2020-06-19: News Headlines

Richard D. Wolff (2020-06-19). How Workers Can Win the Class War Being Waged Against Them. counterpunch.org Organized labor led no mass opposition to Trump's presidency or the December 2017 tax cut or the failed U.S. preparation for and management of COVID-19. Nor do we yet see a labor-led national protest against the worst mass firing since the 1930s Great Depression. All of these events, but especially the unemployment, mark an employers' class war against employees. The U.S. government directs it, but the employers as a class inspire and benefit the most from it.

Peoples Dispatch (2020-06-19). Communist Party of India (Marxist) stages protest against government's anti-people policies. peoplesdispatch.org The CPI(M) has demanded cash and grain transfers, 200 days of work under the rural employment scheme, an unemployment allowance and an end to the privatization of state enterprises…

Pete Dolack (2020-06-19). The Political Economy of Covid-19. counterpunch.org Governments around the world are attempting to prop up a failing capitalist system by — surprise! — throwing money at wealthy individuals and corporations, especially in the financial industry. In other words, in this time of unprecedented crisis and economic difficulty, it's business as usual. We were here not much more than a decade ago,

W. T. Whitney Jr. (2020-06-19). Economic collapse and unemployment councils — then and now. peoplesworld.org Hunger, homelessness, and evictions were features of the Great Depression in the United States. Jobs disappeared and working conditions deteriorated. Some "250,000 teenagers were on the road." And how many others? By 1933, one-third of farm families had lost their farms. Unemployment that year was 25%. The lives of working people were devastated. The federal …

WSWS (2020-06-19). US jobless disaster intensifies as 1.5 million filed for unemployment last week. wsws.org Mass joblessness in the US is unlike anything seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Fight Back (2020-06-19). July 31 cutoff looms for unemployed. fightbacknews.org San José, CA – In six weeks, tens of millions of unemployed people face the end of the additional $600 a week in unemployment insurance benefits. This additional benefit that helps low income workers the most is set to expire due to its being opposed by the Republican-controlled Senate. These same workers were hardest hit by the pandemic recession, and many face the prospect of their jobs not coming back. This is just another example of how the economic relief has helped large corporations, which can aided by the Federal Reserve, while low-income workers are subject to punishment by republicans who see the aid as…

Norbert Trenkle (2020-06-19). Climate crisis and social transformation in the age of Corona. indybay.org Material wealth in the form of useful things and utilities is only a means subordinated to the objective of capital accumulation and is sacrificed when that objective can no longer be achieved… Without the state, capitalist society would fly apart immediately. The state, however, is an essential precondition for abstract wealth production and dependent on it.

Staff (2020-06-18). Why You Should Give a F*ck | Ep. 2 | Unemployment. therealnews.com We take a look at what it means to be unemployed, while diving deeper into the impact unemployment can have on daily life.

Stephen Lendman (2020-06-18). The Plot to Make Trump a One-Term President? Why Do They Want him Out? Will a Biden Presidency Make a Positive Difference? globalresearch.ca Why would perhaps a majority of the US ruling class want Trump defeated in November? | Even though he's far from a prototypical Western leader — a businessman/reality TV personality turned politician — he aided and abetted the greatest wealth transfer …

WSWS (2020-06-18). COVID-19 killing the working class in Britain at more than twice the rate of the wealthiest. wsws.org The pandemic is exacerbating the effects of already growing socioeconomic and urban inequalities.

_____ (2020-06-18). US Trails World In Coronavirus Response And Almost Everything Else. popularresistance.org Data from around the world on how nations are handling Coronavirus makes clear that, as in most things (this claim is documented below), the United States is exceptionally awful. Among wealthy countries, only Sweden, which has chosen to intentionally allow the disease to spread, has done worse. A handful of countries in Latin America and the Middle East are doing worse than the United States, though some are doing better. As in many world rankings, as documented below, the United States looks fair to middling as a third-world country, but off-the-charts terrible as a wealthy country — much less as a country…

_____ (2020-06-18). What Would The Black Panthers Think Of Black Lives Matter? popularresistance.org The U.S. ruling class, whose capitalist system is the historical midwife of modern racism, is not threatened by the racialist and black-capitalist BLM. But just to make sure that black anger is kept within safe political boundaries, a critical, cash-rich arm of concentrated wealth agreed last year to lavishly fund the group and a significant number of black middle class-led policy and advocacy groups coming in under its rubric. | In August 2016, when I first heard that BLM had scored $100 million from the Ford Foundation and other elite philanthro-capitalists (including the Hill-Snowden Foundation, the NoVo Found…

yenisafak (2020-06-18). Merkel urges EU compromise on COVID-19 recovery package. yenisafak.com German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on EU member states to reach a quick compromise on the COVID-19 economic recovery package, and warned that the bloc is facing the biggest challenge since its foundation.Addressing lawmakers in parliament on Thursday, a day before a key summit of European leaders via videoconference, Merkel said the coronavirus crisis has deepened inequality within the EU, indicating the bloc was vulnerable."Cohesion and solidarity in Europe have never been as important as they are now," she stressed, adding that no country can withstand this crisis alone.Merkel urged EU members, which ex…

yenisafak (2020-06-18). NGO sounds alarm on use of wild plants to cure COVID-19. yenisafak.com Wild plant species are under pressure due to its usage to treat COVID-19 and make money, according to the report published by the international wildlife watchdog TRAFFIC on Thursday."Wild plant species used in herbal treatments of COVID-19 are set to come under heightened harvesting pressure, both as a result of increased demand and because of more people turning to wild harvesting as an alternative source of income during times of high unemployment and economic crisis," TRAFFIC said.The report asserted that herbal products containing wild plant ingredients are used to prevent and treat COVID-19 in South America,…

Alan Macleod (2020-06-17). "It Will Take Me Just Under Twenty Five Years to Pay off the First Surgery" — Journalist Blinded by Cops Speaks Out. mintpressnews.com "The only reason I'm dealing with this so well is I think poverty and low wage work is just as brutal and visceral as losing an eye to a police bullet." – Linda Tirado…

Graham Peebles (2020-06-17). Global Issues Require United Action and a Reinvigorated UN. dissidentvoice.org Whatever corner of the world one happens to live in, the most pressing issues of the day affect everyone. Pandemics/epidemics and the environmental emergency; war and terrorism; poverty and food insecurity; overpopulation and the displacement of persons. Such crises cannot be limited by borders or controlled by nation states; no government or corporate power can …

Massoud Nayeri (2020-06-17). Bipartisan Deadlock: Working People and Youth Must Call for President Trump's Resignation Now! Joe Biden is Not An Alternative. globalresearch.ca The deep and insolvable differences among the wealthy elite indicate that the next U.S. President will be in the office by use of force, not through election and votes. Both the Democratic and Republican parties are preparing the American people …

Chuck Collins (2020-06-17). Move Charity Dollars to the Front Lines. counterpunch.org Congress should pass a three-year "Emergency Charity Stimulus" to move $200 billion to frontline working nonprofit groups by increasing payout requirements for private foundations and donor-advised funds. These billions have already been paid for by tax breaks taken by wealthy donors. This is $200 billion that won't add a penny to what taxpayers will pay.

_____ (2020-06-17). Report: Unemployment by Christmas could reach over 3 million. truepublica.org.uk Boris Johnson has been warned 10 per cent of the British workforce could be unemployed by the end of December, due to the economic fallout of the coronavirus crisis. A ten per cent unemployment figure would mean 3.3 million people out of work in the UK. These levels (numerically, not a percentage of population) have …

yenisafak (2020-06-17). 'Turkish social aid program reached over 6M households'. yenisafak.com The Turkish state helped millions of families through social assistance programs and offered financial support worth billions of dollars during the COVID-19 outbreak, a top government official said on Wednesday.The government launched the Social Protection Shield program to cater to citizens' needs during the pandemic, Zehra Zumrut Selcuk, Turkey's family, labor and social services minister, told Anadolu Agency's Editor's Desk.She said the program includes services such as short-time work allowance, unemployment benefits, cash support, and social assistance.According to the minister, the government has so far ex…

Staff (2020-06-17). Post-COVID Economy May Have More Robots, Fewer Jobs and Intensified Surveillance. truthout.org Spurred on by the coronavirus pandemic, global capitalism is on the brink of a new round of worldwide restructuring based on a much greater digitalization of the entire global economy and society. This restructuring began in the wake of the 2008 Great Recession but the changing social and economic conditions brought about by the pandemic will vastly accelerate the process. It is likely to heighten the concentration of capital worldwide and worsen social inequality. Enabled by digital appli…

Andrea Germanos, staff writer (2020-06-16). Failed For-Profit Healthcare 'Will Continue to Compound Pandemic's Effect' in US, Warns Nobel Economist. commondreams.org "Anything is better than pretending that the market can deliver healthcare—because it can't," says laureate Angus Deaton. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/deaton-inequality-covid.jpg

RT (2020-06-16). Shake Shack 'NYPD poisoning' bites ex-POTUS candidate Yang due to poorly timed Twitter thread. rt.com Former US presidential candidate Andrew Yang inadvertently put his foot in it when he started a seemingly innocuous Twitter thread comparing US burger joints — just as news broke of NYPD officers being poisoned. | The former entrepreneur and candidate-turned-commentator asked his 1.5 million followers to help settle a debate he was having with his sons, and to choose between the Five Guys and Shake Shack fast-food outlets. | My boys think Shake Shack is better than Five Guys. Right or wrong?— Andrew Yangüߢüá∫üá∏ (@AndrewYang)…

The Canary (2020-06-16). Johnson scraps international development department in Foreign Office merger. thecanary.co The prime minister has announced he is to scrap the Department for International Development (DfiD) in a merger with the Foreign Office.The move, which has come under fire from former international development secretaries and Opposition MPs, will see the creation of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.Boris Johnson, in a statement to MPs, said it was "outdated" to keep the departments separate.He told the Commons: "We must now strengthen our position in an intensely competitive world by making sensible changes.Aid will be overseen by the Foreign Secretary as part of the shake-up (L(Phot) Joel Rouse/M…

The Canary (2020-06-16). Sturgeon warns against 'reckless relaxation' of lockdown measures. thecanary.co There must not be a "reckless relaxation" of coronavirus lockdown measures to get Scotland's economy moving again, first minister Nicola Sturgeon has said. | It comes as official figures show the number of Scots out of work increased by 30,000 to 127,000 over the period February to April. | With unemployment rising, she said an extension to the UK government's furlough scheme, in which public funds have paid the wages of hundreds of thousands of Scots, is almost certainly essential. | The impact of the job retention scheme means the latest figures are "likely to be an underestimate of the full impact of Covid-19"

commondreams (2020-06-16). Research Note: Number of People in Families With Below-Poverty Earnings Has Soared, Especially Among Black and Latino Individuals. commondreams.org ______________________________…

WSWS (2020-06-16). UK: Pandemic produces surge in household debt, accelerates child poverty. wsws.org Tens of thousands of jobs have already gone, and job losses are expected to mount as companies take advantage of the situation to impose long-term restructuring plans.

The Canary (2020-06-16). Racism has contributed to risk of BAME communities dying from Covid-19 — report. thecanary.co Racism and social inequality have contributed to the increased risk of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities (BAME) contracting and dying from Covid-19, according to a new study. | The report — from Public Health England (PHE) and based on stakeholder engagement with 4,000 people — found that historic racism may mean people are discriminated against when it comes to personal protective equipment (PPE) and may result in people from BAME backgrounds being less likely to seek care or demand better protection. | The report points to a raft of recommendations from stakeholders, including the need to…