Socialist Alternative 69 - December/January 2020-2021

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COVID VACCINE THE SQUAD LATIN AMERICA IN REVOLT

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Why I Joined Socialist Alternative

New York City, NY.

Time To Fight For The Relief We Need Rebecca Green, NYC

Unemployment

The U.S. government has not provided any relief for ordinary Americans in four months.

Now, at the end of December, Congress is inching toward a devastatingly inadequate stimulus bill that provides minimal relief for working people, and simply kicks the can down the road on mass evictions and debt collection.

Working people and youth have upheld our end of the bargain: we stayed home, put on masks, tried to help our kids with online learning. Our elected officials did not uphold theirs. They played politics with our lives and withheld additional stimulus during the biggest economic and public health crisis of the past century.

The new bi-partisan stimulus bill that seems likely to pass in mid-December will do very little to stave off financial ruin for millions. Correctly, Bernie Sanders opposes this bill and is demanding something far more robust. The labor movement and youth need to get organized and prepare to hit the streets if our elected officials continue to twiddle their thumbs and bail out billionaires.

If the Democrats really cared about the one in three families with children that don’t know where their next meal would come from, stubborn Republicans simply would not have been enough to stop them. Or, as Bernie Sanders said in an interview with Jake Tapper, they would have accepted Trump’s $1.8 tril. package. They would have looked for any avenue to win relief – including mobilizing a mass movement to target Republican lawmakers and demand they support stimulus for working families.

Ten million jobs have been lost since the beginning of the pandemic. As the U.S. breaks records every day of confirmed COVID deaths, cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco are closing restaurants and bars again, meaning many service jobs are back on the chopping block. Hundreds of thousands of small businesses have been forced to close, wiping out hundreds of thousands of jobs.

For a five month period, those of us who lost our jobs because of COVID closures received our state unemployment plus an additional $600 a week. That money is long gone, and in states like Arizona, the maximum monthly unemployment benefit is $960 - average rent is $1,495. By September, 4.6 million more people were living in poverty than before the pandemic.

And even the meager state unemployment that millions have been surviving on is about to disappear. The CARES Act, the last stimulus bill that was passed by Congress in March, extended eligibility for unemployment to include gig workers, the self-employed and freelancers. This ends December 31, and an estimated 12 million Americans will be kicked off the roles. As of now, the bipartisan stimulus bill does not extend these benefits.

Housing Millions will wake up January 1 with no benefits and no job prospects, and rent will be due. An estimated 5.8 million people said it was likely they would face eviction by the end of the year. 17.8 million are behind on their rent or mortgage payments.

As part of the original CARES Act, a federal eviction moratorium was passed

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The first “light bulb” came on shortly after Trump’s 2016 victory. After reverseengineering that election, I realized that as dangerous as Trump was, I didn’t miss the Obama administration. I was unsatisfied with the liberal idea of “resistance,” and I spent two years drifting left, paying closer attention to the news and picking up some theory along the way. Eventually it became obvious that the division of the world into haves and have-nots was, and still is, our deepest source of conflict.

But I was still without any place to act on this knowledge. That is, until a friend moved to Boston (where I lived at the time) and told me to check out this group they had just joined called Socialist Alternative.

A month or two later, I sat in on a meeting and heard the story of how SA took part in the Oakland teacher’s strike. After seeing that there were people and a party who really were dedicated to this kind of work, and who took seriously the idea that we can fight for (and win!) a better world, I knew I had to sign up. Things got going quickly – just weeks after I joined, SA took part in the Stop & Shop strike. Selling the paper and walking a picket line were some of the first things I did as a member!

It’s a year and a half later, and I’ve since moved back to my hometown of Dallas, where I’m proud to say the organization continues to grow. North Texas alongside state and citywide provisions to protect renters who were out of work.

The federal moratoriums didn’t prevent late fees, or alleviate accumulating back rent, and some landlords and judges evicted tenants anyways. Three out of ten rental assistance programs passed or expanded under the pandemic have closed.

It is possible that we will see an extension of the eviction moratorium with the new stimulus bill, but even that is not enough. We need a cancellation of rent for the duration of the crisis and a forgiveness of the between $34 and $70 billion in accumulated rental debt!

Debt In March, the U.S. Department of Education offered student loan borrowers a break from their monthly payments. Eighty nine percent of all borrowers, or 37 million Americans with federal student loans took them up on that offer. This deferment will likely continue with the new bill, but it won’t be long before 42 million Americans will be back on the hook for an average $400 a month student loan payment. We desperately need a cancellation of student debt, something Biden is within his right to execute on day one in the White House!

Not too far behind student loan debt is medical debt, which reached an eye popping $45 billion in September. Now, the insured and growing numbers of uninsured alike are being slapped with exorbitant costs if they get seriously sick with COVID. The average cost of care for a 50-year-old without insurance hospitalized for COVID is $78,569;

Dante Flores Dallas, TX Socialist Alternative has seen promising growth in membership, and we have no intention of stopping. All across the state, there are working-class Texans drawing revolutionary conclusions. They recognize that the COVID, housing, immigration, and environmental crises will rage on, no matter who is in the White House, and that fixing any of it will take a mass movement of working people. It’s exciting to see the state so close to my heart enter a new political landscape, and it will be invigorating to stand beside it in the fight for equality and justice. J

the median yearly income for a 50-year-old: $58,000.

This Is It Nancy Pelosi has said that she will accept the deal that’s on the table because Biden will soon be in office and provide sweeping relief.

In March, the Democrats pushed through the CARES Act, which had a number of provisions that temporarily softened the blow for working people like the unemployment top up and stimulus checks, but primarily served to bail out big business and saw funds for small businesses funnelled to corporations. The Democrats told us: don’t worry, we’ve compromised this time, but more relief will come.

And now they’re singing a familiar tune: don’t worry, we’ve compromised this time, but more relief will come.

Ten times out of ten, the Democrats would prefer to kick the can down the road, and then point the finger at Republicans rather than put up a fight. This compromising approach is criminal in the face of unprecedented overlapping crises for tens of millions of Americans facing financial ruin, homelessness, mental crisis, and disease.

It is time to stop letting corporate politicians play politics with our lives. They’re letting us starve and laying down the red carpet for their billionaires buds who have made over $1 trillion during this pandemic. Bernie Sanders, the Squad and the labor movement need to take a stand and start mobilizing workers and youth. We will need to get organized independently, not wait for another corporate politician to enter the White House, to fight for real relief from this disaster. J S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

C O R O N AV I R U S

From the Lab to Your Upper Arm

CHALLENGES AHEAD FOR THE COVID VACCINE Keely Mullen, NYC

The last chapter of 2020 reads like a Hollywood blockbuster. The multinational race for a COVID vaccine has culminated in three viable candidates: Pfizer, Moderna, and Astra-Zeneca. They’ve spent months tripping over one another to get across the finish line, and now as the curtain draws on 2020, vials are being packed up in GPS-tracked, ultracold shipping containers and sent to hospitals and pharmacies across the country.

Representatives of the billionaire class like Goldman Sachs economists are banking on widespread COVID immunity by the spring.

They’re predicting 50% of the U.K. population will be immunized by March, allowing big business to jumpstart their profit making machines. But, resolving the COVID story arch won’t be so easy, and there is no quick fix for the economic and health crisis facing working people. One tremendous challenge we now face is getting the vaccine from the loading dock to your upper arm. This is no easy feat, especially on the basis of capitalism where logical planning is thrown out the window in the pursuit of maximizing profits.

Where Are We Now? Hospitals across the country are buckling under the demands of the record breaking spike in COVID cases. Small to medium sized facilities in hard-hit areas are being forced to stash ICU patients in ambulance bays until beds open up. Nurses and doctors are being asked to come out of retirement to alleviate staffing shortages. A University of Arizona COVID tracking unit warned that the state risks “a catastrophe on a scale of the worst natural disaster the state has ever experienced.”

Unless serious measures are taken to bring the virus under control, including shutting down non-essential businesses, which requires providing a new round of robust stimulus to workers and small businesses, things will get much, much worse.

The emergence of three viable vaccine candidates is extremely welcome news to all of us who have lost jobs, lost wages, lost loved ones, or lost our minds during this pandemic. Yet getting from where we are now, with a dramatic surge in COVID cases and the expiration of almost all emergency stimulus programs, to where we need to be, with widespread immunity, means overcoming some daunting hurdles.

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Clearing the First Hurdle: Development

The COVID vaccines were indeed developed at “warp speed.” Thanks for this goes not to Trump or his bombastic COVID response team, but is due instead to the foresight of scientists around the world who had been studying coronaviruses for 20 years.

But unfortunately, the scientific community does not float outside the confines of capitalism. Research and development for a number of vaccines has been prematurely cut off when there wasn’t money to be made.

Had proper resources been given to pandemic preparedness and were scientists not forced to beg big donors for grant money, we could have gotten COVID under control much sooner. As professor Jason Schwartz told The Atlantic: “Had we not set the SARS vaccine research program aside, we would have had a lot more of this foundational work that we could apply to this new, closely related virus.”

For this reason and others, the brand new technology used in COVID vaccines is largely untested, leaving open the possibility that they are not widely effective or have certain long term consequences.

The Next Hurdle: Scaling Up Billions of dollars were invested into developing the vaccines, but so far only millions have been invested in scaling up and distributing them. While there are federal guidelines for production and distribution, all the actual decision making has been left up to the states. States that have received $0 in federal dollars to carry out vaccine distribution, are seeing hospitals already stretched to maximum capacity, and are buckling under huge budget deficits.

States are expected to receive the first shipments of the vaccine within weeks. While this urgency is welcome, it means there’s very little time for them to answer burning questions including: Which agencies and authorities are taking up which component of this operation? Which vaccine are we receiving? How will it be stored once it arrives? Who is getting the vaccine first? How will we track who received which vaccine and when they need their second dose? Where will we get enough syringes? Vials? Gloves?

In receiving the vaccines, local authorities will need to navigate a web of shipping and logistics companies like UPS, FedEx, and certain airlines. These logistics networks are already under strain because of the dramatic surge in online shopping, especially as the holidays approach.

Once the vaccine arrives, where will it be stored? Some hospitals have gone out of their way to secure ultra-cold freezers which can maintain the Pfizer vaccine at -94 degrees Celsius. Many hospitals that are receiving the Pfizer vaccine however, especially underresourced rural hospitals, will likely store the vaccine in its “shipper.” Keeping the vaccine viable in the shipper means replacing at least 50 dry ice pellets (per shipper) every five days and using the contents within 15 days, otherwise the vaccines will degrade. States will need to pre-order vast amounts of dry ice in the middle of a national dry ice shortage.

Shippers also cannot be opened more than twice a day and for only a minute at a time otherwise the contents are compromised. It’s worth noting that these same hurdles don’t apply to the Moderna vaccine, which can be stored at regular freezer temperature.

Once the question of storage is resolved, there is a short window wherein the vaccines need to be administered before they’re no longer viable. This means that before the vaccines arrive, you need to have sufficient administration tools: syringes, vials, and gloves at bare minimum. You also need healthcare workers trained in administering the vaccines which each have very specific instructions. These additional burdens

are being placed on healthcare workers in the context of a staffing shortage at hospitals across the country which have triggered strikes and workplace actions for safe staffing in New York, Massachusetts, and elsewhere.

Beyond administering the vaccine, there is the challenge of tracking who has received it, which vaccine they received, and when they are due for their second dose. The dose intervals are different for each vaccine and ensuring that people go in for their second dose will be a logistical challenge in and of itself.

And all of this is happening in the context of a huge amount of vaccine skepticism which will require a massive campaign to overcome.

What Needs to Happen?

The dysfunction described above is not necessary or somehow predetermined. All of the challenges and complications have logical solutions. Solutions that, on the basis of capitalism, are cast aside because they interfere with the narrow profit interests of competing corporations.

Instead of leaving this process up to “the invisible hand of the market,” there needs to be a national, publicly controlled plan to achieve mass immunity to COVID. The first step needs to be the immediate, sweeping use of the Defense Production Act which grants the President the power to direct production during a time of crisis.

Through this, currently stalled manufacturing plants could be ordered to immediately begin mass producing vials, syringes, and gloves.

continued on p.11

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POLITICS

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE WHO NEEDS ENEMIES? Erin Brightwell, Oakland

With Democratic Party hopes for a bigger majority in the House dashed by a combination of anti-Trump voters who went with Republicans down ticket and 71 million Trump voters, it didn’t take long for the fireworks in the Democratic House caucus to start going off.

On a post-mortem conference call the Thursday after election day, conservative Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-VA, unleashed a profanity-laced attack on the deadweight dragging down the party: “socialism” which she alleges turned mainstream voters off from Democratic candidates. This was a thinly veiled attack on the progressives in the House who support Medicare For All, the Green New Deal, and other policies that are broadly popular with working people and youth.

Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, is fighting back against the idea that the U.S. electorate is too conservative for the pro-worker program that Bernie Sanders popularized. In the battle that has continued on Twitter and in the pages of the New York Times, AOC and other progressives have argued that it was actually right-leaning Democratic candidates in swing districts who were a liability in the voting booths. Unlike Spanberger, AOC brought receipts: an analysis from Justice Democrats and Sunrise Movement showed that progressive candidates got more vote share than conservative Democrats. In every swing district where a Democrat who supported Medicare For All was running, that candidate won; at least seven right-leaning Democrats in swing districts lost.

Battle in the House With a smaller House majority for the Democrats and new progressive House members, the debate between progressives and establishment Democrats is set to intensify.

All of the members of “The Squad,” AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Presley, and Ilhan Omar were reelected. They will be joined in Washington next year by Justice Democrats’ Jamaal Bowman of New York, Cori Bush of Missouri, and Marie Newman of Illinois, all of whom prevailed in the primaries against longtime establishment incumbents. Notably, Cori Bush, a longtime community activist, was a leader in the protests against the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014.

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As of this writing, it appears the Democrats’ majority will be in the vicinity of nine seats. With such a slim majority, it should be far easier for House progressives to organize together and insist that their priorities get into legislation.

Of course, this won’t be easy. Even in the largely symbolic Heros Act, the House leadership refused to add progressive priorities like a paycheck guarantee to avoid pushing workers onto unemployment, and free healthcare for the duration of the pandemic. Without any serious effort to win mass support for their initiatives, the progressive forces disintegrated and the bill passed easily without their additions. However, with a thin Democratic majority going forward, progressives should be able to force the establishment to negotiate with them.

Standing up to the House leadership will not be easy. AOC was clear about the price that is paid for any opposition to the Democratic establishment’s policies in an interview in the New York Times: “Externally, there’s been a ton of support, but internally, it’s been extremely hostile to anything that even smells progressive.”

This comment sums up the abusive relationship that exists between the Democratic establishment and much of the Democratic base. According to a Fox News exit poll, 72% of all voters, not just Democratic voters, want single payer healthcare. However, the Democratic establishment is completely opposed to cutting the profits of their corporate funders in the health insurance industry. The establishment wouldn’t even tolerate the passage of a temporary expansion of Medicare in a symbolic bill that had no chance of being signed into law, during a global pandemic.

The Establishment is Your Enemy Back in January, AOC actually went some distance toward diagnosing the real problem for progressives fighting for pro-worker measures from within the Democratic Party when she said that in any other country she and Joe Biden wouldn’t be in the same party.

At its highest levels, the Democratic Party is dominated by politicians who are tied by a thousand threads to the corporations and the billionaire class. It was this corporate

establishment that ferociously opposed Bernie Sanders’ campaign and his program of taxing the rich to pay for healthcare, student debt relief, and more.

In the same November interview from the New York Times, AOC seems to want to find a way to unite the opposing sides within the Democratic party: “So I need my colleagues to understand that we are not the enemy. And that their base is not the enemy. That the Movement for Black Lives is not the enemy, that Medicare for all is not the enemy.”

On this question, Socialist Alternative would argue that establishment Democrats actually have it right. They are our enemy. There are millions of working people, people of color, activists and progressives who are part of the Democratic base and millions more who have given up on politics, who correctly regard the corporations and their agents in congress as the enemy.

We think it would be a huge mistake for AOC or other members of The Squad to succumb to demoralization just as support for their ideas is growing. The strategy AOC, as well as Bernie Sanders, have been pursuing up to this point — of leveraging their assistance with campaigns in hopes of winning support from the establishment — is a completely failed strategy.

The Democratic Party establishment has shown again and again that it is determined to smother any embers of dissent within the party. If AOC and The Squad are to actually advance the interests of the masses of working and oppressed people, they will have to abandon both the idea that there can be unity between the progressives and the corporate forces within the Democratic Party, and ultimately the discredited Democratic Party itself.

Bernie Sanders’ campaigns — which were both sabotaged and blocked by the establishment — show that the road to winning policies like Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, free college, and an end to mass incarceration will not pass through the Democratic Party establishment. It will require a tremendous social movement — even beyond the scale of the social movements in the 1960s and ‘70s — that threatens to grind society to a halt, as well as political independence for the working class, to win these necessary reforms.

Concretely, there are two major steps that AOC and The Squad need to take to win Medicare for All: first, turn to a mass movement strategy. This will require building grassroots struggle and organization to fight for progressive policies. Bringing existing social movements like Black Lives Matter as well as progressive unions on board. The second thing The Squad will need to urgently do is join the effort to build a new political party that is independent of the capitalist class. A party that is accountable to the social movements and unions described above. Building a new party for the working class is the logical conclusion of all the hostility AOC describes within the Democratic Party. Addressing the hostility means leaving the party, not begging the establishment to be your friend. J

The establishment wouldn’t even tolerate the passage of a temporary expansion of Medicare in a symbolic bill that had no chance of being signed into law, during a global pandemic.

The Squad Needs to Build a Movement What will ease the very real loneliness of standing up for progressive ideas in Washington is the “external support” that AOC has pointed to. There are tens of millions of working people who deeply support progressive policies to achieve real change. What is missing is a vehicle through which a mass movement could effectively fight the billionaire class.

S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

POLITICS

Us Them

BIDEN’S FOREIGN POLICY

versus

Back to Normal Imperialism?

George Martin Fell Brown, Madison

system. As socialists, we oppose all imperialism, including first and foremost “our own.”

During the election, Biden promised that, as president, he would “repair the damage wrought by President Trump and chart a fundamentally different course for American foreign policy for the world as we find it today.”

Now that Trump is out, there are expectations that the Biden administration will signify a “reset” in world relations.

We can expect that a Biden administration will quickly take steps that will sharply distinguish the new administration, at least at the level of rhetoric, from Trump. However, there are serious problems with any hope for a “reset.” And any “reset” Biden conducts in world relations won’t represent the interests of working people at home or abroad.

The Middle East

“China. China. China. Russia.”

One of Biden’s advisers was quoted in the Financial Times describing Biden’s foreign policies as “China. China. China. Russia.”

The Trump administration was dominated by an escalating tariff war with China that went against the neoliberal orthodoxy Biden stands for. But there are limits to which Biden is able to, or even wants to, change the dynamic of this conflict.

Even before Trump, Obama’s goal with the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade alliance, which Trump pulled out of, was to “encircle” China and contain its further development.

While the Obama administration refrained from a full-scale trade war, Obama himself said in a recent interview in The Atlantic that “if we hadn’t been going through a financial crisis, my posture toward China would have been more explicitly contentious around trade issues.” Michèle Flournoy, Biden’s proposed pick for Defense Secretary, has also taken a hard line in favor of building up the U.S. military presence in the South China Sea. We can expect Biden to stress “human rights” as part of U.S. imperialism’s containment campaign to a much greater degree than Trump. And we can expect a reduction in overt sinophobic bigotry like Trump’s references to “the Chinese virus.” We should not expect any serious change in the conflict over technology including the U.S. exclusion of Huawei’s 5G network. Nor should we expect a reversal of the trend underway towards the decoupling of the U.S. and Chinese economies, with companies scaling back or pulling operations out of China and the breakup of the global supply chain into regional supply chains.

Biden’s attacks on China will highlight the “Communist” Party regime’s repression in Hong Kong and the detention of up to a million ethnic Muslim Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region. The CCP regime is indeed a brutal, chauvinist dictatorship. But the crimes of U.S. imperialism are even worse. From Vietnam to Iraq, the U.S. has slaughtered millions in the interests of defending the profit D E C E M B E R -J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 - 2 0 2 1

In the Middle East, a “reset” in world relations would be nothing to celebrate. Biden was a staunch supporter of Bush’s “war on terror” and its continuation under the Obama administration. During the election, Biden consciously courted Bush administration figures like Colin Powell. His proposed cabinet members responsible for world relations – Michèle Flournoy for Defense Secretary and Anthony Blinken for Secretary of State – are all staunch representatives of the rotten imperialist approach to the Middle East based on backing dictators and waging wars to maintain control over oil that brought millions of protesters into the streets in the 2000s.

Biden and his team will definitely try to pursue a different approach to the Iranian regime than Trump has. They are committed to trying to revive the Iran nuclear deal which Trump exited but, in practice, this may prove impossible. Iran is indicating it will demand restitution for the sanctions regime under Trump which would probably be politically impossible for Biden to concede. Even then, the administration will have clear limits as to how far it will be prepared to go to restart the nuclear agreement, with Blinken assuring “we will continue nonnuclear sanctions as a strong hedge against Iranian misbehavior in other areas.”

There are indications that Biden will adopt a less friendly posture to the Saudi regime. The relationship with Netanyahu will be similarly frosty. But this says more about how friendly Trump was with the Saudi and Israeli governments than it does about how unfriendly Biden will be. During the Obama administration, Biden, Blinken, and Flournoy maintained close ties with both countries, supporting the Saudi invasion of Yemen and increasing funding for Israel’s defense program.

A key foreign policy slogan in Biden’s election campaign was to “strengthen the coalition of democracies that stand with us.” This will face a serious test in the Middle East and North Africa. The approach of Biden and others came into question during the Arab Spring with mass uprisings directed against traditional U.S. allies in Egypt and Tunisia.

The dictatorship of Abel el-Sisi in Egypt, which came to power in a counter-revolutionary coup will serve as a test to how committed Biden is to democracy. Trump was a staunch fan of Sisi and Obama, while criticizing Sisi, nonetheless restored the relationship between the U.S. and Egypt.

Biden’s foreign policy will be a continuation of the long, bloody, and bi-partisan history of “keeping the world safe” not for ordinary people worldwide, but for U.S. corporate interests. J

Meaghan Murray, Minneapolis

1. La La Land Nothing says “detached from reality” like the real estate antics of L.A. County’s superrich. During a global pandemic, and in a state where over 1.2 million have been infected and nearly 20,000 have died from COVID, the rich and famous are still buying and selling their homes for prices that would make your head spin. Right now, there are 45 properties in L.A. County listed at over $30 million. This amounts to a total of… well, when I put 30,000,000 x 45 in my calculator, it just gives me “1.35e9.” If that doesn’t illustrate the canyon of wealth inequality between working people and the billionaire class, here’s another statistic: billionaire Eli Broad is selling his home for $75 million. This past summer, L.A. County’s Board of Supervisors approved a proposal that will cut $71 million out of funding for the county’s homeless population, a population of 66,000 before the pandemic. What was the original budget for the homelessness crisis in this fiscal year? $430 million, or just under six Eli Broad estates. It’s about time we tax these Beverly Hillbillionaires.

2. Iceland’s Hot Springs: Therapy to Treat Rich People’s “Problems” Are you an American millionaire? Are you earning at least six figures at your remote job? Can you afford supplemental health insurance on top of your regular health insurance? Is this pandemic a minor inconvenience for you? If so, look no further than Iceland’s new tourism plan: inviting foreign nationals with substantial incomes to visit on a remote-work visa

for six uninterrupted months. Enjoy those geothermal spas, take that time to mentally reset and get away from the incredible burden of being ultrarich and relatively safe during a global pandemic.

Oh, wait, you’re an “essential worker” who hasn’t gotten hazard pay for the last nine months? You’re unemployed and lost your $600/week top up? You don’t have any health insurance? You’ve been struggling to pay rent for your dilapidated apartment? Damn. Guess you’re outta luck.

3. Put Through the Grinder Here’s what I imagine an interview would be like with an owner or CEO from one of the companies deemed “the Delinquent Dozen” by inequality.org. For context, these are pandemic profiteers that have made unconscionable amounts of money during the pandemic while knowingly putting their workers in harm’s way.

MM: How did you do it, John Tyson? How’d you make $635 million since March?

JT: It’s all about the grind. Hard work every day, baby!

MM: So it has nothing to do with corporate greed? Abysmal work conditions? Putting dollar signs over the health and safety of your employees?

JT: Tyson Foods has a vision. We’re food innovators. And all our meat processing plants are safe.

MM: How safe? At least 11,000 employees have contracted COVID at your facilities.

Some plants haven’t implemented any COVID safety precautions, like social distancing, wearing a mask, installing plexiglas. Sir, 11,000 employees.

JT: That’s, like, not a lot.

MM: That’s 10% of your workforce.

JT: I -- ehem, *we* need to make a profit.

MM: Did your managers make a profit when they organized a betting pool and bet on how many workers would get COVID? JT: …

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ORGANIZING THE FIGHTBACK UN

2021 & BEYOND Grace Fors At the start of 2020, it would have been impossible to imagine the circumstances we are facing now. Each time it seems the worst is behind us, the crisis escalates.

While tens of millions are no doubt rejoicing that Trump is leaving office, by the time Joe Biden takes his seat, daily COVID deaths could, according to one projection, exceed 5,000 per day. The pandemic will be on course to claim a half a million lives in the U.S. alone. Unemployment benefits for 13.5 million people, eviction protections, and student loan forbearance all hang in the balance and their expiration could push millions of households into poverty and trigger a “double dip” recession. Rental debt will have exceeded over $34 billion, triggering an unprecedented eviction crisis. Up to half of American families with children may have experienced hunger over the holidays.

New Crisis, Same Old Corporate Leadership While a meager, bi-partisan stimulus bill may be passed as we go to print, it will be lightyears from what working people actually need. Bernie Sanders has come out in opposition to the $908 billion relief package which leaves out a second round of stimulus checks and includes liability protections for major corporations whose employees contract COVID. When asked why she’s supporting such a climb-down bill, Nancy Pelosi answered, “We have time,” basically arguing that once Biden is in

office, things will be better and we’ll have a vaccine. The “we” in her statement is certainly not the working class who has to pay rent every month, pay bills, and put food on the table.

Biden’s transition team released a video in which he claims “folks aren’t looking for a handout,” and that ordinary people don’t want the government to solve their problems. At a time when millions are, in fact, desperately hoping for a new round of stimulus checks, Biden’s remarks are a chilling reminder of what capitalism with a “friendly face” really means for working people. Biden, who convinced Democrats to abandon the $2 trillion HEROES Act passed in the House and get in line behind the new bill will claim that this is just the first step, but when will the second step come?

The gridlock in the Senate is likely not going anywhere — especially if the Democrats don’t win both Georgia runoff races in January — and the same roadblocks will be in place when Trump is out of office. Are Pelosi and Biden prepared to circumvent the Republicans in order to deliver desperately needed aid?

Is Biden prepared to use executive orders to redirect military spending to ramp up vaccine distribution?

If you think this doesn’t sound like Joe Biden, a lifelong representative of neoliberal capitalism and austerity who has staffed his transition team with tech executives and fossil fuel lobbyists, you would be correct.

The coming years will be an uphill battle, as the effects of the pandemic threaten to weigh heavily on working people long after a vaccine arrives. We need to be ready on day one of Biden’s presidency to wage a fight for the relief we truly need.

Billionaires have increased their wealth by over $1 trillion during the pandemic, while eight million Americans and counting have fallen into poverty.

A “Return to Normal” Means Escalating Disaster Not only is Biden ill-equipped to challenge the ghoulish Republicans, he is fundamentally limited in his ability to address society’s biggest threats.

Planet at Stake Climate change is a central issue, especially for young people. Few were excited to vote for Biden, who pledged over and over again just weeks before the election that he would never ban fracking.

Biden insists the Green New Deal, which 59% of Americans and 87% of Democratic voters support, is “not my plan.” He has already violated the Climate Mandate by

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appointing people to his cabinet with ties to the fossil fuel industry like Cedric Richmond, a recipient of huge contributions from Big Oil, as a senior advisor. Biden did announce an Office of Climate Mobilization, but his choice for “climate czar” is none other than establishment Democrat John Kerry, a champion of “market-based solutions” that have failed for decades. Kerry’s green capitalism and social media showboating are the exact opposite of the aggressive action needed.

We are running out of time, and we need to be crystal clear about the threat Biden’s “return to normal” approach poses to the planet. The crisis requires a fighting movement with the ability to shut the system down. This means resuming militant climate strikes, with active participation from the labor movement, demanding nothing less than a Green New Deal!

Corporate Healthcare Kills Pandemic-fatigued Americans are hopeful about two vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna that show signs of being very effective. But with these potentially life saving treatments in the hands of private companies competing for the biggest share of the profits, there is no guarantee they will be affordable or as widely accessible as necessary (see p.3).

Pharmaceutical companies overwhelmingly favored Biden for the presidency. Certainly these companies would prefer people buy their drugs than inject themselves with bleach, but their real goal is to ensure Biden is in no position to rein in price-gouging. The fact that Biden’s campaign lapped up $5.9 million from Big Pharma all but guarantees his obedience to the industry.

Just as the pandemic began to overwhelm the country, Biden said he would veto Medicare for All. This position is unconscionable at a time when medical debt reached $45 billion in September and continues to climb. Twelve million people were thrown off their employerbased health insurance when they lost their jobs, and while some scrambled to find alternative coverage through a new job, Medicaid, a spouse’s job, or the ACA marketplace, three million are still without coverage. Hundreds of patients are being slammed with debt collection lawsuits following hospitalization.

According to a Fox News exit poll from election day, 73% of Americans support moving to a government run healthcare plan. This overwhelming majority could be an unstoppable force if mobilized by the labor movement and the left. However, with Biden in office we will be battling both the Republicans hell bent on

overturning the ACA and the corporate Democrats hell bent on opposing Medicare for All. We will have to organize this movement ourselves, as a matter of life and death. Healthcare workers across the country engaging in strikes and workplace actions are demonstrating the kind of tactics we will need to overhaul this dysfunctional for-profit system.

Tsunami of Evictions The national CDC eviction moratorium will expire on December 31st. Even with this blanket ban in place, tens of thousands of evictions have been filed and the epidemic of informal eviction continues unabated. A recent study by researchers from several universities found that evictions in 2020 have led to 10,700 additional deaths.

In complete denial of the concrete situation, Biden’s published COVID relief plan makes virtually no mention of 110 million renters, one in five of whom have been put at risk of eviction by the crisis. Rent relief is mentioned once, as one item on a list of potential uses for emergency funds by mayors and governors. There is virtually no plan to stop a flood of evictions in the dead of winter that are certain to disproportionately impact people of color and families with children.

It will take a movement in the streets to demand airtight eviction protections and a cancellation of rent and back-rent, while ensuring the safety of ourselves and our neighbors with grassroots eviction defense. It is just as urgent that renters organize the tenant fightback in our buildings and neighborhoods to win relief from landlords directly including rent reductions and the cancelling of rental debt. This will need to be followed by a massive expansion of affordable housing funded by taxing the rich!

Cancel the Debt!

Working people are increasingly surviving on debt. Biden is personally responsible for stripping bankruptcy protections for private student loans: he championed the 2005 bill that has resulted in a tripling of student debt over a decade. Now, young people are bearing the brunt of the student debt crisis which has escalated to $1.6 trillion.

Progressives, and even corporate establishment Democrats like Chuck Schumer, have called on Biden to cancel $50,000 of student loans per borrower through executive action as soon as he takes office. Sixty percent support this step.

Biden’s plan is a far cry from such bold measures. Instead, he wants to urge Congress to pass a bill relieving just $10,000 of student debt through reimbursement of lenders. This is a bank bailout disguised as relief, which still leaves borrowers with tens of thousands in debt on their backs that will follow them for decades.

S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

NDER BIDEN In the wake of Trump, who routinely rammed through unpopular executive orders to advance his bigoted, anti-worker agenda, Biden electing to “work with the Republicans” instead of being prepared to take bold action shows the hard limits of his conventional political approach.

Crippling student debt, medical debt, and rental debt are snowballing into credit card debt as people search for any lifeline to make their payments. There has been a 70% increase in people paying rent with credit cards. Temporary protections like student loan forbearance are staving off an even greater explosion in credit card debt. Biden, who has spent his entire career guzzling money from banks and credit card companies, cannot be trusted for a second to deliver genuine relief.

Biden, and the entire Democratic Party, have a long and filthy record of allying with banks to extort working people. Our movement must insist on cancelling the astronomical debts that hold down the working class.

We can’t survive this crisis, much less recover from it, chained to debt - and we know Wall Street can take the hit.

Can’t the Left Work with Biden?

This election should have been a landslide victory against one of the most hated presidents in history. However, Biden focused on courting “moderate” suburban Republicans, boasted “I beat the socialist,” and focused his campaign on the “existential threat” of Trump while offering almost nothing to working class people. The payoff resulted in the Democrats utterly failing to deliver a decisive blow to Trump on election night while they bled House seats across the country and suffered numerous losses at the state level.

No politicians who supported Bernie have been appointed to Biden’s cabinet. Biden

nominated Neera Tanden to head the Office of Budget and Management, a Russiagate Democrat who viciously opposed Bernie’s campaign while disparaging progressive policies like the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and a $15/ hour minimum wage. This is the end result of Democrats promising “a seat at the table” to the left in exchange for capitulation.

AOC and newly elected progressive Representative Cori Bush joined a rally outside the DNC headquarters urging Biden to take immediate action on climate and avoid staffing his cabinet with corporate representatives.

It’s a good sign that members of the Squad are placing demands on Biden and they will have a huge role to play in resisting corporate Democrats over the next four years (see p.4), but this approach will not be nearly enough to force his hand to take measures he constitutionally opposes.

It would be a gift to the ruling class for the left to hedge its bets on the Democratic establishment coming around to common sense.

Nothing would put them more at ease than for progressive activists to pursue the failed strategy of “pushing them left,” while Democrats make empty promises and wait for someone worse than Trump to run against them in 2024.

AOC is right to point out the massive gulf between what is popular with most Americans and the hard limits of what the Democratic Party is willing to support. Democrats took a major hit in Florida up and down the ballot.

Meanwhile, a ballot initiative increasing the state’s minimum wage to $15/hr won by a stunning 22 points.

The solution is not to continue trying to convince the establishment Democrats to cut their ties with big business and wealthy donors ,which are at the core of their politics, but to use the broad support that already exists for progressive measures to build a mass workingclass-centred movement that wages a genuine

fight against the whole rotten establishment.

It’s Go Time Socialists can and must take steps now to lay the groundwork for a new party of working people. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign showed that a pro-working class program can spark enthusiasm and mass political activity with a million volunteers. Ninety nine percent of Congressional candidates who ran on a Green New Deal, and 100% of those who supported Medicare for All, won their races this year. The Sunrise movement reached 2.6 million unique voters with their youth turnout initiative. The DSA has grown to 85,000 members, and 27 out of 38 nationally endorsed DSA candidates won their races.

We have the tools at our disposal. Kshama Sawant’s Seattle council seat, which has won stunning victories like the historic Amazon Tax, shows what is possible when we elect independent socialist candidates directly accountable to movements. We can win concrete gains for the working class when we organize independently of the Democratic Party.

It is crucial that we run candidates that challenge the two party system, but we must also provide sustained political structure for mass movements taking shape from below.

Throughout this pandemic we have seen workplace action, tenant organizing, and the largest protest movement in U.S. history demanding Justice for George Floyd.

Millions are deeply relieved after Trump’s defeat and hopeful that Biden will usher in a change of course. However, the Democrats will inevitably betray and disappoint working people in the coming months and years. This can create a huge opening for the right and the far right if the left and the workers movement does not build a real alternative to corporate politics. We have to act now.

We cannot afford to underestimate the danger posed by the growing right-populist wing of the Republican Party. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley declared that the GOP “must be a working class party, not a Wall Street party.”

Marco Rubio, of all people, is urging Republicans to brand themselves as “the party of the multiethnic working class.” While we should not expect either corporate party to cut their ties from big business, this rhetoric is a sinister reminder that a political vacuum on the left could drive angry and disillusioned people into the clutches of the far right.

Capitalism Is the Disease Billionaires have increased their wealth by over $1 trillion during the pandemic, while eight million Americans and counting have fallen into poverty. Just before Thanksgiving, twenty-five thousand people flooded a Dallas food bank. Of the thousands who waited in their cars in lines that stretched for miles, some of whom camped out overnight to get turkey and nonperishables, forty percent were visiting a food bank for the first time.

Massive struggles are on the horizon, potentially even more explosive than what we saw in 2020. In the aftermath of COVID, the ruling class will have to answer for hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths. Whether our struggles result in victory or devastating defeat will depend on their ability to draw clear battle lines, adopt fighting tactics, and organize coordinated mass action.

The incoming president has vowed “nothing will fundamentally change.” For the working class battling climate disaster, economic crisis, systemic racism, disease, mass death, and a small minority enjoying extravagant wealth off our backs — fundamental change is the only option. J

BIDEN’S CABINET Confirmed

Confirmed

Confirmed

Considering

Absolutely not

Brian Deese

Cedric Richmond

Neera Tanden

Rahm Emanuel

Bernie Sanders

TOP ECONOMIC ADVISER

• Former BlackRock executive • Pushed 2012 rollback of financial regulation • Big defender of the oil and gas industry

D E C E M B E R -J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 - 2 0 2 1

DIRECTOR - OFFICE OF PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

• Has taken more money from the oil and gas industry than almost any other Congressional Democrat

DIRECTOR - OFFICE OF MGMT. AND BUDGET

• President of Center for American Progress - think tank with deep ties to Wall St. • Staunch Bernie opponent

?X

DEPT. OF TRANSPORTATION

• Former Chicago Mayor • Covered up racist police murder of Laquan MacDonald • Oversaw mass school closures

• Supports Medicare for All, Green New Deal, and cancelling student debt • Takes no corporate money • Overwhelming support among young people

7

FIGHTING RACISM

KAMALA HARRIS: OBAMA 2.0?

Toya Chester, Boston Like in 2008, Americans have achieved another first: voting in not just the first woman, but the first Black woman, and person of Black Caribbean and Indian descent as Vice President of the United States. This is seen as a symbolic victory by many, especially in the context of Trump’s defeat, which represents a loss for the emboldened far right.

While symbolic representation has its place, progressive change should not be measured by the race or gender of our elected officials, but by the policies they fight for and their political records. Kamala Harris has been far from a fighter for the Black working class and voters knew it. In the Democratic primaries, Bernie Sanders was the candidate who garnered the support of young Black and Latino voters – not Kamala and certainly not Joe Biden.

Kamala’s Record Kamala Harris started her career as a District Attorney in San Francisco and then Attorney General of California. While she has styled herself as an advocate for criminal justice reform, her record shows an overall commitment to upholding the status quo.

While she spearheaded programs to help people find jobs instead of putting them in prison, she also fought to keep innocent people locked up on technicalities. One of her early initiatives as District Attorney of San Francisco was a program designed to increase school attendance by threatening to arrest and prosecute parents whose kids were truant.

While she says she is against the death penalty, as Attorney General she said she would implement capital punishment, and in 2014 she appealed a judge’s decision that

deemed California’s death penalty system unconstitutional. Lawyers working under Kamala Harris argued in court against the release of prisoners in California on the basis that it would deplete an important labor pool, even after the U.S. Supreme Court found overcrowding in prisons in the state amounted to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

Kamala also refused to prosecute OneWest, a bank where Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin served as CEO, after an investigation found evidence of widespread misconduct in foreclosures of homes. Kamala was the only Democrat to receive a donation from Mnuchin in the 2016 election cycle.

Will Kamala Support the Demands of the BLM Movement?

The Democratic Party strategically chose Kamala as Biden’s Vice President to give a symbolic concession to the Black Lives Matter movement. However, she does not reflect any of the real demands of the movement around police accountability or defunding the police.

As CA Attorney General, Kamala introduced anti-racial bias training for police officers, but she also defended numerous law enforcement officials accused of misconduct and defied calls from ordinary people to rapidly investigate police killings. She also opposed a bill that would have required the Attorney General’s office to look into police killings, and opposed efforts to implement body cameras for the police statewide. After Walter Wallace Jr. was murdered by the police in Philadelphia, the official Biden/ Harris campaign statement spotlighted looting without even mentioning that Wallace was killed by a police officer.

At best, she has waffled on the question of defunding the police. Earlier in her career she was a proponent of more cops on the streets. More recently under the pressure of the BLM movement, she has criticized the bloated police budgets in major cities, but remained vague on concretely what should be done.

While the Biden/Harris platform includes welcome goals for criminal justice reform (including eliminating mandatory minimum sentences, eliminating the death penalty, ending cash bail, and stopping government use of private prisons), their collective record of attacking Black and brown workers and social movements raise real questions about how much they will get done.

What Will a Biden/Harris Administration Do For Black People?

It’s important to remember that the last time a racial milestone was crossed in the

8

Stop the Station’s Fight to Put People Over Profits and Police Wilson Juring, Pittsburgh Facing historic budget shortfalls, Democratic leaders of cities across the country are choosing austerity and cuts to essential services even as calls to defund the police and tax big businesses are loud as ever.

Pittsburgh’s Democratic mayor, Bill Peduto, is no exception. As Pittsburgh faces a $55 million deficit for 2021, Peduto’s recently proposed budget slashes funding for health, transportation, infrastructure, and social services and threatens over 600 city jobs. The city’s wealthy corporations and big developers remain unscathed.

Outraged that this budget fails to address police brutality, systemic racism, or drastic inequality in our city, the Stop the Station (STS) coalition is leading the fight to cancel the cuts and pass an explicitly anti-racist, pro-worker budget. Community members, members of Socialist Alternative, and Penn Plaza Support and Action created the coalition after becoming aware of insidious plans by the city to relocate the Zone 5 police station.

Now, we’re also fighting for other bold transformations needed to create a truly livable city for all. That means taxing big businesses and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the local profitdriven healthcare behemoth. It means no more money wasted on expensive police projects, like a $90 million police training facility, or the $3 million police station relocation as part of ongoing efforts to gentrify a historically Black neighborhood that residents and STS have been organizing against. It means divesting from a bloated White House, conditions for Black people did not improve. Under President Obama, conditions for Black workers and youth actually got worse: the 2008 recession decimated Black homeownership and wealth, and led to huge unemployment figures in the community and new levels of poverty. The Black Lives Matter movement erupted during Obama’s second term.

It’s only going to be through a relentless mass, multi-racial, working class movement that we can force Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to support progressive policies like Medicare for All, which will disproportionately improve the lives of Black and brown people.

A painting was recently redone to depict

police budget and using that money on what the community actually needs: permanently affordable housing and social services.

These goals have brought hundreds of community members together to organize and decide the next steps for our movement democratically. Socialist Alternative has played a leading role in the STS coalition, constantly making connections between anti-racism and working class movements and bringing in activists like myself and union members.

If working to stop our mayor’s austerity budget is the fight we’re focused on now, achieving full democratic community control of the police is the battle on our horizon. Community members and the Stop the Station coalition are discussing bringing the issue to the ballot. With tens of thousands of signatures required to run a ballot measure in Pittsburgh, this will be a huge undertaking, especially during a pandemic. But the past months have shown me that this community will never hesitate in fighting for Black lives and the working class.

On the day I write this, Allegheny Vounty is reporting over 1,000 new single-day COVID cases in a single day for the first time. Meanwhile, a 17% cut to Emergency Medical Services is being considered in Peduto’s budget. This isn’t just a fight against a police station and budget cuts, it’s a movement to build an anti-racist, proworker city, in which every person’s health and wellbeing is prioritized over profits and repression. J

Kamala Harris walking with the shadow of Ruby Bridges, the first Black child to attend a desegregated school. Ruby Bridges taking that brave walk at just 6-years-old helped open the door for millions of Black children after her to be able to get an education at any school. But Kamala Harris becoming the first Black woman to be named Vice President does not open the door for millions of Black people. Her focus on the glass ceiling she broke as opposed to the actual needs of regular Americans softens the image of the brutalities that we experience everyday. We do not need the faces to look like ours more than we need the politics to be ours. J

S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

MASS PROTESTS BRING DOWN ILLEGITIMATE COUP PRESIDENT IN PERU

Protest in Lima, Peru on November 12.

Emily Culver, Pittsburgh In November, tens of thousands took to the streets across Peru to protest the illegitimate impeachment of Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra. Within days, on November 15, the movement was successful and Manuel Merino stepped down from the presidency, forced out by the sheer force of protests.

Peruvians are now increasing their demands for justice for the murdered protesters, and for a new constitution.

The Coup Starting in 2017, President Vizcarra used widespread anger over the corruption of Congress to introduce electoral reform, which prohibited candidates with open judicial or criminal cases from running for Congress.

There was a constant power struggle between Congress and Vizcarra, which led to the closure of Congress by Vizcarra in September 2019. New elections were called and a new Congress was elected.

Unfortunately, the new Peruvian Congress was as corrupt as the previous one, with 68 of the 130 representatives facing some type of criminal charge from corruption to murder.

This new Congress did not want to lose its immunity, and also struggled with the Vizcarra government. Vizcarra also fought for an educational reform that would increase regulations on private universities. Some members of Congress are involved in the creation and administration of these under-regulated private schools, and would lose money under this educational reform. Fearing they would lose profits and face punishment for their crimes, Congress worked to remove Vizcarra.

They lacked enough votes in September, but won on November 9 with 87 of the 130 members of Congress.

Political, Economic, and COVID Crises While these politicians have been fighting over money and power, the Peruvian working class and poor are suffering one of the worst crises in decades. Like the rest of the world, Peru was hit hard by the coronavirus, making headlines for having the highest COVID fatality rate in the world. In response D E C E M B E R -J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 - 2 0 2 1

to the resulting economic recession, the only assistance has been two bonuses of $223 to the poorest families in Peru. The process to receive these bonuses was complicated, barring many from getting the help they desperately needed.

The collective anger over corruption, political instability, and economic inequality has drawn protestors into the street. The protesters, who are mainly university students and youth, are united around demands to protect democratic rights in Peru and ensure that the upcoming April 2021 elections take place.

State Violence and Repression Police brutality against protesters has been extreme. On November 14, during one of the largest protests Peru has seen in decades, the local government in Lima shut off the street lights downtown, causing chaos and confusion among protesters.

The violence instigated by police tragically caused the death of two young protesters and injured dozens more. Many Peruvians are enraged by the police response to protests and demanded that President Merino and his cabinet step down.

Wave of Revolt Against Neoliberalism There is widespread distrust of any politicians or social movements on the left.

However, this new generation of protesters are inspired by recent anti-neoliberal uprisings across Latin America. In particular, the protests in neighboring Chile last year that resulted in the abolition of the Pinochet constitution have been an example for Peruvians.

Demands for a new Peruvian constitution are beginning to emerge, both on social media and on signs carried by protesters. Peru’s current constitution was written during the dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori in 1993.

The experience of fighting against this unjust coup may lay the foundation for an organized youth-led movement in the future.

It is only through an organized workingclass movement that Peruvians will be able to destroy the system that only works for the rich and the corrupt. Solidarity with Peruvians fighting in the streets! Let’s fight together for a united and socialist Latin America! J

CONGRESS BURNS IN LATEST LATIN AMERICAN REVOLT Dean O’Donnell, Socialist Alternative (ISA in England, Wales and Scotland)

Nevertheless protests continued.

The accumulated rage of the Guatemalan masses reached a boiling point on November 21. A wave of protests erupted in response to a new government bill that, in the midst of a pandemic, proposed major cuts to healthcare and education. Tens of thousands took to the streets in demonstrations across the country and by the day’s end, smoke billowed from the Congress building, set ablaze by a group of protesters.

Though the budget was in fact the largest in the country’s history, it delivered only austerity to the Guatemalan working class and poor. With $65,000 allocated to subsidize politicians’ meals, and much of the increased funding going to infrastructure projects set to benefit big business, the bill symbolized all that was rotten in the Central American country — more misery for the poor, and more hand-outs to the ruling elite.

Hurricane Eta hit Guatemala particularly hard, with at least 150 confirmed dead or yet to be found. The government tried to pass this new budget as many are still picking up the pieces in the wake of a disaster that destroyed the homes and livelihoods of thousands.

The storm only added to the devastation created by the pandemic. There are 120,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths from COVID, although the actual numbers are undoubtedly higher. The economic downturn has driven millions into even deeper poverty, as the informal economy was ground to a halt. During the strict quarantines earlier this year, Reuters reported that “hundreds of signs have gone up asking for food, and people have taken to the streets to wave white flags in distress.”

Of course, neither the storm nor the pandemic are indiscriminate natural disasters.

Decades of U.S. imperialism and brutal neoliberal policies have left Guatemala lacking the most basic infrastructure and services needed to tackle such crises. Even so-called “normal” times see broad swathes of the masses living in extraordinary misery.

Over half of the population experience poverty and 47% of children under five years old are chronically malnourished.

Establishment Shaken Calls have been made for President Alejandro Giammattei, of the right-wing Vamos party, to resign. The former prison officer came to power a mere 11 months ago on the back of a “tough on crime and corruption” campaign. A complete reactionary, opposed to abortion rights and same-sex marriage, he has vowed to reinstate the death penalty to deal with gang violence.

The protests have shaken the establishment. The budget has since been taken off the table. Pressure from below has also opened up cracks in the ruling class.

The Vice President offered his resignation.

Giammattei, on the other hand, focused his energy on condemning vandalism.

The president wants to justify the brutal response of the National Civil Police. The police have fired tear gas and rubber bullets into peaceful demonstrations, and so far 22 have been injured and 37 arrested.

Storm Eta and COVID

Which Way Forward for Guatemalan Masses?

The revolt against the proposed budget is therefore also a revolt against a system that creates continual suffering for the working class and oppressed. Yet, the quick turnaround by the government points to the potential strength of workers, youth, and indigenous people. It’s this strength alone that must be relied upon to deepen and extend their struggle — not the empty promises of “anti-corruption” politicians. J

Protesters chant “no more corruption” in Guatemala City’s central square.

To read more international news check out International Socialist Alternative at internationalsocialist.net.

9

SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

Solidarity with Kshama Sawant:

UNITE AGAINST THE CORPORATE, RIGHT-WING RECALL CAMPAIGN

www.kshamasolidarity.org Dan Kavanaugh, Seattle Originally published in Real Change.

Big business, corporate Democrats, and the right wing are once again going after Seattle’s socialist councilmember, Kshama Sawant, this time with a right-wing recall campaign. After Amazon and big business failed to defeat her with record-breaking corporate spending in last year’s election, the

political establishment is now pushing for a re-do in a lower-turnout special election that would have a wealthier, whiter, and more conservative electorate.

Kshama is being targeted because she has stood unapologetically with working people and our movements during her seven years in office. The establishment is particularly angry about her support for the Black Lives Matter movement and for leading the way on taxing big business this year. During the height of

this summer’s protests, she championed a first-in-the-nation ban on police use of chemical weapons and a major tax on Amazon and big business to fund affordable housing and a Green New Deal. The Amazon Tax will amount to a $2 billion transfer of wealth from big corporations to ordinary people over the next decade. But what the establishment fears most of all is the example of a socialist like Kshama in office showing what can be won when working people get organized and fight.

That’s why the political establishment is going all out with this right-wing recall effort, in which they are characterizing the Black Lives Matter protests as violent and lawless - an obvious racist attack on the movement.

Two of the four recall charges attempt to criminalize Kshama’s support of the movement: one charge for participating in a march on the mayor’s house led by the families of victims of police brutality, and a second charge for allowing protesters inside City Hall for a mask-on, one-hour rally. In its public campaigning, the recall effort has led with the claim that Kshama has encouraged “lawlessness” with her support for Black Lives Matter.

The right wing is attempting to spin their recall campaign as a grassroots initiative, but the reality of their donors betrays them. The public part of the recall donor list reads like a who’s who of Seattle’s business elite, including Trump-supporting billionaire Martin Selig and corporate executives like Airbnb CFO David Stephenson and Merrill Lynch Senior VP Matt Westphall. The recall campaign is absurdly trying to portray their supporters as a grassroots group of local “concerned citizens” while painting Kshama’s support as coming from out-of-town agitators – a typical right-wing attack. But the truth is that Kshama has more than twice as many donors from her district as the recall campaign – with already 670 District 3 donors compared to only 322 District 3 donors for the recall campaign. The most common occupations of our donors are educators, students, and

tech workers in sharp contrast to the district’s super-rich backing the recall campaign.

We expect that billionaire and corporate support will continue to line up behind the recall.

While the date of the recall election is not yet fixed, it is likely to be held in late spring or summer. The recall campaign will have six months to gather its 10,700 signatures after the Supreme Court ruling on January 7, and the election will be organized between 45 and 90 days after those signatures are certified. The Kshama Solidarity Campaign has not been waiting until the date is determined – we have already talked to thousands of working people on the streets and at the doors in our District, though we moved to phone banking in the context of the current COVID spike.

The right wing will not stop their attacks with just Kshama Sawant. If this right-wing recall campaign succeeds, it will embolden efforts by the establishment and big business around the country to go after other left elected representatives. This recall is part of a dangerous trend of attacks, nationally and internationally, against not only socialists but any representative who dares to stand with movements of working people, from Attica Scott to Jeremy Corbyn to Barbara Nowacka.

Just as Kshama’s election win in 2013 was a precursor to a wave of wins for socialists across the country, a successful recall could act as a springboard for the establishment to go on the attack against the socialist movement nationally.

That’s why the best defense is a good offense. Our campaign is linking the fight against the recall to a fight for positive demands, like COVID relief and a guaranteed jobs program paid for by taxing big business, an elected community oversight board with full powers over the police, and a socialist Green New Deal. But the only way we’ll win this fight is if working people get actively involved. Donate, sign up to volunteer, and follow the campaign on social media! J

Chicago DSA Censures Rogue Alderman

CORPORATE SELLOUTS HAVE NO PLACE IN OUR MOVEMENTS Ryan Watson is a dual member of DSA and Socialist Alternative in Chicago.

The recent situation in Chicago raises important questions for our movement nationally – not only about holding electeds accountable, but how socialists can take on big business and the Democratic establishment.

Chicago DSA has called for Ald. Andre Vasquez to resign from the organization after he and other “progressive” city council members – backed by the Chicago Federation of Labor – voted for Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s terrible austerity budget, which included raising property taxes on working families and broadly relies on regressive measures like parking meters rather than taxing the rich.

Vasquez’s betrayal is part of a national phenomenon of self-styled “progressive” Democrats turning their backs on movements.

City Council Democrats in Minneapolis and

10

Seattle have reversed course on promises to defund the police. DSA-supported Democrats in Seattle voted for Mayor Durkan’s austerity budget though, unlike Vasquez, they are not DSA members. Vasquez being a DSA member only makes the betrayal even worse.

Vasquez’s justifications echo the approach of the Democratic Party in general. He congratulated himself and other “progressives” who voted yes for their “collaboration” with the mayor and the concessions he was able to win. It’s certainly important for socialist elected officials to collaborate, but not with corporate servants. They should collaborate with ordinary working people to put forward an alternative to corporate business-asusual politics and use a movement-building approach to stop attacks and win real victories.

With its recent statement, Chicago DSA has declared that gone are the days when socialist or left-wing elected officials can

betray our movement and we will just stand by and let it happen. Vasquez should be expelled and we should open up a discussion in our chapter, and DSA nationally, about how to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again. We do not want the DSA to be an endorsement machine with our army of phone bankers that serves the careers of politicians.

Any DSA member who holds elected office and votes for an austerity budget like this one should be expelled. Any DSA member who, either in a campaign for elected office, or once elected and in office, takes corporate money should be expelled. DSA should oppose its members who hold elected office endorsing corporate Democrats either in their own races or for intra-party positions. DSA members in elected office accepting only the average workers’ wage as their salary, and donating the rest back to the movement, would also help hold them accountable to our

overall program and mission.

Vasquez’s betrayal doesn’t come out of the blue. His endorsement was always controversial – he was challenged by another DSA member in the ward, Ugo Okere, who – despite also running as a Democrat – promised to run a more openly socialist campaign than Vasquez. Unfortunately, after Okere lost in the first round, some people ignored warning signs in an effort to get the highest number of “socialists” elected. But as this episode has shown, quality matters too, not just quantity.

Chicago DSA has already shown the way forward for DSA nationally with our statement on Tuesday. Now let’s finish what we started by implementing rules so nothing like this can happen again. This would be one of many important steps in building the serious movement we need to eventually beat the billionaire class once and for all. J

S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

SA

IN ACTION: ON THE PICKET LINES

New Rochelle Nurses Strike for Safe Staffing Marie O’Toole, NYC New York State Nurses Association members in New Rochelle, NY marched with signs declaring “too many patients, too few RNs” and “safe staffing saves lives” as they launched their two-day strike at Montefiore New Rochelle Hospital on December 1. The foremost demand was increased staffing in order to deal with the COVID surge currently being seen at the hospital. Striking nurses explained that a one-to-four nurse to patient ratio is a safe number, but were asking for one-to-six.

The actual situation at the hospital is ten patients to every nurse! Socialist Alternative members joined the picket line, standing in solidarity with nurses demanding much-needed safe staffing.

New Rochelle was an initial COVID hot spot as New York developed into the global epicenter of the pandemic earlier this year. The nursing staff at the time lost one of their own to the virus. Despite this personal cost, which clearly resulted from the criminal conditions healthcare workers were subjected to, the nurses are being cynically accused of using the pandemic as a political ploy by the hospital’s upper management who refuse to meet reasonable demands. The battle for safe conditions, both for healthcare workers and for patients, is necessarily taking the path of organized working class struggle.

This crisis has exposed the human price of a forprofit healthcare system. The Montefiore nurses, along with a growing wave of nurses strikes from Pennsylvania to Albany, serve as a bright example of how working people can unite to fight back against a system that puts workers’ health and livelihood last. J

Chicagoland Nursing Home Strike Stephen Edwards, Chicago On November 23, 700 Certified Nursing Assistants and other healthcare workers went on strike at 11 Chicagoland area nursing homes owned by the for-profit chain Infinity.

The workers at Infinity were fighting to bring their facilities into line with a master contract covering over 100 other nursing homes in Illinois and Indiana, which would raise the starting wage for all employees to $15 an hour. Other demands included hazard pay during the pandemic. All of these homes are for-profit facilities.

Chicago Socialist Alternative has talked to workers on the picket lines who have done the vital, difficult work of patient care for more than 20 years and still make less than $15 an hour, while the owner of the chain, Moishe Gubin, received $12.7 million under the CARES Act - with no regulations on where exactly that money would go. Striking workers chanted “Moishe Gubin, rich and rude, we don’t like your attitude!” and “Sign the contract, pay the people!”

Infinity is tied with Illinois’ biggest for-profit nursing home chain for the state’s highest death rate from COVID, a horrifying nine per 100 beds, which is almost 100 times the statewide per capita death rate from the disease.

But workers believe these figures

are underestimates. Early in the pandemic they were not being told who was and was not testing positive for COVID. An investigation by Chicago public radio has found that “In the 20 counties hit hardest by the virus, forprofit nursing homes have had nearly double the death rates as nonprofit facilities.”

Workers told Socialist Alternative that before the pandemic they had five CNA’s per shift for a floor with 60 residents, who are housed two, three, and four to a room, and roughly half of whom cannot eat or use the bathroom unaided. Under pressure from the union, the employer paid each of the workers $200 a month in hazard pay for March, April, and May, but then the payments stopped and staff began to leave. The result has been dangerously low staffing levels, on some shifts as low as three CNAs for 60 residents.

As we go to press, a contract has been signed and workers are back on the job, faced with cleaning up the messes left by agency scabs but welcomed back by their patients and knowing that they beat their boss who had originally walked away from the bargaining table a few days into the strike. Workers who have never been on strike before have felt their strength. J

CHALLENGES AHEAD FOR THE COVID VACCINE Shipments could then be sent to every county in the country.

Once the vaccine is ready for shipment, the currently competing logistics networks at Walmart, Amazon, FedEx, and UPS should be brought into temporary public ownership as a step toward full and permanent public ownership. These networks are vast and efficient and allow us to order something with the click of a button and receive it on our doorstep the next day. There’s no reason these resources shouldn’t be deployed to resolve this ongoing public health crisis.

In order to enable health care professionals to administer millions of vaccine doses, we need an emergency public investment in our hospitals to increase capacity. There were 1.4 million healthcare workers laid off or furloughed during the pandemic because of revenue lost due to the temporary suspension of elective procedures. These workers should be immediately rehired and there should be emergency, publicly funded “upskilling” programs to train current healthcare workers in new skills necessary to bring the pandemic under control. There needs to be another robust stimulus package passed D E C E M B E R -J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 - 2 0 2 1

which includes funding for hospitals to build up their immunization infrastructure.

This pandemic has exposed the rotting corpse that is American healthcare. We need an urgent transition to a Medicare for All, single-payer based system.

Taking all of these urgent steps is made extremely difficult when decisions are made based on the narrow profit-driven interests of billionaires. Imagine if we had democratically-elected workers councils at the national, state, and local levels coordinating production, distribution, and administration of the vaccine. These councils would need to include representatives from each notch in the logistics chain including scientists from the labs where the vaccine is made, workers from the factories where it is bottled, truck drivers who transport the vials, healthcare workers who administer the vaccine, and tech workers who keep track of who has been immunized.

We would be far better positioned to bring this virus under control if the race for profits was removed from the equation and our COVID response was instead determined by democratically accountable workers’ councils tasked with making decisions in the interests

continued from p.3

of public health.

Lives Could Have Been Saved This pandemic has exposed the deadly consequences of capitalism’s blind profitdriven motivation. Hundreds of thousands of American lives have been lost because of the disjointed, chaotic, and unprepared response to this public health crisis.

Had there been a centrally organized, democratically run, and publicly controlled plan in place to address this crisis, hundreds of thousands would not have died, millions could have avoided illness, millions wouldn’t have been sent into dire poverty, and millions wouldn’t have spent the entirety of 2020 facing existential dread.

The chaotic roll out of vaccinations, combined with the entire 2020 experience, demonstrates how badly we need to usher in a socialist society where the top 500 corporations are brought into public ownership and democratic control by workers themselves rather than parasitic private interests. It’s only on this basis that we will avoid crises even worse than this in the future. J

C O N T I N U AT I O N S

SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE ISSN 2638-3349

EDITOR: Keely Mullen EDITORIAL BOARD: George Brown, Tom Crean, Rebecca Green, Eljeer Hawkins, Joshua Koritz, Calvin Priest, Tony Wilsdon

Editors@SocialistAlternative.org

NATIONAL (347) 457-6069 info@SocialistAlternative.org facebook.com/SocialistAlternativeUSA Instagram: @Socialist_Alternative Twitter: @SocialistAlt

INTERNATIONAL Socialist Alternative is part of International Socialist Alternative (ISA), which has sections in over 30 countries. Learn more about the ISA at internationalsocialist.net.

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SOCIALIST ISSUE #69 l DECEMBER-JANUARY 2020-2021 SUGGESTED DONATION $2

WHAT WE STAND FOR End the COVID Chaos

We are rapidly approaching 300,000 American lives lost to COVID with a seven-day average of 2,249 deaths. We need immediate action to get this outbreak under control and ramp up the infrastructure to produce and distribute approved vaccines.

Control the spread!

• States and cities where the virus is out of control should return to Phase 1 of lockdown. This must be accompanied by new stimulus measures.

• Free, accessible COVID-19 testing with rapid results and contact tracing in every community.

• We need a rapid transition to a Medicare-forAll system to ensure high-quality, affordable, public health care to all! This must include a robust investment in and coverage for mental health services.

• Tax big businesses and the super rich to fund the emergency response needed to address this crisis including direct aid to hospitals to expand their capacity.

Ramp up vaccine infrastructure!

• Immediate use of the Defense Production Act to produce the equipment necessary for administering the vaccine like syringes and vials.

• Bring major logistics networks like Amazon and Walmart into temporary public ownership to transport the vaccine. This should be a step toward full, permanent public ownership.

• Aid to the states! States need funds to increase capacity and staffing at hospitals and train healthcare workers in administering vaccines.

• All vaccines should be permanently free and widely available!

Aid to Workers, Not Wall Street

No more half measures! We need immediate, sweeping relief for the unemployed and small businesses. Any emergency response needs to prioritize the health of working Americans, not big business and billionaires.

• Renew elapsed unemployment benefits - including the $600-a-week top up - and extend unemployment eligibility for gig workers and the self-employed into 2021.

• Additional $1,200 stimulus checks as needed for the duration of the crisis.

• Expand eligibility and funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to relieve growing food insecurity.

• All workers on the front lines should receive hazard pay. For a reduced workweek to share out the work with no reduction in pay.

• Extend federal, state, and city eviction moratoriums and cancel rent for the duration of the pandemic.

• With states and cities facing huge deficits, they are already beginning to cut spending on public education and health care. The federal government should use a tax on big business to provide disaster relief to states.

No cuts to essential services! No public sector layoffs!

Fight the Right Even with Trump out of office, the threat of the far right will continue to grow and may actually get worse under a Biden presidency.

The key to pushing back the far right is a determined response from the labor movement and all whose interests it threatens.

• Organize against vigilante terror! Where our movements face attacks from the far right, we need elected self-defense committees.

• Mass protests against any attempts from the

ALTERNATIVE

reactionary Supreme Court to attack healthcare, Roe v. Wade, LGBTQ, immigrant, civil, or trade union rights.

A Safe and Just Society: End Racist Policing • Indict killer cops!

• Immediately fire and prosecute all cops who have committed violent or racist attacks.

• Cities should defund police budgets by at least 50%, and reinvest those funds in needed public services.

• End the militarization of police. Ban police use of “crowd control” weapons. Disarm police on patrol.

• Put policing under the control of democratically elected civilian boards with power over hiring and firing policies, reviewing budget priorities, and the power to subpoena. All of this should be done openly and publicly.

Labor Movement Needs to Step Up Trade unions are the only organizations workers have to directly defend their rights on the job. However, the leaderships of most major unions have not stepped up to defend their members or organize the unorganized during this pandemic.

• We need fighting unions that defend workers on the job and do not shy away from a fight with the bosses.

• Join the movement! Unions have a key role to play in the struggle against racism, sexism, and all forms of oppression.

For a Socialist Green New Deal We need an urgent plan to enact a socialist Green New Deal to address the growing threat of climate disaster.

• Tax the billionaires and big business to fund extreme weather services including fully funded firefighting and forest management, and weatherizing homes.

• For a GND jobs program to tackle climate change and provide jobs for tens of millions of workers. To be successful, this needs to be tied to public ownership of the massive energy companies and banks.

For a New Political Party for Working People The Democrats are entering the White House in the middle of another COVID surge and the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.

While they will be forced to “spend money,” the party’s establishment is still diametrically opposed to progressive policies like Medicare for All and taxing the rich.

• Democrats and Republicans alike are unwilling to do what’s necessary to get working people through this crisis. Despite their differences, the establishments of both parties are loyal to billionaires, not workers.

• We need a new multiracial workers’ party that organizes and fights for workers’ interests and is committed to socialist policies to point a way out of the horrors of capitalism.

The Whole System is Guilty Capitalism produces pandemics, poverty, inequality, environmental destruction, and war.

We need an international struggle against this failed system.

• We need a democratic socialist plan for the economy based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people and the planet.

• Bring the top 500 companies and banks into democratic public ownership. J