Is there really a difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party? Many Americans believe the current electoral system is rigged. These two capitalist parties have made it nearly impossible for any other party to participate in elections. The first hurdle is simply to gather sufficient signatures to get on the ballot. A national candidate is obliged to go through a daunting process in every state with each state having its own rules for ballot access. It is a system that excludes by its very nature and by subterfuge a viable third party. 

 Progressives candidates often run as Democrats and have gained seats from city councils to Congress. They think that it is possible for progressives to capture the Democratic Party and make it into a radical party of the people. The Democratic Party would never allow a takeover or even a significant influence to grow within it. The Democratic Party, just like the Republican Party, belongs to capitalists, just as does almost everything else in the country. The DNC demonstrated it power when it dealt with that interloper Bernie Sanders. They soon had him toeing the party-line.

But even if it was possible for the left to take control of the Democratic Party, the result would be a mass migration of conservative Democrats to the Republicans, subsequently strengthening it. However what we do witness happening, is disenchanted anti-Trump Republicans supporting the Democratic Party. We have the Lincoln Project and at the Democratic convention a series of Republican politicians endorsed Biden. The Justice Democrats were side-lined. So when faced with a right-wing threat from Trump, the Democratic Party swings to the right, not the left.  Progressives can no longer pretend that their presence within the Democratic Party offers any real power over policy. The Republicans and the Democrats nearly always agree on the big issues of foreign policy and domestic economics.

The two corporate parties represent their Wall Street and Big Business donors, and they continue to undermine the rights of workers and let employers get away with breaking labor, health, and safety and environment laws. The “lesser evil” Biden offers half-measures, but nothing of substance and nothing that will save the planet or mitigate the ecological vandalism. Biden will not create social justice nor end violent conflict, racism. He will not  banish hunger and malnutrition, eliminate student debt. He will fail to house the homeless. Biden will not provide justice, support and solidarity to asylum seekers and migrants. It is impossible to comprehend that Biden possesses any vision. He is tied to the existing institutions and its capitalist ideology. He cannot heal our communities.

 It is time turn our attention to re-imagining society and building a new system from the one we presently live under. We must establish a better way of living together. We need to demand changes that move humanity in a new direction completely. Transforming the world seems impossible at first. The obstacles appear insurmountable at the outset. Nevertheless, as the English socialist William Morris explained:

“One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman: two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad; ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real; and why only a hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace upon the earth? You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question.”

Our world is one of disruption, dislocation, destruction and chaos. It is another era of the Robber Barons. But even a criminally unequal society still requires a certain degree of the consent of the governed in order to function. Police brutality alone won’t work as Trump is discovering. So some of our masters decide the good cops are the better option and send in Biden and Harris. 

 On Thursday, September 16, 1920, at 12:01 PM EST, people were gathered on New York City’s Wall Street for lunchtime. A horse-drawn wagon made its way through the crowd and stopped across the street from the J.P. Morgan bank headquarters at 23 Wall Street – on the busiest corner of Manhattan’s Financial District. The wagon was carrying 100 pounds of dynamite and 500 pounds of heavy, cast-iron sash weights. A timer had been set, detonating the dynamite, sending the weights and glass from nearby windows flying through the air like shrapnel, and ripping the horse and wagon to pieces. The explosion caused over $2 million in property damage – the equivalent of over $27 million in 2020, with some damage still visible today – instantly killing 30 people, with eight more dying later from severe wounds, as well as injuring several hundred more, 143 of which severely so. 

The Wall Street bombing was never solved, but it’s widely believed to have been perpetrated by an Italian anarchist named Mario Buda in response to the wrongful arrest of two of his colleagues, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. All three of them were Galleanists – followers of another Italian anarchist named Luigi Galleani, a staunch proponent of a primarily anarchist political tactic called ‘propaganda by the deed,’ mainly associated with acts of violence such as bombings and assassinations aimed at the ruling class. It’s worth noting that J.P. Morgan, Jr. was traveling in Europe at the time and that most of the fatalities were young proletarians – part of the labor aristocracy, of course, but members of the working class nonetheless. 

The concept of propaganda by the deed sprung from the recognition that the state and capitalism itself is perpetuated via coercion, what could be considered a latent form of violence, and active violence when threatened with even peaceful revolution, whether justified or not. Accepting that exposes poverty as a form of passive social violence and a manifestation of a heavily obscured class warfare in which moral considerations are perpetually set aside for the benefit of the bourgeoisie and at the proletariat’s expense. From this vantage point, inaction would also be a form of passive social violence since it directly or indirectly contributes to these circumstances’ propagation. From that mindset, virtually every action within a capitalist system would be violence in some form. With nonviolence not being seen as a currently viable option, the question would become how to efficiently leverage violence – precisely what violence they could utilize most effectively to entirely overthrow the capitalist system. Seeing attacks on the ruling class as the most potent means of garnering working-class support since the state’s backlash, in their minds, would enrage the workers, their line of march was clear. 

There’s a kernel of truth in this line of thinking. The theoretical aspect of it holds water to some extent, but the practical side has at least two gaping holes. To be clear, I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that the capitalist system is kept intact through active and potential violence; I don’t even think a capitalist would disagree with that. I also agree that allowing millions per year to die from malnutrition, starvation, treatable diseases, etc. due to poverty is a form of social violence – what Friedrich Engels called ‘social murder’ in The Condition of the Working Class in England – and that any actions within the system that aren’t active attempts to overthrow it are at least passively upholding these social evils, qualifying nearly all actions within it as some form of violence. I even agree that the destruction of private property is theoretically justified in these circumstances since that’s the entire backbone of capitalism itself. The disconnect for me is that I don’t think this tactic’s practically sound. 

All of these attacks, across the board, have failed to upend the capitalist system, invariably ending in one of two situations. It’s most commonly lead to the wholesale slaughter or suppression and immiseration of the rebels, their allies, and frequently even innocent citizens. The First Red Scare is a prime example. This happens because the state has the most artillery and won’t hesitate to trample on human rights to neutralize any threats, citing security as an excuse. On the rare occasions that insurrections weren’t quelled, the rebels have always become the new ruling class, leaving workers no better off once the smoke clears, with many of them dead in the crossfire. 

Moreover, these attacks don’t usually radicalize proletarians, but more often turn them against the rebels. Class conscious workers may feel empowered, but those that aren’t don’t commonly see the struggle as liberating, but evil instead. With total control of the mainstream media and freedom to control the narrative via those outlets, it becomes much easier to paint rebels as terrorists and even frame them for attacks they never committed if they’re already engaging in violence beforehand. Once a movement’s been demonized, it becomes much harder to gain any amount of support. In this way, violence can inadvertently rob a movement of support they may otherwise have secured had it utilized peaceful means. 

We can only realize a socialist revolution peacefully. A democratic society must be founded democratically. In the words of Friedrich Engels: 

“The time is past for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses. When it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they are to act.” 

The ruling class may attempt to use violence anyway, but it’s much harder to convince people that entirely peaceful movements are somehow evil. Suppressing peaceful rebels has always bolstered their support anyway. 

Jordan Levi

 “Boeing failed in its design and development of the Max, and the FAA failed in its oversight of Boeing and its certification of the aircraft,” a18-month investigation concluded.

The nearly 250-page report found a series of failures in the plane’s design, combined with “regulatory capture”, an overly close relationship between Boeing and the federal regulator, which compromised the process of gaining safety certification.

“Cost-cutting… that jeopardised the safety of the flying public”, a “culture of concealment” over issues with the aircraft, “troubling mismanagement misjudgements” – just some of the charges against Boeing.

 The FAA, comes off almost as badly. US representatives find it guilty of “inherent conflicts of interest” and “grossly insufficient oversight”. The regulator was, in effect, in Boeing’s pocket and that the FAA’s management “overruled” its own technical and safety experts “at the behest of Boeing”.

The report said Boeing had failed to share information about a key safety system, called MCAS, designed to automatically counter a tendency in the 737 Max to pitch upwards. Boeing was at fault for “concealing the very existence of MCAS from 737 pilots”, it found. MCAS was not in crew manuals and Boeing sought to convince regulators not to require simulator training for Max pilots, which would incur extra costs. The MCAS system has been blamed for two crashes that  caused the deaths of 346 people came within months of each other, shortly after the plane went into operation.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54174223

Back in 2015, the Socialist Standard drew attention to the high suicide rates for indigenous peoples. An article in the current Lancet medical shows very little has  improved. 

In January, 2019, seven Aboriginal children died by suicide in Australia. By March, at least 24 young Aboriginal people were reported to have taken their lives, including three children younger than 12 years. Despite Australia’s wealth, the health statistics for Aboriginal peoples are dire and alarming. High rates of suicide and a disproportionate burden of disease and injury for Aboriginal peoples is an ongoing and disturbing trend. Mental health inequities in Australia are similar to those faced by Indigenous populations in other countries. Globally, racism, poverty, unemployment, and disenfranchisement substantially affect the mental health and wellbeing of Indigenous young people.

 Across Australian states and territories, the proportion of Aboriginal young people who reported high-to-very-high psychological distress was greatest in Western Australia (44%, or 7400 people).

 The government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has committed systematic human rights violations including killings and torture amounting to crimes against humanity, United Nations investigators said.

Reasonable grounds existed to believe that Maduro and his interior and defence ministers ordered or contributed to the crimes documented in the report to silence opposition, the investigators said.  They had information indicating Maduro ordered the director of the national intelligence service SEBIN to detain opponents “without judicial order”, Francisco Cox of the UN fact-finding mission told a news briefing.

The report was based on more than 270 interviews with victims, witnesses, former officials and lawyers, and confidential documents. They included the former head of the National Intelligence Service, General Christopher Figuera, whose testimony was corroborated, the report said.

 Most unlawful executions by security forces and state agents have not been prosecuted in Venezuela, where the rule of law and democratic institutions have broken down, the investigators said. They said other national jurisdictions and the International Criminal Court, which opened a preliminary examination into Venezuela in 2018, should consider prosecutions. 

“The mission found reasonable grounds to believe that Venezuelan authorities and security forces have since 2014 planned and executed serious human rights violations, some of which – including arbitrary killings and the systematic use of torture – amount to crimes against humanity,” panel chair Marta Valinas said. The panel found that officers in the military, police and intelligence had committed extrajudicial killings and called on the government to disband the special actions forces of the police known as FAES.

The panel said it had reasonable grounds to believe the intelligence service falsified or planted evidence on victims, and that its agents tortured detainees. They included opposition lawmaker Fernando Alban, who the government said committed suicide in 2018 but whose party said was murdered. Navy Captain Rafael Acosta was believed to have died of torture in the custody of the military intelligence agency DGCIM last year, the UN experts said.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/maduro-security-forces-committed-crimes-humanity-200916221539434.html

 New Zealand is in its deepest recession in decades. The country’s GDP shrank by 12.2% between April and June as the lockdown and border closures hit. It is New Zealand’s first recession since the global financial crisis and its worst since 1987.

Stats NZ spokesman Paul Pascoe said the anti coronavirus measures implemented since 19 March have had a huge impact of some sectors of the economy.

“Industries like retail, accommodation and restaurants, and transport saw significant declines in production because they were most directly affected by the international travel ban and strict nationwide lockdown,” he said.

Treasury forecasts released yesterday suggested massive debt and continuing disruptions are likely to delay a full recovery.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54186359

If history is anything to go by, then we know who will pay the costs of this recession – we will – the working class 

 The world’s poorest children are getting even poorer, according to UNICEF and Save the Children. And they warn that the situation could get a lot worse in the coming months. The coronavirus crisis has plunged 150 million more children into poverty according to an analysis published by UNICEF and Save The Children on Thursday.

The number of children living in poverty in low and middle-income countries increased by 15% to 1.2 billion during the corona pandemic and the subsequent lockdown measures. 

Henrietta Fore, UNICEF executive director, explained the importance of the report’s results saying, “families on the cusp of escaping poverty have been pulled back in, while others are experiencing levels of deprivation they have never seen before. Most concerningly, we are closer to the beginning of this crisis than its end,” she added.

https://www.dw.com/en/unicef-coronavirus-poverty-children/a-54956153

 Rich nations have already bought up half of the promised COVID-19 vaccines, according to a report from Oxfam. The countries represent just 13% of the global population, but have dominated orders from big pharma companies for a potential vaccine.

About 50% of these have been preemptively bought by countries and regions including the United States, Britain, the European Union, Australia, Hong Kong and Macau, Japan, Switzerland and Israel. The remaining 2.6 billion have been bought by or promised to developing countries including India, Bangladesh, China, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico.

The coronavirus pandemic has led to new levels of discrimination against vulnerable communities in Asia, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) warned on Thursday.

A survey of 5,000 people in Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Pakistan found that half of respondents blamed a specific group for spreading the coronavirus. Many respondents blamed Chinese people, immigrants and foreigners.

“It is particularly concerning that both national migrant and foreign workers are blamed for the spread of COVID-19 as they are quite vulnerable already,” researcher Dr Viviane Fluck told Reuters news agency.

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-digest-rich-nations-buy-half-of-promised-vaccine-supply/a-54956400

 Trump’s great achievement is to transform the November 3rd election into another reality show, and instead of it resembling the Apprentice, which he continued as president with a constant series of sackings of officials, it is more akin to America’s Got Talent. It is now a contest of the candidates personalities, character and integrity rather than rival policies of substance. The rise of populism in America has encouraged demagogy and showmanship. The media focuses on the polls and not on proposals. The Republican and the Democrat lack in vision and inspiration. Both party’s establishment elites have rigged the entire political system through undue influence and big money. Should we be surprised that the election is between the son of a real estate agent and the son of a car salesman?

 A small number of very rich men are quite sure they know what is best for the future of the world and have enough wealth and influence to believe they can make it happen. The illusion still persists that capitalism is all right provided it is run on proper lines, “proper” meaning the way it is done by one of the two political parties.

Fellow-workers, your rulers are your most dangerous enemies. They are most cunning and most treacherous. They maintained the iron rule of Capital under conditions of apparently democratic government and free institutions. They keep you under their iron heel, to grind you in their factories mines and workshops and at the same time make you believe you are free. They played upon you with great success the trick of pretending they were split into two factions, Republicans and Democrats. They were like Siamese twins, two in one and one in two. They lead you by the nose from election to election raising empty cries and plenty of promises, granting you from time to time when hard pressed, some petty reform, like a bone being thrown to a dog to keep him quiet. You were taken in by this trickery thinking you must choose between the greater and the lesser evil. And you in your ignorance and innocence, instead of kicking them all out, bag and baggage, have been voting them alternately into power, – Tweedledum following Tweedledee. Decades of such practice upon you have sharpened their wits and they have learned to perfection the art of concealing their mailed fist under a velvet glove, and their dastardly deeds with a glib tongue and a complicit media.

The whole world is at the mercy of what happens in the United States. It is a truism that if America catches a cold, the rest of us begin to sneeze. It remains the economic power-house despite the rivalry of China to dominate all other economies. It has the mighty military arsenal that surpasses all other nations which permits it to assume the role of the police-man of the world. It has the far-reaching diplomatic influence to pick and choose which international law or international institution to support and fund as the UNESCO, ICC and WHO are finding out. Even if the Green New Deal is fully embraced by Biden, the environmental future of the planet is still determined by the Wall St corporations. Almost 8 billion of us are trapped by whether 300 million of our fellow-workers decide if they prefer Coca Cola or a Pepsi brand president. The rest of us have no say whatsoever in the future of the planet. It matters little if Noam Chomsky, if Cornel West or Angela Davis believe in the lesser evil of Biden. Like Hillary Clinton in 2016 Biden is a proven evil. He has the record. It is not supposition. Yes, Trump is monstrous but so is Biden. Should he become the next president, it means siding with him on every thing he does to ensure the no return of a Republican right-winger. That is the reality.

 American workers have the duty to remain true to themselves and vote with their conscience. They have the responsibility to act on behalf of humanity as a whole and forego national self-interest.

  Sweatshops and mistreatment are thriving western cities like Los Angeles, California, where labor rights violations are occurring every day. Los Angeles is home to over 50,000 garment workers and is the largest garment manufacturing hub in the United States. 

Ayesha Barenblat, raises awareness around these injustices in her recent documentary ‘Made In America’, a short film which takes you into multiple LA clothing factories, talking to local garment makers and a labour conditions inspector, about what’s really going on behind closed doors. The aim is to highlight various forms of exploitation which garment workers in America have been subjected to for years.

Ayesha explains, “When we think of fast fashion production, the United States might not be the first country to come to mind. However, the truth is that even in America, garment workers are being thrust into vulnerable situations and are being taken advantage of on a daily basis. We thought it was time to look deeply at American manufacturing and push past the smoke and mirrors to see what is really going on in our own backyards.” 

Under piece-pay rate, garment workers only receive around $0.3 for each piece they create. This in turn translates to about $5 an hour – which comes out at way below California’s $15 an hour minimum wage.

In addition to this, garment workers are usually paid in cash and rates are set and changed by their employers each week. Today, it’s common industry practice for employers to reduce already promised piece rates. This means that garment workers have no clarity on what their take home pay will be week by week. The piece rate system thus results in hazardous working conditions as garment workers race against the clock to complete as many items as possible for maximum pay. Ayesha explains that they rarely take bathroom breaks and end up taking their work home to get help from their families.

“Garment workers in the USA have long worked in subhuman working conditions,” says Ayesha. “You need to know that people, not machines, make your clothing. Start by asking, ‘who made my clothes.’ By keeping in mind the origins of how your clothes are made, you begin to form a connection with the human hands that made them.” 

The dangers of producing garments in such conditions have only heightened during Covid-19 as workers have not had time to sanitise work stations or wash their hands, leading to outbreaks inside factories.

“Governments, brands, and factories should address issues in sweatshops, but consumers need to be a part of the movement too,” Ayesha adds, “we all play a part in shifting the industry for the better. The fact is, companies respond to the demands of the consumer, and they will prioritise what the consumer wants. Their every decision revolves around you (the consumer) and your decisions on where you will spend your money. If enough consumers show a great demand for ethical and sustainable products and transparency, it forces companies to take action.” 

The Garment Worker Center (GWC) in LA has been working with Remake to transform the fashion industry in order to eliminate sweatshop labour. GWC is currently leading an anti-sweatshop movement across the state to improve conditions for tens of thousands of local garment workers.

On 29th June 2020, the Garment Worker Protection Act (SB1399) was passed by the California Senate with a 5 to 1 vote. “SB1399 is designed by workers, to close loopholes in the law that today result in workers being paid well below the California minimum wage, and for brands like Fashion Nova and Ross to benefit from this wage theft,” explains Ayesha. “This bill will prevent brands and retailers from benefiting from the layers of subcontracting to avoid accountability under law. In addition, the bill will eliminate piece rate, and instead assure that workers are paid California’s minimum wage. The passing of the bill is a major win for garment workers and a game changer for the fashion industry overall.”

The Garment Worker Protection Act will also serve as a powerful piece of legislation for other states, particularly New York, another hub for domestic manufacturing.

https://www.euronews.com/living/2020/08/17/new-documentary-exposes-subhuman-working-conditions-in-la-sweatshops