Trade Unions Must Prepare to Fight for Workers Facing the Deepest Recession on Record

WORKERS’ STRUGGLE IN UK

Steve Turner

Morning Star | August 17, 2020

British Airways is among giant firms attacking its staff

WITH the tsunami of job losses we predicted when Rishi Sunak announced the phasing-out of the furlough scheme now coming to pass, the government’s reversion to type with a reliance on a failed “free market” demonstrates a complete failure to accept the role of state intervention to mitigate the impact of the crisis.

And their inability to deliver, in any sense of the word, an industrial strategy that puts working people, our families and communities first, or supports core industrial sectors central to economic recovery, is a gross betrayal of national responsibility.

Bolivia Headed for a Showdown as Mass Protests Erupt Against US-backed Anez Administration

PEOPLE’S STRUGGLE IN BOLIVIA

 Alan Macleod

MintPress News | August 14, 2020

Bolivia is heading for a showdown between the government and the people after nearly two weeks of continuous, nationwide protests have paralyzed the country. Demonstrations have grown day on day after the government — who came to power in a U.S.-baked coup last November — postponed the elections for the third time. Ollie Vargas, a journalist who witnessed the events firsthand, shared his experiences with MintPress:

MST Families Violently Evicted After 60 Hours of Resistance

ATTACK ON WORKING PEOPLE IN BRAZIL

Peoples Dispatch | August 15, 2020

Military Police in Minas Gerais violently evicted families who live at the Quilombo Campo Grande camp. The families had resisted the eviction order for 60 hours, but on Friday August 14 the police resorted to violent tactics such as launching tear gas and sound grenades. The 450 families who live at Quilombo Campo Grande had been living for the past 22 years in the area where sugar mill Ariadnópolis once functioned. The mill went bankrupt and closed down activities in 1996. Since then, the landless families organized in the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement revitalized the land, and produced organic coffee, corn, beans and other food crops.

Lost at Sea: Left Liberals have no Party

U.S POLITICS

Bruce Lerro

I wrote this article over four years ago in 2016 (first ran on 03 MAY 2016) for the purpose of challenging left liberals to face the fact that they have no party. In re-reading it today, everything I said in the original article remains true. In fact, the Democratic Party has leaned even further to the right over the last four years.

In the face of the protests against the police killing of George Floyd and many other black Americans, the Democratic Party has done nothing. Even worse, in the face of these uprisings the Democratic Party candidate for president has named a vice-president who might be labelled the Queen of Prosecutions. Kamala Harris would be one of the first to prosecute the very blacks who are part of the uprising.

The only thing I want to add to this article is to define the term “left liberal” more precisely. The old liberals of the Enlightenment were committed to a constitution under law. They were against monarchies, for tolerance of divergent views and for separation of church and state. Left liberals during the FDR era have the following characteristics:

Stupidity About Coronavirus-19 Policy

COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Eric Zuesse

Stupidity is rampant about coronavirus-19 policy, in the countries that are performing the worst on this, such as America and UK. We’ll start here with the lists of those countries:

Unadjusted for how large each country’s population is, you will first see here the list of the world’s countries on the basis of simply how many coronavirus-19 cases each nation has, just by clicking here. Though it’s an informative list, it’s not actually the list of the worst-performing countries; and these are the top twelve nations on this list, in order — the 12 countries that have the most cases:

1. USA

2. Brazil

3. India

4. Russia

5. South Africa

6. Mexico

7. Peru

8. Chile

9. Spain

10. Colombia

11. Iran

12. UK

My Journey Toward Understanding Imperialism

IMPERIALISM 

An informal chat with Caleb Maupin as guide to the multitude of news, lies, distortions, rumors, idiocies, hypocrisies, and ideologies that shape our world.

Edited by Patrice Greanville

Greanville Post | August 11, 2020

Caleb’s chats are the ideal tool for those who wish to acquire a solid understanding of contemporary history in an easy, accessible manner. In this episode Caleb talks about imperialism—global monopoly capitalism—and how it has destroyed and is now aggressively destroying even America’s infrastructure, not to mention the population’s economic security. We see that in a tidal wave of artificially produced problems, intractable problems that only arise when we live under capitalism, not due to lack of resources or human capabilities. In America today, the world’s citadel of imperialism, many citizens have no access to clean running water. Many are homeless. Many are unemployed and under employed, living in the “gig economy”, whose wages are pitiful and benefits non-existent. Our highways and bridges are falling apart, and many roads are being stripped of their hard top and reissued as dirt roads. Almost 30% lack fast internet access. The healthcare system has long been a disgrace and a scandal—yet nothing is really done, except apply glorified bandaids, like Obamacare. Meanwhile, expect no relief from the political or media class, as they are all sellouts to imperialism, doing the bidding of the billionaire class. They are our enemies and should be seen for what they are. The sickness is called capitalism, folks.

Trump Presses Microsoft, TikTok Into A Deal That Neither Wants – Who Profits From It?

IMPERIALISM

DISPATCHES FROM MOON OF ALABAMA, BY “B”

The Trump administration is working to dispossess the Chinese company ByteDance by blackmailing it to sell its valuable TikTok business to a U.S. company for a bargain price. This to the benefit of yet unknown people.

False allegations over the security of TikTok user data were used to threaten the prohibition of the video app in its U.S. market. In the U.S. alone the app is used by more than 80 million people. It plays an important part in the youth culture and music business. Faced with a potential close down of its prime business in one of its most profitable markets ByteDance had no choice but to agree to negotiate about a sale.

ByteDance declined an offer by two of its U.S. based minority investors to buy the business for $50 billion as that price was far below its presumed value. The White House stepped in to find a new buyer with enough change to pay for a deal. As the largest social media companies – Facebook, Apple, Google and Twitter – are already under congressional investigations for their monopoly positions in U.S. markets none of them could be the potential buyer. Facebook has in fact just launched a rip-off of the TikTok product under the name Reels. It is trying to poach TikTok ‘creators’ for its own service. Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg has warned of Chinese competition. He  would be the biggest winner should TikTok be thrown out of the U.S. market.

Australia & the Working of the American Imperial Hand

IMPERIALISM

Tony Kevin

It is hard to explain Australia to foreigners: a complicated former British colonial society that likes to think of itself as simple and honest, and sometimes persuades others that this may be true. The Australia of the “Dustyesky Russian Choir” that recently became a brief sensation on Russia’s mainstream Channel One is a reassuring image: one in which some Russians might still sentimentally like to believe.

Yet there is a darker side. An Australian Rip Van Winkle who had gone to sleep in, say, 1990 and woke up today would not recognize his country, whose elites have become more greedy, more corrupt, more indifferent to old-fashioned notions of a shared national interest.

The dominant influence has been the American ideological and military colonization of Australia, which can be traced back to the CIA-engineered regime change operation in 1975 that removed the nationally independent, socially progressive government of Gough Whitlam. [Read John Pilger’s trenchant obituary of Whitlam.]

The Beirut Explosion: Who is Responsible?

BEIRUT TRAGEDY

Elijah J. Magnier

On Tuesday 4^thof August, an explosion at the Lebanese harbour in the heart of the capital Beirut caused devastating human casualties and material destruction. Over 140 people died instantly, 80 are still missing under the rubble, and over 5000 were wounded. More than 300,000 homes were destroyed and many more were damaged. 2,750 tons of Ammonium Nitrate (AN) (an equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT) somehow ignited and registered the largest explosion since the end of World War II. Many theories, accusing Israel or Hezbollah or the CIA, are circulating like wildfire in the Lebanese capital. Where is the truth? Cui bono?

How the Guardian Betrayed Not Only Corbyn But the Last Vestiges of British Democracy

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

Jonathan Cook

It is simply astonishing that the first attempt by the Guardian – the only major British newspaper styling itself as on the liberal-left – to properly examine the contents of a devastating internal Labour party report leaked in April is taking place nearly four months after the 860-page report first came to light.

If you are a Labour party member, the Guardian is the only “serious”, big-circulation paper claiming to represent your values and concerns.

One might therefore have assumed that anything that touches deeply on Labour party affairs – on issues of transparency and probity, on the subversion of the party’s democratic structures, on abuses or fraud by its officials – would be of endless interest to the paper. One might have assumed it would wish both to dedicate significant resources to investigating such matters for itself and to air all sides of the ensuing debate to weigh their respective merits.