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By the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site 30 March 2020

On Sunday, March 29, the World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party held an online forum, The COVID-19 pandemic: Capitalism and the making of a social and economic catastrophe. A large audience from throughout the world participated, leaving hundreds of comments on the livestream.

The forum provided the socialist response to the pandemic, in opposition to the negligence and criminal indifference of capitalist governments throughout the world. It answered the lies and evasions of the ruling class and its apologists in the media. It elaborated a perspective to mobilize the international working class to fight for emergency measures to meet urgent social needs as part of a fight against social inequality and capitalism.

The forum was chaired by WSWS writer Andre Damon and featured four speakers: Dr. Benjamin Mateus, a physician, expert on the coronavirus pandemic, and contributor to the WSWS; David North, chairman of the WSWS International Editorial Board and national chairman of the SEP (US); Joseph Kishore, national secretary and presidential candidate for the SEP (US); and Johannes Stern, a leading member of the Sozialistische Gleichheitsparteiin Germany.

The COVID-19 pandemic: Capitalism and the making of a catastrophe

Dr. Mateus began the meeting by reviewing the global scope of the pandemic. The escalating numbers of infections and deaths read like a wartime chronicle, he said. We are set to reach the one million threshold by the first week of April, by the second week of April we can potentially see ten million, and by the first part of May up to 100 million cases, which is astronomical.

The political and historical significance of the pandemic was summed up by North in his introductory comments. The pandemic, he said, has exposed in a highly concentrated form the economic, social, political, cultural and even moral bankruptcy of a society based on capitalism. He continued:

The pandemic is a trigger event. In this sense, it is comparable to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914, which set into motion the chain of events that culminated in the outbreak of World War I five weeks later, in August 1914. The assassination did no more than determine the date of the wars outbreak. But the war itselfthat is, the explosion of the global contradictions of capitalist national rivalries and the economics of imperialismwas inevitable.

The pandemic bears the same relationship to the present crisis. No doubt, the pandemic, as a biological phenomenon, poses an immense challenge to society. But the possibility, even the inevitability of such a contagion, has been recognized for a long time. The historical character of this event arises out of the response to the pandemic, the manner in which it has so completely exposed the comprehensive failure of the existing society: the ignorance and inhumanity of its political leaders, the corruption and venality of its ruling class, the incompetence of its institutions, and the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of its phony media-created heroes and even phonier values.

Now the pandemic will at some point end. But even after the virulence of the pandemic recedes, when people emerge from isolation, there will be no going back to what existed before. The illusions that have persisted for so long have been shattered, in the same way that they were shattered by World War I. What has occurred cannot be undone.

The lives that have been lost as the result of the gross absence of preparation, which is the result of the subordination of human need to private profit, will not be forgotten. The change in consciousness is already underway. People are cheering health care workers, not bankers. There is not going to be a return to the status quo ante. Millions of people all over the world, having passed through this uniquely global experience, will perceive and think about reality in a different way.

In brief, capitalism has once again become a dirty word. This crisis will intensify and accelerate a global political crisis. Socialism and socialism of a very serious kindthe socialism of Lenin and Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg, not the nonsense of Bernie Sanders and other politically insignificant peoplereal socialism will again emerge as a mass movement, all over the world, and most explosively in the United States.

The speakers refuted the claim that the pandemic was unforeseeable. They noted that for decades, epidemiologists and scientists have warned of such an event, but nothing was done to prepare for it. They indicted the response of world governments, which has been dictated by the interests of the ruling class, not the needs of the population.

In the United States, Kishore said, which has been the center of global ideological and political reaction, for forty years the ruling elite has subordinated everything to the endless accumulation of wealth The response to the pandemic has been conditioned by the same considerations.

Kishore noted that it was not just the Trump administration, but the entire political establishment, that was responsible. The response of the American state, he said, has been to pass, on a unanimously bipartisan basis, a bill that finances the unlimited handout of cash to Wall Street and the corporate and financial elite.

Stern explained that the conditions that prevail in the United States are present in Europe and throughout the world. A catastrophe is unfolding in Italy, Spain and throughout the continent, while governments are riven by national conflicts and focused above all on advancing the interests of their own ruling elites.

The capitalists want their state to intervene to defend them. To pour more and more resources into their bank accounts. The working class has to create its own state power; it has to fight to acquire political power and use a genuinely democratic workers state to organize society in a rational, scientific manner of society in the interest of humanity.

In his concluding remarks, North noted the rapidly growing readership of the WSWS, particularly in the working class. He called for all those listening to make the decision to join the Socialist Equality Party and the International Committee of the Fourth International.

This world must change. This isnt the last crisis, and this isnt the last existential threat. The reality is that the future is either socialism or the destruction of humanity and the destruction of this planet. The experience that we are now going through is a terrible, terrible warning. We must learn from it, and we must act on those lessons.

We urge readers to watch the entire broadcast and share it as widely as possible.

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Originally posted here:
The coronavirus pandemic and the perspective of socialism - World Socialist Web Site

Successionstar Brian Cox is the latest guest to appear with host Lauren Laverne onDesert Island Discs,where he spoke about his life, career, and favourite music.

The Golden Globe-winning actor, who plays multi-millionaire antagonist Logan Roy on the hit HBO show, said his socialism is rooted in his experience of poverty as a child.

His father died when he was eight years old, and his mother was placedin an institution after suffering from severe mental illness.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

When you know poverty you know what socialism is and that we have to look after our people, Coxsaid.

The 73-year-old also admitted that he is a bit of a hoarder when it comes to clothes, and chose a sewing kit as his luxury item for the island.

It is one of those things you are left with, an insecurity. It has to come out somewhere.

Cox chose tracks by The Beatles, Jacques Brel, Joni Mitchell and Johnny Cash find the full interview here.

HBO has delayed the production of Successionsseason 3 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Link:
Brian Cox: When you know poverty you know what socialism is, and that we have to look after our people - The Independent

Pundits are speculating on what impact the novel coronavirus pandemic will have on the presidential race, but we know the answer. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., or at least his philosophy, has won.

Our march toward socialism began incrementally decades ago. But our response to the coronavirus will lead to its permanent implementation after elected officials of both parties shuttered businesses, ordered citizens not to go to work and made clear that there would be more draconian measures to come.

The delicate balance between freedom and risk was less than an afterthought as our economy was gutted in a matter of days.

Most disappointing of all has been President Donald Trump. Trump turned the country over to health professionals, who were understandably focused solely on the best medical remedies.

Sadly, no one seemed to worry much about protecting the economy or ensuring civil liberties, which, yes, must be protected even in the face of a communicable disease.

The snowball started rolling, state by state. One directive led to the next. Millions were ordered home, where they wait for their government to tell them it's OK to come out.

Without a doubt, some parts of the country were hit harder and needed to take stronger measures. But a one-size-fits-all mentality was disastrous, and we are only beginning to explore more nuanced ideas for mitigating the risk to seniors and others who are at heightened risk.

In recent days, Trump has indicated he might soon reverse course and lift federal restrictions. It's already too late. The economy can't be turned on and off like a light switch.

We live in a world where politicians of both parties promise no pain and no consequences. That includes the president. As the push for a big intervention began, Trump vowed that hourly wage workers were "not going to miss a paycheck" and "don't get penalized for something that's not their fault."

In real life, bad things happen to us that aren't our fault, but we still have to find a way, usually on our own, to cope and recover. Only in the land of make-believe that is our government would anyone think that no one would miss a paycheck no matter how many businesses were closed or jobs were lost.

Airlines and the hospitality industry can be rescued. Businesses large and small can get bailouts or low-interest loans. Millions of Americans will receive $1,200 checks, maybe multiple times.

Last week, our leaders agreed to devote trillions of dollars to respond to this economic calamity of our own creation. It will be what we do from now on.

In his State of the Union address in February 2019, Trump said: "America was founded on liberty and independence not government coercion, domination and control. We are born free, and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country." So much for that.

We have crossed the Rubicon. When historians record the moment that the U.S. economy transitioned from free-market capitalism to democratic socialism, they will point to last week.

Watching it all unfold has been like witnessing a plane crash in slow motion. When the smoke clears, what is left will be a feeble relic of the United States we once knew.

For months, the rising influence of big-government liberals such as Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has caused many Democrats to worry that their nominee would be vulnerable to the label "socialist."

They should no longer be concerned. We are all socialists now.

Gary Abernathy, a freelance writer, is a Washington Post contributing columnist.

Read more here:
Counterpoint: US is a socialist nation reliant on a fed bailout - BlueRidgeNow.com

Sanders is a Democratic Socialist. And the label socialist has been a political liability in American culture. According to a Gallup poll released on February 11 only 45% of Americans would vote for a socialist.

I am a scholar of American culture with an interest in the relationship between political ideologies and popular culture. In my research, I have found that this antipathy toward socialism may not be an accident: American identity today is strongly tied to an image of capitalism crafted and advertised by the Ad Council and American corporate interests over decades, often with the support of the U.S. government.

Business and government solidarity

In 1942, a group of advertising and industry executives created the War Advertising Council, to promote the war effort. The government compensated the companies that created or donated ads by allowing them to deduct some of their costs from their taxable incomes.

Renamed the Ad Council in 1943, the organization applied the same wartime persuasive techniques of advertising and psychological manipulation during the Cold War years, the post-war period when the geopolitical rivalry between the U.S., the USSR and their respective allies raged. One of their goals: promoting the virtues of capitalism and free enterprise in America while simultaneously demonizing the alternative socialism which was often conflated with communism.

Government propaganda at home portrayed the communist USSR as godless, tyrannical and antithetical to individual freedoms. As a counterpoint, America became everything the Soviet Union was not.

This link between capitalism and American national identity was advertised through a sophisticated, corporate effort as efficient and ubiquitous as state-driven propaganda behind the Iron Curtain. The campaigns used the ideological divisions of the Cold War to emphasize the relevance of their message. In a 1948 report, the Ad Council explained its goal to the public: The world today is engaged in a colossal struggle to determine whether freedom or statism will dominate.

Extolling capitalisms virtues

The campaigns started as a public-private partnership. At the end of World War II, the government worried about the spread of communism at home. Business interests worried about government regulations and about the rising popularity of unions. The Cold War provided both parties with a shared enemy.

In 1947, President Truman asked the Ad Council to organize the Freedom Train Campaign, focusing on the history of Americas political freedoms. Paramount Pictures, U.S. Steel, DuPont, General Electric and Standard Oil provided financial support. For two years the train crisscrossed the nation, carrying original documents that included the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

The following year, the Ad Council launched a business-led campaign, called The Miracle of America, intended to foster support for the American model of capitalism, as distinct from its Western European version, which was more friendly to government intervention. It urged increased productivity by U.S. workers, linked economic and political freedom and, paradoxically, asserted capitalisms collaborative nature.

Sure, America is going ahead if we all pull together, read a brochure. Another flyer, Comes the Revolution!, cast its support of American capitalism in the language of global struggle: If we continue to make that system workthen other nations will follow us. If we dont, then theyll probably go communist or fascist.

In its first two years, the Miracle of America message reached American audiences via 250 radio and television stations and 7,000 outdoor billboards. Newspapers printed 13 million lines of free advertising. The Ad Council boasted that the campaign made over 1 billion radio listener impressions.

American factory workers received about half of the 1.84 million copies of the free pamphlet The Miracle of America. One-quarter were distributed free of charge to schools, and 76 universities ordered the booklet. This pro-business propaganda, expressed in the language of Cold War patriotism, had reached roughly 70% of the American population by the end of the campaign.

Cartoon capitalism

The efforts produced more than just print and billboard messages. In 1946, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, founded by the former head of General Motors, paid the evangelical Harding College to produce Fun and Facts about American Business, a series of educational cartoon videos about capitalism, produced by a former Disney employee.

Between 1949 and 1952, Metro Goldwyn Mayer distributed them in theaters, schools, colleges, churches and workplaces. The films promoted the same messages as the Ad Council campaigns, although they were not part of the project. They continued a decade-long effort by the Sloan Foundation to start, in the words of its executive director, a bombardment of the American mind with elementary economic principles through partnering with educational institutions.

To both Sloan and the movements backers, business interests were synonymous with the national interest. The free-enterprise system was a shorthand for freedom, democracy and patriotism. Unlike in Europe, the videos suggested, class struggle of the kind that required unions did not exist in the U.S.

In the cartoon Meet the King, Joe, the archetypal American worker, realizes he is not an exploited proletarian. Instead, hes a king, because he can buy more with his wages than any other worker on the globe.

Conversely, government regulations of, or interventions in, the economy were described in the cartoons as socialist tendencies, bound to lead to communism and tyranny.

Make Mine Freedom, and Its Everybodys Business presented the state as a perpetual threat. A money-sucking tax monster, the government reduces everyones profits, crushes private enterprise and takes away individual freedoms: No more private property, no more you.

According to an estimate from Fortune magazine, by 1952, American businesses spent US$100 million each year, independent from any Ad Council campaigns, promoting free enterprise.

Peanuts pushes freedom

In the early 1970s, business responded to rising negativity about corporate power with a new campaign coordinated by the Ad Council.

The American Economic System and Your Part in It was launched alongside the bicentennial national celebrations. It was the largest centralized pro-business public relations project thus far, but only one of many independently run by corporations.

The media industry donated $40 million in free space and air time in the first year of the campaign. The Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor contributed about half a million dollars toward the production costs for a 20-page booklet.

That booklet used data provided by the departments of Commerce and Labor and Charles Schulzs Peanuts comic strips to explain the benefits of Americas economic system. The system was again presented as a foundational freedom protected by a Constitution whose goal was to maintain a climate in which people could work, invest, and prosper.

By 1979, 13 million copies had been distributed to schools, universities, libraries, civic organizations and workplaces.

Echoes now?

For four decades, the Cold War provided a simple good-vs.-evil axis that consolidated the association between freedom, American-ness and free-enterprise capitalism.

The business community, independently and through the Ad Council, funded massive top-down economic education programs which shaped American perceptions of business and government and of capitalism and socialism.

The Cold War ended 30 years ago, but its cultural structures and divisions endure perhaps, even, in the responses of some Americans to Bernie Sanders socialism.

Read the original post:
Cold War Manipulation: Why socialism was branded as un-American to promote the virtues of capitalism - Milwaukee Independent

Forecasting the aftermath of the current crisis is nearly impossible, but here is one prediction you can take to the bank: However deep the economic carnage and regardless of its source, those who seek to drive this country towards socialism will exploit it for all its worth.

President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump orders US troops back to active duty for coronavirus response Trump asserts power to decide info inspector general for stimulus gives Congress Fighting a virus with the wrong tools MORE recently declared himself a wartime president, as well he should. He is fighting an unprecedented two-front domestic war one a health crisis, the other economic. In the coming days, the economy will further decline, perhaps in unprecedented ways. And since economic upheaval usually precedes political upheaval, he will soon need to fight a third front: the inevitable propagandizing that will flow from forces of the far left who will lay many resulting economic inequities, real or perceived, at the feet of free markets and capitalism.

The catalyst for the ascendancy of socialism in our recent politics was the financial crisis of 2008. In its wake sparked by Occupy Wall St., encouraged by hard leftists and enabled by the media a majority ofmillennials and Gens X, Y and Z now look favorably upon the movement, according to most polls. They were the base that put a Democratic socialist within a hairs breadth of the Democratic presidential nomination. And because political views formed in youth tend to last a lifetime, this voting bloc will be the pig in the electoral snake for decades to come.

If the economic blow of the Great Recession was able to catalyze such a breathtaking lurch leftward, imagine what two in a row in less than half a generation might unleash on our body politic. Socialists and progressives must be salivating at the prospect of the potential for a one-two punch.

So, brace yourself for the emergence of yet another generation of those intrigued by the false promises of socialism. Ominously, this will coincide with the natural decline of the elderly, the last demographic to understand, overwhelmingly, the abhorrence of socialism.

Will Trump rise to such a fight? I am not holding my breath. He is a warrior, yes. It is a source of his appeal. But he thrives on bludgeoning opponents personally, not in nuance and appeals to higher principle which this fight will require.

His adversaries will be nimble and guerilla-like since socialists already live every day on a wartime footing. Whether originalists Marx and Engels, revolutionaries Lenin and Castro, or modernists Bernie SandersBernie SandersHillicon Valley: Apple rolls out coronavirus screening app, website | Pompeo urged to crack down on coronavirus misinformation from China | Senators push FTC on price gouging | Instacart workers threaten strike Overnight Energy: Court upholds Trump repeal of Obama fracking rule | Oil price drop threatens fracking boom | EPA eases rules on gasoline sales amid coronavirus The Hill's Campaign Report: Sanders pushes on in 2020 race MORE and AOC, a common thread amongst them all has been to pounce upon every inequity for maximum political impact.

Inequities on a scale that may exceed the financial crisis will abound in the days ahead. So, look for progressives to seize upon them as the true fruits of capitalism, and re-issue the siren call of socialism. Look for the Trojan Horse temptation of state-sponsored security at the expense of freedom, innovation and growth. Overflowing hospitals? Time for Medicare for all. Joblessness and bankruptcies? Time for Universal Basic Income.

And look for the made-for-Instagram moments where AOC, Bernie and other opportunists will make great hay and stoke class warfare, the rocket fuel of all socialists. When a Southampton socialite is filmed at the butchers counter ordering, in full Marie Antoinette style, to sell me the entire cabinet!, demands for a Wealth Tax and other state confiscations will surely follow.

There will be winners in this mess. Private jet travel, the ultimate self-quarantine, is in high demand. Big Tech is king as remote work and in-home entertainment drive demand for broadband connectivity. Food distribution is humming from servicing a population now eating three meals a day at home. Amazon is hiring thousands to meet demand from folks avoiding stores and malls.

But to the left, winners are not exemplars of a vibrant, nimble private sector providing value and service in a time of great need. They are simply the rich getting richer. They are to be scrutinized, regulated, and gouged of ill-gotten profit.

The most dangerous propagandizing from the left will come if the number of U.S. COVID-19 infections, and our economic dislocations, exceed Chinas experience. That would lend credence to their predictable and seductive yet insidious suggestion that central planners have the best tools to protect humans from themselves. Never mind that the cause of U.S. business dislocations will have been the government and its mandated business shutdown.

As we sit in our homes watching people die and savings destroyed as the economy melts, it may be hard to fathom that this third front might actually prove the more existential fight for our country. But if we lose, and yet another generation falls for what some have called the Big Lie of socialism, then founder Ben Franklins warning of our Republics fragility may prove hauntingly prophetic.

Emil W. Henry, Jr., served as U.S. TreasuryAssistantSecretary from 2005-2007. He is CEO and managing partner of Henry Tiger LLC and Tiger Infrastructure Partners, a private equity firm.

The rest is here:
Will coronavirus launch the second wave of socialism? | TheHill - The Hill