ESSAYS ON RACISM AND VIOLENCE

Harry Targ

 Now  is a good time to revisit the reasons for the original establishment of police foces in the 19th century to put down slave revolts and worker strikes. We should rethink the whole idea of policing. This probably would lead to the abolition of police which probably would lead to less violence and criminality in society. Instead communities should fund Community Help Forces, much like firefighters who would be available in cases of personal emergency. It is clear that police forces today have a license to kill with little or no consequence. In societies characterized by racism and class exploitation, police are obliged to serve special interests and prejudices, not the public. Another World is Possible.. (HT, May 30, 2020).

1.The forms of violence and the meanings of Ferguson

From police violence to economic despair, to lack of political representation, to cultural rationales for state violence, the basic characteristics of American society are uncovered.

By Harry Targ | The Rag Blog | August 21, 2014

In addressing violence, researchers, educators, journalists, and religious leaders have usually concentrated on its most visible forms: murder and war. The central features of such violence include physical assault and killing. In our own day terrorism has joined war as the most popular common subject for study.

Over the years, peace educators have developed intellectual tools to uncover more diverse meanings of violence, their differences and their connections. Structural violence has been distinguished from direct violence. Researchers continue to analyze direct violence, physical assault and killing, but also study structural violence, the various forms of human suffering that take more time, impose pain and suffering on populations, and are perpetuated by leading institutions and relationships in society.

Structural violence includes economic inequality, low wages and poverty, inadequate access to health care and education, and the psychological damage that economic suffering causes. These injustices, the concept of structural violence suggests, are embedded in economic, social, and political institutions.

It is possible to disaggregate further the structural violence that is embedded in institutions. Institutional violence refers to unequal distribution of power and influence in major societal institutions: political, criminal justice, and educational, for example. Cultural violence refers to the images, symbols, and educational materials that value some population groups over others.

Finally, cultural violence refers to the images, symbols, and educational materials that value some population groups over others. Culture refers to the public consciousness of history, traditions, and popular narratives that describe people. Stereotypes are short-hand representations of a culture. 

In total then violence is direct, structural, institutional, and cultural. These kinds of violence may occur separately but in most cases are inextricably connected. It is this fourfold conception of violence that is relevant to the current crisis in Ferguson, Missouri.

The tragedy of Ferguson, Missouri, came to national attention because of direct violence. 

A Ferguson policeman shot and killed an unarmed young African American male. In response to the collective expression of community outrage that followed, the local police initiated a multiday barrage of tear gas, strong-arm arrests, threatening street protestors with military vehicles and loaded rifles.

The images on television screens nationwide have been of a people under assault, parallel to Israeli bombings in Gaza and United States targeted air strikes in Iraq. The fear that young African-American males in Ferguson have historically felt every time they stepped into the streets of their city have escalated since the killing of Michael Brown.

Beyond the threat of direct violence in Ferguson is structural violence, less visible but as important. Brookings Institute researcher Elizabeth Kneebone (“Ferguson, Mo. Emblematic of Growing Suburban Poverty,” brookings@edu, August 15, 2014) reported that the community of Ferguson has experienced a qualitative economic decline over the last decade. The city’s unemployment rate increased from 5 percent in 2000 to 13 percent by 2010. Average earnings of community members have declined by one-third. One-fourth of the population lives in poverty.

Kneebone indicated that poverty rates have doubled in suburban neighborhoods surrounding the 100 largest cities. “By 2008-2012, 38 percent of poor residents lived in the neighborhoods with poverty rates of 20 percent or higher. For poor black residents in those communities, the figure was 53 percent.” Of course, poverty is highly related to declining schools, inadequate access to health care, lessened prospects for jobs, and large-scale youth unemployment.

Institutional violence is reflected in a 300-year history of slavery and racism. 

Institutional violence is reflected in a 300-year history of slavery and racism. Professor Clarissa Hayward, Washington University, said: “The St. Louis metropolitan area has been an extreme example of racial segregation for 100 years.” She pointed out that St. Louis geographically was at the nexus of the South, the Midwest, and the West and added: “The practices and politics of St. Louis created the problems that underlie the tension that boiled out in Ferguson this week.” (Puneet Kollipara, “Wonkbook: The Social and Economic Story Behind the Unrest in Ferguson,” Wonkblog, The Washington Post, August 18, 2014.)

In terms of the Ferguson political system, two-thirds of the community is Black and the local government is almost all white. Five of six city council members are white, the mayor is white, and six of seven school board members are white. Fifty of 53 police are white.

Finally, cultural violence addresses the issue of ideology, consciousness, images of the other, and additional ways in which whites see African-Americans. Racist culture socializes the dominant class and race to reflect its superiority. For example, Missouri Lt. Governor Peter Kinder said: “That’s one of the great advances of Anglo-American civilization, is that we do not have politicized trials. We let the justice system work it out.” The mayor of Ferguson recently declared that his community was free of racism.

Since the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, police and politicians have organized a campaign to demonize the victim of the police killing. The tall young man, an African-American, was a robber, a drug consumer, and violence-prone. Also, the days of protest in Ferguson were framed to privilege the peaceful, religious, mourning adults and to explain night-time violence not as police violence, but as violence by outside agitators from New York, Chicago, and California. The fact that young African Americans leave their houses at their own risk could not, the frame implies, engender outrage.

So from police violence — killing, gassing, beating — to economic despair, to lack of political representation, to cultural rationales for state violence, the basic characteristics of American society are uncovered. And once again, the victimization of people of color, as well as workers, and women, lead to the following conclusions:

▪ The root cause of exploitation, racism, and sexism is structural violence (capitalism).
▪ Physical violence is used to crush rebellion against class exploitation and racism.
▪ Unrepresentative political institutions are dominated by the wealthy and powerful.
▪ Dominant cultural stereotypes and specific narratives about society reinforce the economic system, the political system, and justify the police violence in the St. Louis area.

In sum, in addressing violence, its multiple forms should be taken into consideration.

MICHAEL JORDAN IN THE ERA OF NEOLIBERALISM AND TRUMPISM

Harry Targ


Michael Jordan, regarded by many sports fans as the greatest player in the history of the National Basketball Association, played for the Chicago Bulls from 1984 to 1993 and 1995 through the 1998 season. After that he spent a less stellar career with the Washington Wizards, 2001-2003. His NBA records include the highest  regular season scoring average per game of any player in NBA history, the highest average points scored in playoff games, seven scoring titles, the Most Valuable Player in the NBA five times, and the leader of the Bulls six championship seasons. 

A former Chicagoan, I had not followed the Bulls in 1990 when I attended an academic conference in Cuba. I told a Cuban friend that I was born and raised in Chicago. He was surprised to learn that I was not familiar with Michael Jordan and the Bulls. He said that even in Cuba, blockaded by the United States, he was a follower of Jordan and the Bulls. When I returned to the US, I became an avid NBA/Chicago Bulls/Michael Jordan fan, particularly since I had been a longtime suffering fan of the Chicago Cubs baseball team which had not won a world series since 1908.

Thirty years after being introduced to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in Cuba, I spent five corona virus Sundays watching “The Last Dance,” a ten-hour Ken Burns-light documentary about the 1990s Bulls. The centerpiece of each one-hour episode was the world-renowned star and entrepreneur Michael Jordan. As to his business acumen, Jordan had lent his name to a gym shoe produced by Nike, named the “Air Jordan,” in 1984. By the 1990s the shoe was coveted by young aspiring basketball players everywhere.

The documentary included  an historical narrative about the Bulls from the late 1980s through the dynasty’s last season in 1998. The use of film footage had to be approved by Jordan. Episodes were engaging as drama, as comedy, and as historical remembrances for old NBA and Bulls fans. Also, the massive ESPN viewership was stimulated by a sports deprived citizenry suffering from the Covid 19 stay-at-home shutdown.

Each week, sports commentators on the radio and in print media evaluated the prior Sunday’s two one-hour editions of the series. Each episode in multiple ways revolved around the exploits of Michael Jordan. While time was given to the owner and General Manager of the Bulls, Bull’s coach Phil Jackson, some of Jordan’s teammates, and selected “enemies” of Jordan, the documentary was really all about Michael Jordan. (Jordan’s production company was involved in the series and the star had approval rights over the footage that was used in the documentary).

A centerpiece of the Jordan documentary was the athlete’s unbridled, uncompromising, dogged competitiveness. Viewers saw him belittling and harassing his teammates for their inadequate performances in practices as well as games and his consistent efforts to publicly demean and denigrate other teams and players (particularly those billed by the media as possible competitors of his). Scenes show him pursuing domination at card games, on golf courses, and even throwing bottle caps at designated targets. Jordan is presented, by his own admission, as a ruthless competitor. Winning was the only way to be for a star like Jordan.

This competitive passion proudly defended by Jordan, was all consuming. For him,  defeating adversaries would not countenance simple acts of compassion. This almost ruthless drive was only tempered by his love of his father who was brutally murdered in 1992. A sub-text of the documentary was Jordan’s remembrance of his father but even that remembrance was manifested in even greater competitiveness.

Most sports commentators, on radio and in print, spent these five weeks of the series deconstructing every episode, every segment, every interview, and most importantly every word of remembrance and commentary spoken by the iconic Jordan. As to the latter he belittled his adversaries, from the Bulls General Manager, to players he competed against. All was about winning. And the sub-text was: winning requires unbridled competition with friends and adversaries. To paraphrase another sports film: “there is no compassion in basketball.”

Jordan made it crystal clear that his motivation for being in athletics, in business, and in life was competition. And he is alleged to have commented when he was urged to endorse Democratic Party senatorial candidate Harvey Gantt who was running against incumbent racist Republic Jesse Helms in 1990 that “Republicans buy gym shoes too.”

A very small coterie of critics, including the perceptive sports analyst Dave Zirin, pointed to the negative consequences of the ethos of competition that Jordan so frankly and proudly articulated. After all, Zirin suggested, the competitive spirit is the root passion that makes the capitalist economic system possible.  But for most commentators, even if they spoke critically of one or another egregious Jordan act, such as pushing around Steve Kerr or laughing at journalists who at the time praised some defenders against Jordan, his competitive spirit was what made the Bulls and him winners. And, after all, winning is what sports and by implication life is about.

Critics of the political culture of possessive individualism, market fundamentalism, social Darwinism, and the unregulated pursuit of markets and profit find the Jordan persona problematic. And perhaps even more important than the philosophy of life of Michael Jordan is the way that commentators today excuse his celebration of competition and themselves celebrate the implicit assumption that success, personally or socially, is contingent upon ruthless competition. In this trope there is no room for cooperation, solidarity, and altruism.

This lionization of Michael Jordan should be seen as a political and cultural backdrop to the messaging of the Trump Administration today. “Making America Great Again” is not about helping the needy, overcoming inequality, challenging discrimination. It is about being the best in a heartless world.

In the end, struggling to achieve a more humane world requires analyses of and challenges to the consequences of our most cherished cultural narratives in film, music, television, the internet, as well as sports.

THINKING ABOUT HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE TIME OF THE PANDEMIC

Harry Targ

Sometimes we wake up with a multiplicity of ideas swirling around in our heads. Today I thought about the rich and diverse debate going on in discussion groups at universities around the country. Among the issues that interest me, particularly from my own research and writing agenda include:

-the nature and purposes of 21^st century higher education (for society)
-the work forces necessary to achieve the goals of the university
-how decisions involving education are made
-the role of the citizenry, students, faculty, staff in decision-making
-funding higher education
-metrics for assessment: profits, richness of educational experiences, student well-being, contributions of education to society
-curricula: STEM, humanities, social sciences, and/or a model of knowledge that sees them all as interconnected.
-impacts of the funding of higher education by the public, corporations, the military, religious institutions
-connections between universities and the communities in which they reside: public spaces, residences, businesses.

Perhaps having these conversations now is appropriate, given the crises, short and long-term, we face. If we do not address some or all of these questions now, decisions might be made for us, or decisions will occur, almost inadvertently as administrators respond issue by issue.

As a graduate student in the 1960s I remember the excitement, vitality of debate, and chaos that was occurring on college campuses. It was a time of unbridled growth in higher education (in some ways the opposite of today), emerging criticisms of the university connections with war and militarism, and growing self-reflection on race and gender in higher education. 

Paradoxically a full embrace of a growth-oriented economic model of higher education (that paralleled growth in the economy at large) generated discourse and debate that challenged the growth dynamics. Discussion in some classrooms or in “free universities” proceeded in a non-traditional way while   much of higher education continued on a path supporting corporate globalization, the full realization of the national security state, and the achievement of the promise of “American exceptionalism.” What was exciting and important about those days in the university was the vibrancy of the debate about the dominant  ways of thinking about higher education. The spreading debates  engaged citizens of states, students, faculty, staff, and politicians. (Some of these reflections are described more extensively below). 

As difficult as its seems today, that debate about the nature, purposes, and vision of higher education in the 21^st century needs to proceed or decisions about the immediate future will be made by small bodies of decision-makers with very selective stakes in the outcomes. Task forces of faculty, students, staffs, and citizens need to begin conversations now or the future will be decided accidentally or by those with limited visions and interests.

HYBRID WARS: WHAT IS NEW AND WHAT IS NOT? a repost

Harry Targ

(The essay below is a repost of essays written on the hybrid war policies of the United States. The reposting was inspired by the Sanctions Kill webinar, May 9, 2020 with speakers from six of the 39 countries, representing 20 percent of the world’s population, who are victimized by United States economic sanctions. The  teleconference was organized by several peace and solidarity groups who are organizing an international campaign against economic sanctions as violations of human rights. To find out more about the campaign see www.sanctionskill.org)

On The Law of Hybrid Wars

Andrew Korybko, a Russian scholar/journalist, has written about a new concept, “hybrid wars,” with a long history in practice. The author refers to the Law of Hybrid War as “The grand objective behind every Hybrid War is to disrupt multipolar transnational connective projects through externally provoked identity conflicts (ethnic, religious, regional, political etc.) within a targeted transit state” (Andrew Korybko, “Hybrid Wars 1. The Law of Hybrid Warfare,” Oriental Review.org, 4/3.2016). His  concern was United States targeted efforts to undermine efforts by Russia to integrate with Eurasian states and the US desire to disrupt China’s “silk road” projects. It is clear that the concept refers also to efforts by imperial states, particularly the United States, to undermine any efforts by other countries to develop political and economic solidarity that might threaten regional or global hegemony. And Korybko added that ”Hybrid Wars are externally provoked asymmetrical conflicts predicated on sabotaging concrete geo-economic interests.”

The tactics of Hybrid War prioritize identifying strategic weaknesses in target states. These do not necessarily prioritize targeting roads, bridges, or power plants for destruction but rather economic, political, ethnic, or other vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities may include ethnicity, religion, history, administrative boundaries, and socio-economic disparities. Using “soft power” the imperial state supports the introduction of seemingly neutral technologies or processes, such as the internet in the target country. New intrusions are supported by some Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) such as the Soros Foundation or the National Endowment for Democracy. NGOs claim to be motivated to facilitate political and economic development. As David Harvey has suggested NGO projects come with a frame of reference, a goal, and/or a conception of desirable economic or political paths the host country should take. From the Hybrid War perspective these intrusions are used to exacerbate the class, ethnic, and/or geopolitical tensions in the target state.

Most important for our analysis is the argument raised by Korybko that a critical precondition for imposing hybrid war (and a critical tool of it) is the pressure brought by “globally recognized” sanctions. Early in the process of imperial intrusion, victimized states experience increased costs for importing critical commodities, food, energy etc., constraints imposed on exports, and denial of loan requests from international financial institutions. As political instability increases, targeted states are forced to spend more on security, thus sucking resources away from domestic needs. Thus, the Law of Hybrid War involves an imperial state deciding that transnational projects constitute a threat to its rule and assessing historic vulnerabilities of targeted states. Then the imperialists institute policies of intrusion on target states through technology, expansion of an NGO presence, and organizing a global sanctions regime against the targeted state. From a Hybrid War perspective, the imperial power hopes for such an exacerbation of tensions so that regime change will occur without the introduction of foreign troops.

https://orientalreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/AK-Hybrid-Wars-updated.pdf

Hybrid Wars in Latin America

A team of researchers affiliated with Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, published an essay online called “Venezuela and Hybrid Wars in Latin America,” June, 2019. The summary conclusion they drew indicates that “The elements of the hybrid war include: economic and financial suffocation economic destabilization, media and diplomatic blockades, the promotion of violence inside the country—including assassinations—the generation of chaos with the attack on essential services (including the electricity grid), the pressure for an institutional fracture or a coup d’etat and, finally, the threat of an external military intervention” (44).

What we learn from the concept of Hybrid War (which is not new) is that instead of launching gun boat diplomacy as a first tactic (as in the case of over 30 US military interventions in Latin America from 1898 until the 1930s), the United States, in order to overcome developing regional solidarity against hegemony, identifies vulnerabilities in the most significant states (Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua) and launches a multidimensional campaign of destabilization, with traditional military intervention as just a last resort. High on the list are economic sanctions, commercial blockades, networking with dissidents from the wealthy, promoting a dissident local media, generating a whole media narrative for consumption in the United States and Europe that challenges the legitimacy of the existing governments, and generates a discourse among intellectuals, “experts,” that justify Hybrid War strategies. The latter particularly are inserted into left and progressive conversations about US policy. A significant facilitator of these destabilizing strategies iinclude so-called Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) which often provide aid, promote education, advocate for specific economic development models, and promote religious agendas. At the level of culture the imagery of high mass consumption and how it is intimately connected to a neoliberal economic model undergirds the Hybrid War project. And again, if all else fails, militarism remains an option (and throughout the period of Hybrid War, war remains a threat). https://mronline.org/2019/06/10/dossier-17-venezuela-and-hybrid-wars-in-latin-america/

Hybrid Wars Against Iran

Iran has been a country of particular concern of the United States at least since the end of World War II. The US propped up the Shah (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi) at the outset of the war to protect US bases which were used to transfer war materials to the former Soviet Union. After Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, elected in 1951, nationalized Iran’s valuable oil resource, Great Britain, whose Anglo-Iranian Oil Company had “owned “ the oil, began to urge the US to overthrow the democratically elected Prime Minister, instill full power in the monarch, the Shah, and reprivatize Iranian oil. In 1953 the US Central Intelligence Agency launched a coup to overthrow the Prime Minister and to establish the Shah as Iran’s all-powerful dictator. His brutality and repression lasted for years until a mass-based worker and religious-led movement ousted him from power in 1979. In the aftermath of the ouster of the Shah, religious leaders consolidated their control of the state, the Shah fled to the United States for medical treatment, the new regime demanded his return to stand trial for his crimes, and Iranian students took 52 US embassy personnel hostage for 444 days.

The United States responses to the transformation of the Iranian regime included President Carter’s declaration of his “doctrine,” which proclaimed that instabilities in the Persian Gulf region were vital to US national security. The US began to fund Iraq in its eight-year bloody war against Iran, which led to 500,000 Iranians killed. The United States urged Israel to invade Lebanon, escalate attacks on Palestine, and in general tilted in opposition to Iran and its allies in the region. The US also increased the sale of technologically sophisticated arms to Saudi Arabia. Therefore in the 1980s, US policy in the Persian Gulf and Middle East regions was driven by the growing hostility of Iran to the United States (once a pillar of

US support in the Persian Gulf), the continued need of Europe and Japan for Iranian oil, and Iran’s vital geographic location, particularly in terms of its potential control of the  flow of oil to Europe and Japan.  But, in addition, the Iranian people had violated a cardinal rule of US global hegemony. They had risen up against rule by an American puppet. Much like Cuba in the Western Hemisphere, Iranians declared that they no longer would abide by a leader chosen by the United States and not them. (In fact, in the Nixon Administration, the Shah’s regime was identified as the key “gendarme” state in the Persian Gulf, the local US police enforcer).

Ever since the hostage crisis of 1979, the United States has imposed economic sanctions of one sort or another on Iran. After the long years of damage to the Iranian economy and the people at large, the  Nuclear Treaty of 2015 (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), was negotiated by Iran, the United States, member countries of the European Union, and Security Council members, Russia and China.  Along with Iran’s promise to stop the production of potential nuclear material, signatories agreed to end the freezing of Iranian assets deposited in US and European banks, to eliminate various prohibitions on Western investment in the Iranian economy, and to remove trade restrictions. 

Almost immediately after the sanctions were lifted in the aftermath of the Nuclear Treaty, the Iranian economy grew: a 12 percent growth in GDP in 2016 and an additional but modest 3.7 percent in 2017. However, in 2018 President Trump withdrew from the Nuclear Treaty and re-imposed crippling sanctions. As a result, the Iranian economy contracted by 4.8 percent in 2018 and in a BBC report projected a further decline of 9.5 percent in 2019.

Iran’s oil exports and hence production was hit particularly hard. The value of Iranian currency declined dramatically and inflation in the country rose, particularly for the price of food. (BBC News. “Six Charts That Show How Hard US Sanctions Have Hit Iran,” December 2, 2019). Sanctions reduced purchasing power, increased the cost of living for food and transportation, reduced access of Iranian students studying abroad to financial resources, and led to the reduction of public services.  

This is the story of hybrid war against Iran: along with military threats and attempts to isolate Iran diplomatically, make the people suffer and cause increased outrage at the material conditions of life. The hope is that the people will rise up and overthrow the regime in power (and, of course, instances of corruption and repression will magnify protest responses). The scenario has been repeated over and over: Guatemala and Iran in the early 1950s, Cuba since 1960, and  now Venezuela and Iran again. And make no mistake about it: economic sanctions are targeted against civilian populations and constitute a strategy of war against the people, motivating them to rise up against their governments.

Meanings of the Hybrid War Concept for the Peace Movement

We can deduce a variety of conclusions from the Law of Hybrid Wars.

First, twenty-first century imperialism is not solely or primarily about fighting wars.

Second, hegemonic powers, such as the United States, see coalitions of states as a threat to global dominance. This is true in Eurasia, the countries along the Silk Road, and in Latin America where a crippled Bolivarian Revolution survives.

Third, strategists do not primarily act impulsively. They see a threat, which includes transnational cooperation and resistance. Strategists then identify weak links in threatened coalitions. They formulate multi-dimensional, stage-by-stage responses. And these responses involve economics, culture, sowing seeds of division, promoting demonic narratives about target states, and at the same time they leave “all options on the table,” which means traditional military action.

Fourth, the Law of Hybrid War suggests that the peace movement must treat economic blockades, efforts to isolate target states in the international system, blatant lies about target nations as acts of war.

Fifth, the peace movement needs to be wary of false narratives and NGOs that are presented as philanthropic.

Finally, it behooves the peace movement to be cognizant of twenty-first century methods of imperialism; fashioning strategies that clearly and compellingly identify and combat economic sanctions, false narratives, and institutions that seem to be philanthropic as acts of war.

This analysis resonates currently with daily news accounts involving Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Iran and, while more complicated, Russia and China.



www.heartlandradical.blogspot.com

REFLECTIONS ON ASPECTS OF THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE COVID 19 PANDEMIC

Harry Targ

There are political, economic, ideological dimensions about how the pandemic is playing out in American life. First, the crisis is being framed in diametrically opposed ways. One frame says the crisis is really former President Obama’s fault and current President Trump, coming into office in the face of errors, is now rectifying the situation. He is in the process of saving the lives of thousands of Americans as the pandemic winds down. The legacy of the Obama era, Trump argues, is magnified by the incompetence or duplicity of the Chinese.

A second, and more accurate frame, is that the Trump administration is riddled with incompetence. As a result he ignored the early warning signs of crisis, fired experts on pandemics, and bungled efforts to ameliorate the worst effects of it. Governors, burdened with rising numbers of victims of the virus in their states, are desperately establishing health and safety rules, purchasing necessary equipment for first responders and citizens, and  trying within limits of interest and ideology to provide for the social welfare of  citizens.

These state policies pit the governors against a federal government that regards the playing out of the crisis as part of a political drama. For the president, the crisis, his denigration of responses in the states to the pandemic, and criticisms of those who call for more concerted action to reverse the incidences of the disease, is all about him. Ultimately for Trump, much more than his opponents, policy decisions are shaped by the upcoming elections.

Second, while 2020 politics shape the policy decisions during the crisis so do economics and ideology. With the spread of disease and death Trump was forced to accept modest but necessary state policies that sequestered people to slow the dramatic increases in those affected by the virus and deaths resulting from it. However, these policies have brought the economy to a halt. And as of May, the public debate has been  shifting from “is the crisis real” and “do we have to employ radical measures to reduce the incidence of the virus” to “when should we reopen the economy.”

Most of the scientific evidence points to the need to continue the social and economic lockdown of the nation. But Trump, the rightwing sectors of the capitalist class, and the gun-toting base of Trump’s support are advocating an end to the policies of quarantining. Many mainstream politicians, CEOs and administrators of public institutions (for example university presidents) have indicated that the risk of not returning to economic activity as usual is more important than the risk that the pandemic might continue and grow. Concretely, among significant sectors of the ruling class, profit takes priority over public health.

Third, the ideological justification of the profound danger to the survival of society as we know it comes down to arguments about the “magic of the marketplace” versus “government intervention” and  “governments’ trampling on personal freedom.” As the godfather of this ideology, Ronald Reagan, said: “Government is not the solution. Government is the problem.” And, to the extent that public policies have been based on science, science as an enterprise is being subjected to scorn and disbelief.

In addition, some specific elements of this drama worth mentioning are:

--Rightwing racists and militias are mobilizing to defend Trump while others party in public, refuse to wear masks, and in other ways show their defiance in the face of health risks

--These public manifestations of protest against governmental efforts to mute the worst effects of the pandemic are being promoted with money, propagandizing, and staffing  by rightwing sectors of the ruling class. Most prominent in these prompts to mobilization are organizations well known by now: Charles Koch funded organizations such as ALEC, Americans for Prosperity, the State Policy Network, and the Heritage Foundation, and the NRA. Protests are not just spontaneous uprisings of ill-informed workers but well-planned efforts to reverse public policies designed to protect the health of the population. And they are targeted against those politicians Trump himself has attacked.

But it is important to remember that vast majorities of those polled believe that the policies of reducing public activity and business as usual should be continued, Most Americans reject the calls for ending “government interference.” They accept the conclusions of scientists that the pandemic remains life-threatening.

--Public policies that have passed to mute the growing economic pain and suffering of average citizens, workers and small business persons, have redistributed enormous wealth to the largest corporations in the United States. Much needed bailout packages passed by Congress have not addressed enough the healthcare, food, housing, and other needs of the American people.

--This critical moment of the political, economic, and ideological struggle requires serious attention. As Naomi Klein has pointed out, the outcome of this crisis will determine the future of the United States and perhaps the global political economy. The forces of the libertarian right, sectors of neoliberalism, and white nationalism are working to return the United States to the Gilded Age, when the accumulation of wealth and the immiseration of the masses was extreme,  Jim Crow was law in the South and racist social practices predominated throughout the United States.

Alternatively, the pandemic has made clear to all that the capitalist economy and the US political system are broken. It is this awareness that could trigger the mobilization of masses of people to create another world: a world of democratic socialism.  This is the project that more and more people in the US and around the world are embracing. The time for rebuilding our mass movements and our left political parties in unity and expanding international solidarity is now. Another World is Still Possible.

ON CLASS AND RACE

On Class and Race
A slide lecture by Harry R. Targ
Arranged by Carl Davidson

THINKING ABOUT CUBA, THE UNITED STATES, THE PANDEMIC ON THE BIRTHDAY OF KARL MARX

Tuesday, May 5, 2020
 

Radical Individualism and Profit vs. Human Solidarity:The United States And Cuba

   by Harry Targ

   a Repost 

On Ideology

The economic and political structure of capitalism requires “an ideology, a consciousness, a way in which the citizenry can be taught to accept the system as it is. This ideology has many branches but one root, the maintenance and enhancement of the capitalist economic system. The elements of the dominant political ideology include: privileging individualism over community; conceptualizing society as a brutal state of nature controlled only by countervailing force; acceptance of the idea that humans are at base greedy; and, finally, the belief that the avariciousness of human nature requires police force and laws at home and armies overseas.”

The Cuban Alternative

The webinar “International Conference for the Normalization of US-Cuba Relations,” March 21 and 22 presented panelists who discussed the status of United States/Cuban relations, the contemporary Cuban economy, US and Canadian solidarity movements with Cuba, and the consequences of Cuban medical advances for the fight against the corona virus domestically and internationally.

What figured prominently in the discussion was the history of Cuba’s prioritization of the fulfillment of the health care needs of its people and Cuba’s commitment to the health and wellbeing of people all across the globe. From the early days of the revolution, Cuba committed itself to educating its population and providing free and effective health care. In the spirit of international solidarity, Cuba began sending medical professionals to countries all across the globe. Its first medical mission, 56 health care professionals, was sent in 1963 to Algeria after the French were ousted.

Since 1963, 450,000 Cuban health care professionals have served in 160 countries serving six million people, according to Dr. Jorge Delgado Bustillo, Director of the Central Medical Collaboration Unit (UCCM). In addition, Cuban tropical medicine has led to the discovery of Interferon Alpha 2b to treat dengue fever, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV. Currently Interferon Alpha 2b is being used in China and elsewhere to reduce the effects of the corona virus among those with severe cases.  The medication has been produced since 2003 by a joint Chinese/Cuban corporation called ChangHeber. The development of the medication has its roots in Cuban/US/Finnish collaboration going back to the early 1980s and the establishment of the Cuban Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) in 1986 (Helen Yaffe, “Cuba’s Contribution to Combatting COVID-19,”Counterpunch, March 17, 2020).

Today Interferon Alpha 2b is being used in China and there have been requests from Italy, Spain, and countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to receive Cuban doctors as well as the anti-viral medication. In addition, there are currently Cuban medical teams working in 58 countries. The Cuban Ambassador to the United Nations, Ana Silvia Rodriguez, suggested at the webinar cited above, that now was the time to put ideology aside and work for international cooperation.

The United States Rhetoric About Overcoming the Crisis: The Politics of Contagion

At the March 21, press conference update on the status of the COVID-19 in the United States President Trump chose to use the crisis to celebrate his administration’s efforts to combat the spread of the disease. As he does often on various issues, the president claimed that the government response to the  crisis was more comprehensive and successful than any efforts ever to combat threats to the health and safety of the United States. President Trump, Vice-President Pence, and other members of the administration political team emphasized five enduring themes deeply imbedded in US ideology.

First, the President said the explicit causes of the crisis were China (“the Chinese virus”) and the flow of immigrants. Second, the disease will be conquered first and foremost in the world as a result of American exceptionalism. The US has the best medical researchers, administrators, and health care professionals. The US, he implied, has won wars, led the way in research, and is the leader of the world. Third, the mobilization of the nation’s resources to defeat the current contagion included the active role of the faith community, referring to productive meetings the administration had with religious leaders. Fourth, and undergirding all the rest, was the centrality of market solutions to this serious challenge to the nation’s health. It is the corporate sector that now will produce more masks, more virus tests, and ultimately the vaccines that will control and eliminate the disease. Finally, the American people are contributing to this national effort by staying home, not congregating in numbers greater than ten people, and standing six feet apart from each other. The community mobilizations occurring around the country to bring food to the needy, to house the homeless, and to provide social support for the fearful were only fleetingly mentioned.

The Difference: The Choice

“We are all afraid but we have a revolutionary duty to fulfill, so we take out fear and put it to one side,” Leonardo Fernandez, 68, an intensive care specialist, told Reuters late on Saturday shortly before his brigade’s departure. He who says he is not afraid is a superhero, but we are not superheroes, we are revolutionary doctors.”

– Nelson Acosta, “Cuban Doctors Head to Italy to Battle Coronavirus,” Reuters, March 22, 2020, Reuters.com.

This statement by a Cuban doctor expresses profound commitment to human solidarity. The duty of the Cuban doctor is to help persons in need. The very idea of revolution is solidarity, recognizing the worth of all people, participating with others for the common good, self-sacrifice, and most of all, putting principles of solidarity above profit or any sense of superiority.

The coronavirus crisis and how the US and Cuba respond to the crisis illustrate two paths humankind can take for a better future. It is for all of us to decide. Reports from around the US indicate that citizens are choosing the Cuban path, finding ways to give support to those in need in their communities. These grassroots efforts could be the basis of broader changes in policy and institutions in the future.

This article appeared in The Diary of  a Heartland Radical, Counterpunch, and CPUSA.org