IMMIGRANTS ARE ON THE FRONT LINES IN COMBATING THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS. DO ANTI-IMMIGRANTS APPRECIATE THIS FACT?

Immigrants are on the front lines in combating the Coronavirus crisis. 6.3 million immigrants hold jobs key to fighting coronavirus. Mostly Latin Americans, many of whom lack papers. Are any Republicans who have demonized immigrants from Latin America reflecting on this fact? Yes Mr. Trump, it’s about you. And you too Stephen Miller. Just the beginning of a long list.

Here are more details: 29% of all physicians are immigrants; 38% of all health aides are immigrants; 22 % of all food industry workers are immigrants; 37 % of meat processing workers are immigrants; 35% of crop production workers are immigrants. 483,000 immigrants work in grocery stores.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/21/us/immigrants-coronavirus-frontlines/index.html

The United States: one fourth of the coronavirus deaths in the world; one twentieth of the world population

The New York Times reported today that there have been close to 50,000 reported deaths in the U.S. caused by the coronavirus, which represents one fourth of those world-wide. The U.S. population of 328 million is less than one twentieth of the world population estimated at 7.6 billion. The U.S. is the wealthiest most powerful nation in the world.  Isn’t this cause for reflection, analysis and change?

THE SHOCK DOCTRINE IS IN FULL SWING AND VENEZUELA IS ONE OF THE VICTIMS

Milton Friedman noted some time ago that the only way that his radical neoliberal reforms in their purist form could be implemented in the United States was in a situation of national crisis when out of fear and uncertainty, people would rally behind changes that were, in effect, not in their interests. This thesis played out after September 11, 2001. It gave us the Patriot Act and Guantanamo prison. After 2008, economic crisis got us the consolidation of bank ownership with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. But as Naomi Klein observed, crisis can also have the opposite effect. The stock crash of 1929 and the Great Depression ushered in some of the most successful organizing of the U.S. working class in the nation’s history as well as social reforms which were unprecedented. 

Ruling circles in Washington obviously know these lessons well and they are playing out in real time. Reducing the wages of agricultural immigrants is one example. Trump’s undoing of environmental protection rulings is another. His strategy to overthrow Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro is still another.

According to the thinking behind the latter, now is the moment to take full advantage of the extreme suffering of the Venezuelan people as a result of U.S.-imposed sanctions combined with the coronavirus and the concomitant collapse of oil prices. Now is the time to attack without restraint nor compassion. Practically a day doesn’t go by in which Washington doesn’t tighten measures designed to cripple even further the Venezuelan economy. Two weeks ago in rapid succession the Trump administration announced a $15 million dollar bounty for the capture of Maduro as well as other Venezuelan leaders who are accused without any proof whatsoever of drug trafficking. Then a transition plan to oust Maduro from power. Then the announcement of the largest deployment of navy vessels in three decades to waters near the Venezuelan coast in order to block the alleged flow of drugs from Venezuela. Then Admiral Craig Faller, a top commander of the Southern Command, gives a press conference in which he details the deployment of ships to the Caribbean waters outside Venezuela and in which practically in every sentence Faller accuses Maduro of drug trafficking, again without any proof at all.  In the last day or two, the Trump administration announced that Chevron was now ordered to pull out of Venezuela. Then the Trump administration announced that the Spanish oil company Repsol was abiding by U.S. sanctions and pulling out of Venezuela at the same time that the company was warned not to reconsider its decision.

While most of the rest of the world is focused on meeting the challenge posed by the Coronavirus and international solidarity is manifesting itself in diverse ways, the Trump administration is taking advantage of the suffering world wide as a result of the pandemic in order to put into practice the Shock Doctrine and achieve highly despicable goals.

by Steve Ellner
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/22/business/chevron-venezuela-oil-trump/index.html

The word ‘Communist’ is still tantamount to heresy

I just happened upon a YouTube interview of Robert Redford and Barbara Streisand on Oprah Winfrey’s show. It included a clip of “The We Way Were.” Streisand’s role in the movie was described something like ‘a young women whose outspoken political activism placed her on the margins.’ No mention of the fact that she belonged to the Communist youth organization. Is the word Communist still that taboo? Now that being a ‘socialist’ is no longer a high crime or misdemeanor (thanks in part to Bernie), one would have thought that corporate media may make occasional non-derogatory references to Communists and that the word would be something less than scandalous. Wishful thinking.

Today’s Headline: “JOE BIDEN ACCUSES PRESIDENT TRUMP OF BEING SOFT ON CHINA”

That’s a great way to rein in Bernie Sanders supporters and convince discontent voters who cry out for progressive policies to vote for him. It’s true that China at first didn’t release information about the coronavirus as it didn’t seem to be the menace that it turned out to be. That was wrong. But once the dimensions of the coronavirus became clear, the Chinese reacted strongly, consistently and successfully to confront the problem. Compare that with Trump’s flip flops. First he swore that the coronavirus was a Chinese problem and wouldn’t affect the U.S. in a big way, then he took on the mantle of being a war-time president, then he said that the problem was the competency of the governors (so as not to assume responsibility for what was happening in the country), and more recently he has encouraged his supporters to protest against the measures dictated by both Democratic and Republican governors. That’s what Biden ought to be talking about. By playing to people’s fears and prejudices against China, Biden becomes part of the problem, not the solution.

WHERE IS THE 2.2 TRILLION DOLLARS FOR THE STIMULUS BILL COMING FROM?

The U.S.’s dominant role in global capitalism works to its advantage. That’s because the printing of 2.2 trillion dollars for the Stimulus Bill has less of an inflationary effect than it ordinarily would have. The inflationary effect of emission of new currency is diffused and all those countries with international reserves in dollars and the holders of U.S. government bonds are also paying the consequences in that the value of their dollars gets depreciated. Basically, our Western allies have made a tacit agreement with the U.S. over the years. Washington serves as policeman of the world and in general plays the leadership role in defense of global capitalism in return for acceptance of the dollar as the international currency. How long will this relationship last? With Trump’s America First and isolationist stance, Washington is calling on NATO and Japan to pay more for military at the same time that those nations get more and more fed up with Washington’s repugnant stands (eg. suspension of payment to the World Health Organization, tearing up the Iranian nuclear agreement, Trump’s aggressive, jingoistic rhetoric, etc.). That in the long run is going to mean greater support for moving away from the dollar. These are tensions that will only intensify in time.

WHY THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA SUGGESTS LIFTING SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAN WHILE NOT SAYING ANYTHING ABOUT VENEZUELA

Posted by Green Left. 

No other country in the world is being subjected to the type of regime change strategy that the Trump administration is applying to Venezuela. Only in the case of Venezuela has Washington done so much to promote international support in favor of a parallel government. Meanwhile, the mainstream media fails to take up in any way the arguments that expose the fallaciousness and inhumanity of the sanctions imposed against Venezuela. At a recent press conference on April 2, a reporter told Trump he has a moral responsibility to help Iran as it is hit by the coronavirus. No mention was made about Venezuela. Why Iran and not Venezuela? Three reasons stand out:

1. The conflict with Iran is a partisan issue. The 2015 nuclear arms agreement with Iran was engineered by the Obama administration, the same that imposed sanctions against Venezuela by calling it an "extraordinary and unusual threat" to U.S. national security. It is thus not surprising that the Democratic Party leadership is critical, though mildly so, of U.S. policy toward Iran, while throwing support toward Trump's regime change efforts in Venezuela.

2.  The Iranian government has a military capacity in the Middle East that threatens U. S. presence in the region. Iran's militia allies such as Hezbollah serve as a dissuasive force. This is a reality that the Pentagon and Washington policy makers are very aware of. In contrast, Venezuela represents no military threat at all to the United States.  The Trump administration's claim that Venezuela is allied with dissident FARC Colombian guerrillas intent on creating disruptions is a bogus charge. Venezuela has no equivalent to Hezbollah operating in the region.

3. Venezuelan democracy allows for the existence of a legal opposition whose right-wing factions represented by Juan Guaidó, among others, are Washington surrogates. There is no equivalent movement operating within Iran. This situation strengthens the U.S. position in Venezuela, while weakening it in Iran. Ironically, democracy, which is supposedly what Washington is attempting to promote, disadvantages the Maduro government, while the lack of it strengthens the position of Iran.

4. Democrats and Republicans have their eyes set on Florida that, as with past elections, is a swing state and a decisive one in the upcoming presidential elections. In the context of the US’s highly undemocratic electoral college system, changing a few votes among Cuban and Venezuelan residents there (along with their campaign contributions) may determine the 2020 electoral outcome. Stirring up the issue of Venezuela may go a long way.

5. Washington policy makers have long considered Latin America to be the US’s backyard.
Trump explicitly embraces this notion at the same time as his neo-conservative advisors vindicate the Monroe Doctrine, which views the Americas as exclusively the US’s domain. Others are less up front about the notion, but it has always underpinned US actions in the hemisphere.

The mainstream media, rather than address these three key issues, accepts, or refrains from questioning, the Trump administration's current justification for singling out Venezuela to achieve regime change: that Venezuela is a narco-state. The media holds back from pointing to the obvious fallacies of Trump's claims. a. that according to official statistics 84 per cent of the drug trafficking from South America uses Pacific routes while only 7 percent pass through Venezuela and other eastern Caribbean areas b. why is the Southern Command lining up navy ships along the Venezuelan coast on grounds that drug traffickers will use the coronavirus to inundate U.S. markets, instead of surveilling the Pacific coast? and c. Why doesn’t the Trump administration take its drug charges against Maduro to an international tribunal?

At this point Venezuela is receiving belligerent treatment from the U.S. largely without precedent in peace time situations. In just one week, the Trump administration announced a 15 million dollar award for help in capturing Maduro, among other members of his government. Then it unveiled a plan of transition to achieve democracy beginning with Maduro's resignation. Then it announced that it was sending Navy ships to the Venezuelan coast ostensibly to beef up counter-narcotics operations.

In short, Venezuela is being ganged up on while the Democratic Party, the mainstream media, some alternative media, most U.S. liberals and much of the world are just standing by.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/united-states-politicians-media-sanctions-iran-venezuela-covid-19?fbclid=IwAR3FZ1vw15g3MGhvP2YOHF0OF0JuSJJ-Z-87UTx17cpFzJPJPYdgLPOjBfE

HOW TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY CAPITALISM SET THE STAGE FOR THE INTENSITY OF THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS IN THE U.S.

The business model in the age of neoliberalism known as "mean and lean" has exacerbated the effects of the coronavirus crisis. It means that management cuts corners, a euphemism for laying off workers to streamline production, itself a euphemism for "speedups." All this conforms to the neoliberal tendency to privilege immediate profit over long- term considerations. In the field of hospital care that meant overcrowded hospitals with no elbow room to deal with emergency situations such as the coronavirus pandemic. Twenty-first century capitalism has also intensified capital concentration, meaning that mergers were the order of the day, resulting in numerous hospital closures. In New York City alone 19 hospitals shut down since the turn of the century, many replaced by luxury cons. Saint Vincent’s Hospital (south of 14th St. in Manhattan, shown in this photo) founded in 1849 was one of the victims. Yesterday's The Intercept program with Jeremy Scahill discussed the relationship between capitalism in the age of neoliberalism and the coronavirus scourge in the U.S.
https://theintercept.com/2020/04/01/essential-workers-and-the-reverse-robin-hood-coronavirus-bailout/