Why are so many people in nursing homes dying from the coronavirus? Over 28,000 people across the United States have died in nursing homes or other long-term care facilities. 

Nearly 35 percent of the COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have been in these places. In 14 states ― including Connecticut,  Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania ― they have accounted for over half of those who have died.

That’s shocking, since only around 2 percent of the U.S. population live or work there. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 1.3 million people are living in nursing homes. If you add the figures for skilled nursing and assisted-living facilities, there are maybe 5 million people living in these homes. 

Health care workers in these facilities are also dying. In April, two workers at the Wildwood Health Care facility in Indianapolis died of COVID-19.   

In the Buffalo, N.Y., area, hospital workers union 1199SEIU Vice President Todd Hobler reported that 131 nursing home workers have the coronavirus or its symptoms. At Safire Rehabilitation in Tonawanda, near Buffalo, 18 of the 41 members of 1199SEIU are infected. 

Most of the 700,000 certified nursing assistants caring for patients don’t have a union and earn less than $15 per hour. Without union protection they’re even less likely to have personal protective equipment and more vulnerable to becoming ill.

The coronavirus is more easily transmitted between people in any crowded area, like public transportation or schools. This is especially the case where people are warehoused, as in nursing homes and prisons. 

Capitalists regard the people living there as disposable and a drain on their profits. They want people to work until they drop.

The Economist magazine, a capitalist mouthpiece, demands that the retirement age be raised to 70. American International Group (AIG) CEO Robert Benmosche, whose firm got a $182 billion bailout from the U.S. Treasury Department, wants people to be on the job until they’re 80. 

Socialism and old age

The high death rate among seniors from the coronavirus isn’t inevitable. Nor is it just a case of many elderly people having weakened immune systems and chronic diseases.

Nearly 70 percent of the 15,600 U.S. nursing homes are privately owned and run for profit. Just to stay in business, the owners have to cut corners on safety. Smaller nursing homes don’t have the room to isolate patients with COVID-19.

Publicly owned nursing homes have been hurt by budget cuts. Medicaid, which pays for most nursing home bills, will be slashed before the trillion-dollar Pentagon budget is threatened.

Longevity is incompatible with capitalist profit.

Unlike the capitalist U.S., socialist Cuba celebrates its older folk. Cubans are proud that more than 2,000 people living in the Caribbean country are at least 100 years old.

Even the World Bank admits that average life expectancy in Cuba rose 17 years between 1960 and 2017. This advance was achieved despite the cruel U.S. economic blockade that has made purchasing medicine much more difficult. 

Cuba now has less than 20 new cases of the coronavirus per day. On May 12, the U.S. had 21,475 new cases.

That’s how Cuba’s socialist health care system matches up with capitalist health care in the U.S.

Members of the Young Communist League in Cuba help seniors. Youth learn from the old what life was like before the revolution, when U.S. corporations plundered Cuba.

Around 90 percent of Cuban seniors live with or close to their families. They are not a burden.

Socialist revolutions aim to raise living standards. Even as the Cuban economy is sanctioned by Trump, Cuban people have dignity. They’re proud of Cuban health care workers who are helping people all over the world.

While over 20,000 children are homeless in New York City, there are no homeless children in Cuba. And seniors in Cuba are not considered to be roadkill.

Cuba has what we need: a socialist revolution.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla discussed the April 30 attack on the country’s embassy in Washington with the press, stating: “Here is the attacker, an AK-47 rifle, 32 shell casings, 32 bullet holes and a statement – by the perpetrator – of his intention to attack and kill”

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, during a May 12 online press conference, to discuss the April 30 terrorist attack on the Cuban embassy in the United States, stated: “Here is an attacker, an AK-47 rifle, 32 shell casings, 32 bullet holes and a statement – by the perpetrator – of his intention to attack and kill.”

From the U.S. government we have received only silence, a silence that we know well, one that has accompanied violence against Cuba by groups based in U.S. territory for years. Every wave of terror was preceded by rabid campaigns of hate, rancor, threats, and attempts to discredit Cuba’s work in the international arena, alongside tightening of the economic siege.

The deaths number 3,478, with 2,099 Cubans disabled, in addition to incalculable economic damage. Terrorism has cost the country, carried out with or without the support of the U.S. government, but always with its blessing, following CIA directives. Hundreds of terrorists groups have been created, financed and trained by the CIA, organizations that had in their ranks notorious killers like Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada Carriles, Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampol, among others.

The Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), created in 1976, meant the integration of an international terrorist network, the first in history. “War on the roads of the world,” as they called it, did not respect borders or international law, and Cuban embassies were the preferred target.

More than 370 terrorist operations were carried out in those years; the atrocious bombing of a Cuban civilian airplane in mid-flight was the ultimate expression of this hatred, aggravated and protected by silence from the White House.

The perpetrator of the most recent attack on our embassy in Washington, Alexander Alazo Baró met with persons of known hostile behavior toward the Cuban Revolution, at a church called the Doral Jesus Worship Center. One of his “friends” at the religious center, Pastor Frank Lopez, maintains close relations with none other than Marco Rubio, Congressman Diaz-Balart and other persons with recognized extremist positions.

His behavior prior to the attack could not have been more obvious; he did not hide his hatred for the nation of his birth, or his delusions, be they real or fictitious; he was short of money, without a steady job, as his wife stated to several sources. Days earlier he had surveyed the site, planned every step of what he would do, all in the middle of Washington DC, just a few blocks from the White House, in a heavily guarded area. Ready for anything, at zero hour he drove miles with an AK-47, and fired on his target.

Cuba has every reason to demand an exhaustive investigation of the facts from the U.S. government, and that the necessary measures be adopted to prevent a return to times of spilled innocent blood, to put an end to the country’s hostile policy, verbal attacks, and actions that encourage such behavior.

Source: Granma

Struggle-La Lucha is sharing this statement from the banned Ukrainian Marxist organization Borotba (Struggle). 

May 14 — Before our eyes, we are witnessing an unequal confrontation between the Turkish state and our comrades, the communist political prisoners. This standoff began in 2016, when a state of emergency was introduced in Turkey, launching a new wave of repression against oppositionists. Its edge is aimed at those who fight for social justice — the communists. 

The opposition musicians of Grup Yorum fell into the gears of the repressive machine. The artists do not hide their political engagement and ties with the communist movement. It was for their views that dozens of left-wing activists, musicians and human rights activists were thrown behind bars. In prison, in protest against political repression, they went on a hunger strike, demanding the release of all political prisoners and that they be allowed to speak and perform publicly.

On April 3, 2020, Grup Yorum singer Helin Bölek died during the hunger strike, and left-wing activist Mustafa Koçak died on April 24. On May 7, the heart of Grup Yorum bassist Ibrahim Gökçek stopped beating. …

The Turkish state has also arrested more than a dozen lawyers from the People’s Law Office, an organization dedicated to defending the rights of political prisoners. Many of them also joined the mass hunger strike organized by the imprisoned musicians Grup Yorum.

Starving human rights defenders Aytaç Ünsal and Ebru Timtik are in serious condition.

The Turkish state does not respond in any way to the death of its opponents, continuing its repressive practices. During the recent funeral of Ibrahim Gökçek, Turkish police attacked the funeral procession, arresting more than two dozen participants, including the father of the deceased hero.

The so-called international community, including a host of human-rights organizations that shed crocodile tears at “starving” Ukrainian politicians like Oleg Sentsov and Nadiya Savchenko, turns a blind eye to the deaths in Turkish dungeons.

Borotba demands that the Turkish state release the political prisoners and stop repression against communists and other dissenters!

Everyone — to the defense of our Turkish comrades!

Translated by Greg Butterfield. Source: Borotba.su.

On May 3, a caravan protest in the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colo., demanded the release of all prisoners while drawing attention to the conditions at the GEO Group’s Aurora concentration camp for migrants. The caravan passed through the neighborhoods of the GEO Aurora warden, Johnny Choate, and the regional Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director, John Fabbricatore.

Signs on cars demanded “Free them all” and “Confront La Migra where they live.” 

The caravan was sponsored by Denver Communists and Abolish ICE Denver. An earlier protest march in the streets of Choate’s suburban neighborhood was held last September. 

Five guards at the private prison, under contract to ICE, have tested positive for COVID-19. However, the prison has not released information on whether or not inmates have been tested, or, if so, whether they have tested positive. 

ICE has taken advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to continue to push its illegal actions, and in doing so has caused the pandemic to spread. Twenty percent of all COVID-19 cases in Guatemala came from ICE deportations to that country. ICE is complacent and directly responsible for not only amplifying the COVID-19 crisis in the Denver area but also internationally. 

Caravan members maintained social distancing at all times, honking their horns and drawing attention to the mistreatment of the inmates who have faced not only the COVID-19 pandemic, but also outbreaks of mumps, chickenpox and many other infectious diseases. The caravan drew interest and support from Black and Brown neighbors of Choate and Fabbricatore, who had been unaware of their crimes. 

The Aurora Police Department stood by as counterprotesters in MAGA hats defied social distancing, attempting to assault members of the caravan and key their cars. The Aurora cops have recently been under fire for their racist actions against Latinx residents and other abuses. Luckily, no members of the caravan were harmed. 

Denver metro residents have made it clear that they want ICE and their Gestapo tactics out of their communities.

Photos: Abolish ICE Denver

Wednesday, May 13, 2020 at 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EDT

Facebook Livestream, Instagram

Join the MOVE Organization and supporters of MOVE as we commemorate the 35th Anniversary of the MOVE Bombing on Osage Avenue.

Livestreamed on this page-also on Instagram
@WALLO267 or @TEZ_THEWRITER

On Facebook

Tuesday, May 19, 2020 at 8:00 PM – 11:00 PM EDT

Register today: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_fCgw1XYWSmK3vfzrP1yF-g

Join for a dynamic webinar celebrating Cuba’s contribution to struggles in Africa and the Caribbean, held on the occasion of the birthday of Malcolm X

>>> Co-hosted by:

August Nimtz — Co-coordinator of the Minnesota Cuba Committee; Professor of Political Science and African American and African Studies, University of Minnesota; Co-Author (with Esteban Morales), The Dynamics of Racial Discrimination in Cuba, Past and Present; Author, Marxism vs Liberalism: Comparative Real-Time Political Analysis.

Kennedee Geffinger — Universal Zulu Nation Hip Hop for Humanity Committee; Children’s Programs Director, JCC Harlem; Founder, Keys to Ubuntu

>>> Featuring:

Fernando Gonzalez Llort — President of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP); Cuban internationalist fighter in Angola 1987-1989; Cuban Five hero

Chris “Che” Matlhako — Second Deputy General Secretary of the South African Communist Party; leading member of Friends of Cuba in South Africa (FOCUS)

Dr. Rosemari Mealy — Educator and long-standing activist for peace, social, and economic justice. Dr. Mealy’s work has involved years of solidarity with the Cuban Revolution, including living and working in Cuba; Awarded “Friendship Medal” by the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba; Author, Fidel and Malcolm X: Memories of A Meeting; Rosemari is a member of the Board of Directors of IFCO/Pastors for Peace, the New York-New Jersey Cuba Si Coalition; and National Conference of Black Lawyers.

Lee Robinson— President, African Awareness Association, Inc.; Representative, All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC), Le Parti Populaire Revolutionnaire Africain de Guinee of Conakry, Guinea.

Don Rojas — Press Secretary for the martyred Prime Minister of Grenada Maurice Bishop (1981-1983); Executive Political Editor, The Real News Network; Director of Communications and International Relations, Institute of the Black World; Founder of the award-winning The Black World Today

Dr. Isaac Saney — Co-Chair, Canadian Network on Cuba; Professor, Dalhousie University; author of the forthcoming book, Africa’s Children Return! Cuba, Africa, and Apartheid’s End.

Frantz Voltaire — Haitian scholar and activist living in Montreal, Québec; Author, Black Power in Haiti and A Brief History of Blacks in Canada; Founder and Chairperson of Le Center International de Documentation et d’Information Haitienne, Caribéenne, et Afro-Canadienne (CIDICHCA).

Obi Egbuna Jr — “Stay Out of Cuba’s Way Campaign”; Zimbabwe Cuba Friendship Association; Author, Cuba’s Greatest Army: A Tribute To The Cuban Doctors (Children’s Play)

Organized by:
Organizing Committee, International Conference for the Normalization of US-Cuba Relations
us-cubanormalization.org
Saving Lives Campaign US-CANADA-CUBA Cooperation
savinglives.us-cubanormalization.org
New York-New Jersey Cuba Sí Coalition
cubasinynjcoalition.org

Ubai Aboudi is a Palestinian-American civilian, father, researcher, educator, director of the Bisan Center for Research and Development who was abducted by Israeli military without charges on November 13, 2019. Ubai was also working to support Scientists for Palestine in organizing the Third International Meeting on Science in Palestine, which took place on January 10-12, 2020, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ubai was prevented from attending and presenting his own research due to his Israeli military detention.

He was initially held under administrative detention – imprisonment without charge or trial – and then transferred to the Israeli military courts on later manufactured, baseless charges that are routinely imposed on Palestinians.

Despite the fact that Ubai is a U.S. citizen and that the U.S. government provides Israel with $3.8 billion in military aid every year, the U.S. State Department has largely left Ubai and Hind Shraydeh, his wife and the mother of their three children, to suffer alone. Your support is critical in pressuring the State Department to end its silence in the case of Ubai Aboudi and working to ensure his freedom.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Act by contacting the U.S. State Department and your Member of Congress. Use the draft talking points below to make your message clear.

• Find your representative here: https://www.house.gov/htbin/findrep
• Call and email the U.S. State Department:# (202) 647-4000 and OFM-Info@state.gov , OFMNYCustomerService@state.gov, OFMCGCustomerService@state.gov, and OFMMICustomerService@state.gov

USE THESE TALKING POINTS

• Hi, my name is ____ and I am calling to demand that the Department of State [your Member of Congress] work to ensure the immediate release of Ubai Aboudi, a U.S. citizen, Palestinian civilian, father, and educator. Ubai is detained in Israeli military custody, where he has languished since November 13, 2019. Scholars, scientists, and activists from around the world have been calling for his release.
• If you are calling your member of Congress, please identify your personal connection to your representative’s office as well as any relevant background you may have. For example: I am a constituent from _ _ _ _ _  (town/city) calling about an urgent matter regarding a US citizen, Ubai Aboudi, who is in an Israeli prison. I am particularly concerned because i am a  _ _ _ _ _(professor at  _ _ _ _ _  University or employed as a  _ _ _ _ _ at  _ _ _ _ (company) ) and this man is an internationally esteemed colleague.  I am asking Rep/Senator  _ _ _ _ to work for the immediate release of Ubai Aboudi by calling on Secretary of State Pompeo to secure his release.
• I demand his case be given top priority as his preexisting health conditions may render his already unlawful detention a death sentence during the coronavirus pandemic.
• The Israeli military is also known to torture more than 95% of the Palestinians it abducts- including children and convicts more than 99% of the Palestinians it detains. Israeli military practices against Palestinians are best- and most appallingly- highlighted by the fact that Israel is the only country in the world to systemically capture and keep children in military prison camps.
• Israel is now being investigated by the International Criminal Court for grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including for its military abductions and treatment of Palestinian prisoners.
• How can your Department allow U.S. citizens to be held and tried by a military regime that is being investigated by the ICC?
• Israel’s military detention system systematically discriminates Palestinians and is inherently racist. Israel has shown deliberate disregard for the health and well-being of Palestinian detainees throughout the COVID-19 pandemic by not testing Palestinian prisoners, preventing prisoners to access appropriate sanitary equipment, and has ignoring multiple calls for their release from UN officials.
• Israeli anti-Palestinian racism was also globally showcased when in response to the UNHCR Commissioner’s demand for the release of all political prisoners to protect them from coronavirus, Israel released 400 non-political Israeli prisoners and increased its military abduction of Palestinians – including children. If this is how they treat children, we can only imagine how they treat adults.
• Palestinians are abducted by Israeli military and charged and tried for activities that are routine in every society- activities which are legal for Israelis to undertake. For example, the Israeli military prison system criminalizes Palestinian groups and individuals as security threats and terrorists for participating in mere gatherings “that could be construed as political.”
• It is disturbing to know that our government and the Department of State would allow its citizens to be held and tried in such an unlawful and racist system. It is all the more appalling that our government and the Department of State adopts these Israeli “terrorism” designations in the US while knowing their obviously racist, arbitrary, and illegal genesis which not only criminalizes most of Palestinian society, but manages to ensnare and abuse an education worker, a farming and science advocate, and a civilian citizen of the US.
• I ask that your Department reject these designations; that it reject the charges and conviction against Ubai as illegal and contrived; and that you please work to free Ubai immediately.
• I cannot feel safe until I know your Department will protect Ubai as it would protect me and my family. Please write (call) back to let me know what steps your office will take.

Source: Samidoun.net

We need to start by understanding the nature of slavery. Slavery is a condition in which one must work for a master, follow his rules, exist within the narrow confines of expression he allows, remain docile and obedient, be grateful for his meager handouts, never organize, never rebel, be kept from education, not share in the fruits of one’s labor, worship his god, speak his language, bend oneself to his comfort. 

Black people are a slave class in America. We enjoy none of the same freedoms, rights or safeties afforded to white citizens. Though slavery has morphed in name — chattel, Jim Crowism, forced labor camps, wage slavery, prison-industrial complex — it has not morphed in practice. We eat scraps, bathe in poisoned water, are barred from home and land ownership, denied the right to vote. 

Ahmaud Arbery likely felt as close to freedom as he could on the early afternoon of Feb. 23. On an open road, running, seemingly alone, hopefully unbothered. Though we live under the constant threat of white violence, we try to move forward as normally as possible, build our lives, shape our futures. 

I have been in Ahmaud’s position too many times. As a competitive runner since age five, I was often out on country roads alone. Cars often wouldn’t come by for hours and I would generally feel free, unburdened — broken only on days an occasional “N*****!” was screeched out of a car window. 

It wasn’t until an evening run in my late teens when a cargo van passed me, slowed down, stopped in my path and turned off their lights. In less than moments, I had to make vital decisions. In front of me, home and the van. I would have to pass them, hope they were just trying to scare me or be ready to outrun them if they weren’t. If I turned around to run the other way, it was into nothingness, even further from help. I knew the possibility of guns. No one would even hear me scream. 

I kept running forward, feeling propelled to try to make it home.  As I closed the meters toward the van, another car drove by in a rare stroke of luck and the van took off. I never ran in the evening again. Later, my younger sister was almost abducted by white supremacists in a truck in broad daylight. When my grandmother tried to reach the police and the FBI, they told her there was nothing they could do. 

I cannot stop replaying the thoughts inside Ahmaud’s head. I know what he was living through in that moment the truck cut him off: To turn and be chased into some strange and unfamiliar place, to hope these monsters were just trying to scare him and would back away after they got out their “n******” and “boys,” or to try to run on, to just get home, to hope that there was help on the other side. 

Ahmaud didn’t have a choice. Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael had made up their minds. They were out for blood. Ahmaud was their prey.  In their minds, he had stepped outside the bounds of their prescribed slavery, had violated them with his very existence, and they were intent on his execution. 

They were then celebrated and exalted for their murder. Why were they not held as terrorists? Charged with committing a horrendous hate crime?  Because they fulfill the white supremacist corporatocracy agenda. 

Just as Dylan Roof was congratulated with a delicate arrest and a Burger King treat, Ahmaud’s murderers were applauded by the police and the corrupt district attorney. These forces that have historically condoned the lynchings of Black people. It is only because of the circulation of the video that there was any accountability. Imagine how many other Black joggers, walkers, skippers, breathers, swimmers, drivers, bus riders, bikers and sunset watchers have been gunned down in cold blood. 

This one was on video. It is the only reason there was an arrest.  What must his family have gone through? These months, having to fight for justice as well as his legacy. Labeled a thief. And what if he was a thief? Someone’s possessions are worth a life? A slave’s life? Of course. We are property to them, nothing more. 

We must look plainly at Ahmaud’s execution, and we must look plainly at our existence. Capitalism was built on slavery and cannot exist without a slave class. Ahmaud was murdered because this system needed him dead or in servitude. His freedom, his run, did not serve the capitalist system and so like any rebellious slave, he was lynched. 

Without unity, without mobilization, without the complete eradication of capitalism, we will never be free. We will continue to slave under new masters and exist under the conditions they prescribe to us. 

This past Thursday, May 7th, Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael, a father and son lynch crew, were arrested for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man on the eve of his 26th birthday. We’ve all seen the video of this racist, lynch-style murder that went public more than two months ago.

A Black man is hunted and gunned down and it takes two months before an arrest. Two months after seeing the video before the District Attorney, George Barnhill, files harges. The mass media has it wrong. The release of the video of this lynching is not what moved the D.A. to press charges (he had the video for 75 days). In fact, there would have been no arrests in the absence of public outrage and Ahmaud Arbery’s family demanding justice.

We have seen this travesty of justice shown before; we saw it here in Chicago when killer cop Jason Van Dyke murdered Laquan McDonald. In that case, too, Laquan was called the aggressor, even though he was the prey. In that case, too, they said it was self-defense, even though they attacked him. In that case, too, the police and D.A. viewed the video and said there was no reason to press charges. In that case, too, it took the video to be leaked and the public to cry out for justice before anything happened. That is why we must all support the demands of Arbery’s family.

The lynching of Ahmaud Arbery is a tragic phenomenon we have been seeing repeated throughout the land since Travon Martin was stalked and murdered by the vigilante, George Zimmerman. These white supremacists — both police and vigilantes — have been allowed to murder unarmed Black people with impunity.

Before, during and after this pandemic they will continue to lynch us until we stop them. It’s not enough to be outraged. We need to demand that the D.A. be fired, that a special prosecutor (vetted by the community) be appointed, and that the murderers be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. 

But already this is another lynching with impunity! It was two months before the known killers were arrested. THAT’S IMPUNITY! Whose fault is this? When the victim was hunted down and murdered whose fault was it that no one was arrested for over two months? It’s law enforcement that criminalizes us but does nothing about the criminals that prey upon us. It’s their fault! We know who’s responsible and it’s our responsibility to hold them accountable. No worries, there will be a reckoning if you don’t arrest, convict and send these racist killers to jail.

We stand united with the Black people of Brunswick, Georgia and NAACP Vice President, Gerald Griggs, who said: “We will not allow African Americans to be killed in this state with impunity. We will demand punishment with the fullest extent of the law.”

Yours in united struggle,

Frank Chapman
Executive Director, National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression