Liberation Audio

As organizers and revolutionaries, we're not trying to be spectators of a political process. We have to bring to bear the full power of the working class, so that we can advance the struggle. Hear PSL Central Committee member Ben Becker speak on FIGHTING BACK as the working class.

Why did the U.S. government spend all of its time inciting hatred against China, instead of preparing for the crisis? Our fight back must hold the leaders of this country responsible for this growing crisis. Hear PSL Central Committee member Sheila Xiao speak on the need to fight racism and scapegoating.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to intensify, poor and oppressed communities will be the hardest hit. This can be seen in Albany, a city of approximately 70,000 people in Southwest Georgia. As of April 17, there have been at least 2,030 confirmed cases, making Albany a city with one of the highest number of coronavirus cases per capita in the world. Additionally, the 78 deaths in Dougherty County, of which Albany is county seat, are the most of any in Georgia. The outbreak has completely overwhelmed the regional healthcare system, which serves over 14 counties in Southwest Georgia. Nurses in the region have been ordered to continue working even if they test positive for the virus. Read the full article: https://www.liberationnews.org/the-coronavirus-crisis-in-southwest-georgia-exposes-a-broken-system/

Walkouts, sickouts, sit-ins, picket lines and other forms of protest are sweeping the country from New York to Alabama to California. Essential workers are taking the initiative to demand the on-the-job protective equipment and support necessary to protect themselves against the COVID-19 virus and survive. The strike wave is an angry response to a corporate establishment that has shown no social obligation to them during the pandemic, and to a federal government which has given trillions of dollars to the banks, but has instituted no regulations for workplace safety against COVID-19. Read the full article: https://www.liberationnews.org/essential-worker-strike-wave-we-fight-for-ourselves-and-for-the-public/

At time of publication, only ten countries in the world have surpassed Michigan in their total number of COVID-19 deaths. Michigan, a state with a population of less than 10 million people, has exceeded Canada’s number of cases confirmed today. Wayne County, which houses Detroit, has surpassed the entire state of California in total number of deaths, and has nearly eclipsed Brazil as well. At Sinai-Grace Hospital in Detroit, images have recently surfaced of human bodies being stored in vacant hospital rooms, stacked atop each other due to lack of space. At least two people in that hospital have died waiting in the emergency room hallways. The Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Office is considering using ice rinks in the Metro Detroit area as provisional morgues. Over one million people have applied for unemployment, placing the joblessness rate at 25 percent – the highest in the nation. How, in a major city in the richest country ever to exist in human history, could this happen?

Across the country support for incarcerated people has become a rallying cry for all progressive people and organizations. Simultaneously, spontaneous prison actions of resistance have become increasingly regular in the face of the Coronavirus pandemic. Inmates at the Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas City started a tier wide uprising forcing guards to retreat from the section of the prison, cellhouse C, where incarcerated people set fires and stormed offices. A rallying call from the prisoner-made footage was “All Gas No Mask!” a play on the expression “All Gas No Brakes” to mean that there is no turning back now because of the lack of life saving personal protective equipment. Read the full article: https://www.liberationnews.org/all-gas-no-mask-in-life-and-death-situation-inmates-rebel-amid-pandemic/

While the COVID-19 crisis continues to escalate across the United States, more and more workers are being backed into life or death situations. The crisis is not simply a result of the virus itself but the lack of material governmental response. Many workers, impacted by cuts in hours, job losses or mass school closings are now struck by deep financial precarity, unsure of where next month’s rent money will come from. The lowest paid and most oppressed workers have been hit the hardest. For working-class women, the Coronavirus crisis has only exacerbated the already-existing fault lines of gender, race and class. Women workers face some of the greatest risks while also being on the frontlines of the crisis. The industries deeply affected by the virus like the service sector, domestic work, and childcare are disproportionately staffed by women. Seventy percent of restaurant servers, 92 percent of childcare workers and 93 percent of domestic workers are women. Workers need guaranteed pay so they can be home with their kids and properly shelter in place if they aren’t in essential workplaces. The government has the resources to provide all of this. Stop funding the banks and corporations and start funding people’s needs! Read the full article: https://www.liberationnews.org/women-on-the-frontlines-of-covid-19/

Without pressure from the working class, capitalists and the politicians who serve them will concede nothing. This pandemic has exposed how broken the system is, and how deadly the consequences are. We stand in solidarity with the striking workers and the unemployed in these and future crucial struggles. The 3.3 million people who filed for unemployment benefits as the Coronavirus shutdown began have been joined by an additional 6.6 million newly-unemployed workers in the latest weekly Labor Department statistics. And there are likely millions more who did not file with the Labor Department because websites and call centers were inaccessible or they are unjustly denied benefits due to immigration status. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has estimated that 47 million people could lose jobs in the next quarter as a result of the pandemic. The resulting 32.1% unemployment rate would far exceed the 24.9% experienced in the Great Depression. The deadly impact of the pandemic is not surprising, given that tens of millions of people, many of them barely making ends meet, have no access to health care and medical insurance is often linked to employment. Add mass layoffs as businesses grind to a halt, and a purely medical threat becomes a full-blown crisis exposing profound structural flaws in a profit-driven system. The pandemic makes it obvious that workers keep society running, not the bosses. Read the full article: https://www.liberationnews.org/politicians-fear-the-people-workers-win-unemployment-benefit-expansion/

This is a segment from our livestream featuring leaders from the Party for Socialism and Liberation on the coronavirus, capitalism and the class struggle.

Are relief measures socialist? This is a segment from our livestream featuring leaders from the Party for Socialism and Liberation on the coronavirus, capitalism and the class struggle.