US Meddling in Hong Kong

As the Empire declines it lashes about but is really a paper tiger. The US must have forgotten that Hong Kong is a part of China and it is an internal Chinese affair how it is ultimately to be governed. “The United States and China appear to be on a collision course over the future of Hong Kong, a center of global capitalism and symbol of resistance to the Chinese Communist Party.”

It’s none of the US’s business, any more than the following would be China’s: “China and The United States appear to be on a collision course over the future of Puerto Rico, a center of global resistance to colonialism and symbol of resistance to the neglect and exploitation perpetrated by the US political system against the Puerto Rican people.”

The US is going out of its way to provoke China and to threaten the existence of the present world order by creating an international environment that could lead to an eventual military confrontation. Our military already bestrides the globe but seems impotent and unable to enforce its will anywhere (except tiny little countries with no real military — Panama and Grenada for example).

We learned nothing from the defeat in Vietnam and the American people can only suffer more tragedy from our belligerence towards the Chinese and attempts to meddle in their internal affairs. The present rogue government in Washington is a greater threat to us than any foreign power.

The State Department announcement comes as President Trump weighs hard measures against China, which is expected to approve a national security law on Hong Kong on Thursday.

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NYTIMES.COM

Hong Kong Has Lost Autonomy, Pompeo Says, Opening Door to U.S. Action

The State Department announcement comes as President Trump weighs hard measures against China, which is expected to approve a national security law on Hong Kong on Thursday.

Science, Open Borders, and Morality

So, every human in the Western Hemisphere today is an immigrant or a descendent of immigrants and this bond of common humanity and origins should not be trounced by the narrow minded racism and ignorance of those trying to divide and separate our commonality by the cultural and linguistic differences between us that have arisen through the accidents of history. This article shows that humans have moved around the world continuously since our origins in Africa and these movements are the natural outcomes of our common human struggles with nature in adversity or prosperity.

The implication is that those who have prospered should always help and aid those who have not since both conditions are the results of the existential fortuitousness of human life and this recognition is the highest achievement of philosophical ethics and consequent moral obligation. It is manifested politically, at this time in our country, in the current program of the CPUSA and in the call for open borders internationally and the end of all forms of intra human oppression.

Using human population genetics, ancient pathogen genomics and isotope analysis, a team of researchers assessed the population history of the Lake Baikal region, finding the deepest connection to date between the peoples of Siberia and the Americas. The current study also demonstrates human mobility...

SCIENCEDAILY.COM

Oldest connection with Native Americans identified near Lake Baikal in Siberia

Using human population genetics, ancient pathogen genomics and isotope analysis, a team of researchers assessed the population history…

Lies, Republicans, and Covid-19

The Republicans reject science and falsify the data to justify reopening before it is safe to do so. Workers want to get back to work because they need money to live on and the capitalists want them back because they need the surplus value they create to make their profits. The state always sides, eventually, with the capitalists and by refusing to enact emergency funding for working people and by allowing the unemployment insurance system to virtually breakdown, and by lying about the safety of premature reopening it is forcing the workers back under capitalist control (they are fired without benefits if they refuse to go back to their jobs). The death of workers due to Covid-19 is of no concern to the ruling class 

 as we have a reserve army of the unemployed from which new workers can be hired to replace any who die off or get too sick to work. Any conflict between the interests of profit and capital accumulation versus the health and welfare of the people is always resolved in favor of the former not the latter under capitalism. A further consideration is that the majority of deaths are among the elderly (nonproductive), the poor, and racially oppressed minorities, groups of no concern to the politicians of the Republican Party. This party of death and profits before life and well being must be absolutely repudiated in the November elections as a first step in the great refusal to continue to accept the present system of economic injustice and faux democracy.

Dr Rebekah Jones says she was fired from Department of Health by the governor after protesting order to censor information

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THEGUARDIAN.COM

Florida scientist says she was fired for refusing to change Covid-19 data 'to support reopen plan'

Dr Rebekah Jones says she was fired from Department of Health by the governor after protesting order to censor information

Dr Rebekah Jones says she was fired from Department of Health by the governor after protesting order to censor information

The Road to War With China

The right is ginning up the American people for a racist and aggressive US policy towards China. The real reason isn't gone into in detail here but FAIR is right to to alert us as to the role of the MSM in pushing this bipartisan line. They are pushing for Biden to join with Trump in attacking China and progressives have to push back and demand Biden pursue non hostile policies with both China and Russia. The real reason for attacking China is that the ruling class sees itself being economically losing out to China's competitiveness in the world market. The world capitalist system brought about two world wars last century over just such economic competitions and the US has decided to go down that road one more time since it cannot maintain its current dominant position by peaceful means. This process will be slower under Biden and we may be able to reverse it but another Republican victory in November will speed up the hostility and threaten the whole world with a possible nuclear war.

Corporate media present China as a hostile power that needs to be kept in check.

FAIR.ORG

Corporate Media Setting Stage for New Cold War With China

Corporate media present China as a hostile power that needs to be kept in check.

Draft Bernie!

"Policy errors in the coming weeks could turn the 18 million temporary layoffs recorded in April into permanent job losses that could plunge the United States into a deep and protracted recession unrivaled in recent history. Yet the federal government is lurching away from the strategy that has thus far helped slow the spread of the coronavirus and sustain people and companies struggling during the self-inflicted economic shutdown." The ruling class can't rule properly. The capitalist system 

 is breaking down and needs to be supported by the state, all we need now is for the working class to realize the a different system is needed. There is no FDR on the horizon who can reform and modify the system so that it is more worker friendly -- or is there? Short of an actual socialist revolution, which is unlikely at this time, Bernie Sander's program for a "political revolution" [actually a major reformist program] is the next best thing and seemingly the only solution to prevent an apocalyptic disaster from enfolding and destroying the lives of tens of millions of working people as the current capitalist regime can offer them only permanent and unsustainable unemployment and/or the ravages of the current plague as it renews its strength due to a premature reopening of the country. Serious consideration should be given, perhaps, by the progressive movement's leaders to launching a "Draft Bernie" movement to convince the people and the Democratic Party that a Bernie Sanders presidency is the only short term solution to the current crisis and the prerequisite for finding a permanent solution. It's obvious Biden is not up to the task and sticking with him will be like taking a cruise on the RMS Titanic.

The United States just lost 20 million jobs. The wrong federal response could make those layoffs a permanent fixture of the U.S. economy and sentence thousands of companies to bankruptcy.

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As Job Losses Mount, Lawmakers Face a Make-or-Break Moment

The United States just lost 20 million jobs. The wrong federal response could make those layoffs a permanent fixture of the U.S. economy and sentence thousands of companies to bankruptcy.

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.

As the U.S. economy has shut down, the burden is falling hardest on those least prepared to handle it.

NYTIMES.COM

How Las Vegas Became Ground Zero for the American Jobs Crisis

As the U.S. economy has shut down, the burden is falling hardest on those least prepared to handle it.

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.

Members of the bipartisan commission created to investigate the spill say Congress and the Trump administration have failed to take safety seriously.

NYTIMES.COM

Ten Years After Deepwater Horizon, U.S. Is Still Vulnerable to Catastrophic Spills

Members of the bipartisan commission created to investigate the spill say Congress and the Trump administration have failed to take safety seriously.

Members of the bipartisan commission created to investigate the spill say Congress and the Trump administration have failed to take safety seriously.

US starts new fight with China

It appears that all these disputes with China follow a similar pattern: the US starts up some dispute with the Chinese and the Chinese react tit for tat. Our two countries operate with different value systems based on different historical systems. We built our nation on the backs of slaves and expropriated land from the Native Americans whom we rounded up and put in Bantustans and have proceeded to try and impose our way with bombs and bullets on weaker countries around the world as part of the general European colonial and imperialist world order. The Chinese are an ancient culture that was attacked and controlled for a century or more by this European order and has freed itself from it and is now standing on its own two feet independent of US world hegemony. Our news organizations report the news filtered through a bias against the Chinese system just as theirs do with a bias against ours. As long as Trump, or any American president, starts up a fight by poking the Chinese (kicking out their news people) they are sure to poke back (the same goes for the Russians -- smaller countries just have to put up with American bullying most of the time). If we want a more peaceful world all we need is for the USA to leave off its bullying and take any real problems to the UN or the World Court which other civilized nations are wont to do instead of bombing, assassinating, or trying to starve people through sanctions.

The announcement comes weeks after President Trump limited the number of Chinese citizens who can work in the United States for five state-run Chinese news organizations.

NYTIMES.COM

China Announces That It Will Expel American Journalists

The announcement comes weeks after President Trump limited the number of Chinese citizens who can work in the United States for five state-run Chinese news organizations.

Russian Constitutional Reforms

"Mr. Putin emphasized that the legislation allowing him to run again would have to be approved by Russia’s Constitutional Court. The legislation would also be part of the package of constitutional amendments to be voted on in a previously scheduled nationwide plebiscite on April 22." The collapse of the Soviet Union was an absolute disaster for the ordinary citizens of that country as the economic upheavals and anarchy of the 90s and incompetent Yeltsin government attests. Putin's government did in fact bring about stability and economic betterment to the vast majority of Russians and is still the basis of his widespread popularity despite a vibrant if small opposition movement including a 

  Communist Party in the Duma. The attempt by the new Russian ruling class to create a parliamentary capitalist democracy based on western European models has proven to be extremely problematic given the history of the Soviet Union and Putin is correct to stress that evolutionary developments in this direction are a continued necessity and probably require a stable temporary continuity of the present mixture of a strong presidential regime restrained by a semblance of popular control through parliament and by means of the Constitutional Court. The fact that the Russian people must approve of Putin's reforms by means of a national election is proof that the ideals of bourgeois democratic government are alive and well in Russia despite whatever historical constraints they still face. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation will, hopefully, continue to play a positive role in representing the working class and laying the foundations for a revival of socialism in Russia in the coming years.

In a carefully scripted appearance, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia agreed he should be allowed to seek two more terms, if the Constitutional Court approves.

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NYTIMES.COM

Putin Endorses Brazen Remedy to Extend His Rule, Possibly for Life

In a carefully scrip