Extreme weather events have increased dramatically in the past 20 years, taking a heavy human and economic toll worldwide, and are likely to wreak further havoc, the UN has said. Globally, 7,348 major disaster events were recorded, claiming 1.23 million lives, affecting 4.2 billion people and causing $2.97tn (£2.3tn) in economic losses during the two-decade period. Drought, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires and extreme temperature fluctuations were among the events causing major damage

Heatwaves and droughts will pose the greatest threat in the next decade, as temperatures continue to rise due to heat-trapping gases, experts said.

China (577) and the US (467) recorded the highest number of disaster events from 2000 to 2019, followed by India (321), the Philippines (304) and Indonesia (278), the UN said in a report. Eight of the top 10 countries are in Asia.

“…The bad news is that more people are being affected by the expanding climate emergency,” said Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary general’s special representative for disaster risk reduction. 

Debarati Guha-Sapir of the centre for research on the epidemiology of disasters at the University of Louvain, Belgium, which provided data for the report, said: “If this level of growth in extreme weather events continues over the next 20 years, the future of mankind looks very bleak indeed.

“Heatwaves are going to be our biggest challenge in the next 10 years, especially in the poor countries,” she said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/12/un-highlights-dramatic-global-rise-in-extreme-weather-since-2020

Virtually every aspect of the Syrian opposition was manipulated and marketed by Western government-backed public relations firms, from their political narratives to their branding, from what they said to where they said it. Virtually every major Western corporate media outlet was influenced by the UK government-funded disinformation campaign exposed in the trove of leaked documents, from the New York Times to the Washington Post, CNN to The Guardian, the BBC to Buzzfeed. UK government contractors developed an advanced infrastructure of propaganda to stimulate support in the West for Syria’s political and armed opposition.

UK-funded PR firms  produced their own propagandistic pseudo-news for broadcast on major TV networks in the Middle East, including BBC Arabic, Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and Orient TV.  Contractors trained and advised Syrian opposition leaders at all levels, from young media activists to the heads of the parallel government-in-exile. These firms also organized interviews for Syrian opposition leaders on mainstream outlets such as BBC and the UK’s Channel 4. More than half of the stringers used by Al Jazeera in Syria were trained in a joint US-UK government program called Basma, which produced hundreds of Syrian opposition media activists. Mainstream corporate media outlets misleadingly portrayed Basma as a “Syrian citizen journalism platform,” or a “civil society group working for a ‘liberatory, progressive transition to a new Syria.’” In reality it was a Western government  operation to cultivate opposition propagandists.

One contractor, called InCoStrat, said it was in constant contact with a network of more than 1,600 international journalists and “influencers,” and used them to push pro-opposition talking points. Many of the Western-backed opposition groups in Syria were extremist Salafi-jihadists. A government contractor, ARK, crafted a strategy to “re-brand” Syria’s Salafi-jihadist armed opposition by “softening its image.” ARK created a complex PR campaign of the Supreme Military Council (SMC), the leadership of the official armed wing of Syria’s opposition, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in order to distinguish itself from extremist armed opposition groups and to establish the image of a functioning, inclusive, disciplined and professional military body”, a whitewash of Syria’s armed opposition, which had been largely dominated by Salafi-jihadists 

ARK boasted that it provided opposition propaganda that “aired almost every day on” major Arabic-language TV networks. ARK played a central role in developing the foundations of the Syrian political opposition’s narrative. In one leaked document, the firm took credit for the “development of a core Syrian opposition narrative,” which was apparently crafted during a series of workshops with opposition leaders sponsored by the US and UK governments. ARK developed opposition spokespeople, taught them how to speak with the media. 

ARK was a central force in launching the White Helmets operation. ARK ran the Twitter and Facebook pages of Syria Civil Defense, known more commonly as the White Helmets. ARK took credit for developing “an internationally-focused communications campaign designed to raise global awareness of the (White Helmets) teams and their life saving work.” ARK also facilitated communications between the White Helmets and The Syria Campaign, a PR firm run out of London and New York that helped popularize the White Helmets in the United States. ARK  “selected civil defence to front its campaign to keep Syria in the news.” In 2014, ARK produced a documentary on the White Helmets, titled “Digging for Life.” 

 ARK was boosting followers and views on the Facebook page for Idlib City Council. The Syrian city of Idlib was taken over by al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, which then went on to publicly execute women who were accused of adultery.

This enormous ARK propaganda operation was directed by Firas Budeiri, who had previously served as the Syria director for the UK-based international NGO Save the Children. In the final year of ARK’s Syria program – the firm billed the UK government for a staggering 2.3 million pounds.

 A leaked UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office report from 2014 reveals a joint operation with the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development to support “strategic communications, research, monitoring and evaluation and operational support to Syrian opposition entities.” The UK FOC stated clearly that this campaign consisted of “creating network linkages between political movements and media outlets,” by the “building of local independent media platforms.”

A 2017 government document explains clearly how Britain funded the “selection, training, support and communications mentoring of Syrian activists who share the UK’s vision for a future Syria… and who will abide by a set of values that are consistent with UK policy.”

In other words, the UK Foreign Office and military crafted plans to wage a comprehensive media war on Syria. To establish an infrastructure capable of managing the propaganda blitz, Britain paid a series of government contractors, including ARK, The Global Strategy Network (TGSN), Innovative Communication & Strategies (InCoStrat), and Albany.

The British contractor TGSN, which worked alongside ARK, developed its own outlet called the “Revolutionary Forces of Syria Media Office (RFS).” The UK government-backed RFS media office offered to pay one journalist a  $17,000 per month to produce propaganda for Syrian rebels.

InCoStrat served as a liaison between its government clients and the Syrian National Coalition, the Western-backed parallel government that the opposition tried to create. InCoStrat advised senior leaders of this Syrian shadow regime, and ran the National Coalition’s own media office from Istanbul, Turkey. InCoStrat said it helped plant its own Syrian opposition activists in BBC Arabic reports. InCoStrat boasted that its reporters organized interviews with many armed opposition militias, including the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra.

Albany with an extensive local network of over 55 stringers, reporters and videographers” to influence media narratives and advance UK foreign policy interests helped create an influential Syrian opposition media outfit called Enab Baladi. Founded in 2011 in the anti-Assad hub of Daraya, at the beginning of the war, Enab Baladi was aggressively marketed in the Western press as a grassroots Syrian media operation. In reality, Enab Baladi was the product of a British contractor that took responsibility for its evolution “from an amateur-run entity into one of the most prominent Syrian media organizations.” Albany coordinated communications between opposition media outlets and extremist Islamist opposition groups, linked to al-Qaeda. In 2014, Albany boasted of running the Syrian National Coalition’s communications team at the Geneva Peace talks.

This is all a reminder of the leading role that Western states and their war-profiteering companies play in the carefully orchestrated destruction of a country.

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/09/23/syria-leaks-uk-contractors-opposition-media/

The basic interest of the working class is in opposition to capitalism. The capitalist class controls life in the U.S. through the Democratic and Republican parties and uses the government for its own ends. This class is the enemy of the revolution and the vast majority of the people of the U.S. Capitalists are very wealthy and live off the exploited labor of others. They stay in the background and supply the money and pull the strings. The Democratic and Republican Parties have people behind them. These are the bankers and industrialists who finance Republican and Democratic campaigns. The Democratic Party, just as the Republican Party, is a political organization of the bosses, not of the workers.

By accusing the previous Democratic administration, the Democratic Party, and many in the Republican Party of treachery, bungling and blundering mismanagement, Trump bids to become the champion of the “little people” who are justifiably suspicious of the Washington elite. Trump hopes he can become the champion of the discontented “middle-classes” who are deeply disturbed by the world and domestic crises and have grown to be the opponents of the status quo. This kind of demagogy for some observers signifies an attempt to rally a populist movement around a neo-fascist banner.

The workers can depend upon no one except those of their own class. The next step toward the solution of their problems must be the election of delegates to political office – local, state and national – from the workers’ own ranks by the workers’ own political party. We are firmly convinced that even such a small party, the World Socialist Party, with a program that coincides with historic development, can not only “get somewhere” but will help re-make the world. We stand for socialism: a new system in which the people own and control the economy, through social institutions of the widest democracy. We stand for socialism which is completely independent of and opposed to the exploitation of man by man which now divide the world. Our principal aim is to spread the ideas of revolutionary socialism, politically educate and recruit members.

 Capitalism is an outlived system whose lifeblood is private profit and oppression, whether or not represented as the “welfare state” and whether or not its government is administered by liberals or self-styled progressives. We stand in opposition to both old parties, Democratic and Republican. socialism presents a third choice to the duopoly, a choice for a new world of freedom, peace and security. Both the Democratic and Republican parties are conscious war parties, preparing and mobilizing the country for never-ending wars. Patriotic speeches and red-baiting demagogy will not hide the harsh realities of Wall Street’s politicians.

The Democratic and Republican parties actually work together hand-in-glove to play the American people for fools on a fiddle. The U.S. Empire uses its twin demons known as the Democratic and Republican parties to play the American people, and the peoples of the world, as a perpetual ping pong ball in an unceasing state of manipulation.

While there is a difference in the temperament of the two presidential candidates, that difference will play out only in how our poison will be delivered. Political personalities serve global corporate centers of power. They do not control them. Democracy has died. Neither Biden and Trump do not have the power nor the interest to revive it. They kneel before Wall St and bow before the bloated military-economic complex which consumes trillions of dollars to wage futile wars. . Presidents and politicians are courtiers to bankers and industrialists. The candidates mouth the cliches of justice, business improvements and democratic choice, but it is a cynical game. Once it is over, the victors will go to the White House to work with the lobbyists and financial elites to carry out the real business of ruling. For-sale politicians and political parties for hire dominate the United States. Voting for Biden may slow  the slide into the apocalypse. Or it will accelerate it. Trump may vanish from the political landscape, but someone even more venal, and probably more intelligent, will take his place.

The World Socialist Party’s conception of a future society in which there would be no rich or poor, where society would be run democratically both politically and economically, where the economy would be rationally planned and production would be based on human needs not profits for individuals. This is not about false hope. This is about a future of hard work and organizing. The common good, the building of community and solidarity is the WSP goal.

 Racial inequality has cost the US economy $16 trillion in wealth over the last two decades, The banking giant Citigroup said in a report. Addressing racial equity gaps could add $5 trillion to US growth over the next five years, Citi said.

It pointed to the drag from unequal pay, housing discrimination, education disparity and other longstanding ills in the United States and it lays out a gamut of issues, including policing and voting rights. 

“Addressing racism and closing the racial wealth gap is the most critical challenge we face in creating a fair and inclusive society and we know that more of the same won’t do,” said Citigroup Chief Executive Michael Corbat.

The report notes the sizeable wage gap for Black and Hispanic workers, the result of “an extended history of job discrimination, plus unequal access to quality education in the US.”

It noted the problem of financial “redlining” that has left Black consumers more vulnerable to predatory lenders, or to unfavorable terms from banks.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/citi-report-sees-16-tn-drag-on-us-economy-from-racism/

 Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, at a House Oversight Committee hearing ,asked former  pharmaceutical company Celgene CEO Mark Alles what the cost of the cancer drug Revlimid was in 2005, 2013, 2017, and today. Alles couldn’t.

 Revlimid cost $215 per pill in 2005, $412 in 2013, $719 in 2017 and right now it costs $763 per pill.

 Since launching Revlimid in 2005, Celgene raised the price of the drug 22 times

 Obviously, the pill must have gotten better and/or the demand has diminished for the pill! 

Wrong.

 In fact, Alles admits that a lot more uses for the pill were discovered, meaning a ton more patients, and nothing about the pill or its efficacy has changed. So why is the price going up? Why is Medicare paying out $3.3 billion for Revlimid?

 Alles made $13 million, which is “200 times the average American’s income and 360 times what the average senior makes on Social Security.”  

 Celgene’s price increases for Revlimid led directly to higher bonuses for its executives. In 2016 and 2017, Celgene’s top executives earned millions in additional bonuses because of their price increases for Revlimid.

And Alles gets big bonuses if he raises the cost, say triples the cost since 2005, of Remlivid. 

In fact, to bring an average monthly course cost of the cancer drug to a patient up to $16,023, (more than triple the 2005 price) was able to pocket an extra $500,000.

 Due to Revlimid price increases, from 2009 to 2018, Celgene reported over $51 billion in net worldwide revenue from Revlimid, with the U.S. market accounting for $32 billion of that total. Celgene’s net U.S. revenue for Revlimid increased from $1 billion in 2009 to nearly $6.5 billion in 2018. This rise in Revlimid revenue fueled Celgene’s annual profits, which increased from $780 million in 2009 to $4 billion in 2018.

 Pricing decisions made by Celgene executives were driven almost exclusively by the need to meet company revenue targets and shareholder earnings goals. 

 Celgene highlighted that the U.S. government is prohibited from negotiating directly to lower prices for Medicare beneficiaries. With the federal government unable to negotiate, Celgene targeted the U.S. market for price increases while maintaining or cutting prices for the rest of the world. One presentation described the U.S. as a “highly favorable environment with free-market pricing.”  The federal government’s inability to negotiate for a lower price of Revlimid has placed a significant burden on the U.S. health care system and cost taxpayers billions of dollars. From 2010 to 2018, Celgene collected $17.5 billion from Medicare Part D. In 2018 alone, Medicare Part D plans and beneficiaries spent more than $4 billion on Revlimid—the second-highest expenditure of any drug that year.  Celgene paid no negotiated discounts to Medicare Part D plans, and the largest discount it paid in the commercial market was only 5%. Celgene’s average net price per unit of Revlimid—the price of the drug after removing such rebates, discounts, and fees—increased each year the drug has been on the market.

 Celgene suppressed competition by abusing a government-mandated safety program. Celgene emphasized that it could use the program for the “prevention of generic encroachment.” Celgene also excluded competition by leveraging the U.S. patent system, which Celgene described internally as being far more protective of its monopoly pricing than patent systems in the rest of the world. Celgene’s anticompetitive tactics are estimated to cost the U.S. health care system more than $45 billion through 2025. 

Celgene relied heavily on taxpayer-funded academic research to develop Revlimid, and its internal pricing decisions appear to have been unrelated to past or future investment in research and development. Internal documents suggest that Celgene may have leveraged the high price of Revlimid to inhibit other companies’ cancer research. In discussions about another company, one executive wrote, “Making them spend a lot more on their trials puts financial constraints on their ability to simultaneously fund lots of trials.” Another executive agreed, writing, “Anything we can do to hamper their development would help.”

Rep. Porter explained,  “So to recap here: The drug didn’t get any better. The cancer patients didn’t get any better. You just got better at making money. You just refined your skills at price gouging!”

During President Trump’s first term, drug companies have continued to aggressively raise prices. A recent report found that drug companies have raised list price of over 600 single-source brand name drugs by a median 21.4% between January 2018 and June 2020

https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/Celgene%20BMS%20Staff%20Report%2009-30-2020.pdf

What has the first Trump-Biden debate actually taught us? Not a lot.  

 American workers can say what they want and do what they want within very broad limits, and their children can study hard in school and college so they can graduate and join the well-off professional class as doctors, lawyers or engineers, but when it comes to social power most Americans have very little if they are not a part of the elite.

Who has the power in the United States? The short answer is those who have the money – or more specifically, who own income-producing land and businesses – have the power i.e., corporations, banks, and agri-industry. How do they rule? Again, the short answer is through open and direct involvement in policy planning, through participation in political campaigns and elections, and through appointments to key decision-making positions in government. Contrary to what we believe America’s two parties are not very responsive to voter preferences. Their candidates are fairly free to say one thing to get elected and to do another once in office. This contributes to confusion and apathy in the electorate. It leads to campaigns where there are no “issues” except “images” and “personalities” even when polls show that voters are extremely concerned about certain policy issues.

The domination by the ruling elite does not mean control on each and every issue and it does not rest upon government involvement alone. Involvement in government is only the final and most visible aspect of ruling class domination, which has its roots in the class structure, the nature of the economy, and the functioning of the policy-planning network. Government has to wait for corporate leaders to decide where and when they will invest.

 One point abundantly clear: The mainstream Democratic Party programme as an alternative is paltry stuff. Democrats may disagree with the Republicans that tax cuts and deregulation are the solution, and instead argue that the state should be used to guarantee equal opportunity. For instance, cheap, publicly available education, job training and affirmative action are all justified on the grounds that each American should have the skills to compete and the labor market should treat everyone equally. Yet, the two parties differ only on means, not ends. While Republicans profess a more abiding faith in a self-regulating economy, Democrats believe tailored government interventions are needed. As it turns out, the end that each party agrees on is largely same. The continuance of capitalism.

There exists so many factions each claiming to lay down the correct course necessary to be taken by the working class towards its emancipation. It is vital for our class is to develop a sense of the solidarity and self-confidence essential to the final abolition of wage slavery. Any upsurge in the militancy, resistance and organisation of our class is to be welcome. Socialism demands the revolutionizing of the workers themselves in a battle of ideas. Engels’ Preface to the 1890 German edition of the Communist Manifesto:

“For the ultimate triumph of the ideas set forth in the Manifesto Marx relied solely and exclusively on the intellectual development of the working class, as it necessarily had to ensue from united action and discussion.”

Wielding the threat of strikes, organized labor helped generations of Americans. It is often overlooked by the WSPUS critics that many in its companion party, the Socialist Party of Canada, were instrumental in the founding of the One Big Union.)

What we have stated is that: 

“The particular form of economic organisation through which the struggle is conducted is one which the circumstances of the struggle must mainly determine. The chief thing is to maintain the struggle whilst capitalism lasts.The spirit of the craft form of Trade Union is generally one which tends to cramp the activity and outlook of the workers, each craft thinking itself something apart from all others, particularly from the non-skilled workers. But capitalist society itself tends to break down the barriers artificially set up between sections of the working class, as many of the so-called “aristocrats of labour” have been made painfully aware. The industrial form of union should tend to bring the various sections of workers in an industry together, and thus help level the identity of interests between all workers so organised.”

History has borne this approach out with the rise and growth in America during the 30s of the CIO.

 The mission of the World Socialist Party is to lay bare the general trend of capitalist development; to point out unceasingly that, so long as the system lasts, atrocities will be repeated; that they are effects which spring from the very roots of the capitalist system, because they are grounded in the soil of competitive rivalry for world’s markets, trade routes, etc. The only remedy is to remove the cause, capitalism, and replace it by a worldwide co-operative commonwealth.