service that is oriented toward people who are located in food deserts, no transportation, or people who are disabled and house-bound. We provide a vital lifeline. I saw so many instances of people saying, “I can’t leave my home,” “I can’t go to a grocery store,” “I’m house-bound,” or “I have chronic fatigue and I can’t lift things.” But they are still extending solidarity by boycotting.

2020 should be a lit year for labor
WV: How do you view the strength of the U.S. labor movement right now and in the coming year?

VB: 2019 has been pivotal year for labor. There’s been an explosion of raw energy and cross-sector solidarity. People from all different types of organizing have expressed solidarity. Some are white collar workers who are well compensated, but they are still organizing in their workplaces because they don’t want the technology that they’ve built to be contracted out to the Department of Defense and ICE. They don’t want the technology that they’ve built to be used to oppress people and contribute to climate change.

I’ve been organizing for three and a half years now and I never felt more optimistic than I do now. And I think that we’re gonna see expansion of a lot of the organizing that has sprung up. I think it’s gonna get bigger, and more powerful. Our problems are rooted in capitalism itself.

A lot of current organizing is rooted in the understanding that capitalism is unsustainable. A lot of the problems that we’re struggling with are inherent to capitalism. At some point, capitalism must go. I’m inspired, and I hope that other people can share in that optimism and can feel like when they look at what Instacart workers did in their organizing, they think, “If this person can do it, then I can do it,” and reach out to one another.

The day that we kicked off our walk off, the Google walkout organizers called us and expressed solidarity. They offered an infrastructure that they had available, and we didn’t. They lent their expertise in areas that we didn’t know much about.

I think it’s going to be a lit year for labor! I’m 33. I think that the tides are changing. I think that people are feeling more empowered and emboldened to take bold action.

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101 Factory Workers Laid Off in Harahan

Vulture Capitalists Steal Jobs

By Gregory William

The Walle Corporation is a sign and label-making firm founded in New Orleans in 1872. On December 6, the company’s new owners announced they are shutting down their Harahan factory, leaving 101 workers jobless.

These workers are the victims of financial predators. Only a month ago, Walle was taken over by the Fort Dearborn Company, a label-maker based in Chicago. Fort Dearborn is controlled by a private equity firm called Advent International, which has been buying up similar firms across the U.S., cutting jobs and closing operations left and right. This is a common story in today’s economy.

Private equity firms are companies that produce nothing. They specialize in buying up and “restructuring” other businesses (laying off workers to increase profits). Sometimes this is done to resell the company at a higher price, but often the intention is merely to shut the company down and take the wealth that has been generated by the workers. This is what happened in October when Bayou Steel filed for bankruptcy and closed its plant in LaPlace after being acquired by the private equity firm Black Diamond.

Harlan County miners show the way
Workers in this situation can learn from the recent resistance of miners in Harlan County, KY. After being laid off by coal giant Blackjewel, these workers set up camp on the railroad, blocking the transport of coal that they had mined.

Initially, Blackjewel was not even going to pay the wages they owed, but their militant actions (which involved union and non-union workers, as well as support from transgender activists and others) resulted in the workers getting $5.5 million in back pay.

Workers at Walle should claim their right to the Harahan factory
Walle employees in Harahan could occupy the facility, preventing the products of their labor from being hauled off, especially if they are supported by the broader community. They can demand that the factory stay open, run by a democratic assembly of the workers. This has worked many times in recent history. After financial troubles began rocking Argentina in 2001, workers took over many businesses, including hotels, factories, and waste collection services. By 2014, as many as 311 businesses across the country were occupied. Workers can, and do, run things without parasitic bosses.

The New Orleans Workers Group is willing to organize and stand in solidarity with any Walle Company workers who want to fight. We must dare to struggle and dare to win!

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An Interview with John Catalinotto: Re-evaluating  the German Democratic Republic and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Workers Voice Radio, November 9, 2019

Gregory William: Today is the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which is being celebrated in the capitalist media. Just today there was an unveiling of a statue of war-monger, of arch-enemy of the working class, Ronald Reagan, in the city of Berlin, and the guest of honor for this unveiling is Mike Pompeo of the Trump administration. 

All we ever hear about the fall of the Berlin Wall, or the end of the Soviet Union, is that this was a triumph of freedom and democracy. But we have to ask ourselves, is that true? Was that really the effect of it? 

We’re going to talk to John Catalinotto. He’s a long-time organizer, notably playing a key role in the American Servicemen’s Union during the U.S. war against Vietnam. They were organizing rank and file troops, as workers,  to resist the imperialist war. He’s the author of the book, Turn the Guns Around: Mutinies, Soldier Revolts and Revolutions, which came out in 2017. He spent time in East Germany, also known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), or socialist Germany. 

John, can you say a little bit about when you first went to the GDR? What was your impression of this society? Was it absolutely horrible like they say in the capitalist press? 

John Catalinotto: No. It’s wasn’t. The first time I visited the GDR was in 1973, more as a tourist than anything else. I speak German, so I talked to people. Right at the border, you had to go through a process that wasn’t pleasant, because it’s like all these official people. But once you get a quarter mile away, it was like any other city, and people were living like they live anywhere else. 

Only in this case, they had a lot of social benefits that were more extensive than what Western Germany had, which had more benefits than the U.S. had at that time. They had pretty much written into the laws a lot of social benefits. There was a great deal of equality. There was absolutely no unemployment. So basic security and being able to stay alive without too much trouble was easy for the people of the German Democratic Republic, and there was no problem for a visitor. 

In fact, I ran out of money because that was the particular week that Nixon had made some changes in how they support the dollar, and the dollar dropped enormously against the Western European currencies, so I ran out of money. But on a little bit of money, I could buy milk and bread and stuff like that, and survive for the last couple of days that I was there. 

I would say that what you hear about it is not the truth. What we’re hearing today is the version of history as told by the winners of this battle in a long class war. 

Gregory William: What kind of benefits did people actually enjoy? What was the status of women’s rights or for workers? 

John Catalinotto: You have to live in a place to know how it actually works out in reality. But there are certain things that were definitely true. For example, any woman who wanted to work, worked, and not only was able to work and get a job, but had support if she happened to be a mother, especially if she was a single mother. There was care available both for infants and for kindergarten. So you had infant care and care for 3-6. It was very inexpensive, or free, and it was available to anyone who wanted it. In Western Germany at the time, only about 50% of women were in the workforce, whereas about half of the workforce in the GDR were women. [In capitalist West Germany, a married woman needed her husband’s permission to work outside the home as late as 1977.]

That’s one one way of measuring it, but there’s a lot more. They had rights to healthcare, abortion, education (all the way up to university, which was free).

They had rights to housing. Of course, they did not have adequate housing in the beginning years after World War II and even into the 1970s. Housing was short. [In the 1970s, the government initiated a massive wave of public housing construction aimed at ending the housing shortage.] But especially for people who had special problems, like single mothers, they would be put higher up on the list for receiving housing. 

Gregory William: Listeners have to understand that this was a society that had been destroyed during the Second World War. This was a country where Nazism was born, where Hitler was in power. That’s how bad it was in Germany. There was a long revolutionary workers’ tradition in the country. Unfortunately, Hitler was able to rise to power and went about destroying everything that had been gained. 

But once Nazism was defeated by the Soviet Red Army, the East German people (with Soviet aid) built the society back up from the ashes. And just to think of the fact that Hitler had been trying to conquer the world and oppress, and even eradicate, people for being Jewish and other nationalities. But then the German Democratic Republic, the socialist German society, was then supporting liberation struggles in Africa, at a time when the U.S. and West German governments were supporting the racist Apartheid regime in South Africa. I mean, how amazing is that? 

Gavrielle Gemma: We should also recall how the GDR government dealt with the Nazis as compared to how the capitalist government of West Germany put the Nazis into the government. 

John Catalinotto: In West Germany some high profile Nazis were charged with war crimes in Nuremberg after the war. But they more or less let the Nazis stay in the positions that they had, even if it was in teaching, the police, or the courts, etc. They kept a lot of it intact even though they dismantled the Nazi party. 

But in Eastern Germany they had to purge the education system, and the police, and the entire system outside of that. And, of course, if they caught war criminals, they put them on trial. So they had to build up a new cadre of people to run the government that were not associated with the Nazis in any way. That was hard to do, of course.

Also, Western Germany received a lot of assistance, or investment, from the United States, which came out of the war extremely wealthy. The U.S. [government and ruling class] were able to purposefully assist the development of the capitalist economy in Western Germany. They knew that this was the front line of a global war that they were carrying out against the socialist countries, and they made life very difficult for the people in the GDR. 

You brought up the GDR’s assistance to the anti-colonial liberation struggles. Now, it’s significant that [in the commemorations of the wall coming down] they put up a statue of Ronald Reagan, not Nelson Mandela. If they wanted to raise a statue of freedom, it should be Nelson Mandela or one of the other African leaders. But no, they didn’t do that. The choice here is telling. 

During the history of the German Democratic Republic, especially in the 60s and 70s, they gave enormous amounts of assistance to those who were carrying out the liberation struggles in southern Africa. For example, if a liberation fighter was wounded in South Africa, or Namibia, or Angola, or Mozambique, in battles with the colonial power, they would often be slipped out of the country and treated in East German hospitals at no cost. This is the kind of stuff that was going on all along. 

I was there in 1989, just a few weeks before the wall came down, and I interviewed some Angolans who were getting technical training at Humboldt University in East Berlin. This is the kind of thing that the German Democratic Republic was doing throughout that entire period – assisting the liberation struggles in the way that they could do best, which was most often giving technical help. It wasn’t as industrially advanced, and didn’t have as much capital, as western Germany, but it was still very technologically and educationally advanced. 

Gregory William: Thank you, John, we’re going to have to wrap it up. I just want to make one final statement. With all the gains that the workers made in East Germany – once that system was brought down because of counter-revolution – the gains of the working class there were decimated. Industry was dismantled, mostly, in the eastern part of Germany. And with the east absorbed into the new unified Federal Republic, Germany returned to its imperialist ways. They have played a part in the NATO wars, and the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. And within the European Union, Germany acts to impose anti-worker austerity policies on weaker European countries, like Greece. So it is playing precisely the opposite role that the East German republic played (which was a progressive, peace-loving role). So the dismantling of the GDR was a real loss for the global working class, and for humanity as a whole. 

John Catalinotto: I hope we can do as much as we can to correct the false impressions of history that are being imposed upon the working class here in the United States. You just have to be skeptical whenever the bosses, the ruling class, lays down what seems to be a united, uniform position on something. You have to be skeptical enough to ask why they are doing it. You have to ask what interests does it serve for them. And, in this case, the point is to vilify the whole idea of socialism. And I think that one reason they’re doing it here is that there’s a lot of dissatisfaction with capitalism, especially among young people. It’s not satisfying the needs of the people, and they’re looking for something else. So those on top are saying, “Look how terrible it was,” and they lie and exaggerate. 

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Chicago Education Workers’ Strike Wins Gains for Community, Students

Striking teachers, school staff, and supporters march through downtown Chicago on the ninth day of the Chicago Teachers Union strike on October 25, 2019. (Photo by Max Herman/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

By Gregory William

On November 1, over 30,000 teachers and school workers returned to work after an 11-day strike that won them important concessions from the City of Chicago and the Chicago Public Schools. This strike was carried out by the 25,000 member Chicago Teachers Union and 7,500 education workers from the Service Employees Union (SEIU) Local 73. The solidarity between the two unions shows the way forward for the working class: when we unite, we are stronger. Though SEIU Local 73 settled three days before CTU (winning up to 40% wage increases among other gains), they didn’t leave the teachers’ picket lines until CTU settled.

The unions put forward big, political demands that go beyond education. For example, these unions have taken a leading role in the fight for affordable housing in the city of Chicago. Commentators have noted that it is unconventional for unions to fight for this kind of policy change during contract negotiations, but union members around the country may be taking note. These Chicago union workers understand that the issues affecting the working class cannot be separated from one another. We cannot address problems in education if we do not solve the affordable housing crisis. Chicago unions are keeping the pressure on the city to respect the basic rights of its residents to housing, health, and dignity.

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U.S. and Turkey Out of Syria!

By Gregory William

After Trump announced U.S. forces would withdraw from northern Syria, the House of Representatives voted on a non-binding resolution against it. Although Republicans and Democrats seem divided on many issues, both are parties of endless war for profit who voted 354-60 to continue the illegal war in which 400,000 people have died since 2011.

Trump is a warmonger who just approved sending 1,800 more troops to Saudia Arabia, a U.S. ally carrying out a genocidal war against Yemen. Trump has pledged to keep troops in Syria to protect oil fields—the only thing the U.S. capitalists care about in the Middle East.

Pulling troops from Syria is not a bad thing. By attacking him on this, the Democrats are trying to be more right-wing than the war-crazed Trump.
Many progressives are confused. Hasn’t the U.S. military been protecting the Kurds in Syria? The answer is a clear “no” if we look at the big picture.
The Syrian Kurds have been attacked by Turkish forces, but Turkey is a Washington ally. The far-right Turkish regime represses workers and carries out constant attacks against the Kurdish people, all the while receiving more U.S.-made weapons than any country besides Israel or the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.).

Washington has supported the Turkish state for decades. So close is the relationship that the U.S. government has at least 50 nuclear warheads in Turkey. These stockpiles go back to 1962, when the U.S. government began positioning nuclear weapons there to threaten the Soviet Union.
But what about the “crazy militias” the corporate press says attacked the Kurds? The U.S. government has backed 21 out of 28 of these groups. Most are off-shoots of Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra, armed and trained by the CIA and Pentagon. Washington used these groups to undermine the elected government in Syria and carry out atrocities throughout the country, not just against the Kurds.

The U.S. has fomented war in the country for eight years, but now that Syria has been restored to the control of the Syrian government, there is finally a prospect of peace. The Kurds have joined forces with the Syrian Army. There is no longer any pretext for the U.S. to be there.

It’s right that workers are angry over Turkey’s military attacks, and so our demand should be that Washington withdraw all support for Turkey, ending all arms sales and military aid to that murderous far-right regime.

We must demand: U.S. and Turkey out of Syria!

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Hong Kong Protest Leaders Ask Britain/Trump to Re-Colonize Them

165,000 Pro-China demonstrators took to the streets of Hong Kong on June 30, 2019.

U.S. Media Censors Pro-China Demonstrations

By Gregory William

Who is leading and funding the protest movement in Hong Kong? Tellingly, demonstrators outside the U.S. consulate called on Trump to take over Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Human Rights Movement and other involved groups are funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, a CIA project. Leaders with these groups held meetings with U.S. and British officials in luxury hotels. Although many Hong Kong workers are impoverished, these organizations represent the very wealthy.

On behalf of capitalism, the U.S. government has tried to destroy China since they liberated themselves from colonialism in 1949 and set about building a socialist society. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. corporate media has not covered pro-government demonstrations in Hong Kong, even though half a million marched on August 18.

Capitalism and Colonialism to blame for Hong Kong’s problems
So-called pro-democracy groups distribute British flags and call for the return of British colonial rule. Britain cruelly colonized China for 156 years to steal its labor and wealth. Colonialism always counts on a small group of privileged people who collaborate with the colonizers to become wealthy at the expense of workers and peasants.

Through the Opium Wars (1839-1842, and 1856-1860), the British empire decimated the Chinese economy, got millions hooked on opium, and subjugated the population. This was done largely for the British East India Company, which needed markets for opium after the military takeover of India. This led to decades of rule by brutal warlords sponsored by different imperialist governments.

The majority of China was liberated from colonial rule in 1949 when the Communist Party, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, came to power. At that time, colonial conditions were so bad that life expectancy was only 36 years. With the establishment of the socialist economic system, life expectancy rose to 68 years by the early 1980s. Today it is over 76 years.

Nevertheless, the British government held control of Hong Kong until 1997, developing it into a world financial center like New York. When China regained Hong Kong, the government unfortunately agreed to allow capitalism to flourish in the territory. This is why it is one of the world’s most expensive cities. More than half of Hong Kong apartments cost over $2,550 a month. So many people sleep in 24-hour fast food restaurants that they are dubbed McRefugees. At the same time, Hong Kong is home to a million millionaires. Seventy percent of their obscene wealth is in real estate.

Democracy for millionaires, poverty for workers
Recent laws bringing Hong Kong more directly under Chinese government control have terrified the millionaires. China’s failure to alleviate the workers’ suffering, however, has alienated some workers from the mainland government. The millionaires stepped in to take advantage. Whenever there is a revolutionary vacuum this happens.

The immediate spark of the protests is an extradition bill. The proposed law would allow Hong Kong authorities to hand over criminals wanted in the mainland. The rich see this as a threat to their power. They do not want any barriers to their profits. Although there should not be billionaires or even millionaires, China does imprison and execute capitalists who go beyond certain limits of destructiveness. For example, billionaire Xu Xiang was sentenced to five years for his role in crashing the country’s stock market. This is intolerable to Hong Kong’s elite.

During Trump’s September 24 UN speech, he not only came out in support of the Hong Kong protesters, he berated the Chinese government for not allowing unfettered capitalism. He said, “Not only has China declined to adopt promised reforms, it has embraced an economic model dependent on massive market barriers.” In keeping with longstanding U.S. policy, Trump wants to undermine what is left of socialism, and to recolonize China. This is the thrust of the trade wars. But why should the U.S. government dictate how other countries run their economies?

More socialism is needed, not less
The capitalist media says socialism is the problem. But the issues facing Hong Kong—and the rest of China­—stem from capitalism, which has created inequality. The socialistic elements of the Chinese economic system benefit the vast majority. Workers in mainland China have no interest in losing the remaining gains of socialism. Workers in Hong Kong have an interest in accessing those gains themselves. They both have an interest in expanding socialism.

Millions of Chinese people rose up in the 1960’s and 1970’s to drive socialist revolution forward, but the Chinese Communist Party began opening the country up to capitalism in the late 1970’s. However, there was not a full-scale restoration of capitalism, as happened in the Soviet Union. This is why China has raised millions of people out of poverty. The remaining socialist elements, including the state ownership of banking and many key industries, and economic planning, have been responsible for these gains for the masses, not capitalism.

Nevertheless, the re-emergence of large-scale capitalism in China and capitalism in the Communist Party is a danger to the masses of people. The future of China depends on how well the Chinese working class organizes against this. Workers’ strikes are common in China, and this is a good thing. As Mao said, “It is right to rebel against reactionaries!”

The answer is not for the rest of China to become more like Hong Kong, or for Hong Kong to drift closer to the ruling classes of the U.S. or Britain. The answer is more socialism.

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49,000 U.S. GM Workers Strike South Korean and Mexican GM Workers Join Strike

By Gregory William

Forty-nine thousand General Motors workers began striking on September 16. This is the largest private sector strike in the U.S. since GM workers walked out in 2007. The capitalists are increasingly denying workers benefits and regular jobs as they make super profits from using and discarding workers at will. A major issue of the strike in all three countries is the right of temporary workers to equal pay and job security. This strike helps all workers. As usual, the capitalist government sides with GM as it harasses and arrests strikers on various picket lines.

Members of the United Automobile Workers union, or UAW, the strikers are pushing back against GM’s attacks on the workforce carried out in the aftermath of the 2007-2009 recession. During the recession, the government bailed out GM with $50 billion in taxpayer money, just as they did with the giant banks. Instead of improving conditions for the workers, GM “restructured”, bringing in more low-paid temp workers and subcontractors. Over time, the number of regular, full-time union employees has declined. Employees are increasingly overworked.

GM has effectively increased the level of exploitation in its plants, bringing in $35 billion in profits over the last three years. In 2018, they paid no federal income taxes. Now, they have the nerve to ask employees to pay more for health insurance. The workers are not standing for it.

GM’s anti-worker restructuring shows that, under capitalism today, no workers are truly secure. What we used to call “good jobs,” (jobs with benefits, decent pay, etc.) can be put on the chopping block at any moment. It is increasingly important for workers to stand together, whether we are full-time, part-time, temp, or subcontractors.

One of the most advanced demands of the union is for GM to reopen a car factory in Lordstown, Ohio. GM had shut down this facility, along with plants in other states, as part of a cost-cutting measure that resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs. Workers demanding that a factory be re-opened indicates that the working class is becoming more assertive and confident of its power. The UAW was built when workers occupied the factories they were striking against. The time has come to say, “our labor, our plants!” and take them over.
The bosses need us. We don’t need them!

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Rural Healthcare: United States vs. Vietnam

United States ☒
Vietnam ☑

By Gregory William

There is a crisis of rural health care in the U.S. Since 2005, over one hundred rural hospitals have closed across the country. Many more are on the verge. A study by the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program found that of the 89 hospitals that have closed since 2010, the vast majority (67) were in the South.

The authors of the Rural Health Research study note that the increase in closures coincides with the 2008-2009 recession, meaning that it is tied to the cyclical crises inherent in the capitalist system. Closures also accelerated in states that did not accept Medicaid expansion. In these mostly southern states, people also tend to be poorer, are more likely to be uninsured, and therefore cannot pay for care. Since our medical system is based around corporate greed and not people’s needs, the closure of hospitals and other healthcare facilities is unsurprising. In fact, the majority of hospitals that have closed are privately-owned, that is, for-profit hospitals.

It’s been drilled into our heads that the market always knows best, that if everything is privatized and for profit, things will run more efficiently. However, we see that the profit motive leads to extreme inefficiency and worse, hardship for the masses of people. How is this reasonable?

Communities across the U.S. lack hospitals and even basic clinics, and people cannot afford care. And yet, there is a parasitic class of “healthcare billionaires,” like Thomas Frist Jr., co-founder of the Hospital Corporation of America. His net worth is $11.6 billion, making him the wealthiest person in Tennessee. This is ironic considering that Tennessee had the highest number of hospital closures after Texas!

Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. The U.S. has a GDP of about $20 trillion, almost 90 times the size of Vietnam’s GDP ($223.9 billion). Despite having a much smaller economy, Vietnam assures that every ward in the country (including in rural areas) has a clinic. When there isn’t a resident doctor in a village, the Ministry of Health assigns doctors to rotations. Vietnam is also on track to ensuring health coverage to all citizens.

This isn’t an accident. The fact is that Vietnam still has socialist, rational economic planning. Because they had a socialist revolution, the masses of working people have a real say over the direction of the country’s development (even if the government has allowed some capitalism to return).

The state still owns the oil and gas industry, and mostly controls banking, insurance, mobile service, construction, electricity production, ship-building, and many other industries. Land cannot be bought or sold because it belongs to the entire people. Because there is socialist, collective ownership in the economy (without profit being the only consideration), the government can make rational decisions about what to do with social resources. They can say,

“People in this area need a hospital, so we will build a hospital. This clinic doesn’t have a doctor, so we’ll assign one to work there.”

Again, all this is possible because working class and oppressed people fought for these things and won. Collectively, we too have to make the decision that our health—our lives—will not be a commodity. We have to organize to take power and overthrow the capitalist class so that we can pursue socio-economic development that meets the needs of the people and doesn’t destroy the planet.

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It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way: Pitting Young Against Old Won’t Work

By Gregory Williams

For several years, the Buzzfeed articles, memes, and all manner of sensational news reports have hammered it into our heads that young workers and retired workers are fundamentally opposed to one another. Every time a retail giant closes, for example, we see a slate of articles saying that youths caused it to tank. “Millennials don’t buy diamonds” – fair enough, young workers are not paid enough to afford rent.

From the other perspective, we see commentary to the effect that older workers ruined the economy or have trashed the environment, leaving future generations to deal with the emerging catastrophes. Nevermind the fact that – even if some of them are of that age, – the top dogs in Washington and on Wall Street are a tiny fraction of the population. The people who have any real impact in shaping the economy, or destroying the planet, are the capitalist elites and their lackeys, regardless of when they were born.

Some of us have probably laughed at a meme poking fun at generational differences. But, as I always ask in this column, does it have to be this way? Must we really have this inter-generational animosity, even if it’s mostly just a bunch of online jokes?

The Need for Inter-Generational Solidarity

I’m not raising this question idly. There is an urgent need for young and older working class people to band together. The fact is, young workers as well as older workers are getting massively screwed, and to think of millennials or baby boomers as opposed groups is to miss the point. We can only avert disaster if we work together.

We know that young people are saddled with debt and low-paying jobs. But let’s take a moment to consider the situation of older workers in this country. One telling measure is the number of seniors filing for bankruptcy.

The Consumer Bankruptcy Project recently analyzed the data from bankruptcy court records and written questionnaires, taken from all over the U.S. They found that bankruptcy among seniors has risen fivefold since 1991. And that’s not just because there are more seniors. The percentage of seniors filing for bankruptcy has radically increased. Now, 12.2% of bankruptcy filings come from households headed by seniors.

It’s not hard to understand why seniors are filing for bankruptcy: There are far more seniors in poverty than there were in decades past. This is especially true for older women.The retirement age keeps going up. More and more older people are in debt just like their younger counterparts. Medical costs keep going up. Very few workers in this country nowadays have real pensions.

None of this is accidental. The capitalist class, represented by both the Republicans and the Democrats, have systematically destroyed the social safety net and most of the protections that workers and oppressed people won through struggle. On an almost unimaginable scale, they have stolen the wealth generated by the society and hoarded it for themselves. And just as they don’t care about the brutality of putting a child in a cage, they don’t blink an eye at the thought of elderly people on the street.

One day young workers will need Social Security. The carefully crafted attack blaming selfish seniors for the falsely reported bankruptcy of the the social security fund, is to cover the grab of this pot of money to hand over to the bankers, Pentagon and super-rich.

To sum up, we need to start thinking about the total situation we’re facing in this rotten, every-worsening society. I don’t care if I repeat myself everywhere we go. We have to organize a fight back, and it needs to be inter-generational.