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Kevin Light / reutersThen-Green Party leader Elizabeth May speaks to supporters after the federal election in Victoria on Oct. 21, 2019.

At last years mid-September campaign launch ahead of the federal election, long-time Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May unveiled a new slogan.

Surrounded by a sea of staunch supporters many older, even more white at an indoor market in Victoria, May pushed a simple message, repeated in chants and songs.

Not Left. Not Right. Forward.

The message heard that night formed the backbone of the partys ensuing campaign. May pitched the Greens, as she had often in her nearly 14 years of leadership, as an alternative to the mainstream choices, a something for everyone option, no matter your political stripe.

Watch: 5 things you might not know about Elizabeth May. Story continues below.

One year and a disappointing election result later, May has resigned as leader, citing the need for a new generation to usher the party forward. Eight candidates are competing for her job, with the winner set to be named Oct. 3. Its expected whoever wins will guide the party in a new direction.

The excitement being generated by our leadership contest is incredible, said interim Green Party leader Jo-Ann Roberts last week.

The calibre and diversity of the contestants is remarkable and their broad appeal is reflected by the sharp rise in membership and donation numbers. This is truly a pivotal moment for the party and I think Canadians are ready to embrace new ideas and solutions.

For many of those candidates, Mays brand of ride-the-line centrism is not the way forward.

In the race to lead, multiple candidates are pushing an explicitly eco-socialist agenda. Theyve been endorsed by advocacy groups and many long-time NDP supporters disappointed in that partys recent swings towards the centre. The slate of Green leadership candidates has spurred a historic increase in membership for the party, and they say theyre ready to challenge our countrys political status quo.

But what could it actually mean if the Green elect an eco-socialist leader?

Beyond Toronto lawyer Annamie Paul, who currently leads fundraising totals, its difficult to establish a frontrunner in the race.

While all eight Green Party leadership candidates have expressed various levels of progressive positions on previous platform points, such as universal pharmacare or free tuition, two have repeatedly self-identified as eco-socialists and been explicitly endorsed by socialist and left-leaning advocacy groups.

Eco-socialism is an ideology which argues capitalism is the root cause of climate and social issues.

In an interview with Vice, Red-Green Revolution: The Politics and Technology of Ecosocialism author Richard Wallis summarized it as, You cant make the decisions necessary for the health of the environment on the basis of profit calculations.

Many eco-socialists advocate for a Green New Deal, a plan modelled after similar initiatives in the United States to tackle climate change and economic inequality through sweeping social programs and a just transition to renewable energy.

Montreal lawyer Dimitri Lascaris is arguably the most explicit in his push to move the party away from the centre, saying the Greens must unapologetically lay claim to the left and that he wants to tax billionaires out of existence. As of the end of August, hes ranked second in terms of fundraising totals, behind only Paul.

Kevin Light / reutersThen-Green Party leader Elizabeth May speaks to supporters after the federal election in Victoria on Oct. 21, 2019.

At the end of the day, centrists are the guardians of the status quo, he wrote in a HuffPost questionnaire given to candidates. The time for incrementalism has passed. What this moment calls for is bold, progressive action.

Many Lascaris supporters are pushing for Montreal lawyer Meryam Haddad as their second choice. Haddad is highlighting her youth and leftist politics as the future of the Greens.

I am a socialist, an immigrant, a lesbian and more importantly a millennial, someone who will live to see our extinction if we do not tackle climate change, she said in response to the questionnaire.

She also criticized the centrist position of last years Greens.

We failed to honour our grassroots values and democratically voted upon policies by having [the] neo-liberal centrist slogan Not left, not right, forward together and were not able to communicate to the population that we are more than a one-issue party, she said. In other words, we were not clear on what we stand for.

And, while a third candidate, B.C. astrophysicist Amita Kuttner, has not explicitly identified as an eco-socialist, several grassroots leftist groups have endorsed them as a candidate aligned with their values.

I am committed to setting us on a path toward a just, resilient society, Kuttner said in the HuffPost questionnaire. This means decolonization of our country and our systems of governance, eliminating wealth inequality, preparing communities for the climate emergency, and making sure our healthcare system is taking care of all of our healthcare needs, including mental health.

A new advocacy group called Justice Greens, created by moderators of leftist Canadian politics forums on Reddit, surveyed candidates at the start of the race. Theyve since endorsed Lascaris, Hadd and Kuttner in that order encouraging voters to only rank the three to increase the odds of one of them winning the ballot.

Justice Green member John Connor Kelly told socialist website The Canada Files that the group is focused on social inequity and how it relates to the Greens key issue of climate change.

There has to be some kind of justice for what [capitalists] have done to everybody on the planet. The only just thing to do is to take what theyve essentially hoarded from everybody else.

A large push for Green membership from grassroots organizations such as Justice Greens and the B.C. eco-socialist party, as well as candidates appearances on socialist blogs and podcasts, including the Alberta Advantage, has spurred a historic rise in membership numbers ahead of the Sept. 3 deadline to register as a party member and vote in the leadership race.

There are now 35,000 members registered to vote in the leadership race, a climb of more than 50 per cent from the post-election membership of 22,000. The greatest increases have come in the Northwest Territories home of candidate Courtney Howard and Quebec, where both Haddad and Lascaris are from.

In a race with no obvious front-runner or entrenched candidate, that surge in new membership could very well swing the race, one way or another. Thats particularly true in a ranked ballot election, where a single candidate must garner 50 per cent of the vote to win.

Amara Possian, a government relations professor at Seneca College involved with the climate advocacy group 350.org and who ran for the NDP in the 2018 Ontario provincial election says theres a huge opportunity for the new leader to shift the partys direction.

I think having a Green leader who is committed to a Green New Deal could be really helpful, but only if they can shift the range of policies that are politically acceptable to the mainstream population, she told HuffPost Canada. And I think the way that they can do that is either by winning more seats, or seriously challenging the Liberals and the NDP.

Possian said many climate-concerned NDP voters feel the party hasnt taken the climate crisis seriously enough, and not pushed hard enough for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to prioritize it in the upcoming throne speech.

The party has taken fire this week, with at least 20 riding associations demanding leader Jagmeet Singh be more vocal, letting him know he has the support of the partys grassroots in calling for big, bold, transformative change suitable to the scale of the crises we face, according to Etobicoke-Lakeshore riding co-president Tim Ellis.

Possian says it makes sense climate-focused NDP supporters see a leftist Green Party as another way to pressure the NDP. But if the new leader wants to actually make an impact ideologically, they must have a plan for how to work with other parties.

For me its less of a question about the ideology of the leader and more of a question of whether theyre, like, willing to and planning to invest in the organizing and the movement partnerships and cooperation with the NDP in particular in order to actually advance that ideology, she said.

WATCH: Climate change is worse than the pandemic: Gates. Story continues below.

Its easy for candidates with more radical ideas, such as eco-socialism and taxing billionaires out of existence, to gain grassroots support, but Possian says they must figure out a way to translate that into actual change in parliament. The Greens currently only hold three seats in the house and garnered only around 6.5 per cent of the popular vote in the 2019 election.

And, despite Mays vocal participation in the House of Commons and federal debates during elections, the party still doesnt hold any major balance of power in parliament. Possian says the new leader will have to acknowledge the reality of where the Greens are positioned politically.

[They need] a plan that is more nuanced than Vote for us everywhere and we will gain the most seats in this first-past-the-post system and somehow get a majority government and then implement our plan, she told HuffPost Canada. Thats just not how our political system works.

Throughout the 2019 campaign and in the months following, May doubled down on centrism, presenting the party as an alternative to traditionally right and left wing options.

The whole idea of a left-right dichotomy is something of an anachronism, May wrote in a January blog post on the party website. While the common political discourse still categorizes parties of the left or the right, Greens believe we have more in common once we reject those labels.

The centrism approach didnt work in the most recent federal election, though.

While the party retained Mays seat and that of fellow Vancouver Island MP Paul Manly alongside picking up a third in New Brunswick MP Jenica Atwin they did not see the surge in popularity experts predicted amidst the financially weakened NDP, bland Conservative Party and scandal-rocked Liberals.

Possian says the historic increase in membership numbers and the involvement of third-party groups in this years leadership race point to a concerted push for change in the Green Party, no matter who is elected leader on Oct. 3.

The thing about it, like an underdog party thats going through a major change, is thateverythings on the table, she said.

I always find it really inspiring and interesting when grassroots movements get excited about politicians because its usually a sign that someone is committing to, like, to do something differently.

Well have to wait until October to know how different that might be.

The Green Party of Canada leadership vote will be held online, with the winner announced on Oct. 3. Online voting opens on Sept 26 at 9 a.m. PST and closes on Oct. 3 at 3:30 p.m. PST.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story stated the winner of the Green leadership race would be announced on Oct 4. In fact, the winner will be revealed on Oct. 3 at a live event in Ottawa.

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An Eco-Socialist Green Leader. It Could Happen, And Heres What It Would Mean - HuffPost Canada

Former speaker of the house Bronwyn Bishop says Prime Minister Scott Morrison made a mistake in elevating the state premiers to his equal, and winding that decision back is going to be extraordinarily difficult.Her comments come regarding the decision of Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan and Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to keep their state borders closed. To see that response from the Western Australian Premier saying somehow were a separate state, were a separate nation, were not just a state, Ms Bishop told Sky News host Paul Murray. This is not Australian behavior.The economies are suffering because those borders are closed.Queensland is absolutely the epitome of that example, with 179 only full-time jobs being created.The bottom line is that we have to have the borders open, we have to have the section 92 case heard before November, high court, bring it on.Ms Bishop asked when these premiers would learn that socialism cannot be fought with socialism. Unless we say that there is one nation, one country, that it is going to be one where the working together is not done for political purposes to win an election and where jobs are sacrificed and peoples lives are sacrificed, then we will find no implementation of a free enterprise policy, she said. Ms Bishop said free enterprise policies would be the only solution for Australia.

Read more here:
When will the premiers learn, 'you can't fight socialism with socialism' - Sky News Australia

On 25 October 1917, the Russian working class took power. At a meeting of the Congress of Soviets, the peak democratic body representing millions of workers, peasants and soldiers, Lenin declared: We shall now proceed to construct the socialist order. How? Lenin continued: Creative activity at the grass roots is the most basic factor of the new public life ... Socialism cannot be decreed from above. Its spirit rejects the mechanical bureaucratic approach; living, creative socialism is the product of the masses themselves.

Within a fortnight of the revolution, the revolutionary government issued a Decree on Workers Control. Decisions about production were to be made by workers organisations: the soviets, the factory committees and the trade unions.

It was only one of a whirlwind of revolutionary decrees: in its first year, the Soviet government decreed universal suffrage and abolished inherited wealth, removed state control of marriage and divorce, and removed homosexuality from the criminal code. National minorities were granted the right to independenceincluding secession from Russia; religious minorities were empowered through the introduction of full freedom of religion.

Women workers won equal pay with men; many became the elected leaders of soviets and workers militias. To aid womens full participation in political life, the impoverished and war-ravaged country put together communal kitchens, and childcare centres were created, to free them from the burdens of family life.

The revolutionary government issued decree after decree, expecting the empowered revolutionary workers to carry them out through self-organisation. Never since the creation of the world have so many orders been issued, Leon Trotsky later wrote, by word of mouth, by pencil, by typewriter, by wire, one following after the other.

Eight months earlier, in the February revolution, a wave of strikes had overthrown the centuries-old autocratic dictatorship. Months of chaotic debate had followed. From February onwards, Russias population, writes historian Rex A. Wade, burst forth in a dazzling display of self-assertiveness, public meetings, and creation of new organizations. Announcements of congresses, conferences, committees, meetings, organizations being formed, and other manifestations of a newly unfettered public life filled the newspapers. But for months it was unclear what the outcome of this debate would be: a moderate settlement? Capitalist democracy? A restoration of right-wing rule or military dictatorship? After eight months of debate, the working class decided to take power, and the October Revolution took place.

How did workers get from Februarys dazzling display of self-assertiveness to Octobers decision to take power and construct living, creative socialism, without being defeated by counter-revolution or exhausting themselves in disorganisation and internal dispute? The role of the much misunderstood revolutionary Bolshevik Party was the key element.

The Bolsheviks were an overwhelmingly working-class party, composed of some tens of thousands of working-class socialists, mostly organised in the workplaces of the big industrial centres. By the end of 1917 the party had hundreds of thousands of members, as the most dedicated revolutionary activists joined them.

The talking, talking, talking atmosphere had drawn millions of workers into debates. Political questions had been posed and solved. New demands were raised, and aspirations grew. At each point in these debates, the Bolsheviks had argued for workers to be bolder, to organise themselves and take responsibility for leading the revolution.

The horror of the First World War had led to the revolution. Impoverished peasants in Russias countryside demanded redistribution of land, and increasingly militant workers demanded control over their workplaces. These three questions dominated the period after the overthrow of the old dictatorship in February. The Bolsheviks argued that to solve these problems, workers would need to take power into their own hands. They emphasised the connection between political and economic struggle and attempted to forge bonds of solidarity between peasants, workers and soldiers.

The great hope of the February Revolution was that it would end the war. But after the fall of the tsar, a new self-appointed and unelected provisional government proclaimed itself the new authority, and it was committed to the wars continuation. The head of the government, Alexander Kerensky, informed troops that the inevitability and necessity of sacrifice must rule the hearts of Russian soldiers and that I summon you not to a feast but to death.

To continue the imperialist war necessitated order, not revolutionary freedom. Strikes were proliferating, and workers raised demands ranging from wage rises to the eight-hour day; the provisional government called for restraint on both sides. Izvestia, the newspaper of the Menshevik party, argued that the wartime situation in the revolution forces both sides to exercise extreme caution in utilising the sharper weapons of class struggle such as strikes and lockouts. These circumstances make it necessary to settle all disputes by means of negotiation and agreement rather than by open conflict. Both Kerensky and the Mensheviks were supposedly socialists, but now they were arguing to restrain the revolution, to hold back workers struggles and to prolong the war.

The Bolsheviks anti-war position was unique. It drew the connection between the war and international workers revolution. Lenin, the most important leading figure of the Bolsheviks, argued that the provisional governments capitalist nature drove its pro-war stance. To end the war, workers of all nations would have to fight their own ruling classes. Marxs old slogan, Workers of the world unite, was given a concrete meaning: soldiers of opposing armies should fraternise, and workers should make war on their bosses.

The drive to restore order sent the provisional government and its moderate socialist supporters on a collision course with the institutions of popular democracy, which in turn increasingly supported the Bolsheviks. More than 2,000 trade unions emerged in 1917. Factory committeeselected in workplaces by all workers regardless of sex, religion or backgroundemerged to deal with everything from fixing light globes to leading fights for better conditions. But the most significant institution was the soviets: a network of revolutionary councils of representatives of any and all workplaces, plus soldiers and peasants. The moderate socialist chronicler of the revolution Nikolai Sukhanov rightly called the soviets the very crucible of great events, the laboratory of the revolution. Institutions like these had to be repressed to carry out a disciplined war effort.

By the middle of the year, strikes escalated into a movement for workers control of the factories. But workers control at the level of an individual workplace was more and more obviously insufficient. The economy was collapsing under the strain of the war. Prices rose 2,300 percent between February and October; real wages fell by almost half.

In the factories, Bolshevik activists led strikes, but they also raised political slogans like All power to the soviets and Overthrow the provisional government during debates about wages, working conditions and other economic questions. As the historian David Mandel puts it: [T]he very strong interconnections between the economic and political spheres, both in the workers consciousness and in objective reality itself, were evident from the very start. It was the desire of the moderate socialist leadership of the Soviet to keep the two separate that, in fact, underlay the first conflict between it and the worker rank-and-file ... these interconnections would grow into a virtual merging of the two spheres with all threads uniting in one overriding demand: All power to the soviets!

The Bolsheviks called on poor peasants to rise up against landlords and seize land for themselves. Unlike the other political parties, the Bolsheviks encouraged peasants to take direct action rather than wait for the provisional governments constantly delayed inquiries into the land question. By August, 482 of Russias 624 districts had experienced peasant revolts. Bolshevik militants convinced urban workers to champion the needs of the rural poor. They understood that, for workers to take and hold power, they would need to be the recognised champions of all the oppressed.

The Bolsheviks had spent the year arguing for workers to take power while also leading on-the-ground struggles. Their orientation bore fruit in August, when a decisive battle took place against a coup attempt by the tsarist loyalist General Lavr Kornilov. The factory committees, under Bolshevik leadership, organised 40,000 volunteer Red Guards led by Trotsky, while worker militants in key industries took control of the production process to create havoc for Kornilovs troops, redirecting vital shipments, as Trotsky wrote: In a mysterious way, echelons would find themselves moving on the wrong roads. Regiments would arrive in the wrong division, artillery would be sent up a blind alley. The coup was defeated in four days. On the heels of the defeat of the coup, the provisional government attempted, unsuccessfully, to disarm and disband the workers and factory committees.

The Bolsheviks had won the support of the working class, because only they supported the self-activity of the working class in a way that could defeat counter-revolution. All power to the soviets was not just a slogan: it was a perspective that informed their entire intervention. In the permanent debates in the streets as well as in the trade unions, the factory committees and the soviets, Bolsheviks argued for workers to take political positions, make decisions about society and use their collective strength to make those decisions happen.

Not long afterwards, the provisional government threatened to surrender the city of Petrograd to the German army in order to crush the heart of worker militancy. In the second week of October it ordered the radical soldiers of the Petrograd garrison to leave the city and go to war. Historian Alexander Rabinowitch recalls that this provoked an avalanche of anti-government resolutions adopted by garrison units. A meeting of the Petrograd-based Second Baltic Fleet Detachment was reflective of the mood: it adopted a resolution that proclaimed: [A]s ardent enemies of the coalition Provisional Government ... we await with great impatience the portentous opening of the Congress of Representatives of the Soviets of Workers and Soldiers Deputies, in which we have faith, and which we invite to take power. Similar resolutions came out of the factories.

On 22 October, three days before the insurrection, again the masses made their wishes clear. This was the Day of the Petrograd Soviet, when rallies had been called in support of this revolutionary institution. The city became engulfed in mass meetings, concerts, factory debates and gatherings in every available city hall. To the mushrooming crowds Trotsky, at this time one of the Bolsheviks central leaders and best known public figures, posed the question of whether they would support and defend soviet power, and they roared back: We swear it! The intervention of party activists cohered the revolutionary workers on a mass scale, and prepared them for decisive action.

On 25 October, the day of the insurrection, Red Guards stormed the Winter Palace and arrested the remaining leaders of the provisional government. The insurrection had not just mass support, but mass participation, as Trotsky recounts: In the provincial industrial regions ... armed workers would remove managers and engineers, and even arrest them ... Sabotage on the part of the property owners and administrators shifted to the workers the task of protecting the plants ... Roles were here interchanged: the worker would tightly grip his rifle in defence of the factory in which he saw the source of his power.

Trotsky was able to write so clearly of the insurrection because, as a leading activist of the Bolsheviks, he was one of its most active participants. As Sukhanov witnessed: Trotsky ... rushed from the Obukhovsky plant to the Trubochny, from the Putilov to the Baltic works, from the riding school to the barracks; he seemed to be speaking at all points simultaneously. His influence, both among the masses and on the staff, was overwhelming.

The seamlessness of the insurrection reflected the fact that Bolsheviks had spent weeks debating, preparing and organising for it. Red Guards enrolled whole factories as volunteers, women created Red Cross divisions and gave lectures on caring for the wounded and organised factory level bands of nurses. Workers requisitioned and inventoried automobiles to build up their apparatus of self-defence. Debates raged about the potential timing of an insurrection at party congresses and in party papers; polemics were often leaked and reprinted in bourgeois papers.

The idea that October was a coup does a disservice first and foremost to the Russian masses. They had been deep in debate for all of 1917. In fact, defeating Augusts right-wing coup had laid the basis for their uprising in October. They had resisted attack after attack by the provisional government, had thrown bosses out of factories, and by October many were organised into socialist militias. The October revolution was swift and relatively bloodless because it had mass support. Sukhanov wrote: To talk about military conspiracy instead of national insurrection, when the party was followed by the overwhelming majority of the people, when the party had already de facto conquered all real power and authority was clearly an absurdity. Menshevik leader Julius Martov acknowledged: Understand, please, that before us after all is a victorious uprising of the proletariatalmost the entire proletariat supports Lenin and expects its social liberation from the uprising.

Robert Service, an anti-Bolshevik historian, similarly is forced to admit: What really counted was that the Bolshevik political programme proved steadily more appealing to the mass of workers, soldiers and peasants as social turmoil and economic ruin reached a climax in late autumn. But for that there could have been no October revolution.

The art, music, theatre, pedagogy, environmental policies, literacy programs, child care and communal kitchens that proliferated in the first year of workers power are the subject of much admiration and discussion even today. However, to move beyond nostalgia and reach those heights again, we have to take seriously the politics that made it all possible. The workers conquest of power required both their own spontaneous, creative revolutionary energy, and a working-class political organisation dedicated to helping that energy transform the world.

The rest is here:
The Bolshevik revolution: why a revolutionary party matters - Red Flag

By Cole Michaels 18 September 2020

The coronavirus is spreading from urban to rural areas of Missouri, with over 109,000 recorded infections and 1,838 deaths in the state as of this writing. All 114 counties and the independent city of St. Louis have recorded coronavirus infections, with the number of confirmed cases rising sharply since Missouri reopened in mid-June.

Three of the four days seeing the highest number of hospitalizations have occurred over the past week, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.More than 1,020 were in hospitals with confirmed or presumed COVID-19 infections last Saturday, the second-highest day on record.

A recent White House Red Zone report indicates more than 60 percent of Missouri counties have moderate or high levels of community transmission with the remaining counties all having high levels of community transmission last week, according to the report. The report also recommended Missouri bars close.

This week, visitors began to arrive at Lake of the Ozarks for an annual motorcycle event, BikeFest, which local media report could see 100,000 participants. For the Sturgis bike event earlier this year, experts put a 90 percent chance that event created 100,000 new COVID-19 infections, making it a superspreader event.

Columbia and Jefferson City were both included on the reports list of Missouri cities in the red zone. The report said both Mid-Missouri cities confirmed 100 or more new coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents and the positivity rate was higher than 10 percent.

Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci warned residents of Missouri and six other states to be on guard for a surge in cases after the Labor Day holiday weekend. During an interview with Bloomberg, Dr. Fauci said, There are several states that are at risk for surging, namely North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Illinois. Those states are starting to see an increase in the percent positive of their testing; that is generally predictive that theres going to be a problem.

The rise of cases has been blamed on people not following mask-wearing and social distancing guidelines, especially young people. While there are individuals who choose to forego distancing recommendations, blame for the rise of cases and deaths in Missouri lies mainly with state and county governments. Mandated lockdowns imposed in March were lifted in a bid to get profits pumping to the ruling elite by forcing people back to work. Many counties, especially ones in rural areas, are resuming in-person instruction in schools.

Rural counties of southeastern Missouri, bordering Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee, remain the states hotspots. According to a New York Times graph of coronavirus spread in Missouri, McDonald County has 1 out of every 22 residents infected with the virus. Cole County set a record for new cases September 4, and Howard County recorded its first coronavirus-related death the same day.

As of September 16, Howell County, with a population of 40,000 people, has 438 confirmed cases, a rate that has been on the rise for weeks. The West Plains R-VII School District had gone for in-person instruction until a countywide increase in cases forced the district to adopt a hybrid model for grades 712. Quote from the district website: COVID-19 exposure levels and positive cases continue to rise in Howell County and in our community. The district is experiencing an increase in student absences as well as students and staff on quarantine. As a result of the feedback from our community and staff, we are changing to a hybrid learning model for grades 712.

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has been unable to accurately record state death totals. Eighty-nine previously unaccounted for deaths were added last week to the tally after the DHSS blamed technical difficulties for the oversight. In a September 5 tweet, the DHSS explained, Through continuing efforts to ensure data transparency and quality, DHSS analysts discovered an inconsistency in death certificate diagnosis codes when compared to case information contained in DHSS disease surveillance systems. After thorough analysis and evaluation, these additional COVID-19-associated deaths were identified.

The major metropolitan areas of the state are seeing increasing rates of infection. The Kansas City metropolitan area has over 33,000 confirmed infections. Jefferson County, a rural portion of the St. Louis metro area, has been declared a red zone in terms of increased COVID-19 diagnoses. St. Louis County has over 20,000 cases, while Boone County, which encompasses the city of Columbia, has more than 3,500 cases. Greene and Christian counties which form the metro area of Springfield have nearly 5,000 cases.

In August, a student at Fort Zumwalt South High School in the city of OFallon posted an image on social media of crowded staircases in the school building.

Neighboring Illinois, whose southwestern counties are part of the St. Louis, Missouri metropolitan area, is seeing a surge in cases with current totals at over 240,000 and more than 8,100 deaths. As with Missouri, all counties have recorded cases.

With schools reopening in districts across the state, it is inevitable that students will have to deal with the trauma of losing teachers, parents and fellow students. On September 6, 34-year-old Ashlee DeMarinis, 34, special education teacher at John Evans Middle School in Potosi (Washington County), died after three-week battle with coronavirus.

The pandemic is also being used as an opportunity for the state government to slash social spending. Missouri Governor Mike Parson cut nearly $450 million from the state budget in June, mostly from K-12 schools, colleges and universities. While cutting funds from education, Parson inked a no-bid contract with the McChrystal Group that has paid out over $829,000 in federal coronavirus relief funds to the consulting firm, reportedly to help coordinate Missouris pandemic response.

The fight to save thousands of lives requires a conscious struggle by the working class against capitalism and for socialism. The first step is to form rank-and-file committees in workplaces nationwide to coordinate a national general strike. The WSWS will do all it can to assist the forming of such local committees.

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Missouri among top five US states with COVID-19 infections - WSWS

Home > 2020 > Raghuvansh Babu: A committed socialist in times of neo-liberalism | Prem(...)

TRIBUTE

It is an undeniable fact that todays corporate India is intoxicated with the idea the digital. It is constantly on the fast-track to transform all into the digital, and as quickly as possible. In such an environment, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, popularly called as Raghuvansh Babu in friendly circles, sent his hand-written resignation addressed to Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav on September 10, on plain paper. Lalu Yadav too wrote the answer on plain paper, by hand. This particular incident can be perceived as peculiar in the light of present corporate Indias political business circles, in which crores and crores of rupees are spent every day, particularly when elections are around the corner. Bundles and bundles of glossy, colourful publicity material are brought out through advertising companies. These letters exchanged between two, down to earth leaders suggest that thrift and simplicity in the politics/governance of a country, burdened by poverty and unemployment should be the one and only option. Raghuvansh Babu wrote three more letters - one for the general reader, and two for Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, on the same day, again by hand.

There is no need for a detailed discussion about the specific concerns/questions raised in these letters here, in this obituary note. How much and how uncontrollably we people, working in every field, speak and write, day and night! Yet our hunger to speak and write does not seem to have a far-reaching end. These three brief letters by Raghuvansh Babu are also a sharp commentary on this contemporary, verbose trend.

Lalu Yadav wrote to Raghuvansh Babu in his reply that he (Raghuvansh Babu) is not going anywhere, that is, RJD will not let him leave). But preparations were already made to go by Raghuvansh Babu. Everyone has to depart from this mundane world. Raghuvansh Babus family, friends and loved ones will regret that he was frustrated and hurt at the time of leaving. (Moreover, an ugly controversy was raised for petty electoral gains even before his last rites were performed.) Whatever, at the end of his life, his conduct once again illuminated the political personality he had carved out and earned for himself through a long political struggle. Indias socialist movement, in which Raghuvansh Babu was groomed, ended politically with the merger of the Socialist Party with the Janata Party in 1977. Since then, some pieces of that movement have been floating in mainstream politics. The RJD happened to be one of them. Raghuvansh Babu remained in the RJD since its formation. He always supported Lalu Yadav. Some people wonder that how could Raghuvansh Babu, even coming from a privileged caste and with a PhD degree in mathematics in hand, get to fit in Lalu Yadavs backward politics pursued in a blunt manner!

The reason can be traced back to the socialist movement itself. Dr Rammanohar Lohia used to tell the political workers of the forward castes in the socialist movement that they would have to work in order to pursue the path of backward leadership in politics. Raghuvansh Babu, who worked with and was trained by the legendary backward leader Karpoori Thakur, did the work of becoming Khaad in furthering the leadership of Lalu Yadav. He did not promote his children in politics, nor did he make politics a means of making assets. People close to him say that feudal arrogance had not even touched his personality. It is a different and ironic story that almost all backward and Dalit leaders, including Lalu Yadav, fall prey to feudal arrogance and conduct as soon as they get power.

Although Raghuvansh Babu was active in mainstream politics throughout his political career, he was well aware about the fact that a group of socialists were engaged in the struggle of alternative politics against the onslaught of neo-liberalism. Senior socialist leader Kishan Patnaik (30 July 1930-27 September 2004), the theorist of that political stream, passed away in Bhubaneswar after which a condolence meeting was held in Delhi to pay him homage. The meeting was attended by political activists and intellectuals in large numbers. Raghuvansh Babu attended the condolence meeting and paid his tribute to Kishanji in a sober and quiet manner. I remember that he was the only leader from mainstream politics to do so.

In his letter written for common public readers, Raghuvansh Babu has raised several issues citing one of Lohias ideas: "politics means fighting evil, religion means doing good". One of the issues mentioned in the letter was that the posters of the party (RJD) on which the photographs of five inspiring leaders - Gandhi, Jayaprakash Narayan, Lohia, Babasaheb and Karpoori Thakur - were printed, now carry the pictures of five family members. This, along with his deep distress, was actually a sort of confession that there had been no point in continuing with the politics of the present avtar of socialism! Raghuvansh Babu was committed to the one, as he mentioned in the letter, that was against "feudalism, casteism, dynasty-rule, family-rule, communalism".

Raghuvansh Babu, you were devoted to your work with utmost honesty, devotion and commitment. Even while following mainstream power politics, there was an aura of socialism in your political persona. You, even while working with a staunch neo-liberal prime minister, had crafted the Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) for the benefit of poor masses living in rural India. The scheme is helping them in the troubling times of corona pandemic to some extent. You, being a true inheritor of JP, Lohia and Karpoori Thakur, upheld the socialist values and ideals even during the hostile neo-liberal-communal nexus. My deep respect and humble tribute to your memory.

(The author teaches Hindi at the University of Delhi and was the former president of Socialist Party India)

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Raghuvansh Babu: A committed socialist in times of neo-liberalism | Prem (...) - Mainstream