There is a much worse pandemic than covid that's been spreading all over the world for decades now, and that's the sickness of u.s. imperialism. With their 800 military bases all over the world, there is barely a corner of the planet that hasn't been touched with their greed and filth . This will remain the case as long as their system is here , and it doesn't matter which party of parasites is in power. They both stand for the same thing.
The outgoing president took another deceptive public step on Dec. 2: He ordered the remaining 700 U.S. troops out of Somalia. These troops are part of the U.S. AFRICOM force that promotes U.S. imperialist interests throughout Africa. They will first redeploy to nearby Kenya, also in East Africa.
The U.S. troops have been carrying out extensive drone warfare against the Somali-based organization, al-Shabab.
Besides withdrawing troops from Somalia, Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller announced administration plans in November to reduce U.S. troops from 3,000 to 2,500 in Iraq and from 4,500 to 2,500 in Afghanistan by mid-January.
Both big capitalist parties have started wars. Don’t expect this to change.
Republican as well as Democratic administrations have ordered, since 1990, major aggressive wars against Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq again, and with smaller forces against Syria, Libya and Ukraine. They have carried out strikes across Africa and engaged in subversion aimed at overthrowing progressive governments in Latin America.
The Republican and Democratic Party establishments share a common foreign policy goal: to maintain and if possible increase U.S. economic and strategic U.S. domination of the world. The Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA and various other sectors of the state apparatus enforce this strategy, regardless of which party is running the government.
Every invasion, bombing or other intervention by the U.S. has led to enormous suffering in the countries targeted, often with millions of victims. The interventions shower U.S. military industries with profits.
While the pretext for these interventions can be human rights, women’s rights or stopping terrorism — most often the real reason is to grab resources, usually oil, or to eliminate a strategic problem.
As U.S. imperialism’s economic and moral authority declines compared to imperialist rivals — Europe, Japan — and especially to socialist China, Washington turns to weapons — where it is still Number One. Thus the drive to maintain hegemony pushes the world toward war no matter which party holds office.
Washington sometimes turns to other tools, from hired mercenaries to economic sanctions, to achieve the same goal of domination, with or without subversion or bombing. The sanctions sometimes kill as many people as war does.
In 2016, as an election ploy, Trump criticized “Washington’s endless wars,” although he supported them all when they began. After his four years in office, the longest ones — Iraq and Afghanistan — continue. His latest “withdrawals” might look like he’s trying to keep a 2016 election promise — but skepticism is justified.
Meanwhile he pumped up the Pentagon budget to record levels, exacerbated a confrontation with China, pulled out of the Intermediate Range Missile treaty with Russia, carried out many more drone strikes in Africa, dumped an historic agreement with Cuba, wrecked the nuclear treaty with Iran and assassinated an important Iranian political leader — or two.
Trump’s erratic aggression, however, is no reason to give the Democrats a free ride. Rep. Jim Langevin, a leading House Democrat and chair of the House subcommittee on intelligence and emerging threats, exposed Democratic Party warmongering. He called Trump’s Somalia withdrawal “a surrender to al-Qaida and a gift to China.” (theguardian.com, Dec. 4)
For the antiwar and anti-imperialist forces inside the U.S., any debate about Somalia should be seized as an opening to press demands to get U.S. troops out of all its 800-plus worldwide military bases, stop all U.S.-imposed sanctions and end U.S. world domination
This is what happens when those pieces of shit imperialist pigs run the world. The health of the people is just another commodity to be profited from , no matter how many are sick and/or dying. If you can't afford to live , then that's your fucking problem. This fact alone is enough to condemn those motherfuckers who profit and thrive off of misery to the garbage can of history. More and more wealth is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands during their pandemic. And now, miraculously, pharmaceutical billionaire giants have come out with a vaccine , just in time to save the people, being the kind hearted assholes that they are. It's long past time for all of this shit to be thrown out, and something better put in it's place .
It’s December 2020. The working class in the United States is facing a crisis of survival. It is the worst such crisis since the Great Depression, especially for the most oppressed.
The statistics are damning: One in six households face hunger; one in five workers are out of work; some 30 million renters and homeowners face homelessness in the coming winter months. The COVID death toll will hit 300,000 any day now. The virus is now the leading cause of death in the U.S., passing heart disease and cancer. Hospitals are unable to cope with the surge in COVID cases.
1930.
There could likely be half a million deaths before vaccines are widely available — more than double the 200,000 projected as a worst case scenario at the start of the pandemic.
The parallel economic and public health disasters feed each other. Hunger, houselessness and loss of job-based health insurance all increase the risk of contracting COVID-19, developing serious and even life-threatening symptoms and being unable to access medical treatment. On the flip side, being exposed to COVID-19 and needing time off work can cost a worker their job.
In reaction to this crisis, some Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate along with President-elect Joe Biden hope to pass a bipartisan, $908 billion, “something is better than nothing” bill. “Without the money,” according to the Dec. 4 New York Times, “many families could go hungry, become homeless and face other hardships.” Ten million people will run out of unemployment benefits by year’s end and could, along with others, lose housing when the eviction moratorium expires Dec. 31.
A lot of the particulars of the bill are still vague, but there are obvious problems with it. There’s no repeat $1200 “stimulus check” in it. Unemployment benefits still expire after 39 weeks. This bill just keeps the 26 weeks of regular benefits and the 13-week extension going and funds an additional $300 per week (not $600) after Dec. 31, for those who remain eligible at that time. It allots an inadequate $25 billion for rental assistance.
Undocumented workers and their families cannot even access these benefits, nor others like food stamps and Medicaid. There has always been an epidemic of hunger, homelessness and inadequate medical care in communities of color — and it is getting worse.
But now the emergency is broader. The whole working class is being pauperized.
For-profit health care impedes the battle with COVID
A mass vaccination program has the potential to put the scourge of COVID — and its devastating economic fallout — behind us. But the pitiful $16 billion in the rescue bill for vaccine distribution will protect few people in the U.S., let alone the rest of the world.
We’re told that frontline health care workers, who interface with COVID patients all day long, will be first in line to be vaccinated. Next will be the most vulnerable: people over 65 and those whose medical conditions put them at greater risk. After them other “essential” workers in supermarkets, agriculture, education, etc. will get the shots.
Eventually everyone will supposedly be vaccinated.
But that scenario raises more questions than it answers. Is the shot free to anyone? If not, how much will it cost? What about the millions of uninsured?
Do the rich have to wait their turn like everyone else? Or will 36-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, most definitely not a frontline worker, get vaccinated before the elderly? And will Jeff Bezos wait in line behind low-wage essential workers at his Amazon-owned Whole Foods?
Capitalism, where everything including health care is a commodity to be sold on the market for profit, is the biggest obstacle to a mass, global vaccination campaign. The capitalists of each country compete with each other, impeding global cooperation to defeat the pandemic. Big Pharma corporations, including Pfizer and Moderna, are battling it out to make a vaccine at the lowest possible cost, in order to maximize their own profits.
Wherever human needs take a back seat to the bottom line, the masses suffer. Big Pharma’s drive to maximize profit, combined with the legacy of racist medical experimentation on Black and brown communities, have engendered distrust around taking the vaccine. Transparency around side effects is lacking.
Will the Trumpite anti-maskers also be the loudest anti-vaxxers, further endangering their communities with their super-spreading defiance?
1930s: Fight or starve!
When the Great Depression hit in the 1930s, there was no social safety net. Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and a range of government assistance programs were nonexistent.
From the veterans’ Bonus March to the Ford Hunger March to numerous eviction defense actions, it was the class struggle that won these benefits. The New Deal programs weren’t a gift bestowed upon the suffering masses by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They were, as FDR himself explained, “riot insurance.”
When the masses got tired of waiting in long food lines — which we are sadlyseeing again — or just going without, they organized around the slogan: “Fight or starve!” Many demonstrations were organized by the Communist Party USA.
After spending the better part of 2020 enduring this pandemic depression, after watching our loved ones get sick and die of COVID, the working class is again in a desperate situation, one magnified by the fascist threat posed by the growth of white supremacy. State-sanctioned police terror and the growth of extralegal paramilitary formations like the Proud Boys are two sides of the same coin.
This 1930s-level suffering is compounded further by misogyny, anti-LGBTQ2S+ bigotry, ableism, Islamophobia and xenophobia.
We must demand: Medicine for people — all the people — not for profit! Money for health care, not warfare! Food, housing and jobs are basic human rights! Smash white supremacy and bigotry!
Workers and oppressed people face two choices: Fight or die!
No matter how much kkkanadians think they are superior to amerikkkans, there are certain commonalities that run through both imperialist countries.
Both places were founded on genocide and racist settler mindsets , and the mentality continues to this day . Whenever imperialist profits are threatened, the empire lashes back with appeals to outright racism and xenophobia .
Read this fine article by anti-racist Canadian Yves Engler :
Conservative MP Raquel Dancho denouncing NDP and Green MPs Niki Ashton and Paul Manly
Paranoia, disregard for evidence and over-the-top rhetoric to encourage hate. And I’m not talking about Donald Trump’s Republicans.
Progressive Canadian should counter a wave of McCarthyite Sinophobia sweeping this country’s politics.
The over-the-top reaction to a recent “Zoom to Free Meng Wanzhou” highlights the issue. The event was labelled “Chinese Communist Party propaganda” in the House of Commons and criticized by numerous media. When interviewing Paul Manly about his participation in the event journalist Evan Solomon repeatedly accused the Green MP of being “used by Chinese authorities” and for “Chinese propaganda”.
What’s going on? As China became more prosperous, the US military began a “pivot” towards Asia a decade ago. More recently, some important US capitalists have become increasingly unhappy with the terms imposed by the Chinese government on their operations there. Simultaneously, labour costs in China have risen sharply in recent years, taking some of the shine off the country as a low-wage assembly hub.
Alongside these broader economic and geopolitical trends, Donald Trump has been railing against the “China disease” for months. This xenophobia is shaping Canadian politics as well. Most of the front-page of a February Vancouver Province read: “Second China Virus Case in BC” while in April Conservative leadership candidate, Derek Sloan, said Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam was working for China and advancing “Chinese Communist propaganda”. Polls show a sharp rise in insults, threats and assaults targeting Canadians of Chinese descent since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
China bashing is central to new Conservative leader Erin O’Toole’s political messaging. He harps on about standing up for “Canadian values” against the Communist Party of China. In April O’Toole called for a “new Cold War” with China and recently said there’s “no greater threat to Canada’s interests than the rise of China”. (Greater than the climate crisis, COVID-19 pandemic, species collapse, opioid crisis, nuclear holocaust, economic inequality?)
To counter the Chinese “threat” the Conservatives openly appeal to British empire settler solidarity. In criticizing the “Free Meng Wanzhou” event in the House of Commons Conservative Shadow Minister for Diversity, Inclusion and Youth Raquel Dancho said, “all Canadian MPs need to stand with our Five Eyes partners and other like-minded allies to push back on Beijing’s intimidation tactics.” For his part, O’Toole recently declared, “Canada should work very closely with our Five Eyes allies” on countering the world’s most populous nation.
Settler colonialism and empire unite the Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and US Five Eyes alliance that excludes wealthier non-white nations (Japan and South Korea) or those with more English speakers (India and Nigeria). It’s not a coincidence that the only four countries that originally voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 2007 are part of the Five Eyes.
There is a long history of stirring up Sinophobia in Canada as part of US/British conflict with that country. During the US-led Korean War in the early 1950s Canadian troops denigrated the “yellow horde” of North Korean and Chinese “chinks” they fought. At a time when a small number of Canadians helped the British suppress the boxer rebellion in 1900 newspapers labeled China the “sick man of Asia,” which threatened European social mores. In opposing voting rights for “Chinamen” in 1885, Prime Minister John A. MacDonald said he feared their enfranchisement would lead to officials who “represent Chinese eccentricities, Chinese immorality, Asiatic principles altogether opposite to our wishes.” He concluded, “the Chinese has no British instincts or British feelings or aspirations.”
Progressives should resist the current ‘Yellow peril’ rooted in geopolitical competition and racism. To do so we should be clear eyed about Chinese power, which is significant and often authoritarian though somewhat exaggerated. That country’s global influence has yet to reflect its share of the world’s population. In 2019 the country’s GDP per personwas $10, 000 – equal to Mexico – while US GDP was $60, 000. The US has over 800 military bases in 80 countries around the world while the UK has 145 military facilities in 42 countries. China has one international base in Djibouti. The US and UK have bases in numerous countries bordering China. (In June 2012 the Canadian Press reported, “Canada is seeking a deal with Singapore to establish a military staging post there as part of its effort to support the United States’ ‘pivot’ toward Asia to counter a rising China.”) How many bases does China have in Canada or Mexico?
Additionally, China rarely deploys troops internationally. The US, Canada and UK, on the other hand, have been involved in recent wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, etc.
As the oldest and most populous nation, a prosperous and united China unquestionably threatens the US Empire’s dominance. Decision-makers in Washington have been concerned about that since at least 1949, which is part of the reason they invaded Korea after Mao’s nationalist/communist victory.
The military and large sections of the ruling classes in those countries integrated into the US Empire want to prevent China from taking its rightful place in world affairs. They are pushing economic, political and military means to “contain” China.
But those of us who believe in equality for all people, who fight racism and xenophobia, must say no. Progressives need to resist the logic of empire and oppose the wave of Sinophobia sweeping Canadian politics
With the history of north amerikkka being what it is for Black, Brown, and Indigenous people , it's no wonder that there is plenty of suspicion when it comes to some sort of vaccine for coronavirus . It's always good to ask questions no matter what, and if you don't get an answer that sounds right, fuck 'em. There is never a time when you'd give any government 100% of your trust .
FILE - This May 4, 2020, file photo provided by the University of Maryland School of Medicine, shows the first patient enrolled in Pfizer's COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine clinical trial at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. Pfizer announced Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2020, more results in its ongoing coronavirus vaccine study that suggest the shots are 95% effective a month after the first dose. (Courtesy of University of Maryland School of Medicine via AP, File)
Despite added pressure, including an appeal by some Black medical professionals, universities, and organizations, Black people don’t trust the fast-approaching Covid-19 vaccines nor claims by vaccine makers and the U.S. government that they are safe.
A recent poll indicates “fewer than half of Black adults, 48 percent, say they probably or definitely would get a coronavirus vaccine if it were available for free—including just 18 percent who definitely would get vaccinated.”
And, against that backdrop, there is talk of paying Americans to take the vaccine. “The reluctance of many Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine when it’s ready has some wondering: Should people get paid to get the shot to ensure herd immunity?” said a Today.com article.
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan
“The latest Gallup poll—conducted before Pfizer and Moderna announced encouraging clinical trial results of their candidates—found 58 percent of Americans would get a free U.S. government-approved COVID-19 vaccine if it were ready today,” said the Nov. 30 report.
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It’s estimated d 60-70 percent of the population must be immune for the vaccine to work properly, said Today.
“Former U.S. representative and presidential candidate John Delaney is suggesting $1,500 per person—calling it ‘a stimulus check & big vaccine incentive rolled into one” in a tweet,” said Today.
He argues for paying people totaling $400 billion and Robert Litan of the Brookings Institution, “suggested paying at least $1,000 per person,” said Today.
“Paying for vaccination may be ‘an ethically superior option’ over making the shot mandatory, and could be ‘very cheap’ when compared with the alternatives, according to a paper recently published in the Journal of Medical Ethics,” the article continued.
“Arthur Caplan, founder of the division of medical ethics at NYU School of Medicine, called it ‘a very bad idea.’ He explained that ‘anti-vaxxers’—people who are part of the anti-vaccination movement—would use any payment efforts to build more distrust. ‘If you pay people to get vaccinated, the strong implication is it’s not safe, there’s something wrong, you have to use money to persuade them,’ Caplan said.”
During the Tuskegee Experiment which lasted 40 years, treatment for Black men with the disease was withheld by the U.S. government.
“Historically, we’ve never paid anybody to vaccinate with routine vaccinations—we’ve always said they’re safe and they work, and that’s why you should use them. You start rewarding them financially, I think many people may get nervous that they can’t be safe, they can’t work, there must be some reason you have to pay me to get it.”
Meanwhile, just 26 percent of Black people would recommend to friends and family that they get vaccinated, according to the “COVID Collaborative Survey: Coronavirus Vaccination Hesitancy in the Black and Latinx Communities,” released by Lang Research Associates on Nov. 23.
Blacks are disproportionately impacted by Covid-19, which surpassed 13.5 million infections and 267,888 deaths in the U.S. at Final Call press time. As Vox.com reported, “Covid-19 has torn through Black America, with the virus taking the lives of Black people in the US at twice the rate of White Americans. All of America’s minorities, with the exception of Asian Americans, have seen worse outcomes than White people during the coronavirus pandemic. But Black Americans have fared worst of all, with about 1 in every 1,000 Black Americans dying from Covid-19 since February. That is about 40,000 people who have lost their lives. For their share of the US population, Black people are dying in the pandemic at twice the rate of White Americans, of whom about 1 in every 2,150 people has died.”
Participants in the Tuskegee Experiment. Photos: CDC.gov
According to the Lang survey, two-thirds of Black adults believe the government can be rarely or never trusted to look out for the interests of the Black community. Just four in 10 in this majority would get the vaccine. Those who felt the U.S. government was more trustworthy or would at least occasionally look out for their interests were more inclined to take the vaccine.
A national group of doctors and nurses with the Black Coalition Against Covid is pushing through Black organizations a “Love Letter” to start a national dialogue about Covid-19.
The letter pleads with Blacks to continue practicing safety protocols and guidelines until vaccines are widely available. The Black doctors and nurses ask Blacks to join them in participating in clinical trials and take a vaccine once it’s proven safe and effective.
“This particular coalition of our Black medical and health professionals urging us to submit ourselves to the new vaccination tell us in the letter to hold them accountable. This is at best naive and at worst deceptive. How do we hold them accountable for that which they did not produce, that which they have no control over?” asked Student Minister Ava Muhammad, national spokesperson for the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.
“The mRNA Covid-19 vaccine will be the first of its kind. By definition it is experimental. It is designed to instruct our cells to manufacture a type of immune response that will shut down the virus,” she said. Both major U.S. firms, Pfizer and Moderna, are using mRNA in their vaccines.
“Moderna is not in the business of vaccines; it is not in the business of medical treatment. It is in the business of genetic engineering. How are Black doctors and nurses all the way down at the end of the process assuring us that this is good for us?” Min. Muhammad continued.
Where is focus on the pre-conditions that are present in virtually everyone who dies from the virus? she asked. Why aren’t they seriously looking at diabetes, which is a plague in the Black community and a global pandemic? asked Min. Muhammad.
“Diabetes has been declared a pandemic for a number of years by the World Health Organization because it kills millions of people globally every year, so when nearly one-half of covid deaths are people who are diabetic, why is that being ignored?” she said.
Diabetes caused 4.2 million deaths in 2019, according to the International Diabetes Federation. A couple million deaths were attributable to high blood sugar, according to the World Health Organization.
Black adults are 60 percent more likely than Whites to have been diagnosed with diabetes by a physician, and, in 2017, Blacks were twice as likely as Whites to die from diabetes, according to Centers for Disease Control statistics reported by the U.S. Office of Minority Health. In addition, 34.2 million U.S. adults have diabetes, and 1 in 5 of them are unaware, according to the CDC.
“I say to the coalition, get behind Minister Farrakhan and call for a lifting of the Cuban embargo. They have had overwhelming success in overcoming the virus. One of the components of their treatment protocol is to address the patient’s comorbidity,” said Min. Muhammad, referring to guidance and instructions Minister Farrakhan issued in his July 4 message, entitled “The Criterion.”
Minister Farrakhan warned Black people and others against blindly taking a vaccine for Covid-19. He warned Africa to be careful if a vaccine is offered based on the history and record of medical misdeeds and experimentation on Black, Brown, Native and poor people.
“Don’t let them vaccinate you with their history of treachery through vaccines, through medication. Are you listening? I say to the African presidents, do not take their medications. I say to those of us in America, we need to call a meeting of our skilled virologists, epidemiologists, students of biology and chemistry and we need to look at not only what they give us, we need to give ourselves something better,” Min. Farrakhan cautioned.
“My teacher told me, don’t speak to some, speak to the whole. I’m speaking for Black America, for Hispanic America, for the Native American and for those who are desirous of life. They’re making money now plotting to give seven billion five hundred million people a vaccination,” he added. The Minister also spoke of therapies and treatments other countries are utilizing that need to be looked into and explored to combat Covid-19 like what is happening in Cuba.
“We want what Cuba is developing against Covid-19. We want alpha interferon 2B, if that is what is good against Covid. We’re looking into Madagascar. We’re looking into other therapies, but we definitely will not accept your vaccine. You’ve blown it all the way around with us,” he said.
Dr. Reed Tuckson said the Love Letter is a way for Black doctors and nurses to be more engaged in speaking to the Black community from a perspective of love, caring and concern.
“We’re not vouching for anything. There’s no vaccine available for us to vouch for, so to suggest that would be a misunderstanding of what we’re doing. We don’t know yet. We haven’t seen the data about the efficacy and safety of the vaccine,” said Dr. Tuckson. Coalition member and the president of Morehouse School of Medicine Dr. Valerie Rice is on the external review committee that will examine the data and make recommendations prior to it going to the FDA for a decision, he said.
The Lang study also found knowledge of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, which allowed Blacks stricken with syphilis to suffer for decades under the supervision of the U.S. Public Health Service, made those surveyed less likely to trust the federal government.
“I’m really getting tired of the statements that people are saying, when they continue to talk about Tuskegee experiment, because the Tuskegee experiment pales in comparison to the type of things that have been done to Black people in this country,” said Dr. Akili Graham Muhammad, a general family physician who practices in Houston. He is also a member of the Nation of Islam Coronavirus Task Force.
“From the moment we stepped on this soil, we have been experimented on. We’ve been used, abused, mistreated, and murdered by the NIH (the National Institutes of Health), by the CDC, by HRSA (Health Resources and Services Administration), the FDA, all of these so-called organizations that are supposed to have our back, that are supposed to be making sure that we are protected and are healthy, are the organizations that have promoted and secretly pushed these types of murderous things on us in the past,” argued Dr. Graham Muhammad.
“So if every Black person, every Brown person, and if every native person to this soil is against vaccines, there should not be one White person on the planet that should have a problem with us coming to that conclusion.”
Drug makers Pfizer and Moderna set out to make a vaccine to prevent Covid-19 transmission and announced 95 percent and 94.5 percent success rates in keeping vaccine trial subjects from acquiring the virus. Pfizer’s final trial study included 43,000 participants and Moderna included 30,000 participants but the reported results were based on a very small sample of vaccine trial participants. The results announced by the companies, not an independent agency, were based on two months of study.
Dr. Reuben Warren, director of the Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care, explained that the vaccine success rates mean 95 percent of the time the subjects were tested, they were protected.
“But that’s short term. What about the long term?” he asked.
Not having studies peer-reviewed before the announcements via company press releases have also added to people’s skepticism, said some advocates.
“It doesn’t mean that the scientists at Pfizer are dishonest, but they have inherent bias. They want it to work. So you’ve got to get some peer reviews from outside of equal credentials, equal expertise to look at the results and do the evaluation,” Dr. Warren told The Final Call.
He feels Pfizer’s reporting of protection for 28 days after getting the vaccine suggests honesty and transparency. But, he added, who knows what will happen in two or six months from taking the vaccine?
Blacks need assurances based upon the plight of many who are low income and uninsured, said Dr. Warren. The drug companies are making enough money to give the additional assurances, particularly in the context of historical violations, he continued.
“It’s not like we’re starting from square one. We’re starting from a history of violations, particularly Black people. So we appropriately should be thoughtful and have some reservations,” said Dr. Warren. “They call it hesitancy, but the hesitancy is based upon, not only historical precedent, but current circumstances. We’ve still got to get out there and catch the bus. We still have to get out there and work some of those tough jobs. We still may be living in crowded conditions, and those are objective measures that put you at risk, as well as the historical ones,” he argued.
The fact remains that you can't vote away sexism, racism, poverty, unemployment , a poor educational system, and fucking kkkiller kkkops. biden and harris won't change shit , and in fact don't want to. All of this poison is built into the very system that they've sworn to uphold , and voting is only a way to reinforce that . Fuck them and their killer capitalism.
The results are in. The victory for U.S. President-elect Joe Biden is a step toward more racism and global war. In the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs, the leading journal of the liberal finance capital wing of the U.S. ruling class, Biden stated, “As president, I will take immediate steps to renew U.S. democracy and alliances, protect the United States’ economic future, and once more have America lead the world” (Foreign Affairs, 1/23). Now that Biden and running mate Kamala Harris have won the election, their first task is to strengthen the U.S. in its life-and-death competition with the Chinese and Russian capitalist bosses. Historically, the ruling class has used elections to sort out their differences and redefine their strategies for inter-imperialist rivalry and the best way to attack the U.S. working class. But with U.S. capitalism in a state of growing weakness and volatility, this fall’s election resolved very little. If anything, the gutter-racist Trump has become even more dangerous as he refuses to concede (New York Times, 11/16). Communists must cut through the noise A shared hatred of Trump temporarily united the Democratic Party bosses and the workers in their base. But now that the bogeyman is on his way out the door, the differences seem sharper than ever between finance capital’s status quo “moderate” wing and the new wave that wants more aggressive reforms of the bosses’ failing system. Virginia Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger chastised “progressive” party mates like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez for embracing “defund the police” sloganeering and not pushing back against Republican charges of socialism (NYT, 11/5). Now led by Biden, the Big Fascist finance capital bosses will need to find a way to close ranks to compete with China’s growing economic power (Reuters, 11/16). To promote patriotism among skeptical workers, the cannon fodder they’ll need for their next war, the rulers may offer student loan forgiveness, climate change deals, or expanded health care coverage. The international working class must cut through the noise of politics and understand that any reforms offered under capitalism will be racist and sexist at their core. The liberal rulers will also have to deal with 73 million Trump voters (10 million more than in 2016), a raging pandemic [see page 8], and an economy in crisis. As communists, Progressive Labor Party’s (PLP) role is to help workers understand that no matter who is president, our class will be exploited and brutalized until we commit to fighting for communist revolution. Only by smashing capitalism can we run society on our own terms, in a new, egalitarian way. Workers’ identity crisis Over his disgraceful 40-year-plus career in Washington, Biden proved to the liberal bosses that he was one of the most reliably racist, anti-worker warmongers in town (see CHALLENGE editorial, 11/4). As California’s attorney general, Harris supported the jailing and police abuse of Black, Latin and women workers (NYT, 8/9). A week before the election, Biden announced that workers in Philadelphia, one of the poorest cities in the country, had no excuse for “looting and violence” in response to the racist kkkop murder of Walter Wallace Jr. (The Hill, 10/28). Even so, many Black, Latin, and women workers believed that voting for this ticket from hell would improve their own lives. From their life experience, workers know the facts of life under capitalist “democracy,” the mask for the bosses’ dictatorship. They know we can’t vote for more jobs or to end poverty or unemployment or racist police terror. We can’t vote to end sexist inequalities or domestic violence. We can’t vote against drone bombings or climate change or capitalist wars that kill or displace millions. We cannot simply vote to create a different world. Even so, a higher proportion of workers voted in this U.S. presidential election than in any other in more than 100 years (Washington Post, 11/5). But if revolution wasn’t on the ballot, why was there a record turnout for the toxic Biden-Harris ticket? In short, most workers don’t yet understand that their essential identity is their membership in the international working class. Many voted for the same reason that so many people pray. They hold to the illusion that the true power to change their lives lies in a force outside the working class itself. Our long-term fight The shameful administration of Deporter in Chief Barack Obama confirmed our Party’s understanding that there are no good managers--i.e., politicians--of the bosses’ nightmare system. The failed strategy of the old communist movement to work as the “left opposition” within the Democratic Party led to reformism and irrelevancy. PLP has always been clear that liberal misleaders like Obama, Biden, and Harris are in fact the greatest dangers, even more so than the outright racist Republicans. Why? Because they’re more effective in preventing our class from seeing the catastrophic reality of capitalism. PLP remains active in teachers’ unions, student movements, immigrants’ rights campaigns, police brutality protests, and strikes from the U.S. to Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean. In the early months of the Covid-19 outbreak, we called out pseudo “radical” mayors like Ras Baraka of Newark and Bill de Blasio of New York for their racist curfews and violent policing of demonstrations against murder by cops. At high schools and colleges around the world, we have joined in challenging sellout union bosses who betray education workers’ struggles in the face of relentless cutbacks. But here is the key: Instead of fighting only for reforms, as ends in themselves, we treat these struggles as schools for communism. While standing shoulder to shoulder with our class sisters and brothers, we take every opportunity to share more advanced political ideas, to teach and to learn from them as well. Our task is to build a mass revolutionary communist organization, and to sweep the Bidens and Harris’s of the world into the dustbin of history. PLP is taking the lead by showing that our class and our class alone can lead the world into a future where the pandemic of capitalism is eradicated for all time
As people buy into the bullshit about us being "all in this together" , the billionaires get richer while the lower paid workers don't even get their measly covid pay anymore. These disgusting billionaire leeches are worthless and can never have enough , no matter how the average person is struggling.
The outgoing president took another deceptive public step on Dec. 2: He ordered the remaining 700 U.S. troops out of Somalia. These troops are part of the U.S. AFRICOM force that promotes U.S. imperialist interests throughout Africa. They will first redeploy to nearby Kenya, also in East Africa. 
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2020 AT 9:24PM
