Walter Bernstein Survived the Hollywood Blacklist – And Lived to Be 101

The screenwriter was my friend and my hero, a brave opponent of right-wing repression during a dark period of our history.

by Michael Winship
Published on Monday, January 25, 2021
by Common Dreams


Screenwriter Walter Bernstein (1919-2021) attends The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences Presents "Spotlight On Screenwriting: Hollywood's Darkest Moment: An Evening With Blacklisted Screenwriter Walter Bernstein And A Special 40th Anniversary Screening Of The Front" on June 7, 2016 in New York City. (Photo: Robin Marchant/Getty Images for Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences)

When the brilliant songwriter George Gershwin passed away, the writer John O'Hara famously declared that Gershwin had died on July 11, 1937, "but I don't have to believe it if I don't want to."

My friend and colleague Walter Bernstein died over the weekend and I don't have to believe it either.

You should know about Walter. He was 101 years old and lived a remarkable, courageous life of bounteous creativity and fierce political commitment right up to the end. For many years, we served together on the governing council of the Writers Guild of America East, and during the decade when I was its president especially, I thought of him as my consigliere, the person I could call on for sage counsel and reassurance when the union was in a scrape and needed help. Many, many others felt the same.

He would hear the arguments pro and con, and then from his vast well of experience come up with a simple, fair solution. Often, he'd sum up with a succinct line from an old vaudeville sketch he liked: "Pay the two dollars." In other words, sometimes you have to concede a minor point because otherwise, you'll wind up with a much bigger problem. Compromise isn't always the enemy of progress.

"The government wanted him to name names and Walter would not, and so he lived in the shadows for all those years, until a few brave souls in the industry broke the fever of the blacklist and began putting those falsely accused of disloyalty to country back on the payroll."

A noted writer for movies and TV, and a fervent political advocate, Walter's credits include Fail Safe (about a nuclear confrontation between the US and Russia), Semi-Tough (pro football and EST!), The Molly Maguires (a hell of a film about coal mines, labor and social justice) and The Front, perhaps the film closest to his heart and most resonant with his own life.

That's because Walter was one of the last living survivors of the Hollywood blacklist. During the 1950s into the early '60s, it was an ugly, unholy registry of writers, producers, performers and directors who were unofficially banned from working in the TV and movie industry because of their left-wing political views and affiliations.

The Front tells the story of a night cashier/part-time bookie, played by Woody Allen, who agrees to pose as the author of television scripts actually written by a group of writers who have to keep their identities hidden for fear of McCarthyism's fierce retribution. At first apolitical and cynical, over the course of the movie Allen's character slowly grows a spine and ends up in prison when he tells the House Un-American Activities Committee to do something I continue to believe is anatomically impossible.

In any case, see the movie. Walter tells the story much better than I do.

The Front was based on personal experience. During the blacklist, he wrote scripts under a variety of pseudonyms for such TV shows as Danger and You Are There, a series hosted by Walter Cronkite in which historical incidents, from the death of Socrates to the trial of Susan B. Anthony, were covered as news events.

Walter was a member of the American Communist Party until 1956 but quit after the Soviet invasion of Hungary and Premier Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin's atrocities. "I had left the Party," he wrote, "but not the idea of socialism, the possibility that there could be a system not based in inequality and exploitation."

There was nothing illegal about his party membership and he felt no need to disavow or apologize for his beliefs. But for eight years in films and eleven years in television, his political views were used against him to deny his livelihood. He was listed in a notorious Cold War publication called "Red Channels"—a list of "151 actors, writers, directors, producers, painters and musicians, together with their alleged Communist or Communist-front affiliations," Walter wrote in his fascinating memoir, Inside Out. "'Red Channels' became the bible of the blacklist movement. There were eight listings for me, all of them true…


I would have felt insulted if I had not been included. On the other hand, inclusion in 'Red Channels,' however honorable, meant an automatic blacklisting. No one ever questioned this; it was simply accepted by the networks and movie studios. There was no government edict behind it, no proof of illegality, moral turpitude or, even worse, lack of talent.


As Associated Press national writer Hillel Italie wrote in Walter's obituary, the result of this rabid anti-Communist paranoia, "ruined the lives of many of his peers and led some to suicide. Job offers to Bernstein were rescinded and onetime friends stopped speaking to him. FBI agents looked through his trash, showed up at his door and followed him outside."

The government wanted him to name names and Walter would not, and so he lived in the shadows for all those years, until a few brave souls in the industry broke the fever of the blacklist and began putting those falsely accused of disloyalty to country back on the payroll.

A native Brooklynite descended from Jewish immigrants, he attended Erasmus Hall High School and was a movie nut from the start. Walter even was film critic for the Dartmouth College student newspaper, until he was fired for panning the movie Lost Horizon.

Six months of an intensive language course in pre-war Europe made him an eyewitness to the rise of fascism and helped stir his interest in communism as an alternative. Drafted in 1941, he served in the army during World War II and became a correspondent for the GI newspaper, Yank.

He scooped the world when he snuck behind enemy lines and interviewed Josip Broz Tito, the leader of partisan fighters against the Nazis and Yugoslavia's president for life. Framed in a bathroom in Walter's apartment is a page from a comic book that told the story of that adventure. Unfortunately, that journey was one of the things the political witch hunters used against him, citing it as evidence of treachery. Tito was, after all, a Communist.

The bathroom wall also displays a short letter from Harold Ross, the legendary founding editor of The New Yorker, written to the playwright and director Moss Hart, who had sent Ross a short piece of Walter's for publication. Walter wound up writing for the magazine both during and after the war.

His first trip to Hollywood came in 1947 when he went to work for the writer-director Robert Rossen. Rossen was in the middle of writing the screenplay for All the King's Men, novelist Robert Penn Warren's masterpiece about a Southern demagogue he modeled after Louisiana's Huey Long. The Hollywood Ten—a group of left-leaning writers, producers and directors—had just been called before the House Un-American Activities Committee but Walter knew he had done nothing seditious and thought he was low enough on the ladder to be safe. He was wrong.

My memories of Walter will include not only the many union meetings we shared but also the too few lunches and dinners, often with his wife the literary agent Gloria Loomis, including one for my 65th birthday. Each was stimulating, entertaining and infused with his characteristic wit and enthusiasm. He was a mentor and friend not only to me, my colleagues and many other screenwriters but also to the students he taught for years at NYU and the fledgling independent filmmakers at Robert Redford's Sundance Lab.

I also remember a train ride from New York to Washington with Walter and Victor Navasky, the wry and wonderful publisher emeritus of The Nation magazine. I was moderating and they were appearing on a panel at the National Press Club marking the 60th anniversary of the blacklist (Victor's book Naming Names is an essential history of the era). Walter was 88, Victor was 73 and I a boyish 56, but the laughter of our conversation—we tried to keep it down—almost got us kicked off the train's quiet car.

A decade ago, at the request of the Writers Guild Foundation, Walter and I sat down for a wide-ranging conversation about his life and career. You can view the whole thing here (or watch below):



And now he's gone. Walter lived just long enough to see Donald Trump come and blessedly go—for now, at least. Because if you don't think it can happen here, think again. It happened to Walter Bernstein.

Michael Winship is the Schumann Senior Writing Fellow for Common Dreams. Previously, he was the Emmy Award-winning senior writer for Moyers & Company and BillMoyers.com, a past senior writing fellow at the policy and advocacy group Demos, and former president of the Writers Guild of America East. Follow him on Twitter: @MichaelWinship

DOW CHEMICAL PRODUCED AND STORED IT IN YEG

French Court Hears Case Against

Chemical Corporations Over Agent Orange Use in Vietnam

"I'm not fighting for myself, but for my children and the millions of victims," explained plaintiff Tran To Nga.

by

Brett Wilkins, staff writer

A child patient suffering from Agent Orange-related ailments lives at the Peace Village ward at Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Children are still being born with severe birth defects 50 to 60 years after their grandparents were exposed to the chemical defoliant sprayed by U.S. warplanes during the Vietnam War. (Photo: Hiroko Tanaka/NurPhoto/via Getty Images) 

A court in France on Monday heard a case brought by a French-Vietnamese woman against over a dozen multinational corporations she accuses of causing grievous harm by selling the defoliant Agent Orange to the United States government, whose use of the deadly chemical during the Vietnam War has killed, maimed, or seriously sickened hundreds of thousands of people to this day. 

"I asked myself, what have I done to transmit this incurable disease to my children? Now I know that I am not at fault."
—Tran To Nga,
Agent Orange victim 

Agence France-Presse reports the suit was brought by Tran To Nga, 78, an activist and journalist who was working in Vietnam when she was exposed to Agent Orange. Tran suffers from diabetes and a blood disorder she transmitted to her second daughter; her first daughter died of a heart defect when she was 17 months old. Tran also contracted tuberculosis twice, had cancer, and suffers from an extremely rare insulin allergy. 

Initially, Tran blamed herself for the afflictions that have plagued her and her children. 

"I asked myself, what have I done to transmit this incurable disease to my children?" she said in a 2015 France 24 interview. 

"Now I know that I am not at fault," she said. "We can identify the culprit of my children's illnesses… It's these dioxins." 

In 2014, Tran sued 14 companies that made or sold Agent Orange, including Monsanto—now owned by the German firm Bayer—and Dow Chemical for their roles in selling the chemical to the U.S. government. 

#JusticePourTranToNga et toutes les victimes de l’Agent Orange-dioxine. Depuis 45 ans, ni le gouvernement américain, ni les fabricants de l’Agent Orange-dioxine n’ont reconnu leur responsabilité vis-à-vis des victimes vietnamiennes. Un procès historique.https://t.co/pDHrNLSCrO

— LDH France (@LDH_Fr) January 25, 2021

Agent Orange contains TCDD dioxin, a known carcinogen and one of the most toxic chemicals ever invented. In addition to numerous cancers, research has shown that Agent Orange exposure causes severe birth defects, diabetes, spina bifida, cardiovascular, digestive, neurological, respiratory, skin, and other ailments. 

The U.S. government knew about the dangers of Agent Orange when the John F. Kennedy administration approved Operation Ranch Hand (pdf) in 1961 as part of a growing counterinsurgency operation in Vietnam. 

"When we initiated the herbicide program in the 1960s, we were aware of the potential for damage due to dioxin contamination in the herbicide," Dr. James R. Clary, a former senior scientist at the Chemical Weapons Branch of the U.S. Air Force Armaments Development Laboratory, later admitted.

"We were even aware that the military formulation had a higher dioxin concentration than the civilian version due to the lower cost and speed of manufacture," added Clary. "However, because the material was to be used on the enemy, none of us were overly concerned."

The communist Viet Cong insurgency against the oppressive U.S.-backed Ngo Dinh Diem dictatorship was proving more difficult to defeat than anticipated by U.S. planners, who sought novel ways to combat the resistance. In a bid to deny fighters the cover provided by the dense jungle foliage, the U.S. sprayed an estimated 76 million liters (20 million gallons) of Agent Orange over Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian rainforests. 

Agent Orange was also sprayed over farmland, as U.S. planners sought to eradicate the crops that were feeding Viet Cong and North Vietnamese fighters, their families, and supporters. 

The effects on the people of Vietnam have been devastating. As many as 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed, with the country's government claiming 400,000 deaths and millions of cancer cases caused by the decadelong spraying. More than 50,000 babies over three generations have suffered severe birth defects, which will continue to affect future generations. 

Soil and water contamination due to Agent Orange continue to sicken and kill to this day. Around 800,000 Vietnamese currently require medical and other assistance due to the lingering effects of exposure. 

Tens of thousands of U.S., South Vietnamese, South Korean, and Australian troops were also exposed to Agent Orange, which has caused serious health problems for many of them, and some of their children. 

While U.S. victims of Agent Orange were awarded $180 million in a class-action lawsuit in 1984, nearly all attempts by the people of Vietnam to gain desperately needed direct compensation have been rejected by the U.S. government and American courts.

This, despite a U.S. promise as part of the 1973 Paris Peace Agreement to pay $3.25 billion over a five-year period, plus an additional $1.5 billion, in reparations to Vietnam. Not a penny was paid.

"We were aware of the potential for damage due to dioxin contamination in the herbicide... However, because the material was to be used on the enemy, none of us were overly concerned."
—Dr. James R. Clary,
former senior U.S. military scientist  

Vietnamese also watched with great interest as Monsanto was ordered to pay $289 million in damages to an American man who said that its Roundup weed killer caused his cancer. 

Since 2007, the U.S. Congress has appropriated (pdf) nearly $60 million for dioxin cleanup and related healthcare services in Vietnam as relations between Washington and Hanoi have improved, but victims' advocates say this is nowhere near enough, as some 6,000 children are diagnosed with congenital deformities each year due to Agent Orange. 

Tran says her lawsuit is meant for these and other victims who have been denied relief over the decades.

"I'm not fighting for myself, but for my children and the millions of victims," she told AFP.

Vietnam is not the only place the U.S. has used toxic weapons in recent decades. The firing of depleted uranium rounds in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, the 1999 NATO air war against Yugoslavia, and during 2003-2011 Iraq War have been blamed for a rise in birth defects and other often deadly ailments. 

Trump Gone, But the Right-Wing Leadership Institute Promises to Keep Trumpism Alive and Well


Largely flying under the radar has been the training operation for right-wingers to be taught how to work the media, infiltrate government and otherwise promote a right-wing agenda in the United States.

by Karl Grossman

Morton C. Blackwell, President of the Leadership Institute. 

(Photo: Twitter/ Leadership Institute)

We’re familiar with Fox, the TV propaganda arm of the Trump administration remaining a far right-wing outlet under Rupert Murdoch and his mission of using media to push an arch-conservative agenda.

And we’re becoming aware of other radical right efforts to use media to indoctrinate people. There’s the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group seeking to buy up more local TV stations to deceive and lie from, and One America News and Newsmax TV.

As the headline of a recent article in The New York Times declared: “Pro-Trump Media Keeps the Disinformation Flowing.”

Much has to be done about this radical right drive to destroy the ideal of media being an independent monitor, a watchdog taking on power—not a partisan handmaiden.

Use of anti-trust regulations and implementation of Federal Communication Commission broadcast rules are on the top of the list.

One proud graduate of The Leadership Institute is Mitch McConnell.

But largely flying under the radar has been the training operation for right-wingers to be taught how to work the media, infiltrate government and otherwise promote a right-wing agenda in the United States and in recent years extending itself through the world especially to Europe.

It’s called The Leadership Institute and since it was set up in 1979 “has trained,” according to its website, “more than 200,000 conservative activists, leaders and students.”

One proud graduate of The Leadership Institute is Mitch McConnell, minority leader of the U.S. Senate, who on its website, below his photo, declares: “Thanks to you (Morton) and everyone who has served on your staff. There are countless conservatives making a difference in public policy across the country. As one of your earliest students, I know firsthand what a wonderful foundation the Leadership Institute's education provides for someone involved in public service."

The “Morton” he is referring to is Morton C. Blackwell, who founded The Leadership Institute, and remains its president and runs it.

Another graduate is now former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.

As The Leadership Institute says on a page about its “Mission” on its website: “The Leadership Institute’s mission is to increase the number and effectiveness of conservative activists and leaders in the public policy process.”

“Institute programs prepare thousands of conservatives each year,” it says. And from it, “Conservatives learn how to…Succeed in the competitive field of broadcast media, Run successfully for elected office…Communicate a conservative message using the media…Formulate policy as elected officials or key staff members. The Leadership Institute is the center of conservative activist training. No other organization provides more training to conservative activists each year.”

Describing under “Headquarters” The Leadership Institute’s “facility” in Arlington, Virginia, the website says it includes “a training center, professional multimedia studies, dormitories.”

Blackwell’s trajectory through the years has been allied with the most conservative streams in U.S. politics as detailed on The Leadership Institute’s website.


“Mr. Blackwell was Barry Goldwater’s youngest elected delegate to the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco,” it says. “He was a national convention Alternate Delegate for Ronald Reagan in 1968 and 1976, and a Ronald Reagan Delegate at the 1980 national convention. In 1980, he organized and oversaw the national youth effort for Ronald Reagan. He served as Special Assistant to the President on President Reagan’s White House Staff 1981-1984. Mr. Blackwell is something of a specialist in matters relating to the rules of the Republican Party….He serves now on the RNC’s Standing Committee on Rules and has attended every meeting of the Republican National Conventions’ Rules Committees since 1972.”

The biography also notes that The Leadership Institute’s total revenue since 1974 is $274 million. It currently has revenue of over $16.9 million a year and a full-time staff of 70.”

Despite its political purpose, The Leadership Institute has received 501(c)(3) non-profit status from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

In recent years, The Leadership Institute has extended its reach worldwide, especially to Europe.

The British-based organization openDemocracy (yes, the “o” is not capitalized and the words are combined) which seeks “to educate citizens to challenge power and encourage democratic debate across the world,” conducted an investigation that resulted in a report it published in October of last year.

It was headlined: “Undercover with the US conservatives who trained Mike Pence. This is how the architects of America’s culture wars are trying to export their tactics to Europe.”

Its authors, Adam Ramsay and Joni Hess, write: “Our host via Zoom, the Leadership Institute, exists to ‘place conservatives in the government, politics and media’– and it says its graduates include Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence. Like a multi-level marketing scheme, the workshop taught us to recruit students to right-wing activism, who would in turn recruit others. Blair stressed a growing marginalisation of conservative ideology on college campuses, and a ‘moral obligation to save the US….Over several hours, we were taught to polarise discussions, to war game public debates, to reframe ‘anti-worker’ policies as ‘right to work’, to characterise pro-choice activists as ‘hating babies’.”

Under a subtitle, “The US culture wars go global,” they continue: “This bare-knuckled politics is no longer confined to the US. The Leadership Institute has spent around $350,000 bringing its agenda to Europe since 2016, according to a new investigation by openDemocracy. There has been a marked increase in its European activities in recent years—and it spends more money in Europe than anywhere else in the world, outside the US. openDemocracy’s research also reveals that the organisation has worked with controversial ultra-conservatives in Europe including a Lega politician in Italy, the Spanish far-right group CitizenGo, Croatia’s anti-LGBT ‘In the Name of the Family’ coalition and the neo-feudalist Tradition, Family and Property movement’s branches in Austria and France, as well as across Latin America.”

“The Leadership Institute has also worked with a number of conservative groups and politicians in the UK—including Tim Evans, a former lobbyist for privatised healthcare; a former chair of the conservative Bow Group think-tank; and Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Vote Leave campaign in the Brexit referendum campaign.”

It continues: “Speaking to openDemocracy, the prominent UK LGBT rights activist Peter Tatchell accused the Leadership Institute of ‘a form of cultural imperialism’. ‘It is exporting culture wars to subvert our democracies and influence our politics. We [didn’t] even know it is happening, until now,’ he said.”

The piece goes on: “Leadership Institute was founded by its current president Morton Blackwell in 1979. Since then, it says it has trained thousands of US conservatives, from high-school students to senior politicians, in skills from email marketing to how to get jobs on Capitol Hill. In our workshop, we were told that Blackwell thought 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater was ideologically correct, but saw that that didn’t help him win. So he and other Goldwater supporters launched some key institutions of US conservatism: the anti-abortion and gun-rights movements, the Heritage Foundation think tank and the Leadership Institute, which works behind the scenes, recruiting, training, connecting—pushing allies onto the front lines of US politics. In the future, they swore, they’d win. And they have: their alumni, in addition to Pence, include George W. Bush’s strategist Karl Rove and Republican senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.”

Blackwell received the “Titan of Conservation Award” from the Heritage Foundation this past December. A Heritage Foundation press release said the entity’s president, Kay C. James, “who calls Blackwell a personal mentor,” asserted: “Morton Blackwell is a living legend of the conservative movement.”

Trump is most thankfully gone. Trumpism, most unfortunately, is still with us—as is The Leadership Institute with its right-wing operation now extending globally. 

Karl Grossman is a professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, is the author of Weapons In Space and wrote and narrated the TV documentary Nukes In Space: The Nuclearization and Weaponization of the Heavens.

UN Labor Agency: Pandemic Job Losses Four Times Higher Than After 2009 Financial Collapse

"This has been the most severe crisis for the world of work since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Its impact is far greater than that of the global financial crisis of 2009."

by

Jake Johnson, staff writer

People line up to receive food packages distributed in Budapest, Hungary

 on December 30, 2020. (Photo: Gergely Besenyei/AFP via Getty Images)

Surveying the widespread and devastating wreckage the coronavirus pandemic has inflicted on the world economy over the past nine months, the United Nations' labor agency estimated Monday that the Covid-19 crisis caused a loss of 8.8% of global working hours in 2020—the equivalent of 255 million full-time jobs.

That figure, according to the International Labor Organization's latest report (pdf), is approximately four times greater than the number of jobs lost during the 2009 global financial crisis, with the pain felt disproportionately by workers in the service industry and other typically low-wage sectors of the economy.

"This has been the most severe crisis for the world of work since the Great Depression of the 1930s," ILO Director General Guy Ryder told the Associated Press. "Its impact is far greater than that of the global financial crisis of 2009."

Our new report assesses the damage of the #COVID19 crisis and the numbers are grim. 8.8% of global working hours were lost last year, roughly 255 million full-time jobs - that's four times more than were lost during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Report: https://t.co/0p2z7ejG8V pic.twitter.com/yHgGmU9Rmx

— International Labour Organization (@ilo) January 25, 2021

While expressing cautious optimism about the possibility of a strong recovery in the latter half of 2021 as vaccination efforts ramp up, the ILO report warns that "the global economy is still facing high levels of uncertainty and there is a risk that the recovery will be uneven" if governments don't provide sufficient support for those harmed by ongoing mass layoffs and the international community fails to assist developing nations.

"Inequality is likely to further increase as a result of the type of job losses generated by the crisis," the report states. "In the United States and the United Kingdom, for instance, significant job losses occurred at the lower end of the labor income distribution, while high-paid jobs were left largely intact."

"The crisis has had particularly devastating effects on many vulnerable population groups and sectors around the globe," the analysis continues. "Young people, women, the low‑paid, and low‑skilled workers have less potential to achieve recovery quickly, and the risk of long-term scarring and detachment from the labor market is all too real."

In order to facilitate a sustainable and equitable recovery from the pandemic—which has killed more than two million people across the globe—the report recommends:

• Macroeconomic policies to remain accommodative in 2021 and beyond, including fiscal stimulus where possible, and measures to support incomes and promote investment;
• Targeted measures to reach women, young people, low-skilled and low-paid workers, and other hard-hit groups;
• International support for low and middle-income countries—which have fewer financial resources to roll out vaccines and promote economic and employment recovery;
• Focusing support on the hardest-hit sectors while creating jobs in fast growing ones; and
• Social dialogue to implement the recovery strategies necessary to create more inclusive, fair, sustainable economies.

"The signs of recovery we see are encouraging, but they are fragile and highly uncertain, and we must remember that no country or group can recover alone," Ryder said in a statement. "We are at a fork in the road. One path leads to an uneven, unsustainable, recovery with growing inequality and instability, and the prospect of more crises. The other focuses on a human-centered recovery for building back better, prioritizing employment, income and social protection, workers' rights, and social dialogue."

"If we want a lasting, sustainable, and inclusive recovery," Ryder said, "this is the path policymakers must commit to.”

 

'Abolish Billionaires': Oxfam Report Shows Combined Pandemic Wealth of Richest 10 People Could Pay to Vaccinate Entire World

"Rigged economies are funnelling wealth to a rich elite who are riding out the pandemic in luxury, while those on the frontline of the pandemic... are struggling to pay the bills and put food on the table."

by

Jon Queally, staff writer

"Oxfam believes billionaires are a sign of broken economic system and that extreme wealth should be ended," the international anti-poverty group said Monday. "We believe the world would be a better place if there were a lot less billionaires and a lot more nurses." (Image: Oxfam International)

"Abolish billionaires."

That was the simple yet far-reaching message projected Saturday night onto the empty conference center in Davos, Switzerland where the World Economic Forum (WEF) usually meets during the annual summit of the world's financial and governing elite.

"We are facing the biggest single rise in inequality since the Great Depression while the 1% make massive profits and increase their wealth. We want a People's Recovery Plan—a set of radically different responses from governments that work for people and the planet." —Jenny Ricks, Fight Inequality Alliance"Davos is a symbol of a failed era," said Jenny Ricks, global convenor for the Fight Inequality Alliance, which—along with the local Swiss group Campax—organized the isolated protest in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic.

While the traditional, lavish summit in Davos is being conducted largely online this year due to Covid-19 health restrictions, critics said the gathering of global elites is not where the world should look for just solutions.

The weekend action, said Ricks, "shows us where real change will come from—people on the frontlines of inequality, not the 1% who benefit from the current system. It is time to abolish billionaires."

"The pandemic has laid bare and supercharged the systemic inequalities we are fighting more blatantly than ever," she added. "We are facing the biggest single rise in inequality since the Great Depression while the 1% make massive profits and increase their wealth. We want a People's Recovery Plan—a set of radically different responses from governments that work for people and the planet."

The projection featured young activists from Kenya, the Philippines, Mexico, and the United Kingdom who lifted up the call for a "People's Recovery Plan"—a set of demands, the organizers explained, designed "to combat the spiraling inequality experienced during the pandemic and achieve the systemic change that people on the frontlines of inequality are demanding."

Four young activists delivered a very important message to Davos, as the @wef prepares to start the #DavosAgenda meetings.

Listen to their message. We, the people, are pushing for solutions and actions that are #BetterThanDavos.#AbolishBillionaires #FightInequality pic.twitter.com/KG0UxgiIYp

— #FightInequality (@FightInequality) January 25, 2021

The weekend demonstration was part of the kickoff for the global #FightInequality campaign that will run through the end of January with coordinated actions in approximately 30 countries calling for a just and more equitable public health response and an economic program that gets to the root of pervasive injustice. Specifically, the groups behind the campaign and the "People's Recovery Plan" are calling for:

• A People's Vaccine that is available to all and not determined by what passport someone holds, and does not make huge profits for pharmaceutical companies;
• An end to austerity measures governments and international institutions force on economies;
• Universal public services, including health, water and education;
• Universal basic income and global social protection systems;
• Cancellation of all unpayable external debt for countries in need;
• Wealth taxes so the richest pay their fair share for the costs of the crisis, and an end to industrial levels of tax dodging;
• Recognition, redistribution and reward of the billions of hours of care work, unpaid and paid done by women, that keeps economies going;
• Climate justice and a just transition. The richest 10% cause more than 50% of consumption pollution. Governments need to make them pay for a just green new deal; and
  
• Jobs plans from our governments to ensure decent and dignified work for all.

"The pandemic has shown us that we do indeed need a new start," said Armelle Ako, a campaigner at Campax. "If it was not clear before, it is now. But it is important that the new start does not follow old patterns. Environmental and social justice must be a foundation for our society. We need to get this message across clearly."

The action over the weekend in Davos represents the growing international anger directed at the long-existing and grotesque economic inequality that has only been made more starkly evident by the Covid-19 pandemic—a dynamic captured in excruciating detail in a new report issued Monday by Oxfam International.

Titled "The Inequality Virus," the new report reveals that while over two million people have thus far died from the virus—and hundreds of millions of people are being forced into poverty—the world's very richest people and most powerful corporations are enjoying record profits and increased wealth. While the fortunes of the billionaires of the world have skyrocketed, returning to or even exceeding their pre-pandemic highs in just nine months, the study warns that economic recovery for the world's poorest could take over a decade.

"We stand to witness the greatest rise in inequality since records began," said Gabriela Bucher, executive director of Oxfam International, in a statement. "The deep divide between the rich and poor is proving as deadly as the virus." 

"Rigged economies are funneling wealth to a rich elite who are riding out the pandemic in luxury," she added, "while those on the frontline of the pandemic—shop assistants, healthcare workers, and market vendors—are struggling to pay the bills and put food on the table."

Our #InequalityVirus report found:

The pandemic could cause an increase in inequality in almost every country at once.

Transformative policies that seemed unthinkable before the crisis have suddenly been shown to be possible: https://t.co/CI4hpI3iSB#DavosAgenda #WEF21 pic.twitter.com/tNZ0ZCdgdy

— Oxfam International (@Oxfam) January 25, 2021

"The world's ten richest men," Oxfam noted, "have seen their combined wealth increase by half a trillion dollars since the pandemic began—more than enough to pay for a COVID-19 vaccine for everyone and to ensure no one is pushed into poverty by the pandemic."

We risk seeing the biggest rise in inequality *since records began*

The world's 10 richest billionaires -all men- are over *half a trillion* dollars richer since March

This ain't a drill. New @Oxfam report out now as Davos kicks off

Bloomberg. THREAD https://t.co/E4YMtfug8C

— Nabil Ahmed (@NabsIMA) January 25, 2021

According to Oxfam:

Billionaires fortunes rebounded as stock markets recovered despite continued recession in the real economy. Their total wealth hit $11.95 trillion in December 2020, equivalent to G20 governments' total Covid-19 recovery spending. The road to recovery will be much longer for people who were already struggling pre-Covid-19. When the virus struck over half of workers in poor countries were living in poverty, and three-quarters of workers globally had no access to social protections like sick pay or unemployment benefits.

"Extreme inequality is not inevitable, but a policy choice," added Bucher. "Governments around the world must seize this opportunity to build more equal, more inclusive economies that end poverty and protect the planet."

In a blog post publish Monday answering key questions generated by their new report, the group addressed whether or not it supports the idea of abolishing billionaires.

"Oxfam believes billionaires are a sign of broken economic system and that extreme wealth should be ended," it stated. "We believe the world would be a better place if there were a lot less billionaires and a lot more nurses."

Largest-Ever Climate Poll Shows 64% of Global Public Believes Warming Planet Is an 'Emergency'

"The voice of the people is clear—they want action on climate change."

by

Kenny Stancil, staff writer

A young girl stands in Jiangtan park after it was flooded by heavy rains along

the Yangtze river on July 10, 2020 in Wuhan, China. (Photo: Getty Images)

Nearly two-thirds of people around the world think climate change is a global emergency that warrants a serious response, according to the results of the Peoples' Climate Vote, the largest survey of public opinion on the planetary crisis and policy solutions ever conducted.

"The results of the survey clearly illustrate that urgent climate action has broad support amongst people around the globe, across nationalities, age, gender, and education level."
—Achim Steiner, UNDP

"Recognition of the climate emergency is much more widespread than previously thought," Stephen Fisher, a political sociologist at the University of Oxford and co-author of the report, said in a statement released Wednesday. "We've also found that most people clearly want a strong and wide-ranging policy response."

Fellow co-author Cassie Flynn, the strategic adviser on climate change at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), told The Guardian that "the voice of the people is clear—they want action on climate change."

Survey data were gathered from 1.2 million respondents in 50 high-, middle-, and low-income countries covering 56% of the world's population, thanks to what the UNDP called a "new and unconventional approach to polling."

As the report explained, "Poll questions were distributed through advertisements in mobile game apps in 17 languages, which resulted in a huge, unique, and random sample of people of all genders, ages, and educational backgrounds."

The findings, Flynn noted, should be interpreted by elected officials as a call to take the robust action necessary to avert catastrophic warming and irreversible damage to ecosystems.

"If 64% of the world's people are believing in a climate emergency then it helps governments to respond to the climate crisis as an emergency," said Flynn. "The key message is that, as governments are making these high-stakes decisions, the people are with them."

Data were collected between October and December 2020, and even amid the Covid-19 pandemic, 59% of the people who believe there is a climate emergency also said governments should "do everything necessary and urgently" in response.

Though recognition of climate change as a global emergency was widespread in every region, there was some variation according to geographical and economic characteristics. Acknowledgement of the climate emergency was highest in Small Island Developing States (74%), followed by high-income countries (72%), middle-income countries (62%), then Least Developed Countries (58%).

Biggest ever survey finds two-thirds of people think climate change is a global emergency - 1.2 million people in 50 countries were polled. Politicians and business leaders: the time to act decisively is now! #climatecrisis https://t.co/NNgdmFtGVY pic.twitter.com/l7BmkTeJYj

— Stefan Rahmstorf (@rahmstorf) January 27, 2021

Presented with 18 climate policies—spanning energy, economy, transportation, food and farms, nature, and protecting people from environmental impacts—survey respondents were asked which ones governments should enact to confront the climate emergency.

As The Guardian noted:

Even when climate action required significant changes in their own country, majorities still backed the measures.

In nations where fossil fuels are a major source of emissions, people strongly supported renewable energy, including the US (65% in favor), Australia (76%) and Russia (51%).

Where the destruction of forests is a big cause of emissions, people supported conservation of trees, with 60% support in Brazil and 57% in Indonesia.

Overall, the most popular actions to tackle the climate crisis were protecting and restoring forests, followed by renewable energy and climate-friendly farming. The promotion of plant-based diets was the least popular of the 18 policies in the survey, with only 30% support.

People between the ages of 14 and 18 expressed the greatest level of concern, with 69% in that cohort saying there is a climate emergency. A smaller majority—58%—of those aged 60 and over agreed.

"70% of people under 18 believe climate change is a global emergency"

Across all age groups it's 64%

So why are governments and the EU treating the #ClimateCrisis like something we can deal with in a few decades' time?https://t.co/0jDeNPZvlJ

— Greenpeace EU (@GreenpeaceEU) January 27, 2021

As Common Dreams reported late last year, pandemic-driven economic shutdowns have not deterred the climate emergency. Despite a slight downtick in annual greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures reached record levels and disasters continued to increase in frequency and intensity in 2020.

Yet there is a significant relationship between the coronavirus crisis and the U.N.'s global climate poll. As the UNDP explained, "Many of the policy choices in the Peoples' Climate Vote—whether relating to jobs, energy, protecting nature, or company regulation—speak to issues that countries are facing as they chart their recoveries."

"Many of the policy choices in the Peoples' Climate Vote... speak to issues that countries are facing as they chart their recoveries."
—UNDP

The survey reveals that a majority of the world's population is worried about and wants public policies to address the climate crisis at precisely the moment when governments have been given an opportunity to pursue transformative agendas to create more sustainable societies.

"The results of the survey clearly illustrate that urgent climate action has broad support amongst people around the globe, across nationalities, age, gender, and education level," UNDP administrator Achim Steiner said in a statement. "But more than that, the poll reveals how people want their policymakers to tackle the crisis."

"From climate-friendly farming to protecting nature and investing in a green recovery from Covid-19, the survey brings the voice of the people to the forefront of the climate debate," Steiner added. "It signals ways in which countries can move forward with public support as we work together to tackle this enormous challenge."

With November's U.N. climate summit approaching, politicians must soon agree upon a more ambitious international plan to mitigate and adapt to the global emergency. 

"These perspectives are needed now more than ever as countries around the world are in the process of developing new national climate pledges—known as Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs—under the Paris Agreement," the UNDP wrote. "As the world's largest provider of support to countries for NDC design, UNDP has found that a key factor for countries raising levels of climate ambition is popular support for policies that address climate change."

President Joe Biden's climate envoy John Kerry on Monday told world leaders at the virtual Global Adaptation summit that countries should "treat the crisis as the emergency that it is" by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, or else expect, "for the most vulnerable and poorest people on Earth, fundamentally unlivable conditions."

As The Guardian reported at the time, Kerry "warned that the costs of coping with climate change were escalating, with the U.S. spending more than $265 billion in one year after three storms."

"We've reached a point where it is an absolute fact that it's cheaper to invest in preventing damage or minimizing it at least than cleaning up,"  Kerry said. "We have to mobilize in unprecedented ways to meet this challenge that is fast accelerating, and we have limited time to get it under control."

"We are at a fork in the road," Flynn said, "and the poll says 'this is how your future generations are thinking, in specific policy choices'—it brings a way to envision the future."