The Aryan Myth - The Origin of "White" People

This is the key racist myth underpinning conquest and domination in the West. The basic story begins in 15^th century England, but in fact it ultimately traces back to Tacitus. The Aryan race just suddenly appears in history roughly around where Iran is today. Allegedly unique, Aryans were described as tall and blonde, with rounder heads than other “races,” such characteristics assumed to be evidence of superiority. They had an unparalleled commitment to law and freedom, and conquered everything in their path as they moved continually westward - west being the direction of greatness – and ended up in the Black Forest region of what we know of today as Germany. There they became the Teutons, a perfect race. But difficulties set in because some of them inter-married with nearby peoples who were not Teutonic, so they lost blood purity and the race degenerated. That’s how the "dirty” and dark-haired people of the Mediterranean came to be. Meanwhile, the good Teutons (i.e., the racially pure ones) just exterminated everyone, thus preserving their superior blood-line. The good Teutons became the Angles and the Saxons and went to the English channel, crossed it, and exterminated everyone on the other side, although they didn’t manage to kill all of the Celts, some of whom remained around Ireland, but apart from that they did a pretty thorough job of wiping out race competitors. After that, the colonists came to America, continuing the journey West, and that’s how “we the people,” founded the finest, freest country the world has ever seen, with slaves to do the work. “We” refers to Anglo Saxons (at least the wealthy ones), a world conquering race. This appears in Thomas Jefferson’s writings, and is universal in the 19^th century. Jefferson and others thought we ought to go back to the 8^th century, when they supposedly had the perfect system of law and justice, before the race was poisoned by immigration to England from elsewhere than the Norman Conquest. The supposed superior racial characteristics of the Aryans/Teutons were quite precisely defined, so much so that Benjamin Franklin didn’t think that the Germans qualified. He said they were a little too swarthy, and they didn’t pick up “our” customs properly. And he saw the Native Americans as an obviously inferior race, which meant that it was right to exterminate them. Teddy Roosevelt claimed that they were actually the beneficiaries of being exterminated, as were the Filipinos when the U.S. invaded and conquered the Philippines in 1898, killing some 200,000 inhabitants of the islands. In Roosevelt’s view, these were sacrifices embraced in the glorious cause of producing a superior race. (Roosevelt's favorite term was "English-speaking race," not Anglo-Saxons, as he could not count himself among the Anglo-Saxons). 

So racism in the U.S. is not just anti-black racism, it goes far deeper than that. That’s why every wave of immigrants has been treated with vicious racial abuse. The Irish were considered like dogs when they first arrived. Restaurants had signs saying “No Dogs or Irish.” The average life span of an Irish man was under 20 years old. Jews and Hungarians (“Huns”) were treated the same way, everyone from Southeastern Europe was.  The worst case was that of the Chinese, who suffered total racial exclusion under the Racial Exclusion Act. But then came the move to the West, “we” conquered the national territory and later Mexico, fulfilling our “Manifest Destiny” as a superior race. Then came 1898, and Washington stole Spain’s colonies, which were in revolt, conquering the Philippines and then moving on to China. At that point Teddy Roosevelt made one of his important contributions to racist theory, which laid the basis for the later Pacific War with Japan. He designated the Japanese “honorary Aryans.” They looked yellow, but they really weren’t, he said, so they could be “civilized,” and they could sort of pave the U.S. way into China and the East, and the empire would keep going until it circled the Earth and got Aryans back to their original homeland, that is, Iran, or wherever it allegedly was. This fantastic tale is the ideological justification for white supremacy, and it’s widely believed, especially in ruling circles.

Sources: Noam Chomsky, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10155578524082282

On TR and the phrase "English-speaking race," see Thomas G. Dyer, "Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race," (Louisiana State University Press, 1980), pps. 28-9

1900: USA

Anglo-Saxonism

The most popular religion in the country, faith in Anglo Saxon blood holds that descendants of select German tribes carry a genius for self-government, nation building, technology, and conquest, which has allowed them to soar over the “lower races” for 1500 years.

“We are Teutons, God’s kings of men,” asserts Colonel Robert Bingham, ex-Confederate officer from North Carolina. Like so many others he believes that manhood, suffrage, and personal responsibility are exclusively Anglo-Saxon achievements. He confidently asserts that “every step towards the higher freedom [was] won in the best blood of our race.”

Anglo-Saxonists thrill to the conquest of the world’s “waste spaces” by the U.S. and Great Britain. Theodore Roosevelt rates the annihilation of the Indian nations an inspiring demonstration of the Anglo-Saxon “race destiny” to dominate less virile peoples. This race potency permitted the original U.S. Colonists to exterminate the indigenous peoples as part of their Christian duties, with religious leaders explaining that their victims were outright Satanic creatures “having little of Humanitie but shape.”

Anglo Saxonists admire Admiral Dewey’s smashing of the dark-skinned Spanish “dons” at Manila Bay, believing it an expression of the “incarnate tradition of Anglo-Saxon seamanship,” just one of many superior traits of the “masterful fighting races.” The decrepit, outgunned Spanish fleet reflected nothing more than an inferior blood line.

Anglo Saxonism enjoys the backing of the new racial sciences, which posit that racial categories are fixed and final, though still curiously susceptible to corruption via the horrors of hybridization. Indeed, since civilized values are progressively destroyed by inter-breeding with the mongrel hordes streaming through American ports like a river of genetic sewage, racial amalgamation is said to be the deadliest threat confronting the white race.

A rising tone of alarm takes hold of popular discourse, with increasing references to the “race problem,” “race war,” and the “higher races.”

Sources:

Kent, Noel J., America In 1900, (M. E. Sharpe, 2000) pps. 98-9

David F. Schmitz, Thank God They're On Our Side - The United States & Right-Wing Dictatorships 1921-1965, (University of North Carolina, 1999) p. 24

John Higham, Strangers In The Land - Patterns of American Nativism 1860-1925, (Atheneum, 1973) p. 132-3

"There Is a Transformation In The Content, Character, and Operation of the Capitalist State in the United States"

Interview with Sociologist James Petras
Centennial Radio Uruguay
June 8, 2020

(Translation from Spanish by Michael K. Smith)

Hernán Salina: The ongoing protests have displaced the topic of coronavirus a bit, which hasn't diminished in the United States, right? 

Petras: Yes, the mobilizations and protests have changed their nature. The protests began against the repression of victims of racism, but now there are some social, political, and legal demands, among others, which could have an impact on the structure of power. 

With more than 100,000 people demonstrating in various cities and with great mobilizations throughout the United States, hundreds of cities are on the march, and they are demanding among other things a transformation of the police, including the elimination of the police in some large cities, changes in the law, application of civil authority against the police, and  some mayors who used to support the police are now requesting that they be removed and replaced. 

In other words there is a transformation in the content, character, and operation of the capitalist state in the United States, still embryonic, but it is beginning to show itself.

The second important thing is the fact that the participants in these mobilizations are multi-ethnic, not just African Americans, there are whites, blacks, young people, members of the middle class, Latinos. It's not like the protests in the 1960s when the composition was much more African American.

And the third important point is the breadth of the coalition. There is a lot more to say, but the protest marches and confrontations represent a broad sector of the population. Whites, African Americans, Hispanics, and other groups, too. We have a broad coalition that could develop a political character.  It already has a political character, but a lot is being channeled into the mobilizations, which have not taken on a partisan nature.

HS: There was a conflict or clash within the government, with the head of the Pentagon declaring himself opposed to the use of the U.S. military to repress this.

Petras: Yes, that's another important factor, there are divisions in the state. Many ex-generals are attacking the Trump government and the use of soldiers against civilians, that's an important change. 

HS: Will this check Trump a little on the matter of repression, having to continue managing with just police forces?

Petras: Well, he's in a bind now. Trump wants to use the military to occupy cities and repress civilians, activists, and the political organizations that are taking action. But the military leaders don't want to meddle in this political conflict of Trump's, who is very unpopular among military leaders, at least among the generals. 

Two things are possible. One is that Trump acts against the retired generals and tries to use active military leaders. The other is that the active military leaders begin to distance themselves from Trump and act jointly with the retired generals. In any case we have to see what the military leaders do in the face of permanent threats by Trump to mobilize the army and repress the population.

HS: What political changes could this movement end up generating?

Petras: Well, at a minimum there are going to be commissions that try to implement some measures giving more power to mayors and governors. That's very limited, because the present governors have a lot of sympathy for the police, or are at least subjected to their power.

What is clear is that the U.S. is a police state, the police have enormous autonomy and they can dictate what the civil leaders can do. There are police strikes, we must understand that the police union is a form of encouraging and justifying repression, and is not a union that defends the people. It's a union that privileges the police, justifies whatever crimes they commit, whatever murder they commit. Like we've seen in Minneapolis, the police justify everything, when they knocked a 75-year-old man to the ground (and left him bleeding from the ear), the police union protected them against any legal action.

HS: A movement of Black Panthers has been seen, young men and women with military arms in the front row of some mobilizations. Does this mean that organized armed groups are participating in the protests? 

Petras: It's completely symbolic, it doesn't mean anything. The millions that are in the streets don't have arms, they're seeking a political struggle, the arms are symbolic. 

HS: But then they aren't allowed to use arms like right wing protesters have done in the states that allow them to?

Petras: Yes, the right is using arms secretly, they don't have the capacity to mobilize militias in this situation. Trump sympathizers are still keeping their assumptions, they are awaiting a decision by Trump about whether to use the army and not form militias.  But the popular force isn't disposed to use arms either. 

In addition, on Facebook Mark Zuckerberg has used Trump's Twitter to denounce the movements. And the opposition is attacking Facebook now, saying that they should not give freedom to a president who is destroying the Constitution and all civil rights.

HS: Other topics from outside the US that you want to highlight this week?

JP: Yes, several things. First, in Venezuela they have defeated Trump's efforts to block Iran's oil ships. It is a great victory because Venezuela receives gasoline and now its economy can function.

Mexico has been in a situation of great difficulty with the coronavirus, it is another problem. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is not responding adequately to the challenge of the disease.

Finally we have Brazil, where Jair Bolsonaro is hiding the data on the number of infected and total deaths. The death toll figure is growing and democracy is under attack. I don't know what is going on among civilians right now but Bolsonaro is very discredited. And Washington continues to support Bolsonaro, Trump is Bolsonaro's best ally. It is a combination of tyrants on both sides.

"If There Are No Structural Alterations In The Economy, Politics, and Society, Nothing Will Change"

There is a new context where a mass of white people is also participating in these protests

Interview with James Petras

June 1, 2020

(Translation from Spanish by Michael K. Smith)

Hermán Salina: Profesor, what is different about these protests set off by a single case of police brutality? What differentiates this episode from all the previous ones?

Petras: Well, it has a lot of similarity with the 1960s and 1970s because of the act of violence against African Americans, Latin Americans, but what one has to analyze is the new context where a large mass of whites is participating also in these protests. And second, that the police can't eliminate them, can't diminish the protest, it has no capacity to control them. Notice that there are 40 cities under curfew, the National Guard is active in 15 cities, it's a militarization of the important city centers.

And the other thing we should take into account, at this moment there are more than 25% unemployed, (so) this protest is not occurring just because of racism and the killing of African American George Floyd. That was the detonator, but the important thing is that we have more than 30 million Americans unemployed, they have no economic future, there are millions of young people that have finished high school and university and they can't find work. These economic and social factors together with the problem of racism, is a detonator that didn't exist before with other demonstrations.

I think that the hot summer in the next span of time - June, July, August - is going to have enormous consequences for the country. In addition, we have a very reactionary president who has said that vicious dogs should attack protesters. They had to hide President Trump in a bunker beneath the White House because protesters from the demonstrations occurring across the street tried to enter in order to make demands of Trump. They had to call special security forces to hide and protect him.

So now we have a super-reactionary president, a shattered economy, a widening pandemic, assassination of African Americans, and police out of control of civil authorities. Now there are many voices that are going to try to make the police more palatable, but the police here have a power independent of the (judicial) authorities. Only when there is a case like in Minneapolis where on video a police officer has his knee on the neck of an African American do they have to face a judicial process.

HS:  Can a change in the law be expected? That there be heavier sanctions or controls on the police, or is it the case that the only thing the protests do is accelerate the legal process a little bit against this particular officer?

Petras: I think we are in a phase where with so many demonstrations, protests,  and outbreaks of violence, that it's difficult to go back to normal and continue without holding the police responsible for the killing of civilians.

I think we're going to pass through a phase now of self-accusation by the police, by government officials. They're going to condemn the abuses that occur and now they are going to call for an investigation committee. They're going to discover that the police need more supervision and control, that a new code of conduct needs to be put forth.

All that is going to happen now in the face of a great confrontation with more than 100 cities in protest, that's a very unusual thing. We could say that this context is going to demand that government take some action.

Besides the extreme right of Trump, who demands more repression, more dogs to attack demonstrators, I think that in this context we are going to have a prolonged process of meetings, of discussions, of forming a commission that can prepare a document of 100 or 1000 pages about what is happening and what has happened in this conflict.

They are going to recruit some African Americans in order to improve the government's image, recruit more black police, plan a form of conduct more in accord with the law, but over time it's going to come to nothing just like in the past. But before, if we study the history, in other years of protest against racism, the same police repression took place, the same commissions were formed, but nothing changed because the structure of power is against African Americans, Latin Americans and others.

So, I think that if there aren't alterations in the economy, politics, and society, nothing will change, we're only going to have a bit of turbulence, but no answer to our needs will be given.

Right now nearly 50% of African Americans under 35 have no work. So first, we have to confront the problem of coronavirus, where African Americans and Latinos are suffering more cases. Next we have the problem of unemployment, which is extremely high among those same groups. There are structural problems, housing, health, education, employment, all that together creates situations of extraordinary urgency.

HS: Are there other items you would like to touch on at the end of the column for this week, (Mr.) Petras?

Petras: Yes, we could go down to Latin America, to Argentina, supposedly it's near an agreement with its creditors, but they still haven't signed. And if they sign an agreement, President Fernandez is apparently going to capitulate on some important points for the Argentinians. That means that they have to transfer millions of dollars to bankers and creditors. 

So, seeing that in Argentina problems are multiplying with the coronavirus, with unemployment, and now with the agreement with the creditors, that could also provoke uprisings in that country like those currently in the United States, or like those in 2001 (in Argentina).

And finally we have Hong Kong, where Washington wanted to exaggerate the importance of those opposed to China. And those opponents are losing influence when the bankers and the businessmen, the multinational companies, have to choose between (investment) opportunities with China and Trump's rhetoric:  they are going massively in favor of China. In a little while Hong Kong is going to be a Chinese city integral to Beijing's policy.

HS:  And what can we say about Brazil, where the political crisis continues and everything points to ever greater isolation of President Bolsonaro? Can this be accelerating the end of his administration, (Mr.) Petras?

Well, the number of deaths is accelerating, yes, the numbers affected by the coronavirus are accelerating, discontent is growing. I think Bolsonaro will stay in the government only until the end of this year, he can't maintain himself, he can't endure longer.

In summary, we could say that this summer is going to be very hot politically in the United States. These days are only the opening towards a year of great violence, many conflicts, and great polarization between Trump and the neo-fascists against a mass of African Americans, unemployed whites, Hispanics and others

An Attack Against Iranian Oil Would Have Had Multiple Repercussions

The U.S. Blockade Has Robbed A Lot of Money From Venezuela

Memorial Day Interview with Sociologist James Petras

Centennial Radio Uruguay

(Translation from Spanish by Michael K. Smith)

Hernán Salina: Memorial Day, (Mr.) Petras?

Petras: Well, it's a day that has various dimensions. For the majority of people it's a day to visit the cemetery and put flowers on the graves of family members who died.

For others, which is more and more the direction the media takes, it's a day to celebrate war veterans. That means that all the news are about the soldiers who fought in Vietnam, Korea, WWII, and other related matters. So it's a day of militarism, a day in which the soldiers of the past (are celebrated), whatever their views may be, because many who served in Vietnam were anti-war. It's a mix of veterans who died without a (military) cause and veterans who died fighting in imperialist wars.

So there's a lot of (national) chauvinism today, normally there are ceremonies, but since coronavirus is now here, they can't gather in big marches through the streets. It's one of the consequences of the contradictions of capitalism that the very diseases generated are the product of political-military policy. . . . It's a reactionary day, validating imperialist wars from the Conquest of Mexico to today.

HS: Speaking of war-mongering in the U.S., what can be expected from the U.S. government against Venezuela with the arrival of Iranian oil tankers? What is being said in the United States, (Mr.) Petras?

Petras: Well, in the first place Trump threatened to attack the ships, blocking the entrance to Venezuela. But once Venezuela showed determination, that it was going to resist militarily if they blocked the ships, Washington backed down.

So, for now, the fact that the ships have entered Venezuelan territory and the U.S. hasn't attacked is good, but it's an extremely tense and threatening situation. One never knows from one minute to the next what Trump is going to do, threats on one hand, and then retreats.

HS: Venezuela, a country so rich in petroleum that it has had to receive help from Iran no less.  How far has the attack on its primary industry gone, the primary wealth that Venezuela has?

Petras: Yes, it's become difficult because the American blockade has robbed Venezuela of a lot of income, the blockades, the intervention, the Venezuelan bank accounts in British banks, they lost $200 million in gold reserves that were in Britain. Citgo, a Venezuelan company in the United States, has been taken by the U.S.

So all the American piracy has caused a lot of damage to the oil industry and Venezuela's capacity to convert petroleum into gasoline that can be used in cars.

HS: It's also a very important signal from Iran, the gamble it's taking on sending ships from there and the warning it has made that it would consider any interference on the part of the United States an act of war.

Petras: Yes, it's one of the repercussions that we must take into account. Venezuela has allies, principally Iran, and to a lesser extent China and Russia, but in any case, Iran has said that if they start to attack its ships or destroy them, they would be able to take reprisals against the U.S. in Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Persian Gulf.

For this reason the consequences of a military attack against Iranian oil has multiple repercussions, as much in the Caribbean as in the Gulf.  Trump has to have calculated extensively in order to launch an attack with so many repercussions at a time of economic depression. It could be very costly.

HS: And about the ex-Marine mercenaries detained in Venezuela, U.S. spokespersons came out saying they demanded they be returned. Is something being said about this in the U.S. or will this be a quieter negotiation that can be done with Venezuela?

Petras: I don't know, there is no indication right now, but it could be that something may be happening behind the scenes. For the moment Washington is simply demanding, not offering anything by negotiation. In order to negotiate Washington has to make concessions and right now Trump doesn't want to make any concession, he simply wants to dictate policy that Venezuela and Iran submit to, but this is not going to happen.

HS: With respect to Covid-19, what's the latest, (Mr.) Petras?

Petras: They've opened a lot of avenues for people to leave the house, go walking, but it's a disaster because people go out without taking precautions to maintain social distance, nor are they wearing masks when they go out to enjoy themselves or take a walk.

The beaches are full in New Jersey, in Florida, in Miami, almost everywhere. In California many people walk without consideration for taking precautions, they go together to taverns, bars, downing drinks, and everyone goes together contaminating one another.

The beauty salons, for example, in some cases that we know of, there are hundreds of people infected because the worker or the employee of the salon has been infected with the virus. So the opening up could be a disaster.

HS: The other day we were saying that a good portion of the affected are immigrants, Latinos, poor whites. Is there an organized reaction to this scene, (Mr.) Petras?

Petras: There are, there are local protests, there are protests at the national level, but apparently the investigations and denunciations of the inequalities in treatment haven't had much effect. An increase in neighborhood testing, but there is no strategy that could improve the vulnerable position of minorities, who are actually the majority in many places like Texas, California and New York. That seems to me a form of genocide against minorities.

HS: President Trump continues with accusatory rhetoric against China: now in an interview he has said that, whether it be due to incompetence or refusal, China didn't prevent that the coronavirus spread throughout the world, and he has been pressuring so that the origin of the virus be investigated inside China.

Petras: There is an economic-political war against China, and now it has increased with Washington's failures; today (virus) deaths have surpassed 100,000. Trump confronts a political-electoral threat, for that reason he's beginning to make declarations blaming China, Russia, anyone except himself. And he uses thugs in Hong Kong to attack China, he uses the virus to blame China. China is recovering from the virus, peple are beginning to go out in the streets with safeguards and controls.

And since Washington has failed in its fight against the virus, blaming China is part of aggression against it, because China has recovered sufficiently to re-launch its manufacturing industry and technology.

HS: How does life go on in the United States? I was reading a report about the situation in Detroit, for example, that once had great industrial activity but which has now been badly battered, an emblematic city in that sense.

Petras: Yes, they're beginning to increase production at Ford for a week and suddenly there's another coronavirus case and they have to back off. The American economy is in full depression, unemployment has risen to more than 40 million people. It's a very grave situation, the unemployment, the hunger, the lack of resources, the loss of homes, the crisis is growing and one can't avoid it. Trump says they're going to continue with everything opened up, cost what it may, however many deaths it costs doesn't matter. Trump says that never again will we shut the economy in order to save lives.

HS: Is there something else you want to mention as we wrap up, (Mr.) Petras?

Petras: Well, what we have more information about is Israel, where President Netanyahu confronts a trial for bribery, fraud, and corruption. Finally, after so many years of robbing the Palestinians and Jews themselves, now Netanyahu faces a trial and we hope they finally put him in jail. But I have doubts that he will be punished, especially with the corruption that exists in Israeli courts and also in general.

In the United States there is little information about the crimes of Netanyahu because of the influence of the Israel lobby, they can influence what the media are going to publish and not publish. A Netanyahu crime that goes beyond bribery and fraud are the crimes against the Palestinians, but about that the judges have nothing to say.

Why Police Torture and Kill

"What I have said about Harlem is true of Chicago, Detroit, Washington, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco - is true of every Northern city with a large Negro population. And the police are simply the hired enemies of this population. They are present to keep the Negro in his place and to protect white business interests and they have no other function. They are, moreover - even in a country which makes the very grave error of equating ignorance with simplicity - quite stunningly ignorant; and, since they know that they are hated, they are always afraid. One cannot possibly arrive at a more surefire formula for cruelty." 

-----James Baldwin, A Report From Occupied Territory

Democrats Finally Do Self-Critique! Oh, Wait, It's Someone Else

"Crazy Bernie Sanders is not a fighter. He gives up too easy! The Dem establishment gets Alfred E. Newman (Mayor Pete) and Amy Klobuchar to quit and endorse Sleepy Joe BEFORE Super Tuesday, and gets Pocahontas to stay in the race, taking thousands of votes from Bernie. He would have beaten Sleepy Joe in a LANDSLIDE, every State, if these events didn't happen. Even if Warren just dropped out, he would easily have won. Dems did it to him with Crooked Hillary, and now, even more so. . . and Bernie doesn't even complain."

-------------Donald Trump May 20, 2020

Covid 19 in the U.S. - Latinos, African Americans, and Poor Whites the Most Affected

Interview with Sociologist James Petras
Centennial Radio Uruguay
May 11, 2020

(translation from Spanish by Michael K. Smith)

Hernan Salina: There is no way to escape each week the internal reality of the United States with respect to the consequences of Covid-19. What is happening these days?

Petras: Yes, the first interesting thing here is that the Trump White House is infected by the coronavirus, three advisers of the president are already in quarantine, they're shut up in their homes and undergoing treatment. Another important person is vice-president Pence, who is shut away and they're examining him hourly to see if he's infected. This is the government that didn't accept the necessity of using masks, maintaining social distance and other things. Now these measures have collided with the President himself in office. Many times a day Trump has to be examined for the virus. Beyond that we also have the Treasury Secretary saying that unemployment is possibly going to exceed 25% in the coming months or even weeks. And in spite of that we have the fact that the government has said it's going to inject 9 billion dollars in hopes of stimulating the economy because it's collapsing. In spite of everything reassuring Trump tries to say about the economy, it doesn't work.

Now almost all 50 states have relaxed the quarantine and made other openings for the economy, but at the same time there are protests going on. The unemployed are protesting, renters are protesting in New York and other places, small business owners are marching on City Hall in every city. So there's a great social mobilization that is growing like a wave, but we don't have any political direction. Senator Bernie Sanders hasn't headed up these movements, he has lent support to Biden, who is a conservative Democrat.

HS:  A video has circulated of a young nurse in New York crying on camera, denouncing the fact that since they're overflowing with (corona) patients they are letting African Americans and poor Latinos die, when they can't cope, can't keep up with demand, and besides they're being attended at times by people who don't have sufficient training and so patients die.

Petras: Yes, we have data from Johns Hopkins Hospital that a (disproportionate) percentage of patients that die are of Latin American or African American descendance. These ethnic groups are more affected than whites.

But whites are differentiated between those of lesser and greater income. There are more cases of infection among whites with lower incomes than among richer whites who can access medical treatment and support themselves working from home while the badly paid have to go to work in dangerous conditions.

These workers complain that their employers haven't provided enough safety regulations and protective equipment, that they've had to work in meat packing plants, for example, with workers right next to people without adequate protections.

HS: In an interview on Fox News on Friday, president Trump tried to distance himself from responsibility for these mercenary actions in Venezuela. He said that if he'd wanted to take military action, he would have invaded directly, that is to say, he would have attacked with full U.S. military force. What repercussions or consequences has this event had, which Venezuela is denouncing to all the world?

Petras: It's all true, even the New York Times and the Washington Post have published information revealing that the directors of the coup were members of a mercenary outfit headquartered in Miami, and that those mercenaries were Green Beret and worked with the CIA and had confessed that they had ties with the U.S. government.

Nobody believes it when Trump says the United States isn't involved, everyone understands that the reverse is true, that the U.S. government fomented the coup. Juan Guaido, the U.S. puppet, was implicated with the terrorists, and the Green Berets have confessed that they have ties with groups in the U.S. that hire mercenaries.

HS: Do you believe that the Trump administration is going to strongly pressure Venezuela to return these captured mercenaries?

Petras: Obviously, yes, obviously what they're going to try to do is capture some Venezuelans linked to the Maduro government and then offer an exchange. That is, we have Venezuelans, you have Americans, we should have an exchange.

I don't know if they'll be successful, I don't know if they're going to be able to get Venezuelans for this trade, but in any case at the moment the Americans implicated in the coup with the mercenaries are in jail and they're going to stay there until there is a change in the political tone between the two countries.

HS: And can this have a political consequence for Trump? There were some voices raised in the Democratic Party saying that the person in charge of the security contracting firm must have violated U.S. law by taking arms out of the United States, and by the action carried out by this firm. 

Petras: I don't think so. Judicial authority is part of the American government, so I don't think they're going to punish the mercenaries. It's possible that they'll launch an investigation, but one without consequences. The fact is that this is a political act, and it can only be resolved by political means, which would mean the United States recognizing the Maduro government and sitting down to negotiate an arrangement that would end the sanctions and repression against the Venezuelan government. In contrast, what we can expect is that the United States is going to continue and even increase its terrorist attacks, which is a tragedy for the Venezuelan people.

HS: Israel has postponed the swearing in of its new government because U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in Israel. What's being said officially is that they're going to talk about the coronavirus, Iranian influence, and of course the Palestine conflict. What new developments might emerge?

Petras: It's a long term partnership, one in which Israel dictates the policies, Israel pressures the United States to increase its attacks on Iran. And I think that in this situation, Israel dictates the policy and not vice versa. I don't think there is any possibility of a rethinking of American policy. The power of the Zionists in the United States is too great to change the strategy.

HS: Very well. Are there other things you'd like to mention in the final section of the column this week, James?

Petras: There are two things, one is that there is an enormous scandal in the state of Georgia in the United States, where the police are implicated in assassinating an African American that was walking, exercising in the street. This ended in a preliminary investigation that concluded that the police weren't responsible for the killing. But with enormous protest in the African American community, some videos and other evidence, they've proved that the police in fact killed an innocent man.

Thanks to the protest, the mobilization, and the evidence, they will open an investigation into the killing in two months. And now there is the possibility of a conviction, they could take the two killers to court, who were friends and accomplices of the police, who didn't investigate them. This is evidence that the police in the U.S. don't function with impartiality but are always linked with racism.