BLACK AUGUST BUILDS ON OUR BLACK RADICAL TRADITION

words by Charles Brooks

The 31 days of August hold a particular and special meaning you will not find in the celebrations that come with Juneteenth, Black History Month or Kwanzaa. For 42 years now since 1979, Black August commemorates and highlights political prisoners and their crucial role in the Black liberation/freedom struggle.  Black August is directly tied to the Black prison movement that started in the San Quentin prison and through relentless organizing spread to other prisons as well as to the streets.  

The story of Black August  begins immediately behind the prison walls after Jonathan and George Jackson were killed in August 1970, and 1971 respectively, as well as W.L. Nolan (killed January 1970), James McClain, William Christmas (killed with George) and Khatari Gaulden (killed August 1st, 1978). Back in August 1979, the prison newspaper, Arm the Spirit, dedicated the first issue establishing Black August, “To commemorate the lives of George and Jonathan Jackson, Black prisoners at San Quentin have set aside the month of August as a month of Black cultural and revolutionary development. Through educational and other activities efforts will be directed toward transforming the Black "criminal mentality" into revolutionary mentality to making the popular prison masses conscious of their social, political, economic, and racial oppression, and to elevating the already existing revolutionary consciousness” 

From the beginning, Black August was intended to be cathartic, reflective and rooted in disciplined behavior. Early followers of Black August began to coalesce around guiding principles such as unity, self-sacrifice, political education, physical training and resistance. From here, participants wore black armbands on their left arm, establish political education/study groups, refrain from using drugs, and alcohol while engaging in daily exercise, “It's a time to dedicate and rededicate ourselves to our freedom struggle and build and prepare ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually for the struggle ahead. August is most definitely a month of great historical and spiritual significance to our people and fasting during this month should keep this foremost in our minds,”  wrote the Arm the Spirit Editorial Collective.

During the early years as August 21st coalitions and committees were in formation and organizing Black folk in and outside of the prisons around Black August, these Black activists, radicals and revolutionaries were subjected to and targeted with relentless and harsh attacks via police harassment, brutality, surveillance, and arrest. Once arrested, and incarcerated, they were again targeted with vicious torture, hostility and mistreatment; deprived of sleep, medical care, and imprisoned in segregated housing units for 23 hours a day. But they maintained and advanced their political struggle behind the walls making demands for their human rights.  Supporters on the outside formed committees and filed lawsuits while the prisoners on the inside organized, went on strikes and rebelled. We saw this in Attica in 1972.

Photo credit: Nemo Rodriguez

This the foundation and legacy Black August set and 42 years later, the radical and revolutionary spirit of Black August continues to resonate more widely today. That is a result of the work of organizations such as the Black August Organizing Committee, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, New Afrikan Independence Movement, and the Jericho Movement, who are amongst those organizations and formations around the country committed to securing the freedom for all political prisoners. Along with month-long activities holding up political prisoners, Black August has evolved through the years to include historical markers in radical Black history also occurring in August that includes the arrival of the first African slaves in 1619, the Haitian Revolution in 1791, Nat Turner's 1831 rebellion, birth of Marcus Garvey and establishing the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and Watts uprising are just a few examples. 

Today, the issue of political prisoners brings into focus not only the devastating impact of COINTELPRO but the relationship between the prison industrial complex to Black people via racism, capitalism and imperialism on one hand and targeted surveillance, harassment, arrest and imprisonment, on the other. Today’s political prisoners serve the longest sentences and have to endure the harshest of prison conditions eventually leading to serious debilitating health issues that include tuberculosis, deteriorating skin disease, cancers, cirrhosis and now COVID,  

Ruchell Magee is 82 years old and is currently the longest held political prisoner serving 58 years in prison – and was recently denied parole, again.  Mumia Abu-Jamal is 67 years old, incarcerated since 1981, Russell Shoatz is 78 years old and incarcerated since 1972, Sundiati Acoli is 84 years old and incarcerated since 1973, Mutulu Shakur is 71 years old and incarcerated since 1986, Imam Jamil Al-Amin, formerly H. Rap Brown is 77 years old and incarcerated since 2000.  But the list doesn’t stop here, there’s more. 

The recent health concerns aggravated with contracting COVID, have prompted campaigns demanding their immediate release. The outright denial of the release for these aging prisoners in declining health during this horrific COVID period, not only deepens our clarity of the state’s sustained attack on political prisoners, and draws a picture of the fight ahead, but also deepens the resolve to secure their release from prison.  We’re reminded of what, former political prisoner Dhoruba Bin Wahad wrote his seminal essay, In Speaking Truth to Power: Political Prisoners in the United States, where he wrote in part: “The existence of political prisoners in the United States goes to the very heart of the racist nature of this society. To not deal with the issue of political prisoners in the U.S. is to not deal with the true 'nature of America”

Additional Reading:

In Speaking Truth to Power: Political Prisoners in the United States, Doruba Bin-Wahad

Arm the Spirit, August 1979 issue

Arm the Spirit, first issue, no date

Imprisoned Intellectuals; America's Political Prisoners write on Life, Liberation and Rebellion, Introduction by Joy James

The Case of the San Quentin Six and a Chronology of the Frameup

Please support and visit The Brooks Blackboard's website, our INTEL page of political resources, articles & analysis, and our video library, the OPEN MIND page,.  

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Progressive Critics Say Investors in US Weapon-Makers Only Clear Winners of Afghan War

By Jessica Corbett

As the hawks who have been lying about the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan for two decades continue to peddle fantasies in the midst of a Taliban takeover and American evacuation of Kabul, progressive critics on Tuesday reminded the world who has benefited from the "endless war."

"Never has it been more important to end war profiteering."
—Public Citizen

"Entrenching U.S. forces in Afghanistan was the military-industrial complex's business plan for 20+ years," declared the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Public Citizen.

"Hawks and defense contractors co-opted the needs of the Afghan people in order to line their own pockets," the group added. "Never has it been more important to end war profiteering."

In a Tuesday morning tweet, Public Citizen highlighted returns on defense stocks over the past 20 years—as calculated in a "jaw-dropping" analysis by The Intercept—and asserted that "the military-industrial complex got exactly what it wanted out of this war."

The Intercept's Jon Schwarz examined returns on stocks of the five biggest defense contractors: Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics.

Schwarz found that a $10,000 investment in stock evenly split across those five companies on the day in 2001 that then-President Georg W. Bush signed the authorization preceding the U.S. invasion would be worth $97,295 this week, not adjusted for inflation, taxes, or fees.

According to The Intercept:

This is a far greater return than was available in the overall stock market over the same period. $10,000 invested in an S&P 500 index fund on September 18, 2001, would now be worth $61,613.

That is, defense stocks outperformed the stock market overall by 58% during the Afghanistan War.

"These numbers suggest that it is incorrect to conclude that the Taliban's immediate takeover of Afghanistan upon the U.S.'s departure means that the Afghanistan War was a failure," Schwarz added. "On the contrary, from the perspective of some of the most powerful people in the U.S., it may have been an extraordinary success. Notably, the boards of directors of all five defense contractors include retired top-level military officers."

"War profiteering isn't new," journalist Dina Sayedahmed said in response to the reporting, "but seeing the numbers on it is staggering."

Progressive political commentator and podcast host Krystal Ball used Schwarz's findings to counter a key argument that's been widely used to justify nearly 20 years of war.

"This is what it was really all about people," she tweeted of the defense contractors' returns. "Anyone who believes we were in Afghanistan to help women and girls is a liar or a fool."

Jack Mirkinson wrote Monday for Discourse Blog that "it is unquestionably heartbreaking to think about what the Taliban might inflict on women and girls, but let us dispense with this fantasy that the U.S. has been in Afghanistan to support women, or to build democracy, or to strengthen Afghan institutions, or any of the other lines that are deployed whenever someone has the temerity to suggest that endless war and occupation is a harmful thing."

"We did not go into Afghanistan to support its people, and we did not stay in Afghanistan to support its people," he added. "It is astonishing, given what we know about the monsters that the U.S. has propped up time and time again around the world, that the myth persists that we do anything out of our love for human rights. We went in and we stayed in for the same reason: the American empire is a force that must remain in perpetual motion."

As Common Dreams reported Monday, while the Taliban has retaken control, anti-war advocates have argued diplomacy is the only path to long-term peace, with Project South's Azadeh Shahshahani emphasizing that "the only ones who benefited from the U.S. war on Afghanistan were war-profiteering politicians and corporations while countless lives were destroyed."

Responding to Shahshahani's tweet about who has benefited from two decades of bloodshed, Zack Kopplin of the Government Accountability Project wrote, "Adding war-profiteering generals to the mix too."

Book Review: We Do This 'til we FREE US

We Do This ‘til we Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

By Mariame Kaba
Edited by Tamara K. Knopper
Foreword by Naomi Murakawa
Haymarket Books: 206 pages

Book Review words by Charles Brooks

In the last year during the aftermath of the George Floyd killing, the demand to defund the police pushed the discussion around policing in a way that just hasn’t been witnessed before. Police departments across the country were now under public pressure to review and cut spending priorities while reallocating dollars to community based interventions. The avalanche of poor reporting and misinformation caused confusion and misunderstanding around the defunding issue allowed the narrative to be redefined as well as coopted to conveniently fit within the liberal reformist narrative.  Then there’s the manufactured hysteria and heightened racial anxieties resulting from the backlash linking recent reports of rising violent crime to defunding the police.    

Is there a more perfect time for a book to step into this moment of confusion and crisis with a 

Mariame Kaba at an 2018 event. Credit madison365

blast of clarity?  Mariame Kaba does that with her book, We Do This ‘til we Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice.  As an organizer and activist, Kaba began her work with political prisoner defense campaigns, “And, particularly the MOVE Nine, Ramona Africa, and all the women who were either killed or were imprisoned, some of whom are still in prison today, over a mass terroristic police attack against Black people in the United States. Something that does not get talked about as a form of police violence. But it’s the ultimate form of state violence throwing bombs on a bunch of people in their homes. That really was a radicalizing event for me. And it helped me to start to think about state violence in a different way.” 

In this collection of 31 essays and media interviews, We Do This ‘til we Free Us outlines Kaba’s analysis and views within an abolitionist framework.  She describes prison-industrial complex (PIC) abolition as a political vision with a structural analysis of oppression and as a practical organizing strategy: “PIC abolition is a vision of a restructured society in a world where we have everything we need: food, shelter, education, health, art, beauty, clean water, and more things that are foundational to our personal and community safety.” 

 Kaba’s analysis covers the school to prison pipeline, sexual violence, restorative justice practices, state surveillance, and transformative justice.  We Do This ‘til we Free Us also includes Kaba’s insight around the campaigns for Marissa Alexander, Rekia Boyd, Cyntoia Brown, and Bresha Meadows, to name a few.  She rejects the idea of relying on the Department of Justice for “justice”, that police reform works as well as the idea that prison addresses the systemic causes of violence. Her analysis is informative as well as instructive as she

clearly outlines the abolitionist principles, the steps to securing freedom for the incarcerated, and provides guidelines to drive and support organizing work in the community. 

With the years of political experience/knowledge Kaba has in activism and organizing, she understands the challenges that folks are facing as they process what they hear and read about “defunding the police” in real time. She readily admits not having all the answers but there’s still the pursuit in her work to grapple with the question(s) at hand. Kaba talks about being openly conflicted about civilian review and challenges herself in a way that provides a pathway and a model to transformational change: “None of us has all of the answers, or we would have ended oppression already.  But if we keep building the world we want, trying new things and learning from our mistakes, new possibilities emerge.” 

We Do This ‘til we Free Us not only highlights but informs the need for self-review to reframe our thinking.  This is a paradigm shift when she speaks about thinking about a transformative society, what that looks like and how do we get there. Kaba writes, “First, when we set about trying to transform society, we must remember that we ourselves will also need to transform.  Our imagination of what a different world can be is limited. We are deeply entangled in the very systems we are organizing to change.” 

We Do This ‘til we Free Us is written in the abolitionist tradition that not only speaks to the compelling

Artist credit: Micah Bazant

need for a shift in thinking but the book is also grounded in self-determination. Throughout the book, Kaba discusses the transformative role the community has in determining accountability, transformative and restorative justice.  Here, Kaba writes about the essential role of community accountability and community work on a grassroots level -  collective organizing, participatory defense campaigns, mutual aid and community-based interventions.  As abolitionists, Kaba says the goal to dismantle and abolish the prison industrial complex is based on rendering the PIC obsolete by changing the conditions by which people live.  This is connected to a deeper premise based on the idea of building – building relationships, building community, and building a vision for the future. Kaba writes, “People like me who want to abolish prisons and police, however, have a vision of a different society, built on cooperation instead of individualism on mutual aid instead of self-preservation. What would the country look like if it had billions of extra dollars to spend on housing, food and education for all”? 

Related Posts: 

1. Police reform comes to Maryland

2. Retreating from police reform in NYC

Further Reading:

Critical Resistance seeks to build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe.

Project-NIA, is a grassroots organization that works to end the arrest, detention, and incarceration of children and young adults by promoting restorative and transformative justice practices.

Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action is an initiative led by researchers Woods Ervin, Mariame Kaba, and Andrea J. Ritchie. The project aims to interrupt and end the growing criminalization and incarceration of women and LGBTQ people of color for criminalized acts related to public order, poverty, child welfare, drug use, survival and self-defense, including criminalization and incarceration of survivors of violence.

Haiti Assassination Raises Red Flags Among Observers Fluent in History of US Intervention

"It's quite striking that the arguments being made for a U.S. intervention in Haiti are so alike the ones that were used to justify the 1915-34 occupation."

BRETT WILKINS

July 8, 2021

In the wake of Wednesday's assassination of Jovenel Moïse, the unpopular, corrupt, and increasingly authoritarian U.S.-backed Haitian president, observers fluent in the history of foreign interference in the hemisphere's first truly free republic sounded the alarm over the same sort of calls for intervention in the name of "stability" that preceded so many previous American invasions of Haiti.

Lost funding, lost history?

 FCN 1/26/99

Front Page

National News

Lost funding, lost history?
African Burial Ground Project may be cancelled by federal agency

by Charles Brooks

NEW YORK-When hundreds of artifacts and 427 skeletal remains of Africans brought to America were unearthed in May 1991, it threatened the construction of a 34-story, $276 million federal office building in lower Manhattan. In response to intense pressure from the Black community, the General Services Administration (GSA) made a commitment to preserve the historical legacy of this discovery.

But the African Burial Ground Project, which has yielded important evidence about the 18th century slave presence in the north, may shut down by April 30, if additional funding from GSA isn't obtained. The project team, led by Dr. Michael L. Blakey, is locked in a heated dispute with the federal agency.

POLICE REFORM COMES TO MARYLAND (PART II)

words by Charles Brooks 

Police reform in America is difficult because police unions, elected officials – Democrat and Republican – along with their largely white constituents seeks to maintain a racial order disguised as “law and order”. Opposition to police reform is seen in the public and political support for blue lives matter, and proposed anti-protest legislation across the nation that will clearly pit police officers on the front line against protesters deemed rioters.  We saw this during the seventies when the activist demand for community control over the police was met with the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights or LEOBOR – such as the one passed by Maryland in 1974. Passed into law at a time when politicians and the police, together basked in the spectacle of “law and order” – which meant, get tough on Black folk.

Jonathan Hutto and Rodney Green outlines the activism against police brutality in Social Movements Against Racist Police Brutality and Department of Justice Intervention in Prince George’s County, Maryland.  They point to 2001 Washington Post data revealing between 1990 and 2000, Prince George’s police shot and killed more citizens per officer than any of the 50 largest city and county law enforcement agencies in the country - 84 % Black. Hutto and Green describes activism against police brutality in Prince Georges County, and the critical emergence of The People’s Coalition for Police Accountability (PCPA).  In 2001, PCPA pressured Maryland state legislators to introduce legislation to repeal LEOBOR in the General Assembly. But opposition from the police union, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) eventually killed the proposed repeal measure in committee. The struggle for police reform in Maryland continued relentlessly in the twenty years afterward.

Throughout the Maryland General Assembly’s recent three-month state legislative session, the opposition became clear as several state legislators – Democrats and Republicans, along with the FOP had their own ideas about what police reform should look like. Throughout the combative session, opposing state legislators prioritized protecting police interests over the interests of the community.

Maryland became the latest state to enact extensive police reform measures only after state legislators successfully overrode Governor Hogan’s veto.  In fact, the most contentious measures during the legislative session were in fact, vetoed by the Republican Governor; repeal of the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (LEOBOR), the new use of force standard and body cameras. He also vetoed measures to expand public access to records in police disciplinary cases and limit the use of no-knock warrants. 

The new police reform legislation creates a new unit in the attorney general's office to investigate police-involved deaths, prevents law enforcement agencies from buying surplus military equipment, and allows Baltimore City voters to self-determine whether Baltimore City or Maryland should have full control of the Baltimore City Police Department.

The new legislation also requires body cameras to be in use by July 2025; limits no-knock warrants to just between 8 am and 7 pm; a new statewide standard will now be in place outlining when officers can use force with criminal penalties of up to 10 years in prison. The use of force must now be “necessary and proportional to prevent an imminent threat of physical injury" or achieve “a legitimate law enforcement objective.”  Police officers will now be required to intervene thus criminalizing those officers who don’t.

There’s also Anton’s Law - that provides the public to finally gain access to records previously fought to keep confidential under the guise of protecting the police. The public will be able to request disciplinary records and internal affairs complaints made against the police. And despite heavy opposition from Maryland’s FOP, complaints determined to be unsubstantiated, will now be available for public review as well.

The new police reform legislation ensures different policing but also brings into view the road ahead for police reform.  For one, legislation to remove police officers from schools and reallocate funding for needed school resources such as social workers failed. Furthermore, LEOBOR fell short on the question of community control.  It’s the Trial boards who are empowered with the final determination on disciplining acts of police misconduct while the boards’ lone public representative is relegated to a spectator – no say in determining an officer’s guilt.   “While the General Assembly repealed the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (LEOBR), it failed to implement the most important element of police accountability – community oversight. Community oversight means that there is a community-controlled and operated entity that is external to the police department or state-imposed processes that has power to investigate, adjudicate, and impose discipline,” reads in part, a statement from the Maryland Coalition for Justice and Police Accountability (MCJPA). 

To truly transform policing in America, policing must include community control – where the community has a significant role in police matters, particularly around discipline.  Community control has been the demand made by Black activists since the sixties in response to the same police misconduct and brutality that often led to rebellious uprisings. The notion that the police can effectively investigate and discipline police defeats the very purpose of community control.  As the amplified voices of the community become more engaged with the entities of their communities – be it the police, education or healthcare - the path to self-determination, community control and a more inclusive participatory democracy becomes more visible and within reach.

See Part I of POLICE REFORM COMES TO MARYLAND

Please support and visit The Brooks Blackboard's website, our INTEL page of political resources, articles & analysis, and our video library, the OPEN MIND page,.  

Please LIKE and FOLLOW our Facebook page.

Follow me on Twitter at @_CharlesBrooks   

Related Reading:

RETREATING FROM POLICE REFORM IN NYC

Are mandatory minimums the answer in Baltimore City

What really happened to Freddy Gray?

Additional Reading:

Social Movements Against Racist Police Brutality and Department of Justice Intervention in Prince George’s County, Maryland

List of articles on Black Community Control from The Black Agenda Report

POLICE REFORM COMES TO MARYLAND (PART I)

words by Charles Brooks

The public display of Floyd’s gruesome death ignited massive protests across the country demanding reduced police budgets along with bans on tear gas, chokeholds, no-knock warrants, and limits on the police use of force. State and local legislators responded to the thousands of demonstrators on the streets with a barrage of their proposals attempting to address police reform.

Since last summer, state legislators in Maryland took notice and followed suit by convening a workgroup  to hammer out legislative proposals to address police reform in Maryland. On the ground, a coalition of 95 organizations – the Maryland Coalition for Justice and Police Accountability (MCJPA) began their grassroot campaign for police reform with demands grounded in racial justice and self-determination. Their demands seek to reverse unaccountable police misconduct with a process more transparent, more democratic and more aligned to the interests of the community, particularly those with Black working-class folk. In fact, three of their demands – if met – can fundamentally transform policing and the lives of Black folk in Maryland.

For one, there’s the demand to fully repeal the Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights (LEOBR); to

bring a “use of force” standard that doesn’t exist in Maryland; and create more transparency to the investigation process around police misconduct that right now, disables the release of vital information.  That’s because the Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) blocks the release of information relating to police misconduct because they consider complaints part of the “personnel record,” not up for public release. As a result, family members, the community, advocates and activists are left in the dark regarding the progress or even the scope of any investigation.

The Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights is problematic because of special entitled rights that are afforded to police officers when they’re investigated for misconduct allegations. This entitlement of rights are fundamental barriers to any semblance of transparency and accountability. Disciplinary records are expunged. Questioning occurs days after the misconduct occurred. Officers investigating officers. We see this time and time again when we learn about an officer’s history of misconduct with little or no disciplinary action taken.  These repeated episodes raise a simple question asked by many – why are they still employed as police officers? LEOBOR is what keeps them employed. The Coalition demands also include reversing control of the Baltimore City Police Department from the state of Maryland to Baltimore City; and removing police officers from public schools.

The data is stacked with evidence highlighting the need for real and meaningful police reform in Maryland. According to the ACLU-Maryland, Maryland now ranks among the least transparent states regarding police misconduct complaints where even conservative states such as Alabama, Arizona and Georgia have a more transparent disciplinary process than Maryland.  Maryland is one of only nine states in the country without a statewide standard around police “use of force”. And finally, Maryland is one of only three states in the country where the Governor approval is needed to parole those serving life and eligible for parole.

In addition, 109 people were killed by police in Maryland between 2010 and 2014, and 87 killed

since 2015.  Since 2014, statistics were no longer available for SWAT deployments. However, available statistics show between 2010 and 2014, police in Maryland conducted more than 8,000 raids. In the last year of data collection, in 2014 – statistics show 71% of SWAT deployments were considered “forcible entry”.  The statistics also disclose the largest number of SWAT teams were deployed in predominately Black populated counties; Baltimore City saw 230 deployments while Prince George’s County had 418.  

An ACLU-Maryland report on misconduct complaints reveals between 2015 and 2019, there were 13,392 complaints filed against 1,826 Baltimore City police officers and 22,884 use of force incidents in Baltimore.  There’s the mandated report on police settlements outlining the 269 claims paying out $2.6 million – that doesn't include the millions paid out in cases involving the Gun Force Task Force and, Freddie Gray. 

Maryland has the highest Black population in the country with more than 70% of Black prisoners. Once incarcerated, Division of Corrections (DOC) prison laborers earn .90 cents to $2.75 per day and between 17 cents and $1.16 an hour at the Maryland Correctional Enterprises earn  Bear in mind that Maryland spends nearly $8 million a year to pay for prisoner labor while their prisoner labor program earned $52 million from the sale of products made from prison labor, ranging from furniture and flags to stationery and license plates.

Back home, the families are left to deal with the lingering and continuing trauma resulting from police brutality. The stories of the families who suffered loss by the hands of the police provides deep insight into not just their trauma but the trauma felt by their friends and extended community as well.  Their story and testimony tells us their grief is real.  Their loss is real. And their trauma is just as real. Loss of sleep. Loss of appetite.  The up and down ride on the emotional rollercoaster that comes with the ups and downs of anxiety, stress and depression.  

This is the backdrop highlighting the need for community control and police reform when Maryland state legislators began their 2021 legislative session back in January. 

Go to POLICE REFORM COMES TO MARYLAND - PART II

Related Reading:

Retreating from Police Reform in NYC

Are mandatory minimums the answer for Baltimore?

What really happened to Freddy Gray?

Please support and visit The Brooks Blackboard's website, our INTEL page of political resources, articles & analysis, and our video library, the OPEN MIND page.

Please LIKE and FOLLOW our Facebook page.

Follow me on Twitter at @_CharlesBrooks   

 

 

'Follow the Money': Corporations Gave $50 Million to GOP Lawmakers Behind Voter Suppression Onslaught

"No matter how many PR statements Big Business puts out, its complicity with the antidemocratic forces that want to make voting harder is clear."

by

Jake Johnson, staff writer

The cover of the new report from Public Citizen—titled "The Corporate Sponsors of Voter Suppression"—features a photoshopped version of an image of Georgia's Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signing that state's voter suppression bill into law last month with a painting in the background overlaid with logos of major corporate donors who have lavished campaign contributions on the GOP in recent years. (Image via Public Citizen)

Since 2015, AT&T, Comcast, UnitedHealth Group, Walmart, and other big businesses have donated a combined $50 million to state Republican lawmakers who are currently supporting voter suppression bills across the United States—generous political spending at odds with recent corporate efforts to rebrand as defenders of voting rights.

A new report (pdf) released Monday morning by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen found that during the 2020 election cycle alone, U.S. corporations donated $22 million to Republican architects of voter suppression bills that are advancing through state legislatures nationwide.

"Corporations should keep their money out of our democracy—and Congress must put the people back in charge by swiftly passing the For The People Act."
—Rick Claypool, Public Citizen

"AT&T [since 2015] has given the most, $811,000," Public Citizen found, citing data from The National Institute on Money in Politics. "AT&T is followed by Altria/Philip Morris, Comcast, UnitedHealth Group, Walmart, State Farm, and Pfizer. Household names that fell just out of the top 25 list... include Nationwide ($182,000), Merck ($180,000), CVS ($174,000), John Deere ($159,000), and Caterpillar ($157,000)."

"This is why you follow the money, not the good PR," Public Citizen tweeted.

The group's findings came after a number of prominent corporations—including AT&T, Comcast, and Georgia-based companies Coca-Cola and Delta—issued statements denouncing a sweeping Georgia voter suppression measure only after Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed it into law last month.

Despite vocal demands for them to speak out and use their influence to fight the bill, those companies were largely quiet as the measure made its way through Georgia's Republican-dominated legislature.

Between 2015 and 2020, according to Public Citizen, corporations donated more than $10.8 million to Georgia Republicans who are supporting the 26 voter suppression bills that have been introduced in the state's legislature this year. Corporations have also donated big to voter suppression advocates in Texas, Arizona, Virginia, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas.

"From coast to coast, politicians that Corporate America helped elect are pushing racist voter suppression laws," Rick Claypool, research director for Public Citizen's president's office and one of the authors of the new report, told Common Dreams.

"No matter how many PR statements Big Business puts out, its complicity with the anti-democratic forces that want to make voting harder is clear," Claypool added. "Corporations should keep their money out of our democracy—and Congress must put the people back in charge by swiftly passing the For The People Act."

According to the latest tally by the Brennan Center for Justice, legislators have introduced 361 bills with vote-restricting provisions in 47 states this year, and five have become law.

In the wake of the January 6 Capitol insurrection by a mob of Trump supporters, many large corporations vowed to temporarily suspend all political giving as they faced backlash for financially supporting Republican members of Congress who helped provoke the attack with brazen lies about the 2020 presidential election.

But Public Citizen argued Monday that such face-saving efforts—as well as belated disavowals of voter suppression measures—"will amount to a meaningless gesture if corporations continue to bankroll the bills' supporters with future campaign contributions."

"The days in which corporate America can fund politicians and then claim no responsibly for their actions may be coming to an end," the group said. "Corporations seeking to demonstrate their reverence for our democracy could best do so by ending their attempts to influence the outcomes of elections at the federal and state levels."

This article originally appeared at CommonDreams.org. Originally published on April 5th, 2021. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. 

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'Outrageous': 46 Million Americans Say They Would Not Be Able to Afford Healthcare If They Needed It

"The American model of health reform—throwing money at private insurers—cannot solve it."

by

Jake Johnson, staff writer

A nurse comforts a woman who was distraught seeing her husband on a ventilator due to Covid-19. (Photo: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

A new study released Wednesday morning shows that nearly 50 million Americans would be unable to afford quality healthcare should the need for treatment suddenly arise, a finding seen as further evidence of the immorality of a for-profit insurance system that grants or denies coverage based on a person's ability to pay.

"People can't afford their goddamn healthcare," Tim Faust, a proponent of single-payer healthcare, tweeted in response to the new report. "Families spend less on food so they can make insurance payments. This problem is felt by all, but concentrated among poor people and black people. The American model of health reform—throwing money at private insurers—can not solve it."

"Our system has been structured for many years on the basis of private health plans and very deep dysfunction politically and within the medical industry."
—Dr. Vikas Saini, Lown Institute

"The rot is pervasive and it runs deep," Faust added. "People who can't afford healthcare just don't get healthcare. Wealthy men get to live fifteen years longer than poor men. We have condemned poor children to die from things which do not kill rich children. In America, sickness makes you poor; poorness makes you sick; then you die."

According to the report by Gallup and West Health, 18% of U.S. adults—around 46 million people—say that if they needed access to quality healthcare today, they would not be able to cover the costs. The same percentage of adults report that, amid a deadly pandemic, someone in their household has opted to skip needed care over the past year due to inability to pay.

"The chances of any given household suffering from this form of healthcare insecurity are inversely related to annual household income, with 35% of respondents from low-income households—those earning under $24,000 per year—reporting forgoing care in the prior 12 months," Gallup's Dan Witters notes in a summary of the study's findings. "That is five times the rate reported by those from high-income households (7%), defined as earning at least $180,000."

Dr. Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute think tank, told The Guardian on Wednesday that "unfortunately, it's not surprising that millions of Americans can't afford healthcare."

"It is, however, shocking and kind of outrageous," Saini added. "Our system has been structured for many years on the basis of private health plans and very deep dysfunction politically and within the medical industry. Americans have been facing this mammoth problem. It was there during, and looks like it's going to be after, the pandemic...  Americans want, and need I'd say, a radically better healthcare system."

The study comes two weeks after a group of House Democrats led by Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) unveiled the Medicare for All Act of 2021, sweeping legislation that would transition the U.S. to a single-payer healthcare system over a two-year period. The new system would guarantee comprehensive medical care to every person in the U.S. for free at the point of service, eliminating premiums, co-pays, and deductibles.

According to an analysis released by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen earlier this month, a Medicare for All system likely would have prevented hundreds of thousands of coronavirus deaths in the United States, which has the highest Covid-19 death toll in the world.

"There is a solution to this health crisis—a popular one that guarantees healthcare to every person as a human right and finally puts people over profits and care over corporations," said Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "That solution is Medicare for All—everyone in, nobody out."

In their new study, Gallup and West Health show that over 80% of Americans support "setting caps on out-of-pocket costs for both prescription drugs and general healthcare services for those who are insured by Medicare." Sixty percent of Americans support "making Medicare available to everyone," according to the report.

The study also finds that 65% of U.S. adults support lowering the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 60, a proposal that congressional Democrats are reportedly planning to include in a forthcoming legislative package.

This article originally appeared at CommonDreams.org. Originally published on March 31st, 2021. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. 

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