Bloomberg: 'We Will Starve Here': India's Poor Flee Cities in Mass Exodus [feedly]

'We Will Starve Here': India's Poor Flee Cities in Mass Exodus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-30/-we-will-starve-here-india-s-poor-flee-cities-in-mass-exodus

In small groups and large crowds, through inner-city lanes and down interstate highways, hundreds of thousands of India's poorest are slowly making a desperate journey on foot back to their villages in a mass exodus unseen since the days immediately after India's independence in 1947.

For many, it's a matter of life and death. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's order last Tuesday to lock down the country for 21 days to prevent the spread of Covid-19 has dried up work in urban areas, leaving many rural migrants who keep the city moving while making less than $2 a day -- construction workers, handymen, food sellers, truck drivers and household help -- suddenly wondering how they'll pay rent or buy food.

Migrant workers and their families stand behind a barrier at a police checkpoint in Delhi, on March 28.

Photographer: Anindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg

"We have to go to our village -- we will starve here," said Rekha Devi as she walked with her husband and two young children down a highway outside of Delhi, heading to see her family some 370 kilometers (270 miles) away. The couple lived on the construction site where they worked, but the job stopped suddenly more than a week ago.

"We haven't eaten for two days," Devi said, noting that the little money they had saved quickly ran out. "We are scared of this disease but I think hunger will kill us. We will stay hungry, but how can we watch our children starve?"

The family on Sunday walked with hundreds of others down a highway normally clogged with vehicles, their mouths and noses covered with scarves or handkerchiefs or masks. They clasped their children and belongings -- tattered duffel bags stuffed with clothes, buckets filled with cooking utensils, blankets and sheets.

Rekha Devi feeds her children as they sit along the National Highway 24 in the outskirts of Delhi on March 29.

Photographer: Anindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg

The grim scenes playing out across the nation of 1.3 billion people are some of the worst across the world since the virus crisis shut down much of the global economy. In India, it's brought back memories of the mass migration sparked by deadly religious riots when the subcontinent was split up after the British left in 1947. These days, however, the divide is largely between those in India with money and those who live month by month, or even day by day.

Pessimistic Indian Doctors Brace for Tsunami of Virus Cases

What's worse, the mass movement of people risks speeding the spread of the coronavirus across the country -- undermining the goal of the 21-day lockdown. Right now, it's nearly impossible to tell what will happen because India lacks testing data to determine what stage the pandemic has reached, according to Gagandeep Kang, an infectious disease expert and head of India's Translational Health Science and Technology Institute outside of Delhi.

"Because we are not testing enough, we don't know what this means in terms of disease spread," Kang said. "If very few people are infected today, then they're going home and if they reach home safely then that might be the best thing for them," she added, while saying cases will emerge throughout the country in two to four weeks if many migrants already have Covid-19.

Migrant workers and their families board buses during a lockdown imposed due to the coronavirus in New Delhi, on March 28.

Photographer: Anindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg

Modi last week announced the nationwide lockdown in a prime-time television address, prompting middle-class Indian families to rush to the nearest supermarket to buy food. Panic had been spreading among migrant workers even before Modi shuttered India's massive railway network and grounded all domestic and international flights: Smaller, state-wide lockdowns had already hit daily wage earners, prompting hundreds of thousands to cram into trains and buses to reach the safety of their villages.

Modi's government on Sunday asked states to quarantine migrant workers for 14 days and prevent them from traveling elsewhere in the country as the official case toll rose to more than 1,000, including 25 deaths. In a radio address, Modi apologized to the nation while urging them to understand he had no other option. His government earlier approved a 1.7 trillion rupee ($23 billion) stimulus package targeted at the poor.

'I Seek Their Forgiveness'

"I had to take certain decisions which have put you in lots of difficulty, especially when I look at my poor brothers and sisters," Modi said in a nationwide radio on Sunday. "They must be thinking what kind of prime minister is this who placed us in this difficulty. I seek their forgiveness."

Local media have reported at least 22 deaths already among those trying to reach their villages, some in road accidents and others because of illness or starvation. The chaos reflects a lack of planning by the government reminiscent of Modi's move in 2016 to eliminate more than 80% of India's hard currency overnight, according to Michael Kugelman, senior associate for South Asia at the Wilson Center in Washington.

"Surely New Delhi understood that in a country with millions of migrants and a large informal economy, you can't just shut the country down for three weeks and expect everyone to dutifully shelter in place," he said.

In the western state of Maharashtra, home to India's financial capital Mumbai, thousands of people trekked toward villages in the interior or in the southern state of Karnataka more than 600 kilometers away. As the summer temperatures touched nearly 95 Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius), some rested under trees along a highway leaving the city.

'What Will We Eat?'

"Some kind-hearted people gave us food," said one elderly woman, who estimated it would take at least five days to reach her home in Karnataka. "I don't know whether we'll get any more."

As the humanitarian crisis began to unfold in Delhi, the government of neighboring Uttar Pradesh -- India's most-populous state -- sent buses to a crowded station to ferry migrant workers from the outskirts of the Indian capital back to their villages.

Neha Kashyap

Photographer: Anindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg

On Sunday, Neha Kashyap walked there with her husband and three young children, trying to get a ride after their attempts to find transportation closer to their home had failed. Her husband had a small shop fixing sewing machines and small electrical appliances like blenders, but it closed after work began to dry up and they couldn't make the rent.

"When there is nothing left to eat, what should we stay here and do?" Kashyap said, her eyes welling up with tears. "The government says stay where you are. Tell us what will we eat? How will we feed our children? How will we pay our rent? We have to try and get away."

'Keep Moving'

Around her, police sirens blared as hundreds of others slowly walked down the stretch of road hoping to catch one of the buses heading to Uttar Pradesh. "Keep moving, keep moving," police shouted through microphones. Others beat their batons on the road to hurry on the crowds, and chided volunteers who handed out bananas and pouches of water. "Don't you have any poor people in your own areas to help?" one officer shouted.

Migrant workers and their families walk along a highway in Delhi, on March 28.

Photographer: Anindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg

If she didn't get her family on one of the buses, Kashyap's only option was to keep walking toward her hometown some 530 kilometers away -- longer than the distance between London and Paris.

"Whatever little our parents have, they will keep us alive -- we have to go no matter what," she said. "Let me tell you one thing: More people will die of hunger than from this disease."

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Despite some good provisions, the CARES Act has glaring flaws and falls short of fully protecting workers during the coronavirus crisis [feedly]

Despite some good provisions, the CARES Act has glaring flaws and falls short of fully protecting workers during the coronavirus crisis
https://www.epi.org/blog/despite-some-good-provisions-the-cares-act-has-glaring-flaws-and-falls-short-of-fully-protecting-workers-during-the-coronavirus-crisis/

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act is an important step in the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic. It includes provisions for expanded unemployment insurance ($250 billion), aid to small businesses ($350 billion), cash payments to households ($300 billion), aid to states ($150 billion), emergency funding for health care supplies and investments ($100 billion), and money for industry bailouts ($450 billion). The total package will provide more than $2 trillion in funds.

There is much to like in this package, and timely relief is critical. But it also contains many flaws, largely left over from the first proposal forwarded by Senate Republicans. Because many of the weaknesses of this first proposal remain, the package will not be up to the job of fully protecting U.S. workers and their families from the economic consequences of the coronavirus shock, and it will not allow the economy to reboot quickly enough once the public health crisis ends. Further help from policymakers will clearly be needed.

When we estimated that a relief and recovery package needed to be at least $2.1 trillion just through the end of 2020, we noted that this was the number for a package that was well-targeted and would reliably deliver the vast majority of benefits to workers and their families. The CARES Act does not do that. Even though it includes more than $2 trillion in funding, key design failures mean the legislation will not be large enough to provide the necessary economic relief and recovery. The economy will continue to operate significantly below potential through the end of the year, even in optimistic scenarios where the shock caused by social distancing measures is relatively short.

We'll start with the (mostly) good parts of the CARES Act.

It provides substantial and welcome changes to the unemployment insurance (UI) system and payroll support programs for small businesses. The bill establishes a new Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) system that expands benefits eligibility to many who have fallen through the cracks of our existing stingy UI system (think gig workers and the self-employed). The new PUA program also provides an added $600 per week in benefits. This leaves the program financing essentially 100% replacement of wage income for the bottom half of the workforce. This is much better than the status quo, but this could have been more generous for higher-wage workers. Importantly, the new PUA program also allows furloughed workers to receive benefits if their place of employment has closed due to COVID-19. This is also welcome—it can allow matches between employers and workers to be preserved during the downturn and restarted more quickly once the all-clear is sounded on public health measures.

Even though the bill does very little to close the enormous gaps in access to paid leave, the PUA program will serve as a backstop for those workers who do not have access to paid sick days or paid family leave but are unemployed, underemployed, or unable to work because of personal illness, quarantine, or the need to care for a family member.

The aid to small businesses could be quite useful as well. The aid starts as loans, but if the money is used to preserve jobs and maintain wages of employees over the crisis, then the loans can be forgiven—potentially keeping tens of millions of small business employees on payroll.

The bill includes $100 billion in investments in health care preparedness and another $150 billion in aid to state and local governments. Both are welcome, but state and local governments will clearly need substantially more federal support to avoid being a drag on recovery later in the year.

The bill also includes one-time cash payments to households of $1,200 per adult and $500 per child. These payments will be useful for families—especially those falling through the cracks of other aid—but could certainly be made more generous. Further, while these payments will be available even to very low-income households, individuals must have filed a federal tax return in order to receive it. Some 30 million people (people with very low incomes, seniors, people with disabilities, and veterans) don't file returns, which means that in order to get this aid, they will have to file tax returns during this pandemic.

Now, we'll move on to the glaring design flaws of the CARES Act.

The single biggest tranche of money in the package is a large pot of money aimed at industry rescues, but with no guardrails to ensure that public money is directed toward saving the jobs, wages, and benefits of typical workers rather than the wealth of shareholders, creditors, and corporate executives. The bill calls for industry bailouts to preserve jobs "to the greatest extent practicable," which is utterly toothless language. Further, there are no explicit protections for worker safety. Given that this entire crisis is driven by an epidemic and that many, including the president, want a premature return to economic activity in the face of this virus, it is imperative that U.S. workers be given protection against being forced to work in unsafe conditions. It is astounding that this basic protection cannot be made explicit for industries seeking public aid.

It is not particularly hard to design rules-based accountability measures that would ensure aid to industries actually protected workers' jobs, wages, benefits, and health. But instead of hard-and-fast rules, the CARES Act provides for an inspector general and oversight committee that will be in charge of making sure this industry aid is spent in the public interest. This is simply insufficient. The deeply flawed financial-sector bailouts of 2008, for example, included an inspector general and oversight committee, and yet far too much of the money went to support financial firms and far too little went to support typical families.

We could undertake a key test for whether corporations genuinely need public aid or are simply trying to exploit this crisis to grab public money by demanding these companies give the federal government equity stakes in exchange for immediate aid. By granting the government equity, these companies would dilute existing shareholders' claims on future profits. If these existing shareholders are unwilling to allow this dilution, this is a clear sign that they firmly expect the company to continue operations even without a bailout. This can be seen in Boeing's response to suggestions of granting equity stakes in exchange for aid—the company said clearly they would find other ways to cope. But if there are other ways to cope, then a bailout is, by definition, not needed.

Finally, this proposal repeats terrible mistakes of the past by not instituting triggers to enable relief and recovery aid to keep flowing as long as economic conditions warrant. Time-based aid makes no sense, particularly when facing as uncertain an economic shock as the current one. Instead, as long as relief is needed and the economy remains depressed, aid should continue to flow. Optimally, the triggers that would enable this aid to keep flowing would be based on employment and hours of work instead of, or in addition to, unemployment rates. This consideration applies not just to the expanded UI benefits, but also to the direct cash payments to households and the aid to state and local governments. None of this aid should be shut off automatically on an arbitrary date. Instead, it should wind down gradually as economic conditions warrant.

The human toll of the economic shock that health measures related to the coronavirus inflict on the U.S. economy is entirely dependent on our policy response. If we are smart and ambitious and driven by a desire to minimize human suffering, we can shield the vast majority of households from the vast majority of potential damage. This bill is a useful step, but we must do better—or the economic damage will be staggering.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Early state unemployment insurance data foreshadow the massive shock the coronavirus is having on state labor markets: The real surge will be seen in next week’s data [feedly]

Early state unemployment insurance data foreshadow the massive shock the coronavirus is having on state labor markets: The real surge will be seen in next week's data
https://www.epi.org/blog/early-state-unemployment-insurance-data-foreshadow-the-massive-shock-the-coronavirus-is-having-on-state-labor-markets-the-real-surge-will-be-seen-in-next-weeks-data/

The data released yesterday by the Department of Labor showed there was a breathtaking increase in the number of people filing for unemployment insurance (UI) during the week ending in March 21, 2020. Initial UI claims skyrocketed to 3.3 million last week—a nearly 1,500% increase over three weeks ago, when 211,000 initial claims were filed.

The comparable state-level data on UI claims is released one week later than the national data, so the most recent information available at the state-level is for two weeks ago—the week ending March 14th. While this does not capture the staggering spike in claims that we saw last week, the early effects of coronavirus are already apparent in many states. Figure A displays the percent change in unemployment insurance claims from the prior week.

UI is a critical tool for ensuring that those who are out of work or have seen their hours reduced are still able to make ends meet. The CARES Act, which Congress is currently debating, would adapt UI to meet the needs of the current crisis by expanding who is eligible (gig workers and the self-employed are usually excluded), giving an additional $600 in weekly benefits, and reducing burdensome waiting period, job search, and earnings requirements. Still, UI is just one of many policy levers that should be used to support workers throughout this crisis. Policymakers in every state should work to ensure that they are protecting public health while reducing economic harm to workers.

Figure A

Of all the states, Nevada saw the largest percent increase in initial claims filed compared to the prior week. Initial claims there nearly tripled, increasing by 175% or 4,047 additional claims. This is the largest numerical week-to-week increase in Nevada's history, and the second largest percentage increase. In Nevada, over 40% of jobs are in the leisure, hospitality, and retail sectors. As social distancing measures impact restaurants, bars, hotels, theaters, and other businesses across the country, states like Nevada will feel the effects more acutely.

Washington state, an early epicenter of the coronavirus, was also particularly hard-hit. In terms of sheer numbers, it saw the second-largest over-the-week increase in claims (7,624 additional claims) after California (14,240), and the second largest percentage increase (115%) behind Nevada. Washington's increase for the week of March 14, 2020 was also the second-largest increase in the state's history, both in level and percentage terms. Washington D.C. (158%), Nebraska (58.7%), Rhode Island (58.3%), and Massachusetts (58.1%) also saw claims increase by more than 50%. Data for all states is displayed in Table 1.

Table 1

The Department of Labor also provides an advance estimate of initial claims by state for one week ago, shown in Table 2. This advance estimate is available earlier than the official count of initial claims in each state, but it is not directly comparable. (The advance claims are based on the state where the employer is located, whereas the historical data of official claims is based on the resident state of the employee.) Still, these advance estimates indicate that when the official data are released next week, they're going to show historical levels of UI claims for nearly every state.

Table 2

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

The struggle of our lives: Coronavirus and capitalist crisis

Joe Sims has been a friend for a very long time. He is a serious student of democratic, socialist and communist history and ideology. I am fond of quibbling with him. But I won't. I think he nails it here.  

The struggle of our lives:  Coronavirus and capitalist crisis

Joe Sims

http://www.cpusa.org/article/the-struggle-of-our-lives-copd-19-and-capitalist-crisis/

In a new and dangerous twist to the coronavirus crisis, Donald Trump is now calling for an end to social distancing perhaps as early as Easter. His goal is to restart the economy and avoid the worst impact of the coming recession.

Can you imagine: Trump in the crudest and most callous possible way is attempting to solve the crisis on the backs of our working class and people. It wasn't enough that the administration ignored each and every warning from the scientific community and called it a hoax and a scam. It wasn't enough that they are using the crisis to turn immigrants back at the border and bust unions.

Now, Trump is willing to risk the health and lives of millions of workers in order to satisfy the Wall Street Journal and corporate America's quest for maximum profits. They think that, since most people under 50 years of age who contract the virus will  experience only mild symptoms, reopening the country won't be a problem. The theory is that those most affected by the coronavirus will develop an immunity, and the virus will end. They call this "herd immunity." And it might have worked in early January before the pandemic became widespread in the U.S.

But here's the problem: because Trump refused to test early—and even refused the World Health Organization's offer for free tests—public health experts still have no idea how many people are infected. And the rate of infection is doubling and tripling. Today in New York, the new epicenter of the crisis, hospitals are close to being overwhelmed.

The whole purpose of social distancing is to slow the rate of infection so that the hospital workers can deal with the influx of critically ill patients. But if Trump's return-to-work plan goes through, hospitals will be pushed to the verge of collapse.

We are living in an era of crisis.

The country is faced with more than a health crisis. It's also an economic crisis. In addition, it's a political, social, and environmental crisis. And these crises are interlocking, interengaging, and interacting in ways that can't be anticipated.

Who would have thought that a month ago, even two weeks ago, a health crisis would shake the very foundations of the capitalist system? This is not an exaggeration; the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis estimated that the unemployment rate could be as high as 30%—higher than during the Great Depression.

The service economy is shutting down. The entertainment industry, restaurants, and bars are closing. And because the crisis is international, it's going to affect basic industry, from cars to iPhones, as supply chains are disrupted and production comes to a halt. With just-in-time-production, spare parts are scarce. If factories in other countries don't send them here, workers get laid off. Laid-off workers don't buy products, and the circulation process is affected: business shuts down, state and local governments lose revenue, and the whole thing starts to unravel. That's what's starting to happen.

The fascist danger is growing.

On top of all this, there's a political crisis, in the first place with respect to the elections. Already several state primaries have been postponed, and it's not beyond possibility that Trump may attempt to postpone the general election in November. The conservative Rasmussen poll recently claimed that 25% of Americans support postponement.

Needless to say, such an eventuality must be resolutely opposed.

Adding to the depth of the crisis is the administration's ideologically driven approach to governing, one aspect of which is the "dismantling the administrative state." One of the reasons that Trump was not prepared for the pandemic is that in 2018 the Executive Branch got rid of the office of the Senior Director for Global Health Security and Biothreats, established during the Ebola crisis. They also drastically cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control, which oversees combating the spread of pandemics in other countries.

Hence, it's not an accident that they at first refused to take effective federal action and put everything on the governors or that they have refused to use the Defense Production Act to compel industries to produce the goods necessary to combat the crisis. It all grows out of their alt-right approach to ruling the country. Those who claim the president is not ideologically driven might take another look.

All of this requires a political response, but that, too, is part of the crisis. As necessary as the stay-at-home policy and social distancing is, it raises enormous issues: How do you protest when you can't gather in groups of more than ten, when doing so risks being charged. One idea is to organize car caravans with protest signs to the homes and offices of elected officials. Another is pot-banging protests used effectively in Latin American protests.  A third is the organizations of rent strikes in support of tenants facing eviction.

Added to this is the fact that the crisis increases risks associated with fascist danger that go beyond election postponement as grave as it is.   The Justice Department is reportedly considering state of emergency provisions that would end the right of people who are arrested to appear before a judge, eliminating habeas corpus. One could be held indefinitely without trial, so long as a state of emergency exists. Other plans are being contemplated for setting up military rule and martial law in the event of a collapse in the order of succession to the presidency.

Even before the crisis, Trump had initiated purges of individuals deemed disloyal in the federal government along with repeated interference in the judiciary as in the Roger Stone case. Taken as a whole, it's a dangerous situation. Without the 2018 midterm elections, Trump, Barr, and his other henchmen would have had free rein to do as they pleased, limiting the working-class and people's movements' ability to struggle.

People before profits is more important than ever before.

Clearly the only way forward is to struggle for a program and platform that puts people before profits as the point of departure for addressing the crisis. Even by bourgeois accounts, the $2 trillion legislation passed by the Senate—although twice the size of the 2007 bailout—will mitigate only the worst aspects of the crisis.

In the first place this means putting money in the hands of workers—whatever it takes to do this: whether it's a livable monthly stipend, unlimited sick leave, or Medicare For All for the duration of the crisis, or eliminating student debt, ending rent and mortgage payments, or a moratorium on all debt—a debt jubilee. Fidel Castro used to say that the Third World's debt is unpayable and uncollectable: the same holds true for working-class debt here in the "First World," especially for students.

Let's not forget that there will be a racist and sexist dimension to this crisis. Most African Americans and Latinos never recovered from the wealth loss of the subprime rip-off and the consequent impact of the Great Recession. And the majority of those going to work now are black and brown—those most unable to have the resources to respond when and if laid off. These issues will undoubtedly play out with respect to who lives and who dies today.

Special attention has to be given to the incarcerated, including immigrants held in detention in overcrowded conditions, veritable breeding grounds for epidemic. Demands are being placed for an amnesty for elderly prisoners as well as for the release of non-violent offenders.

The point here is that special compensatory measures are required to address the more aggravated social and economic consequences of the crisis on people of color, women, and LGBTQ persons.

The socialist moment arises precisely in those areas where capitalism begins to fail.

In many ways, this crisis has heightened the significance of the socialist moment. In a profound way it has laid bare the gross inequities of the capitalist system. It's laid bare how privatization, austerity, cutbacks, and profiteering wreak havoc on the working-class public.  The socialist moment arises precisely in those areas where capitalism begins to fail.

It's also revealed the ruling class's indifference to working-class plight and circumstance—the rich just don't care. Workers will be sent back to work sick or not, so long as the bosses maintain their profit margins. What will happen when they realize this? Or to be more precise, what will be done to help workers come to this realization, the understanding that there are common interests as a class, that survival requires workers as a class to take the future into their hands. This is not only a question of education but also of platform, of connecting partial demands today with more long-term ones tomorrow.

In this regard, the crisis has raised some tactical questions with respect to the all-people's front and the placing of public—that is, socialist—solutions to the crisis. Depending on how the crisis unfolds, the question looms: can the working class's problems be solved, can the country's crisis be addressed without putting forward socialist solutions? Do not, in circumstances such as these, the national interests coincide with working-class interests? Can a 30% unemployment rate be addressed without massive public works jobs on the order of the WPA? Will the health crisis be met without Medicare For All or universal health care? In the eventuality of a banking crisis, can a solution be found that's in the pub's interest absent socializing the banks? What about the airlines? Calls are already being made for their nationalization.

The most radical demands are not always the most revolutionary.

On the other hand, more limited and therefore more winnable issues have to be considered.  What happens when the $1200 checks run out?  In many places that's one month's rent – if you are lucky. What demands will address what's needed when the extension in unemployment compensations runs dry – and that's coming sooner than later. The most radical demands are not always the most revolutionary.  Consideration always has to be given to what will move the largest and broadest numbers of people around the most effective issue.  Politics begin with the millions.

The election campaign does not preclude addressing these issues—in fact this crisis demands it. The 30–40% who voted for Bernie will expect it; those in the center radicalized by the crisis need it; and the future of the country may depend on such a discussion and action.

The country, indeed, the capitalist world system may be entering a whole new period of profound weather, health,  and economic  calamities.  Consider for example this summer's coming fires in the West, or this fall's hurricanes in the South and East as the inevitable second wave of the coronavirus strikes.

The role of the Party in these circumstances must be to bring our revolutionary working-class communist plus to an analysis of these issues. And on the basis of this analysis, the CP's job must be to, in concert with others, agitate and organize while spreading the word. How do we unite our class and people against the right and big business in these new circumstances? This is a question for peoplesworld.org and for cpusa.org. And it's an issue for every club and district.

In this regard, the Party has got to up its social media and social networking game. For years we've been trying to improve our online activities, not without some progress but not nearly enough. Social distancing now demands it. Everyone must now learn to work in a different way.

This means greater use of the PW and sharing of our articles, not only on the district parties' pages but on the members' personal pages. It means developing an electronic paper route. It means sharing of video, podcasts, and images.

It also means joining local neighborhood mutual aid networks or setting them up to assist people in need. We've often talked about the importance of neighborhood concentration—the technology exists to achieve it via social networking.

In the near future, we're going to develop plans for national schools, local study groups, as well as ongoing webinars. But let's start with a national town hall meeting on addressing the crisis, and let's do it soon.

Comrades, the time is now! A decisive moment has arrived. How the Party acts now will help determine not only our Party's future but also, if we act correctly, the country's.

This report was made to the National Board on March 25, 2020.

UAW President Rory L. Gamble Statement on Federal Stimulus Legislation [feedly]

UAW President Rory L. Gamble Statement on Federal Stimulus Legislation
https://uaw.org/uaw-president-rory-l-gamble-statement-federal-stimulus-legislation/

DETROIT — The legislation unanimously passed in the Senate last night takes important steps for the Nation as we battle the public health and economic crisis stemming from this tragic pandemic.

One of the main things that concerns UAW members is the package fails to provide front line workers with the health and safety protections necessary to keep them from contracting Covid-19. It includes no enforceable workplace standards and does not provide enough resources to frontline workers who are the first line of defense.

Every day this week, the UAW has had to report to members on the deaths of a colleague and friend, and the impact of the illness in all our sectors that have had positive test results.

We are thankful that this stimulus package can help workers, our workplaces, and economy during this crisis. And Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi helped improve this package significantly so that it reaches directly into the hands of those desperately in need of assistance. For these reasons, we urge that this Bill be passed by the House and signed into law quickly.

But we must measure our concern for the economy with the health, safety and well-being of our members, their families and the community. To speed up a return to the workplace too soon without relying on scientific data, CDC guidelines and adequate protections could spike the curve of those infected. Haste in this instance can lead to greater infection, more deaths and a disastrous impact on our economy over the long haul.

We ask the Administration and Congress to enact workplace protections. And we ask all those making policy decisions and in corporate boardrooms to be guided by one simple question: "Would you send your family, your son or daughter, into the workplace and be 100% certain they will be safe?"

The post UAW President Rory L. Gamble Statement on Federal Stimulus Legislation appeared first on UAW.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Without fast action from Congress, low-wage workers will be ineligible for unemployment benefits during the coronavirus crisis

https://www.epi.org/blog/without-fast-action-from-congress-low-wage-workers-will-be-ineligible-for-unemployment-benefits-during-the-coronavirus-crisis/ 

Brass on anti-Muslim violence in India [feedly]

Brass on anti-Muslim violence in India
http://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/2020/03/brass-on-anti-muslim-violence-in-india.html

The occurrence of anti-Muslim violence, arson, and murder in New Delhi last month is sometimes looked at a simply an unpredictable episode provoked by protest against the citizenship legislation enacted by the BJP and Prime Minister Modi. (See Jeffrey Gettleman and Maria Abi-Habib's New York Times article for a thoughtful and detailed account of the riots in New Delhi; link.) However, Paul Brass demonstrated several decades ago in The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India, that riots and violent episodes like this have a much deeper explanation in Indian politics. His view is that the political ideology of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) is used by BJP and other extremist parties to advance its own political fortunes. This ideology (and the political program it is designed to support) is a prime cause of continuing violence by Hindu extremists against Muslims and other non-Hindu minorities in India.

Brass asks a handful of crucial and fundamental questions: Do riots serve a function in Indian politics? What are the political interests that are served by intensifying mistrust, fear, and hatred of Muslims by ordinary Hindu workers, farmers, and shopkeepers? How does a framework of divisive discourse contribute to inter-group hatred and conflict? "I intend to show also that a hegemonic discourse exists in Indian society, which I call the communal discourse, which provides a framework for explaining riotous violence." (24). Throughout Brass keeps the actors in mind -- including leaders, organizers, and participants: "It is one of the principal arguments of this book that we cannot understand what happens in riots until we examine in detail the multiplicity of roles and persons involved in them". (29) Here are the central themes of the book:

The whole political order in post-Independence north India and many, if not most of its leading as well as local actors—more markedly so since the death of Nehru—have become implicated in the persistence of Hindu-Muslim riots. These riots have had concrete benefits for particular political organizations as well as larger political uses. (6)

The maintenance of communal tensions, accompanied from time to time by lethal rioting at specific sites, is essential for the maintenance of militant Hindu nationalism, but also has uses for other political parties, organizations, and even the state and central governments. (9)

Brass documents his interpretation through meticulous empirical research, including a review of the demographic and political history of regions of India, a careful timeline of anti-Muslim riots and pogroms since Independence, and extensive interviews with participants, officials, and onlookers in one particularly important city, Aligarh, in Uttar Pradesh (northern India). Brass gives substantial attention to the discourse chosen by Hindu nationalist parties and leaders, and he argues that violent attacks are deliberately encouraged and planned.

Most commonly, the rhetoric is laced with words that encourage its members not to put up any longer with the attacks of the other but to retaliate against their aggression. There are also specific forms of action that are designed to provoke the other community into aggressive action, which is then met with a stronger retaliatory response. (24)

Brass asks the fundamental question:

What interests are served and what power relations are maintained as a consequence of the wide acceptance of the reality of popular communal antagonisms and the inevitability of communal violence? (11)

(We can ask the same question about the rise of nationalist and racist discourse in the United States in the past fifteen years: what interests are served by according legitimacy to the language of white supremacy and racism in our politics?)

Brass rejects the common view that riots in India are "spontaneous" or "responsive to provocation"; instead, he argues that communal Hindu-nationalist riots are systemic and strategic. Violence derives from a discourse of Hindu-Muslim hostility and the legitimization of violence. Given this view that riots and anti-Muslim violence are deliberate political acts in India, Brass offers an analysis of what goes into "making of a riot". He argues that there are three analytically separable phases: preparation / rehearsal; activation / enactment; and explanation / interpretation (15). This view amounts to an interpretation of the politics of Hindu nationalism as an "institutionalized riot system" (15).

When one examines the actual dynamics of riots, one discovers that there are active, knowing subjects and organizations at work engaged in a continuous tending of the fires of communal divisions and animosities, who exercise by a combination of subtle means and confrontational tactics a form of control over the incidence and timing of riots." (31)

This deliberate provocation of violence was evident in the riots in Gujarat in 2002, according to Dexter Filkins in a brilliant piece of journalism on these issues in the New Yorker (link):

The most sinister aspect of the riots was that they appeared to have been largely planned and directed by the R.S.S. Teams of men, armed with clubs, guns, and swords, fanned out across the state's Muslim enclaves, often carrying voter rolls and other official documents that led them to Muslim homes and shops.

Especially important in the question of civil strife and ethnic conflict in any country is the behavior and effectiveness of the police. Do the police work in an even-handed way to suppress violent acts and protect all parties neutrally? And does the justice system investigate and punish the perpetrators of violence? In India the track record is very poor, including in the riots in the early 1990s in Mumbai and in 2002 in Gujarat. Brass writes:

The government of India and the state governments do virtually nothing after a riot to prosecute and convict persons suspected of promoting or participating in riots. Occasionally, but less frequently in recent years, commissions of inquiry are appointed. If the final reports are not too damaging to the government of the day or to the political supporters of that government in the Hindu or Muslim communities, the report may be published More often than not, there is a significant delay before publication. Some reports are never made public. (65)

This pattern was repeated in Delhi during the most recent period of anti-Muslim pogrom. The police stand by while Hindutva thugs attack Muslims, burn homes and shops, and murder the innocent. Conversely, when the police function as representatives of the whole of civil society rather than supporters of a party, they are able to damp down inter-religious killing quickly (as Brass documents in his examination of the period of relative peace in Aligarh between 1978-80 to 1988-90).

Brass is especially rigorous in his development of the case for the deliberate and strategic nature of anti-Muslim bigotry within the politics of Hindu nationalism and its current government. But other experts agree. For example, Ashutosh Varshney described the dynamics of religious conflict in India in very similar terms to those offered by Brass (link):

Organized civic networks, when intercommunal, not only do a better job of withstanding the exogenous communal shocks—like partitions, civil wars, and desecration of holy places; they also constrain local politicians in their strategic behavior. Politicians who seek to polarize Hindu and Muslims for the sake of electoral advantage can tear at the fabric of everyday engagement through the organized might of criminals and gangs. All violent cities in the project showed evidence of a nexus of politicians and criminals. Organized gangs readily disturbed neighborhood peace, often causing migration from communally heterogeneous to communally homogenous neighborhoods, as people moved away in search of physical safety. Without the involvement of organized gangs, large-scale rioting and tens and hundreds of killings are most unlikely, and without the protection afforded by politicians, such criminals cannot escape the clutches of law. Brass has rightly called this arrangement an institutionalized riot system. (378)

A deep look at the anti-Muslim riots in India, and the social and class interests they serve.

Dan Little: Varshney treats these issues in greater detail in his 2002 book, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India.

The greatest impetus to the political use of the politics of hate and the program of Hindu nationalism was the campaign to destroy the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, UP, in 1992. For an informative and factual account of the Babri Mosque episode and its role within the current phase of Hindu nationalism in India, see Abdul Majid, "The Babri Mosque and Hindu Extremists Movements"; link  

 -- via my feedly newsfeed