Monday, April 27, 2020

Las Vegas Reflects US Crisis


And what can the capitalist system offer to the people profiled in this article? Get sick and maybe die or starve -- "The result [of the shutdown] has been a quiet catastrophe, unfolding in the living rooms of working-class people all across the city. The crush of new claims has all but paralyzed the unemployment office, and some people are now entering their fifth week without income. Mayor Carolyn Goodman argued last week that casinos should reopen and allow people to get sick."
Nylah [special needs child of the couple profiled in this article] now a lively 8-year-old, had been thriving as a special education second-grader. But she is not getting the medicine she needs to help keep her from vomiting, because [her parents] can no longer afford the copay." It's not just Las Vegas, the whole country is in crisis. There is a solution Congress could provide tomorrow - pass Bernie Sander's bill for Medicare for All and give the struggling masses his proposed relief of $2000 a month. This is a solution that can be done within the capitalist system but won't be because the ruling class political leaders, Republicans and top Democrats alike, want to keep workers down and they know that revolutionary class consciousness is at an all time low (hence Trump as president). Besides just worrying about the future the working class family profiled here "fights back" by "In the evening, they read the Bible out loud." More than ever we have to support the CP's move to recreate the unemployment councils of the 30s and instill a sense of militant revolutionary resistance in our class.
NYTIMES.COM
As the U.S. economy has shut down, the burden is falling hardest on those least prepared to handle it.

Monday, April 20, 2020

Trump's Environmental Treason

" Every member of the bipartisan panel, the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, accused the Trump administration of putting American waters, coastlines and wildlife in harm’s way by weakening safety and environmental regulations while pushing to expand oil drilling in nearly all American waters. They also accused Congress of a near-complete failure to adopt their recommendations on drilling safety. The commissioners said the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which the Obama administration created within the Department of Interior after the Deepwater Horizon accident to focus solely on enforcement, was focusing more on increasing oil production and reducing regulations than on its safety mission." In other words, the Trump Mafioso of corrupt Congress people and industry insiders appointed to run agencies created to protect our people from criminal exploitation but now run them to increase that exploitation for their own benefit are setting the stage for another "Deepwater Horizon" catastrophe. Scientists have pointed out that the current practices of the government and the oil industry (despite some efforts towards safety constrained by cost efficiency) are furthering the present downward trend in environmental health of the Gulf of Mexico. Why are these issues not being highlighted in the Biden campaign to get rid of Trump and his gang? It's not just the Gulf Mexico; every area of environmental concern, health regulations, civil rights, education, food protection, and almost any regulation enacted to protect the health and well being of the American people is being discarded so that the business allies of Trump and his gang can make more and bigger profits. Trump is even undermining the fight against the covid-19 virus. He should be impeached again and let his confederates in Congress try to defend him while thousands are dying due to his incompetence.