The Corporate Media Did Not Cover the New Poor Peoples Campaign Rally Last Weekend!

 https://www.commondreams.org/news/poor-peoples-campaign-voters?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1TanhrQrKsUtftxhGxv1dgwaNjrAXiVR0SuYv8IlDo5CD29F7ldxMtOWc_aem_obT2dFdZYQYeuw0jJv10SA

Originally Posted Tuesday, May 24, 2022

CONNECTING FOREIGN POLICY TO DOMESTIC NEEDS

Harry Targ

As the tragedy of the Russian invasion and the devastation of Ukraine unfold, the war machines (policymakers, arms manufacturers, educators, media propagandists) of various countries-Russian, NATO alliance partners, and the US-ramp up their calls for more war. These advocates for more violence, more nuclear threats, and more great power chauvinisms increasingly take center stage. Rumors of “back channel” negotiations are demeaned. Feelers for negotiation articulated by key leaders are ignored.  And hints of negotiations and compromises and concessions are ridiculed. Finally, any suggestions that China, an “authoritarian state” could play a role in deescalating the crisis are condemned.

And, in the midst of the escalating tensions and finally the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the significant Biden program of substantial social, economic, and environmental changes has been allowed to flounder and die. Now Congress and the Administration eagerly legislate more money for the military and more money for our beleaguered Ukrainian ally (the latest over $40 billion) and increasingly remind the population that China, the real enemy, is lurking in the global background. Biden’s efforts this week to resuscitate an Asian trade bloc and warnings about the US commitment to defend Taiwan are the most recent examples. Health care, debt relief for students, shifts to a Green Jobs Agenda, tax reform, raising the minimum wage all need to be put off for another day.

Last year the New Poor Peoples Campaign showed in an informative flyer how money projected for the military could be used for human needs. 

https://ips-dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/PPC-BBB-fact-sheet.pdf

And elsewhere the NPPC pointed out that:

“Since Vietnam, the United States has waged an ongoing war against diffuse enemies, siphoning massive resources away from social needs. Out of every dollar in federal discretionary spending, 53 cents [go] towards the military, with just 15 cents on anti-poverty programs.”

 

Many of us remember the dramatic policies proposed, some implemented, of the Great Society. And twenty-five years earlier, during World War and before “the Great Society,” Henry Wallace, spoke of the the prospect of creating the “Century of the Common Man,” the absence of war, social and economic justice, and freedom. President Roosevelt called for a “New Economic Bill of Rights,” in 1944 embodying economic security and justice for all, and even Harry Truman advocated for a national health care system.

And what happened every time, the 1940s, the 1960s, the 1990s, and now-threats of war, demands for preparations for war, escalating military expenditures. The tragedy of how war and the mythology of its inevitability is vividly reflected in the defeat of the Great Society programs.

In sum, since the establishment of the permanent war economy in the 1940s millions of proclaimed “enemies” have been killed and seriously injured, mostly in the Global South. Permanent physical and psychological damage has been done to U.S soldiers, predominantly poor and minorities as they too are victims of war.

In addition, military spending has distorted national priorities and invested U.S. financial resources in expenditures that do not create as many jobs as investments in construction, education, or healthcare. And, as Andrew Bacevich, Seymour Melman and others have called it, “the permanent war economy” has created a culture that celebrates violence, objectifies killing, dehumanizes enemies, and exalts super-patriotism through television, music, video games, and educational institutions.

There is no doubt that there is an inextricable connection between war-making abroad and human suffering at home. Now is the time for peace and justice movements to act on these connections.

 

Debate Lies Concerning Covid Remind Us of the Rightwing Threat to Democracy and Well-being

Orignally posted on Thursday, May 7, 2020

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.