The U.S. government’s $2 trillion COVID-19 economic stimulus package was the biggest corporate cash-grab in modern history.
Signed into law on March 27, 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or so-called “CARES Act,” was a big win for the bankers, corporations, Washington lobbyists and politicians at a time when Africans and oppressed peoples in this country face devastating conditions of colonial poverty, unemployment, and denial of access to healthcare.
The bill’s centerpiece was a $500 billion slush fund for large corporations, including $58 billion for commercial and cargo airlines as well as airline contractors.
Another $17 billion was allocated to “maintaining national security.” No specific company was named, but it is widely assumed that Boeing will be the primary recipient.
The remaining $425 billion will go to the Federal Reserve to capitalize a lending facility leveraged at ten times the initial investment, amounting to $4 trillion loaned out to corporations to prop up stock prices and salaries for CEOs.
This shady enterprise will be overseen by Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Stephen Mnuchin.
Panicked white ruling class throws crumbs at the people
The stimulus bill promised to send a measly $1,200 check to every adult with a Social Security number and an adjusted gross income of $75,000 or less.
The fact that the white ruling class would throw crumbs at the masses is evidence of their fear and anxiety in an ever-deepening crisis of imperialism.
The U.S. government has been exposed as an empty shell of colonial-capitalist oppression that blatantly protects the interests of Wall Street and corporations at the expense of the health and well-being of Africans and oppressed peoples.
For many, the $1,200 check will provide barely enough to buy groceries, gas and utilities.
As Chairman Omali Yeshitela has pointed out, all the money ends up back in the pockets of the rich. The entire $2 trillion stimulus bill was a cash-in for the billionaires!
Colonial conditions intensify in the African community
A record 6.6 million people filed for unemployment in the past week, bringing the total to ten million. The real number of unemployed is even higher, since so many applicants had trouble filing a claim.
While the stimulus bill includes an increase of unemployment benefits by $600 per week, millions of colonized Africans who have been forced out of the legal capitalist economy will be excluded.
Pandemic profiteers, Washington insider trading and Big Pharma
Back in January when the U.S. government was advising the public not to worry about the virus and even suggesting that it was a “hoax,” four U.S. senators—Kelly Loeffler, James Inhofe, Dianne Feinstein and Richard Burr—walked out of a private COVID-19 government briefing and sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in stocks a month before the market crashed.
Feinstein, also a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sold off between $1.5 and $6 million in stocks in a pharmaceutical company.
The pharmaceutical lobby made sure the COVID-19 stimulus bill excluded language that would have pressured drug companies to make coronavirus vaccines affordable.
Instead, the bill prevents the government from taking any action to lower vaccine prices. Former top pharmaceutical lobbyists sit on Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force.
The U.S. government’s response to COVID-19 has further exposed the parasitic nature of colonial-capitalism, built on the enslavement and colonization of African people.
The African People’s Socialist Party is building The People’s War strategy to respond not only to COVID-19, but to the overall colonial conditions faced by African people in this country and around the world.
A key part of The People’s War is the development of the dual and contending power of the independent African anti-colonial working class economy, building the capacity of African people for self-government and political and economic power.
The People’s War is initiating a struggle to demand reparations from the moneyed elites and Wall Street parasites.
As part of this strategy, the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, the organization of white people working under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party, is launching a campaign to “Make Wall Street Pay Reparations.”
The greedy, bloodsucking criminals—from Washington DC to Wall Street—owe reparations to African people!
