The US jails hold more than 2.2 million people, or 22% of the world’s prison population, and has a long history of racism in its prison system. Problems with the US justice system go back a long way,
In 2018, Black people made up 12% of the US adult population but accounted for 33% of people serving a prison sentence, while white people made up 63% of the US adult population, yet just 30% of prison inmates. These figures are drawn from reports by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the statistics agency of the US Department of Justice. Certain age groups are particularly prominent: in 2018, one out of about 21 Black men aged between 35 and 39 was in prison.
The 13th Amendment was abused after slaves were liberated following the American Civil War. The amendment states that slavery and forced labor are forbidden in the US — “except as a punishment for crime.” Wealthy white people had lost their labor force in one fell swoop, but had their ways of remedying the situation: In the years after the Civil War, African Americans were arrested for trivial offenses and had to do hard labor as part of their prison sentence.
Then, in the 1970s, President Richard Nixon announced the “war on drugs.” This campaign against drug-related crime hit the Black community hard — and that was the whole point. Nixon adviser John Ehrlichman referred to African Americans as being among the “enemies” of the Nixon government. He said that while it was not possible to make it illegal to be Black, it was possible to get the public to associate Black people with heroin. This meant that “we could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.”
“Mandatory minimums” were also introduced. These meant that long prison sentences could be imposed for minor possession of drugs. For drugs like crack, which was generally less expensive than cocaine and more often found in the possession of Black people, these mandatory punishments were much longer and handed down for smaller amounts than in the case of drugs like cocaine, which was generally more expensive and more often found in the possession of white people. The “mandatory minimums” leave judges with more or less no discretionary power; even if they would like to give the person involved a second chance, they have to hand down decades long jail sentences.
Poverty is also punished via the bail bond system. A person charged with a crime who cannot afford bail is required to stay in jail until their trial takes place — often for months or even years. Here, African Americans are also disproportionately affected.
Cori Bush, a Democrat running for Congress in the state of Missouri, told DW that “instead of us spending so much money on tear gas in our police departments, instead of spending all of this money on military-grade weapons and military-grade gear and vehicles,” cities should invest in schools, health care and job training programs. Diverting money from police budgets to community aid would have direct effects in bringing down the incarceration rate among African Americans, according to Bush.
“I’ve been in a place where I didn’t know where my next meal was coming from. I made sure my children ate but I didn’t know what I was going to eat,” Bush said, pointing out that such situations had a negative mental impact on people. She is certain that if there were less poverty, fewer young people without future prospects and fewer hungry children, not as many people would end up in prison.
Poverty Plea
The successful school meal voucher campaign waged by the footballer Marcus Rashford provides only a “sticking plaster” for households living well below the poverty line as a result of Covid-19 job losses, the Fabian Society , a left-of-centre thinktank has said.
Its research had found a huge gap between benefit payments and the amount needed to escape from poverty despite the increases in universal credit announced by the chancellor, Rishi Sunak.
The research showed that a lone parent without work with one child was left £68 below the £237-a-week poverty line for that family type, while a single parent with three children was having to get by on £142 less than the £393-a-week poverty benchmark.
Andrew Harrop, general secretary of the Fabian Society, said: “Families with children where either parent loses their job during the Covid-19 crisis are finding to their horror that universal credit does not provide enough to meet even basic needs.”
Harrop said more state money was needed.
“During the Covid-19 crisis there can be no possible excuse for punishing families with three children who have just lost their jobs and have no wish to be out of work. There is a safety net required to protect individual households and overall consumer spending during an unprecedented global crisis – our figures reveal its inadequacy.”
The thinktank said its poverty-line figures were a best-case scenario because they assumed that families’ housing and council tax costs were fully covered by other benefit payments, which was almost never the case.
Over-50s Poverty
Increasing numbers of people aged over 50 in the UK do not have enough money to pay for basic necessities, a study of labour market statistics has shown.
Claims for universal credit, which is available only to households with savings of less than £16,000, from the over-50s have more than doubled since March.
Stuart Lewis, the founder of Rest Less, a website for the over-50s, said: “Sadly, this is only the tip of the iceberg as many of those unemployed in their 50s will not be eligible to claim universal credit. The surge in older claimants highlights the extremely precarious financial situation that many of this demographic find themselves in today.
Inequality and the Pandemic
Lower-income households are using savings and borrowing more during the coronavirus lockdown, while richer families are saving more as eating out and trips abroad are banned.
That’s according to research from the Resolution Foundation, a think tank.
Lower-income households are twice as likely as richer ones to have increased their debts during the crisis, it said.
“Pre-coronavirus Britain was marked by soaring wealth and damaging wealth gaps between households,” said George Bangham, economist at the Resolution Foundation. “These wealth divides have been exposed by the crisis. While higher-income households have built up their savings, many lower-income households have run theirs down and had to turn to high-interest credit.”
Wealth gaps across the country have also grown, with London and the South East accounting for 38% of all wealth between 2016 to 2018, up from 32% a decade earlier. Wealth inequality remains almost twice as high as income inequality, it adds.
Wake Him Up When It’s Over
Capitalist and TV Star Alan Sugar has urged the Government to lift lockdown restrictions — because he knows no one who has died from the Coronavirus (The Metro, 19-6-20)
The current deaths in the U. K. according Gov. UK is 42, 632.
He has been in Florida with his wife during the lockdown (that must have difficult for him).
‘Look I’m not a Doctor [classic line] and I don’t want to give advice.’
‘ I have been in Florida for six months, so I have lived through the crisis, the shortage of ventilators, masks and hospital beds being full up . . .’
‘I have seen the transition of restaurants, tennis courts, golf clubs opening. This has been going on now for six weeks.’
‘I have seen the transition of restaurants, tennis courts, golf clubs opening. This has been going on now for six weeks.’
‘We’ve come out of this so-called lockdown. Who’s dead ? I’m still alive. My wife, thank God is still alive, so is everyone I know. It’s a clue that maybe we’ve reached a peak.’
According to Centres For Disease Control & Prevention the U. S. A. has 119, 615 deaths.
For Alan Sugar as long as he, his family and friends are well it’s okay. He doesn’t want to talk about the working class deaths worldwide, he wants business as usual.
We don’t want to live in your world. We want a world without buying and selling, a world without money and profits. We want production for need.
We want a world without leaders and capitalists.
To Extinction Rebellion
I hope all is well with you. Thank you for keeping me in touch with XR.
I have been to a few of Kington’s meetings and also Brecon, Cardigan and other groups. Whilst I absolutely understand and agree with the aims of XR what seems to be missing, to me at least, is when XR says ‘system change’ what exactly does this mean; that is to say what system does the movement intend to put in its place?
I have occasionally tried to raise this issue but have been met with blank looks, if I had to guess it would seem that there is no clear idea of what this new system would be.
The idea that to continue with Capitalism is a non-starter as a system predicated on growth and profit at the expense of the environment and people is destined to destroy itself and probably any reasonable form of life. (as can now be clearly seen as the government are pushing to restore the economy despite scientists warning against this, proves the point – the economy will, under Capitalism, always come first).
The answer is World wide change and this will only happen when the majority of people want to end Capitalism and, more to the point, know why it will fail us and be clear about what to put in its place.
In the early 1900’s the World Socialist Party was founded and they, since then, have been unwavering in their aims to rid the World of Capitalism and not try to reform it. With climate breakdown and the Covid outbreak if ever there was a time to change things it is now. Please check this website out, I think the word ‘socialism’ is problematic, not because of the true meaning but because most people think of China or Russia when, in fact, true socialism has never existed but that tends to be lack of knowledge and the pressure of the media/governments to encourage people to think otherwise.
Climate breakdown, like species loss, warfare, starvation, homelessness, poverty and even Covid 19 are all symptoms of this dreadful society (Capitalism) Reformism just will not work. I think that if XR members were to read very carefully the aims of the World Socialist Party they would realise that all of XR’s aims and more would be met with true socialism.
I would respectfully ask you to read this email at your meeting please.
The Pandemic Changed India
“you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi
The monsoon officially arrived in Mumbai, India last weekend.
The men who cleared the drains so that the rains don’t cause flooding and water-borne diseases. The electricians who came to fix blackouts caused by wind and rain. The sanitation workers who used to spray neighbourhoods with mosquito repellent before the monsoon to prevent vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and chikungunya. All are missing. Many of these workers and handymen were migrant labourers. For the first time in 125 years, most of the 5,000 dabbawallas have gone home to their villages, defeated by the virus and the lockdown. 1.2 million migrant workers left the city during lockdown.
They fled the city when the pandemic left them destitute and hungry. Before their mass exodus, well-heeled residents had never noticed them. They were always there, cheap cogs labour, their presence visible only when needed to fix a blocked toilet or deliver pizzas, and instantly forgotten. Now their absence is felt. A city already buckling under coronavirus and facing the annual ritual of catastrophic flooding from the rains is realising its dependence on daily wage labourers and informal casual workers.
The labour shortage means business cannot find technicians, electricians, sweepers, packers or assembly-line workers. Foundries, mills, shops and malls are looking for labour. Construction of roads, flyovers and metro lines is delayed. Half-built buildings need to be finished. A survey carried out for the Economic Times newspaper estimates a labour shortfall of 40–50%. Employers have sent out “contractors” who, for a commission, scour villages in the states around Mumbai for skilled and semi-skilled workers to work for daily wages.
The chief minister of Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray, has urged employers to hire local workers rather than those from other states. Few want to take him up on this suggestion.
“Migrant workers accept less pay, longer hours and harsher working conditions. Local people will not tolerate this – they have a sense of justice, are rooted in society and enjoy social support. Migrant labourers are herded into factories and hostels and feel cut off and isolated from the society around them,” said DL Karad, national vice-president of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions. “Most of them aren’t coming back. First they were treated like slaves by employers and then they were treated like stray dogs by society during the lockdown. Some, perhaps, may return. But only if they are starving,” said Karad.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jun/19/mumbai-discovers-life-isnt-so-sweet-without-the-workers-it-once-ignored
The monsoon officially arrived in Mumbai, India last weekend.
The men who cleared the drains so that the rains don’t cause flooding and water-borne diseases. The electricians who came to fix blackouts caused by wind and rain. The sanitation workers who used to spray neighbourhoods with mosquito repellent before the monsoon to prevent vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and chikungunya. All are missing. Many of these workers and handymen were migrant labourers. For the first time in 125 years, most of the 5,000 dabbawallas have gone home to their villages, defeated by the virus and the lockdown. 1.2 million migrant workers left the city during lockdown.
They fled the city when the pandemic left them destitute and hungry. Before their mass exodus, well-heeled residents had never noticed them. They were always there, cheap cogs labour, their presence visible only when needed to fix a blocked toilet or deliver pizzas, and instantly forgotten. Now their absence is felt. A city already buckling under coronavirus and facing the annual ritual of catastrophic flooding from the rains is realising its dependence on daily wage labourers and informal casual workers.
The labour shortage means business cannot find technicians, electricians, sweepers, packers or assembly-line workers. Foundries, mills, shops and malls are looking for labour. Construction of roads, flyovers and metro lines is delayed. Half-built buildings need to be finished. A survey carried out for the Economic Times newspaper estimates a labour shortfall of 40–50%. Employers have sent out “contractors” who, for a commission, scour villages in the states around Mumbai for skilled and semi-skilled workers to work for daily wages.
The chief minister of Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray, has urged employers to hire local workers rather than those from other states. Few want to take him up on this suggestion.
“Migrant workers accept less pay, longer hours and harsher working conditions. Local people will not tolerate this – they have a sense of justice, are rooted in society and enjoy social support. Migrant labourers are herded into factories and hostels and feel cut off and isolated from the society around them,” said DL Karad, national vice-president of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions. “Most of them aren’t coming back. First they were treated like slaves by employers and then they were treated like stray dogs by society during the lockdown. Some, perhaps, may return. But only if they are starving,” said Karad.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jun/19/mumbai-discovers-life-isnt-so-sweet-without-the-workers-it-once-ignored
Stealing the vote
A federal judge denied an effort to expand the number of polling places in Kentucky.
There will be fewer than 200 polling places, down from 3,700 in a typical election year.
Most of the state’s 120 counties will have just one polling location.
That includes the most populous county, Jefferson, home to Louisville. About 1 in 5 residents in the county is African American, the largest black population in the state. Jefferson County has a population of roughly 767,000 and will have just one polling location. It is 54 miles long with poor public transit so how will people get to vote?
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/20/voting-rights-advocates-warn-impending-disaster-kentucky-after-bid-increase-slashed
There will be fewer than 200 polling places, down from 3,700 in a typical election year.
Most of the state’s 120 counties will have just one polling location.
That includes the most populous county, Jefferson, home to Louisville. About 1 in 5 residents in the county is African American, the largest black population in the state. Jefferson County has a population of roughly 767,000 and will have just one polling location. It is 54 miles long with poor public transit so how will people get to vote?
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/20/voting-rights-advocates-warn-impending-disaster-kentucky-after-bid-increase-slashed
Speculating on Health
A company set up by a hedge fund, with no background or expertise in pharmacology, arranged to get rights to a drug that was developed by researchers at Emory University on a $16 million contract with the government.
The drug, EIDD-2801, is thought to be a potential treatment for the coronavirus.
Shortly after arranging to buy the rights to the drug, the company turned around and sold them to Merck, presumably for a substantial profit.
Neither the United States of America nor the United Kingdom have agreed to share the fruits of research with the world, leaving open the possibility that one or more of their drug companies will take advantage of research that was widely shared to develop a vaccine or treatment on which they will claim a patent monopoly, and then charge very high prices.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/06/20/patents-and-pandemic-again
The drug, EIDD-2801, is thought to be a potential treatment for the coronavirus.
Shortly after arranging to buy the rights to the drug, the company turned around and sold them to Merck, presumably for a substantial profit.
Neither the United States of America nor the United Kingdom have agreed to share the fruits of research with the world, leaving open the possibility that one or more of their drug companies will take advantage of research that was widely shared to develop a vaccine or treatment on which they will claim a patent monopoly, and then charge very high prices.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/06/20/patents-and-pandemic-again
Remember the economic victims of COVID-19
As fashion outlets have re-opened across England and Northern Ireland, on the other side of the world the workers who stitch and sew the clothes hanging on their racks are losing their jobs and facing starvation. As shops shut and countries went into lockdown, fashion brands cancelled billions of dollars of clothing orders with their suppliers in the global south, including clothing boxed and ready to be shipped or already on cutting and sewing lines. In Bangladesh, although factories are now reopening, orders are still down by almost 80%. According to the Workers Rights Consortium, British retail brands including Arcadia, Primark and Edinburgh Woollen Mill are among those yet to make a commitment to pay in full for all orders completed and in production with overseas suppliers.
Nazmin Nahar, a 26-year-old garment worker and mother of two in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is living on borrowed rice. She hasn’t had the wages to pay for food or rent for more than two months.
Even though the hours were long and the targets relentless, Nahar had been working at Magpie Knitwear, where she earned £150 a month, making clothes for UK brands such as Burton and H&M. Then, in late March, Bangladesh went into lockdown and the factory closed. When it reopened on 4 April, Nahar was told she had no job to go back to.
“They told us that the foreign buyers are cancelling all our orders,” she says. “That’s why there’s no new work. We haven’t had our salaries for two months now. Our house rent is due. We are buying all our groceries on credit but they won’t give us any more food until we pay our bill. So our landlord managed to get a sack of rice for us and we’re surviving on that.”
In Bangladesh alone, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers Export Association (BGMEA) estimates that fashion brands have recalled around £3bn of orders they had already placed with suppliers. Rubana Huq, the president of the BGMEA, says that in the last month more than 25,000 workers have lost their jobs. If overseas orders don’t pick up, she says that this could rise to 500,000 in the next six months.
Rojina Begum, who worked at the Ultimate Fashion Ltd factory that supplies Matalan and other western brands, lost her job and her monthly salary of 8,000 taka (£75) after being sacked along with 300 other workers at her factory when Covid-19 hit. Her trade union claims that management told them it was due to cancelled orders from foreign buyers.
“If the fear of the virus wasn’t there, we could have protested strongly,” she says, “but because of the coronavirus, we couldn’t gather our workers and make a strong protest. Whenever four or five workers gathered in front of the factory, they dispersed us. And you can’t build a strong protest alone.”
Akhi Akther, who was paid 9,300 taka a month at Sterling Styles, a factory supplying Gap, said she was sacked when she fell ill with Covid symptoms and is now finding it impossible to get another job. She says she is yet to be paid two months of owed wages.
“We can’t go back to our village because we don’t have anything there, what will we do? Our jobs are our only source of earnings. Orders have shrunk, factories are getting rid of workers left and right. I am emotionally and mentally devastated.”
The workers say now shops have reopened, it is crucial that brands honour their financial obligations to their suppliers.
“We all saw the pictures of queues outside fast fashion stores last week, but these are the same companies that abandoned their workers when they needed them the most,” says Meg Lewis, a campaigner at the Clean Clothes Campaign. “Brands have simply not been held to account for their behaviour over the pandemic. Paying for the orders you placed with a factory isn’t an act of charity. They have protected their profits at the expense of millions of people’s lives.”