What the rich are thankful for

For most Americans, this will be the worst Thanksgiving they can remember. A quarter-million people in America are dead from the pandemic. Tens of millions have lost their jobs, and countless others are hungry or on the verge of being evicted from their homes. For months, workers throughout the country have played a daily game of Russian roulette every time they punched into a shift at a factory, warehouse or store.

[wsws.org]

{Beginning with the Reagan/Thatcher/Volcker anti-inflation policies in the early 1980s, the world’s ruling classes launched a systematic campaign to drive down workers’ wages and living standards. “Anti-inflation” policies, which originally entailed the raising of interest rates to create a manufactured recession in the early ’80s, were soon supplanted by decades of extremely low interests rates for banks and the implicit guarantee that central banks would ensure there would be no serious fall in the value of financial assets.

The ruling class responded to the economic and financial crisis of 2008 by launching, under both Bush and Obama, a massive, multi-trillion-dollar bailout, implemented over the course of years, that led the stock market to surge amid mass unemployment.}

Nope, no collaboration there

{In 2020, the ruling class used the crisis conditions created by the pandemic to launch a bailout twice the scale of 2008, implemented within a matter of just a few months, leading stock markets to surge to record highs almost immediately.}

Nope, not even attempting to hide the manipulation.

{But immediately after the election, Biden declared that there will be “no national shutdown” while reaffirming the Federal Reserve’s unlimited commitment to propping up the stock market. “Our interest rates are as low as they have been in modern history. And I think that is a positive thing,” Biden declared. Biden’s selection of former Fed Chair Janet Yellen as his Treasury Secretary is a signal to Wall Street that the flood of free money will continue.}

Rinse. Repeat. Recycle. In other words. That's the entire core of DC standing on the Capital Hill pissing and spiting down on us.

{The year 2020 has exposed American society as an oligarchy, in which a tiny group of billionaires inflicts enormous social misery on the great majority of society for its own personal enrichment. If hundreds of thousands of people need to die to generate more wealth for the oligarchs, so be it.}

California Highway Patrol evicts homeless families on Thanksgiving eve

[wsws.org]

Thanksgiving in America: Massive food lines and evictions as benefits expire

As this week’s Thanksgiving holiday approaches, a social catastrophe is unfolding across America on a scale not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

[wsws.org]

{A week ago, Trump made his first public statement in days to reiterate his opposition to a lockdown of the economy to contain the pandemic and save lives. Days later, Democratic President-elect Joe Biden gave a press conference and declared that a Biden administration would never impose a national lockdown. This followed the call by Michael Osterholm, a member of his own coronavirus advisory board, for a six-week nationwide lockdown and full pay for affected workers.

{Both parties have conspired to block any congressional action to provide a new round of jobless benefits and other relief measures for workers and small businesses following the July 31 expiration of the minimal benefits provided under the CARES Act.}

Despite reports that the current welfare program for the ruling class corporate America being approximately twice that of the welfare program for them in 2008, the relief for the citizenry has been a fraction currently compared to 2008. We've stood by and watched this program for them go by without anyone being held accountable in 2008, as the country marched further to the right under Obama. Current crisis has questionable activities that seem criminal within the manor the ruling class corporations managed to funnel a vast amount of relief from small businesses to themselves, and our governance secretive methods of deception on information pertaining to the virus. Again, no mention of correcting or investigating crimes, and the country took a large leap towards fascism. They aren't fighting for us. They're fighting against us. [caitlinjohnstone.com]

{The public health disaster and the social crisis are two sides of a human catastrophe that is the result of deliberate policies carried out by the Trump administration and, in all essentials, backed by the Democrats. The bipartisan response to the pandemic is driven not by the goal of saving lives, but by the economic interests of the ruling corporate-financial oligarchy. The sole concern is to protect the wealth of the billionaires through government handouts and free money from the Federal Reserve, ensuring a record rise on the stock market.}

{The corporatist trade unions are fully supporting the back-to-work and back-to-school drive, while covering up virus outbreaks in the factories and schools and policing the workplaces to block opposition by workers.}

And at Tyson, the management will make bets on how many come down with the virus and collect their winnings after the deaths are tallied.