“From the most remote village in the Alaskan tundra to the tiniest island in the Everglades, there’s one connection we’ve always depended on: the mail.”byJulia Conley, staff writer
As of Friday afternoon, more than 650 demonstrations were planned as part of “Save the Post Office Saturday,” a national day of action in which people across the U.S. will demand that President Donald Trump and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy end their assault on the U.S. Postal Service. Demonstrations will begin at 11:00 am local time.
The number of planned protests at hundreds of post offices grew as DeJoy testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Friday, telling lawmakers he has “no intention” of returning hundreds of mail sorting machines that have been decommissioned in recent weeks, severely cutting postal workers’ ability to deliver mail quickly. The postmaster general claimed the machines are not needed.
The removal of machines in battleground states including Florida, Pennsylvania, and Michigan will have serious implications for the general election in November, civil rights advocates have warned, as many Americans—particularly Democratic voters—plan to vote by mail due to the coronavirus pandemic.
This week, DeJoy announced he was suspending changes to mail operations until after the November election to “avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail,” but made clear that he has no plans to return mailboxes and sorting machines that were removed or restore overtime hours that he cut.
The president has also said he would block emergency funding for the Postal Service and for election assistance, saying that the funding would allow for “universal mail-in voting,” which he has falsely claimed would result in a fraudulent election.
MoveOn, which is joining with the NAACP, SEIU, the Working Families Party, and other advocacy groups to organize the day of action, said people across the country are rejecting Trump’s attack on the election and the Postal Service.
“From the most remote village in the Alaskan tundra to the tiniest island in the Everglades, there’s one connection we’ve always depended on: the mail. Together, we’re coming together to support a beloved system that every American relies on,” said Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn.
A poll released this week by Yahoo News and YouGov showed strong opposition to Trump’s blocking of Postal Service funding, with 50% of respondents saying they “strongly” disapprove and only 28% saying they approve. Nearly two-thirds of voters surveyed said they feared they would be prevented from voting due to Trump and DeJoy’s actions.
“The mail shapes our lives and our livelihoods. It’s how millions get our medicines, send holiday greetings, and receive the resources we depend on,” said Epting. “And, in this pandemic, the mail is how millions of us will deliver our democracy. We reject these attacks on the USPS. We demand full restoration of machines and personnel plus full funding for the post office. We will fight until every vote is counted.”
MoveOn and other organizers are offering print-at-home signs for attendees to bring to the protests, emblazoned with phrases including, “Stamp Out Fascism,” “Roll Back DeJoy, Restore the Machines,” and “4 Million Prescriptions Delivered Daily.”
Participants will be urged to wear face coverings at the socially distanced demonstrations, MoveOn said.
The White House is now the political nerve center of a conspiracy to establish a military dictatorship, overthrow the Constitution, abolish democratic rights and violently suppress the protests against police brutality that have swept across the United States.
The political crisis unleashed on Monday night—when Donald Trump ordered military police to attack peaceful protesters, threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, and deploy federal troops into states to establish martial law—is rapidly escalating.
Democracy in America is teetering on the brink of collapse. Trump’s attempt to carry out a military coup is unfolding in real time.
There is no other way to interpret the sequence of events that have occurred over the past 24 hours. In a series of extraordinary public statements, high level political and military figures leave no doubt that they believe that Trump is seeking to establish a military dictatorship.
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper stated at a press conference that he opposed Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military throughout the country. The use of active-duty soldiers to patrol US cities, Esper said, should be a “last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of those situations now.” Trump, according to an official who spoke to the New York Times, “was angered by Mr. Esper’s remarks, and excoriated him later at the White House…” The White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, indicated that Esper may soon be dismissed from the president’s cabinet.
Responding to Trump’s threats, Esper has reversed himself and ordered 750 soldiers from the 82nd currently in Washington DC not be sent back to Fort Bragg, as had previously been announced.
Esper’s comments were followed by an extraordinary denunciation of Trump by former Marine General James Mattis, Trump’s first Secretary of Defense. We quote Mattis’ comments in some detail not because we give any political support to “mad dog Mattis,” who played a leading role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but because he provides a blunt assessment from someone who is intimately familiar with what is happening within the military.
Mattis accused Trump of attempting to overthrow the Constitution. “When I joined the military, some 50 years ago,” he writes, “I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”
Mattis continued:
We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.
Mattis concluded his statement by implicitly comparing Trump’s concept of the military to that of the Nazi regime.
Admiral Sandy Winnefeld, a retired vice chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, wrote in an email published in the New York Times: “We are at the most dangerous time for civil-military relations I’ve seen in my lifetime. It is especially important to reserve the use of federal forces for only the most dire circumstances that actually threaten the survival of the nation. Our senior-most military leaders need to ensure their political chain of command understands these things.”
None of these military figures are devoted adherents of democracy. Their statements are motivated by fear that Trump’s actions will be met with massive popular opposition, with disastrous political consequences.
“Senior Pentagon leaders,” the Times reports, “are now so concerned about losing public support—and that of their active duty and reserve personnel, 40 percent of whom are people of color—that Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, released a message to top military commanders on Wednesday affirming that every member of the armed forces swears an oath to defend the Constitution, which, he said, ‘gives Americans the right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.’”
Statements were also released by all the living former presidents—Obama, Clinton, Bush and Carter. These statements were far more circumspect and made no explicit warning of a coup. They called for no specific action against Trump. It was far less an appeal to the people than a cautious effort to dissuade military leaders from backing Trump.
On the side of the fascistic cabal around Trump, the Times published a comment by Senator Tom Cotton under the headline, “Send In the Troops.” This political conspirator declared, “One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers.” Since “delusional politicians” are refusing to do what is necessary, Cotton writes, it is necessary for Trump to invoke “the Insurrection Act [which] authorizes the president to employ the military ‘or any other means’ in ‘cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws.’”
The political situation is on a knife edge. Never in the history of the United States has the country been so close to a military takeover. Threatening military deployments are still underway. The Times reported on Wednesday night: “Despite calls for calm from senior Pentagon leaders, the troops on the ground in Washington on Wednesday night appeared to be ramping up for a more militarized show of force. National Guard units pushed solidly ahead of the police near the White House, almost becoming the public face of the security presence. They also blocked the streets with Army transport trucks and extended the perimeter against protesters.”
In the face of this unfolding political conspiracy, the Democratic party is acting with its habitual mixture of cowardice and complicity. Not a single major Democratic Party politician has openly denounced the dictatorial actions of the Trump administration. They are doing everything they can to keep the raging conflict within the state out of public view. The line from top Democrats is that Trump’s “rhetoric” is “unhelpful” and is serving to “inflame the situation.” Among the most pathetic responses to the crisis has come from Sen. Bernie Sanders, who merely retweeted the statement of Mattis, to which he attached the comment: “Interesting reading.”
During the long-forgotten impeachment trial that was held in January, the Democrats insisted that it was necessary to remove Trump immediately because he had allegedly withheld military aide to the Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. They advocated the removal of Trump because he was seen as insufficiently aggressive in his relations with Russia.
But now, when Trump is attempting to carry out a military coup and the overthrow of constitutional rule in the United States, the Democrats offer no serious opposition to Trump, let alone demand that he be removed from office. When it is a matter of upholding the global interests of American imperialism, the Democratic leaders are full of fire and brimstone. But when confronted with the direct threat of dictatorship, they are meek as church mice.
Underlying their cowardice are basic class interests. Whatever their tactical differences with Trump, the Democrats represent the same class interests. What they fear more than anything else is that opposition to Trump may assume revolutionary dimensions that threaten the interests of the capitalist financial-corporate oligarchy.
The target of the conspiracy in the White House is the working class. The corporate-financial oligarchy is terrified that the eruption of mass demonstrations against police violence will intersect with the immense social anger among workers over social inequality, which has been enormously intensified as a result of the ruling class’ response to the coronavirus pandemic and the homicidal back-to-work campaign.
Nothing could be more dangerous than to think that the crisis has passed. It has, rather, just begun. The working class must intervene in this unprecedented crisis as an independent social and political force. It must oppose the conspiracy in the White House through the methods of class struggle and socialist revolution.
The demonstrations that have taken place during the past week rank among the most significant events in American history. In every region and state, tens and hundreds of thousands of working people and youth, in an extraordinary display of multi-racial and multi-ethnic unity and solidarity, have taken to the streets to oppose the institutionalized racism and brutality of the police. The South—the old bastion of the Confederacy, Jim Crow laws, and lynch mobs—has been the scene of some of the largest of the demonstrations. The protesters are giving voice to the deep-rooted democratic and egalitarian sentiments that are the noble heritage of the great American Revolution of the eighteenth century and the Civil War of the nineteenth century.
The only viable answer to the criminal conspiracy being hatched in the White House is to raise the demand for the removal of Trump, Pence and their conspirators from office.
This can only be achieved through the intervention of the working class, which should join the protest demonstrations en masse and initiate a nation-wide political strike.
No to Dictatorship!
Trump and Pence must Go!
The Socialist Equality Party and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality Party call on all readers of the World Socialist Web Site to become active in this fight.
Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI)
NO WAR BUT CLASS WAR!
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Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) talks with reporters in the Capitol after the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump adjourned for the day on Monday, February 3, 2020. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
“It’s ridiculous that the public should even have to wonder if a member’s personal financial interests are playing a role in any public policy, let alone the response to a crisis like Covid-19.”—Delaney Marsco, Campaign Legal Center
A new analysis of financial disclosure documents found that Republican and Democratic members of Congress made nearly 1,500 stock transactions worth up to $158 million between February and April as the coronavirus spread across the U.S., heightening suspicions that elected officials in charge of the federal response to the pandemic have opportunistically cashed in on it.
“It’s ridiculous that the public should even have to wonder if a member’s personal financial interests are playing a role in any public policy, let alone the response to a crisis like Covid-19.”
—Delaney Marsco, Campaign Legal Center
The Campaign Legal Center (CLC), a non-partisan watchdog group, uncovered at least 127 purchases or sales in securities by senators and at least 1,358 transactions by members of the House between February 2 and April 8.
“Of those transactions, some members of Congress were strategically buying stocks in companies that might see a boost during the crisis, as well as selling stocks that seemed likely to tank,” CLC said. “Public servants made purchases in remote work technologies, telemedicine companies, and car manufacturers that were shifting their production to ventilators. Sales were made in companies in the restaurant and hospitality industries.”
Last month, as Common Dreamsreported, Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) faced calls to resign after it was revealed that they sold off stock in late January and early February just before the market tanked due to the Covid-19 crisis.
The CLC analysis (pdf) shows that Burr and Loeffler—both of whom remain in the Senate—are not alone.
“The stock trading was bipartisan—27 Democrats, 21 Republicans, and 1 independent were making trades as the devastation that Covid-19 would exact on the U.S. crystallized,” CLC said. “Most congressional members are millionaires and a number have investments in the tens of millions and far more likely to have investments in the markets.”
Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) had the most transactions of any member of Congress with 366 worth between $2.4 and $10.6 million. Rep. Gilbert Cisneros (D-Calif.) trailed Roe with 219 transactions worth between $1.9 and $6.7 million.
“It’s ridiculous that the public should even have to wonder if a member’s personal financial interests are playing a role in any public policy, let alone the response to a crisis like Covid-19,” tweeted Delaney Marsco, ethics counsel with CLC.
While it is not clear whether any of the transactions were illegal, CLC said “the volume of trading during this short time period highlights a serious problem.”
“The onslaught of public disclosure in the next few months coupled with the increased financial hardship of Americans creates an opportunity for constituents to unite and demand a change from their elected representatives,” CLC said. “Disclosure is the first step towards government accountability, but to rebuild public trust in government, Congress needs to go further and restrict trading of certain individual stocks.”
If Trump Fires Dr. Fauci and Installs a Barr-Like Toady, Whatever Will Become of Us?
Trump is perfectly capable of installing some suck-up crony as head of the coronavirus task force, someone who would be all right with declaring the pandemic over.
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