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This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Jaisal Noor: Welcome to the Real News. Im Jaisal Noor. This is part two of our conversation with Micah Uetricht about his new book Bigger Than Bernie: How We Go From The Sanders Campaign To Democratic Socialism, which you coauthored with Megan Day. And were joined again by Micah Utrecht. Hes the Managing Editor of Jacobin, host to the Jacobin radio podcast, The Vast Majority, and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. I wanted to in this second part talk about the lessons from local struggles. We know that local politics are the politics that affect us the most, that can have most impact in our day to day lives, and thats some of the places where socialists, where the DSA, have been most active helping vault people like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, not only into elected office, but in a position to change national discourse. Micah, you wrote about what happened in New York and Chicago, two places where socialists have had more success perhaps than anywhere else. Lets start with New York and what you found, what the main lessons of New York are. And theyre ongoing. Theres more Socialists running for office this year as well.

Micah Utrecht: Obviously, the Bernie campaign was principally about electing Bernie as President of the United States, but its worth remembering that just four years ago, before Bernies first campaign, there were almost no Socialist elected officials anywhere in the United States. And then we had Kshama Sawant on Seattles City Council and maybe a few others here and there. But there has been a pretty impressive number of victories that Socialists have had ranging from the local to the national level. And we write about New York as a case study in the book, not just to say, Oh look, some Socialists won in New York, but to actually describe how Socialists can play an important role as part of a bigger working class coalition in the electoral realm as well as in social movements.

And so in New York, the only two Socialists who have so far been elected to any kind of office in the state are of course Alexandra Ocasio Cortez in the House, but also State Senator Julia Salazar. And those victories were important. Theyre there two self identified Socialists. There was also a broader, a progressive surge in electoral politics that took place in 2018 thats shifted the balance of the New York State Senate and got rid of what was called the IDC, which was a block of Democrats in the State Senate who caucus with Republicans and effectively serve to block progressive legislation in the state. And so Julia Salazars election was part of that wave of displacing the IDC.

And the two of them in office along with the surge in Socialism, a Socialist activism around things like affordable housing in the state of New York, in New York City helped lead to, again as part of a broader progressive surge from people who do not consider them as Socialists, the fight back against things like Amazon attempting to move into Long Island city in Queens, which was a huge battle that would have displaced huge numbers of working class New Yorkers and also would have given billions in public dollars to Amazon, one of the wealthiest corporations in the world, of course, it really does not need billions in public money. And AOC and Julia Salazar and New York City DSA were all key players in this fight that was, just to reiterate, not solely carried out by Socialists, but Socialists as part of a broader working class movement were able to successfully stop Amazon from moving to Queens.

Amazon is moving to New York anyway, but not into Long Island City. Theyre moving to Manhattan and theyre not taking the multi-billion dollar aid package that that was prepared to be given to them. And so thats a real victory. Thats a significant win that Socialists played a key role in, in New York City. And thats just with a small minority of Socialists elected officials in the house and in their State Senate. So, I mean, the important issue is that they were there organizing as part of a broader coalition. There was not just Socialists, it was other progressive working class institutions. But Socialists in New York City DSA beyond just their elected representatives really played a key role in effecting the sea change around the discourse around affordable housing in New York City.

Obviously, we know that theres a real housing crisis in New York City and DSA helped play the role of demanding that something be done about that, which culminated in some pretty historic rent control and other provisions protecting renters in the city of New York, far from what is needed of course in New York City, but the strongest affordable housing protections that weve seen introduced in New York for a long time. So Socialists played a key role in that and its something that can point to, to show the kind of tangible victories that Socialists, along with a broader wave of progressive activism, have actually won.

Jaisal Noor: And youve been reporting in Chicago for a long time, a place of intense class struggle in the years of Rahm Emanuel. You had multiple teachers strikes there. Now, same with New York, you have Amazon workers going on strike. You have them protesting extreme exploitation and dangerous conditions theyre being put in. Talk about some of the lessons from Chicago and especially you just talked about the role Socialists played in a broader coalition the impact theyre having. Something like 10% of the of the City Council are now Socialists.

Micah Utrecht: Yeah, so there are half a dozen members of the Democratic Socialists of America who were elected to Chicago City Council but the way that we got to that point starts way back in 2010 when the Chicago Teachers Union had its leadership taken over by a [inaudible 00:06:34] called the Caucus Of Rank And File Educators, which were a group of teachers and other kinds of educators who were committed to democratic militant unionism that was struggling alongside communities that were fighting austerity in the public education system in Chicago, but also across the board. And I bring this up because, for one, there were Socialists who before the Bernie Sanders campaign were key players in that effort. They werent the only ones who were involved in taking over the union but they played this really critical role alongside other people who had a similar vision of what unionism should look like.

They went on strike in 2012 and have gone on strike several times since then and over the course of that past decades since they took over the union, the CTU has emerged as the anchor of a left wing politics in this city. And I bring that up just to emphasize how that kind of activism within a union like a teachers union or another municipal union or in a private sector union can play a role in transforming the politics of a city as a whole. Because that strike and the way that it changed Chicago politics opened up the space for last year a half a dozen Socialists to get elected to the Chicago City Council as well as other progressives who are not members of DSA but who are part of that broader left-wing block that has emerged in Chicago politics.

So the case study of Chicago is important to emphasize the interplay between organizing outside of the electoral realm, organizing within a union, in a specific kind of unionism thats a militant and democratic unionism thats fighting for the entire working class, a kind of unionism, which by the way, its not a mistake that there were Socialists involved pushing that kind of unionism because that is the kind of unionism that Socialists have long argued for and have been the strongest proponents of within the labor movement. So Socialists helped play that role in transforming the city through that kind of unionism and then opened the space for half a dozen DSA members to now be fighting for things like a robust response to a COVID-19, one that includes a new social democratic measures that actually tend to work in class peoples needs in Chicago who are talking about the problems with not having a rent freeze in the city, who are pushing for a whole slew of measures in the city, left-wing measures, that would not exist without this new left wing block.

And, again, as I mentioned with New York, it did so as part of a broader coalition, a coalition that by the way, its important to mention, it is willing to work with Socialists, that is not scared off by the Socialists label that those DSA members have it fixed to themselves. So the Chicago example is an example of all of these multiple things coming together to play a role in creating a left wing block that is for the first time in recent memory actually creating a left wing pull in Chicago local politics.

Jaisal Noor: And Micah, isnt it true that you talked about CORE, the Caucus Of Rank And File Educators, didnt that start as a reading group around Shock Doctrine, Naomi Kleins book, which is especially relevant now. I mean, its been relevant but especially under the Rahm Emanuel years where the teachers went on strike during an election year for Barack Obama, which put a lot of pressure on him as well, but just having that class consciousness and having that historical consciousness and applying that to the classroom conditions and waging these strikes and winning some real victories for the Black and Brown students that are the majority of students in the third biggest school district in the country.

Micah Utrecht: Yeah, all of that is correct. Its a testament to the power. I mean, as you mentioned, the fact that this group of people just came together around Naomi Klein and her book shows the power of left wing ideas when theyre put in the hands of rank and file militants of the union that can take the lessons from that book and really run with them and figure out how to push back against exactly the kind of thing that Naomi Klein discusses in that book, which is the use of crises by the right wing or by elites to shove austerity down peoples throats in a neo-Liberal agenda down peoples throats. So they took that and they ran with the lessons from that book about how to not just identify that was happening to the city of Chicago and its a public education system, but also how to fight back against it.

Jaisal Noor: So you also talk about East Bay where I believe Megan Day, your coauthor chronicled the failed progressive campaign of Jovanka Beckels, an organizer, a council person in Richmond, which is a fascinating city. They had a Green Party mayor. They waged a war against Chevron for polluting its communities and its been a host of other progressive reforms weve covered here on the Real News, including paying at risk potential offenders money, sort of like a stipend to help them stay out of trouble. But she ran against Buffy Wicks called the Bernie Slayer, which was a failed campaign, and obviously a lot of these Socialist campaigns arent going to be victorious, even on the left, challenging the Democratic machine, which is how power for decades. But talk about the lessons from that, again, a campaign that was based on a widespread coalition of working people unions and the lessons learned from that.

Micah Utrecht: The Jovanka Beckels campaign, I dont live in the East Bay, but I got to see it in motion when I visited once and the East Bay DSA really threw themselves into this State Assembly race for this candidate Jovanka. And we detail in the book, I mean, the campaign, DSA was the principal player in this campaign, which is different from some of the campaigns like AOCs or some of the Socialist elected officials in Chicago who were DSA members but also came out of unions or community groups or whatever. Jovanka Beckels campaign was principally an East Bay DSA effort along with folks, like you mentioned, the Richmond Progressive Alliance and it was incredible just to see that this group, DSA, that had just come together after Bernies 2016 campaign all of a sudden I was figuring out how to do the nuts and bolts of electoral politics, run a real credible campaign.

And they really went all out for this campaign. You could see it when you were in East Bay at the time, Jovanka Beckels signs were all over Oakland and then in parts of the district she would have covered. She lost to Buffy Wicks, who was the State Director in California for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and yes, she did earn that nickname Buffy the Bernie Slayer. And she lost, it was crushing to people who had thrown their whole lives into that campaign of course. But the infrastructure that was built from that campaign was then used by East Bay DSA to engage in other kinds of campaigns that were not electorally related. The most immediate one was support of the Oakland teachers strike that happened shortly after Jovankas campaign. And, again, DSA, East Bay DSA, played this key role in mobilizing support for that teachers strike as well as some members were actually members of the Oakland Education Association, and so they were rank and file organizers for the strike.

And so its an example of, and in the book it features all kinds of fun and inspiring details about DSA members getting up at six in the morning and being in these flying squadrons that would be driving all around Oakland, figuring out where reinforcement on picket lines were needed the most, engaging in our making the signs, the big mass marches that would happen. I was also there right before the strike and going a restaurant to restaurant, putting up signs that said that we support Oakland teachers at local businesses and restaurants and stuff. So its incredible. Again, just as they built this enormous apparatus basically from nothing, very few people in East Bay DSA had any experience in electoral politics but they built up this entire electoral campaign to support Jovanka Beckels. They lost in that campaign, but they then used that infrastructure to support this teacher strike that was part of the teachers strike wave that kicked off in 2018 with the red states like West Virginia and Arizona that we heard so much about, but it also spread to cities like Oakland in I believe January, 2019.

So its an example of how electoral politics can be used, not just to try to elect good left wing and Socialist elected officials, but it can also be used to take all of that infrastructure and then support other kinds of grassroots struggles like a union fight, like a teachers strike. And that kind of interplay between an electoral campaign that talks about class struggle, that talks about fighting the capitalist class. You can use that infrastructure and sort of seamlessly put it into that kind of worker led a struggle on the job. Thats crucial and we need to be able to do both.

The Socialist movement thats emerging in the United States has been focused on doing both, engaging on both of those tracks, both the electoral realm and the grassroots organizing realm, which is important to talk about because grassroots organizing, bottom up union militancy and and other kinds of of bottom up organizing are often held in contrast somehow to electoral organizing, that you can choose to do one or the other. And the example of DSA in places like East Bay over the last few years shows that you can actually do both if you go about your organism the right way.

Jaisal Noor: Well that wraps up part two of our conversation. Weve still got one more part to go. Thank you so much for joining us Micah Uetricht.

Micah Utrecht: Thank you.

Jaisal Noor: And thank you for joining us at the Real News Network. Well post all three parts of this interview at therealnews.com. We know that everyones quarantined at home and you need some good book recommendations so were going to start interviewing some authors of some great books thatll give you something helpful and hopeful to read while were all locked down. Thank you for joining us at the Real News Network.

Original post:
Sanders Is Out, But Socialists Are Still Winning Elections - The Real News Network

Podcaster and professor Scott Galloway went off during an appearance with MSNBCs Stephanie Ruhle on Tuesday.

He explained that we call workers like grocery store employees, Amazon warehouse workers and others essential employees, we dont actually treat them as all that essential.

Well, then lets walk through this, said Ruhle. Take Amazon. Take Walmart. Last year it was Bernie Sanders who went to the Walmart annual meeting arguing that someone from the labor force should have a seat on the board. He didnt get laughed out of the building but certainly didnt get any traction, and now here we are. Those are two of the only companies out there whose stock is up this year, and to people who dont benefit are those people in the stores stocking the shelves.

Galloway explained that in an economy there are three groups who get a piece of the pie: shareholders, workers and consumers. In the United States, weve decided that consumers and shareholders are the more important groups. As the GDP has grown, wages havent. As stock prices go up, wages continue to mostly stay flat.

In Germany, its mandated at least 40 percent of the board has to consist of workers, Galloway said. So, effectively workers have almost no say at the table, and as a result, they have their compensation just doesnt reflect the term essential. also, Id argue, were going to face some ugly truths here. Every night at 7:00 were leaning outside our balconies and applauding and honoring our health care workers, and we should because theyre saving lives. But we dont go outside our windows and honor the people working in grocery stores or the transit workers, 41 of whom have died in New York state, making sure we have basic infrastructure.

He went on to say if this is merely a continued war on the poor because healthcare workers are educated where the others are not.

We think of them in a different light as those who havent had as much opportunity as us, havent been as blessed but are just as important, he explained. Show me someone at home who is basking in purell. Ill show you someone who isnt essential. Show me someone essential outside of health care and Ill show you someone who has no dignity in work, no health care protection and is forced to go work and put themselves in the way of danger because, quite frankly, they havent made any money the last 40 years.

Last week it was revealed that many private equity investors are forcing additional costs onto patients, known as surprise billing. Ruhle explained that those private equity giants always take big risks and get huge profits. Now, however, theyre hitting a downside to business but the government is stepping in.

Right now, the government is stepping in and curbing that downside, she said. Were having capitalism on the way up. and self-imposed socialism on the way down.

Galloway agreed, calling it rugged individualism and the Hunger Games on the way up and a kind of Hallmark channel-like socialism on the way down. He said that people need to decide if were capitalist or not. Businesses benefit during the upswing but when things turn bad, like the 2007-2008 financial crisis, that they are allowed to fail as a result of their risks.

But if were going to be socialists, and a lot of people say thats a better alternative. Five of the 7 happiest nations have socialism. You want your universal Pre-K and universal health but lets not have capitalism on the way up and then when we hit a crisis we have the worst type of socialism, we have cronyism, Galloway continued. And thats the people with the most representative of Washington, the most economic power, decide all of a sudden that were in this together. And as soon as the markets start going back up then everybody talks about capitalism and individualism.

He then unleashed on the companies seeing huge stock increases during the coronavirus crisis, noting that they have the biggest lobbyists in Washington.

Watch his explainer below:

then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has cut advertising rates in half, and we need your help. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnstons DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. Weve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. Weve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and legal efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. And unlike other news outlets, weve decided to make our original content free. But we need your support to do what we do.

Raw Story is independent. Unhinged from corporate overlords, we fight to ensure no one is forgotten.

We need your support in this difficult time. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click to donate by check.

then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has cut advertising rates in half, and we need your help. Like you, we believe in the power of progressive journalism and were investing in investigative reporting as other publications give it the ax. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnstons DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. Weve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. Weve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. We need your support to do what we do.

Raw Story is independent. You wont find mainstream media bias here. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us in the future. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you.

Continue reading here:
Professor unleashes on corporations who want capitalism when things are good and socialism when its bad - Raw Story

At least that's what ChineseForeign Minister Wang Yi believes. Hewants the world to buy the fictionthat the communist regime is the perfect answer to fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

He said,Chinas signature strength, efficiency and speed in this fight has been widely acclaimed. Andthe institutional advantage of Chinas governance is for all to see. [Emphasis added.]

It's "thesystem and culture of socialism" that does China proud, he crowed.

In other words, it's him against us. Autocracy versus self government. Socialism versus the free market. As Wang would have it, acentralized government run by a dictator is better than mere people deciding what's best for the people.

With the despot "Comrade Xi Jinping at its core," Wang indicated, communist China can moreeasily order 1.4 billion people around at his whim and fancy than a democracy, with all its competing interests and voices, to fight the pandemic.

Playing out in the background of this pandemicis anexistential challenge to Western Democracies and their governing principles of liberty, equality and the sanctity of the individual. Wang has thrown down the cudgel.

If you can stand to read almost 2,000 words of this masturbatory rubbish go to:"Resolutely Defeating the COVID-19 Outbreak and Promoting the Building of a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind," by Yang Yi. It'll make you vomit or laugh, at least those of us who don't see all paths inevitably leading toShangri-la. (If it's too much for you, I've selected a few paragraphs for you at the end of this post.)

In fairness, Wang published this chest-thumping early last month, before it became apparent to all that China not just botched its handling of the pandemic, but gifted it to the world.

It originated in China and spread from China. The communist regime hid the dangers fromits own people. The doctor who tried to warn China and got punished for it died a martyr. Can you really trust any of the "data" ginned up by the secretive autocracy? It was China that first proclaimed that there is, "...no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission and no health care worker infections have been reported."

Yet from within America, we still hear voices, such asDemocratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy's,exonerating China, and even pointing to China of some kind ofexemplar of how to handle coronavirus. Readers of the Chicago Tribune were treated to an op-ed that announced: "While US plays blame game, China shows leadership."It'sembarrassing to see them abase themselves.

Socialism continues to provide evidence that it's unworkable junk. Communist leaders like comrades Xi andWang will defy reality by continuing to insist that they are oh-so-smart that they alone can engineer an adequate response to thepandemic. Toadies will instinctively repeat the lie.

Western democracies and their love of liberty have endured now for centuries, led by the United States, against the onslaught of tyrannies of the left and right. It will continue to do so.

********

Here's Wang's blah, blah, blah, delivered straight:

China has set a high standard for improving global public health governance. This outbreak is a major test for China's governance system and capacity, and for the global governance system and capacity. China's signature strength, efficiency and speed in this fight has been widely acclaimed, and the institutional advantage of China's governance is for all to see. Under the unified command, coordination and direction of the Party Central Committee, an inter-agency task force was set up immediately after the outbreak; first-level public health emergency response was activated in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities; and tens of thousands of medical workers and massive amounts of medical supplies and daily necessities were rapidly delivered to Hubei from across the country. These are vivid examples of the institutional strength of socialism with Chinese characteristics in pooling resources for major undertakings.

The international community shares the view that the speed, intensity and scope of China's epidemic response is rarely seen in the world, that the leadership, response, mobilization and implementation capabilities China has demonstrated are exemplary for the rest of the world, and that China has gathered valuable experience for the international community in handling emergencies caused by infectious diseases and advancing global public health governance.

Continue reading here:
China's totalitarian socialism is superior to democracy in the pandemic fight - ChicagoNow

17 April 2020

US President Donald Trump announced Thursday a set of guidelines for states to end social distancing measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, setting the stage for businesses to reopen throughout the country.

The new guidelines will fuel the coronavirus pandemic and lead to a sharp increase in deaths. In an indication of the mad rush to resume production, Boeing announced that it will begin aircraft production and send 27,000 workers back as early as Monday.

These moves come as the US continues to post record deaths, and the United States still does not have enough tests to contain the disease. More than 2,000 deaths were reported yesterday, and more than 8,000 over the past three days.

There is still widespread community transmission, meaning that once social distancing measures are ended a second wave of cases and deaths will follow. The real fatality rate, moreover, far exceeds official statistics. Yesterday, reports began to emerge of mass casualties, of at least 29 and possibly as many as 60, at one nursing home facility in Queens, New York.

Workplaces have been a major center of transmission for the pandemic, with dozens of cases and multiple deaths linked to individual workplaces. More than 540 cases of coronavirus have been recorded at one meatpacking plant in South Dakota.

Trumps plan is not grounded in any real scientific analysis of the pandemic. It is not conceived from the standpoint of public health, but to ensure that major corporations are allowed to get back to the business of squeezing profits out of workers as quickly as possible.

Now that Wall Street and major corporations have exploited the COVID-19 crisis to receive a massive bailout from the Treasury and Federal Reserve even larger than that following the 2008 financial crisis, the ruling class is determined to send workers back into Americas factories, no matter the death toll.

Trumps back-to-work campaign aims to normalize death on a massive scale, in which outbreaks of COVID-19 are seen as the cost of doing business. With government restrictions ended, employees who refuse to work under unsafe conditions will face the threat of being fired and becoming ineligible for unemployment insurance. As far as the ruling class is concerned, if workers die, they will simply be replaced.

The plan urges states to reopen businesses if they can demonstrate a downward trajectory of cases over a fourteen-day period. This proposal has no relation to the statements and assessments of epidemiologists and health experts, and it contradicts the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Public health experts have repeatedly warned that reopening businesses too soon could cause major new outbreaks. Lifting physical distancing measures too early can result in the disease returning if you dont have the public health measures to deal with the virus, warned WHO epidemiologist Maria D. Van Kerkhove.

Wall Street, recognizing the significance of the proposal for boosting corporate profits, surged in response to the news, with Dow Jones Industrial Average futures up by 820 points late on Thursday.

The plan is the result of a campaign by the Trump administration and the media to downplay the severity of the disease. To this end, the media has simply ignored the fact that the United States posted a record 2,600 deaths on Wednesday, and that the number of deaths has soared from 4,000 at the beginning of this month to over 34,000.

Over the past two days, the media has highlighted a handful of protests, organized by extreme right-wing forces, demanding a return to work. The ruling class is attempting to manufacture a narrative that the population is demanding an end to social distancing measures in order to justify a return to work.

There is no plan for re-opening. Just re-opening, said Yale epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves. No national scale-up of testing capacity, contact tracing, isolation, PPE, economic support for ordinary Americans. It flies in the face of public health and economic advice. Its destructive, deadly.

There are no metrics of any kind in the guidelines, said science journalist Laurie Garrett. The plan does have recommendations for testing and tracing, but no measurable benchmarks for it, just left up to the discretion/perception of individual governors.

The United States now has three times more cases than any other country in the world. In New York, an epicenter of the crisis, 1.1 percent of the population has tested positive for the virus. Nationally, the COVID-19 test positivity rate is 20 percent, indicating that tests have been conducted mainly among those already showing symptoms, and that far more people need tests than are able to get tested.

By contrast, South Korea has only 2 percent of tests reporting positive, an order of magnitude less than the United States. Canada, Germany and Denmark have rates between 6 and 8 percent.

Hospitals in the United States are filled to capacity, and funeral homes and morgues have no room to put the bodies.

During his press conference Thursday, Trump praised his governments response to the disease because, just a few months into the outbreak, the United States has had fewer deaths than scenarios predicted by epidemiologists over the course of several years.

Our strategy to slow the spread has saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Models predicted between 1.5 million and 2.2 million US deaths, he said. And between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths with mitigation. Its looking like we will come far under even these lowest numbers.

Because aggressive social distancing measures carried out throughout the country have led to a stabilization of the rate of new cases, Trump falsely argues that it is now appropriate to reopen businesses. In fact, social distancing measures like business and school closures are effective only to the extent that they create the conditions for sufficient testing, quarantine, and contact tracing.

Trump is cynically exploiting the widespread social dislocation caused by the pandemic to pressure workers to return to work. Under conditions in which millions of workers have received neither unemployment payments nor emergency stimulus measures, workers are left to choose between returning to work under unsafe conditions or being unable to feed their families.

But the claim that humanity must choose between letting workers die and subjecting them to economic destitution is false. This dichotomy assumes the prerogatives of the capitalist system, in which the state gives trillions to the corporations but wont ensure a livable income for workers.

The first priority in this pandemic must be saving human lives. This is only possible through a massive expansion of public health care spending to fund an enormous ramp-up of testing, quarantine, and contact tracing. Social distancing measures must remain in place until this capacity is created.

The demand by corporations and the White House for a premature return to work will spark widespread opposition within the working class. Workers must demand safe working conditions and the continued closure of non-essential businesses.

The struggle for the defense of workers health, safety and economic security is inseparable from the fight to end the capitalist system that is ultimately responsible for the pandemic, and to replace it with socialism.

Bryan Dyne and Andre Damon

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See the original post:
Trump administration's back to work drive will fuel pandemic - World Socialist Web Site

Sorry Bernie, but socialism would never win in America. Why? Because 65% of Americans dont want to be equal; they want to be rich.

Hey, why do you think communist Russia and China adopted capitalism? Socialism didnt work in those countries. Their citizens compared their country to the U.S. and saw the U.S. as superior. (They all had seen our movies, our glossy magazines. Our Republicans think that Soviet Union was defeated by Reagans defense budget. But it was probably the TV show Dallas.) So Russia and China adopted capitalism.

But America isnt a capitalistic nation. Because in capitalistic America, only one in a thousand is a capitalist. (Definition: A person who makes 51% of their income from interest, dividends or royalties, not labor.) We are a laboring country.

Most Americans are three paychecks away from starvation. They know the rich are getting richer, but who wants to rock the boat? At least they have a job. They know what happened in the Great Depression that started in 1929.

So the Democrat or Republican who can guarantee that 51% of Americans can easily become capitalists will win the election. (Im betting on the donkey because hes less into greed and the ego.)

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The rest is here:
Letter to the editor: America is about capitalism and not socialism - Summit Daily News