Decades of neglect have contributed to a nursing home crisis that, coupled with the coronavirus, has caused countless deaths and untold suffering. America has been failing the elderly for years. There were more than 1,246,000 people in certified American nursing homes in 2019. That’s more than the population of eight U.S. states. But they have no senators, no members of Congress, nobody to speak for them. Too often, they are “out of sight, out of mind” when important decisions are made.  New York State Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, ordered hospitals to return older COVID-19 patients to nursing homes, a  decision that contributed to the death toll.

In what is probably an underestimate over 60,000 American nursing home residents and workers have died from COVID-19. Many more fallen sick. While the pandemic has made the lives of nursing home residents worse, Long-term factors which have had an impact includes an over-reliance on the private sector for social services and Medicaid’s often onerous rules for nursing home coverage, including “spend down” rules that require an older person to use up their assets and “excess” income before qualifying for nursing home assistance, under strict and often complicated rules over how the money can be spent. Medicaid pays for about two-thirds of all Americans in nursing homes — and homes aren’t cheap. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average nursing home cost over $80,000 a year in 2016. Nursing home life is expensive. As of 2016, the average monthly cost was $6,844 for a shared room, and additional care needs can drive the cost much higher. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/nursing-home-covid-19-death-tolls-reveal-america-s-shameful-ncna1237023

On 22nd August, thousands participated in Apostasy Day. Overall, 83,000 people engaged in the day reaching 233,000 people.

 Apostasy (ردة‎ or ارتداد) is the abandonment or renunciation of religion. It is punishable by death in Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, UAE, and Yemen and a criminal offence in many more Muslim-majority countries. In Pakistan, a disbelief in God is punishable with the death penalty under a blasphemy law. In Saudi Arabia, atheism is equated with terrorism. In some countries without the death penalty, Islamists kill those deemed apostates, including in Bangladesh and Muslim-minority India. In many countries, such as in Europe and North America, apostates can face threats, shunning and honour-based violence, including from their families. Individuals from Orthodox Jewish, Christian, Hindu and other backgrounds can also face shunning and violence for apostasy.

22 August is being chosen as Apostasy Day because it is the UN Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief. Moreover, late August marks the start of a second wave of mass executions of apostates in Iran in 1988 after brief “trials”. Thousands who responded negatively to questions such as ‘Are you a Muslim?’, ‘Do you believe in Allah?’, ‘Is the Holy Qur’an the Word of Allah?’, ‘Do you accept the Holy Muhammad to be the Seal of the Prophets?’, ‘Do you fast during Ramadan?’, ‘Do you pray and read the Holy Qur’an?’ were summarily executed.

The newly established Apostasy Day, renew calls for the:

commemoration of the victims of apostasy lawsan end to the criminalisation and the death penalty for apostasy in countries under Islamic lawsan end to shunning, threats and honour-related violence from families of apostatesaffirmation of freedom of thought, conscience and belief as well as opinion and expression in compliance with the United Nation Declaration of Human Rights (Articles 18 & 19).

 The election in November must become an opportunity for the World Socialist Party to point out that democracy is an illusion for working people under capitalism, and teach the workers that they must rely upon themselves. The actual importance of the election is to determine which representative of the capitalist class will become the national CEO of the United States for the purpose of exploiting and oppressing the working people. It is what Marx call the “executive committee for the ruling class.”

 The two-party system is the two-headed monster of Big Business in government. Despite the pandemic the good times are flowing again for Wall Street and U.S. corporate profits have rarely if ever looked as lucrative. But it’s a brutal moment for working people, with very much worse possibly to come.

 Reneging on campaign promises is standard conduct on the part of the capitalist parties of both names. Between Trump and Biden there will no doubt be cries of “vote for the lesser evil”, a familiar refrain in every election. The working class cannot fight capitalism through the Democratic Party. The Democrats are a big party of the capitalists just like the Republicans. Biden is the bipartisan choice of the capitalists. To fight Trump, the working class must break free from the influence of the Democratic Party and organize its own independent political movement.

In America the idea of socialism is one of misconception founded on misrepresentation. The capitalists have used all manner of differences within the working class — differences of skill, gender, religion, ethnicity, skin color, for example — to divide the working class, to make one group hostile to another so that workers will not see themselves as a class and act in unity against the capitalists. Trump has overtly encouraged violence against Hispanic immigrants, Chinese-Americans, and African-Americans people. All three groups are made up overwhelmingly of workers. Yet, more than a few white workers support this and some have followed through with acts of racist violence.

 In the United States, employers have always tried to divide workers. Many had a policy of allocating jobs according to ethnicity, putting working groups together who spoke different languages and often had historic animosities. The idea was that this would make solidarity of all the workers very difficult to achieve. When people of diverse identities work together, they inevitably come to see each other as workers and full human beings deserving to take control of their lives and society at large. Workers are not just workers but full human beings, with communities, interests of all kinds, and concerns that go beyond work. All parts of life must be part of working-class organizational struggles. Housing, the environment, health care, family life, schooling, leisure, transportation, you name it. Workers will be much more attracted to such organizations than just to those that focus entirely on work.

Black workers were typically consigned to the worst, most dangerous jobs and were always paid much less than white workers. Given the history of slavery in the United States and the endless propaganda proclaiming the innate inferiority of Black people, this workplace discrimination fed right into white racial prejudices. If Black workers performed work no one else wanted to do, and for lower wages, then this was surely a sign that this is all they deserved to have.

The capitalist system, in its entirety, is the obstacle to emancipation from all inhumanity, indignity, wretchedness, barbarity, and exploitation.  In the electoral arena, one section of the exploiting class lends support to protesters demanding justice and dignity in order to settle a factional fight, while another section of the capitalist class pulls in another part of the population into its fold, cementing divisive politics from the top. Organizing along color or identity lines fails to lead down an emancipatory path but rather, ultimately play into the hands of the exploiting class. We must make certain that the working class is not divided internally. 

As revolutionary socialists the WSPUS declares that the evils of capitalism cannot be overcome without ending the system of capitalism. It has  actively worked to generate a cohesive and class-consciousness among fellow-workers, to build unity and break down prejudices within the working class. Political parties without a class point of view, without a goal against exploitation, and presenting no analysis of the way the working class is exploited assist in the ruling-class deceptions aim to win the support of the exploited classes by confusing the workers in them.

 Upton Sinclair’s 1905 book, The Jungle, exposed the food contamination and worker exploitation hidden in the stockyards and meatpacking plants.

 By 1970, the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and the United Packinghouse Union had won enforceable safety rules and solid middle-income wages—about $25 an hour in today’s dollars. By 1980, the largest meatpackers were buying up smaller competitors, relocating plants from unionized urban areas to anti-union rural counties, dehumanizing and de-skilling workplaces, slashing wages, setting injury-causing work processes and imposing strict labor rules that leave workers with little power to complain about, much less to stop, abuses. Now the median wage for hourly workers in meatpacking plants is down to about half that—$13.23 per hour—some 30% less than production workers in other manufacturing jobs.

Around 1970 a long-term propaganda campaign described as “shareholder primacy,” was launched asserted that a corporation’s SOLE purpose and duty is to maximize stockholder profits. Under this theory, CEOs and board members must do everything legally possible to lower wages, shortcut safety, squeeze out competitors, cheapen quality, minimize environmental protections, dodge taxes, avoid scrutiny and safety, and otherwise manipulate the system to funnel revenues into shareholders’ pockets.

When a corporation sets up a workplace that routinely results in maiming, mangling, sickening, disabling, and even killing workers, those outcomes are not “accidents.” They are intentional decisions by executives and investors to increase profits by treating the human beings who produce the corporate product as disposable.

 Over a century ago, Sinclair condemned the “unspeakable” practices that went on. Today’s conditions would leave him no less appalled.

While reformers have set higher standards for cleanliness and safety, there’s a big difference between what’s put on paper and what actually occurs. Progress in standards, it turns out, has been efficiently canceled out by the sheer enormity of today’s facilities; the massive volume of animals slaughtered and butchered day and night; and the treacherous work speeds corporate bosses demand.

The Big Three multinational giants dominating the U.S. meat market (Brazil’s JBS, Arkansas’ Tyson Foods and the Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods) run factories typically covering hundreds of acres. There, 1,000 or more low-paid workers stand elbow to elbow in “The Chain”—high-speed “disassembly” lines. In 10 or 12 hour shifts, they wield assorted saws, knives, hammers, cleavers and other sharp and heavy tools for animal dissection made slippery by gore as they kill, gut, pluck, skin, cut, split, strip, bleed, debone and package thousands of animals every single day. Periodically, industry lobbyists get government OKs to squeeze in more workers and speed up The Chain to force more “product throughput”…and profit.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration official injury reports show an average of 17 severe injuries a month including two amputations a week. The extent of the bloody toll, however, remains hidden since corporations are allowed to largely self-report injuries.

The Chain keeps running and nothing changes.

  Americans have only become more welcoming of immigrants and refugees since 2016

“In 2016 voters were about evenly divided in the share saying that the growing number of newcomers strengthens American society,” Pew said, finding that 46% of all voters agreed with the statement. Four years later, that number has now surged to 60%. Americans “across the political spectrum have shifted in a more liberal direction in this domain,” researchers said.

Gallup this past summer found that 34% of Americans wanted to see more immigrants welcomed to the U.S., “the highest support for expanding immigration Gallup has found in its trend since 1965,” the organization said.

Meanwhile, the percentage favoring decreased immigration has fallen to a new low of 28%.

“This marks the first time in Gallup’s trend that the percentage wanting increased immigration has exceeded the percentage who want decreased immigration,” Gallup noted. “Supporters of both major party candidates this year are more likely than 2016 supporters to have positive views of immigrants to the United States,” Pew found.

  The St Patrick’s Battalion were Irish who fought for the Mexican side against the United States in the Mexico-American War of 1846-48. 

 Contrary to the Articles of War, which stipulated that the penalty for desertion and/or defecting to the enemy during a time of war was death by firing squad, regardless of the circumstances members of the Saint Patrick’s Battalion were executed by hanging as criminals.

 Although more than 9,000 U.S. soldiers deserted the army during the Mexican–American War, only the San Patricios who unlike almost all other deserters had also fought against the United States were punished by hanging.

Executions for treason took place at three separate locations on three separate dates; 16 were executed on 10 September 1847 at San Ángel, four were executed the following day at the village of Mixcoac on 11 September, and 30 were hanged at Chapultepec on 13 September.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick%27s_Battalion

 A secretive Myanmar conglomerate with links to international businesses directly bankrolls the country’s military.

Amnesty International says its investigations into Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (MEHL) show Myanmar’s military has received dividends of as much as $18bn from the Yangon-based company over the years. Its entire board is made up of senior military officers. The company has sprawling interests across mining, manufacturing and banking, and works with a number of international companies from China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. The company has sprawling interests across mining, manufacturing and banking, and works with a number of international companies from China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. Also included are RMH Singapore, a Singaporean fund with a tobacco operation in Myanmar, and Wanbao Mining, a Chinese metal mining company. Two Myanmar companies, Ever Flow River Group Public Co Ltd (EFR), a logistics company, and Kanbawza Group (KBZ), which is involved in mining jade and rubies, were also listed.

MEHL is owned by 381,636 individual shareholders, who are all serving or retired military personnel, and 1,803 “institutional” shareholders, consisting of “regional commands, divisions, battalions, troops, war veteran associations”. The total amount of dividend payments made to shareholders during the 20-year period amounted to more than 107 billion Myanmar kyat – about $18bn. MEHL transferred 95 billion kyat ($16bn) of the total to military units, including those that operated in Rakhine State, home to the Rohingya. The military units that operated in Rakhine reportedly owned more than 4.3 million MEHL shares and received payments of more than 1.25 billion kyat ($208m) in just one year between 2010 and 2011.

“The perpetrators of some of the worst human rights violations in Myanmar’s recent history are among those who benefit from MEHL’s business activities,” said Mark Dummett, Amnesty’s Head of Business, Security and Human Rights. “These documents provide new evidence of how the Myanmar military benefits from MEHL’s vast business empire and make clear that the military and MEHL are inextricably linked.”

MEHL shareholder records show the company to be fully owned and controlled by active and retired military personnel. Military units – including combat divisions assigned to Rakhine State, where conflict has deepened in recent years – own about a third of the company, Amnesty said.

Among those who directly benefit from the company is Myanmar’s top military commander, General Min Aung Hlaing, Amnesty said. Between 2010 and 2011, he owned 5,000 shares and received an estimated $250,000 in payments. The general has been accused of overseeing the military campaign against the Rohingya, and the United Nations has called for his investigation and prosecution in relation to genocide and war crimes. 

Two soldiers from Myanmar also revealed that they were given orders by their superiors to kill and rape Rohingya villagers during a brutal 2017 rampage, which forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/myanmar-military-billions-profitable-business-amnesty-200909045957117.html