The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

Issue no. 1143 — December 6, 2021 - January 3, 2022

EDITORIAL
Another Covid Variant, Another Failure of Capitalism

Dec 6, 2021

So now the Omicron variant of Covid is spreading around the world. First discovered by researchers in South Africa in early November, the Omicron variant has already been found to be infecting people in the United States, Europe, Israel, and other countries.

It is too soon for health officials and medical researchers to know if Omicron is more contagious or more deadly than Delta or the other strains of Covid that are already circulating. It is too soon to know or even predict whether the vaccines currently in use will offer the same protection against Omicron.

But what medical experts do know and what was completely predictable was that the longer that Covid was not brought under control, the more the virus would mutate, and more variants would emerge. What medical experts do know and have been saying for months is that the more the virus mutates, the more likely it is that a strain will emerge that will make vaccines less effective.

What we do know is that two years after the Covid pandemic started, it is far from being brought under control. What we do know is that even with vaccines that, at this point, seem to be mostly effective, thousands of people are dying from Covid every day because they can’t get the vaccine.

What we do know is that the Covid pandemic has exposed an economic system that is completely unable to protect humanity’s health and welfare, despite having access to advanced medical knowledge and technology.

In the wealthier countries of the world, vaccines are mostly available for people who want them. About 70% of the population in Europe and 60% of the population of the United States has been fully vaccinated. In the poorer countries in the world, only about 8% of the people have received even one dose. That huge disparity is due to one reason—profits. The drug companies producing the vaccine can charge more for each dose sold in the richer countries.

The drug companies’ drive for profit has also limited the amount of vaccine available to the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) has asked over and over for the drug companies to share their patents and technical knowledge with other companies and other countries that could be producing their own vaccines. Publicly done research was shared with the drug companies to help develop the vaccines. But these drug companies are refusing the WHO’s request, in order to ensure themselves the highest possible profits.

Joe Biden, when addressing the Omicron variant said that he was “sparing no effort, removing all roadblocks to keep the American people safe.” That’s total bullshit, because the U.S. government is the main one that is blocking the WHO’s request to share the patents. Biden and this government are serving an economic system in which corporate profits come before all else.

There is a roadblock to keeping safe the people of this country and every country. It is a capitalist economic system in which the profits of a few people somehow matter more than the 5 million people worldwide who have died from Covid. This is a roadblock that needs to be removed and replaced with a system that serves all humanity.

Moderna Blocks Production of More Vaccine

Dec 6, 2021

In South Africa, a biotech company is trying to produce a Covid vaccine for use in Africa, where just 6% of the population has been able to get the vaccine. Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines is using publicly available information and help from outside advisers to duplicate the Moderna vaccine and then share it with other regions who have little access to any vaccine.

But they are doing this research without having the exact vaccine formula and technical knowledge because Moderna refuses to share it with them. With that information, Afrigen Biologics would be able to produce their own vaccine in about one year. Without Moderna sharing the information, it is estimated it will take them 3 years.

In the meantime, Moderna is planning to build its own vaccine plant in Africa to make sure all the profits from the vaccine go into its own pockets. And while waiting for this plant to be built, how many people will die from Covid?

Pages 2-3

Maryland:
Toll Lanes Near D.C.

Dec 6, 2021

In November, Maryland transportation officials decided on the rates private operators can charge for drivers using the two new lanes to be added each way to highways I-495 and I-270 outside Washington, D.C. Tolls can go as high as $45 for this 12-mile commute!

It’s true these highways and the nearby 60-year-old bridge over the Potomac River are congested day and night with what the governor calls “soul-crushing, worst-in-the-nation” traffic.

But state officials do not propose hiring public workers to renovate the highways and bridge. Nor do they propose the best measure—building a subway line under or over these highways. No, instead they simply want to privatize the highways. The Republican governor and Democratic comptroller voted together last summer to pay 54 million dollars to Transurban and Macquarie to design multi-billion-dollar plans for adding the lanes and building a wider bridge. These for-profit companies can then charge tolls on the added lanes.

Adding toll lanes won’t solve the traffic problem. But it will continue to crush commuters’ souls—and empty their wallets, too!

The USC Online Degree Mill

Dec 6, 2021

USC is considered to be an elite university. It attracts the children of Hollywood luminaries and business moguls. And its campus is an impressive mix of brick Romanesque and faux-Gothic architecture dotted with fountains and reflecting pools. But behind all the glitz and glamour, USC is nothing but a degree mill that spits out online master’s degrees in social work, in order to collect huge amounts of money.

Over the last 10 years, the University of Southern California (USC) has used its elite status image in order to aggressively hawk its online master’s degree program in social work. The school has especially targeted low-income students from all over the country, often using very aggressive tactics. It then gets them hooked on crushing debt in order to cover the $115,000 tuition for two years of online classes.

The university charges online students the same tuition as students who actually attend the university in person, even though most online students never set foot on the posh Los Angeles campus. Nor do online students take advantage of USC’s vast facilities or mix with other students and faculty. Thus, the university gets a gush of new tuition dollars without the expense of additional dorms, classrooms, or other facilities.

Most of these students wind up thoroughly ripped off. A recent Wall Street Journal article found that not only were the students stuck with $150,000 to $200,000 in accumulated debt, but most also couldn’t even get jobs that pay a living wage.

And this money hasn’t just filled the coffers of USC. It has also helped enrich a high-tech company, called 2U, that USC hired. In return for a large cut of the tuition, this company has promoted and marketed the master’s degree program to students, as well as provided tech infrastructure, and even designed the courses. Since its first USC contract in 2008, the company has expanded to promote and run other online master’s degree programs at USC, as well as at many other universities.

This company is now one of the largest in a growing industry of educational-technology providers that set up online college programs in exchange for a cut of students’ tuition, while leaving more and more heavily indebted and bankrupted students in its wake.

Far-Right Protesters at Suburban Chicago School Board

Dec 6, 2021

On Monday, November 11, about 200 people packed into the auditorium at Downers Grove North High School to attend the school board meeting in this Chicago suburb. Some in the crowd held “NO PORN” signs and posters protesting Gender Queer, a graphic novel about gender identity that is available at the Downers Grove North library.

The protest against this book started from a group of parents who also protested the district’s “equity initiatives” around race, as well as mask mandates in the school. It was latched onto by the Proud Boys, a far-right group that has been showing up at school board meetings across the country. In addition to protesting books like Gender Queer and mask mandates, the Proud Boys have also been organizing people to protest the teaching of “Critical Race Theory,” that is, teaching about this country’s history of racism. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, at least ten Proud Boys attended the Downers Grove board meeting.

Some of the parents at the meeting claimed that they were not against gay rights, but that they simply didn’t think their teenagers should be exposed to the book’s sexual content. But as a student at the meeting pointed out, few students even knew of the existence of this book in their library before the protests, and no one has objected to other books with sexual content, like Angela’s Ashes. “Let’s not present getting rid of ‘Gender Queer’ as censoring our children from sex,” she said to the school board. “It’s homophobia.”

Strict definitions of what it means to be “a man” or “a woman” are rooted in the oppression of women, fundamentally in the way women are supposed to do all kinds of unpaid work—from cooking and cleaning to bearing and caring for children and elders. The far-right attempt to reinforce these definitions is an attack on all of us. And these are the same people who want to reinforce “traditional” racism as well—in fact, one of the Proud Boys protesting Gender Queer at the Downers Grove school board meeting had been arrested for threatening Black Lives Matter protesters with a knife last summer.

But not everyone at this meeting was for banning the book: a group of high school students attended the meeting and spoke up against banning it, in the face of the threatening behavior of these far-right thugs. One student who spoke in favor of keeping the book in the library reported that after he spoke, a man in the audience repeatedly told him, “you’re a pedophile,” and even drove up to him in the parking lot shouting, “pedophile!” Hopefully these young people will not be intimidated. That some are willing to stand up is a hopeful sign for the future.

California:
Abused Children Victimized Again by the Social Services System

Dec 6, 2021

Jessica and Jordan Turpin, two of 13 siblings whose escape and rescue from their parents’ abuse in Riverside County, California made national headlines about four years ago, spoke out for the first time in an ABC News interview that aired in November.

The two sisters revealed that, after being the victims of extremely abusive parents for many years, what the Turpin children then found was neglect, and in some cases even abuse, under a dysfunctional social services system.

Being minors at the time of their rescue in January 2018, six of the 13 Turpin children were placed in foster homes. At least one of them suffered further abuse at the hands of their foster parents.

Things did not go well for the adult siblings, either. Some reported going hungry at times; some told about lacking safe and stable housing and being forced to live in dangerous, crime-ridden neighborhoods.

When the horrific story of abuse in the Turpin household hit the media, people across the U.S. and from abroad made donations to help the Turpin children in their new lives. The director of Riverside County Victim Services told interviewers that many health care professionals offered their services for free—but agencies responsible for helping the Turpin children never followed up on those offers.

The nearly 600,000 dollars in donations that poured in were not used to help the Turpin children either. One of the siblings, 29-year-old Joshua Turpin, said that even his request to buy a bicycle for transportation was denied by the office of the court-appointed public guardian for the seven adult Turpin children.

Riverside County officials say they have hired an outside law firm to investigate the mistreatment of the Turpin children by county agencies, but only after Jessica and Jordan Turpin were interviewed. These same officials not only allowed the neglect and continued abuse of the Turpin children for years, but they also kept a lid on it.

In fact, what has happened to the Turpin children after being freed from their parents’ abuse is what happens to millions of young people in this country who are neglected, and sometimes even abused, in a dysfunctional foster care system. And when these children grow older and are sent out into society, many of them find themselves alone and without a job, an education, or skills—and without any support.

All this lack of services and oversight, above all, is the result of years of deep cuts into social programs. Public officials, elected and appointed, would funnel taxpayer money to boost the profits of big capitalists, rather than support the programs that help the population and those in need, especially if they come from poor and working-class backgrounds.

Pages 4-5

First, Give Tax Cuts. Then, Build.

Dec 6, 2021

In the last presidential election, Democrats howled about the injustice of Trump’s 1.7-trillion-dollar tax cut for the rich. How obscene it was!

But what is the second-biggest item in Biden’s next Build Back Better bill? Tax cuts for the rich!

The wealthy class will be given a tax break on their SALT taxes, which stands for, state and local taxes. All told, they will be able to write off an extra 285 billion dollars over the next five years. No other expense category in the bill is bigger, except for the universal childcare program.

It’s not only the Republican party which caters first and foremost to their wealthy donors!

Internet Access:
By the Twelfth of Never

Dec 6, 2021

The mayor of Baltimore announced that part of the American Rescue Plan funds in Baltimore would go to creating 100 hot-spots for Internet access. This project will use six million dollars and take as long as five years!

Baltimore City had close to 100,000 households without Internet access BEFORE the pandemic. That is forty percent of all Baltimore households, 2 out of every 5. These 100 hot-spots, at recreation centers in poor neighborhoods, leave exactly the same problem as before—thousands and thousands of children in poorer households do not have Internet access, and most of them don’t have a laptop to do homework. Their parents or guardians would have to get them to a recreation center, hope their tablets worked, and wait while they did their homework!

In other words, 99% of those lacking Internet access will still lack it, despite this new funding. These children will still be behind when they graduate from Baltimore City public schools.

Who is being rescued? Very few. Baltimore, like most cities, is an Internet disaster spot.

Detroit Seawall Collapse

Dec 6, 2021

Detroit Bulk Storage leases a site beside the Detroit River for storing bulk gravel offloaded from freighters. On November 29, one part of the site’s seawall bulged out and collapsed.

Michigan’s anti-pollution agency scrambled to put down booms and contain the pollution. The company was fined—four thousand dollars—and given a cease-and-desist order. The very next day, a freighter delivered more gravel, as usual.

Detroit Bulk Storage and Revere Dock, the site’s owner, have plenty of prior violations. In 2019, a bigger section of the seawall collapsed, risking much worse pollution to the river, including radioactivity from old industrial operations there. The collapse was from illegal storage of 40,000 tons of limestone without a permit. The fine for that was a whole sixty thousand dollars. The owner told the Windsor Star, “It’s an incident that happens … when you store gravel. It’s part of how things go.”

The recent collapse was caused by illegally piling gravel within 75 feet of the seawall, instead of obeying the 200-foot limit required in the company’s operating permit.

The government may make laws, but it always makes sure that companies face only pennies in penalties. So yes, “It’s part of how things go.” The government pretends to enforce the laws. The companies pretend they will obey.

Peak Season Comes to Shipping

Dec 6, 2021

The holidays are here. For anyone working in shipping and package delivery, the last five or six weeks of the year are “Peak Season”—when a big portion of all packages for the year are shipped. With lots of overtime, many workers count on “Peak” to partly make up for low wages the rest of the year. The 30-hour-a-week “part-time” shifts common to this industry get bumped to 70 hours or more during the holiday rush.

The pandemic has meant people are getting more packages delivered than ever. And it’s also created the notorious “labor shortage” in lower-wage work. UPS drivers, who are union and make higher wages, have been much more inclined to stick around than at FedEx. So, UPS has been much better this year about sticking to its delivery times compared to its rival. Even the stock parasites noticed—UPS stock is up, and FedEx’s is down. It’s like they just noticed that worker pay matters.

At FedEx, a shortage of parts means a lot of trucks down for service stay down. So, the company resorts to renting trucks. Rental trucks present a lot of problems for workers. For one, if there’s a mechanical problem, the company mechanics can’t work on them—so you’re S.O.L. And the cabins on rentals are just empty space—they don’t come with a way to organize the packages for delivery. The drivers have to waste time figuring this out on the fly.

All the delivery companies are raking in money by the billions, particularly in Peak Season. As with all profit in this society, they extract these billions out of the sweat of their package handlers and delivery drivers.

New Space Telescope:
An Advance Held Up by Capitalism

Dec 6, 2021

On December 22, the U.S. plans to launch a major astronomy telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The rocket will launch from Kourou in French Guyana in South America, still occupied by French troops, with an indigenous population living nearby without water and electricity. But the project is exciting for people interested in space exploration.

JWST’s 21-foot-wide mirror will focus on infrared light from distant, ancient stars. The telescope’s images will help scientists learn how the earliest stars, solar systems, and galaxies formed, and even how life may have developed on distant worlds. This is valuable work.

To keep its mirror frigid enough not to vibrate and blur incoming starlight, JWST will have to stay deep in Earth’s shadow—as it turns out, nearly four times as far from the Earth as the Moon. That’s too remote to fix if anything goes wrong. But military supplier Northrup Grumman, which profits from a so-called cost-plus contract to build and test the telescope, has made numerous errors which caused very expensive delays. The wrong solvent was used to clean valves. Wiring was installed incorrectly. Fastening bolts came loose. The one billion dollar cost estimated when the telescope was first proposed 25 years ago has rocketed to nearly 10 billion dollars now. And Dupont, Bell Aerospace, and Axsys are only some of the other companies profiting from the project!

Under capitalism, exploitation reaches the sky … space exploration, not so much.

Biden Reinstates “Remain in Mexico”

Dec 6, 2021

The Biden administration announced December 2nd that it is reinstating Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program, where asylum seekers at the U.S. Southern border are forced to stay on the Mexican side of the border.

Biden’s campaign promise was to end the program—which he did, once elected. But then the courts sided with some Republicans who sued to maintain the policy. Now, all of a sudden, the president’s hands are tied—nothing he can do about it, he says!

The policy’s formal name is “Migrant Protection Protocols.” It sounds like a sick joke, because in reality, migrants on the Mexican side of the border must run a gauntlet of predatory violence and terrible conditions. Migrants crowd into tent encampments in cold weather. There were at least 1,544 publicly documented cases of rape, kidnapping, assault, and other crimes committed against individuals sent back through February 2021, according to the organization Human Rights First. Many more go uncounted.

25,000 men, women and children languish in legal limbo under the system. Some wait for years. And only 1.6% of the migrants processed were granted asylum—that is about 500 out of 40,000.

And of course, thousands more migrants are expelled under a “public health” rule put in place by the Trump administration and continued by the Biden administration. They don’t even get the chance to huddle before the country’s doorstep.

Migrants are fleeing the devastation wrought by U.S. imperialism—poverty and extreme violence. They leave one dire situation only to confront another. If some hoped Biden would solve it, well, we can now see clearly where he stands.

Mega-Ships, Mega-Profits, Mega-Mess

Dec 6, 2021

The logjam of the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in California is unprecedented. The pile-up of container ships and containers already on the ground at the ports is continuing. Mega-ships are one of the reasons for this ongoing blockage and all the “not in stock” signs we experience.

A mega-ship can carry more than 20,000 containers. Even when the ports have enough longshoremen and cranes to unload 20,000 containers, each container needs an entire truck to carry it off somewhere. That’s a line-up of 20,000 trucks, for one ship. Picture it! When Britain was short of certain foods for a few weeks because truckers could not fill out the correct paperwork after Brexit was voted in, that was a line of 4,000 trucks—not 20,000! U.S. railroads are also short of cars to carry off containers. In October at one point, half a million containers were stuck on the docks of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

And because mega-ships are so huge, only eight ports throughout the country can handle them. These huge ships have been operating for about 25 years, so the lack of ability to handle them has another cause—profits. If twice as many ports could handle these ships, then they would be half as backed up.

Mega-ships are longer than four football fields from end to end and as high as a 10-story building. Currently the top ten ocean shipping companies control 80% of shipping, more than double what they used to control. That means they pushed half their competitors to either merge or go out of business. And they jacked up their prices over the past year, just as economies were trying to recover from pandemic shut-downs. That’s why eight of these companies are on track to make 100 billion dollars—just in profit, just in one year!

These mega-ships can cost close to a billion dollars to build. So that was the companies’ excuse to mark up the cost of shipping 400%, a cost that is passed on to the consumer. And Wall Street investors and speculators from hedge funds love to buy the stock of these companies. As a corporate consultant told the Los Angeles Times, "These companies are making enough money in one year to cover whatever investments they’ve made in the last 10. One entire voyage is enough to earn back the cost of an entire ship. That’s like taking one trip as an Uber driver and being paid the value of the car."

Not only does the world pay for their mega-profits. Remember the Ever Given mega-ship, wedged into the side of the Suez Canal? There’s a battle going on among the shipping insurers of the world, a battle that will cost billions of dollars and take years to untangle among their lawyers about who is responsible for the Ever Given disaster, when it blocked shipping, snarling containers for weeks and weeks, giving headaches and worse to customers all across the world.

Pages 6-7

What Happened in the 48 Years since Roe v. Wade?

Dec 6, 2021

Excerpts from The Class Struggle magazine, January 22, 2006.

On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court issued Roe v. Wade—the ruling that has stood ever since as the symbol of women’s freedom, banning Texas, and de facto the other states and the federal government, from “unwarranted” intervention in a woman’s decision concerning abortion. In the words of Margaret Sanger, who had been arrested a number of times in the early 1900s for providing women with information and means of birth control, it seemed that women finally had gained the right to “own and control their own bodies,” without which “no woman can call herself free.”

These legal decisions did not appear because of the good will of Democrats, as so many Democrats later would imply. Roe v. Wade was decided by a 7 to 2 majority. Of the seven justices who ruled for women, five had been appointed by Republican presidents. The two “no” votes came from one Republican appointee and one Democrat, Byron “Whizzer” White, who was put on the bench by his buddy, John F. Kennedy.

Nor were these decisions, appearing within a short 14 months of each other, the result of “activist judges,” as the opponents of abortion and many Republicans pretend. Rather, the decisions were a de facto recognition of the widespread mobilizations of the 1960s and early ‘70s, which were battering down many of the reactionary limitations put on the population, especially the black population and women.

Not trusting their fate to the “good will” of either judges or Congress, women’s organizations continued to mobilize.…

Few in the women’s movement at that moment imagined the ferocity with which religious forces would soon act to eliminate those rights, both legally and de facto. Nor was it yet so obvious that American society was quickly moving to stand on more reactionary ground. But the anti-war movement was over; the black mobilization, under the blows of a repressive state, was receding, encouraged to do so by a whole new layer of black politicians. With the economy in crisis and recession, both public and private employers began to attack their workforces to impose concessions, and unions were taking a big step backwards. This left the struggle of women fighting … isolated and more open to attack.

Trying to Impose a Religious Agenda on Secular Society

While the Equal Rights Amendment was the original focus for fundamentalist religious forces, the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision on abortion provided the goal around which they really mobilized….

The ink had barely dried on the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, when the churches went knocking on the politicians’ doors. The very first one to open up to them was Democratic Senator Frank Church, known for his supposedly liberal stance on many issues. Within days of the decision, he proposed an amendment to a funding measure, which the Senate quickly passed, and the House ratified with the support of most Democrats and Republicans. In the euphoria following Roe v. Wade, that measure may have seemed innocuous to many people, but it has since proved to be the basis for the single biggest limitation set on abortion. It allowed medical providers (including not only doctors, nurses, and other support personnel, but more importantly, the owners of hospitals and clinics) to “opt out” of performing abortions or sterilizations if these medical procedures violated “their moral or religious beliefs.” Very quickly, 46 of the 50 state legislatures passed similar “refusal” statutes. Such a limitation has never been set on other medical procedures—at least until a similar “opt-out” was extended to pharmacists whose “moral” standards are violated by dispensing birth control medication.

The ultimate consequence of this one proposal is that abortion is simply not available for most women in the country, at least not unless they travel great distances—and when they do that, they then run into other obstacles, including residency requirements, waiting periods, etc.

In the year 2000, 87% of counties had no abortion provider, with none at all in 97% of the country’s rural counties, and the situation is undoubtedly worse today. In that same year, eight states had five or fewer abortion providers for the whole state. Today, in Mississippi, there is only one clinic in the whole state that provides abortions, with doctors who come in from outside Mississippi, and that’s in the northern part of the state.…

In the … years since Roe v. Wade, the legal situation regarding abortion has become a patchwork of restrictions, which taken all together severely restrict access to legal, that is, safe, abortion. The single biggest of those restrictions was the so-called Hyde amendment—which forbade Medicaid from paying for abortions for women without financial means. In 1976, the last year before the amendment took effect, 300,000 low-income women obtained abortions through Medicaid. In the first two years after it went into effect, Medicaid paid for only 3,000 each year. And while Republicans were its major sponsors, it had to pass through a Senate that was controlled 60—37 by the Democrats, and a House, controlled 291—144 by them.

Only two months after the Hyde Amendment took effect, it claimed its first victim: Rosie Jiminez, a 27-year-old mother and low-paid factory worker who needed supplemental welfare aid as well as Medicaid. Denied payment for an abortion under the new rules, and unable to come up with the money for a legal abortion, she went to a “back-alley” abortionist, and died for her efforts, leaving a child behind. She was not the last poor woman to fall victim to Mr. Hyde….

If these religious forces succeed in imposing their agenda on the whole of society, they will take us back to the period before Roe v. Wade, when, according to figures supplied by NARAL (the National Abortion Rights Action League), there were almost as many abortions performed annually as there were in the years after the Court’s decision. Legal or illegal, there have been around a million abortions performed year after year, but with this difference: over 90% before 1973 were illegal, most of those performed under unsafe conditions. Obviously, estimates of illegal abortions can only be educated guesses. But what has been documented are the 350,000 women a year who arrived before 1973 in hospital emergency rooms as the result of botched abortions, and the number of women who died each year, ranging from nearly 1,000 to as many as 5,000.

Pretending to speak for “life” is nothing but a cynical ploy by religious zealots who are ready to leave a trail of dead female bodies in their wake….

Religious Ideology in the Service of Oppression

Despite differences stemming from the times in which they were born, all the modern religions are misogynist by nature. It’s not an accident, but rather an expression of the needs of the class societies in which they were born and evolved….

Like all the fundamentalist tendencies, Christian fundamentalism in this country seeks to control through religion not only the opinions, morals, and private behavior of its own adherents, but the entire political and social life of the country, that is, secular society. In the words of Randall Terry, they want to “conquer this country” and impose by force patriarchal relations between human beings. Christian fundamentalism, like the other fundamentalist tendencies, is essentially political, offering itself in service to a repressive state against the whole of society.

Supreme Court Expected to Undermine Roe v. Wade

Dec 6, 2021

Defending a Mississippi law banning abortion at 15 weeks—with no exception for rape or incest—Scott Stewart, the state’s solicitor general, argued that Roe v. Wade has "no basis in the Constitution ... no home in our history or traditions." This Mississippi attorney nonchalantly said, in effect, that sexually abused girls and women raped by family or strangers must be denied access to legal abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The Roe v. Wade decision—delivered in 1973 when women were massively in the streets demanding equality—outlined a constitutional right to privacy and autonomy in making reproductive health decisions. The medical standard established by Roe was legal abortion up to the point of viability (the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb, now between 21 to 23 weeks).

Of over 7,000 cases the U.S. Supreme Court could have selected, hearing the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization signaled the court is ready to overturn almost 50 years of federal protection of the right to legal abortion in the U.S. The court heard oral arguments on December 1.

Arguing for women to have access to abortion, attorney Julie Rikelman said pregnancy itself, "imposes unique physical demands and risks on women." She explained that in Mississippi, women are 75 times more likely to die giving birth than when undergoing a pre-viability abortion!

Television reporting of proceedings before the three liberal justices and six conservative justices was stunning. In the words of abortion rights lawyer Mary Ziegler, "It was clear that big changes were coming to U.S. abortion law, no matter what … the only real question is how the justices will rationalize their decision to side with Mississippi …. I now believe that the justices will fully overturn Roe v. Wade when their decision comes down next year."

It is expected that in June or July of 2022, right before mid-term elections, the official announcement undermining or overturning Roe will be made. Conservatives on the court seemed unworried about a backlash. Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued, "Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the constitution and its reading are just political acts?"

While every act made by the Supreme Court IS a political act, Sotomayor’s underlying question was: Is this attack so obvious that the population will fight back?

A recent poll showed 75% of the U.S. says abortion is a decision to be made by a woman and her doctor and not the government. So, the coming Supreme Court decision will be another example of a minority dictating to the majority in this so-called democracy.

Overturning Roe would throw the question of abortion back 50 years to reproductive healthcare being decided on a state-by-state basis. That would trigger 21 states to ban most abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Five more states are expected to ban abortion quickly after a Roe v. Wade overturn.

It is poor and working class women and families who will suffer. A recent study of women seeking abortion found half had incomes below the poverty level. The study found that giving birth, instead of being able to access an abortion, resulted in an almost four-fold increase in women staying below the Federal Poverty Level. Wealthy women have the resources to get an abortion and never think twice about how to pay for it.

So, for those who wish to stand and fight for women’s right to a safe and legal abortion, the time to act is now. A massive mobilization would give the Supreme Court something to worry about as they write their “legal arguments” that provide cover for their political choices.

Extreme Right and the Courts

Dec 6, 2021

The conservative members of the U.S. Supreme Court who will decide the fate of abortion rights are all members of an organization called The Federalist Society. It is a network of 42,000 right-wing lawyers, with chapters at 150 law schools, and with 75 lawyers’ groups nationally.

Back in 2011, the executive director of the Federalist Society, Eugene B. Meyer, acknowledged that without major funding from a billionaire on the extreme right named John M. Olin, The Federalist Society “possibly wouldn’t exist at all.”

The Olin family made a lot of money in the chemical industry, some of which came from producing the banned pesticide DDT. The Olin Corporation was charged with dumping huge quantities of toxic mercury into the Niagara River in upstate New York. It was one of the polluters linked to the Love Canal toxic waste site in New York.

While accumulating wealth and damaging the environment, the family set up The John M. Olin Foundation as a family tax shelter. Over time, its “charitable work” came to be funding far-right causes. The fund spent itself out of existence in 2005, but not before it lavished over a third of a billion dollars perpetuating far-right ideas.

A special focus was on U.S. law schools. It spent millions at Harvard, Yale, and other leading law schools, educating future right-wing “legal scholars.” It funded all-expense-paid “judicial seminars” at luxury locations.

Before they were on the U.S. Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas each attended one of these “training junkets.”

So, the idea that the U.S. Supreme Court is somehow above the fray and not influenced by money is absolutely ridiculous!

Pages 8-9

Guadeloupe:
The Fight Continues

Dec 6, 2021

Translated from Lutte Ouvrière (Workers’ Struggle), the newspaper of the revolutionary workers’ group active in France.

The ongoing mass revolt in Martinique and Guadeloupe is starting to worry the government.

French Overseas Territories Minister Sebastien Lecornu came to the Caribbean, spending November 28 and 29 in Guadeloupe and the following day in Martinique. On November 27, nearly 15,000 demonstrators in the cities of Pointe-à-Pitre and Basse-Terre marched alongside neighborhood carnival crews and protest movement activists. A real human tide. This mass was the “minority” that French President Emmanuel Macron derides! Both marches were extremely impressive.

In Guadeloupe, Lecornu’s first visit was to the forces of repression at the Jaille barracks. He also announced the bringing in of 70 additional gendarmes, as well as an additional 10 elite tactical GIGN gendarmes. Arrogance on display.

The morning of November 29 he was to meet with Pointe-à-Pitre leaders. But 300 demonstrators marched across the street to Place de la Victoire, crawling with police. Lecornu demanded that the 30 or so union and political organizations in the revolt pick a negotiations delegation of only six people, and then 10 people. This was an insult. Obviously, the 30 or so organizations demanded the presence of at least one member for each.

Lecornu then tried to impose as a prerequisite that the organizations in the struggle condemn “violence.” Incredible but true! He didn’t come to appease the revolt, but only to make a political statement, to meet with elected officials, and to make promises about autonomy for the islands.

The demonstration at the Place de la Victoire, with drums beating, lasted long after the government leaders left. Lecornu’s trip was a formality meant to demonstrate the firm policy of the French Republic and its “republican law.” That’s all he had on his tongue. The August 5 Law—the law of the Republic—will be maintained. But the demonstrators demand the fired workers be brought back with full pay. Lecornu retreated just a step, promising the deadline for bringing unvaccinated health workers into good standing would be postponed to December 31, as in Martinique. This minor retreat seemed very insignificant to everyone.

But the demonstration genuinely came from the streets. Road blockages have multiplied. Anger has amplified. The island is full of barricades. On the evening of Lecornu’s departure, roadblocks ignited everywhere, showing the anger of activists and young people. Roadblocks were proposed again for the following day. Many believe that the level of the fight must keep rising.

Martinique:
Strike, Roadblocks, Mass Revolt

Dec 6, 2021

Translated from Lutte Ouvrière (Workers’ Struggle), the newspaper of the revolutionary workers’ group active in France.

After a week of general strike and roadblocks in Martinique, the movement is not weakening. Negotiations which were to start on November 29 between the unions, the prefect, and the island’s other leaders remain at impasse.

The general strike began on November 15. It has grown since the call put out November 22nd by a coalition of unions and organizations of health workers and self-employed workers (fishermen, taxi drivers, etc.) A 13-point platform was drawn up opposing compulsory vaccination, condemning the lack of hospital resources and the high cost of living, and demanding massive job creation for young people. The demands also concern transportation, fishing, and culture.

But the demands of the strikers and ordinary people remain unanswered. The prefect’s disrespect for the workers’ delegation caused anger to mount. The strike was renewed. Many roads were blocked. Some roadblocks are organized around activists from the coalition. Others are staffed by young people from low-income neighborhoods, mainly at night.

But in reality, if some workers are on strike—including health care and social security workers who were on strike even before the movement started—the work stoppage is far from general. Activists took the lead in the mobilization, blocking the roads. Then very quickly, young people and ordinary people joined in. The movement is more of a social revolt among the poor than a real general strike. Every evening, young people build barricades with trash and burn cars. Facing police, some shoot live ammunition.

The anger of these young people so frightened the authorities that the prefect felt obliged to invite some of them to a meeting on November 26. Most of these young people are underemployed at best. Burning vehicles and businesses, looting, and other abuses are the expression of their rage against a society that offers them nothing. Many fall into delinquency. These young people are also fed up with the government’s contempt. Faced with their anger, the government has no other answer than to send police forces to suppress them.

But the young people of these neighborhoods have every interest in joining the workers in the fight against the vaccine mandate and the high cost of living. They have the same interests. We must demand increases in wages, pensions, and public benefits, as well as massive hiring, especially of young people. Alongside the workers, the youth could be a considerable force to back down big business and the government which serves it.

Food Prices:
Speculators Are Hungry for More

Dec 6, 2021

Translated from Lutte Ouvrière (Workers’ Struggle), the newspaper of the revolutionary workers’ group active in France.

The food price index compiled by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), rose by more than 30% in one year.

This particularly concerns wheat, meat, sugar, dairy products, and many other foods essential to people’s dietary needs.

These increases are said to be indirect consequences of Covid, or bad weather, or complications of the economic recovery. But it is not the virus that prevents small farmers from escaping poverty. Farmers are working hard to produce coffee, cocoa, peanuts, cotton, latex, and other cash crops. Those responsible for rising prices are the agro-industrial trusts, which impose their stranglehold on production chains and on processing and marketing networks.

In addition, foodstuffs—like other commodities—are subject to speculation, which pushes prices up. For financial vultures, food represents just another opportunity to make quick and easy profits. But for millions of people around the world, this means worsening poverty and the threat of famine.

Cobalt:
Real Price of “Green” Vehicles

Dec 6, 2021

So-called “green energy” electric vehicles have a cost that’s never counted—for those doing the labor to make these vehicles, and for those mining the raw materials going into them. One essential material used to manufacture rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles is cobalt, which must be mined.

Congo’s mines provide close to 70% of the world’s cobalt, under horrendous conditions. Many miners do not earn a living wage, have little or no health protections, and work long, long hours in unsafe working conditions, with degrading treatment. Many miners feel hopeless because they cannot pull themselves or their families out of poverty. One miner in Congo said, “We were working hard, without any breaks, for $2.50 a day. If you didn’t understand what the boss said to you, he would slap you in the face. If you had an accident, they would just fire you.”

Because cobalt is a highly prized material, workers and their children in Congo also mine cobalt, by grabbing a pickax and shovel and starting to dig. They are known as “artisanal miners.” As much as 30% of Congo’s cobalt production comes from artisanal mining. In these makeshift mines, some artisanal miners die after pits and tunnels they dig collapse. Most of them suffer poor health at a young age.

Giant automakers like Ford, Honda, General Motors, and Tesla buy cobalt battery components to manufacture their electric vehicles. These are enormously profitable companies, with Tesla, producing only electric vehicles, now valued at more than a trillion dollars.

Other companies claim they will produce only electric vehicles after 2030. Because of this electric vehicle hype, the demand for cobalt is skyrocketing. And with this demand, cobalt prices are soaring.

But these soaring cobalt prices do not improve the social conditions of Congo’s workers. In 2018, three quarters of the Congolese people, about 65 million people, lived on less than the international poverty rate of $1.90 a day. Congo has the third-largest population of poor people in the entire world.

Under capitalism, everything comes at a dire price for the working class. While corporate managers boast, this system consumes cobalt miners’ lives.

Greenhouse Gases:
Blame the Rich Countries

Dec 6, 2021

The politicians of the rich countries, meeting recently to do blah, blah, blah about climate change and greenhouse gases, have found their scapegoat, China, the world’s biggest polluter.

With more than 10 megatons of pollution produced per year right now, China’s population suffers a lot when breathing the air in its most industrial cities. And China’s manufacturers certainly use the most coal to fuel their factories.

Why does China use the most coal? Because the richer countries control the production of crude oil and natural gas, making it more expensive for the world’s poorer countries to pay for power. On the other hand, China produces a third of the world’s solar power and is the world’s largest producer of wind energy, making the country more “green” than the rest of the world’s manufacturers.

Here is the irony: who does China produce for? Its own population consists of about a billion of the poorer people on the earth. China’s billionaires own or manage the factories that make products for the rest of the world, especially for the richer countries. The pollution from all this manufacturing wrecks the air of China’s cities but could be attributed to the desire for profit of the world’s richest capitalists.

The United States produces twice as much pollution for every man, woman and child of its population as does China. And the U.S. has been putting these pollutants into the air, water, and earth for more than 100 years.

It is also the case that European countries produce, all together, 80% of the pollution per man, woman and child as China does.

But let’s point the finger at a poor country, not at the rich countries, which began polluting the earth for the benefit of their ruling classes back in the 1700s, when China had no manufacturing except the silk and later opium prized by the European nobility.

How nice to blame China’s government for what the rich countries’ governments have been doing for centuries, to enrich a tiny minority—then and now.

Pages 10-11

Guadeloupe and Martinique:
Those Who Sow Misery Reap Anger!

Dec 6, 2021

Since last summer, there have been strong mobilizations against the vaccine pass and the vaccination mandate throughout the Caribbean. On the French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique this movement has turned into a general revolt.

During the day, health care workers, hotel and restaurant employees, firefighters, teachers, nursing home workers and striking construction workers have joined together on picket lines and roadblocks. At night, groups of young people seeking to challenge the police have set fires or looted.

The Covid rules—which require vaccinations for health care workers and a health pass to enter most public venues—were the spark that ignited the powder keg. Just like in the U.S., many caregivers have had to deal with the vaccine mandate, along with threats and sanctions, which many consider to be one more humiliation.

This reaction is understandable!

These workers risked their lives fighting against Covid-19. And they did it without any basic protection. Government officials refused to provide necessary staffing in hospitals. Nor did they provide proper material and equipment.

Now these hypocritical know-it-alls severely punish those who are not ready to be vaccinated, suspending them without pay!

Vaccination is a powerful way to combat the epidemic. But along with vaccinations, government officials have imposed authoritarian measures that are not healthy. These measures are highly political. They are used to control the workers and population. They are used to fire workers. They are another anti-worker attack. It is what health care workers in Guadeloupe and Martinique are fighting against. This fight is completely legitimate.

It is not surprising that there is so much distrust of the health care authorities all throughout the Caribbean. For decades, these officials allowed the big banana plantations to use dangerous pesticides that poisoned farm workers, the soil and groundwater.

And that is not all. In Guadeloupe and Martinique there is terrible poverty. Almost one-third of the population on the two islands lives below the poverty line. Much of the youth cannot find a job. Workers are paid very low wages and the cost of living is extremely high.

These are the same kinds of conditions that spurred a general strike and massive demonstrations back in 2009.

The government and news media harshly condemn what they call gangs of young “thugs” for sowing “anarchy” and “chaos.” But when there is no electricity or street lighting for months, when garbage collection is sporadic and water outages happen on a regular basis, it is also a form of chaos.

And it is the government that causes this chaos!

If the pressure cooker has exploded, it is the government that is responsible. And the government’s response, sending in extra security forces and police, is only adding fuel to the fire.

Right now, people’s anger takes various forms. But this anger can and should be directed against the government and employers. Workers can do this when they use the power of the strike. By organizing themselves by their workplaces, by cutting off the source of their employers’ profits, working people can advance their own demands.

This would constitute progress for the entire population: more hiring, big wage increases, and more wage increases when prices go up, repairing vital public services that have been allowed to fall apart for decades.

So yes, such a social revolt would be a source of inspiration for all of us, including for working people in the U.S.

Culture Corner—Inglorious Empire & Who Killed Malcolm X

Dec 6, 2021

Book: Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India by Shashi Tharoor, 2017.

This book exposes the lie that the British Empire helped develop a backward colony. In this time of Brexit isolationism, increased racism and anti-immigrant hate, this book battles the lingering misconception that colonizing a country brings benefits to it.

Pre-colonial India was a wealthy, cultured society. Britain played on existing class and regional divisions to divide and conquer, or just used brute force to murder thousands who stood in its way, to loot and plunder India’s wealth. In addition to the looting, the book shows how it also used India as a cash cow by imposing a horrific tax system that combined to decrease the average life span to only 30 years, caused millions and millions of deaths and periodic widespread famine, and finally left the country impoverished. The cumulative effect is devastating.

Film Miniseries: Who Killed Malcolm X, a six part documentary series on Netflix, 2020.

This series has been in the news lately, as its release created a huge stir: After 55 years (!), it forced New York district attorneys to exonerate two men falsely convicted of murdering Malcolm X, men who spent decades behind bars. But the documentary is much more than a “crime story.”

The man behind the search for the truth, Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, was three years old when Malcolm X was assassinated. As a result of police brutality when he was 14, he was inspired by Malcolm X, joined the Nation of Islam, and spent his life pursuing the truth behind Malcolm’s murder. The film shows him interviewing people and researching documents, including the FBI and Red Squad surveillance tapes and papers, and he reports on the cover-ups, untruths, and unanswered questions. The film shows, through archival footage, Malcolm’s growth, and his electrifying and unifying impact, and how that threatened the power establishment and corrupt individuals.

The film provides a rich biography and leaves hanging questions that are still unanswered today.

Page 12

If Left to Authorities, Ahmaud Arbery’s Killers Would Have Gone Unpunished

Dec 6, 2021

Many people who recognized the killing of Ahmaud Arbery as murder felt some sense of relief and some measure of justice in the convictions of his three killers. Yet it’s important to remember that if it had been left up to the local authorities, Arbery’s killers would have gotten away scot-free.

The local police didn’t arrest Arbery’s killers—Travis McMichael, his father Greg McMichael, and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan—until 2½ months after his murder. The white local Glynn County prosecutor, Jackie Johnson, not only refused to charge the three men, she directed Glynn County cops not to arrest them. Johnson handed the case off to a second prosecutor in a different county who also refused to prosecute the killers. George Barnhill, the Waycross County district attorney, sent a letter to local police saying the killers were justified under the state’s citizen’s arrest law because their intent was to stop a “criminal suspect.” In other words, Barnhill turned the blame for the killing onto Arbery himself, though there was no evidence he was guilty of any crime!

The local cops blatantly lied when they first informed Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, of how he died. They said her son had committed a burglary and was confronted and killed by the homeowner. Videos from the house under construction that Arbery was seen walking in clearly show he never took anything. They also show several instances of white people doing exactly the same thing, yet no action was ever taken against them.

It was only after the cellphone video taken by Bryan became public that anyone in authority called for the three killers to be arrested. The video only came to light because the shooter’s father, Greg McMichael, was so certain the three could get away with the killing that he gave the video to the police. Even the lawyer defending the killers believed his clients would be let off, so he intentionally leaked the video to "dispel rumors," as he put it, about the murder.

It was only after Arbery’s mother expressed outrage about her son’s killing, and many people publicly protested the killing, that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took up the case and a third prosecutor from a distant county finally brought charges. Even then, Travis McMichael was so confident he would be acquitted that he testified during the trial. In his testimony, he was forced to admit that Ahmaud Arbery never threatened him in any way.

So yes, a jury was willing to vote to convict Ahmaud Arbery’s killers of murder. Had no video come to light, and without the efforts of Wanda Cooper-Jones and protests by many others, the local authorities would have swept the murder of a black man, who was simply out for a jog, under the rug. Just as so many other similar lynchings have gone unpunished before.

Michigan School Shooting Tragedy

Dec 6, 2021

All over the country, people have expressed their horror and sorrow about the latest school shooting, in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, with four young people dead and eight wounded. The student accused of these shootings has been arrested and charged with homicide as an adult, although he is 15. His parents were recently arrested and charged with felonies as well.

Whatever details come out in the months to come, we see again that we live in a culture that glorifies violence and tallies the most homicides in the world, with almost no control over firearms. We see that weapons are very simple to buy, with few conditions on gun safety or learning how to shoot.

And this case may also indicate another aspect of gun violence that is striking all over this country: a mental health crisis for young people. Early reports indicate that this young man who is accused of killing and wounding classmates did want help and did not get it, even up to and including on the day of the shooting.

But this country has almost no assistance to give young people unless parents are wealthy enough to pay for private care in what amounts to fancy lock-ups with nurses and a few doctors. And even in those cases, patients do not always get the care they need.

For parents or young people who have fewer means, neither schools nor communities have resources to help with mental health. The public health system has been gutted, and barely functions, as the pandemic shows too clearly. Schools have long since stopped having nurses or social workers on-site.

In a society so isolating and dehumanizing, a society that stigmatizes mental health assistance and makes such assistance nearly impossible to find, these tragedies will continue to happen.

Open Jobs?
Maybe. But They Don’t Pay

Dec 6, 2021

They keep saying there are all kinds of jobs out there for young people. Maybe more bosses are hiring than a few months ago. Maybe this is even the best that modern-day capitalism has to offer for young workers.

But what kind of jobs are really on offer?

Jobs at small places like gas stations or fast food, or entry-level at FedEx or Amazon. These jobs are notorious for offering few if any benefits, and low wages.

Maybe a young worker can get in at what used to be a relatively decent job like the Post Office or as a bus driver—but those jobs aren’t what they used to be.

So yes, a young person today might be able to get a job. But a job that pays enough for young workers to get their own place, or start a family, is another question.

When technology keeps improving, when we have all the wealth created by previous generations, why should we accept that the next generation lives worse than the last?

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