Consequences of the war in Ukraine

This looks like a very interesting webinar.  It is scheduled for Sat., February 18th. Please note that GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) is 5 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, so for folks on the east coast of the US, it will be at 10:00 AM

War in Ukraine: On the Brink of a Nuclear Catastrophe

As the deadly war in Ukraine approaches the one-year mark, an international expert panel will gather to explore the current and potential public health and environmental consequences of the ongoing crisis, along with the solutions to pull us back from the brink of a nuclear catastrophe. Join us on Saturday, 18 February at 3pm GMT to learn more. Topics include:

-Impacts on health, human rights, and the environment – An assessment of how the war has adversely affected civilians.

-Risk to nuclear reactors — The factors that could lead to a catastrophe at any of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants — loss of power, stress-induced worker error or an accidental or deliberate attack — continue to worsen, making such an outcome more likely.

-Escalation to nuclear weapons – The catastrophic regional and global consequences if nuclear weapons are launched intentionally or by accident or miscalculation.

Registration (free) at: www.ippnw.org/no-war

 

 

Don't run, Joe

1968 redux? As the Democratic Party establishment consolidates around the soon to be announced candidacy of Joe Biden for 2024, I’m having flashbacks to 1968.

For those of you who are too young to remember, or didn’t learn about this in your high school history class, 1968 was the height of the Vietnam War. An increasingly unpopular President, Lyndon Johnson (“Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today”), decided NOT to run, passing the torch to his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, who supported Johnson’s continuing escalation of the war. (Note: He was also a strong supporter of Johnson’s liberal domestic economic agenda, including The War on Poverty)

Humphrey didn’t compete in the Democratic primaries. In fact, the two anti-war candidates, Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy, won overwhelming support in the Democratic primaries. What Humphrey had was the support of the Party establishment and they controlled the nominating convention.

 At the 1968 convention in Chicago there were massive antiwar demonstrations, which were met with massive police violence. Ignoring public opinion, the Democratic Party establishment nominated Humphrey, who went on to lose the election in 1968 to Richard Nixon. A disaster for the Party, the nation and the world, although it pales in comparison to the possibility of Trump, DeSantis or any other of the possible Republican candidates winning in 2024.

After 1968, the Democratic Party made some cosmetic changes to its method of choosing Presidential candidates, but the Party establishment has worked to overcome obstacles to the nomination of its preferred candidate. The machinations around changing the order of the Democratic primaries to benefit Biden are one example.

Will history repeat? Some information on Joe Biden’s current support, from Roots Action:

In a recent poll from NBC News, only 7 percent of voters were enthusiastic about a 2024 Joe Biden reelection bid. In an ABC/Washington Post poll released Sunday, 60 percent of Democratic voters said they’d prefer a candidate other than Joe Biden to be the 2024 nominee. Monday’s AP poll found that only 37 percent of Democrats – and only 23 percent of Democrats under the age of 45 – want to see Biden run for president again. A July New York Times poll showed that a whopping 94 percent of Democratic voters under 30 want someone other than Biden as the nominee in 2024. In the latest Economist/YouGov Poll, just 34 percent of Americans describe Biden as honest and trustworthy, a new low for his Presidency. 

It should be noted that Biden, as was true of Humphrey, does particularly poorly among the young.  In Biden’s case this should not be surprising given that the party leadership is dominated by the 75 and older crowd, most of whom (Sanders aside) have drawn the wrong lessons from defeats in 1968 and particularly 1972.

As the US and the world face several interrelated existential crises, aptly dubbed a “polycrisis” (more on that in a future post), can we afford to hand the tools of government over to the most reactionary political forces this country has seen since … ? Like the Bourbon kings in France,  has the Democratic Party “learned nothing and forgotten nothing”?

Anti-Trust Enforcement: Can it prevent the growth of monopoly?

 

Two Big Pharma giants are trying to merge. The $28 billion deal between Amgen and Horizon Therapeutics¹ would mark one of the biggest pharma mergers in recent history. Both companies have also been accused of price gouging — together, they’d have even more power to manipulate the market.^2,3

It’s critical that Congress and federal regulators investigate giant corporate mergers and enforce federal antitrust laws. If not, consumers will suffer price hikes — in this case, even higher costs for prescription drugs and health care.

It’s not just Amgen and Horizon — America’s biggest corporations are trying to get even bigger. That’s bad for consumers, public health, and innovation.

Amazon is attempting to acquire One Medical for $3.9 billion,⁴ a move that would help Amazon on its path towards becoming a health care monopoly. Facebook’s parent, Meta, is trying to acquire a prominent VR company.⁵ Two major railroad companies are trying to merge for $27 billion, continuing consolidation in the railroad industry that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has called seriously concerning.⁶

This is not an extensive list, just some examples of the attempts by corporate giants to consolidate their power. But we have federal antitrust laws to protect competition and to protect consumers from worse products for higher prices. Our elected leaders and regulatory agencies must do everything in their power to more frequently and forcefully scrutinize and, when necessary, block these mergers.

- From Demand Progress

 

 Lots of luck with this one. The Sherman Antitrust Act was passed in 1890; did it result in the breakup of the Gilded Age monopolies? No! Clayton Antitrust Act was passed in 1914; did it result in the breakup of monopolies in the Roaring Twenties? No! The Federal Trade Commission was also established in1914; results, the same.

Big business (and I mean really big business) has found work arounds in every case, in particular something called regulatory capture. Business leaders make sure that the members of the regulatory agencies are taken from their ranks and serve, not to break up monopolies, but to protect them. The ultimate in regulatory capture was the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. From the get, the bank regulators were the bankers themselves. The fox is watching the chicken coop.

The problem with relying on faux regulatory agencies, is that it fails to understand how capitalism functions. It is the goal of every company to expand by driving other companies out of business or gobbling them up. Whenever a business fails to follow this “iron law of capitalism”, it is doomed, period. Yes, capitalism is based on competition, but that competition ultimately leads to monopoly. (Note: the advent of massive financialization, private equity, etc. has just accelerated this phenomenon).

One insidious consequence of accepting the myth of capitalist competition leading the innovation and the best possible outcomes for society, is that it promotes the privatization of the public sphere. So, I would argue that the fight against monopoly begins with the defense of the public sphere and the struggle to expand it. Expanded Medicare for All and Community Owned Hospitals; Public Transportation; Public Housing (not the kind we currently have, which I would describe as the warehousing of the poor); Free Public Colleges and Universities; Community Owned Utilities (electric, water, sewer, broad band, etc.); Publics Banks; Public Media. I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.

Yes, demand regulation and the breakup of monopolies to educate about the nature of the beast, but understand that this is not the solution to the immediate crisis we face. Fighting for the public sphere is critical to defend the interests of the working class. 

Defund the Police and Abolish Prisons - An Abolitionist Horizon

 

Below is the draft content of  a pamphlet I wrote for the Wilmington, NC DSA on the modern day abolitionist movement. Is abolition of the carceral state possible? Certainly not under capitalism. But working toward abolition is an integral part of tearing down the bulwark that supports the exploitative system we need to overturn. A luta continua, vitória é certa.

Why we need to defund the police and abolish prisons

As Democratic Socialists we understand that our criminal justice system does not prevent harm nor dispense justice. Under capitalism, its purpose is to defend and protect capitalists’ ability to exploit working people, not to protect us. The system isn’t broken, it is doing exactly what it is designed to do.

Look at the history of policing in our country. It had its origins in the slave patrols, organized to capture escaped slaves and return them to their “owners”. After the Civil War, Black freedmen were arrested for “vagrancy” and forced to work on chain gangs to provide labor for the former slave masters. Later, police were used to break strikes when working people demanded better wages and working conditions. Today, sheriffs evict poor people who can’t pay their rent and throw them out on the street and police departments detain undocumented immigrants for deportation.

We are told that the police are there to protect us from criminals who want to harm us, but calling the police frequently results in greater harm and even death. The arming of the police with military weapons doesn’t make us safer, it creates an occupying army which wages war on Black, brown and working-class communities.

Why is it that someone selling marijuana on the street corner is a criminal, while the owners of the big drug companies, who sold opioids that killed tens of thousands, can get away with murder? Why is it that there are so many Black, brown and poor people in prisons and so few rich white folks? Is it because the rich white folks define what is and what isn’t a crime?

It may be difficult to fully understand the negative impact on our communities of keeping millions of people—overwhelmingly Black, brown, and poor—in jails and prisons, but we can start by considering these facts:  

·         Almost half of all black adult women in America have a family member who is in prison.

·         1 in 9 black males between the ages of 20 and 34 is locked up.

·         The total cost of incarceration in the United States (including costs borne by the families of those incarcerated) is estimated to be about $1 trillion a year.

The brutal machinery of police and prisons must be dismantled in order to build institutions that will truly “serve and protect” all working people. Abolitionists recognize that this won’t happen all at once. What we are doing today is building towards an abolition horizon in the future. To do that we need to fight to reduce the size, power and authority of this repressive system and replace it, piece by piece, with institutions that serve our community with care, real justice and equity

Let’s begin with some alternatives to calling the police – for today

Identifying and/or training members of our community to assist with issues related to community health & safety is just one step towards making police presence unnecessary in our communities.

1.       Taking community health courses in First Aid, CPR, de-escalation, and/or restorative justice are just a few of the ways we can build community capacity and self-reliance. Community training programs are available at

Sokoto House: https://sokotohouse.org/

CPR Classes:  https://cprworksofwilmington.com/

2.       Take a Mental Health First Aid Training Course

Trillium:  https://www.trilliumhealthresources.org/regional-operations/mental-health-first-aid

3.       When community members are having a mental health crisis, it is important to center the needs of the person in crisis and utilize the local/community resources, such as

Port City United Connect at 910-798-4444

RHA Mobile Crisis hotline 844-709-4097 (available 24/7/365)

4.       For Domestic Disputes call: National Domestic Violence Hotline 800-799-7233

5.       For Suicide Prevention call: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – Dial 988

Let’s work towards an abolitionist future - for tomorrow

·         Defund the police by rejecting any expansion of their budgets while demanding that current funds be diverted to programs that benefit the community.

·         Demilitarize the police and end police occupation of Black and brown communities.

·         Repeal laws that criminalize people involved in sex trades, drug trades and street economies and those that criminalize poverty and homelessness.

·         End the cash bail system, free all prisoners who are incarcerated for non-violent or victimless crimes and end all fines and fees associated with the criminal legal process.

·         Remove police from our schools and end the use of suspensions and zero tolerance discipline.

·         End police cooperation with ICE and the deportation of immigrants and refugees.

 

Martin Luther King, Jr., reminded us that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” His life’s work would add “but only if we bend it.”

How to deal with inflation in a way that benefits the working class and not the banks and the very rich

The Good News:

With the start of 2023, Washington D.C. and 23 states raised their minimum wages, many of them automatically as a result of having previously tied the minimum wage to the cost of living – proving to Congress and the other states that such a simple, long-lasting solution is possible.

The Bad News:

Only three states (Washington, California, and Massachusetts) and Washington D.C. now have minimum wages of $15 or more (as do federal workers and some state workers and contractors). The federal minimum wage -- which is all that many states have, and to which some other states' minimum wages are tied -- has now gone the longest period of time without correction since it was created in 1938, and is worth less than it has been since 1956.

The federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour would be $12.12 if the law had built in adjustment for inflation in 1968. If the federal minimum wage had kept pace with productivity, it would now be over $26 per hour.

The value of the federal minimum wage has reached its lowest point in 66 years, according to an EPI analysis of recently released Consumer Price Index (CPI) data. Accounting for price increases in June, the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is now worth less than at any point since February 1956. At that time, the federal minimum wage was 75 cents per hour, or $7.19 in June 2022 dollars.

The Solution to Inflation:

A national $15 minimum wage would raise the incomes of tens of millions of workers, including servers in restaurants, grocery store employees, and essential health care workers—as many as 2 million direct care workers would benefit from a $15 minimum wage.

Not only would raising the minimum wage affect the tens of millions of workers currently working for less, it would serve as a tidal force to raise the wages for tens of millions more – in this instance there is no question but that “a rising tide lifts all boats”.

An Added Benefit or two:

The most significant benefit of this would accrue to those at the bottom of the economic ladder, thus spurring economic activity through augmented demand. No recession, which is what the Fed is trying to produce by raising interest rates, just economic growth. What’s not to like?

Social Security will see a big jump in revenue, hopefully quieting those who claim it’s not solvent and needs to be cut (or privatized).

And, most importantly, the results of raising the minimum wage nationally, would take some of the wind out of the Fed’s program to bring inflation down to 2%.

Moderate Inflation Actually Benefits the Working Class

As I have previously noted (Hold the Presses, January 7, 2023), the overwhelming evidence is that very low inflation rates (0-2.5%) are a drag on economic growth. But the Fed and friends use the fallacious argument that we need low inflation in order for companies to invest and help the economy grow. NOT TRUE.

But, it is true that low inflation helps the wealth of the 1% grow in comparison to the rest of us. And higher inflation hurts the very wealthy. Forbes and Bloomberg have estimated that billionaires lost between $1.4 and $2.1 trillion in 2022, a year that has seen the highest inflation rates since the early 1980s. Not that I’m shedding a tear for them, simply noting why they are so adamant about reducing inflation.

In fact, there certainly appears to be a correlation between the extended period of very low inflation rates following the Volker shock in the early 1980s and the rampant runaway inequality and financialization of the economy we’ve seen since then. I would argue that it’s more than a coincidence, since low inflation benefits those with money and creditors who are owed money, i.e., the rich and the banks.

Conclusion

There are numerous ways in which the working class can fight the obscene and growing income inequality in our country and worldwide. Yes, pass a wealth tax. Yes, pass regulatory measures to reign in the most egregious forms of exploitation. Yes, strengthen anti-monopoly enforcement. But at the same time reject the conventional wisdom that the economy and working people benefit from a very low inflation rate. It’s not true and it’s certainly not beneficial to the working class.