Britain

Left candidate Jeremy Corbyn re-wins

Labour leadership with bigger majority
24/09/2016

Landslide victory another step to transforming Labour

From Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales) website

Three months ago 172 MPs - three quarters of the Parliamentary Labour Party -
launched a coup against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. They have been backed by
all the forces of the capitalist establishment. Big business and the right wing media
have endlessly attacked Jeremy, while the Labour machine has prevented many
thousands of his supporters from voting in the contest.
All their efforts have come to nothing, Jeremy has been re-elected, on 24 September, by a
huge margin with 61.8% of the vote, even wider than in his initial victory. There was a
very high turnout, with more than half a million people voting, and Jeremy won clear
majorities in every category - Labour Party members, affiliated supporters and registered
supporters.

The Blairites are reeling in the face of the mass anti-austerity surge in support of Jeremy
Corbyn. This doesn't mean, however, that they are reconciled to Jeremy Corbyn's
leadership or to the prospect of Labour becoming an anti-austerity party.

The capitalist establishment benefitted enormously from the transformation of Labour

into Tony Blair's New Labour and the domination of political debate by pro-market ideas
which that allowed for the last 20 years. They were the forces behind the summer coup
against Jeremy Corbyn and the defeat of this first attempt to unseat him will be a
resounding blow.

But because the stakes are so high, it is clear that this won't be the last attempt by the
capitalist establishment to regain their formerly unchallenged control of the Labour
Party. The issue of what needs to be done to consolidate Jeremy Corbyn's victory - by
really transforming Labour into an anti-austerity, socialist, working-class mass
movement - is the critical question facing socialists in Britain today.

No compromise with the right

As he approached his first leadership election victory this time last year, Jeremy Corbyn
was sanguine about warnings of a Labour establishment counter-revolution. "Plots and
double plots and sub-plots and plotting - it's fascinating", he said, as a Guardian
journalist at a Leeds campaign event described him as "brushing aside suggestions that
he would face an internal coup to depose him if he became Labour leader" (5 August
2015). He even gave the unfortunate example of US president Abraham Lincoln as an
alleged 'unifying figure' after the American civil war - "with malice towards none and
charity towards all" - as the 'way forward'.

The events of the last twelve months within the Labour Party, culminating in the summer
coup, show how mistaken it was to attempt to conciliate representatives of, in this case,
not the same class but different classes. It is a mistake which must not be repeated now.

The course of the summer events shows that Jeremy Corbyn's position is still tenuous. If
three votes had gone the other way at the 12 July meeting of Labour's national executive
committee (NEC) on whether he was required to seek nominations from MPs before he
appeared on the ballot paper, Owen Smith, Angela Eagle or another right-winger may
well have been elected unopposed, as Gordon Brown was in 2007 after Tony Blair
resigned. Only the protests of thousands of Labour members and trade unionists averted
what would have been a pre-emptory closing down of the opportunity to transform the
Labour Party which Jeremy Corbyn's leadership represents.

As it was, for the first time since world war two, all regular party meetings were cancelled
by the NEC for the summer, a number of constituency parties were suspended - including
the biggest local party unit - and the notorious 'compliance unit' conducted what shadow
chancellor John McDonnell rightly calls "a rigged purge of Jeremy Corbyn supporters".

Ultimately, the structures and power relations that were developed under New Labour,
which had destroyed the ability of the working class to contend for influence within the
party, are still in place. Jeremy Corbyn's leadership is a bridgehead against the forces of
capitalism within the Labour Party. But the task remains to take on the main bases of the
right in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), the national party apparatus and, locally,
the big majority of Labour's 7,000 councillors who are carrying out the Tories' austerity
agenda.

Organisation and policy

A first step for Jeremy Corbyn after his victory should be to declare that he will re-
establish a central role within the Labour Party for the trade unions, commensurate with
their importance as the collective voices of millions of workers.

Trade union representation within the Labour Party, when democratically exercised by
union members, provides a potential means for the working class to control its political
representatives. It was this characteristic above all that defined the Labour Party in the
past - before New Labour - as a 'capitalist workers' party'. In other words, while the party
had a leadership which invariably reflected the policy of the capitalist class, it had a
structure through which workers could move to challenge the leadership and threaten the
capitalists' interests. The unions' rights must be restored.

Other measures are also needed to democratise the structures of the Labour Party,
sterilised by Blairism over years, with mandatory re-selection of MPs a key demand. But
while allowing local parties to replace their MPs at the next general election may bring
some of them into line, more decisive action needs to be taken at a national level before
then. The 172 MPs who triggered the coup with their 'no confidence' motion on 28 June
should retain the Labour whip only if they agree to accept the renewed mandate for
Corbyn and his anti-austerity, anti-war policies.

An ideological rearming is also necessary. In 1995, Tony Blair abolished Labour's historic
commitment, in Clause Four, Part IV of the party's rules, to "the common ownership of
the means of production, distribution and exchange". The replacement clause committed
the party instead to the dynamic "enterprise of the market", "the rigor of competition",
and "a thriving private sector".
In this month's Socialism Today, in 'The Corbynomics challenge', Hannah Sell,
Socialist Party deputy general secretary, argues that Jeremy Corbyn and John
McDonnell's economic policies do represent an important break, even if only partial, with
the neoliberal nostrums embedded in Labour's Blairised Clause Four. They have certainly
incurred the wrath of the former Bank of England monetary committee member David
Blanchflower who - again in a mistaken urge to conciliate the right - was brought into
Labour's economic advisory committee last year. Arguing that Corbyn and McDonnell
"have to accept the realities of capitalism and modern markets, like it or not", he came
out for Owen Smith in this year's leadership contest (The Guardian, 2 August 2016).

Unfortunately, however, it is also true, as we explain, that Corbynomics - ultimately a

form of Keynesianism - does not answer Blanchflower's charge that "the bond and equity
markets", which would still be free to rule the economy, "would eat him [Corbyn] for
lunch". There is no substitute for a clear programme of democratic public ownership of
the banks, financial institutions and major companies, under workers' control and
management, the essential basis for a new form of society, socialism, in opposition to the
capitalist market system.

Reinstate the socialists

This necessary discussion and clarification of policies and ideas is the reason why another
vital demand in the period ahead will be the right for all socialists, including those
previously expelled or excluded, to participate in the Labour Party - and to be organised.

The leadership battle has revealed the morbid fear of the ruling class and their
representatives within Labour precisely of 'organised socialists'. Above all for the right
wing, exemplified in the attack on 'Trotskyist arm-twisters' by the deputy Labour leader
Tom Watson, is the spectre of Militant, the predecessor of the Socialist Party. In this
month's Socialism Today, Peter Taaffe, Socialist Party general secretary and one of the
members of the Militant editorial board expelled from Labour in 1983, goes behind the
new hue and cry over Trotsky to look at his real, living legacy [Leon Trotsky's living
legacy].

The capitalists have their 'tendencies' within Labour which they support both materially
and ideologically, including through the weight of the establishment media. Moreover,
the PLP and, locally, councillors, are an organised caste, a 'tendency' with the resources of
the state that go with their positions, state funds (including the 'Short money' to 'ensure
the functioning of the parliamentary opposition'), but also the role of senior civil servants
and council officials. So why should those who oppose capitalism not be allowed to
organise too?

The best way to achieve this, undercutting the capitalist media's manufactured fixation on
'secret conspiracies', would be to allow socialist parties and organisations to openly
affiliate to the Labour Party, as the Co-op Party does.

The transformation of the Labour Party into New Labour was not one act but a process
consolidated over years. To reverse that transformation will also not be accomplished by
one act but will require the organisation of a mass movement consciously aiming to
overturn New Labour's legacy, politically and organisationally. Jeremy Corbyn's likely re-
election is another big step on that road - but it must be built upon urgently.

Britain
Damning parliamentary report into
Cameron's role in overthrowing Gaddafi
21/09/2016

Imperialist intervention helped wreck revolutionary movement and ruin

Libya

Robert Bechert, CWI

There was nothing for the Libyan people to celebrate in the damning report by a
British parliamentary committee into the London government’s role in the West’s
contribution to overthrowing the Gaddafi regime in 2011 – an intervention which
helped lead to the almost complete collapse of their country and the derailment of the
revolution that had begun there.

Partly a settling of internal Tory party scores, this parliamentary inquiry sort to make
David Cameron, the recently departed British prime minister, the scapegoat for what
became an utterly disastrous and failed military intervention for imperialism, let alone
the Libyan people. In this they were not the first, Obama has also publically criticised
Cameron and his ally in this adventure, former French president Sarkozy, for what has
happened. But it should not be forgotten that in March 2011 the British House of
Commons voted by 557 to 13 in favour of military action. Jeremy Corbyn was one of the
tiny numbers of mainly left wingers who voted against.

The inquiry concluded that the result has been “political and economic collapse, inter-
militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human
rights violations, the spread of Gaddafi regime weapons and the growth of Isis in North
Africa”.

Criticising Cameroon while defending Saudi arms deals

Tragically all this is true, but this parliamentary committee is very selective in its
criticism. In the very same week when it published its report on Libya, it almost
simultaneously published another one that was effectively trying to shield the feudal
Saudi regime’s current brutality in Yemen against criticism from other British
parliamentary committees.

The reason for this apparent contradiction between its approach to Libya and Yemen is
that the starting points for such capitalist politicians are the interests of British capitalism
and, to a slightly lesser extent, those of imperialism in general. Thus for them the Saudi
regime must be defended because it buys billions of pounds worth of weapons from
Britain and also is an important prop for imperialism in the Middle East. On the other
hand their criticism of the Libyan action is because this British and French adventure
resulted in a substantial further destabilisation of an area strategically important for
imperialism and also the massive increase of refugees and migrants attempting to cross
the Mediterranean after the European Union lost its Libyan border guard.

In part this committee’s inquiry has confirmed the warnings against any support for this
type of intervention that the Socialist Party and the CWI gave throughout 2011. Jeremy
Corbyn also opposed the bombing campaign unlike groups like the AWL (Alliance for
Workers’ Liberty) in Britain who were loudly shouting that this military action had to be
supported in order to ‘defend’ the Libyan people.
But there is a fundamental, essential difference, between this parliamentary committee’s
criticisms and the Socialist Party and the CWI’s opposition to the military intervention.
Our stand was based upon defending the interests of working people around the world
while capitalist politicians protect the interests of their ruling classes.

Thus, as socialists, we did not just warmly welcome the revolutionary “Arab Spring” of
2011 but we also argued that in order for the working masses and poor in north Africa
and the Middle East to achieve their democratic and social aims it was not only necessary
to overthrow tyrants, but also to break with capitalism.

Obviously this was something which imperialist governments like the British and French
wanted to prevent and, alongside domestic political calculations, was a reason why they
sought to intervene in Libya in the hope of restraining the revolution there, install a pro-
western government and establish a position from which they could intervene in the rest
of the region.

Warning against hopes in the West

From the beginning of the revolution in Libya we warned those Libyans striving for
genuine freedom not to have any hopes or illusions in western intervention. Instead we
pointed to the Tunisian and Egyptian examples earlier that year of mass movements
overthrowing repressive regimes which Gaddafi, the then Libyan ruler, had supported. In
part Gaddafi’s support for other autocrats flowed from the accommodation he had made
with imperialism and the fear that the Libyan people would demand democratic rights,
real action against corruption and democratic control of Libya’s gas and oil wealth.

Gaddafi immediately started issuing blood curdling threats against the early centres of
the revolution in the east but these areas, particularly Benghazi, could have been
protected by mass, popular defence. But at the same time we warned that unless an
independent movement of workers, poor and youth was built the revolution would not
succeed in fundamentally changing the country.

The absence of such a movement opened the door to grave dangers. At the beginning of
the revolution we explained that the raising of the old monarchy’s flag in the eastern city
of Benghazi risked dividing the country, which had been first formed in the 1930s and
then reformed in the late 1940s, as the old king had come from the east where a minority
of the population lived. While a Libyan national consciousness had then developed we
warned that without the building of an independent working peoples’ movement there
was the danger of the revival and deepening of Libya’s regional, tribal and clan divisions,
along with hostility to the Amazigh and black Libyan non-Arab minorities. Additionally
the fact that, before 2011, up to 2.5 million of Libya’s 6.5 million population were
migrants posed the danger of hostility both to migrants from other Arab countries and,
exploiting old prejudices, against Sub-Saharan Africans.

In Britain, one of the most strident left supporters of the British and French intervention
was the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL) grouping, who argued that it could not be
opposed because, in March 2011, this was the only way to prevent Gaddafi crushing the
Benghazi uprising in an “extremely bloody” counter-revolution. While saying that they
“did not call for or support NATO intervention in Libya …” the AWL went on to argue that
“…it does not follow that opposing this specific NATO action made sense” (“The Libyan
revolution: issues for Marxists”, September 7, 2011). But, in reality, for the AWL it was
not just the specific question of how to stop Gaddafi’s forces advancing on Benghazi in
late March 2011. Despite saying there should be “no trust in the NATO powers” in reality
they supported the continued NATO action in Libya in the fighting that continued in the
months afterwards. Indeed they wanted NATO to do more which was why, after Gaddafi
lost Tripoli at the end of August, they complained about “the general laziness of NATO in
prosecuting its campaign” (“Libya: the new struggle after victory”, September 7, 2011).
While claiming to be “practical”, and sometimes pointing to genuine issues like the
absence of workers’ organisations in Libya, the AWL did not argue for an independent
political strategy for the workers and poor in Libya. Instead it argued for a capitalist
based “democratic, secular republic”, even complaining that NATO “had frustrated” the
‘Transitional National Council’ which was then unsuccessfully trying to form a pro-
capitalist Libyan government.

Working peoples’ movement is key

Shortly after Gaddafi’s killing we wrote that “now, more than ever, the creation of
independent, democratic workers’ organisations, including a workers’ party, are vital, if
working people, the oppressed and youth are to achieve a real revolutionary
transformation of the country and thwart the imperialists’ plans, end dictatorship and
transform the lives of the mass of the people. Without this other forces will step into the
gap.”

This is unfortunately what has happened. Libya is now in a state of near disintegration.
But this does not mean that a revival of a genuine mass movement is ruled out that can
unite working people in struggle. However, for lasting success, would need to develop a
programme that defends all democratic rights, is against oppression, can organise
democratic self-defence, involving minorities and migrant workers, against sectarian
attacks.

Libya is still a potentially rich country, but the question is who owns and controls its
assets. The Libyan working people have to take the issue into their own hands. A genuine
mass movement would oppose the privatisation of Libya’s assets, oppose all foreign
military intervention and strive for a government of representatives of the workers and
poor, based upon democratic structures in the workplaces and communities, which would
use Libya’s resources for its population. Without this the danger is that Libya remains a
playground for warlords, sectarian fanatics and looters, Libyan and foreign.

Monopoly: Radical origins of the

capitalist game
GAMES REVIEWS
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ADMIN , SEPTEMBER 14, 2016 / 82 0

Monopoly is perhaps the world’s most famous board game, with official sales of 250
million sets. You can get versions tailored to tie in with anything from blockbuster
film franchises to local towns and cities. More than anything, the ethos of capitalism
runs through it. Players start out with the same amount of money, but win by
becoming wealthy at the expense of others, accumulating a property empire and
squeezing out rents from other players.

Yet as Mary Pilon’s fascinating book reveals, Monopoly’s modern image is far from
what its original creator intended. Parker Brothers (now part of Hasbro), which holds
the rights to the game, spun the fable that Monopoly was invented by Charles Darrow,
a down-on-his-luck unemployed man during the 1930s depression, who then went on
to be wealthy. This book, however, explains that its origins lie with Lizzie Magie.
Magie was a feminist activist and supporter of the anti-monopolist economist Henry
George, whose most famous policy was the ‘single tax’, to replace all taxes on the
ownership of land. George’s was a populist philosophy that reflected the plight of the
urban poor in the US, crammed into its burgeoning cities, and aimed to re-found
capitalism on a wider, more equitable basis.

Magie sought creative outlets to explain these ideas, speaking at meetings, but also
writing short stories and appearing on stage. In the early 1900s, she launched her most
inventive way of conveying the single tax idea: what she called ‘The Landlord’s
Game’. It included a number of the features of modern Monopoly: the size of the
board, a ‘Go to Jail’ space, paper money and buying property deeds, as well as the
collection of money when a circuit had been completed.

Likewise, players won by accumulating the most money. However, Magie created two
sets of rules. One was of a society based on George’s ideas, to show how it was more
harmonious than the other version which led towards the creation of monopolies and
players having to crush each other to win.

The Landlord’s Game was a modest success, becoming known as ‘The Monopoly
Game’ among a model single-tax community in Arden and then through students at
Ivy League colleges. Many of the sets were handmade with their own variations. The
classic names on Monopoly squares were based on Atlantic City and were created by
Quakers living there.

Charles Darrow was taught the game by acquaintances. Yet he would go on to

conspire with Parker Brothers to create the story which has taken years to unpick. A
number of details, however, demonstrated that something was amiss with that tale all
along. For example, in the Parker Brothers Monopoly board, one square based on
Marven Gardens was misspelled Marvin Gardens for many years. This was because of
a mistake on the version that Darrow copied.

While this is the basis for Mary Pilon’s book, the real meat is in how Parker Brothers
covered its tracks, buying up rights to any variations based on The Monopoly Game,
which had been published in the meantime. It is another demonstration of the lengths
to which large corporations will go to defend their profits. It shows how capitalism
will try to find a way to incorporate everything, including attempts to critique and
expose the system – and find some way of exploiting them to make a profit.

On the other hand, Monopoly can still have the effect that Lizzie Magie intended:
frustration at the sight of wealth accumulating in the hands of the couple of players
who happen to own the most properties. The squeezing of people by rack-renting
landlords is indeed a feature of capitalism that has come back with a vengeance. The
truth running through this tale is that, no matter how capitalism attempts to beautify
itself, eventually, its ugly, oppressive core always shows through.

The Monopolists
By Mary Pilon
Published by Bloomsbury, 2015
Reviewed by Iain Dalton
Related

The case for socialism

INTERNATIONAL NORTH AMERICA THEORY & HISTORY
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ADMIN , SEPTEMBER 20, 2016 / 53 0

Seemingly out of nowhere, over the last few years, socialist ideas swept in from
the ignored margins of American politics to compete for centre stage. The 2008
economic crisis opened a fresh debate on socialism and capitalism, but it was the
electrifying presidential campaign of self-described democratic socialist Bernie
Sanders that brought socialism back into the mainstream debate.

But what does socialism mean? Merriam-Webster reported “socialism” was their
most searched word in 2015, spiking 169% and becoming the dictionary’s 7th
most searched word ever. This points to the rising interest as well as widespread
confusion surrounding socialist ideas.

What is socialism?

The defenders of capitalism attempt to paint socialism as a utopian schema,

dreamed up by self-appointed intellectuals who would dogmatically impose their
grey, lifeless system on the unwilling masses. For many who associate socialism
with the Stalinist legacy or the sell-out social democratic parties in Europe, there
is an understandable desire to abandon the old ideas and start fresh.

Yet any serious look at the history of working people’s struggles reveals a
fundamentally different story.

Workers and oppressed people worldwide have repeatedly fought back to

improve their conditions and liberate themselves. Everywhere, a central feature
of the class struggle is a battle of ideas. The ruling minority attempt to shroud
their exploitation through lies and distractions. Meanwhile, the exploited majority
attempt to clear the fog and discover the real mechanics of the system which
oppresses them, and what an alternative system might look like.

Arising organically from the experience of the class struggle, the genuine ideas of
Marxism initially worked out nearly 170 years ago are a living body of ideas
continuously developed by successive generations of class fighters. The history
of capitalism reveals how social movements repeatedly face similar challenges
and similar debates, and how the most far-thinking fighters draw similar
conclusions. Marxist theory and practice flows from careful study of these
international and historical experiences, and from rigorous debates within these
living struggles.

Marxism is an attempt to scientifically trace out the actual dynamics of global

capitalism and the class struggle. Only through a lucid understanding of social
processes, cleared of the fog of capitalist propaganda, can workers and the
oppressed map out a strategy and tactics to defeat big business and transform
society.

Genuine socialist theory is therefore a sort of best practices guide to winning

short-term struggles, a transitional method of linking today’s movements to a
broader global strategy to end capitalism, and a vision of a future society based
on the experience of workers’ self-organization in struggle.

Workers democracy

The 2016 US elections show more clearly than ever that democracy under
capitalism is completely rigged against working people. Wall Street and the big
corporations finance both parties, so whether the Democrats or Republicans win,
the 99% loses. Despite the wave of anti-establishment anger destabilizing both
parties, the resulting “choice” between Clinton and Trump – the two most hated
candidates in modern history – underscores that unless working people build our
own political party, corporate and right-wing forces will continue to dominate.

Yet corporate domination of our political system is just an extension of capitalist

control over our economy. Consider the awesome power concentrated in the
hands of the few owners of the big corporations. Five companies dominate the
US media industry. A handful of corporations like Google, Apple, and Facebook
control the information age industries.

The energy industry is monopolized by several fossil fuel profiteers who

effectively prevent a shift to a renewable energy economy and better mass
transit.

The overriding goal of these corporations is not to produce quality news

programs, wider information access, or a sustainable energy policy; their goal is
to maximize profits. Achieving this requires a relentless drive to cut costs and
increase market share at the expense of all other considerations.

Apologists for capitalism reduce the problem of corporate political domination of

society to corrupt or greedy political leaders, or to the lack of sufficient
regulations. Social democrats like Bernie Sanders argue that it is possible for
ordinary people to take control of government and use it to tame and control the
capitalist class through regulation, higher taxation, and more generous social
programs.

We welcome every positive reform under capitalism and argue for a mass party
of the 99% which, alongside a fighting labour movement, could win significant
gains for working people. But as long as the capitalist class remains economically
dominant, such reforms will never be permanent and will be undermined at every
opportunity. Furthermore, there is no way to permanently end the boom and bust
cycle of capitalism and the vicious day to day exploitation of workers without
taking power out of their hands, both here and internationally.

Socialists argue that only by placing the big banks and corporations into public
ownership, under workers democratic control, can a genuine democracy of, by,
and for the 99% be achieved.

Instead of elections every two or four years determining which capitalist party
runs things, a socialist government would be composed of elected
representatives from workplace, community, and student councils. Every
workplace, university, and institution would be run through elected workplace and
community councils. Representatives could be immediately recalled and would
be paid no more than those they represent.

In this way, the profit motive would no longer dominate society and the warped
priorities of the market could be replaced with a global economic plan. All political
and economic decisions could be made democratically, with social and
environmental priorities determining investments, wages and laws.

Ending poverty and inequality

After the onset of the global economic crisis, capitalist politicians everywhere
demanded working people tighten their belts while they continued to rake in
record profits. As Bernie Sanders continually pointed out, virtually all the gains of
the post-2008 economic recovery have gone to the top 1% while wages and
conditions for most workers have continued to worsen.

We face a distribution crisis, not a scarcity crisis. There are more than enough
resources to ensure a decent life for all, but a tiny elite hoard the wealth or waste
it in non-productive speculative investments. As the leaked Panama Papers
revealed, big business and the wealthy elite hide trillions in tax havens, looting
national treasuries of billions in lost revenue.

Socialists argue for taking the top 500 corporations and financial institutions into
public ownership and using their wealth to fund a massive green jobs program.
On this basis, all those unemployed and underemployed could be offered full time
jobs at living wages on projects addressing vital social needs.

Tens of thousands of new teachers could be hired and crumbling schools rebuilt.
Free, quality health care could be extended to everyone, unhindered by the
rapacious insurance companies. Huge investments in clean energy infrastructure,
including the dramatic expansion of mass transit, could accompany the phase-out
of fossil fuel reliance. Free, quality child care, elder care, and programs serving
the disabled could be established.

On this basis, poverty could be rapidly wiped out, alongside the crime and social
problems caused by widespread economic desperation.

Fighting oppression

Racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression, cannot be

understood – or fought – in isolation from capitalism as a whole. Despite this,
unfortunately, most movement leaders fail to link anti-oppression struggles to a
unifying socialist vision.

As Malcolm X argued, “you can’t have capitalism without racism”. If the

multiracial American working class became conscious of its collective interests,
and potential power, the rule of the 1% could be rapidly broken up.

That’s why big business continues to fund right-wing Republicans, if it furthers

their divide-and-conquer agenda. That’s also why the corporate media amplifies
the voices of bigots and perpetuates racial and gender stereotypes.

There are also narrow economic incentives to maintain structural inequalities.

Sexist ideas allow businesses in the US to pay women just 73 cents to every
dollar men make and to deny proper maternity and paternity benefits. Racism
justifies maintaining 12 million undocumented immigrants as a terrorized, super-
exploited underclass, as well as the mass incarceration fuelling the prison-
industrial complex.
A socialist transformation of society wouldn’t automatically erase deeply ingrained
prejudices, but it would remove the most significant root cause. With workplaces
under public ownership and democratic control, there would be no capitalist class
with an interest in dividing workers from one another.

A socialist system would invest in communities of colour traditionally starved of

quality schools, good jobs, decent housing, and social services. Homophobic
laws would be removed. Women could be guaranteed equal pay for equal work,
free quality child care, paid maternity leave, and other necessities. The mass
media, run democratically under worker/community control, could be transformed
into a powerful tool for undermining prejudice.

Sustainable world

Capitalism now literally threatens our existence as a species. The scientific

community is unanimous that unless we drastically reduce consumption of fossil
fuels in the next few years, catastrophic climate change is inevitable. Already the
impact is being felt. Extreme weather is on the rise. Droughts are causing crop
failures across the world, driving up food prices, and pushing millions more into
hunger.

Yet both political parties are promoting more drilling for oil, more fracking and
more coal usage. No wonder, since capitalist politicians from both parties rely on
the support of the huge energy corporations for their political careers. On a global
scale, the cooperation needed to address the crisis is blocked by capitalist
competition between nations. Instead, endless wars for control over global
energy reserves have destroyed the Middle East and created the biggest refugee
crisis in human history.

Numerous studies show it is technically possible for a combination of wind, solar,

tidal, and hydro power to meet world energy needs. With a democratically
planned socialist economy, and the profit motive removed from global investment
decisions, this transition could be achieved.

Capitalism is plunging the globe into an ever deepening spiral of inequality,

environmental destruction, and violent conflict. If working people fail to build a
powerful left, socialist movement to offer a way out, right-wing forces will tap into
the anger and desperation to fill the political vacuum. On the other hand, with
openness to socialist ideas rapidly rising, the opportunities to build a mass
movement capable of fundamentally transforming society is rapidly unfolding.
Let’s seize the time!
By Ty Moore, from our sister group in the US – Socialist Alternative

S intensifies campaign against

Russia following attack on aid
convoy in Syria
By Bill Van Auken
21 September 2016

US and Russian representatives emerged from a

meeting of the International Syria Support Group
(ISSG) held in New York on the periphery of the United
Nations General Assembly session to declare that they
were continuing to support a tattered ceasefire in
Syria, despite the bloody events of the past few days.
The meeting was convened a day after an attack on an
aid convoy in the northern countryside of Aleppo killed
at least 20 people and destroyed 18 out of 31 trucks
bearing food and other humanitarian relief supplies.
Washington quickly blamed the attack on the Syrian
government of President Bashar al-Assad and its
principal international ally, Russia, both of which
denied any role in the attack.
Similarly, the US Central Command said that American
warplanes had not been involved.
This attack comes on the heels of the bombing by the
US Air Force and allied warplanes of a Syrian army
position overlooking the Deir ez-Zor Airport near the
Syrian-Iraqi border, which killed as many as 90 Syrian
soldiers and wounded another 100. The attack allowed
fighters of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) to
overrun the position.
Among the contending Syrian forces, the ceasefire has
already been declared a dead letter, with Islamist
fighters aligned with Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra Front
launching a major offensive in Aleppo, backed by
artillery and rocket launchers. The Syrian government,
meanwhile, declared the ceasefire over after reporting
300 violations by the “rebels.” It renewed its airstrikes
in an effort to counter attacks by the Western-backed
forces in Aleppo and elsewhere in the country.
“The ceasefire is not dead,” US Secretary of State
John Kerry said after leaving the hour-long ISSG
meeting attended by 20 foreign ministers. He added
that “specific steps” would be discussed in a
subsequent meeting later this week.
His Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov, who co-chaired the meeting, made no public
comment. Early on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman
Dmitry Peskov declared the chances for restoring the
ceasefire “very slim.”
The UN Security Council is expected to discuss the
ceasefire on Wednesday, but Washington has
stonewalled any council vote on the agreement, whose
terms it insists cannot be made public.
UN envoy Staffan de Mistura reported that all
participants at Tuesday’s meeting, which included both
Iran, which is providing military aid to the Syrian
government, and Saudi Arabia, which has armed and
paid Islamist militias fighting against it, had indicated
continued support for the truce, despite its unraveling
on the ground. “The ceasefire is in danger, is being
seriously affected,” he said, but added that it continued
so long as the US and Russia backed it. He described
the attack on the aid convoy as a “game changer” in
terms of demonstrating the necessity of bringing an
end to the violence.
One thing that the attack, together with the previous
strike on the Syrian troops, has definitely scuttled is the
provision within the deal negotiated between Kerry and
Lavrov on September 9 calling for the setting up of a
joint US-Russian center to coordinate strikes on the
ISIS and al-Qaida-linked groups. The center was
supposed to be established after a seven-day
cessation of hostilities and the delivery of aid to
besieged populations.
The ceasefire as a whole, and this provision in
particular, provoked heated opposition from the
Pentagon, with Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter
bitterly opposing it in cabinet meetings with President
Barack Obama. Top uniformed commanders made
statements bordering on insubordination, suggesting
that they might not implement the deal.
Also hostile to the agreement were the so-called
“rebels” and their handlers within the CIA. The
ceasefire called for the so-called “moderate
opposition,” Islamist militias armed and paid by the US
and its allies, to separate itself from the longtime Al
Qaeda affiliate, the Al Nusra front, which recently
renamed itself. There was no indication that any such
separation was in progress, and given the close
alliance between the US-backed forces and the Al
Qaeda elements, which form the backbone of the
armed opposition to the Assad government, it seemed
impossible to effect.
Even more decisive from the standpoint of the US
military’s opposition to the ceasefire deal is its hostility
to any military collaboration with Russia under
conditions in which the Pentagon’s strategic focus has
shifted ever more directly toward the preparation for
direct military confrontation with the nuclear-armed
power.
Washington, without citing any evidence, immediately
declared Moscow responsible for Monday’s attack on
the aid convoy. “We don’t know at this point whether it
was the Russians or the regime. In either case, the
Russians have the responsibility certainly to restrain—
refrain from taking such action themselves, but they
also have the responsibility to keep the regime from
doing it,” a US State Department statement issued
Monday night said.
Meanwhile, according to CNN, a US official
acknowledged that “there is no intelligence that
specifically indicates that Syrian aircraft or helicopters
were in position to attack this location when it
happened.”
The aid convoy, one of the first to be sent into territory
held by the Islamist militias, had been approved by and
received permits from the Syrian government after
several days of delays, largely over Syria’s insistence
that Turkish officials not be allowed to accompany the
aid shipments. From the standpoint of motive, it is less
than obvious why Damascus would have decided to
bomb a convoy that it had just approved, when it could
have continued to prevent it from moving into the area.
For its part, the Al Nusra Front had vowed to block any
aid shipments that came through territory held by the
government, organizing demonstrations in Aleppo to
announce this position.
Russia’s Defense Ministry pushed back against the
charge by Washington and its allies that Russia and/or
the Syrian government had bombed the aid convoy.
Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said
that analysis of video footage of the struck convoy
displayed no bomb craters nor any damage to the
vehicles consistent with aerial bombardment. He also
noted that the attack on the trucks had coincided with
the launching of a major Al Nusra offensive near
Aleppo.
The Russian ministry also released a video showing a
“rebel” truck towing a large-caliber mortar launcher
accompanying the UN aid convoy into the Aleppo town
of Uram al-Kubra. General Konashenkov said that the
vehicle seemed to be using the convoy as a “cover” for
redeploying the mortar.
“Most importantly,” he added, “where did the mortar
disappear near the destination point of the convoy and
what was the target of its fire during the convoy’s stop
and unloading?”
Meanwhile, the United Nations Tuesday revised a
statement issued the day before that, like the US State
Department, had described the attack on the aid
convoy as an airstrike.
In response to the evidence offered by Moscow, the
UN replaced the references to “airstrikes” with the
more general term of “attacks.”
UN humanitarian spokesman Jens Laerke described
the earlier reference as an error. “We are not in a
position to determine whether these were in fact
airstrikes,” he said. “We are in a position to say that the
convoy was attacked.”
Whatever the source of the attack on the aid convoy, it
is clear that the US and its allies have seized upon it to
further its propaganda campaign to vilify and prepare
for military confrontation with Russia. Washington has
also utilized the incident to bury any discussion of the
attack two days earlier by American and allied
warplanes on Syrian army troops who were confronting
ISIS fighters, which raised questions as to whether the
US was deliberately aiding the Islamist forces.
In a curious comment on the incident, Marine Gen.
Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs
of Staff, told reporters Monday that there should be no
rush to judgment on the US airstrike and on the
accuracy of US targeting.
“Maybe before we start going on a path of ‘what went
wrong,’ let’s do an investigation and actually ensure
that something did go wrong,” the general said. “It may
be that ... when you do the investigation, the facts
would tell you that we would have done what we did
again.”

UN General Assembly
convenes amid global military
escalation
21 September 2016

The 71st United Nations General Assembly convened

this week beneath the shadow of a series of global
crises that threaten to throw humanity into a new world
war.
This was the backdrop against which US President
Barack Obama gave his final address to the Assembly
on Tuesday. Obama’s rambling speech, which at times
appeared to be ad-libbed, was an exercise in self-
contradiction and absurd lies, with Obama’s depiction
of the current geopolitical situation standing reality on
its head.
He declared, with a straight face, “Our international
order has been so successful that we take it as a given
that great powers no longer fight world wars; that the
end of the Cold War lifted the shadow of nuclear
Armageddon; that the battlefields of Europe have been
replaced by peaceful union.”
With due apologies to Shakespeare, some people are
born liars, others become liars, others have lies thrust
upon them, but all three definitions apply to the current
president of the United States.
Obama’s proclamation that the “shadow of nuclear
Armageddon” has passed flies in the face not only of
his own $1 trillion nuclear rearmament program, but
the proclamation of the Union of Concerned Scientists
that the US and China are “a few poor decisions away
from starting a war that could escalate rapidly and end
in a nuclear exchange.”
The president, moreover, did not mention that the
“peaceful union” that replaced “the battlefields of
Europe” was in the midst of dissolution amid growing
national antagonisms. Obama was speaking at the first
UN General Assembly to take place since the vote by
Britain in June 2016 to leave the European Union,
giving rise to demands for copycat votes throughout
Europe and warnings of a break-up of the entire
Eurozone.
As for “the battlefields of Europe,” NATO is moving
ahead with its deployment of 4,000 troops to the
Russian border, with high ranking NATO officials
announcing this weekend that all of the troops will be
in place by May. Behind the scenes, in the documents
of military think tanks, such border troops are spoken
of as “tripwires,” creating the rationale for military
escalation by NATO in the event of a conflict between
the Baltic States and Russia, substantially increasing
the chances of a full-scale war between the two most
powerful nuclear powers.
A substantial portion of Obama’s remarks were
devoted to hurling barbs at Russia, tacitly asserting
that it is a society “that asks less of oligarchs than
ordinary citizens” and declaring that Russia is
“attempting to recover lost glory through force.” But
these declarations would have been directed far more
appropriately at the US, the most unequal developed
country in the world. The American ruling class has
been engaged in unending war in the effort to counter
its long-term economic decline.
Obama framed his remarks as a reflection on the past
eight years of his administration, as well as on the 25
years that have passed since the dissolution of the
USSR. “A quarter century after the end of the Cold
War, the world is by many measures less violent and
more prosperous than ever before,” Obama declared,
adding that the US has “been a force for good” over
this period.
Contrary to Obama’s half-hearted declarations, the
past quarter century has abjectly failed to live up to the
proponents of capitalist triumphalism, who declared
that the fall of the USSR would usher in a new era of
peace and democracy. The US, far from being “a force
for good” over this period, has been the single greatest
purveyor of destabilization, violence and disorder.
Beginning with the First Gulf War in 1991, the US has
been perpetually at war, having bombed or invaded
Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Afghanistan,
Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and Syria, and carried out
destabilization operations in countless other countries.
These wars are now metastasizing into an increasingly
direct conflict with Russia and China. This is
accompanied by the militarization of the major
imperialist powers, including Japan and Germany, as
ruling classes throughout the world prepare for military
conflict.
The General Assembly opened in the aftermath of
Saturday’s bombing of a Syrian army base by the US
military, in a flagrant violation of the ceasefire brokered
between the US and its proxies on one side, and the
Syrian government, backed by Russia, on the other.
The attack led to over 90 fatalities and was carried out
with the assistance of British, Australian and German
forces, potentially embroiling these countries in a
military conflict with Russia.
The bombing took place as Turkish President Erdogan,
Washington’s ally in the Syria conflict, said Monday
that Turkey plans to dramatically expand the area of
Syria under its direct control by more than five-fold, to
5,000 square kilometers. US ground forces are fighting
alongside Turkish-backed insurgents, raising the
danger of a clash between Russian forces operating in
Northern Syria and US ground troops fighting
alongside Turkey.
But the conflict in Syria is just one in an innumerable
series of global flashpoints throughout Europe and
Asia. Last week, Japan announced it would participate
in US-led patrols in the disputed South China Sea,
sparking condemnation from China, which Japan
invaded and occupied in the run-up to World War II.
Meanwhile in Kashmir, 11 more people were killed in
recent days following an attack Sunday that left 18
Indian soldiers dead, in the heaviest fighting in years in
the region. Were the conflict, escalated to a fever pitch
by the US-led “Pivot to Asia,” to escalate into a war
between India and Pakistan, it would be the first ever
war between two nuclear-armed powers.
Any one of these or other complex conflicts—in which
multiple countries are each engaged in low-level proxy
fighting and jockeying for their regional interests—risks
sparking an uncontrolled escalation, like the conflict
that began in the Balkans in June 1914.
Obama intended to make his speech an account of the
“progress that we’ve made these last eight years.” In
the end, all he succeeded in doing was to emphasize
how much closer to global war the world has come
during his administration.
Andre Damon

Questions mount over

government contacts with
NYC bomb suspect
By Patrick Martin
21 September 2016

Several federal agencies with responsibility for

counterterrorism opened files two years ago on Ahmad
Khan Rahami, the man facing charges for at least two
bombings Saturday in New Jersey and New York,
according to media reports. Neither the FBI nor
Customs and Border Patrol added Rahami’s name to
the vast US government terrorism database, the
agencies claimed.
Rahami was arrested Monday morning after an
exchange of gunfire with police in Linden, New Jersey,
after the owner of a local bar saw him sleeping in a
doorway. He suffered gunshots to the shoulder and leg
and was in critical but stable condition, and was
expected to survive.
Several media outlets reported that Rahami’s father,
Mohammad Rahami, had called the FBI in 2014,
complaining that his son was acting like a “terrorist.” At
the time, Ahmad Rahami had been arrested on
suspicion of domestic violence after a series of
altercations with his brother, sister and mother.
FBI officials claimed they ran a background check on
the son, who had just returned to the United States
after an extended stay in Pakistan. The bureau
ultimately concluded that there was no security
concern in a domestic dispute, which did not lead to
formal charges. A grand jury declined to indict Ahmad
Rahami after his sister recanted her accusation that he
had stabbed her.
An official statement from the FBI declared, “In August
2014, the F.B.I. initiated an assessment of Ahmad
Rahami based upon comments made by his father
after a domestic dispute that were subsequently
reported to authorities ... The F.B.I. conducted internal
database reviews, interagency checks, and multiple
interviews, none of which revealed ties to terrorism.”
According to the agency, the same investigative
process was applied to Rahami as to Tamerlan
Tsarnaev, one of the two brothers responsible for the
2013 Boston Marathon bombings, after Russian
intelligence sources told their US counterparts he had
links to Islamist terrorist groups in Daghestan, and to
Omar Mateen, the gunman who killed 49 people at a
gay bar in Orlando, Florida earlier this summer.
Rahami came to the United States in 1995 at the age
of seven, several years after his father, who had
sought asylum as a former soldier in the US-backed
mujaheddin guerrillas who had fought the Soviet army
and the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul. Ahmad
Rahami became a naturalized US citizen in 2011, at
the age of 23.
That same year, he returned to Afghanistan and went
on to Pakistan, marrying a local woman. He returned
again to Pakistan and Afghanistan from April 2013 until
March 2014, as part of a protracted effort to get his
wife an entry visa for the US. During much of this
period Rahami and his wife lived in Quetta, a Pakistani
border city that is home to hundreds of thousands of
Afghan exiles, including the leadership of the Taliban.
According to US officials, Rahami was questioned
every time he returned from Afghanistan or Pakistan, a
standard procedure with travelers to that part of the
world. He had extensive contact during this period with
the Customs and Border Patrol unit of the Department
of Homeland Security, which initially denied a visa to
his wife because her Pakistani papers were out of
date, and later because she became pregnant.
Rahami contacted the offices of his New Jersey
congressman, Albo Sires, a Democrat, seeking
assistance on the visa. The Pakistani woman,
identified as Asia Bibi Rahami, ultimately did join
Rahami in New Jersey with their child. She reportedly
left the country a week before the bombings to make a
visit to Pakistan, and was to return to the US later this
week. Asia Rahami was detained in Dubai—a frequent
stopover point for flights between Pakistan and the
United States—and has reportedly agreed to
cooperate with the US investigation into the attacks in
New Jersey and New York.
There were conflicting reports, all emanating from
various police sources, about the sophistication of the
bombs that wounded 29 people in the Chelsea
neighborhood of Manhattan and exploded without
causing any injuries in Seaside, New Jersey, as well as
the explosive devices that were found and disarmed in
Chelsea and in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Some press reports claimed that the bombs were
primitive and poorly constructed, suggesting that
Rahami was an amateur using techniques gleaned
from the Internet. Other reports claimed the bombs
were well-constructed and suggested some training by
a terrorist organization.
No group has claimed responsibility for the bombings
in New Jersey and New York, or any ties to Rahami.
The Afghan Taliban flatly denied any involvement, and
the group is not known to have conducted any
operations outside of its home territory in Afghanistan
and Pakistan. ISIS was not active in that area until
2015, after Rahami’s last visit there.
Police claim to have recovered a notebook in Rahami’s
possession when he was arrested, containing notes
praising the Islamic fundamentalist preacher Anwar al-
Awlaki, who was assassinated by a US drone missile
in 2011, as well as references to the Boston Marathon
bombing, which used a pressure-cooker device similar
to the one found in Chelsea.
Meanwhile, the Chelsea bombing continued to be
employed by both Democratic and Republican
presidential candidates as a means of demonstrating
that they were “tough” on terrorism and on the Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria, although there is no evidence
that Rahami had any connections to ISIS.
Republican Donald Trump continued to denounce the
supposedly lax screening of immigrants and refugees,
although no terrorist attacks in the United States have
involved refugees or asylum-seekers. He called for the
harshest possible interrogation of Rahami, including
the use of “whatever lawful methods are available to
obtain information”—a euphemism he has frequently
used to describe torture techniques such as
waterboarding.
He also expressed regret that Rahami might receive
decent medical care and legal representation,
suggesting that these were privileges that no US
citizen facing such charges should enjoy.
Democrat Hillary Clinton denounced Trump as a
“recruiting sergeant” for ISIS because of his well-
publicized anti-Muslim comments. “We’re going after
the bad guys, and we’re going to get them, but we’re
not going after an entire religion,” she said, adding,
“We know that Donald Trump’s comments have been
used online for the recruitment of terrorists.”
Both candidates chose to demonstrate their support for
brutality, torture and state killing of prisoners—in the
name of fighting “terrorism”—by holding private
meetings with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi,
who is in New York to address the UN General
Assembly.
Trump hailed the Egyptian leader, who took power in
2013 in a brutal crackdown on the working class and
youth, issuing a statement declaring “his strong
support for Egypt’s war on terrorism, and how under a
Trump administration, the United States of America will
be a loyal friend, not simply an ally, that Egypt can
count on in the days and years ahead.”
Clinton issued no statement, but it is well known that
she was the last-ditch defender in the Obama
administration of the former dictator Hosni Mubarak, al-
Sisi’s predecessor, when mass protests led to the
regime’s collapse early in 2011.

Tulsa, Oklahoma police

release videos of slaying of
unarmed man
By Zaida Green
21 September 2016

The Tulsa Police Department (TPD) released

helicopter and dashboard video on Monday showing
the police killing of 40-year-old Terence Crutcher.
Crutcher, unarmed and not a suspect in any crime,
was surrendering peacefully when police officers
simultaneously shot him with a stun gun and a pistol.
The videos show Crutcher with his hands in the air,
walking slowly toward his car, as two officers follow
him with their weapons drawn. Crutcher places his
hands against his car’s windows. Immediately after, at
19:44, a single gunshot is heard and Crutcher’s head
slumps. More officers run to the scene and Crutcher
collapses.
Three police officers stand over Crutcher’s body while
two others search his car. After the search is over, all
five police officers leave Crutcher in a pool of his own
blood while they redirect traffic. Two and a half minutes
passes before anyone begins to administer medical
treatment—and only after they search his pockets.
When reporters asked the TPD why it took so long for
police to give Crutcher any help, the TPD’s public
information officer, Jeanne MacKenzie, claimed that
the delay occurred because the police officers didn't
know what to do. “I don’t know that we have protocol
on how to render aid to people,” she said.
Crutcher was leaving a college class when his car
began experiencing mechanical trouble. He left his car
in the middle of the road with the engine still running
and approached a passerby for help. Two 911 calls
were made around 19:30 reporting his abandoned
vehicle. “He was like, come here, come here. I think it’s
going to blow up,” one caller reported Crutcher saying.
The videos disprove the initial police claims that
Crutcher had approached the officers, that he was not
cooperating, and that he was reaching into his car
window when they shot him. “We saw that Terence
was not being belligerent,” said Damario Solomon-
Simmons, an attorney representing Crutcher’s family.
“We did not see Terence reach into the car. We did not
see Terence attacking the officers.”
The TPD claims that no video was recorded from the
dashboard of Betty Shelby, the 42-year-old white
police officer who killed Crutcher, a black man.
“Officers have discretion whether or not to turn their
light bar on. The dashcam is attached to the light bar,”
explained MacKenzie. Shelby is a four-year veteran of
the TPD and has been placed on paid administrative
leave. The TPD has identified Tyler Turnbough as the
officer who used the stun gun on Crutcher.
Brady Henderson, the legal director of the American
Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Oklahoma, called the
actions of the police officers “immoral, reprehensible,
and outright criminal” and labelled the TPD’s initial
report “a bold-faced lie, as were TPD’s statements
about his transport and death at a local hospital.”
Ryan Kiesel, the executive director of the ACLU of
Oklahoma, said that Crutcher was murdered “in cold
blood. Each of the officers present were complicit in
the unconscionable, reprehensible, and disgusting
killing of this unarmed, defenseless man, by allowing
him to bleed to death on the street rather than
attempting any immediate medical aid or attention.”
The ACLU of Oklahoma is calling for criminal charges
against the police officers involved. “If this killing is
investigated competently and fairly,” said Henderson, “I
believe we will see murder or manslaughter charges
against the shooter, and hopefully accessory charges
against the officers who treated Terence Crutcher like a
piece of meat rather than a human being.” The
Department of Justice has initiated an investigation
into Crutcher’s murder.
Shelby maintains that she thought Crutcher was high
on PCP because he was “mumbling incoherently,”
according to her attorney, Scott Wood. The TPD
announced yesterday afternoon that the drug was
found in Crutcher’s vehicle. Police Sgt. Shane Tuell
told the Associated Press that Shelby was certified in
the use of stun guns.
The TPD and Tulsa officials have attempted to defuse
the popular anger surrounding Crutcher’s murder,
promising transparency and asking for protests to
remain peaceful. Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan,
speaking at a press conference on Monday, assured
“people across the nation” that “we will achieve justice,
period.”
Tulsa Council Member Jack Henderson, recalling the
eruption of social unrest in Milwaukee and Baltimore,
equated police murder with the protests against it.
“[W]e don’t want to see what happens in other cities
here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’ve already got two
families’ [the Crutchers and the Shelbys] lives who will
be affected forever. We don’t need some more lives to
be changed this way.”
Crutcher’s twin sister, Tiffany, drew a connection
between Terence’s death and the scores of other
police killings throughout the United States. “This is
bigger than us right here,” she said at a press
conference yesterday morning.
She denounced the profiling by the TPD helicopter
pilot who was flying over the scene of her brother’s
murder. “You all want to know who that big, ‘bad dude’
was? That big, ‘bad dude’ was a father. That big, ‘bad
dude’ was a son. That big, ‘bad dude’ was enrolled at
Tulsa Community College, just wanting to make us
proud. That big, ‘bad dude’ loved God. That big, ‘bad
dude’ was at church singing, with all of his flaws, every
week.” Crutcher’s family said that singing was his
passion and the subject of his studies at college.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton,
speaking on the Steve Harvey Morning Show, blamed
the bloody wave of police violence on the “implicit bias”
of “white people.” She concluded by commending the
“good, honourable, cool-headed police officers” serving
across the country. Whites make up a plurality of the
1,146 people killed by American police last year.
Crutcher’s murder comes just three months after the
TPD’s last two killings, of Michael Ray Ramsey Jr. and
Jerry Brimer on July 17 and July 18 respectively.
According to KilledByPolice.net, Crutcher is the 825th
person to be killed by police in the United States this
year. At the time of this writing, another 13 people have
been killed by police since Crutcher’s death.
Kremlin party wins
parliamentary elections amid
low voter turnout
By Andrea Peters
21 September 2016

In an election with notably low turnout, Russia’s ruling

party has won a supermajority in the country’s
parliament. In Sunday’s contest, United Russia (UR)
saw its number of Duma representatives rise from 238
to 343, giving the party, which is allied to President
Vladimir Putin, control of over three-quarters of the
votes in the 450-seat body.
UR garnered just over 54 percent of the total ballots
cast. The party’s control of the parliament is a product
of the fact that election laws were recently changed
such that half of the seats are no longer allotted
proportionately, but rather in first-past-the-post
contests in which UR candidates dominated.
Compared to 2011, the ruling party saw its vote rise by
just 5 percent. It is down by about 10 points compared
to 2007, the final year of the Putin-era economic boom.
The Stalinist Communist Party of the Russian
Federation (KPRF), led by Gennady Zyuganov, and
the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia
(LDPR), under the control of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, each
commanded about 15 percent of the vote and won 42
and 39 seats respectively. In a major reversal of
fortunes, the KPRF lost 50 spots and the LDPR 17
relative to 2011. Speaking of his party’s poor
performance and near-equal level of Duma
representation now with the LDPR, Zyuganov
declared, “This is not just deception, it’s a dangerous
aberration, which will inevitably end up undermining
stability.”
The LDPR and KPRF were trailed by A Just Russia,
which now has 23 representatives in the Duma, along
with a handful of other groups that collectively have
three seats. Constituting a loyal “opposition,” all of
these organizations have worked hand-in-glove with
UR and the Kremlin for years to pass right-wing
policies and promote Russian nationalism to shore up
the government.
In a rebuke of the free-market, pro-Western policies of
the country’s leading liberals, the two most well known
such outfits, Yabloko and PARNAS, commanded less
than 1 and 2 percent of the vote respectively, failing to
cross the minimum threshold to enter parliament.
Despite securing a significant win, United Russia’s
supermajority does not indicate the existence of deep-
seated support for the Kremlin. Overall, turnout fell by
about 12 points, falling to just shy of 48 percent from
61 percent just five years ago. It is the lowest it has
been since the start of the 2000s.
Indicating widespread disaffection in Russia’s
economic and political centers, participation was worst
in the country’s two major cities, Moscow and Saint
Petersburg, where just 28.7 and 25.6 percent of the
electorate respectively went to the polls. Turnout in the
country’s capital has collapsed in the last five years. In
the previous parliamentary cycle in 2011, after which
antigovernment protests erupted, 66 percent of voters
cast ballots in Moscow.
UR’s popularity in that city is also much lower than in
outer-lying regions. This year the Kremlin party won
just 38 percent of the vote, far less than the overall
total.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov declared that the
supermajority meant that the government had received
a “vote of confidence” from the population. While
acknowledging that the level of support in the big cities
was “a bit lower,” he insisted that turnout in European
elections is usually below that witnessed in Russia this
year.
A political scientist speaking to the Russian news outlet
TASS sought to make a similar argument, insisting that
the fall in voter participation was simply the country
catching up to broader “global trends.”
Putin, however, sounded a more cautionary note.
“Things are tough but people still voted for United
Russia. It means that people see that United Russia
members are really working hard for people even
though it doesn’t always work,” he said.
Sergei Mironov of A Just Russia declared that the
turnout problem lay in a lack of “faith in the electoral
system,” such that “people think their vote won’t
count.”
The far-right nationalist, Vladimir Zhirinovksy of the
LDPR, denounced the population for abstaining. “More
than 57 million people didn’t go and vote. It’s a
disgrace,” he declared.
Mikhail Kasyanov, the leader of PARNAS, said,
“Citizens had no faith in elections as an institution. This
is the result of government policies. It’s their fault.” His
party, however, was repudiated by the electorate,
unable to win voters dissatisfied with the Kremlin’s
policies. Allegations of voter fraud have surfaced. In
Moscow, opposition leaders reported so-called
carousel voting in which people move from one place
to another, casting multiple ballots. YouTube videos
taken in some southern Russian cities appear to show
ballot stuffing.
In other locales, soldiers not registered to vote were
seen lining up in large numbers regardless. One
opposition leader claimed that in the Siberian mountain
region of Altai, young people were casting ballots in
place of older, registered voters. In Dagestan, youth
attacked a voting place in anger over alleged ballot
stuffing on the part of officials. Issues have also been
reported of voting taking place on open tables, as
opposed to in curtained booths. The election rights
organization GOLOS says it has received over 2,000
complaints.
Ella Pamfilova, the recently appointed head of the
Russian Election Commission and a well-established
human rights figure, indicated that some investigations
were underway. According to her, there are three
regions where the vote may be invalidated. The
elections were monitored by 264,000 observers,
including international representatives.
At the Russian embassy in Ukraine, dozens of right-
wing protesters sought to interfere with Russian
citizens who came to cast ballots. At least one voter
was assaulted. The European Union and the virulently
anti-Russian, pro-US government in Ukraine are
refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the Russian
parliamentary vote in Crimea. Moscow absorbed the
peninsula after a popular referendum held there in the
aftermath of the February 2014 coup in Kiev supported
unification with Russia.
Polish government
strengthens the far right
By Clara Weiss
21 September 2016

As part of its preparations for war against Russia, the

Polish government is deliberately strengthening the far
right.
Since the Law and Justice Party (PiS) entered
government last autumn, the number of attacks of a
racist or xenophobic character has risen to its highest
level since 1989. This was revealed by investigations
by the NGO Nigdy Więcej (Never Again).
Currently, there are almost daily incidents of violent
attacks by right-wing forces.
Widespread attention was given recently to an assault
on Jerzy Kochanowski, a history professor at Warsaw
University. A drunk right-winger insulted and struck
Kochanowski on a tram because he was speaking
German with a colleague from the University of Jena.
He received virtually no assistance from fellow
passengers and was forced to have a head wound
treated in hospital.
On the same day, two women of Asian origin fell victim
to right-wing violence. In an open letter, university
students announced their solidarity with the professor
and opposed the growth of racist and nationalist
sentiments.
The PiS government is consciously encouraging this
development. It is stoking racism and strengthening
the influence of the far right with state measures.
In April, Prime Minister Beata Szydlo abolished the
Council for the Struggle against Racism and
Discrimination, which was established under the
previous government. At the same time, she is
integrating radical right-wing groups into the state
apparatus.
The most well-known example is the ONR (National
Radical Camp), whose members have been
responsible for several attacks on foreigners and
homosexuals. In August, ONR members attacked the
leaders of the Komitet Obrony Demokracji (KOD)
opposition movement, sending them to the hospital.
Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz has been
planning, since the beginning of the year, the
integration of the ONR into a new territorial defence
unit, which is being expanded into a second army
under the direct control of Macierewicz and the PiS
government.
Both in terms of its name and programme, the ONR
stands in the tradition of the organisation of the same
name in the 1930s, which belonged to the so-called
Endecja under Roman Dmowski and became a
training ground for Polish fascist paramilitary units.
These units were not only responsible for anti-Semitic
assaults and attacks on Jewish businesses, but also at
times collaborated with the Nazis in the persecution of
the Jews during the German occupation of Poland.
Militant anti-Semitism and racism continue to be key
planks of the ONR’s programme today. Some of their
members have been prosecuted for using the Hitler
salute. Like its predecessor organisation in the 1930s,
the ONR finds support today among academics: their
current leader is 27-year-old Aleksander Krejckant, a
graduate of European studies.
Another prominent figure is Justyna Helcyk, who has a
degree in chemistry.
Catholic priests have repeatedly organised joint events
with ONR members over recent years. Jacek Międlar,
a priest from Wrocław, is an open supporter of the
ONR. He compared the organisation, according
toNewsweek Polska, to “chemotherapy for a malignant
tumour that has affected Poland and the Poles.”
In the Sejm, Poland’s parliament, the government also
cooperates indirectly with the ONR. The ONR is part of
the National Movement (Ruch Narodowy, RN), which
supported the Kukiz’15 party in the election and was
therefore rewarded with five of its 42 seats. This party
collaborates closely with the PiS in parliament.
The PiS is itself closely tied to the extreme right.
Macierewicz was a leading member for many years of
various ultra-right formations and published a radically
nationalist and anti-Semitic newspaper, before joining
PiS in 2005. After the PiS election victory and
assumption of power for the first time in 2005, many
members of the right-wing coalition Liga polskich
rodzin (LPR, League of Polish Families) joined the PiS,
including Jan Olszewski, the official adviser to former
President Lech Kaczyński, who died in 2010.
In addition, the right-wing Catholic radio station Radio
Maryja is a firm backer of the PiS government. The
station has its main influence over sections of the rural
population in the east of the country. It is led by priests
and media mogul Tadeusz Rydzyk. Rydzyk has
enjoyed the official support of the Vatican since the
time of Pope Benedict XVI, even though he has
repeatedly made anti-Semitic, homophobic and racist
statements.
The strengthening of the radical right is part of the
militarisation of Polish society with which the PiS
government is preparing for war with Russia and a
brutal suppression of social protests from the working
class.
During its first year in power, the PiS has taken major
steps towards the construction of a police state and
encouraged a nationalist revision of history. The PiS
has increased the defence budget, which had already
risen to 2 percent of GDP under the Citizens Platform
(PO) government, to 3 percent of GDP. The PiS plans
to spend a total of €16.3 billion in the coming years on
rearming the military.
Poland will therefore be one of the most important
arms markets in Europe, together with the Baltic
states, which are also rearming swiftly against Russia.
According to arms expert Ben Morris from Jane ’s, the
arms are above all “heavy military equipment like tanks
that are planned for use in a conventional war on its
eastern border.”
The US, Poland’s most important international ally, and
NATO support the military buildup and the right-wing
forces imposing it.
In the lead-up to the NATO summit, which took place in
Warsaw in July, six former Polish defence ministers
closely aligned to the opposition PO called for the
resignation of Macierewicz. But the conference, where
Obama shook his hand, adopted measures closely
corresponding to those proposed by Macierewicz.
Macierewicz was therefore able to significantly
consolidate his position in the government. After PiS
head Jarosław Kaczyński, observers view Macierewicz
as the most influential politician in Poland.
In an interview with the opposition-aligned
newspaper Polityka, General a. D. Janusz Boronowicz
said that Macierewicz had more power than any other
defence minister prior to him. “Essentially he can do
what he likes. In my view he is the first civilian leader
of the armed forces.” Boronowicz has played a leading
role in the Polish army for close to two decades and
was influential in interventions in Afghanistan and
Syria. He resigned from the army early this year out of
protest at the reforms introduced by Macierewicz.
The interview with the general in Polityka sheds light
on the sharp tensions being produced within the ruling
elite by the PiS government’s political agenda.
Boronowicz accused Macierewicz of being responsible
for leaving the army leaderless and dividing the army
leadership.
With direct reference to Germany’s invasion of Poland
at the start of World War II, he said, “The situation is
totally unacceptable. And in the event of a potential
conflict it is preparing the way directly to a repetition of
the defeat of September 1939. We are on the best
path to repeating all of the mistakes of the past.”
This general and the liberal opposition fear that the
PiS’ politics are dividing Polish society to such an
extent that the stability of the state could be at stake in
the event of a war or a social movement of the working
class.
The editor of Newsweek Polska and a well-known
supporter of the opposition, Tomasz Lis, accused
Andrzej Duda (PiS) of being the weakest president
since 1989. He warned, “Since 1989, Poland has
never needed a real president more than it does now,
at a time when the position of the state is at risk and
the community is more fragile than perhaps ever
before.”

fter the Berlin state election

German government steps up
anti-refugee agitation
By Johannes Stern
21 September 2016
The established parties are responding to their
catastrophic result in the Berlin state election Sunday
with a sharp shift to the right. While the SPD, Left Party
and Greens are preparing to continue the programme
of austerity, anti-refugee agitation and a build-up of the
state apparatus at home and abroad within the
framework of a red-red-green coalition, the Christian
Democratic Union (CDU) is ever more explicitly
adopting the programme of the far-right Alternative for
Germany (AfD).
On Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU)
used her party’s historic low election result to distance
herself from the position of a “welcoming culture” for
refugees, which was falsely attributed to her. Speaking
to media representatives in Berlin, she made clear that
her statement “We can do this” never had anything to
do with solidarity towards refugees. “Much” was
“interpreted or even decoded from this common
statement of daily life. So much that I would almost
prefer not to repeat it again,” the chancellor said.
Referring to the right wing of her own party and the
constant criticism from the Bavarian sister party CSU
(Christian Social Union), Merkel added, “Some felt
themselves provoked by the sentence—and that was
of course never the intention with the short sentence.”
Then she went on, “This situation should never be
repeated like we…had last year, with an at times
uncontrolled and unregistered influx—I am fighting
precisely to prevent that from being repeated…
Nobody wants this situation to be repeated, myself
included.”
Merkel openly acknowledged her disappointment that
the government had proven incapable of preventing
the refugees from the war zones in the Middle East
from reaching Germany from the outset. If she could,
she would have liked to turn back time by many, many
years, “so that I, together with the whole government
and all of those in positions of responsibility could be
better prepared for the situation that hit us in the late
summer of 2015,” Merkel stated. Then she
provocatively added that she wanted to make an offer
to the AfD voters.
Merkel has increasingly adopted the rhetoric of the far
right within and outside the CDU/CSU over recent
weeks. According to a report in Die Welt, she told a
parliamentary group meeting at the beginning of
September that the most important thing now was to
deport asylum seekers whose applications had been
rejected. “Over the coming months, the most important
thing is repatriation, repatriation and, once again,
repatriation,” the conservative paper cited the
chancellor as saying. A few days later, Merkel was
cited as having stated, “Germany will remain Germany.
With everything that is dear and valued to us.”
While the bourgeois press is talking of “a new tone”
from the chancellor (Tagesschau), or even a “change
of course” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), Merkel in
reality represented a right-wing, inhumane refugee
policy from the outset. Merkel and the grand coalition
have been working feverishly with the support of large
sections of the Left Party and Greens over the past
year for a “joint” European solution in order to prevent
new refugees from reaching Europe and brutally
deport those who have already arrived.
Significantly, the CDU Bundestag (federal parliament)
Berlin deputy and Merkel supporter Karl-Georg
Wellmann boasted in an interview with
Deutschlandfunk on Tuesday, “The flow of refugees
has stopped. Why is nobody saying that already this
year over 60,000 refugees have returned to their
homes? Why is nobody saying that 100,000
deportations have taken place?”
The “Bratislava Declaration,” passed last Friday at the
EU summit, gives an indication of Merkel’s reactionary
refugee policy. The section titled “Migration and
external borders” calls for a strengthening of fortress
Europe, denies refugees from wars the right to asylum
and demands further mass deportations of refugees
from the Middle East and North Africa. The paper calls
on the EU “Never to allow return to uncontrolled flows
of last year and further bring down the number of
irregular migrants” and to “ensure full control of our
external borders.”
As concrete measures, the paper calls for a “full
commitment to implementing the EU-Turkey statement
as well as continued support to the countries of the
Western Balkans.” In addition, a number of EU states
had promised “to offer immediate assistance to
strengthen the protection of Bulgaria’s border with
Turkey, and continue support to other frontline states.”
In a summit in March, the EU states secured
commitments from the Turkish government to
completely close the borders for refugees and intercept
boats before they can even leave Turkey in exchange
for money and diplomatic concessions. The right-wing
Balkan governments built border fences and mobilised
the military so as to hermetically seal off the so-called
Balkan route to refugees.
This apparently does not go far enough for Merkel and
the EU. By the end of the year, the EU must ensure
“full capacity for rapid reaction of the European Border
and Coastguard” and negotiate agreements with third
countries “to lead to reduced flows of irregular
migration and increased return rates.” In other words,
the notorious border protection agency Frontex and
other state security forces will launch even more major
operations against refugees on Europe’s external
borders. At the same time, the EU intends to expand
its collaboration with the authoritarian regimes in North
Africa and Turkey to deter refugees and to deport them
immediately without any bureaucratic hurdles if they
manage to reach Europe.
Merkel’s statements and the EU paper underscore the
dishonesty and hypocrisy of the German government
and the EU’s claims to defend “European values” such
as freedom and democracy against racism and
nationalism. In reality, they pursue an anti-refugee
policy that is hardly distinguishable from that of
France’s National Front, the UK Independence Party or
the AfD and plays directly into the hands of the far
right.
The brutal approach to refugees by the ruling elite is
directly bound up with the militarisation of Europe at
home and abroad, which is above all being pushed by
Berlin. The Bratislava Declaration also included
“concrete measures” for the imposition of Europe’s
geopolitical and economic interests against its global
competitors. “In a changing political environment” the
European Council should “decide on a concrete
implementation plan on security and defence” at its
December meeting, the declaration stated.
Already prior to the meeting, German Defence Minister
Ursula Von der Leyen and her French counterpart
Jean-Yves Le Drian called in a six-page paper for an
implementation of the new “EU global strategy for
foreign and security policy.” This required “a stronger
Europe in security and defence affairs, European
strategic autonomy and a credible, rapid, effective and
reaction ready” European military policy, which must
“now be rapidly translated into concrete plans of
action.” Among other things, the German-French paper
proposes the construction of an autonomous
“European defence industry,” as well as “a permanent
EU HQ for military and civil missions and operations.”
The European working class must decisively reject the
agitation against refugees. It must counterpoise to the
politics of nationalism, militarism and war, which enjoy
the full backing of the entire ruling elite, their own
independent strategy: the construction of an
international movement against capitalism and war and
the unification of Europe on a socialist basis.

UK parliamentary report
criticises Libya war but
conceals its geo-strategic aims
By Jean Shaoul
21 September 2016

Following a year of deliberations, the House of

Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee published
its report on Britain’s military assault, alongside France
and the US, on Libya in 2011.
It broadly followed the line of the Chilcot report,
published a few months ago, into the Iraq war,
although it did not have access to internal papers. The
committee interviewed senior ministers at the time,
former Prime Minister Tony Blair, Chief of Defence
Staff Lord Richards and diplomatic staff. David
Cameron, who headed the Conservative-Liberal
Democrat coalition government at the time of the
invasion, refused to give evidence. He announced that
he was resigning his parliamentary seat just two days
before the report was published.
The committee was unable to travel to Libya to
interview witnesses due to the dangerous security
situation.
The report agreed with the assessment of US
President Barack Obama, who according to
the Atlantic magazine described the intervention as “a
shit show.” It makes damning criticisms of the
Cameron government for:
* Falsely claiming without any evidence that Colonel
Muammar Gaddafi was about to carry out a massacre
of genocidal proportions against protesters in
Benghazi.
* Rushing into a military intervention without first
pursuing other options, including sanctions, an arms
embargo, diplomacy or Tony Blair’s close links with the
Gaddafi regime.
* Failing to understand how Libya’s system of
government and society worked.
* Pursuing “an opportunistic policy of regime change,”
despite telling parliament in March 2011 that the
objective of the intervention was not regime change.
One month later, Cameron signed a joint letter with the
French and US presidents that set out their aim to
pursue “a future without Gaddafi.”
* Supporting rebels among whom Islamist groups were
known to be embedded.
* Failing to develop “a strategy to support and shape
post-Gaddafi Libya.”
The report also criticises the UK’s current role in Libya
for its apparent contradictions.
The government is, without parliamentary approval,
deploying SAS troops to support the new Government
of National Accord and battle Islamic State (ISIS) in the
northwestern city of Misrata. At the same time, the
Royal Air Force is supporting rival forces led by
General Khalifa Haftar, a CIA asset airlifted by the
Americans back into Benghazi during the 2011 war.
His forces have been moving slowly west from
Benghazi toward the ISIS stronghold of Sirte, after
seizing control of 14 oil fields along the way from the
forces of Ibrahim Jadhran and the Petroleum Facilities’
Guards (PFG), which had sought autonomy for the
east and attempted to sell oil independently of the
government in Tripoli. In addition, the Royal Navy is
patrolling the Libyan coast to combat weapons
shipments.
It is widely anticipated that the Hafter and Misrata
forces, both vying for position as the Western puppet
ruler in the country, may end up battling each other
rather than ISIS. Such a conflicted policy can only lead
to the de facto partition of yet another country in the
Middle East and North Africa.
The committee concluded that, like the Iraq war, which
supposedly rested on Blair’s erroneous claims about
Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, the result was a
foreign policy disaster for which Cameron as prime
minister bore full responsibility. It noted that the
consequences were “political and economic collapse,
inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and
migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the
spread of Gaddafi regime weapons across the region
and the growth of [the Islamic State group] in North
Africa.”
From March to October 2011, an estimated 20,000
people were killed in the war, which plunged the Libyan
people into a humanitarian catastrophe that continues
to this day. Ever since the toppling of Gaddafi, the
fighting between hundreds of militias for control of
Libya’s rich resources has led to the flight of 2 million
people, one third of the pre-war population, to Tunisia,
Egypt and elsewhere, and the internal displacement of
hundreds of thousands.
The report’s bitter recriminations against Cameron, as
well as its lauding of Blair’s links with Gaddafi’s son
and heir apparent, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who now
faces charges at the International Criminal Court at the
Hague, point to anger and frustration of layers within
ruling circles, including among the military and
corporate bosses. They have concluded that the UK
sacrificed the oil explorations concessions it won after
Blair brought Libya in from the cold in 1999 as well as
inward investment in London and got nothing in return.
The committee’s charges of lying to parliament and
flouting international law are war crimes, for which
Cameron should face charges. But while blaming
Cameron, there is no suggestion that he or his
government should be held culpable as it would
expose the support his war policy had in the political
and financial establishment—with only 13 MPs voting
against the war—as well as the media.
To this end, the report conceals the broader geo-
political objectives of the war and the divisions this
opened up between the major powers.
The NATO-led war on the Gaddafi regime came in the
immediate aftermath of the Arab Spring. It was,
following the US-dominated war against Iraq, an
occasion where rival imperialist powers sought to stake
their claim to domination of oil-rich North Africa and the
Middle East.
US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks dating
from 2007 showed how the US, like Britain under Blair,
had pursued a policy of normalisation with the Gaddafi
regime in a bid to secure access to Libya’s resources.
But Washington became increasingly frustrated at what
it called “Libyan resource nationalism” and warned
Gaddafi in 2009 that “putting pressure on US
companies ‘crossed a red line’.”
With Russia and China securing relations with Libya,
tensions also mounted between the US, France, Italy
and the UK.
The US began discussing regime change in Libya as
early as 2008. But the first moves in this direction were
made by France and the UK—with Italy following on,
before the US did the same. Having done so, it was
the US with superior firepower that soon re-established
a central role in the war.
As a result, the US was the only power to benefit in
any significant way from the Libyan war. Immediately
after Gaddafi’s lynching, Washington announced it was
sending troops to four more African countries—the
Central African Republic, Uganda, South Sudan and
the Democratic Republic of Congo. The following year,
AFRICOM, the US military’s African command, carried
out 14 major joint military exercises in African
countries, impossible without Gaddafi’s ouster.
Because of Gaddafi’s influence in the African Union
(AU), the US was unable to find a headquarters for
AFRICOM in Africa and had to base it in Stuttgart,
Germany. Now the AU is being lined up to carry out
Washington’s colonial ventures, as its forces are
integrated with those of AFRICOM.
The war nevertheless proved on balance to be a
disaster, helping to destabilise the entire region and
contributing massively to the escalating refugee crisis.
Having turned Libya into the model of a “failed state”
with its first intervention, the Obama administration
now wants to launch a second incursion in order to
consolidate some kind of neo-colonial regime via the
Government of National Accord, which has so far been
unable to take up the reins of power.
One of the more overt political consequences of the
Libyan debacle has been the eruption of open disputes
between the US and its nominal European allies,
especially the UK. In March of this year, Obama
expressed his aggravation with “free riders” among
world leaders who call for international action but do
not commit sufficient military resources. The UK and
France, he said, had failed to stop post-war Libya from
“becoming a mess.”
A unilateral US military policy in Libya was not “at the
core of US interests,” but the European powers had
showed “an unwillingness to put any skin in the
game. ...”
Cameron, he complained, became “distracted by a
range of other things,” allowing French President
Nicolas Sarkozy to “trumpet the flights he was taking in
the air campaign, despite the fact that we had wiped
out all the air defences and essentially set up the entire
infrastructure”.
Obama’s criticisms were, of course, self-serving. But
they have clearly fed into the criticisms now made by
the Foreign Affairs Select Committee of Cameron’s
Libya war record. The committee’s findings thus reflect
the wide ranging considerations now under way as to
how British imperialism can reverse the setbacks it has
suffered, especially under conditions where the US is
demanding greater military spending and loyalty to US
dictates from the UK following the Brexit referendum
vote.

ore than a million Australians

live in poor housing
By John Harris
21 September 2016

Over one million people in Australia are living in poor

housing and, of those, more than 100,000 are in
dwellings regarded as very poor or derelict.
A report published last month found that 1,093,600
people, or nearly 5 percent of the population, live in
poor housing. The health of residents in these
households was more likely to be rated as being only
fair or poor compared to those living in better quality
housing.
The study, entitled “Poor housing quality: Prevalence
and health effects,” was conducted by researchers at
the University of Adelaide. They found that official
statistics do not account for a “hidden fraction” of the
population that is in dire circumstances.
Many families live in precarious and unstable
conditions, due to a combination of unaffordable
housing, lack of a secure tenure and poor quality
housing, plus inadequate access to social and
employment networks. In the major cities, tenants in
overcrowded dwellings have a lower health status, and
children in poor quality dwellings are more likely to
have long-term health issues, including a greater
likelihood of asthma and respiratory disease.
When it comes to public housing, only about 42
percent is in good condition. Some 20 percent of public
housing tenants live in very poor to derelict conditions.
Responding to the report, a public housing resident in
Port Lincoln, South Australia, provided a glimpse of the
shocking conditions. Identified only as Muzz, he told
the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “I live in a
Trust home with asbestos and no heating or cooling
but it’s a home nonetheless… so many people have no
home and will just struggle to exist.”
The report’s lead author Associate Professor Emma
Baker said: “There is a strong body of research linking
poor quality housing to measureable impacts on
mental, physical and general health.
“We know that damp, cold or mould in homes can
cause or exacerbate respiratory illnesses like asthma,
and overcrowding can promote communicable
disease, but just living in poor quality housing has
been linked to anxiety, depression, and a range of
other mental health conditions.
“Poor housing makes the already disadvantaged even
worse off. Younger people, people with disabilities and
ill health, those with low incomes, the unemployed or
those in part-time employment, indigenous people, and
renters are much more likely to be found in the
emerging slums of 21st century Australia,” she said.
The largest proportion of poor quality housing is in the
rental housing market, both private and public or social
housing. Nearly half, 47 percent, of all indigenous
Australians, who are among the most exploited and
disadvantaged layers of the working class, live in poor
quality housing.
Those who owned their own homes or held mortgages
accounted for 80.5 percent of those who occupied
homes of good to excellent condition. However, many
families who have mortgages are teetering on a knife’s
edge. Couples and families often rely on two incomes
to repay mortgages of hundreds of thousands of
dollars.
Australian housing costs are among the most
expensive and unaffordable in the world, “and that
plays a big role in people not being able to afford the
quality of dwelling they need,” Baker told Fairfax
Media.
Over the past three decades, the cost of private
housing has soared. From 1991 to 2011, the average
price of houses in Australia grew sharply by 263
percent, compared to an average after-tax income
growth of only 95 percent.
This is producing a mountain of debt. In 2014, the
mean home equity was at $427,847, compared with a
mean home value of $618,276. The mean household
debt was $190,429 on unappreciated mortgages. Job
losses, or loss of working hours can thrust many
families into poverty, when confronted by unrepayable
debts.
At the same time, for many the rental market is
unaffordable. In Sydney, one of the most expensive
cities in the world, median weekly rents range from a
low of $400 for a house and $390 for a unit in the outer
suburbs to a staggering $1,750 for a house and $720
for a unit in the wealthiest areas.
Hundreds of thousands of working-class families
experience housing stress—more than 30 percent of
their income is allocated to housing costs. To avoid
housing stress, a family or individual living in Sydney
would need to earn about $1,800 a week, and in
broader NSW, $1,500.
Yet the minimum wage is only $672.70 a week, while
the maximum unemployment payment for a single
adult without children is just $237 a week. In May
2016, the average weekly pay for a full-time worker in
NSW was just $1,160.20.
Home ownership is declining, and is now at its lowest
level in 50 years, marking an historic reversal from the
post-World War II period of rising ownership. According
to the best estimates, home ownership was at 51.7
percent in 2014, down from 57 percent in 2002. These
statistics include those paying off mortgages. In 2011-
12, outright home ownership was only 31 percent.
The Household Income and Labour Dynamics in
Australia (HILDA) survey, on which the report’s data
was based, demonstrated the ever-growing gulf
between the wealthy and the poor. Between 2002 and
2014, the average net wealth of the top 1 percent of
households more than doubled, from $3,905,912 to
$8,491,287. By contrast, the mean net household
wealth recorded for the lowest 10 percent was $6,148
in 2002 and only $10,820 in 2014.
Report lead author Baker appealed for remedial action,
saying: “We believe governments need to take steps to
ensure the supply of affordable and reasonable quality
housing, otherwise we are destined to become a
nation scarred once again by slums, reduced life
chances and shortened lives.”
But despite occasional government lip service to
providing affordable accommodation, the housing crisis
has continued to worsen. It is driven by soaring prices
that are producing a bonanza for property developers,
real estate speculators, finance houses and
construction giants. Capitalism systematically
subordinates the needs of millions of people to the
demands of private profit, with a terrible price being
paid by the working class, particularly its poorest and
most vulnerable members.

Australian government
launches far-reaching assault
on welfare
By Mike Head
21 September 2016

Under the fraudulent banner of “investing” in welfare

recipients to “improve” their lives, the Australian
government yesterday unveiled an ideological
offensive designed to satisfy the demands of the
financial and corporate elite for the dismantling of
welfare entitlements.
The government is trying to put new window dressing
on measures designed to coerce some of the poorest
layers of the working class into low-paid jobs. This is
under conditions of mounting job losses, driven by the
collapse of the mining boom and the global slump, and
growing numbers of workers already being forced into
insecure and poorly-paid work.
At the same time, the government is targeting the
entire welfare system, including disability programs
and aged pensions, in a bid to lower taxes further for
corporations and the wealthy. Having barely survived
the July 2 election, the Liberal-National Coalition
government is anxious to demonstrate to big business
that it can deliver its requirements.
Addressing the National Press Club, Social Services
Minister Christian Porter declared a “revolution” to
eliminate “welfare dependency.” It was a “moral
imperative” to assist individuals supposedly “trapped”
in a welfare cycle. In reality, the proposals take to a
new level the “welfare to work” drive by successive
governments, both Coalition and Labor.
Porter rejected criticism that unemployment benefits—
kept at below-poverty levels for two decades (currently
$38 a day for single adults)—push people into poor
quality, part-time and low-wage jobs. “These types of
jobs are far better than 40-odd years inside the welfare
system,” he declared. Young people were being
deprived of the “dignity and purpose” of employment
under such super-exploited conditions.
Porter boasted of the punitive “success” of the welfare
system. By making it “challenging to subsist off
Newstart (unemployment benefits),” the government
was already pushing off within six months 96 percent
of those relying solely on the benefit. Only 1,500
people remained on the base rate for a long period.
The government intended to go further, he insisted, by
compelling applicants to wait four weeks before
payments began.
Porter’s cynical declarations about the “dignity and
purpose” of work are based on a false premise—
namely that there are jobs available for those who
want them. Even according to the under-stated official
statistics, more than 720,000 workers are unemployed
and there are 18 jobseekers on average per vacancy.
Roy Morgan surveys estimate that the real level of
unemployment is twice as high as the official 5.7
percent. A total of 2.3 million workers (17.5 percent)
are either unemployed or under-employed, a rise of
nearly 1 percent over the past year.
Many of those who are driven off unemployment
benefits are condemned to a desperate hand-to-mouth
existence relying on friends, family and welfare
agencies. Others who do manage to find a job—often
casual and poorly paid—are frequently little better off.
In 2014, one-third of those living below the poverty line
were “working poor”—that is, living in households with
wages as their main income.
As the government’s initial victims, the minister singled
out three vulnerable groups—students, young carers
and young parents—but made it clear that his
initiatives would not stop with them. Citing statistical
analysis commissioned by the government from
accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, Porter
produced the misleading claim that the “lifetime cost”
of welfare payments for those currently on benefits
would total a colossal $4.8 trillion.
This calculation reveals the actual purpose of the
government’s plan—drastic budget-cutting—beneath
the veneer of concern for the wellbeing of welfare
dependants. It is also a confected figure. First of all,
the data focusses on alleged forecasts of the future
plight of relatively small groups of young recipients. For
example, of the 4,370 teenage parents, 12 percent—
just 525 people—were expected to access income
support for the rest of their lives.
Secondly, the biggest and fastest growing categories
of welfare dependants are aged pensioners, people on
National Disability Insurance Scheme programs and
disability pensioners. In other words, it is the basic
social right to welfare itself, including retirement
pensions, that is being declared “unsustainable.”
Assisted by the corporate media, which constantly
demonises “dole bludgers” and “welfare parents,”
governments, Labor and Coalition, have already
dramatically lowered the proportion of the working age
population receiving income support payments, from
25 percent in 1994 to 16.6 percent in 2015.
This has been achieved through punishing measures
such as eliminating sole parent payments once the
youngest child turns 8 and imposing harsh “work tests”
on dole recipients. By one measure alone—cutting off
sole parent benefits—a process completed by the
Gillard Labor government, the proportion of
households receiving those payments halved from 5
percent in 1998 to 2.4 percent in 2015.
Porter signalled an intensification of this offensive. He
outlined a new era of “mutual obligation” for every
“working age” payment. Among his proposals were
obligations to refrain from alcohol or substance abuse,
attend “work appointments” on time, ensure children
attend school and pay debts owed to the government.
Porter went beyond simply seeking to repackage the
“welfare to work” drive. He advanced an underlying
agenda of redefining “fairness” and dismissing
inequality as a social indicator. “Fairness” now
consisted of stopping “the mere transfer of money from
one group to another.” Inequality was just a “measure
of difference,” not of “comparative wellbeing.” These
“ideological fixations” had to be pushed aside.
Similar nostrums are being brought forward to declare
the failure of expenditure on education and health,
which is decried as “throwing money at the problem.”
This means nothing less than the gutting of all social
spending in order to boost corporate profits and widen
the gulf between the wealthy elites and the working
class.
According to the most recent estimates by the
Australian Council of Social Service, by 2014, 2.5
million people, or 13.9 percent of all Australian
residents, were already living below the internationally
accepted poverty line of 50 percent of median
household income. Among them were 603,000
children, or 17.7 percent of all children in Australia.
By presenting its measures as “investing in people,”
the government is aiming to secure the political
assistance of the charities and other groups that vie for
ever-dwindling government grants to provide basic
social services once delivered by governments
themselves. As an initial step in “revolutionising”
welfare, $96 million will be allocated to a “Try, Test and
Learn Fund” to enable such groups to compete with
corporate consultants for funding to experiment with
programs to “create a path out of the welfare system.”
Interviewed on Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s
“7.30” program last night, several representatives from
such organisations, including Mission Australia CEO
Catherine Yeomans, expressed “cautious optimism”
about the government’s agenda.
As for the Labor Party, it demonstrated its basic
agreement by last weekhelping the government
push through the first post-election legislation, an
Omnibus Bill to cut public spending by $6.3 billion over
the next four years. More than half the cuts will come
from welfare, including payments to families, students,
the young unemployed, newly-arrived immigrants and
aged nursing home residents.

ndia and Pakistan teeter on

the precipice of war
By Keith Jones
21 September 2016

Four days after India’s government, without so much

as even a cursory investigation, held Pakistan
responsible for a terrorist attack on the Uri military
base in the disputed Kashmir region that killed 18
Indian soldiers, New Delhi continues to be gripped by
war fever.
From the political establishment, military, and
corporate media has come a clamour for India to
“punish” Pakistan. The media has enthusiastically
reported that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is
conferring with the military and intelligence chiefs
about possible air and cruise missile strikes. Cross-
border raids and the assassination of those
responsible for the Uri attacks through covert action
are also said to be under consideration.
Yesterday, India charged that Pakistani troops had
unleashed a cross-border artillery barrage, violating
the shaky ceasefire across the Line of Control (LoC)
that divides Indian- and Pakistani-held Kashmir. By late
afternoon, New Delhi was boasting it had killed 10
armed militants whom it said had recently infiltrated the
LoC near Uri.
Such reports, and indeed all the claims and counter-
claims of the Indian and Pakistani governments and
their militaries should be viewed critically. India’s
military has a long and well-documented history of fake
encounter killings in Kashmir; just as Pakistan’s
military-intelligence apparatus has a proven record of
using Islamist terrorists to pursue its reactionary
strategic conflict with India and to manipulate,
communalize, and suppress the popular opposition of
the Kashmiri people to the Indian state.
Amid the Indian elite’s clamour for dispensing with
“strategic restraint” and delivering a harsh,
demonstrable blow to Pakistan, some voices can now
be heard, not least from elements within the Indian
military, urging New Delhi to thoroughly deliberate over
its battle plan before proceeding.
Far from being advocates of peace, those counselling
caution are merely making the obvious, albeit chilling,
point that a military strike on Pakistan could quickly
spiral into an all-out war and with a nuclear-armed
adversary. An adversary, moreover, that has publicly
stated the massive strategic imbalance between it and
India has compelled it to deploy “battlefield,” or tactical
nuclear weapons, and signalled that they will be used if
Indian forces launch or, in the midst of a war, mass for
an invasion of Pakistan.
“We will avenge the killings of our soldiers,” an
unnamed top military commander told the Indian
Express. “But we will do so based on cold-blooded
professional military assessment, and a timeline of our
own choosing, not one dictated by political imperative
or the prime-time news cycle.”
Yesterday, the Express and other influential Indian
dailies reported that senior military commanders had
told the government a “swift” strike on Pakistan may
not be “feasible” because Pakistan has mobilized
forces near the LoC in readiness and because Indian
forces are not yet positioned to thwart the inevitable
Pakistani counter-strike.
Such reports could well be disinformation. In the run-
up to the May 2014 election that brought him to power,
Modi pilloried the previous Congress Party-led
government for its supposed “appeasement” of
Pakistan. Leaders of his Hindu supremacist Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) and its close ally, the fascistic RSS,
have been leading the outcry for swift and decisive
action against Pakistan.
But insofar as there is truth to the claim, India has
decided not to immediately take the most incendiary
actions—a high-profile cross-border attack or airplane
and missile strikes—pressure from Washington is
undoubtedly also a motivating factor.
Washington has deplored the Uri attack and reaffirmed
its partnership with India. But it has not joined New
Delhi in labelling Pakistan responsible for Sunday’s
assault. In summarizing the outcome of US Secretary
of State John Kerry’s Monday meeting with Pakistani
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a State Department
spokesman said that Kerry had insisted on the need
for India and Pakistan to work together to reduce
tensions. He added that Kerry had praised Pakistan’s
contribution to the fight against “terrorism,” while
repeating the US’s standard call for Pakistan to do
more to stop its territory from being used as a “safe
haven” by terrorists.
With the aim of harnessing India to its drive to
strategically isolate, encircle, and prepare for war with
China, the US under George W. Bush and now Obama
has forged a “global strategic partnership” with India
and lavished it with strategic favours, including access
to the Pentagon’s most advanced technology.
Pakistan has warned in ever more shrill language that
the Indo-US alliance has overturned the balance of
power in South Asia, emboldening India and triggering
a weapons and nuclear arms race. But all to no avail.
The strategists of US imperialism view India as the
crucial south-western pillar of a quadrilateral anti-China
alliance, involving its principal Asian-Pacific allies,
Japan and Australia.
However, Washington, in keeping with the imperialist
patron-client character of its relationship with India and
to the consternation of the Indian elite, has repeatedly
shown that it is not ready to cede New Delhi a “free
hand” in dealing with Pakistan. US strategists are well
aware that the Indo-Pakistani conflict could rapidly
escalate to war with potentially incalculable
consequences for the people of South Asia, and more
importantly, from their view, US hegemony over
Eurasia. Even heightened tensions between New Delhi
and Islamabad cut across the US war in Afghanistan,
which remains almost wholly dependent on Pakistan
for logistical support.
However, none of this should be interpreted to mean
that South Asia is anything but teetering on the
precipice of war.
The rival ruling elites of India and Pakistan are primed
to dangerously escalate their confrontation in the
coming days and weeks. Moreover, the US’s reckless
drive for global hegemony, which has already blown up
the Middle East and brought the world closer to a clash
of the great powers than any time since the Second
World War, has now sucked South Asia into the
maelstrom of imperialist violence and war—adding a
highly combustible explosive charge to all the region’s
conflicts, most importantly those between India and
Pakistan and India and China.
Even the more “measured” steps India will reportedly
take, should it deem an immediate strike on Pakistan
too hazardous, would dramatically escalate tensions
and propel India and Pakistan toward a clash. The
difference between the two options is at most that
between lighting a long or a short fuse to war.
According to the press reports, the “measured” steps
include:
 Sustained (i.e. weeks or months) of artillery
barrages across the LoC to make the Pakistani
military “bleed.”

 Small cross-border raids into Pakistan to kill

Kashmiri insurgents and Pakistani troops, but that
will be publicly touted as encounters on Indian soil.
(According to an article in yesterday’s Indian
Express, the Indian military used this tactic during the
undeclared 1999 Kargil War, seizing and executing
seven Pakistani soldiers.)

 Expanding India’s military-strategic involvement

in Afghanistan, with the aim of countering Pakistan’s
influence and placing pressure on it from the north
and west. (Pakistan has repeatedly charged that
 India’s intelligence agency, RAW, is already using
Afghanistan to provide support to both nationalist
insurgents in Balochistan and to the Pakistan
Taliban.)

 Intensifying India’s recently-launched strategic

offensive to leverage the Balochistan issue, that is
the Balochi nationalist opposition to the Pakistani
state in its resource rich, western-most province.
Rattled by the mass protests in Kashmir—protests the
BJP government has dismissed as the product of
nothing more than the machinations of “Pakistani
“terrorists”—Modi last month launched a major
strategic turn, announcing that henceforth India will
denounce Islamabad’s brutal repression in Balochistan
at the UN and other international forums. So as to
underscore the implicit threat of Indian support for
Pakistan’s dismemberment, New Delhi has also
indicated that it intends to give more “political space” to
the Balochi separatists in India.
This strategy would appear to be the brainchild of
Modi’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, who in
advocating a more aggressive policy against Pakistan
in a February 2014 speech declared, “You do one
more Mumbai (a reference to the 2008 Mumbai terror
attack), and you lose Balochistan.”
While directed first and foremost against Islamabad,
India’s new Balochistan policy also targets Beijing. In
response to India’s burgeoning strategic partnership
with the US, China has moved over the past year and
a half to enhance its longstanding “all weather
friendship” with Pakistan.
China is investing $46 billion in Pakistan to build a
transit and pipeline corridor stretching from western
China to the Arabian Sea Port of Gwadar, in south-
western Balochistan. India virulently opposes the
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) because it
provides a desperately needed shot in the arm to
Pakistan’s economy. But it is also well aware that the
CPEC has major strategic implications for China. Were
the CPEC to be completed, it would enable Beijing to
partially counter US plans to impose an economic
blockade on China in the event of a war or war crisis
by seizing Indian Ocean and South China Sea
“chokepoints.”
While Washington may today seek to dampen India-
Pakistan tensions because they cut across its own
predatory designs, its drive to make India a “frontline”
state in its anti-China military-strategic offensive is a
hugely destabilizing factor and is whetting New Delhi’s
own reactionary great power ambitions. The logic of
the US’s actions is to polarize the region, dramatically
raising the likelihood that a war between India and
Pakistan would draw in other great powers, starting
with the US and China.
All sections of the Indian and Pakistani bourgeoisie
and their political representatives are deeply implicated
in the Indo-Pakistani conflict. This is true of the
Stalinists of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and
the older, smaller Communist Party of India. The
Stalinists have supported the vast expansion of India’s
military over the past two decades and repeatedly
propped up Indian governments that pursued closer
ties to Washington, including the Congress-led
government that forged India’s “partnership” with US
imperialism.
The explosive developments of the past three days
underscore the urgency of building a working class-led
movement against war and imperialism in South Asia,
as part of a global anti-war mobilization animated by
the program of socialist internationalism.

The police murder in

Charlotte, North Carolina
22 September 2016

Hundreds of people took to the streets Tuesday night

and again on Wednesday in Charlotte, North Carolina,
to protest the latest horrific police killing in that city, and
the 839th death at the hands of US policemen this
year.
Large numbers of police were bused in Tuesday to
seal off the neighborhood near the University of North
Carolina-Charlotte after groups of protesters began to
break windows of police cars, blocked traffic on
Interstate 85 and broke into a Wal-Mart store. Police
officers decked out in riot gear again confronted angry
protesters Wednesday, firing tear gas. At least one
person was shot on Wednesday night, with officials
claiming he was not shot by police.
The confrontation in North Carolina’s largest city is
another expression of the seething social tensions in
America, driven by an economic crisis that has
produced record levels of long-term unemployment,
poverty and social need, while real wages remain
below the level of a decade ago, before the 2008 Wall
Street crash.
The spark in Charlotte was the shooting death of 43-
year-old Keith Lamont Scott, gunned down in broad
daylight. Police arrived at the parking lot where Scott, a
father of seven, was waiting to pick up his son at a
school bus stop, looking for another man who had an
outstanding warrant.
Witnesses say that Scott was holding a book when he
got out of his car and was shot four times by the police.
Charlotte Police Chief Kerr Putney claimed that Scott
was armed with a handgun and refused repeated
police orders to hand over the weapon. The police
have so far refused to release body camera videos of
the shooting, and no cellphone video has yet emerged
to show what really happened.
From a legal standpoint, however, even the police
version of events does not justify the use of deadly
force. It is legal in North Carolina to carry a weapon
openly, and if Scott had a gun, as police claim, they
had no right to demand it without probable cause of a
crime being committed.
The killing of Scott is only the latest in an unending
stream of horrors. Indeed, the shooting in Charlotte is
the third highly publicized police killing in the past week
alone. First came the killing of 13-year-old Tyre King in
Columbus, Ohio on September 13, followed by the
killing of 45-year-old Terrence Crutcher in Tulsa,
Oklahoma on September 16, and then Scott on
September 20.
The fact that all three victims were African-American
has been used to reinforce a racialized narrative of
police violence as predominately one of white cops
killing black men and boys out of ingrained white
racism.
Whatever role racism may play in particular police
killings, it is not the fundamental issue. Here, the
circumstances behind the killing of Scott are revealing.
The police shooter, Brentley Vinson, is African-
American, as is the police chief, Kerr Putney. The
mayor of Charlotte is a woman, Democrat Jennifer
Roberts. The police officer in Tulsa, moreover, was a
woman.
Of the 25 people shot to death by the police in the past
week, beginning with Tyre King, at least half were
white, according to the grisly tally kept by
killedbypolice.net. Of the 702 people shot to death by
police this year, according to a database maintained by
the Washington Post, 163 were black men, about 23
percent of the total. Whites made up roughly half the
victims, while Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians,
black women and people of mixed race made up the
balance.
What nearly all the victims of police violence have in
common is that they are part of the working class, and
usually its poorest layers. Their deaths are a
consequence of the basic social function of the police,
as the armed bodies of men who defend the wealth
and privileges of the financial aristocracy against the
lower orders.
The Charlotte killing and disturbances have been
followed with the usual political homilies from
government officials and presidential candidates.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump
tweeted that “the situations in Tulsa and Charlotte are
tragic,” but he has consistently sided with the police in
such situations while denouncing protests against
police violence as tantamount to terrorism. He
demanded an “immediate end” to the mass unrest in
Charlotte.
Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate,
issued a statement Tuesday calling the fatal shooting
of Terrence Crutcher “unbearable” and “intolerable.”
She added a tweet on Wednesday morning, “Keith
Lamont Scott. Terence Crutcher. Too many others. This
has got to end. -H.” Such professions of concern
coming from an arch-warmonger and candidate of Wall
Street are about as unconvincing and insincere as
every other comment that comes out of Clinton’s
mouth.
As for the Obama administration, in its final months it
appears to have given up any effort to vary its
responses to tragedies and horrors. Attorney General
Loretta Lynch—who is African-American, like both the
shooter and the victim in Charlotte—warned against
protest that “turns violent” and repeated the standard
mantra of the Obama administration, that the events in
Charlotte “have once again highlighted—in the most
vivid and painful terms—the real divisions that still
persist in this nation between law enforcement and
communities of color.”
Such statements are an insult to the intelligence, given
that both the policeman and the man he shot were of
the same “communities of color.”
The truth is that the shooting showed the river of blood
that exists in American society, separating the ruling
class from the vast majority of working people. That
river runs right through so-called “communities of
color,” separating the tiny privileged layer at the top,
like President Obama and Attorney-General Lynch,
from working-class men like Keith Scott and Terrence
Crutcher.
Patrick Martin

The New York bombings:

Feeding the “war on terror”
23 September 2016

Ahmad Khan Rahami was charged Tuesday night with

nine counts of attempted murder and using weapons of
mass destruction in connection with last weekend’s
terror bombings in New York City and New Jersey,
As more details emerge, it is becoming clear that these
bombings are part of a disturbing and ever more
familiar pattern that dates back at least to the 9/11
attacks on New York City and Washington in 2001. In
virtually every terrorist act carried out on US soil, the
perpetrator is someone who is known by and
previously identified to the FBI or other US police and
intelligence agencies.
On the other hand, with those “terrorist plots” that are
“foiled,” also almost invariably, those charged are
patsies, set up in sting operations by federal agents
who in many cases provide weapons, money and
targets to individuals who would never have embarked
on such operations on their own.
Rahami, a naturalized American citizen who
immigrated to the US with his family from Afghanistan
at the age of seven, is charged with planting explosive
devices—pipe bombs and pressure cooker bombs—
one of which injured 31 people on a street in
Manhattan. He was arrested after being shot in a
gunfight with police that also left two cops wounded.
In the immediate aftermath of the bombings,
authorities issued statements declaring that there was
no link between the attacks and “international
terrorism.” It would now appear that this story was
floated by officials who were well aware of such
connections and concerned about the record of their
own decisions to ignore them.
The New York Times revealed Thursday that Rahami’s
father, Mohammad Rahami, gave a detailed warning to
the FBI in 2014, saying that his son represented a
threat and was increasingly attracted to Al Qaeda and
other terrorist groups. Federal agents spoke to the
elder Rahami during a police investigation following his
son’s stabbing of a sibling in a domestic dispute.
“I told the FBI to keep an eye on him,” he told
the Times. “They said, ‘Is he a terrorist?’ I said: ‘I don’t
know. I can’t guarantee you 100 percent if he is a
terrorist. I don’t know which groups he is in. I can’t tell
you.’”
The father added that the FBI never followed up by
interviewing his son.
This contact was not the only one between Rahami
and federal intelligence agencies. Only five months
before his father’s discussions with the FBI, Rahami
returned from a yearlong visit to Pakistan, where he
visited Quetta, the capital of Pakistani Baluchistan,
which is the headquarters of various Islamist factions.
The trip prompted a secondary screening by customs
officials, who were concerned enough to notify the
National Targeting Center, a division of the Homeland
Security Department that is supposed to assess
potential terrorist threats. This prompted a notification
to the FBI and other agencies.
It has further emerged since the bombings that federal
officials were aware that Rahami may have made
another trip to Ankara, Turkey, apparently with the aim
of joining the Islamic State (ISIS) or one of the militias
connected to Al Qaeda that are engaged in the US-
backed war for regime change in Syria.
Finally, federal authorities were informed of Rahami’s
purchase last July of a Glock 9mm handgun, the
weapon he is charged with using in shooting two
Linden, New Jersey policemen as they tried to take
him into custody.
Once again, the refrain made famous in the wake of
9/11is being heard again: there was a failure to
“connect the dots.”
In some cases, the similarities to previous incidents
are stark. As in Rahami’s case, the father of Nigerian
student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to
bring down a Northwest Airlines jet on Christmas Eve
2009 with a bomb hidden in his underwear, also
warned US authorities of his son’s terrorist ties, but
was ignored.
Then there was the case of the 2013 Boston Marathon
bombing, in which the principal organizer was
Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Russian intelligence had identified
Tsarnaev to US authorities in 2011 as a suspected
radical Islamist who was seeking to link up with armed
groups in the Northern Caucasus. He was
subsequently interviewed by the FBI and then allowed
to travel to the Caucasus and return, with no questions
asked.
Given the vast intelligence apparatus maintained by
the US state and the sweeping mass surveillance it
conducts, the failure to pursue such leads does not
lend itself to innocent interpretation or a mere failure to
“connect the dots.”
On the one hand, the decision not to impede the travel
of individuals identified as “terrorists” stems from the
fact that the US government is utilizing such elements
in pursuit of its foreign policy aims. It has done so at
least since the late 1980s, when Rahami’s father
fought with the Afghan mujahedeen in the CIA-
orchestrated war against the Soviet-backed
government in Afghanistan. Foreign Islamists have
been the backbone of the proxy forces fighting the US
war for regime change in Syria, as they were in Libya,
and US intelligence has long had relations with similar
forces in both Russia and China.
On the other hand, giving a free rein to those identified
as potential terrorists and letting nature take its course
serves a definite political agenda, providing grist for the
mill of the “global war on terror.” This “war” has
provided the pretext for both unending bombings and
invasions to further the strategic interests of US
imperialism, and the escalating repression within the
US itself.
Terrorist acts are also magnified and endlessly
sensationalized by the corporate media as a means of
undermining the broad popular opposition to war.
Finally, such acts can be exploited to further the aims
of one faction within the state apparatus against
another. The bombings in New York and New Jersey
coincided with evidence of just such divisions within
the Obama administration, as sections of the military
brass have recently made statements approaching
insubordination in relation to the abortive ceasefire
deal in Syria.
It is impossible to say at this early stage what relation
these bombings have to the murky and sinister world in
which US intelligence agencies and Islamist terrorist
groups intersect.
Nor are the precise motivations of Rahami known.
Sections of a notebook in his possession at the time of
his arrest include praise for Osama bin Laden; Anwar
al-Awlaki, the US-born, Al Qaeda-linked cleric
assassinated in a US drone strike; as well as an ISIS
leader.
Rahami’s alleged act may have been the product of his
own emotional or mental distress, or psychological
factors combined with what the state and the media
habitually refer to as “homegrown terrorism” or “self-
radicalization.” Whatever the case, the state of
American society on the eve of the 2016 elections
provides fertile ground for such violence.
Over 15 years of uninterrupted US wars, with over a
million killed, many millions more driven from their
homes and entire societies left in shreds, cannot help
but produce deadly consequences within the US itself.
Bloodshed abroad is combined with the ceaseless
brutalization of society at home. Rahami grew up in
Union County, New Jersey, where the poverty rate is
over 27 percent and the social inequality between its
working-class residents and the concentration of
billionaires and multimillionaires in nearby New York
City could not be starker. The pervasive social
alienation among broad layers of society is intensified
by the continuous demonization of Muslims.
The existing political setup, moreover, provides no
progressive outlet for the increasingly explosive
buildup of social discontent. The pseudo-left elements
who, in an earlier period, protested against US wars
are now to be found among their most enthusiastic
supporters.
Less than seven weeks before the election, these
latest bombings are being utilized to shift the political
debate within the two major parties even further to the
right, with the fascistic Republican candidate Donald
Trump and the Democratic favorite of the military and
intelligence apparatus Hillary Clinton vying with each
other over who is best prepared as “commander-in-
chief” to escalate war abroad and intensify repression
at home.
The reactionary and noxious atmosphere of American
politics will only ensure further attacks like that which
occurred last weekend.
Bill Van Auken

ASDAQ hits record after US

and Japanese central banks
signal continued stimulus
By Nick Beams
22 September 2016

The decisions of the US Federal Reserve and the

Bank of Japan (BoJ) on monetary policy announced
yesterday were both indications of the perplexity in the
world’s leading financial institutions over how to deal
with the “new normal” in the global economy,
characterised by low growth, weak investment,
contracting trade and low inflation.
In a split 7–3 vote, the Fed decided to leave interest
rates on hold, while the Bank of Japan, after a weeks-
long review of its quantitative easing program, made
adjustments to its policies in light of the failure of its
measures to achieve their stated aim of lifting inflation.
The BoJ decision was made in response to problems
that arose following policies announced earlier this
year.
Instead of simply trying to expand the overall money
supply through broad-based asset purchases, the bank
said it would now target 10-year government bonds,
allowing the yield on longer-term bonds to rise. The
decision was in response to concerns expressed by
longer-term investors, including pension funds and
insurance companies, that falling yields adversely
affected their business models.
But the major impact of the statement was the
commitment that the quantitative easing program,
under which the BoJ injects 80 trillion yen (around
$US800 billion) a year into financial markets, will go on
indefinitely.
The bank said it would continue to buy assets until
inflation “exceeds the price stability target of 2 percent
and stays above the target in a stable manner.” With
inflation currently running at minus 0.4 percent, and
showing no sign of rising, this is a pledge that
quantitative easing is not a temporary or emergency
measure but will become permanent.
Financial markets responded positively to the news
with the broad-based Topix index up by 2.5 percent
and Nikkei rising by 1.8 percent.
In announcing its decision, the US Fed’s Open Market
Committee said that while “the case for an increase in
the federal funds rate has strengthened,” it had
decided “for the time being to wait.” The split vote, with
three members voting for an immediate increase in the
base rate of 0.25 percent, and comments by Fed
chairman Janet Yellen, indicating that she was looking
for a rate rise, point to a possible increase by the end
of the year. Financial markets welcomed the decision
with the Dow up by 163 points on the day and the
NASAQ index reaching a record high.
Yellen made clear, however, that any interest rate rises
in the future would be gradual and monetary policy
would remain accommodative. While she insisted that
the decision did not reflect lack of confidence in the
economy and she expected economic growth to
continue at a moderate pace over the next few years,
projections on the future direction of interest rates by
members of the FOMC (Federal Open Market
Committee) again saw a downward revision on where
they expect rates to be.
The median projected rate for the federal funds rate
was reduced by around half a percentage point,
indicating expectations of lower growth.
It was during the question and answer session at her
press conference that some of the confusion in
financial circles made its appearance through the calm
exterior which Yellen seeks to present.
In answer to questions on the role of politics and
political uncertainty as a basis for the Fed decision—
Republican candidate Donald Trump has accused the
Fed of keeping rates low at the behest of the Obama
administration—Yellen insisted that politics played no
part in the central bank’s decisions. Another questioner
noted that while the Fed had cited the Brexit decision
as a reason to keep rates on hold in June, how could it
not be the case that political uncertainty in the US was
having an impact on investment and the Fed’s
decisions.
Brushing aside present politics, Yellen replied that
“investment spending has been weak for some time
and we are not certain what is causing that.”
Given that investment is a key driver of the economy,
this is a significant admission. It indicates that the Fed
has little overall grasp of what is taking place and is
simply responding to immediate events.
The perplexity at the top was expressed in other
remarks. Yellen said Fed policymakers were
“struggling” with a difficult set of issues over what is the
“new normal” in the US and global economy.
These comments amount to a virtual declaration that
the economic scenario on which the Fed has based
itself over the past eight years has been torn to pieces.
The “conventional wisdom” was that, after the financial
crash and the Great Recession which followed,
stimulatory measures by central banks in the US and
worldwide would restore economic growth close to its
previous path.
This has evidently failed and instead a period of
“secular stagnation” has set in, that is, permanent low
growth and disinflation.
The historically unprecedented quantitative easing
policies of the Fed and other central banks, which have
pumped trillions of dollars into the global financial
system, have done next to nothing to promote growth,
leading only to massive speculation and the growth of
a financial bubble that threatens to burst even if there
is only a small rise in interest rates.
This prospect was alluded to indirectly by Yellen when
she explained the risks which the Fed confronted when
considering its policy. On the one hand, she said, there
was the prospect that keeping interest rates too low
could risk “overheating” the economy, while on the
other there was the danger that an increase could set
off a recession.
These remarks, in the context of a discussion of a
possible 0.25 percent rise in the federal funds rate,
point to real fears. They are not based on the belief
that such a small rise will lead to a slowdown in the
real economy—it would have next to no impact on
investment decisions or consumer spending—but that
it could trigger a major disturbance in financial
markets.
This is evidenced by what happened at the start of the
year when, following the 0.25 percentage point
increase last December, global equity and financial
markets experienced one of their worst year-openings
on record in January.
Under conditions where the growth in the real
economy continues to slow, the ongoing rise in
financial markets is inherently unsustainable. This is
because, notwithstanding the illusions that money can
indefinitely beget more money, credit, share values
and other financial assets ultimately represent a claim
on real wealth.
In its latest survey of the economic outlook of the
advanced economies, the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development has revised down its
global growth estimate, citing weak trade growth and
lower productivity.
It predicted growth in the UK for 2017 at 1 percent,
down from 2 percent, largely due to sharp falls in
business investment.
It lowered its US growth forecast for 2016 to 1.4
percent, from 1.8 percent and cut the forecast for
Canada from 1.7 percent to 1.2 percent, and
marginally lowered its projection for global growth to
2.9 percent.
The report said the world economy “remains in a low-
growth trap with persistent growth disappointments
weighing on growth expectations and feeding back into
weak trade, investment, productivity and wages.”
The growing divergence between financial markets,
boosted by the actions of central banks, and the real
economy is creating the conditions for another financial
crisis and even deeper attacks on the wages and
social conditions of the working class.

US pushes for “no fly” zone as

Syrian conflict escalates
By Bill Van Auken
22 September 2016

Speaking before a United Nations Security Council

meeting on Syria Wednesday, US Secretary of State
John Kerry demagogically blamed Russia and the
government of President Bashar al-Assad for the
escalating violence that has left a ceasefire reached
earlier this month in tatters.
Kerry also demanded the imposition of a de facto “no
fly” zone over areas controlled by US-backed Islamist
“rebels,” including those affiliated with Al Qaeda, under
the pretext of assuring delivery of humanitarian aid and
reviving the ceasefire.
“I believe that to restore credibility to the process, we
must move forward to try to immediately ground all
aircraft flying in those key areas in order to deescalate
the situation and give a chance for humanitarian
assistance to flow unimpeded,” Kerry told the Security
Council meeting.
The Syrian government declared the ceasefire ended
on Monday after reporting 300 violations by the
Western-backed Islamist “rebels” and in the wake of
the US bombing of a Syrian army outpost near the Deir
al-Zor airport in eastern Syria on Saturday that killed
as many as 90 soldiers and wounded another 100.
US officials have claimed that the attack was a
mistake, while Damascus has pointed out that it was
immediately followed by an assault on the position by
fighters of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS),
charging that the air and ground actions were
coordinated. Deir al-Zor occupies a strategic position
on the highway leading from Syria to Iraq and onto
Iran.
The US airstrike was followed on Monday by an attack
on a UN aid convoy in the town of Urum al-Kubra in
northern Aleppo that left 20 people dead and 18 trucks
bearing relief supplies destroyed. Washington
immediately charged, without presenting any evidence,
that either Russia or the Syrian government was
responsible. Kerry and other US officials are now
invoking the attack as a means of vilifying Moscow and
pressing for new concessions.
Blaming Russia and the Assad government for
Monday’s attack, Kerry claimed that it “raises a
profound doubt about whether Russia and the Assad
regime can or will live up to the obligations that they
agreed to in Geneva.”
Speaking earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov described the attack on the aid convoy as “an
unacceptable provocation,” and called for a “thorough
and impartial” investigation to determine who was
responsible. He repeated previous statements by
Russian military officials that no Russian warplanes
had been in the vicinity of the attack, adding that the
Syrian air force was not capable of carrying out such
an airstrike at night. He pointed out that the attack on
the convoy coincided with a “rebel” offensive in the
same area.
Russian military officials, meanwhile, reported
Wednesday that a US Predator drone, capable of firing
multiple air-to-surface missiles, was seen flying over
the aid convoy at the time of the attack. Earlier, the
Russian Defense Ministry released an aerial video
showing that the aid convoy had been accompanied by
a “rebel” truck towing a large-caliber mortar launcher,
which subsequently disappeared from view.
In his statement to the Security Council, Lavrov also
insisted that there could be no more “unilateral”
cessations of hostilities in Syria. Russia has charged
that the US-backed Islamists never accepted the
ceasefire and continued to carry out attacks on
government positions after it went into effect on
September 12.
Speaking before the same Security Council meeting,
Syria’s ambassador to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari vowed
that his country “will not become another Libya or Iraq,”
and stated that his government was prepared “to reach
a political solution that is decided by the Syrians”
While Kerry claimed that his proposed “no-fly” zone is
meant to prevent the Syrian government from attacking
“civilian targets with the excuse that it is just going after
Nusra,” from the standpoint of Washington’s aims, the
exact opposite is the case.
As with its support for the ceasefire itself, Washington
is invoking humanitarian concerns for civilians trapped
in areas controlled by the Al Nusra Front and similar Al
Qaeda-linked militias in order to bring a halt to Syrian
military operations against these forces and thereby
allow them to rearm, regroup and resume an offensive
against the Assad government.
The Syrian ceasefire has been the subject of bitter
divisions within the Obama administration, with the
Pentagon and top uniformed commanders in the
Middle East calling into question whether the military
would even obey orders to implement the deal.
Those most heavily involved in the US-orchestrated
war for regime change in Syria, particularly elements
within the CIA, have opposed the agreement because
it calls upon Washington to oversee the separation of
the so-called “moderate opposition” that it has paid and
armed from Al Qaeda-linked forces like the Al Nusra
front that are formally designated as “terrorists.” In the
week following the ceasefire’s initiation, there was no
sign of these “moderates” distancing themselves from
the Al Qaeda elements. Such a separation is opposed
by Washington’s “rebels” because Nusra represents
the most significant armed group fighting the Syrian
government.
Even more importantly for the Pentagon, the
ceasefire’s call for the establishment of a joint
operations center with Russia to share intelligence and
targeting information would cut across the US military’s
escalating preparations for war with Russia itself. The
bombing of the Syrian army position on Saturday,
followed by the attack on the aid convoy on Monday,
served to squelch this proposal.
Amid the diplomatic sparring between the US and
Russia at the United Nations, there were multiple signs
that the conflict in Syria is on the brink of a dangerous
escalation, carrying with it the threat of a wider and
even world war.
The US is considering a plan to begin directly arming
the Syrian Kurdish fighters of the YPG (People’s
Protection Units), according to unnamed officials
quoted in a report published Wednesday in the New
York Times. US special forces units have already been
deployed alongside the Kurdish fighters and
Washington has been at least indirectly arming them
by feeding weapons to a smaller Syrian Arab militia
force that fights alongside the YPG.
Nonetheless, the plan, which is reportedly under
discussion in the US National Security Council, would
represent an escalation of the US utilization of the
Kurdish militia as a proxy force in its campaign against
ISIS. It would also deepen tensions between
Washington and the Turkish government of President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which launched its own military
incursion into Syria last month.
Operation Euphrates Shield, as the Turkish invasion of
Syria has been dubbed, now also counts with a US
special operations “advise and assist” mission. As the
primary strategic goal of Ankara’s intervention is to
prevent Kurdish forces from consolidating an
autonomous entity on Turkey’s border, US special
forces could end up facing each other on opposite
sides of the battlefield.
Before leaving for the UN General Assembly meeting
in New York City, Erdogan told reporters that the
Turkish intervention had “cleared” an area of 900
square kilometers (about 350 square miles) of
“terrorists,” by which he meant both ISIS and the
Kurdish YPG. He added, “We may extend this area to
5,000 square kilometers as part of a safe zone.” Such
an intervention would require the deployment inside
Syria of thousands of Turkish troops.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry announced
Wednesday that the Russian navy’s flagship aircraft
carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, is being deployed to the
eastern Mediterranean to participate in military
operations in Syria.

Australian aircraft involved in

provocative US-led airstrike
in Syria
By Peter Symonds
22 September 2016

The direct involvement of the Australian air force in air

strikes on Syrian troops on Saturday underlines the
danger that Australia is being dragged into a US war
not simply with the Syrian government but also its
allies—Russia in particular. Some 90 Syrian soldiers
were killed and more than 100 wounded in a sustained
attack on a strategic government position near the Deir
ez-Zor airport.
Following the cue from Washington, the Australian
government and media have variously suggested that
the air strikes were “a botched operation”, a blunder or
a mistake. The Defence Department issued a
statement acknowledging that Australian aircraft took
part, adding that “Australia would never intentionally
target a known Syrian military unit or actively support
Daesh [the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria].” The
strikes briefly allowed ISIS fighters to capture Syrian
government positions.
Speaking in New York, Prime Minister Malcolm
Turnbull made a perfunctory expression of “regret”
over the loss of life and injury of Syrian troops, but
declared that the situation was “very complex” implying
the attack had been accidental. Defence Minister
Marise Payne said that a blunder had taken place but
reaffirmed Australia’s “absolute and continuing”
commitment to the US-led war in Syria.
While nominally aimed against ISIS, the US-led air war
in Syria, in flagrant violation of Syria’s national
sovereignty, has always been directed at ousting the
regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The claim that the killing of Syrian troops was a
blunder is simply not credible. Even by the account of
an unnamed US Central Command official, the attack
lasted 20 minutes, destroying vehicles and gunning
down dozens of people in open desert. Speaking to
the New York Times, he acknowledged that the assault
continued for several minutes after a Russian official
informed the US military that it was bombing Syrian
troops.”
The attack has all but ended a ceasefire deal worked
out between US Secretary of State John Kerry and
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that was
opposed by US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter. In
comments bordering on insubordination, top uniformed
American officers openly called into question whether
they would abide by the agreement.
Neither the Australian government nor the military has
released any details of the Australian involvement in
what appears to be a reckless provocation directed at
undermining the ceasefire and inflaming tensions with
Russia and the Syrian government. Danish and British
forces were also involved in the air strikes.
The Russian defence ministry has stated that the
attack was carried out by two F-16 fighters and two A-
10 ground attack aircraft. The Royal Australian Air
Force (RAAF) has deployed F/A-18A fighters to the
war in Iraq and Syria along with a Wedgetail command
and control aircraft and an air-to-air refuelling tanker.
Peter Jennings, executive director of the Australian
Strategic Policy Institute, told the Sydney Morning
Herald that his best estimate was that the command
and control aircraft had been involved. “This is
obviously sensitive because that is the asset which
essentially is giving targeting information to the
fighters,” he said.
Whether that was the case or not, Australian air force
officials in the Middle East, along with the pilots, would
have had to be briefed on the nature of the operation.
The incident had the potential to rapidly escalate into a
far broader conflict if Russian advisors had been killed
or injured, or if the Syrian military had fired back and
downed a US or an allied aircraft.
The Australian media and political establishment have
closed ranks to cloak details of what took place in
secrecy. While the Greens and Senator Nick
Xenophon have called for an independent inquiry,
neither strayed from the official line that the killing of
Syrian troops was a mistake, let alone demanded that
withdrawal of all Australian forces from the Middle
East.
In fact, in the name of fighting ISIS, the Turnbull
government recently announced that it would amend
legislation and loosen the rules of engagement for
Australian forces in the Middle East to attack anyone
considered to be an ISIS supporter or buildings far
removed from any fighting. Australian involvement in
last Saturday’s attacks suggests that new unwritten
rules are already in place. Opposition leader Bill
Shorten has indicated Labor’s support for the changes.
Behind the backs of the Australian people, Canberra is
so enmeshed in Washington’s proxy war in the Middle
East against Russia that Australia could find itself on
the frontline of a conflict between the two nuclear
armed powers.
While shots are not being fired, at present, the
Australian government and military is even more
closely integrated into the US military build-up against
China in the Asia-Pacific region. Since Obama
announced his “pivot to Asia” in the Australian
parliament in 2011, military bases in northern Australia
have been opened to an expanding array of American
forces, comprising Marines, warships and various
military aircraft, including strategic bombers.
The scope of bilateral and multilateral war games has
been expanded. In the name of improving
“interoperability,” Australian military personnel have
been embedded into US forces in the region. Last year
the Australian revealed that 42 senior Australian
officers were part of the US Pacific Command,
including Major General Greg Bilton who serves as the
deputy commander of US Army Pacific.
It is, however, in the sphere of communication and
intelligence that Australia plays the most vital role for
the US military, hosting key bases that are central to
US military operations stretching from Asia through to
the Middle East. The Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap
in Central Australia has been crucial to the US-led
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and is undoubtedly
integrated into the Pentagon’s planning for even more
disastrous conflicts with Russia and China.
Whether the Australian government gave the green
light or not, the Australian military could be involved,
virtually automatically, in any war with Russia or China.

Clinton courts wealthy donors

By Josh Varlin
22 September 2016

August was a major fundraising month for Democratic

presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican
presidential candidate Donald Trump. Both campaigns
broke previous fundraising records for their campaigns,
although Clinton maintains a clear lead over Trump.
According to Federal Election Commission filings
released Tuesday, the Clinton campaign raked in $59.5
million during the month of August, while the Trump
campaign raised $41 million. About half of the funds
raised by the campaigns came from joint fundraising
efforts with the Democratic and Republican National
Committees.
In addition to outraising Trump, Clinton is also
outspending him; Clinton spent $49.6 million last
month, whereas Trump spent “only” $29.9 million.
These vast sums of money mostly paid for advertising
and staff. Clinton spent $33 million on television ads
compared to Trump’s $5.2 million, although Trump
spent $11 million on digital advertising in August, more
than Clinton has spent on digital advertising this year.
Clinton also vastly outspent Trump in polling and
staffing. Clinton’s campaign maintains a paid staff of
789 people and spent $1 million on polling in August;
Trump has only 230 staff and consultants and spent
just over $100,000 on polling. Trump has relied on
rallies appealing to his most ardent supporters and free
media coverage at the expense of traditional campaign
organization.
Significantly, the Clinton campaign has focused more
on wooing wealthy donors than “grassroots”
fundraising efforts. Clinton herself spent most of
August at private fundraisers on a blitz to secure the
financial backing of the elite whom she seeks to
represent in the White House.
President Barack Obama has likewise appeared at
Clinton fundraisers at a level unusual for a sitting
president, and is expected to spend much of October
campaigning for his former secretary of state. One
fundraising event in New York City had a minimum
attendance price of $25,000, although co-chairs had to
give $100,000 and chairs raised a staggering
$250,000.
Super PACs have already raised over $1 billion this
election cycle, surpassing the $850 million they raised
during the 2012 election. Clinton holds a significant
advantage on super PACs aligned with her campaign.
According to a USA Today analysis of large super
PACs, pro-Democratic super PACs raised almost $65
million in August, while pro-Republican super PACs
raised just over $45 million.
Super PAC donations flow largely from the extremely
wealthy. For example, hedge fund manager S. Donald
Sussman is a Democratic “mega-donor,” contributing
more than $23 million to Clinton-aligned organizations.
He is the largest donor to Priorities USA Action,
which USA Today called “the best-funded super PAC of
the 2016 election.” It has already raised $113 million,
more than the $79 million it raised to support Obama’s
re-election.
Paralleling Clinton’s near-unanimous support from
the military-intelligence apparatus, including from
right-wing figures associated with the Republican
Party, several Republican millionaires have indicated
that they would not support Trump as vigorously as
they had supported previous Republican presidential
nominees.
Sheldon Adelson, the right-wing Zionist and Las Vegas
casino magnate, has donated $20 million to a pro-
Republican super PAC focused on the Senate, and is
expected to donate a similar amount to a similar
organization for the House of Representatives.
However, he is expected to donate only $5 million to a
super PAC focused on the presidential race.
Mike Fernandez, a Florida-based billionaire and
Republican donor, announced on Tuesday that he
would donate “over” $2 million to support Clinton’s
campaign. Fernandez, who is Cuban-American, said
that the money would “focus on Latino outreach and
registration in Florida.” He appealed to Latino voters,
calling on them “to reject a man who encourages
violence against you,” referencing Trump’s notorious
xenophobia and racism, which is particularly directed
against Hispanic immigrants.
Fernandez had previously supported Jeb Bush during
the Republican primary process. Florida is an
important “swing state,” and Hispanics make up about
15 percent of the electorate.
Wall Street’s apparent preference for Clinton has
allowed Trump, the billionaire real estate tycoon and
fascistic demagogue, to posture as a champion of
ordinary people. He has capitalized on the obvious
indifference of both the Obama administration and the
Clinton campaign to real economic distress in large
portions of the United States, particularly in rural areas,
once industrialized towns, and Appalachia.
Meanwhile, even as Clinton faces a crisis due
to declining support among young voters, her support
among higher-income voters is increasing. A
Bloomberg Politics poll indicates that, in a two-way
contest, Clinton beats Trump 46 percent to 42 percent
“among likely voters with annual household incomes of
$100,000 or more.”
Republicans have either won or tied among higher-
income voters since 1976. In 2012, Republican Mitt
Romney won this group by 10 percent against Obama.
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UC Berkeley reinstates class

on Palestine after protests
By David Brown
22 September 2016

On Monday, the UC Berkeley administration retreated

from its attempt to politically censor a student run class
on Palestine. The course, entitled “Palestine: A Settler
Colonial Analysis,” was suspended after its first class
on spurious procedural grounds. The suspension
occurred on September 12, the same day that a
petition signed by 43 pro-Israel organizations was
presented to the administration calling for the class to
be suspended because it was “political indoctrination.”
Without consulting the student leading the class or its
faculty advisor, the administration immediately
suspended the class, falsely claiming that they had not
followed the proper procedure in submitting the course
syllabus for review before the semester began.
After complaints by students and faculty over this
suppression of free speech reached international
news, the university reversed its position, allowing the
course to resume after cosmetic changes were made
to the course description. In the letter rescinding the
suspension, Carla Hesse, the Executive Dean of the
College of Letters and Sciences, explained that the
course was allowed to resume because she was
reassured that exploring “the possibilities of a
decolonized Palestine” did not cross “the line from
teaching to political advocacy,” and that criticism of
Israel did not in this case violate the University policy
on intolerance.
This is not the first time that the California university
system has sought to suppress criticism of Israel, or
the first time that opponents of the Israeli occupation
have been subjected to anti-democratic provocations.
In January, the UC Regents proposed a policy that
would treat all opposition to Zionism as anti-Semitic.
After a public outcry, it revised their policy statement to
read, “Opposition to Zionism often is expressed in
ways that are not simply statements of disagreement
over politics and policy, but also assertions of prejudice
and intolerance toward Jewish people and culture.”
Their phrasing still allowed administrators to label
criticism of Israel anti-Semitic at their discretion.
Hesse’s letter cites concerns over this precise policy of
the regents as one of the reasons for the suspension
of the class.
Emboldened by the Regent’s resolution, the ultra-right
David Horowitz Freedom Center staged anti-
Palestinian provocations at universities across the
state, including UC Berkeley. Posters listing students
and faculty who criticized Israel by name, and calling
them genocidal, terrorist sympathizers, were plastered
all over campus in April.
The specific target of these provocations is the
Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement
led by the student group Students for Justice in
Palestine (SJP). The SJP acts as a pressure group on
the Israeli government, asking universities and
businesses to avoid investing in Israel or selling Israeli
products until Israel recognizes the rights of
Palestinian refugees to return, ends the occupation of
Palestine and grants equal rights to Arabs within Israel.
The initial petition against the class specifically cited
the student coordinator and faculty advisor’s
longstanding participation in BDS as proof of
extremism and anti-Semitism, and it found a receptive
audience in UC Berkeley’s Chancellor, Nicholas Dirks.
Dirks has a long history of opposing criticism of Israel.
When he was Vice President for Arts and Sciences at
Columbia University in 2004, he supported an
investigation into spurious allegations of faculty anti-
Semitism. After beginning to work at UC Berkeley, he
maintained that students at Columbia had difficulty
finding “safe spaces in which to talk about Israel”
outside an “anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic” context,
despite the investigative committee’s report that
completely cleared the accused professors.
In 2014, he sent an e-mail to the Berkeley campus in
support of the dismissal of Steven Salaita from the
University of Illinois for his statements in opposition to
the Israeli invasion of Gaza.
Although the current target of the UC administration is
criticism of Israel, the goal is to roll back the right of
students to study politics and politically organize on
campus. The attempt to suspend a class for being
critical of Israel was a test case. Although it has
retreated for now, the university administration will not
hesitate to use the same accusations of political
partisanship and “intolerance” to suppress oppositional
sentiment in the future.
German supermarket chain to
be broken up with thousands
of jobs lost
By Marianne Arens
22 September 2016

The German retail chain Kaiser’s Tengelmann

confronts liquidation. According to media reports the
Kaiser’s Tengelmann owner, Karl-Erivan Haub, intends
to close dozens of stores and wipe out up to 8,000 jobs
by January 1, 2017.
As usual, the ver.di trade union was notified in advance
and has advised the company’s management. A
roundtable involving ver.di, together with Kaiser`s
Tengelmann and the two retail giants Edeka and
Rewe, has been organised to ensure a smooth winding
down of the stores.
The decision affects 5,650 shop assistants, warehouse
workers, forklift and truck drivers and their families, as
well as the employees of the Birkenhof meat
processing company. They all have to reckon with
mass redundancies, and the closure or sale of almost
430 supermarkets in the states of North Rhine-
Westphalia, Bavaria and Berlin.
According to information from the Westdeutsche
Allgemeine Zeitung of 10 September, Haub will
announce his plan at an extraordinary company
meeting on 23 September. Haub has already outlined
his plan in a secret paper provided to the supervisory
board, which includes trade union officials. It evidently
involves the closure of less profitable stores, including
over 80 in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the wiping out
of at least 5,000, and according to dpa, up to 8,000,
jobs. More profitable branches in Berlin and Munich
are to be sold.
A fierce price war and rabid competition have raged for
years in the food retailing industry due to the growing
influence of internet marketers. The Cologne Institute
for Business Research (IFH) expects that trade in
physical stores could shrink by around €40 billion by
2020. This is also a result of years of stagnation and
decline in real wages in Germany. A growing proportion
of the working population has simply less money for
shopping.
For Kaiser’s Tengelmann, a relatively small chain, the
prices of its goods are roughly 10 percent higher than
its market rivals Aldi, Lidl, Rewe and Edeka. Because
the chain was suffering losses, CEO Haub announced
his intention to sell Kaiser’s Tengelmann to Edeka two
years ago. Previously, employees had waived 50
percent of their Christmas and holiday pay for three
years in a row.
Both the Monopolies Commission and the Federal
Cartel Office vetoed the sale, arguing that Edeka
would obtain a dominant position from the merger.
However, Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) had
already held talks in December 2014 with the heads of
both companies, and annulled the veto in March 2016
with a ministerial decree. In so doing, he paved the
way for the sale of Kaiser’s Tengelmann branches to
Edeka under certain conditions.
The conditions were primarily aimed at strengthening
the unions at Edeka. They included both a five-year
jobs and locations guarantee for 97 percent of the
workforce, as well as a ban on the selling off of
individual stores. Numerous stipulations were made
conditional on the union’s agreement. The Edeka
Group, originally developed as a cooperative
association of independent retailers, had previously
prevented widespread trade union membership.
Edeka grudgingly accepted the ministerial decree
because that was the only way to circumvent the cartel
prohibition, and because ver.di signaled far-reaching
cooperation. The competitors of Edeka, Rewe and
Markant, however, then filed a lawsuit at the Higher
Regional Court (OLG) in Dusseldorf.
The OLG upheld their lawsuit in July and decided to
ban the proposed merger. Minister Gabriel, together
with Edeka, appealed to the Federal Court (BGH) to
permit the merger. Germany’s highest court
subsequently announced it would reach a decision by
15 November.
A final decision by the BGH could drag on for a
maximum of two years, but the billionaire Haub is not
prepared to wait. “The BGH option is no longer
relevant,” Haub told the Süddeutsche Zeitung in early
September. With an estimated fortune of $4.5 billion,
the US magazine Forbes ranks Haub as one of the
200 richest people in the world. He is both the owner
and chairman of Kaiser’s Tengelmann.
When it became known that Haub would announce the
rationalisation of jobs at an extraordinary Supervisory
Board meeting on 23 September, the unions ver.di and
NGG responded immediately. Rather than mobilise the
workers of the affected companies against the job cuts,
the unions agreed to organise a roundtable with the
industry bosses this week to ensure a controlled
liquidation of jobs.
If it depends on ver.di, then the fate of tens of
thousands of ordinary salesmen and women, drivers,
etc., whose jobs today are already among the toughest
and worst paid, will be served on a platter to Haub and
the multibillion-dollar bosses who run Edeka and
Rewe. The roundtable is aimed primarily at defusing
possible protest and resistance.
A particularly pernicious role is being played by
Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel. He immediately
welcomed the planned roundtable, declaring that it was
good, “if the competing companies are now willing to
conduct the type of constructive discussions they
refused to hold before the fusion process.” This is
hogwash. The “constructive discussions” will culminate
in a shabby sellout of the workforce.
Sigmar Gabriel was never interested in the fate of
cashiers, meat packers or other workers. He is only
interested in his current project: a red-red-green
government coalition of the SPD, Left Party and the
Greens at the federal level, for which he needs the
support of the unions and the Left Party.
In the poker game surrounding the fate of Kaiser’s
Tengelmann, Gabriel held talks at an early stage with
Edeka, while ver.di leader Stefanie Nutzenberger
(responsible for retail on ver.di’s executive) held talks
with the competitor firm Rewe. Nutzenburger sits on
the Rewe Supervisory Board. Rewe had registered
from the beginning its own interest in buying Kaiser’s
Tengelmann branches.
Despite being competitors, both Edeka and Rewe have
an interest in the roundtable discussions. Instead of
the previous plan, i.e., to acquire the whole company
with all of its loss-making stores under the terms of the
ministerial permit, they can now pick out profitable
stores to take over, while the union sabotages
resistance by the workforce.
Now both the union and the SPD have given their seal
of approval to the destruction of jobs, wages and
workers’ rights in the merger. This is clear from the
contract bargaining completed by the unions a few
weeks ago in anticipation of the BGH ruling on Edeka.
According to the new contract, ver.di and NGG
representatives have accepted job transfers, longer
working hours, wage cuts and the closure of Birkenhof
meat plants in North Rhine-Westphalia.
If it is left to the Social Democrats and union officials,
then the fate of Kaiser’s Tengelmann employees will be
the same as the employees of other store chains that
have closed or drastically rationalised, such as
Neckermann, Karstadt, Practitker or Schlecker. In all of
these cases, ver.di functionaries agreed to the closures
and organised mass redundancies.

Neo-fascist Marine Le Pen

launches 2017 French
presidential election bid
By Kumaran Ira
22 September 2016

On September 17-18, France's neo-fascist National

Front (FN) held an annual conference in the
Mediterranean city of Fréjus to launch its leader Marine
Le Pen’s 2017 presidential bid. In her opening
remarks, greeted by thousands of supporters waving
French flags and shouting, “We're in our country,” Le
Pen said she would be the “candidate of the people”
and made populist, nationalist and anti-European
Union (EU) appeals.
Le Pen announced that she was launching a pre-
campaign, as her “presidential campaign properly
speaking [will begin] in mid-February with a
presidential convention … [and] will only proceed once
we know the identity of all the candidates who are
running.” Until then, she said her team had put in place
all the necessary conditions to start her campaign,
seven months before the first round of the election in
April 2017. “I am extremely serene and impatient to
start,” she said.
Polls currently show Le Pen will easily qualify for the
final round run-off in May but would be beaten in the
second round, except possibly if she faced the deeply
unpopular sitting president, François Hollande of the
Socialist Party (PS). In recent elections, the FN has
made significant gains, obtaining seats in both the
National Assembly and the Senate, as well as
hundreds of positions as mayors and local councillors.
Under Hollande, the FN also extended its voter base
into new areas including schools, hospitals, and above
all broad layers of the police.
In her remarks, Le Pen made a chauvinist appeal
denouncing immigration and multiculturalism. She
said, “There will be no more France without identity,
and there will be no identity without sovereignty.”
Lamenting that France is no longer “in the hands of the
French,” she also denounced “orders” that she said
France receives from “Berlin, [EU capital] Brussels,
and Washington.”
In her remarks on foreign policy, Le Pen concentrated
her fire on the euro currency shared by 19 countries in
Europe and the EU, which has pushed for austerity
policies across the continent that have decimated living
standards and slashed tens of millions of jobs.
She praised the British vote to leave the EU in a
referendum in June and reiterated that she would call
for France to leave the EU and return to its national
currency, the franc, if she comes to power next year.
“We want a free France, which is the master of its laws
and its currency, and the guardian of its borders,” said
Le Pen.
The FN's emergence as a serious contender for power
is bound up not with an attempt to restore prosperity
and freedom to the people, but the drive of the French
capitalist class to violently assert its interests abroad
and at home, above all against the working class.
A decade of global economic crisis, EU austerity, and
imperialist wars in Africa and the Middle East have
shaken European capitalism to its foundations. With
Brexit, the EU has begun to disintegrate. Like the EU,
France's two traditional ruling parties, the PS and the
right-wing The Republicans (LR), is deeply discredited,
and the bourgeoisie is seeking new foundations for its
rule.
Powerful sections of the ruling class have come to see
the FN as the only way out of a hopeless situation.
Abandoning the euro and devaluing a French national
currency would impoverish workers and cut labor
costs, so the ruling class could attempt to restore its
international competitiveness and pursue trade war
policies, particularly against Germany.
At home, the FN would aim to complete France's
transformation into a police state, already well-
advanced due to the PS' perpetual extensions of its
state of emergency. It would also accelerate the PS'
anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant measures to divide the
working class and cultivate a more militaristic
atmosphere, positioning French imperialism to assert
itself more strongly in the war drive of all the imperialist
powers.
The FN and Marine Le Pen personally are still
unpopular among a majority of French people. This is
due principally to the role of FN founder, Marine's
father Jean-Marie, as an apologist for France's Nazi-
collaborationist Vichy regime and as the leader of a
paratroop unit that tortured independence fighters
during Algeria's 1954-1962 war against France.
The decisive factor in the election outcome will not be
the opinions of working people, however, but the
interests of the ruling class amid a deep international
crisis. It would be a disastrous error to write off Le
Pen's chances. There is explosive social anger, but it
finds no mass political outlet; what predominates is
deep disillusionment with the reactionary policies of so-
called “left” parties like the PS.
As the entire spectrum of bourgeois politics moves far
to the right, the FN no longer appears very different
from the PS or LR. Its anti-immigrant chauvinism, law-
and-order hysteria, pro-business policies and
militarism are well within the mainstream of French
bourgeois politics, and the FN alone among the major
parties makes demagogic appeals to the social
distress facing broad masses of people. On this basis,
it paradoxically finds support even among layers of
immigrants.
Particularly if this is required by the intensifying war
crisis, the French media and ruling elite may swing the
election to the FN. While an FN government would
soon face deep opposition in the working class, the FN
knows it can rely on the support of a broad layer of
reactionary social democratic and pseudo-left forces.
After the Fréjus conference, Le Pen explained how she
could come to power. On Tuesday, she told RTL radio,
“We will win because the choices we have made are
those of the majority of this country.”
She said she would form a government “with people
from the National Front, but also from people who will
have joined us based on defending the nation and the
fatherland. … I believe there are patriots on the right
and on the left. Our goal is to bring people together.”
Le Pen's strategy relies above all on the reactionary
character of the PS and its pseudo-left political
satellites. She doubtless observed carefully how large
numbers of PS officials joined a right-wing government
under Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. Since taking over
leadership of the FN in 2011, she has worked to
normalize or “de-demonise” the FN with the support of
the media and the corrupt forces that for decades have
passed themselves off as the French “left.”
The PS' policies played a key role in normalising the
FN, as it sought to fashion a political base for wars and
austerity. After last year’s Charlie Hebdo and
November 13 terror attacks, Hollande repeatedly
invited Marine Le Pen to the Elysée presidential palace
to establish “national unity.”
At the same time, it imposed a state of emergency
based on Algerian war-era legislation that scraps basic
democratic rights, and sought to rehabilitate fascist
legal principles. It advocated inscribing in the French
constitution the principle of deprivation of nationality—
a policy applied by the Vichy regime to Resistance
leaders and, most infamously, to thousands of French
Jews whom Vichy deported to Nazi death camps
across Europe.
Pseudo-left forces like Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the
petty-bourgeois Left Front also bear critical
responsibility in the FN's rise. Mélenchon in particular
led manoeuvres to de-demonise the FN, publicly
appearing with Le Pen and repeatedly accepting to
debate with her starting in 2011.

Michigan governor secretly

abolished Flint’s right to sue
By James Brewer
22 September 2016
The Detroit Free Press revealed on Monday that
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder surreptitiously
instigated a change six months ago that bars the city of
Flint from suing the state. Just days after a routine
legal filing by Flint Mayor Karen Weaver on March 24,
Snyder submitted a change in the directive of the
state-appointed body set up to replace the emergency
manager that gave it full authority to quash any
lawsuits by the city.
Weaver’s March 24 filing of a “Notice of Intention to
File Claim” was done at the last minute in advance of a
legal deadline that would have forfeited the city’s
option to pursue legal action against the state over the
water crisis. March 25 was the end of the180-day legal
window for the city to declare its intention to sue. That
period began roughly with Snyder’s public admission
that it may have been a “mistake” to use the Flint River
as the city’s water source.
By the time of Snyder’s belated admission, the city had
been using Flint River water, untreated for corrosion
control, for more than 18 months. Children’s blood-lead
levels and the number of Legionnaires Disease-related
deaths had spiked. Illnesses related to lead poisoning
were rampant. Since the time of the switch from
Detroit-supplied water in April 2014, the state and its
agencies conducted a continuous cover-up of toxic
water being pumped into Flint homes.
Information was deliberately withheld from Flint
citizens that would impugn the safety of the Flint River
water. Protests and complaints from Flint residents
were answered with lies from city and state officials.
In Weaver’s submission to the Michigan Court of
Claims, she blamed the state and its agencies for
making the decision to switch Flint’s water. She stated,
“As a direct and proximate result, the city has suffered
or will suffer damage to its municipal water distribution
system, emergency response costs arising out of the
declaration of a state of emergency, attendant ongoing
medical claims, lowered property values resulting in
lower tax assessments, reputational damage…”
The filing was part of Weaver’s attempt to posture as a
critic of the decision to switch the water source to the
Flint River, while obscuring the culpability of both
Democrats and Republicans, at the local, state and
national level, up to and including the Obama
administration.
Weaver subsequently made clear that the city had no
intention of suing the state last March. Nevertheless,
the state strongly urged Weaver, who was elected
mayor last November on her pledge to address the
city’s water crisis, to officially withdraw the city’s threat
of litigation.
Then, at a “special” March 31 meeting of the
Receivership Transition Advisory Board, an
amendment submitted by Snyder altered the rules of
the body, giving it authority to quash any litigation the
city of Flint would initiate or settle.
Though Flint has not technically been under an
emergency manager since its last one, Gerald
Ambrose, set up the “advisory board” on April 29,
2015, the city still functions under the diktats of the
state by virtue of the emergency management law,
Public Act 436 of 2012. There is enormous opposition
to this law throughout the state, since Snyder signed it
into law less than two months after the preceding
emergency manager law was overturned in a
statewide referendum. In Flint, it was a series of three
emergency managers, along with state authorities,
who made the decisions that led to the poisoning of the
city’s water supply.
The water is still unsafe to drink or cook with without
expensive filters, and recent reports say “there is no
end in sight.”

weden upholds Assange arrest

warrant
By Paul Mitchell
22 September 2016

Last Friday, Sweden’s Appeal Court upheld the arrest

warrant against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange,
who has been confined in the Ecuadorian Embassy in
London since claiming asylum in 2012.
Assange faces extradition on the pretext of bogus
“minor rape” allegations, dropped as unsound and then
resuscitated by the Swedish authorities in 2010, to
provide the legal justification for his onward extradition
to the United States to face a grand jury, life
imprisonment and a possible death sentence.
Assange has always insisted he would return to
Sweden if the government gave safeguards against his
extradition to the US. Last week, he said he was
prepared to travel to the US and accept imprisonment
“despite its clear unlawfulness,” if President Obama
pardoned Chelsea Manning, the former US soldier who
was given a 35-year jail sentence in 2013 for handing
over 750,000 classified documents to WikiLeaks.
The “clear unlawfulness” meted out to Assange was
highlighted by the United Nations (UN) Working Group
on Arbitrary Detentions, which declared earlier this
year, “If Mr. Assange leaves the confines of the
Embassy, he forfeits his most effective and potentially
only protection against refoulement to United States of
America.” It stated that his confinement violated
international human rights legislation and ruled that
“the arbitrary detention of Mr. Assange should be
brought to an end, that his physical integrity and
freedom of movement be respected, and that he
should be entitled to an enforceable right to
compensation.”
Both Sweden and the UK rejected the ruling.
Friday’s Appeal Court decision follows in the same
vindictive manner and ignores the risk and
consequences should Assange be extradited to the
US. His Swedish lawyer, Per Samuelson, accused
Sweden of capitulating to US pressure, declaring,
“Today’s domestic decision shows that Sweden is not
yet prepared to abide by its international obligations
under the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights and Convention Against Torture and to the UN.”
“Sadly, Sweden has a long history of compromising its
rule of law where the perceived interests of the United
States are concerned, from helping the CIA kidnap
people in Sweden, as in the cases of Agiza and al-Zery
[asylum seekers returned to Egypt and tortured], to its
100 percent US extradition rate over the last 15 years.
“Mr Assange will appeal the decision and remains
confident that his indefinite and unlawful detention will
cease and that those responsible will be brought to
justice,” Samuelson concluded.
Swedish prosecutors have only now finally agreed to
travel outside the country and question Assange in the
Ecuadorian Embassy via an Ecuadorian prosecutor,
scheduled for October 17.
The significance of the decision to uphold the arrest
warrant and the importance of silencing Assange is
underscored by both the recent and planned
revelations from WikiLeaks, which have led US news
outlets to declare they could determine who enters the
White House as president this year.
In July, WikiLeaks released thousands of internal
Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails, which
exposed the underhand methods it employed to
subvert the campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie
Sanders and assist Hillary Clinton. Assange is now
threatening to release “a lot more” leaked information,
claiming Clinton, while serving as Secretary of State
during Obama’s first tenure, authorised weapons
shipments destined for Al Qaeda and Islamic State
(ISIS) forces in Libya and Syria. For exposing these
criminal intrigues, reminiscent of the Reagan-era Iran-
Contra events, the witch-hunt against Assange has
intensified, with attempts to brand him a “dupe” or
agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Assange’s fears of extradition to the US are fully
justified and Chelsea Manning’s brutal treatment is a
warning of the vindictive and brutal response to be
expected from the US state.
On the same day Sweden’s Appeal Court made its
decision, a British Magistrates’ Court authorised the
extradition to the US of 31-year-old student, Lauri
Love. US prosecutors have charged Love under the
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act with hacking into
government and corporate computer systems,
including the Federal Reserve Bank, the Department of
Defense and NASA. Love’s actions were part of
“Operation Last Resort” by the “hacktivist” group
Anonymous, a 2012-13 online protest against the
treatment of Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide
rather than face a lifetime in prison, while awaiting trial
on hacking and fraud charges.
Love’s US lawyer, Tor Ekeland, explained that he
“could potentially face life in prison in the United States
for what are essentially highly innocuous acts. I think
the punishment that they’re seeking is disproportionate
to any alleged harm.”
“It’s important to note that none of this information was
top secret. I don’t really think any of it was that
sensitive. It mainly, as far as I can tell from the
indictments, consisted of names, phone numbers,
email addresses and a couple of instances where
there were credit card numbers which don’t appear
ever to have been used anywhere,” he said.
Love has not been charged under British law, but could
receive a 99-year prison sentence in the US. Love has
Asperger syndrome and a history of depression.
Despite all this evidence, and accepting that there was
a substantial risk that Love would commit suicide if
extradited, Judge Nina Tempia came to the incredible
conclusion that “Mr Love has not shown it will be either
unjust or oppressive to extradite and there will be a
real risk to Mr Love of being severely ill-treated… I am
also satisfied that Mr Love will receive dedicated
mental and physical health care in the US.”
Tempia brushed aside the fact the evidence against
Love was of a digital nature and could be used in a
British court, saying the witnesses, which number
about 20, including an anonymous FBI informant who
had infiltrated an online “chat room” used by Love,
lived in the US.
The Love case was the first test of the so-called “forum
bar” introduced by the then home secretary, now Prime
Minister Theresa May in 2012 to allow UK citizens to
challenge US extradition requests if the alleged crimes
mainly took place on British soil. This followed the
eventually successful 10-year battle against extradition
by Gary McKinnon for alleged hacking into US military
systems. Sarah Harrison, director of the Courage
Foundation, which organises Love’s defence
campaign, explained, “Clear assurances were given
that legal changes would prevent the McKinnon
situation from happening again and, frankly, if the
forum bar can’t help Lauri Love, it’s very difficult to
understand how it could ever help anyone. This is not
what the public was led to believe at the time, and it’s
not something we should stand for.”

American playwright Edward

Albee: The character of his
opposition to the status quo
By David Walsh
22 September 2016
Edward Albee, one of the most prominent figures in the
postwar American theater, died at his home in
Montauk, New York on September 16. He was 88
years old.

Edward Albee in 1961, by Carl Van Vechten

Albee is best remembered for works he wrote a half

century ago or more, including The Zoo
Story (1959), The Death of Bessie Smith (1960), The
Sandbox (1960), The American Dream (1961), Who’s
Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) and A Delicate
Balance (1966). Out of critical and popular favor for
decades, Albee experienced a degree of renewed
success with Three Tall Women (1991) and The Goat
or Who is Sylvia? (2000). During his lengthy career,
Albee won numerous awards, including three Pulitzer
Prizes for Drama and two Tony Awards for Best Play.
Albee was an immensely gifted and articulate writer,
with a genuine feeling for the rhythm of language and
an obvious flair for the dramatic. His early works,
including The Zoo Story, a one-act play, and, most
especially, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a full-length
work, made a strong impression on the public when
they were first performed. In these works, and others
of the time, Albee launched fierce attacks on middle-
class complacency and hypocrisy, and the moral
failure of American society.
The playwright described himself on many occasions
as an enemy of the status quo. This was entirely to his
credit. However, if Albee’s conception of this enmity
remained quite limited, as we shall discuss, this was
bound up with the social-cultural environment in which
he matured in Cold War America and the milieu in
which he circulated.
Albee’s family background is a singular one. He was
born in Washington, DC in March, 1928 to a woman
who could not support a child. The father had
“deserted and abandoned both the mother and child,”
according to the subsequent adoption papers. When
he was 18 days old, the child was adopted by Reed A.
Albee and Frances C. Albee, a wealthy, childless
couple. Reed Albee’s money came from his father, the
head of the Keith-Albee chain of vaudeville theaters.
The Albees lived in luxury in Larchmont, New York on
the Long Island Sound.
The writer later claimed that he always felt like an
interloper in the household. “They bought me. They
paid $133.30”—i.e., the cost of the adoption services.
His “outsider” status in his own family and his
discovery of his homosexuality at an early age no
doubt helped distance Albee from the American
mainstream. He had a difficult time in school, being
expelled or dismissed from several high schools and
colleges. He left home for good in his late teens.
Toward the end of his life, Albee told an interviewer he
had been “thrown out” of the family home because he
refused to become the “corporate thug” his parents
desired him to be.
During the 1950s, Albee lived in Greenwich Village in
New York City and worked at numerous odd jobs. He
also received money from a trust fund. He wrote
poems, plays and novels that were not published.
Albee wrote The Zoo Story in three weeks in 1958. It
was first performed in West Berlin in 1959 on a double
bill with Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape.
The short play takes place in Central Park in New York.
There are two characters. Peter, a middle-aged man,
an executive with a small publishing house, who
“wears tweeds, smokes a pipe, carries horn-rimmed
glasses.” We eventually learn that he has a wife, two
daughters, two cats and two parakeets, the perfect,
contented American family. Peter is peacefully reading
his newspaper on a park bench on a Sunday afternoon
when Jerry enters into conversation with him. The
latter is younger, poorer and suffering, according to
Albee’s description, from “great weariness.”

Edward
Albee
The conversation begins innocently, if oddly, enough,
with Jerry’s now-famous line: “I’ve been to the
zoo. (PETER doesn’t notice) I said, I’ve been to the
zoo. MISTER, I’VE BEEN TO THE ZOO!” Peter
responds politely enough, but Jerry becomes more and
more intrusive, asking personal questions and
revealing the character of his own lonely existence.
When Peter has had enough and tries to leave, Jerry
becomes aggressive and pulls out a knife. He drops it
and tells Peter, “There you go. Pick it up.” The other
man does so and Jerry eventually impales himself on
the blade. In his final, dying words, he thanks Peter.
Something about the coldness and isolation, and
inequality, of modern urban life emerges. Jerry lives in
a rooming house, with a “few clothes, a hot plate that
I’m not supposed to have, a can opener.” His
neighbors are the marginalized. His closest
relationship, aside from those with prostitutes, is with
his landlady’s dog, about whom he speaks in a lengthy
monologue.
Years later, Albee would explain, “Jerry is a man who
has not closed down, … who during the course of the
play is trying to persuade Peter that closing down is
dangerous and that life for all its problems, all of its
miseries, is worth participating in, absolutely fully.”
Albee was attacked for his play in establishment
circles. On the floor of the US Senate, Prescott Bush
(father and grandfather of two US presidents)
denounced The Zoo Story as “filthy.”
The influence of Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and the
“theater of the absurd” is evident in The Zoo Story,
which is to say, Albee was under the influence of some
of the same social and intellectual tendencies as those
writers. British playwright Harold Pinter, born in 1930,
was an almost exact contemporary. Pinter’s first
play, The Room, was written and performed in 1957.
The intellectuals of the time, or the more sensitive
ones, were appalled by contemporary society, by the
giant corporations and institutions that had emerged in
the aftermath of World War II, by the Cold War, by the
threat of nuclear destruction, by the officially
sponsored conformism and pursuit of material wealth.
On the other hand, for the most part they saw no way
out of the situation. Stalinism and its crimes, widely
identified with communism and socialism, seemed to
many to have closed off the possibility of revolutionary
change. The various counterrevolutionary “labor”
bureaucracies suppressed the working class politically.
Existentialism and other forms of irrationalism
suggested that the human condition was absurd, but
that one had to endure and find some meaning in what
was perhaps a meaningless existence. Abstract
expressionism in painting and the “Beat” movement
emerged from these general ideological conditions.
In The Death of Bessie Smith Albee paid oblique
tribute to the civil rights movement and the suffering of
African Americans. The short play takes place in
Memphis, Tennessee in 1937, in a hospital. An
overworked white nurse, a white intern and a black
orderly feature prominently. The premise of the play is
that Bessie Smith, the great blues singer (who never
appears in the play), dies following a car crash
because she is refused admittance to a whites-only
hospital. This was generally believed at the time. In
fact, Smith was taken directly to a hospital in
Clarksdale, Mississippi where she died seven hours
after the accident. But Albee’s play concerns itself with
race and class relations in America, and retains much
of its power. The character of the Nurse stands out in
particular.
Albee reserved much of his venom for the American
upper-middle-class, nuclear family. In The American
Dream, an absurdist satire, the central characters are
Mommy, Daddy and Grandma. The couple, we
discover, had once adopted a son. Unhappy with it,
they mutilated the child and ultimately killed it. As
Grandma, a sympathetic character, explains, “Well, for
the last straw, it finally up and died; and you can
imagine how that made them feel, their having paid for
it and all. … They wanted satisfaction; they wanted
their money back.”
A Young Man shows up, whom Grandma names “The
American Dream,” who turns out to be the original
boy’s twin. The old woman moves out and the
psychologically damaged Young Man moves in. He will
take the place of the original adopted child. The
dialogue consists largely of a series of clichés and
banalities. In typical Albee fashion, a well-to-do family
conceals all the brutal realities.
Albee later asserted that the play “is an examination of
the American Scene, an attack on the substitution of
artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation
of complacency, cruelty, emasculation, and vacuity; it is
a stand against the fiction that everything in this
slipping land of ours is peachy-keen. Is the play
offensive? I certainly hope so.”
The work for which Albee is best known, Who’s Afraid
of Virginia Woolf?(made into a film with Richard Burton
and Elizabeth Taylor, released in 1966), opened in
October 1962, only a few days before the eruption of
the Cuban Missile Crisis, the confrontation between
the US and the USSR over the deployment of Soviet
missiles in Cuba. The often intangible and even
unnamable psychological menace and paranoia
generated by the threat of nuclear annihilation are
woven into Albee’s early plays, as they are in many
writers’ and filmmakers’ work of the time.

Poster for
"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1962)
In its framework and episodes, Who’s Afraid of Virginia
Woolf? (borrowed from a bit of “intellectual’s” graffiti
found on a wall) is more naturalistic than Albee’s
previous efforts. George is a middle-aged associate
professor of history at a small New England College;
his wife, Martha, six years his senior, is the daughter of
the college president. They return home late at night
after a party, where they have already had a good deal
to drink. Two guests arrive, a younger couple: Nick, a
biology professor, and his wife, Honey.
For the rest of the night, George and Martha engage in
furious, non-stop and occasionally amusing abuse of
one another in front of the younger pair. Martha
relentlessly taunts George and humiliates him. She
dismisses her husband as “a FLOP! A great … big …
fat FLOP!” In response, George breaks a bottle and
holds the remains, like a weapon. Martha remarks, “I
hope that was an empty bottle, George. You don’t want
to waste good liquor … not on your salary.” It goes on
like this.
At one point he pretends to shoot her. “GEORGE: Did
you really think I was going to kill you, Martha?
MARTHA (Dripping with contempt): You? … Kill me?
… That’s a laugh. GEORGE: Well, now, I might …
some day.”
The hosts play various vicious games, some on each
other, some on their guests. When one of his games
turns cruel, George explains calmly, “I hate hypocrisy.”
George and Martha also claim to have a son, who is
coming home that day. In the end, it turns out that they
have no child and the fantasy that they do is one of the
great lies sustaining their lives and marriage.
The play, above all, suggests America’s decline into
something miserable, sick and full of self-deception.
Again, the fear and selfishness under the surface of
middle class existence come out, along with that social
layer’s hypocrisy and servility. Success and stature,
the jockeying for position, on this wretched,
unimportant little campus absorb much of the time and
thought of all four characters. Whatever was promising
about America and the American Dream (and George
and Martha, of course, are the names of the first
president of the US and his wife) has somehow come
down to this: stupid, petty and sterile infighting, an
endless drunken, malicious quarrel in the middle of the
night. All this expenditure of energy … for what?

Elizabeth
Taylor and Richard Burton in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966)

The characters are not so much hateful, as pitiful.

Toward the end of the play, Martha laments, “I do not
wish to be happy, and yes I do wish to be happy.
George and Martha, sad, sad, sad.”
In A Delicate Balance, a well-to-do couple, Agnes and
Tobias live with Agnes’s alcoholic sister, Claire. Their
daughter Julia is expected to arrive home soon, fleeing
her fourth unsuccessful marriage. Friends of Agnes
and Tobias’s, Harry and Edna, arrive and ask if they
can stay. A terrible, intangible fear has overtaken them.
What to do with Harry and Edna, whether to ask them
to leave or accept them and accept responsibility for
them in their plight, becomes a central question in the
play. The strongest element of A Delicate Balance,
once again, is the contrast between the well-
established rules of conduct of these polite, educated
people and the painful, contradictory realities of life.
Albee wrote many other plays, including adaptations of
works by Carson McCullers (The Ballad of the Sad
Café) and Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita), but these early
works contain the most compelling expression of his
artistic ideas and social concerns.
Albee insisted until the end of his life that he was an
enemy of existing conditions. In his introduction
to Box and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-
tung (1968), Albee argued that one of the chief
obligations of the playwright was to “try to alter his
society,” since, as he explained, “very few serious
plays are written to glorify the status quo.” In an
interview in 2009, he told a journalist, along the same
lines, that “A play should be an act of aggression
against the status quo.”
Nor did Albee have much use for fashionable and
marketable “identity politics.” Defending his decision to
write about a host of characters, he told an interviewer,
fellow playwright Craig Lucas, in 1992, “After all, there
are a number of things we have not been, you and I.
We’ve not been women, we’ve not been 80 years old,
we’ve not been black. A lot of things we haven’t been.
But its our responsibility to be able to be them, isn’t it?”
Albee attracted criticism for rejecting the term “gay
writer.” In a May 2011 speech, he commented, “A
writer who happens to be gay or lesbian must be able
to transcend self. I am not a gay writer. I am a writer
who happens to be gay. … Any definition which limits
us is deplorable.” After his comments were attacked,
he told National Public Radio, “Maybe I’m being a little
troublesome about this, but so many writers who are
gay are expected to behave like gay writers and I find
that is such a limitation and such a prejudicial thing
that I fight against it whenever I can.”
Albee’s criticism of the “status quo” could be quite
fierce. He was quoted in 1980 as saying, “I think
television is the destruction of the United States. I
mean, that and the Republican Party … And the
Democratic Party, for that matter, come to think of it.”
In Everything in the Garden (1967), Albee’s American
adaptation of a black comedy by British playwright
Giles Cooper, a group of respectable suburban
housewives turn to prostitution en masse (although
unbeknownst to one another) to supplement their
husbands’ incomes. When one of the wives is caught
out, she turns on her husband and decries the corrupt,
even criminal manner in which each of the men earns
a living. She sums it up: “You all stink, you’re all killers
and whores.”
Albee’s sincerity was unquestionable. However, when
the playwright spoke of opposition to the status quo, he
meant primarily the moral, sexual and
psychological status quo. To many intellectuals and
artists in the US, and this view was encouraged by the
various academic left tendencies (the Frankfurt School
and so forth), capitalism had resolved its economic
contradictions. What remained were the problems of
alienation, aloneness, conformism and sexual
repression.
Continuing to engage exclusively with these issues
and ignoring the explosive questions that emerged in
the 1970s and beyond, including the growing
impoverishment of masses of Americans and the
overall economic-cultural decline of the US, meant that
Albee’s work failed to treat much of what was new and
challenging, and urgently in need of artistic description,
in American life.
Many of Albee’s later plays, and even some of the
early ones, are not strong or convincing. Plays
like Tiny
Alice (1964), Malcolm (1966), Seascape (1975),Counti
ng the Ways (1976), The Man Who Had Three
Arms (1982) and others are not particularly engaging.
The self-conscious “absurdism” often wears thin. There
is a great deal of repetition, between and even within
plays. The ideas are often murky and secondary, or
commonplace.
Albee was at war with hostile critics for many years,
and the critics were often obtuse, but the lack of
success of many of his plays with the general public
was not principally due to the reviewers’ shortcomings.
He wrote numerous tedious and almost pointless
plays. He seemed to have run out of important things
to say at a relatively young age.
Albee returned time and time again to his early family
relations. The ineffectual, “castrated” father, the
domineering mother, the victimized son … There are
only so many times one can cover the same ground.
Did Albee have a childhood that was so excruciating,
or that was of such world-historical significance that it
needed to be treated over and over again, from
different angles, during the course of 40 years?
No, that is not the case. It is rather that there are social
and political conditions in which the artist’s individual
psychological problems and traumas take on “world-
historical” importance to him or her. There are periods
when one’s family life dominates, when what one’s
mother and father did or didn’t do years ago continues
to be a central obsession in later life. This was the type
of historical period in which Albee matured, when the
class struggle apparently receded into the background.
Albee was no Henrik Ibsen, the Norwegian playwright,
but some of the comments that Russian Marxist Georgi
Plekhanov made on the subject of Ibsen in a 1908
essay (“Ibsen, Petty Bourgeois Revolutionist”) seem
appropriate. Plekhanov noted that at the time when
“Ibsen’s opinions and ideals were being formulated, a
working class, in the present sense of the term, had
not yet developed … and was, therefore, nowhere
evident in public life.” This encouraged in Ibsen,
“individual protests against the hypocrisy and vulgarity
which surrounds him.” His was “the revolt of the
modern spirit.”
Plekhanov goes on, “Now if a man teaches revolt
simply because it is revolt, not knowing himself to what
end it should lead, then his teaching will take on a
rather nebulous character. If he is an artist, and thinks
in terms of images and forms, then the vagueness of
his thinking will necessarily result in vague artistic
images. An abstract and schematic element will creep
into his creative work. … The ‘revolution of the spirit of
man’ leaves everything unchanged. The pregnant
mountain has again given birth to a tiny mouse.”
Unhappily, for much of his later career, as a result of
the nebulousness of his ideas and the formlessness of
his opposition to the status quo, Albee gave birth to
nothing but “tiny mice.”
Robert Brustein, the distinguished critic, producer and
academic, once referred to Albee “as one who
sympathized profoundly with the oppressed of the
world.” One has no reason to doubt this, but it is not
distinctly and sharply present in his work or public
utterances. It is worth noting that in Mel Gussow’s
biography, Edward Albee: A Singular Journey (1999),
there is a single reference to the Vietnam War in the
index. According to an August 1968 New York
Times article, Albee did lend his name as a sponsor of
the anti-war “Summer of Support,” aimed at US
servicemen, along with Pete Seeger, Dustin Hoffman,
Phil Ochs and others.
Overall, however, as one commentator notes, Albee’s
plays in the 1970s spoke to “personal” rather than
“social” disillusionment.
One has to look to the general features of Albee’s time,
the postwar economic expansion and the Cold War, for
the conditions that shaped his thinking. He traveled to
the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and certainly
distinguished himself from the extreme right
confrontationists, but his comments on the USSR do
not rise above the level of garden variety
anticommunist liberalism. His facile use of selections
from Mao’s “Little Red Book” in Quotations from
Chairman Mao Tse-tung, either wooden truisms or
Stalinist falsifications, gives some sense of his attitude
toward what he took to be “Marxism” and
“revolutionary theory.”
The “abstract and schematic element” in Albee’s work
also manifests itself in the ahistorical character of his
plays, and the often nameless characters: Mommy and
Daddy, Young Man and Grandma, He and She, A B
and C. He once told an interviewer, “Most of my plays
are not tied to time, particularly.” He didn’t care for
having the phrase “timeless” applied to his work, he
explained, “but I don’t think they [the plays] are
beholden to specific dates.”
Unfortunately, there is nothing that becomes dated
more rapidly than the “dateless.” Abstract
psychological characterizations and speculations and,
frankly, the obsession with oneself do not generally
lead to the most rewarding, enriching art. “We all wish
to devour ourselves, enter ourselves, be the subject
and object all at once,” asserts a character in
Albee’s Listening(1976). But the artist seriously
attuned to the world and life has more compelling
things to do.
Albee’s great strength lay in his ability to represent his
upper-middle-class figures, to reveal their inner lives.
He helped demystify and discredit the affluent layers
who thought themselves fully in control. Moreover, his
rejection of corruption and cowardice, his insistence on
unpleasant truths about American society in the late
1950s and early 1960s unquestionably contributed to
the mood of radicalism and opposition that emerged
later in the decade.
To paraphrase Plekhanov, drab, postwar American
reality showed Albee what had to be opposed, but it
could not by itself show him which road to pursue.

Protests continue in
Charlotte, North Carolina as
police refuse to release video
of fatal shooting
By David Brown
23 September 2016

Police in riot gear confronted angry residents of

Charlotte, North Carolina Thursday, during a third night
of protests against the police killing of Keith Scott
earlier this week. Police are refusing to release video
of the fatal shooting, with family members who have
seen it saying that it shows no sign of aggression by
Scott.
North Carolina’s National Guard deployed on the
streets of Charlotte Thursday morning after the state’s
Republican Governor Pat McCrory declared a state of
emergency in response to protests. Charlotte Mayor
Jennifer Roberts ordered a midnight curfew beginning
last night.
To safeguard businesses, 367 National Guardsmen
have so far been deployed to the city for “installation
security.” In anticipation of more protests, Wells Fargo,
the city’s largest corporate employer, told its 12,000
employees that non-essential personnel should work
from home.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney
declared on Thursday that he would not “display a
victim’s worst day for consumption” by releasing the
video. The police claim that Scott was only shot by
plainclothes officer Brentley Vinson after Scott pointed
a gun at officers. Scott’s family asserts that he was
holding a book, and other witnesses state that Scott
was complying with officers’ orders.
Family members were allowed to view the video on
Thursday. Family lawyer Justin Bamberg released a
statement: “When told by police to exit his vehicle, Mr.
Scott did so in a very calm, nonaggressive manner.
While police did give him several commands, he did
not aggressively approach them or raise his hands at
members of law enforcement at any time.” Just before
he was shot and killed, “Mr. Scott’s hands were by his
side, and he was slowly walking backwards.”
Taheshia Williams, whose apartment overlooks the
parking lot where Scott was killed, told CBS News, “He
got out of his car, he walked back to comply, and all his
compliance did was get him murdered.”
Chief Putney admitted in a press conference that the
police video does not have “definitive visual evidence
that would confirm that a person is pointing a gun.”
The family has called for the public release of the video
evidence.
To better obscure police activity from the public,
Governor McCrory signed a bill going into effect in
October that removes police footage from the public
record. Unless the police departments choose to
release the footage, only a person whose image or
voice is captured is allowed to view the recording. If
that person is deceased, a relative can request to view
it, and no copies can be made without a court order. In
Orwellian language, McCrory claimed the law would
promote “clarity and transparency.”
The police killing of Scott and the eruption of protests
casts a harsh light on the immense social inequality in
Charlotte, which parallels conditions throughout the
country.
Charlotte was named one of the best places to live
by US News & World Report in March. While one-fifth
of Mecklenburg County residents make over $115,000
a year, 13.6 percent of Charlotte’s residents live below
the official poverty line. In the part of the city where
police killed Scott, nearly one-third of the population
lives in poverty.
A 2014 study conducted by UC Berkeley and Harvard
found that poor residents in Charlotte had less social
mobility than in any other big city. A child born in
poverty there had only a 4.4 percent chance of earning
an income in the top fifth of the population.
While the city’s financial center has rebounded from
the 2008 financial collapse, poorer workers are forced
to contend with unemployment and low-wage jobs. The
official unemployment rate among African Americans in
the city is 11.6 percent.
Whatever role racism plays in particular police killings,
the fundamental issue is class. In this regard it is
significant that while Scott was African American, so
was the police officer who reportedly killed him,
Vinson; as is the police chief in Charlotte, Kerr Putney.
So far this year, police have killed 844 people
according to killedbypolice.net. According to statistics
maintained by the Guardian, African Americans have
been killed this year at a rate of 4.86 per million,
surpassed only by Native Americans at 5.49. Although
whites are killed at a lower rate, they make up roughly
half of those killed by police.
The promotion of racial politics is aimed at obscuring
the basic class questions involved in the epidemic of
police violence, which is a response by the ruling class
to growing social anger and inequality.
Nervous about the possibility of widespread social
unrest, the New York Times published an editorial on
Thursday calling for the release of the video in
Charlotte, warning that “keeping the public in the dark
heightens tension and undermines trust in law
enforcement.”
The Times cited approvingly the decision by
prosecutors in Tulsa, Oklahoma to charge Betty
Shelby, the officer involved in the killing of Terence
Crutcher on September 16, with first degree
manslaughter. Even if she is convicted, Shelby would
face a minimum of four years in prison.
These various efforts at damage control are aimed at
diffusing anger while doing nothing to address the
unending string of police killings. Since the August
2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri
sparked mass protests, police nationwide have killed
well over 2,000 people. Hardly any officers are
charged, and those who are charged are rarely if ever
convicted.
The Obama administration, meanwhile, while presiding
over the funneling of military weaponry to local police
forces throughout the country, has used federal
investigations to whitewash police killings and has
repeatedly refused to bring federal charges against
any of the police officers involved in the murder of
unarmed civilians.

Germany and France press

ahead with a European
military union
By Johannes Stern
23 September 2016

The German Ministry Of Defence has released the

joint military policy paper of German Defence Minister
Ursula von der Leyen and her French counterpart
Jean-Yves Le Drian, which was earlier quoted in the
European press in the run-up to the European Union
(EU) summit in Bratislava. It underscores how Paris
and Berlin are using the withdrawal of Britain from the
EU to push forward the development of an
independent European military and great power policy.
The title of the six-page document says it all:
“Renewing the GVSP [Joint Security and Defence
Policy]: Toward a comprehensive, realistic and reliable
defence in the EU.” From the very beginning, von der
Leyen and Le Drian refer to the “new EU global
strategy for foreign and security policy (EUGS),”
submitted by High Representative of the Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini
at the first EU summit after the Brexit referendum in
July.
At the centre of Mogherini’s paper, which was written
parallel to the German White Paper and bears the
fingerprints of Berlin, is the transformation of the EU
into a military union capable of military interventions
worldwide and independent of the United States. While
NATO is certainly there to protect its members from
enemy attacks, says the paper’s section on global
strategy, Europe “must be better equipped, trained and
organised to contribute decisively to such collective
efforts, as well as to act autonomously if and when
necessary.”
Von der Leyen and Le Drian now call for “quickly”
implementing this strategy “in concrete plans of action,
especially in the area of security and defence.” These
include “the support of GSVP military missions, the
development of military capability and European
defence cooperation as well as the concrete support of
the European defence industry.” On this basis, a
“strategic autonomy is ensured” and a “strong,
competitive and innovative” European defence industry
will be built.
In addition, the German-French paper calls for “a
permanent EU HQ [headquarters] for military and
civilian missions and operations” and “a permanent
military EU planning and implementation capability.” To
increase the “effectiveness of the GVSP,” von der
Leyen and Le Drian further propose the building of a
“European medical command,” “additional
improvements in the operability of EU ‘battle groups’,”
and an “improvement of the troop contingent process
for EU missions and operations.”
In addition, it is proposed the EU “develop strategic
transport capabilities (land/air/sea)” and “connect to a
European logistics hub.” Further plans include the
development of a “maritime EU security strategy
(EUMSS)” and the joint training of officers “to improve
the existing European officer network” and “to promote
a genuine European spirit among our officers.”
Under conditions of a deep social and political crisis in
Europe and growing conflict between the major powers
internationally, Berlin and Paris are rapidly pushing
forward the militarisation of the continent. Von der
Leyen and Le Drian intend to present “a timetable”
during the informal meeting of defence ministers on
September 26 and 27. Their goal is “a favourable
decision” by the next meeting of EU defence ministers
on November 15. The European Council should then
adopt “additional comprehensive political guidelines in
the area of security and defence” in December.
Von der Leyen and Le Drian refer to a joint EU-NATO
statement from the beginning of July and emphasise
“that a stronger, more capable European defence also
represents a strengthening of NATO at the same time.”
But there is no doubt that the building of an
independent European military structure challenges
the transatlantic alliance of the post-war period and
would reproduce the same conflicts that led to two
world wars in the twentieth century.
London, which repeatedly blocked the development of
a joint European military policy—at the behest of
Washington—in the past heavily criticised the latest
German-French attempt.
British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon assured
the Financial Times that as long as Britain was a
formal member of the EU, it would vote against plans
for a European army. “That is not going to happen,”
said Fallon of the EU plans discussed in Bratislava.
“We are full members of the EU and we will go on
resisting any attempt to set up a rival to NATO.”
Menzies Campbell, the former leader of the Liberal
Democrats, declared: “Even as a fervent European, I
regard the creation of a European army as a deeply
damaging, long-term threat to NATO.”
The British ruling class is reacting to the militarisation
of the EU with its own massive campaign of military
build-up. In a 10-page private memorandum to Fallon,
made available to the Financial Times, General Sir
Richard Barrons complained about the insufficient
combat readiness of the British armed forces and
called for the acquisition of new weapons systems.
Barrons warned against not being prepared to some
extent for a war with Russia. “Capability that is
foundational to all major armed forces has been
withered by design,” he complained, adding, “There is
a sense that modern conflict is ordained to be only as
small and as short term as we want to afford, and that
is absurd.”
In June, Malcolm Chalmers of the Royal United
Services Institute, a British think tank, said that if it
were to leave the EU, Britain would “come under
considerable pressure to retain, and perhaps even
increase, its commitment to NATO collective defence in
Europe.” Since then, the British government has
increased its military budget extending through
2020/2021 to almost 5 billion pounds to meet the
NATO goal of devoting 2 percent of GDP of each
member state to defence each year.
On the continent, the EU militarisation plans are also
aggravating divisions between the powers. In
Bratislava, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi refused
to participate in the closing press conference with
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French
President François Hollande. Just a few weeks before,
Renzi met with Merkel and Hollande on an aircraft
carrier off the Italian island of Ventotene to revive the
reactionary vision of a European military union
following the Brexit referendum.
For the moment, Germany, France and Italy are (still)
working closely together, but they are pursuing
different national agendas. While Berlin wants to
assume leadership of Europe, including militarily, to
assert its geostrategic and economic interests
worldwide, France and Italy themselves seek to play
the most dominant role possible and to keep German
hegemony under control.
In an article featured in the latest edition of the Italian
political magazineEastwest, the former adviser to the
Italian Foreign Ministry, Gerardo Pelosi, writes: “Renzi
in the directorate [at Ventotene] also means that in the
Mediterranean region, the leading role in Europe’s
southern flank falls to Italy.” The “stabilisation of Libya”
and the “creation of a large energy interface for
countries in the region, Italy itself and the rest of
Europe in the eastern Mediterranean” is “the Italian
answer to Nord Stream 2 and would balance
Germany’s dominance in the north of the European
Union.”
erman foreign minister calls
for no-fly zone over Syria
By Johannes Stern
23 September 2016

After the initial proposal by US Secretary of State John

Kerry, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter
Steinmeier (Social Democrats, SPD) joined calls
Wednesday evening for a no-fly zone over Syria. “The
situation today in Syria is on a knife edge,” an official
statement on the Foreign Ministry’s web site declared.
“If the ceasefire is to have any chance whatsoever, the
only way is to have a time-limited but complete ban of
all military aircraft movements over Syria, at least for
three, or even better, seven days.”
Like Kerry, Steinmeier justified his demand with
humanitarian phrases. With a no-fly zone, the United
Nations had “the possibility of reestablishing their
humanitarian aid shipments to the suffering and
besieged people.” At the same time, it would create
“space for precise agreements in the Syrian support
group on coordinated action against IS and al-Qaida
and a path back to negotiations on a transitional
government for Syria.”
In reality, a no-fly zone imposed by the US, Germany,
or other NATO members would not be a peace
initiative but rather a massive escalation of the more
than five-year-old war for regime change in Syria
incited by the Western powers. In March 2011, the
establishment of a no-fly zone in Libya, justified on the
same “humanitarian” grounds, was the prelude to a
NATO-led air war against the oil-rich country. It
reached its brutal climax several months later with the
murder of Gaddafi by Western-backed Islamist rebels.
Steinmeier speaks of “coordinated action against IS
and al-Qaida.” With this transparent pretext, Germany
and the Western powers routinely seek to legitimise
their military operations in Syria and Iraq. In fact, the
imperialist powers continue to collaborate with al-
Qaida and even the IS militias to overthrow the
government of Bashar al-Assad and install a pro-
Western puppet regime in Damascus. Just a few days
ago, German weekly magazineDie Zeit defended the
Syrian al-Qaida forces as the “life insurance for many
moderate rebel groups.”
On Saturday, American, British and Australian planes
bombarded an outpost of the Syrian army near the
Deir ez-Zor airbase, killing or injuring close to 200
soldiers in the process. In parallel with this, IS fighters
began an offensive on the Syrian army airbase.
Reports indicate that the German army (Bundeswehr)
provided images of the area under attack. A
spokesman for the Defence Ministry stated on Monday
in Berlin that he did not want to talk about “operational
details which are subject to secrecy.”
Steinmeier’s “Syrian support group,” with which Berlin
and the other imperialist powers are closely
collaborating—the so-called High Negotiations
Commission (HNC)—is chiefly financed by Saudi
Arabia, supports armed Islamist militias in Syria and
has long demanded the removal of the Assad
government. When Steinmeier, Kerry or the general
coordinator of the HNC, Riad Hijab, speak of a
“transitional government” or a “transitional process” in
Syria, they mean the installation of a pro-Western
puppet government in Damascus.
The demand for a no-fly zone in Syria increases the
danger of a direct clash with nuclear-armed Russia,
the main backer of the Assad regime. Russian deputy
foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, described “this
initiative,” according to Russian news agency Interfax,
as “at least for the moment impossible to implement.”
First, the US and its allies had to apply pressure “on
those forces who think that only war can solve the
problem.”
If Steinmeier is currently supporting the US initiative,
he is not doing so as a follower of US war policy, but
rather as a representative of the interests of German
imperialism. In June this year, he authored an article in
the Foreign Affairs journal entitled “Germany’s new
global role,” which not only described Berlin as a
“significant European power,” but also called US
predominance into question. The German Foreign
Ministry is now exploiting the escalation of the war in
Syria to expand German influence in the Middle East
and internationally.
“We want to stand up and assume responsibility,
contribute to justice and peace,” Steinmeier also said
on Wednesday at the launch event for Germany’s
campaign to secure a seat on the UN Security Council
in 2019-20. Germany was one of the “most active
players, when “overcoming conflict, stabilization and
crisis management” were involved. “We show
engagement, we show responsibility, and we find good
will and support for that,” Steinmeier proclaimed.
During the UN General Assembly this week, he held
numerous discussions with colleagues and believed
“that Germany will find a lot of support for its
candidacy.”
Anybody who needs convincing of the rapacious
interests that lie behind Steinmeier’s verbal
euphemisms and the German UN campaign should
examine the German army’s new white paper. There it
is stated in section 3 under the heading “Germany’s
strategic priorities” that German business is “equally as
dependent upon guaranteed supplies of raw materials
and secure international transportation routes as it is
on functioning information and communications
systems.”
The nominal opposition Left Party and Greens, which
are preparing for a so-called red-red-green coalition in
the state of Berlin with Steinmeier’s SPD, are playing a
key role in encouraging German imperialism back onto
the world stage and concealing its insatiable appetite
for export markets and raw materials with humanitarian
arguments.
On Thursday, Left Party foreign policy spokesman Jan
van Aken accused the “Syrian regime” on
Deutschlandfunk of waging an “extremely brutal war of
starvation against Aleppo … They want to starve the
population there to force them to leave their homes so
they can assume control of Aleppo at some point.”
Germany had to step up pressure now so that “the
foreign powers bring their partners under control—that
applies to Russia and the Syrian regime, but also the
US and their partner Saudi Arabia,” van Aken said in
summing up his position.
Jürgen Trittin, who was a member of the SPD/Green
cabinet of Hartz IV social welfare reforms and war
between 1998 and 2005 under Chancellor Gerhard
Schröder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer,
appealed in Die Zeit on Thursday for a “left” military
and great power policy. “We see what is expected from
Europe and therefore from Germany. Europe should
guard against globalisation. And Europe should
provide citizens with security. That includes us dealing
with the instability in our neighbourhood—especially
when it is provoked by mistaken interventions like
Libya.” Now, “anyone who is politically left [must]
assume responsibility,” Trittin wrote.

Blairite coup to continue

despite UK Labour leadership
vote outcome
By Julie Hyland
23 September 2016

Balloting in the Labour Party leadership contest closed

Wednesday. The victor will be announced at Labour’s
special conference tomorrow.
Jeremy Corbyn is expected to win comfortably against
his challenger, Owen Smith. This is despite the vicious
campaign, initiated by the Blairite right wing, to depose
the Labour leader.
The vote in favour of the UK quitting the European
Union in June was the trigger for the long-planned
coup. There followed a wave of resignations from the
shadow cabinet and a no-confidence motion signed by
172 members of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP)
in an attempt to force Corbyn to resign. When that was
unsuccessful, the right wing barred 130,000 members
from voting under a spurious time rule. Just how much
of an impact this will have on the size of Corbyn’s
expected majority—he won with 59.5 percent last year
—is unclear.
The failure of the attempted putsch necessitated a
meeting of the National Executive Committee on
Tuesday. Presented as an attempt to agree a “truce”
and unify the party, the proposals—drawn up by the
PLP—show that the right wing are preparing a war of
attrition until their aims are realised.
Deputy Labour leader Tom Watson, a key player in the
coup, proposed a return to the electoral college system
—abolished in 2011 under Ed Miliband—whereby
members of the shadow cabinet are elected by the
PLP. He claimed this would enable Labour to “put the
band back together” in time for a possible early
election. In reality, it would guarantee a Blairite majority
on the shadow cabinet.
Watson also proposed that party leadership voting
rules be reversed, with the decision being made one-
third by the PLP, a third by the unions and the
remaining third by party members. This would exclude
registered supporters who pay a one-off fee to vote, 84
percent of whom backed Corbyn last September. That
is why the right wing hiked the fee up from £3 to £25 in
the latest contest. Nonetheless, almost 130,000 people
successfully signed up.
Watson’s efforts to secure agreement on the proposals
before the conference were defeated by 16 to 15, with
Corbyn voting against. Nevertheless Corbyn has
agreed to talks on the measures on Saturday evening
and to report back to the NEC. As far as he is
concerned, “the slate will be wiped clean this
weekend,” he said.
Details of the additional 22 changes to party rules
agreed by the NEC are sketchy, but they include
expanding the NEC to include representatives from the
Scottish and Welsh Labour parties. These will be
nominated by the Scottish and Welsh Labour leaders
—Kezia Dugdale and Carwyn Jones—both Corbyn
opponents.
Several Corbyn supporters successfully won elections
to the NEC last month and, effective from October, this
would have overturned the right-wing majority on the
NEC. The inclusion of Scottish and Welsh
representatives will enable the right wing to regain the
initiative.
All members are to be required to sign a pledge “to act
within the spirit and rules of the Labour party in my
conduct both on and offline, with members and non-
members.” Failure to do so will result in disciplinary
action. This will be used to legitimise the draconian
methods used to bar anyone suspected of left-wing
sympathies from party membership.
Using overwhelmingly trumped-up charges of anti-
Semitism, misogyny and intimidation, 3,107 people
have been suspended from membership as Labour’s
Orwellian Compliance Unit has trawled through
Internet postings to target anyone critical of the
Blairites.
Stoke-on-Trent Labour MP Ruth Smeeth welcomed the
move. Smeeth, who is Jewish, has been at the centre
of the witch-hunt alleging rampant anti-Semitism in the
Labour Party. She announced she would be taking a
“minder” with her as a “security precaution” to the
special conference.
Smeeth cited as proof of the unwarranted abusive
messages she received, those denouncing her as a
“CIA/MI5/Mossad informant”. But the lady doth protest
too much. Smeeth, one of the 60 plus anti-Corbyn
resignations from the shadow cabinet, formerly held a
post with the lobby group, Britain Israel
Communications and Research Centre (BICOM). In
2009, WikiLeaks released a US embassy diplomatic
cable identifying her as a “strictly protect” US
informant. She is married to Michael Smeeth, a
member of the executive of the British-American
Project (BAP)—an outpost of the US/UK military
intelligence apparatus that grooms political figures.
The coup has not ended, only moved to a different
stage. Several MPs have already said they intend to
form an alternative shadow cabinet on the
backbenches if Corbyn is returned, while former Home
Secretary Alan Johnson urged a relentless campaign
to undermine Corbyn’s leadership “year after year.”
Others, such as former party leader Neil Kinnock, have
made no secret of their satisfaction that the party crisis
will hit Labour at the polls, which will in turn be used to
justify further moves against Corbyn. On Tuesday, the
Liberal Democrats gained a seat on Cardiff council
from Labour, following a Liberal Democrat gain at
Labour’s expense earlier this month in the Mosborough
ward of Sheffield. In Bristol, the suspension of three
pro-Corbyn councillors by the NEC has seen Labour
lose overall control of the local authority.
Writing in the Telegraph, John McTernan, former
political adviser to Tony Blair, set out the right wing’s
strategy. Significantly, he pinned his hopes for
overturning Corbyn’s stated opposition to austerity and
war on the trade unions.
McTernan derided Corbyn as a “pacifist on [Britain’s
nuclear weapons programme] Trident, soft on [Russian
President Vladimir] Putin, opposed to business, growth
and wealth, committed to tax and spend.”
“The affiliated trade unions are central to how the next
year unfolds for Labour,” he wrote, arguing that the
trade unions would veto Corbyn’s opposition to
renewing Trident.
“Central to Labour’s recovery as a viable political party
in Britain is back to the future,” he continued. Labour’s
great successes were achieved in its early days,
before 1918, when it consisted solely of “affiliated
unions and the PLP.” The rot had set in when it
decided to open the door to individual members “who
had to be brought back in line by the unions. That was
what happened in the 1980s [at the time of the witch-
hunt against the Militant tendency] and it will be
necessary again.”
McTernan noted that this is why Blair had protected the
role of the unions in party policy making. “The moves
that are most likely to succeed in isolating Corbyn are
ones which involve the trade unions,” he stressed—
hence the proposed return to the electoral college
system.
“It is important to remember that Labour is not now and
has never been a socialist party… The virus of
socialism is alien to the Labour Party—it is killing the
party now, but the cure will be, as always, the unions,”
he wrote.
It should be recalled that it was the trade unions that
forced the resignation of George Lansbury, Labour
leader between 1932 and 1935. A Christian pacifist, it
was under his office that the 1933 Labour conference
supported unilateral disarmament and pledged not to
participate in any wars. For this he was denounced by
the Trades Union Congress, which used its weight to
overturn the policy in 1935—with Transport and
General Workers’ Union leader, Ernest Bevin, leading
the attack. Bevin went on to become Minister of Labour
in the wartime national unity government—1940-1945
—and a prime mover in the creation of NATO as a
military alliance against the Soviet Union after the war.
Today, the world again stands on the brink of a military
catastrophe—this time fought with nuclear weapons.
Britain is playing an active role in US military
provocations against Russia, including participating in
last weekend’s deliberate bombing of the Syrian army
near Deir ez-Zor.
McTernan’s comments give added importance to
events at last week’s TUC conference. Corbyn was not
invited to address the gathering, while TUC General
Secretary Frances O’Grady made no mention of the
crisis in the Labour Party in her opening remarks.
The TUC is split over the Corbyn leadership, with the
Unite union, led by Len McCluskey, acting as the
Labour leader’s key supporter. But McTernan noted
that McCluskey is up for election next year. Given the
centrality of Unite’s role in the defence industry, he
suggested, this could change.

ECB signals more austerity

amid mounting economic
divisions in Europe
By Alex Lantier
23 September 2016

Speaking yesterday in Frankfurt, European Central

Bank (ECB) chief Mario Draghi signaled that the ECB
would continue with austerity and massive handouts to
the banks. Despite the deepening slump in Europe and
internationally, he proposed no change in the financial
aristocracy’s irrational, economically destructive
policies.
A day before, the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of
Japan (BoJ) said they would continue similar policies
of ultralow interest rates and so-called “quantitative
easing” (QE). Under QE programs, the Fed, the BoJ,
and the ECB printed trillions of dollars worth of their
respective currencies. This money was handed to the
banks, which bought up stocks, government bonds,
and corporate debt, inflating the value of assets held
by the super-rich and the top 10 percent of society,
while masses of workers were plundered with austerity
and social cuts.
Draghi’s announcement testifies to the perplexity and
panic gripping the ruling class, faced with crises for
which it has no solution. Before Draghi spoke, some
expected that he would shift policies widely seen as
having failed to revive Europe’s economy, and that
face growing media criticism.
“The euro zone should have reached economic
‘escape velocity’ by now after a potent brew of stimulus
starting last year,” wrote columnist Ambrose Evans-
Pritchard in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, citing cheaper oil,
a lower euro, and the printing of €80 billion per month
in ECB QE programs.
Despite this injection of financial steroids into the heart
of Europe’s financial system, however, the continent’s
economy is still flat lining, nearly a decade after the
2008 crash. The euro zone is growing at 0.3 percent
per quarter, with France and Italy stagnant. Purchasing
power is so low in Italy that prices for many consumer
items are falling, threatening to trigger full-blown
deflation.
Deutsche Bank chief economist David Folkerts-Landau
attacked the ECB for undermining the euro currency:
“Central bankers can lose the plot. When they do, their
mistakes can be catastrophic. After seven years of
ever-looser monetary policy, there is increasing
evidence that following the current dogma risks the
long-term stability of the euro zone.”
At yesterday’s European Systemic Risk Board (ERSB)
meeting, Draghi responded with a blanket defense of
low, even negative interest rates. That the ECB has
had to resort to such policies testifies to the breakdown
of the basic financial mechanism of capitalist
production: the ability to invest capital, generate a
profit, and from this profit pay a positive rate of interest
to the original investor on his capital. Private banks
have criticized the policy, moreover, for decimating
their profits by keeping them from lending at high
interest rates.
“A number of reasons have been mooted as the
causes of this low profitability, including low interest
rates,” Draghi said. “Long-term real interest rates have
been falling in the major advanced economies for two
decades. Technological change, demographics,
income inequality and safe asset scarcity are just a few
of the factors exerting downward pressure on long-
term real rates.”
This appraisal of Europe’s problems constitutes a
devastating self-indictment by financial officials. Rising
inequality—that is, the impoverishment of the masses
and the enrichment of a small layer at the top—like
collapsing demographics, amid broad cuts to living
standards and family benefits, are due to reactionary
EU austerity policies. These have thrown tens of
millions of workers out of work since 2008 and
imposed deep wage cuts in country after country.
While the ECB pours cash into the financial markets,
the underlying real economy is so depressed by
austerity, with corporations and governments facing
recurring debt crises, that Draghi admits bankers still
cannot find “safe” financial assets to buy. The ECB
increased its balance sheet from €1 trillion in 2005 to
over €2.5 trillion in 2015, buying up various forms of
debt. However, Draghi’s remarks show that it was just
inflating other, even larger bubbles involving risky
assets.
Nonetheless, Draghi stayed the course with the current
policies, calling to boost bank profits by restructuring
the financial industry to cut the number of large firms.
“Overcapacity in some national banking sectors, and
the ensuing intensity of competition, exacerbates this
squeeze on margins,” he said, also calling for
regulating “shadow banking” operations like hedge and
money market funds.
He said that in this depressed environment, financial
institutions should pay smaller rates of return to
depositors: “banks will need to review their business
models to bolster profitability. Other financial
institutions also face challenges to their business
models in this environment. In particular, institutions
providing longer-term return guarantees—notably
guaranteed-return life insurers—face a future of weak
profitability unless they adapt their business models to
a changing world.”
What is emerging is the failure of the capitalist system
and of the European political establishment. None of
the problems that led to the 2008 economic crisis have
been resolved; indeed a decade of intense austerity
has worsened them. Even as a new crisis builds, the
ruling elite has nothing to propose except more attacks
on the working class, and intensifying competition.
After the British vote to exit the EU underscored
intractable international tensions building up inside
Europe, moreover, the debate over Draghi’s policies is
stoking conflicts that threaten to blow apart the euro
currency and the EU.
German officials vocally criticized ECB policy,
demanding higher interest rates to boost German bank
profits. French, Italian, and other weaker southern
European economies profited from Draghi’s looser
monetary policies, however, and still support them—
praising them cynically as pro-growth policies at an
Athens summit this month to which German officials
were pointedly not invited.
In April, after the IMF warned of the weakness of EU
banks like Deutsche Bank and Crédit Suisse, German
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble denounced the
ECB for damaging Germany’s economy. He said
ultralow rates created a “gaping hole” in investors’ and
pensioners’ finances. “It is indisputable that the policy
of low interest rates is causing extraordinary problems
for the banks and the whole financial sector in
Germany,” he said. “That also applies for retirement
provisions.”
Among the major powers and banks, the knives are
out. As the Italian state and banks face financial
collapse, with bad loans totaling €360 billion or 17
percent of total Italian bank assets, German officials
are suing the ECB to cut off financing to indebted euro
zone countries.
Yesterday, conservative German politicians spoke to
the Financial Times to denounce QE policies. Peter
Gauweiler said it “already violates rules on the
prohibition of monetary financing [of euro zone
governments] by the ECB,” adding that further
loosening of QE rules would be “clearly incompatible
with European law.”
While Germany’s Constitutional Court has not yet
decided to hear his suit, Hans-Olaf Henkel of
Germany’s Alfa party said, “If the ECB would blatantly
and openly finance states such as Italy, it would
provide us with additional ammunition in our court
case… This the Court cannot ignore.”
Other officials retaliated, demanding that Germany cut
its trade surplus and stimulate Europe’s economy by
importing more goods from the rest of Europe.
Speaking to L ’ Opinion on Wednesday, Belgian ECB
board member Peter Praet said: “Germany’s enormous
current account surplus, at almost 9 percent of Gross
Domestic Product, is an anomaly. German growth is
too dependent on external demand. Germany has the
budgetary resources to develop its internal demand.”

India’s Defence Minister

reaffirms vow to “punish”
Pakistan
By K. Ratnayake and Keith Jones
23 September 2016

Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has

reiterated that New Delhi intends to demonstrably
“punish” Pakistan for the attack mounted last Sunday
by Islamist Kashmiri insurgents on the Uri military base
in Indian-administered Kashmir.
Parrikar told a press conference Wednesday he is
confident that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vow that
“those responsible for this will not go unpunished” will
not remain “a mere statement.”
“How to punish,” continued Parrikar, “we have to work
out. We are quite serious about it.”
Parrikar was seeking to counteract Indian media
reports that had suggested the Modi government is
unlikely to order air or cruise missile strikes or cross-
border raids because of concerns the military cannot
guarantee their success and is insufficiently prepared
to repel a Pakistani counterstrike.
In a statement that was meant to convey the
government’s resolve, but in fact revealed its colossal
and criminal recklessness and stupidity, India’s
Defence Minister pooh-poohed Pakistan’s oft-repeated
threats to use its recently deployed tactical nuclear
weapons should Indian “surgical strikes” or raids
precipitate a rapid escalation to all-out war. “The
person, who has strength,” said Parrikar, “usually
makes less noise. Empty vessels make more noise.”
Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—a
virulently right-wing, Hindu supremacist party that prior
to the 1990s was largely confined to the margins of
Indian politics—were brought to power in 2014, by an
Indian bourgeoisie rattled by the world economic crisis,
in order to intensify the exploitation of the working
class and more aggressively pursue its great-power
ambitions.
According to reports in India’s leading dailies, there is
mounting pressure within the government to take
military action against Pakistan.
The BJP “top leadership,” reported yesterday’s Indian
Express, “is of the view that on Uri, it needs to
demonstrate that it can walk its tough talk on Pakistan
and terror and show a ‘discernible difference’ vis a vis
the UPA.”
During the 2014 election campaign, Modi and his BJP
denounced the Congress Party-led UPA government
for “appeasing” Pakistan and failing to boldly respond
to “Pakistan-backed terrorist attacks.”
The Indian Express report went on to say, “As the
government weighs its options, there is also a
realisation within that it needs to address the call for
‘action,’ especially from within its core constituency.”
By “core constituency” the Express means the hawkish
anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim Hindu right, including the
fascistic RSS, which supplies a large part of the BJP
cadre. Modi is himself a life-long RSS member.
The Express report added that the government “will
turn the heat on Pakistan” with a “mix of military,
political and diplomatic responses.” Some of these will
be covert, or to use the words of the Express, will “by
their very nature…also need deniability.” In recent
days, it has been reported that the government and
national security apparatus are considering
assassinations of Pakistani intelligence officials whom
it believes liaise with Kashmiri insurgent groups and
provide logistical support to ethno-separatist
insurgents in Baluchistan, Pakistan’s southwestern and
by territory largest province.
Further evidence of the belligerent mood in BJP circles
was provided by a comment written by Yashwant
Sinha, a foreign and finance minister in the 1998-2004
BJP-led government. Under the title “The Limits of
Restraint,” Sinha argued that the government must be
ready to run the risk of war.
“Many Indians,” wrote Sinha, “including me, want an
appropriate military response from India; not a rash, ill-
considered or a hasty one but a cool, well-planned and
well-timed response, which will fetch us the desired
results.” Acknowledging that such action could lead to
rapid escalation, Sinha urged the government to
“anticipate the likely Pakistani reaction and prepare its
response for the next ten steps…in case the situation
deteriorates further and results in full-scale war with
Pakistan.”
“We must remember,” he concluded, “that sometimes
the road to peace passes through war”.
In a further sign of how close South Asia’s rival
nuclear-armed states are to war, Islamabad closed
parts of Pakistan’s airspace Wednesday, forcing
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to cancel all flights
to northern Chitral, Gilgit and Skardu. Chitral is in
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province and the other two cities
are in Gilgit-Baltistan, an area of historic Kashmir that
India claims is rightfully hers and where anti-Indian
Islamist Kashmiri separatists reportedly have bases.
The Pakistani government has refused to provide any
explanation for the restrictions. But the Pakistan-
based Express Tribune reported that the airspace over
Gilgit-Baltistan was closed to enable Pakistani
warplanes to engage in takeoff and landing rehearsals.
Also, Wednesday Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif addressed the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in
New York and met with a host of world leaders
including the prime ministers of Japan, Britain, Turkey
and China in an attempt to counter the Indian
government’s campaign to have Pakistan labelled a
“terrorist state.”
In his speech to the UNGA, Sharif said Pakistan
“wants peace with India.” But, he claimed, “India has
posed unacceptable preconditions to engage in a
dialogue” and has rebuffed Islamabad’s insistence that
resolving their dispute over Kashmir is key to the
“normalization” of relations.
Sharif, the scion of one of Pakistan’s richest families
and a former protégé of the dictator and avid
proponent of Islamization General Zia-ul-Haq, sought
to portray himself and the venal Pakistani bourgeoisie
as advocates for the oppressed Kashmiris of India—“of
the mothers, wives, sisters, and fathers of the innocent
Kashmiri children, women and men who have been
killed, blinded and injured . ”
Referring to the mass protests that have convulsed
Indian-held Kashmir since the July 8 killing of Burhan
Wani, a young leader of a Pakistan-supported Islamist
Kashmir insurgent group, Sharif declared, “ A new
generation of Kashmiris has risen spontaneously
against India’s illegal occupation—demanding freedom
from occupation.”
Sharif denounced the presence of more than a half-
million Indian security forces in Kashmir and promised
to submit to the UN a dossier cataloguing India’s
“gross and systematic violations of human rights.”
Sharif’s claim to speak on behalf of the Kashmiri
people and attempt to exploit their legitimate
grievances with the repressive state of the Indian
bourgeoisie is both preposterous and utterly
reactionary.
Terrified of social opposition from the impoverished
workers and toilers of Pakistan, the Pakistani
bourgeoisie has denied them their basic democratic
rights, ruling the country for much of its existence as a
military dictatorship.
Significantly, in an appeal to Washington, the
traditional patron of the Pakistani bourgeoisie and
military, Sharif touted the brutal war the Pakistani Army
has waged in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas
(FATA) in support of the US occupation of Afghanistan
as “the largest, most robust and most successful
antiterrorism campaign anywhere in the world,
deploying 200,000 of our security forces.”
Islamabad oppresses the population of “Azad” or
Pakistan Occupied Kashmir—the portion of the former
British Indian Empire princely state of Jammu and
Kashmir that it captured in the 1947-48 Indo-Pakistani
War—and has systematically manipulated and sought
to communalize the opposition in Indian-held Kashmir.
The Kashmir conflict is the outcome of the bloody 1947
communal Partition of South Asia, into an expressly
Muslim Pakistan and a predominantly Hindu India, and
has become a key “prize” in the reactionary strategic
rivalry that the Indian and Pakistani bourgeoisie’s have
waged ever since.
This rivalry has led to three declared wars and
numerous war crises, caused untold death and
suffering, squandered resources, has been utilized by
the ruling classes of both countries as a key
mechanism for promoting communal reaction and
dividing the working class, and today threatens the
masses of South Asia with nuclear war,
Washington is calling for both India and Pakistan to
step back from confrontation, fearing its impact on its
drive to reassert its dominance over Eurasia, including
the Afghan War and its military-strategic offensives
against Russia and China.
Nonetheless, US imperialism bears enormous
responsibility for the current war crisis in South Asia.
During the Cold War when Pakistan was its principal
ally in the region, it encouraged Islamabad in pursuing
its rivalry with India. Since the beginning of this
century, it has been working systematically to build up
India as a counterweight to China. Toward that end,
Washington has showered New Delhi with strategic
“favours,” including ending the embargo on India’s
nuclear program and giving it access to the Pentagon’s
most advanced weapons—all the while blithely
ignoring Pakistan’s warnings that the US has
overturned the balance of power in the region,
encouraging Indian belligerence and stoking an arms
and nuclear arms race.

EO of EpiPen maker testifies

before US Congress
By Brad Dixon
23 September 2016

On Wednesday, the CEO of EpiPen maker Mylan,

Heather Bresch, testified before the House Oversight
and Government Reform Committee. The
congressional hearing was called after Mylan acquired
the EpiPen from another company and then hiked the
price by more than 500 percent.
The EpiPen is the most widely used device to treat
anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction to food or insect
bites.
Representative Elijah Cummings, D-Md., compared
Mylan’s practices to those of Valeant and Turing,
stating that Mylan was “yet another drug company” that
“had jacked up the price of a lifesaving product for no
discernable reason.”
“They use the simple, but corrupt business model that
other drug companies have repeatedly used: find an
older, cheap drug that has virtually no competition, and
then raise the price over and over and over again,”
said Cummings
In her prepared remarks, Bresch, who became the
company’s CEO in 2012, played up certain figures
about Mylan—the number of employees,
manufacturing facilities, doses produced annually, etc.
—but was silent on the figures that had been
specifically requested by the committee: how much the
company profited from selling the EpiPen.
After being peppered by questions from Cummings,
Bresch revealed that in 2015 the company sold roughly
4 million two-packs of EpiPen, with $100 for each two-
pack being pure profit. In other words, the EpiPen, the
company’s biggest product, brought in $400 million in
profits to the company in 2015 alone.
Bresch claimed that out of the $600 sticker-price for
the EpiPen two-pack, Mylan receives only $274, the
rest going to pharmacy benefits managers and other
middle-men. This would give the company an average
profit margin of nearly 40 percent on each EpiPen sold.
According to Reuters, the EpiPen accounted for about
20 percent of the company’s overall profits in 2015,
making up $1 billion of the company’s $9.45 billion in
overall sales.
After the public backlash against the price hikes, Mylan
stated that it would now offer a generic version of the
EpiPen for $300 instead of $600, raising the question
of why it wasn’t priced at this level to begin with.
“Suddenly, feeling the heat, Mylan has offered a
generic version and cut the price in half,” said
Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, Republican of
Utah, at the hearing, “So that does beg the question,
what was happening with that other $300?”
In her written testimony, Bresch lamented the fact that
so much attention was now being paid to the high price
of the EpiPen. “With the current focus on pricing, I’m
very concerned that the access part of the equation is
being minimized,” she wrote, apparently oblivious to
the fact that the high price has put the EpiPen out of
reach for many workers and their families.
Bresch also emphasized the work the company had
done to spread awareness of anaphylaxis, bragging
that the company had now reached 80 percent more
patients. This act was far from altruistic. The
awareness campaign was part of the company’s
marketing strategy to increase the sales of the
exorbitantly priced EpiPen. The company spent $97
million on marketing the device in 2015 alone.
Her boast that the company had given 700,000
EpiPens to 66,000 schools “with no strings attached”
was particularly disingenuous. Mylan launched its
“EpiPen4Schools” program in 2012, which, contrary to
Bresch’s written testimony, required schools to
purchase EpiPens rather than competing brands if the
schools wanted to receive discounted versions, only
later changing this policy. The program currently faces
an anti-trust probe by the New York attorney general.
According to an article published Wednesday in USA
Today, when Bresch’s mother, Gayle Manchin, took
over the National Association of State Boards of
Education (NASBE) in 2012, she led the charge to get
EpiPens into school nurses’ offices and directed the
NASBE to develop a policy to address food allergies.
The NASBE had previously sought to avoid corporate
influence when making policy decisions. However,
according to the previous president, Brenda Welburn,
Manchin stopped by her office during the transition
period in 2011 and stated that her “daughter’s
company” could donate to the organization. A year
later, Mylan contributed $25,000.
“It just looked so bad to me,” Welbern told USA Today.
“She [Manchin] becomes president and all of a sudden
NASBE is saying EpiPens are a good thing for
schools.”
Manchin had been appointed by the governor of West
Virginia in 2007 to serve a nine-year term on the
state’s board of education before becoming the
president of the NASBE in 2012. The governor at the
time happened to be Gayle Manchin’s husband, Joe
Manchin, who is now a Democratic senator
representing West Virginia.
After a period of intense lobbying of lawmakers by
Mylan, federal legislation was passed in 2013 that
gave financial incentives for schools to stock
epinephrine auto-injectors, which is now a requirement
in 47 states. The dominant market position of EpiPen,
capturing nearly 90 percent of all epinephrine auto-
injector sales, meant that Mylan would be the primary
beneficiary. Thus, when Obama signed the law, the
White House announcement referred to the legislation
as the “EpiPen law.”
“That was a Trojan horse,” David Maris, a Wells Fargo
analyst, told news outlets last month. “That was, ‘Let’s
get it in schools to help people,’ but it helps market
EpiPen and promote it as the trusted product in
schools.”
At the hearing, Rep. Mick Mulvaney, Republican of
South Carolina, who called himself “a free-market
Republican,” told Bresch that “you asked for it.”
“If you want to come to Washington, if you want to
come to the state capital and lobby us to make us buy
your stuff, this is what you get. You get a level of
scrutiny and a level of treatment that would ordinarily
curl my hair,” he said.
Bresch attempted to deflect attention away from the
difficulty patients have with accessing the EpiPen by
noting that 85 percent of patients pay less than $100,
and a majority pay less than $50. That is, the costs
were passed on to private insurers, who pass the costs
along to patients through higher deductibles and
premiums, and to Medicare.
According to an analysis by the Kaiser Family
Foundation released on Tuesday, Medicare Part D
spending on the EpiPen increased by 1,151 percent
between 2007 and 2014, from $7 million to $87.9
million. The increase was due primarily to price hikes.
Thus, while the number of enrollees using the EpiPen
rose by only 164 percent (from nearly 80,000 to over
211,000), the total spending per prescription increased
nearly fivefold, from $71 in 2007 to $344 in 2014.
Over the past decade, as the price of the EpiPen
increased by more than 500 percent, Bresch’s
compensation increased by nearly 700 percent, from
$2.4 million to $18.9 million a year. In response to
questioning from Rep. John Mica, Republican of
Florida, Bresch claimed that her current compensation
was in the “middle” range of compensations for
pharmaceutical company CEOs. A 2014 survey of total
CEO compensation conducted byFiercePharma,
however, placed her as the sixth highest paid CEO in
the industry.
Mylan has significantly hiked the prices of many of its
other drugs as well. According to an analyst report
released in June, the company had raised the price of
24 of its products by more than 20 percent, and 7 by
more than 100 percent.
For example, it raised the price of its treatment for
irritable bowel syndrome, dicylcomine, by 400 percent.
Metoclopramide, its generic treatment for
gastroesophageal reflux, went up in price by 444
percent. And the company hiked the price of its generic
treatment for gallstones, ursodiol, by 542 percent.
Mylan has carried out similar price hikes in the past.
For example, in 1998, after the company cornered the
market for the raw materials needed to manufacture
two anti-anxiety drugs widely used in nursing homes
and among Alzheimer’s patients, it jacked up the prices
despite there being no significant increase in costs.
Mylan raised the price of clorazepate from $11.36 a
bottle to $377.00 (3,300 percent increase), and of
lorazepam from $7.00 a bottle to $190.00 (2,700
percent increase). The company paid $147 million in
2000 to settle charges with the Federal Trade
Commission that Mylan had illegally restricted trade.
Last year, in a bid to cut its tax rate, Mylan shifted its
company address to the Netherlands as part of its tax
inversion strategy.
In a major understatement, Bresch acknowledged in
her written testimony that Mylan’s “record isn’t perfect.”
Like the earlier Senate hearing in December of last
year, and the House hearing in February of this year,
both of which focused on the price-gouging practices
of Turing Pharmaceuticals and Valeant
Pharmaceuticals, the overriding concern of this hearing
was to safeguard the profits of the pharmaceutical
industry as a whole by reining in the industry’s worst
offenders. The same goes for the investigations that
have been called for by members of the Senate, and
the toothless proposals made by the Democratic
presidential candidate, Hilary Clinton.
The purpose of the hearing was to bring in the CEO,
give her a verbal lambasting in an attempt to soothe
public anger, and then let the industry get back to its
normal practice of price-gouging the public, but
hopefully in a less flagrant and unashamed fashion.
The inconsequential nature of the proceedings was
even noted by Rep. Cummings. “After Mylan takes our
punches they’ll fly back to their mansions in their
private jets and laugh all the way to the bank,” he said.

Hundreds feared drowned as

migrant boat capsizes off
Egypt
By Paul Mitchell
23 September 2016

Hundreds of people on board a boat that capsized off

the Egyptian coast Wednesday are still missing at sea.
Latest reports indicate that only 163 survivors, out of
an estimated 600 migrants on the boat, have been
brought ashore, along with 43 dead bodies––including
those of several women and children. In June,
a similar terrible tragedy befell more than 300
migrants from Egypt when their boat sank near Crete.
An Egyptian official told reporters, “Initial information
indicates that the boat sank because it was carrying
more people than its limit. The boat tilted and the
migrants fell into the water.”
Four suspects have since been arrested, accused of
involuntary manslaughter and human trafficking.
European governments and the European Union (EU)
bear full responsibility for turning the Mediterranean
into a watery grave for refugees fleeing their homes as
a result of the wars in Syria and Libya led by the US
and aided by various European powers.
The EU’s “Fortress Europe” policing measures have
closed down the land routes and shorter sea routes in
the western Mediterranean Sea to Europe. As a result,
migrants and refugees have been driven to attempt the
longer, more perilous crossing from North Africa across
the central and eastern Mediterranean. Escalating
hostilities in Libya, the starting point for the 150-mile
voyage to the Italian island of Lampedusa, have led to
more attempts being launched from Egypt—over 1,000
miles away. The number of migrants arriving in Italy by
boat from Egypt this year has increased by nearly 70
percent compared to 2015.
The ramping up of Fortress Europe, largely as a result
of the filthy deal reached between the EU and Turkey
to close the Balkan route, has led to a sharp drop in
the number of refugees reaching the continent—from
over one million last year to around 280,000 so far this
year. At the same time, the number of people who
have died or remain missing at sea has soared
proportionally, standing already at over 3,200, almost
equal to last year’s total of 3,673.
The deaths in the Mediterranean are not simply
collateral damage resulting from a misguided refugee
policy, but a conscious decision aimed at deterrence.
When the Italian navy mission Mare Nostrum––which
had rescued 100,000 refugees from the
Mediterranean––was halted in 2014, the EU border
protection agency Frontex recognised that its new
“Triton” mission “will likely result in a greater number of
fatalities.”
The EU is now attempting to incorporate the coast
guards of North African countries more directly into its
policy and seeking the construction of internment
camps farther afield to prevent refugees from even
attempting the journey to Europe.
The human rights organisation ProAsyl has denounced
the policy: “Giving the Libyan coast guard the
capability of intercepting refugee boats and bringing
people seeking protection back to Libya is complicity in
serious violations of human rights.”
Abuse and torture are daily occurrences in Libya’s
refugee internment camps.
The refugee crisis was a major element in divisions
that erupted at last week’s EU post-Brexit summit in
Bratislava. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi
boycotted the final press conference with German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President
François Hollande, declaring that he didn’t “share their
conclusions” on the economy and migration. Italy’s
main demand is that other EU countries take in or help
fund the accommodation of refugees.
Hollande insisted the main message from Bratislava
was the need to secure further control of the EU’s
external borders. To that end, at Tuesday’s UN
Refugees and Migrants summit, Austrian chancellor
Christian Kern said that the EU should make an
agreement with Egypt, similar to that with Turkey, and
provide funds to Cairo to stem the flow of migrants.
“Austria fears asylum seekers could start coming to the
EU from Egypt next year,” Kern declared.
This was the cue for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah
el-Sisi, who, with an eye on the $6.7 billion and political
concessions the EU promised Turkey, stepped forward
to say his government was “committed” to ending the
flow of migrants from North Africa to Europe and that
Egypt’s security forces had stepped up their efforts to
secure the country’s borders.
Sisi boasted about his country’s treatment of its five
million refugees, of whom some 300,000 are Syrian.
He claimed, “We are working on providing [them] with
respectable living conditions without isolating them in
camps.”
His pronouncements are patently false. A 2015 United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
study classified up to 90 percent of Syrian refugees in
Egypt as “highly and severely vulnerable”, receiving
less than the 592 Egyptian pounds ($US67) per person
per month required to meet basic needs. The mass of
refugees, according to the report, were “effectively
living on or below the poverty line.” Only 30 percent of
the 130,000 Syrian refugees registered with the
UNCHR in Egypt receive a food ration card, which is
only equivalent to 320 Egyptian pounds per person.
According to the UNHCR, “Refugees in Egypt often
suffer from loss of hope, deteriorating psychological
and medical conditions, and limited livelihood
opportunities. They are particularly vulnerable to
poverty, insecure food supply, access to poor quality
services, as well as sexual and gender-based violence,
including abuse and exploitation.”
“Loss of hope in the resolution of conflict in their
country of origin coupled with a perceived lack of future
in Egypt has contributed to some refugees departing
and seek entry into Europe.”
Sawsan, a Syrian mother of four children, in an
interview with the Egyptian Al-Ahram newspaper,
explained, “We lost everything in Syria. Our home was
destroyed, my mother died, my husband was detained,
and my daughter was hurt.”
Although a registered refugee, Sawsan said, “We have
not received UN food cards for several months…We
need the cards badly. We need to eat.”
“Life is becoming tougher every day, so much so that
sometimes I think of braving the Mediterranean to
reach Europe…My brother-in-law does not agree, and
he says we would drown. I really do not know what to
do,” she concluded.

ew Australian “anti-terror”
laws overturn basic legal
rights
By Mike Head
23 September 2016

Among the first bills to be tabled in the Australian

parliament after the Liberal-National Coalition
government barely survived the July 2 election are two
“anti-terrorism” laws that contain serious attacks on
fundamental democratic and legal rights. Significantly,
both bills have bipartisan support, with the Labor Party
already pledging in-principle backing.
The political establishment is moving, as a matter of
high priority, to bolster the repressive police-
intelligence apparatus with measures that can be used
to target political opponents, not just a relatively small
number of Islamic extremists. This is under conditions
of mounting war in the Middle East, growing tensions
with China and a deepening domestic offensive
against welfare, essential social programs and the
living standards of the working class.
Both bills go well beyond what the government has
publicly acknowledged. In a media release, Attorney-
General George Brandis presented the bills as
providing for the “ongoing detention of high risk
terrorist offenders” and reducing the age from 16 to 14
for control orders to be imposed on teenagers.
But the details of the first bill show that the convictions
for which prisoners could be detained indefinitely, even
after serving their sentences, extend beyond terrorist-
related offences to others that could be used against
opponents of the government and its escalating
involvement in US-led wars, including the air force
bombings in Syria.
The Criminal Code Amendment (High Risk Offenders)
Bill violates the core principle of habeas corpus—no
detention without a criminal trial. It allows for prisoners
to be incarcerated indefinitely, using renewable three-
year detention orders. This means locking prisoners
away for life, regardless of their original terms of
imprisonment.
Such orders require no proof of any intent to commit a
further offence—just a “high degree of probability” that
a crime could occur. This standard of proof is much
lower than the criminal one of “beyond a reasonable
doubt of guilt.”
In deciding to issue orders, the courts are instructed to
consider reports provided by “relevant experts” on the
“unacceptable risk” of the prisoner committing a
terrorist-related offence if released. The prisoner’s
“criminal history” can be taken into account—reversing
the legal principle of excluding prior convictions from
decisions about guilt.
The “relevant experts” must say whether the prisoner
has “actively participated in any rehabilitation or
treatment programs.” Any prisoner who refuses to
cooperate with the authorities, such as by becoming an
informer or undercover agent, is likely to remain
incarcerated.
The bill has been approved unanimously by the state
and territory governments, Coalition and Labor alike,
which will adopt matching legislation. Such state laws
are being used to evade the Australian Constitution,
which has no bill of rights but does effectively prohibit
punishment, including detention, by the federal
government except via conviction by a court.
Brandis described the bill as dealing with “terrorist
offenders” who pose an “unacceptably high risk” to the
community if released. But, firstly, the official definition
of terrorism is wide enough to cover political acts of
protest that cause any injury or property damage.
Secondly, the crimes for which prisoners can be
incarcerated include many loosely-defined offences,
such as “providing or receiving training” or “possessing
things” connected with terrorist acts, or “collecting or
making documents likely to facilitate terrorist acts.” On
the list as well is membership of, or raising funds for,
an organisation declared by decree to be terrorist, and
“providing support” to such a “terrorist organisation.”
Also covered are prisoners convicted of treason or
“foreign incursions.” Treason includes “assisting
enemies at war with the Commonwealth” and
“assisting countries or forces engaged in armed
hostilities against the Australian Defence Force”—
which could mean opposing wars and other military
interventions.
“Foreign incursions” include entering areas declared by
the government, such as Syria, or preparing to engage
in “hostile activities” (including damaging government
property) in a foreign country. The bill extends to
allowing the use of a building to facilitate recruitment to
“serve in or with an armed force in a foreign country.”
The second bill, the Counter-Terrorism Legislation
Amendment Bill, not only allows 14-year-olds to be
placed under control orders—a form of house arrest, or
curfew and tracking. It also targets supposed “hate
preachers,” who could be jailed for seven years for a
vague new crime of “advocating genocide.”
“Advocating genocide” is a deceptive term. It can be
committed by “counselling, promoting, encouraging or
urging” a broad range of conduct, such as inflicting
“destructive” conditions of life.” A person can be
convicted simply on the basis of comments they make,
publicly or privately, that are deemed to be “reckless as
to whether another person will engage in genocide.”
The bill’s explanatory memorandum states that the
offence is directed against the use of social media by
“hate preachers” who supposedly choose their words
carefully so that there is insufficient evidence of
incitement, urging or intention to cause harm.
The 142-page bill boosts an entire range of police and
intelligence powers of entry, search, surveillance and
electronic tracking. It also extends the use of
preventative detention orders beyond alleged
“imminent” threats of terrorism to where there are
“reasonable grounds to suspect” that a terrorist act
could occur within 14 days.
As well, there are wider powers to close court
proceedings and prevent disclosure of “national
security information,” including in control-order
hearings. Jail terms of up to 10 years can be imposed
for disclosing, even recklessly, information about
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO)
activities, if that disclosure “endangers the health or
safety of any person or prejudices the effective
conduct of a special intelligence operation.”
The two bills add to the more than 60 laws introduced
under the banner of the “war on terrorism” by Coalition
and Labor governments over the past 15 years.
Sweeping precedents have been set, such as
detention without trial, that erode essential legal and
democratic rights. This barrage is accelerating. The
latest bills constitute the sixth major tranche of such
laws since the Coalition took office in 2013.
US-led invasions and wars, in which Australia has
participated, have devastated the Middle East, killing
hundreds of thousands of people and sending millions
fleeing their homes.
Now, with Labor’s backing, and assisted by the
corporate media, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s
unstable government is seizing upon overseas terrorist
attacks and whipping up local terrorism scares to
justify erecting a police-state framework in the face of
rising social and class tensions. Two recent
“terrorism” arrests, one against a right-wing activist
and the other against a Kurdish journalist, highlight the
capacity of the laws to be used against political
opponents, particularly anti-war and socialist
organisations.
These measures, accompanied by intensifying witch-
hunting of Muslims, seek to divide the working class
along communal and ethnic lines, and create the
ideological conditions for escalating Australian
participation in the widening war provoked by the US in
the Middle East.
eonardo da Vinci–The
Genius in Milan: The
marketing of genius
By Lee Parsons
23 September 2016
Directed by Luca Lucini and Nico Malaspina;
screenplay by Jacopo Ghilardoti and Gabriele Scotti
Screened in Toronto this past summer, Leonardo da
Vinci–The Genius in Milan is being distributed in over
50 countries this year and comes out of the largest
exhibition ever mounted in Italy of the work of the great
polymath, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). The latter
took place in Milan in the spring of 2015 and was itself
the product of collaboration among some of the leading
scholars and experts in Europe.
The film, directed by Luca Lucini and Nico Malaspina,
focuses on the 16 years, from 1482 until 1499, that
Leonardo spent in what was then the city-state of
Milan.
 Leonardo da
Vinci–The Genius in Milan

Given the enormous richness of this period in the

artist’s life, merely shining a light on his legacy may be
a worthwhile accomplishment. Unfortunately, certain
regrettable creative choices (which appear to have
been made only to reach the widest possible audience)
and the tawdry marketing and crafting ofThe Genius in
Milan contrast sharply with the exceptional
achievements of its subject and many of its
participants.
The weaknesses of this production, billed as an
“exhibition event,” are apparent from the outset. Its
opening feels like a promotional ad, which means to
generate gravitas and drama but comes across too
polished and packaged to be taken seriously. We see a
reenactment of the careful packing and shipping of one
of Leonardo’s greatest works, La Belle
Ferronnière(1490-96) as it is removed with solemnity
and reverence from its home in the Louvre in Paris and
flown to Milan for EXPO 2015. The exaggerated tone
permeates the film and only helps undermine the
respect that the filmmakers are clearly trying to inspire.
Unhappily, one cringes as this production’s crass
approach becomes apparent. Seductive camera work,
impressive visual effects and other costly production
values indicate a healthy budget. That same budget
also allows for excesses and gimmicks that continue
throughout the film and nearly eclipse a subject matter
the producers apparently don’t trust to otherwise hold
the viewer’s interest.
The high definition photography of some of the artist’s
most enduring paintings is nevertheless captivating on
the big screen—these include theMona Lisa (La
Gioconda, c. 1503-06) and La Belle Ferronnière (also
known as Portrait of an Unknown Woman. The film
employs 4K photography, an advance in ultra-high
definition digital video allowing us to see a number of
the artist’s works with a degree of detail that
approaches an in-person viewing.
The other principal merit of Leonardo da Vinci–The
Genius in Milan lies in a number of the on-camera
interviews. The figures interviewed include renowned
experts such as Claudio Giorgione, from the National
Museum of Science and Technology in Milan, who
speaks on the profound contribution Leonardo made to
many scientific fields. There is further valuable
commentary by Richard Schofield on his architectural
work.

Leonardo in Milan
The economic and social changes associated with the
rise of the Renaissance (from the 14th to the 17th
centuries) allowed for the flourishing of a more fully
developed and all-rounded human being. A new social
type emerged, since known as the “Renaissance man,”
of which Leonardo da Vinci is perhaps the classic
example.
The illegitimate son of an affluent Florentine notary,
Leonardo was not accepted into his father’s family until
late in childhood. He was nevertheless given the
benefit of a proper education and, having shown
unusual talent early on, was eventually placed as an
apprentice to a prominent local artist. He did not make
a real name for himself until well along in his career,
and his reputation was hampered by his habit of not
finishing commissions and projects, often disappearing
without notice. This was more a matter of an insatiable
curiosity than anything else, which drove Leonardo
from one pursuit or investigation to another in a lifelong
fury of creative output.
Along the same lines as the 2015 exhibition, The
Genius in Milan is arranged in twelve sections, tracing
the complex course that Leonardo followed after he left
Florence and began his work in Milan. The film does
not follow his time there in a strict chronological order.
Leonardo’s difficulty in completing projects presented
problems for him in winning new commissions,
although he did have devoted patrons, including the
powerful Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, who
commissioned The Last Supper (1495-98). That famed
mural has undergone numerous efforts at restoration
and was the subject of a high-definition video also
made for the 2015 show.
In Milan Leonardo also produced most of the 1,100
drawings and writings that were later collected, in 12
volumes, in what is known as the Atlantic Codex.
 Leonardo da
Vinci–The Genius in Milan

Despite Leonardo’s voluminous writing on many

subjects, including philosophy, art and technology,
details about his personal life remain fairly sketchy and
this is particularly true of his early years. This dearth of
documentation has allowed for a good deal of
speculation about his life and the Lucini–Malaspina
documentary indulges in imaginings along these lines
as well.
Unhappily, aside from the repeated observation that
Leonardo did not view himself principally as a painter,
the film does not offer a cohesive theme or guiding
perspective as we move from one disjointed segment
to the next. The documentary touches on Leonardo’s
varied investigations and inventions. We also learn
details about the conditions under which Leonardo
worked in the Sforza court and some of the painters
who were influenced by him. Co-curators of the 2015
exhibition Pietro Marani and Maria Teresa Fiorio offer
some commentary on aspects of the artist’s life and
work.
The efforts to re-enact episodes in Leonardo’s life
constitute the most awkward portions of The Genius in
Milan. Although performed competently by some
talented actors, including Cristiana Capotondi,
Alessandro Haber, Gabriella Pession and Nicola
Nocell, these segments—delivered directly to the
camera in the manner of an aside in Shakespeare—
are conceived of in the manner of petty, personal
gossip that does no credit to the subjects or
participants.
The general effect of the invented—and undignified—
scenes and dialogue is to lower the overall quality of
the film and hamper a serious consideration of the
artist and the period.
The authentic settings used in these dramatizations,
such as the Bicocca degli Arcimboldi (a 15th century
villa) and the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie, are
beautifully filmed if only as the backdrop to the
unfortunate skits. The tone of the film alternates
between the undignified one created by these
imagined forays into Leonardo’s personal life and a
grave reverence for the artist, which is also extreme. In
either case, little of substance is revealed about
Leonardo the man or the transformative period that
produced such a figure.

Genius and history

It is inspiring to reflect on the extraordinary human
capability and potential embodied in the figure of
Leonardo da Vinci. Our confidence in humanity in
general has to be fortified by such a reflection,
especially in a period of cultural crisis like the present
one where many, including “left” intellectuals, have
come to question the very idea of human progress.
What might be more helpful in a film like The Genius in
Milan is some effort to understand the relationship
between such advanced individuals and the broader
historical and social processes they reflect.
Frederick Engels associated the Renaissance with
“that mighty epoch when feudalism was smashed by
the burghers [urban bourgeoisie]. … It was the epoch
which brought into being the great monarchies in
Europe, broke the spiritual dictatorship of the Pope,
evoked the revival of Greek antiquity and with it the
highest artistic development of the new age, broke
through the boundaries of the old world, and for the
first time really discovered the world.”

Leonardo da
Vinci–The Genius in Milan

In explaining why the Italian Renaissance was so

culturally rich, Leon Trotsky noted that “the
Renaissance only begins when the new social class
[the bourgeoisie], already culturally satiated, feels itself
strong enough to come out from under the yoke of the
Gothic arch [i.e., feudal culture], to look at Gothic art
and on all that preceded it as material for its own
disposal, and to use the technique of the past for its
own artistic aims.”
The upheaval in social relations allowed for greater
independence for artists and artisans who were now
able to offer their services more freely to a growing
variety of patrons. Geographic boundaries loosened as
well, lessening the grip of the dominant city-states of
Florence, Venice and Milan on culture and trade, and
allowing the leading artists and craftsmen of the day,
including Leonardo, to compete in an expanding
market for lucrative commissions and recognition right
across Europe.
In the course of The Genius in Milan we hear from
experts on Leonardo who enthusiastically expound on
the wonders and mystery surrounding this man, but the
perspective advanced is generally limited to his
personal achievements and dealings largely
disconnected from the social forces that produced him.
In this regard, it should be emphasized that while
Leonardo may have been the most outstanding figure,
he was just one of many brilliant artists, writers,
thinkers and explorers of the period who represented a
broad advance in human progress.
We are speaking of the birth of the modern world, at a
time when capitalism was at its most revolutionary and
progressive. Some insight ought to be offered into this
process by a film dedicated to one of the most brilliant
lights of this era.

olice violence and the social

crisis in America
24 September 2016

In Charlotte, North Carolina, protests continued on

Friday over the brutal police killing of Keith Lamont
Scott, 43. Local and state officials announced a curfew
earlier this week and have deployed riot police using
tear gas and the National Guard against
demonstrators.
As political officials and the city’s police department
debate whether or not to release police video of the
shooting in an effort to defuse social tensions, a nail in
the coffin of official lies came Friday with the release of
cell phone video shot by Scott’s wife. Rakevia Scott
can be heard pleading with police not to shoot her
husband, shouting that he does not have a weapon,
that he had a traumatic brain injury, and had just taken
his medication. The video also shows Scott after the
shooting, prone on the ground, without a gun at his
feet as appeared in subsequent photos, suggesting
that police may have planted evidence.
Both the killing of Scott and the protests in response to
this killing starkly expose the deep social tensions and
class divisions in America. The fact that these
demonstrations erupt only six weeks before the
presidential election underscores the deep alienation
of masses of workers and youth from the entire
pseudo-democratic electoral charade. Hundreds of
workers and youth would not be in the streets if they
believed that the upcoming elections will lead to a
more just society.
Conditions in Charlotte are a microcosm of America as
a whole. The “Queen City”—a main corporate center
for Bank of America, Wachovia bank, Duke Energy and
other companies—has been listed as among the “best
places to live,” celebrated as a beacon of progress and
“growth” in the US South. However, this applies only to
the rich and the privileged upper middle class.
Since 2000, the number of people in Charlotte living in
poverty has doubled, from 159,000 to 314,000 (out of a
total Metropolitan area population of 2.4 million). It is
among the cities with the highest growth of
concentrated poverty, with the census tracts deemed
high poverty (poverty rates of more than 20 percent)
rising from 19 percent in 2000 to 34 percent in 2014. A
quarter of all children in the city are poor, and a
Harvard study found that poor children in Mecklenburg
County have one of the lowest chances of escaping
poverty of any county.
Similar conditions exist in cities throughout the United
States. Eight years after the financial collapse of 2008,
social inequality is at record levels. The Obama
administration has overseen the funneling of trillions of
dollars to the banks, with a corresponding inflation of
the wealth of the super-rich. Millions of workers and
young people face a future of unemployment, low-
wage work, and soaring costs for housing, rent and
other basic necessities.
In the two years since the killing of Michael Brown led
to protests and a brutal crackdown by militarized police
forces in Ferguson, Missouri, more than 2,000 people
have lost their lives to police violence. Even the most
casual interactions with police can end in violent arrest
or death.
Despite all the protests, and despite nervous appeals
from sections of the political establishment and media
for some restraint to forestall social unrest, the killings
continue, day after day, week after week. It becomes
difficult to keep track of all the names added to the list
of victims. This only demonstrates that there is
something deep and organic involved, embedded in
the structure of American society and politics.
Media commentators and Democratic Party officials
proclaim that Scott’s killing is another expression of the
immense racial divide in America, with police killings a
subset of the broader conflict between “white America”
and “black America,” between police departments and
“communities of color.”
Racism exists and, of course, frequently plays a role in
police violence. However, those who seek to enforce a
racialist narrative ignore basic facts. To a degree
unknown during the heyday of the civil rights
movement a half-century ago, police departments and
state institutions are racially integrated. The cop who
allegedly shot Scott is African-American, as is the city’s
police chief, who has opposed calls for the release of
the video. Many of the political officials who run cities
with the most brutal police violence (like Stephanie
Rawlings-Blake, the mayor of Baltimore who chaired
the Democratic National Convention and called
protesters against the killing of Freddie Gray “thugs”)
are African-American. And is it necessary to call
attention to the racial background of the individual who
has served as US president during the past seven and
a half years of escalating police violence?
In the final analysis, police violence is a class issue.
Consider some of the recent killings tabulated by
the Guardian newspaper, one of the few media
sources that have kept a systematic record of police
violence in America. Each tells a story of social
breakdown in one form or another, with the tragedies
charting similar paths regardless of the race of the
individual killed.
A disproportionate number of African-Americans are
victims of police killings, but approximately one-half of
the victims of police violence are white. To cite several
cases that have occurred in the past ten days alone
involving members of this supposedly “privileged”
white demographic:
* Joshua Scott, 22, from Port St. Lucie, Florida, was
killed on September 20 when police officers sought to
involuntarily commit him for mental health treatment.
He reportedly armed himself with a gun and was shot
after a six-hour standoff.
* Jeremy Swenson, 30, from Logan, Utah, was killed
on September 19. He was reportedly suicidal and was
making “threatening actions” against another person,
prompting police to shoot him dead.
* Jesse Beshaw, 29, of Winooski, Vermont, was shot
seven times on September 16 by police who were
serving him an arrest warrant. He was unarmed, but
police claim he advanced toward them with an arm
behind his back.
* Joseph Schlosser, 69, of Weeki Wachee, Florida,
was killed on September 15. Police officers were
responding to a 911 call from a health care worker who
said that Schlosser, a military veteran, was suicidal. He
was shot and killed in his home.
* Timothy McMillan, 38, of San Gabriel, California, was
killed on September 14. McMillan was homeless and
allegedly stole a police car. Unarmed, he died after
being accosted and restrained by police at a
McDonald’s restaurant.
The list goes on and on. Each of these stories, and
many more like them, could be the subject of novels
exploring the horrific consequences of social
dislocation, inequality and war.
Police violence—like unemployment, poverty and all
the consequences of capitalism—affects workers of
every race and background. It is this basic fact the
purveyors of identity politics seek to cover up. Those
who talk about “white privilege,” or claim that the
United States is convulsed by racial hatred, are
engaged in a conscious political fraud, aimed at
concealing the class nature of the state and blocking
what is the necessary precondition for any fight against
police violence: the unity of the working class.
The epidemic of police murders is one symptom of a
deeply dysfunctional society. The homilies of Obama
and other government officials about American
“democracy” cannot cloak the reality of a ruling class
that operates with unparalleled violence at home and
abroad. The United States is in the midst of an election
campaign between a fascistic demagogue and a right-
wing representative of the military-intelligence
apparatus, competing with each other over who will
represent the interests of the ruling class most
ruthlessly. The contest between Trump and Clinton, as
with the political establishment as a whole, appears
separated by a vast gulf from social reality.
The global predations of the American ruling class
have innumerable consequences, from the bombings
carried out last weekend in New York, to the practice of
torture and assassination, to the increasingly violent
character of the political process itself.
In the videos that have come out of police killings,
beatings and other atrocities, one is struck by the
inhumanity of it all, the indifference to human life. It is
not a matter fundamentally of individuals, but of the
institutions of the state, that “body of armed men”
acting in defense of the ruling class, in which the
combination of war and social inequality is expressed
in homicidal behavior.
The events in Charlotte over the past several days
point to the social upheavals that are to come. The
same capitalist crisis that produces war and social
counterrevolution also produces class struggle. A way
forward, however, can only be found through a
conscious fight to unify all sections of the working
class, of all races, to connect the fight against police
violence to the fight against war, unemployment,
poverty, inequality and the capitalist system that
underlies it all.
Joseph Kishore

op US general warns Syrian

“no-fly” zone means war with
Russia
By Bill Van Auken
24 September 2016

The enforcement of a “no-fly” zone in Syria would

mean a US war with both Syria and Russia, the top US
uniformed commander told the Senate Armed Services
Committee Thursday.
Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, spelled out the grave implications of the
policy advocated by both predominant sections within
the Republican Party as well as Democratic
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton amid rising
violence in Syria and increasing pressure by
Washington on the Russian government to unilaterally
agree to grounding its own aircraft as well as those of
the Syrian government.
Secretary of State John Kerry has repeatedly
demanded that Russia adhere to what would
essentially be a one-sided “no-fly” zone under
conditions in which US warplanes would continue
carrying out airstrikes.
Kerry presented his proposal as a means of reviving
and restoring “credibility” to a ceasefire agreement that
he and the Russian Foreign Minister negotiated on
September 9. This cessation of hostilities collapsed
less than a week after its implementation in the face of
hundreds of violations by US-backed Islamist “rebels”
who have refuse to accept its terms, as well as two
major back-to-back attacks.
The first was carried out by US and allied warplanes
one week ago against a Syrian army position, killing as
many as 90 Syrian soldiers and wounding another 100.
Washington claimed that the bombing was a mistake,
but Syrian officials have pointed to what appeared to
be a coordination of the airstrike with a ground
offensive by Islamic State (also known as ISIS) fighters
who briefly overran the bombed position.
This was followed on September 19 by an attack on a
humanitarian aid convoy in Aleppo that killed at least
20 and destroyed 18 trucks. The US immediately
blamed Russia for the attack, without providing any
evidence to support the charge. Russia and the Syrian
government have denied responsibility and suggested
that the so-called “rebels” shelled the convoy.
The US position was reflected in the testimony of both
Dunford and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter before
the Senate panel Thursday. The general admitted to
the committee, “I don’t have the facts,” as to what
planes carried out the attack, but quickly added, “There
is no doubt in my mind that the Russians are
responsible.” Similarly, Carter declared, “The Russians
are responsible for this strike whether they conducted
it or not.”
The collapse of the ceasefire under the weight of these
incidents abrogated an agreement that had been
bitterly opposed by both Carter and the Pentagon’s
uniformed command. The latter have publicly declared
their opposition—in terms bordering on insubordination
—to the deal’s provision for coordinated actions and
intelligence sharing with Russia, which America’s top
generals see as the main enemy.
This view was reiterated Thursday by General
Dunford, who declared that based on the “combination
of their behavior and their military capability, Russia is
the most significant threat to our national interests.”
Asked if he supported the proposal for intelligence
sharing, Dunford responded, “We don’t have any
intention of having an intelligence-sharing arrangement
with the Russians.”
Speaking in New York Thursday night after the so-
called International Syria Support Group ended a
meeting with no progress toward restoring the US-
Russian ceasefire agreement, Secretary of State Kerry
declared: “The only way to achieve that [cessation of
hostilities and violence] is if the ones who have the air
power in this part of the conflict simply stop using it—
not for one day or two, but for as long as possible so
that everyone can see that they are serious.”
After leaving the same meeting, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov rejected the demand that the
Syrian government take “unilateral steps” under
conditions in which the US-backed “rebels” reject the
ceasefire. “We insist and find support for steps being
taken by the opposition as well, so as not to let Jabhat
al-Nusra take advantage of this situation,” he said.
This, however, is precisely the aim of Washington. The
US military and intelligence complex is increasingly
concerned that with the backing of Russia and Iran, the
Syrian government is on the brink of breaking the five-
year-old siege waged by the Islamist militias armed
and paid by the CIA and Washington’s principal US
allies, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. Syrian and
Russian planes began intense bombardment of
“rebel”-held eastern Aleppo Friday in what has been
reported as preparation for a major ground offensive to
retake this area of the city. If the offensive proves
successful, the US war for regime change will have
suffered a strategic reversal.
Al Nusra, the Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda, which is
formally designated by both the US and the UN as a
terrorist organization, constitutes the backbone of the
proxy forces employed by US imperialism to effect
regime change in Syria. One of the major
controversies surrounding the US-Russian truce
agreement was its call for the US to persuade the
“rebels” on its payroll to separate themselves from Al
Nusra. This Washington was unable and unwilling to
do, both because they are so closely integrated with
the Al Qaeda elements and because they could not
survive as a fighting force without them.
The imposition of a no-fly zone over Aleppo and other
Al Nusra-controlled areas is increasingly seen as a life
and death matter for the US-backed Islamists. As
Thursday’s Senate hearing indicated, while Kerry is
appealing to Russia to voluntarily stand down, there
are significant elements within the US state that are
calling for the imposition of the no-fly zone by force.
Gen. Dunford was asked by Mississippi Republican
Senator Roger Wicker if the US could take “decisive
action” in imposing a no-fly zone. Wicker indicated that
he had discussed the matter with Democrats, who
indicated that they would support such a venture if the
US intervention were given another name.
“For now, for us to control all the airspace in Syria
would require us to go to war with Syria and Russia,”
Dunford replied to the Senator. “That’s a pretty
fundamental decision that certainly I’m not going to
make.”
Dunford’s remark provoked an intervention by the
committee chairman, Republican Senator John
McCain of Arizona, who pushed him to clarify that total
control of the Syrian airspace would require war with
Russia and Syria, while a no-fly zone could potentially
be imposed short of that.
The hearing provided a chilling exposure of the
discussions going on within the US state and its
military over actions that could quickly spiral into an all-
out confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia, bringing
humanity to the brink of catastrophe.
In separate remarks the day before the Senate
hearing, both Carter and Dunford stressed that the US
will maintain its military deployment in the Middle East
long after the defeat of ISIS, the pretext for the current
interventions in Iraq and Syria.
Speaking to the Air Force Association conference,
Dunford declared, “If you assume, like I do, that we’re
going to be in that region, if not Iraq, for many, many
years to come,” decisions would have to be taken on
the establishment of permanent military headquarters
and command-and-control infrastructure.
“What is obvious and very clear is that we’re going to
be in that region for a while,” Carter declared in a
“troop talk” streamed live on social media. He added:
“ISIL is a big problem, but one we’re going to take care
of through defeat. But we have Iran over there, we
have other issues in the Middle East.”
In other words, Washington is planning the
continuation of its unending wars in the Middle East,
including military action directed against Iran, with the
aim of imposing American hegemony over the region’s
vast energy resources and strategically weakening the
principal targets of US imperialist aggression, Russia
and China.

essons of Labour’s leadership

contest
By the Socialist Equality Party (UK)
24 September 2016
The following statement is being circulated in Liverpool
at today’s Labour Party Special Congress and at the
pro-Jeremy Corbyn movement Momentum’s The
World Transformed event.
Jeremy Corbyn is expected to be announced the victor
over his challenger, Owen Smith, in the Labour Party
leadership contest today.
His re-election will be seen by many as a triumph over
the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and above all
the Blairites who led the McCarthyite witch-hunt to
remove him. But notwithstanding such understandable
sentiment, this will prove to be a Pyrrhic victory.
The central lesson that must be drawn from Corbyn’s
12 months in office is that his stated aim of
transforming the Labour Party into a vehicle for mass
opposition to austerity, militarism and war is a chimera.
While he may remain, at this point at least, Labour
leader, on all substantive issues of policy the right wing
continues to hold sway.
When Corbyn first won office in September 2015, he
argued that an influx of new members into the party
would create the conditions for overcoming the
disastrous legacy of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and
reversing Labour’s electoral collapse. His central
contention was that Labour MPs, whatever their
disagreements, were all genuinely desirous of forming
a government in the interests of working people and
would therefore be persuaded of the need for a more
“progressive” agenda.
Instead Corbyn’s “new kind of politics” was practised
only by his immediate leadership team, while his
opponents went on a war footing.
In the face of constant threats of rebellion by his
shadow cabinet and the PLP, Corbyn responded by
making one retreat after another. He appointed top
Blairites to his shadow cabinet, stood down from the
Stop the War coalition, allowed a free vote on military
intervention into Syria and instructed Labour councils
not to defy Conservative government spending cuts.
Finally, he reversed his previous opposition to the
European Union, leading Labour’s Remain campaign
in the June 23 Brexit referendum.
None of this placated his opponents. Faced with an
existential crisis for British capital opened up by the
referendum Leave vote, they immediately implemented
plans for his removal. The campaign waged has been
vicious—including denying more than 130,000
members and supporters the right to vote, and utilising
the Orwellian Compliance Unit to trawl through on-line
accounts to find “evidence” of thought crimes.
The designation of this purge as “Operation Icepick”,
along with the routine denunciation of “Trotskyite
infiltrators” is apposite, given that an historical
precedent can only be found in Stalin’s Russia.
Despite this, Corbyn continues to urge unity with his
would-be political assassins. He has pledged to again
build an inclusive leadership drawn from “all wings” of
the party. The demands now being made by the right
wing in return for a “conciliation” deal include proposals
to rig the composition of the shadow cabinet and the
National Executive Committee, and to eliminate the
supporters’ category so as to undermine Corbyn’s
base.
If Labour does not split, this will only be because the
right wing have determined they need more time to
mount their conspiracies. Some MPs have said they
will form an alternative “shadow shadow cabinet” on
the backbenches, while former Home Secretary Alan
Johnson urged a relentless campaign to undermine
Corbyn’s leadership “year after year.”
Those workers and young people who have rallied
behind Corbyn in the hope that they could “recapture”
Labour from the Blairites have been misled. It is the
upper-middle-class clique that constitutes the PLP—
and which is accountable only to the military-
intelligence state apparatus—that determines Labour’s
class character, not its members.
Since it was founded more than a century ago, Labour
has functioned as a political defender of British
imperialism. With the sole exception of the 1945
Labour government—when it was necessary to offer
significant reforms to the working class in order to
restore British capitalism from the ruins of world war—
every single attempt to push the party to the left has
been met with bans and proscriptions.
The emergence of Blair and New Labour flowed
organically from Labour’s role as the primary opponent
of socialism in Britain. With the restoration of
capitalism in the Soviet Union, social democratic
parties and trade unions the world over seized on the
wave of capitalist triumphalism to abandon any
connection to the working class and embrace financial
speculation, an onslaught on workers’ living standards
and, above all, policies of militarism and war.
The moves against Corbyn’s supporters underscore
that the PLP will tolerate no retreat from such policies.
Their actions are only a pale indication of how they will
respond to the upsurge in the class struggle that is
emerging from the deepening crisis of the profit
system.
Corbyn knows this, but still insists he would form a
government with the right wing because he represents
a faction of the Labour bureaucracy, not a genuine
opposition to it. He plays the same role politically as
Bernie Sanders in the United States has for the
Democratic Party—seeking to trap the emerging
leftward movement amongst workers and youth behind
Labour.
His policies have nothing to do with defending the
working class, much less implementing socialism, as is
claimed by his pseudo-left backers. He has described
Brexit as a vote against a failed neoliberal model, but
urges measures to preserve British capitalism through
economic protectionism and state intervention. His
proposal to encourage “social entrepreneurs”, based
on cooperatives, investment banks, credit unions and
the like, are intended to shore up Labour’s base in a
section of the middle class.
This accounts for the support Corbyn receives from
groups such as the Socialist Workers Party, Socialist
Party and the Alliance for Workers Liberty. Contrary to
their designation by the right-wing media as “Trots”,
these organisations constitute a professional anti-
Trotskyist detachment of the petty bourgeoisie—drawn
from the trade union bureaucracy, academics,
journalists, local government and parliamentary
functionaries who seek to defend their privileges by
preserving the existing social and political order. The
glorification of Corbyn’s Labour Party is only the latest
example of their holding up of bourgeois parties, such
as Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain, as an
alternative to a genuinely independent movement of
the working class. In every case this ends in political
betrayal.
The issue posed before workers and youth is not who
leads the Labour Party, but the building of a new
workers’ party based on a programme of socialist
internationalism. Under conditions of a worsening
global economic crisis and growing inter-imperialist
antagonisms that threaten a new world war, only a
party that aims at the unification of the international
working class in a common struggle against capitalism
offers a way forward.
The Socialist Equality Party is the British section of the
International Committee of the Fourth International. We
alone base ourselves on the rich political tradition
represented by Leon Trotsky, co-leader of the Russian
Revolution, the principal opponent of Stalinism and
theoretician of world socialist revolution. His sharp and
insightful appraisal of British Labourism and the
chicanery of its “left” representatives are of decisive
significance today. We urge workers and youth to study
this history and take the decision to join the SEP.

linton steps up anti-Russian

campaign against Trump
By Patrick Martin
24 September 2016

The Hillary Clinton presidential campaign has chosen

to focus its efforts in the week before the first debate
between Clinton and Donald Trump on an intensified
effort to attack Trump from the right on foreign policy,
portraying him as a stooge of Russian President
Vladimir Putin.
Former national security officials played the main role
in this smear campaign, allowing the candidate to
avoid getting her hands dirty. Former Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright and former CIA deputy
director Michael Morell took part in a joint press call
Thursday in which they denounced Trump’s alleged
ties to Russia.
Albright declared that Trump’s campaign slogan should
be “Russia First” rather than “America First,” adding,
“The president’s first and only motivation should be
advancing America’s interests, not their for-profit
interests.” She called for the moderator of the first
debate to pose a question directly to Trump about
business connections to Russia.
The former secretary of state also denounced Trump
for failing to meet with Ukrainian President Petro
Poroshenko, the billionaire oligarch who came to
power after the US-orchestrated right-wing coup that
overthrew a pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych.
Hillary Clinton met with Poroshenko Monday in New
York City, where the Ukrainian official was attending
the United Nations General Assembly, but Trump
declined an invitation to do likewise.
Morell called on Trump to disclose all his overseas
business interests. He said, “It seems to me — I can’t
prove this — but ... the positions he’s taken on Russia
are motivated by a support for his business interests.”
The former spy chief said that he had spent a third of a
century at the CIA assessing foreign leaders: “And if I
sort of turned that analytical spotlight on Donald
Trump, I would tell you that his number one interest,
the thing he cares about the most, is not the United
States of America. It is Donald Trump. He cares more
about himself than he does about anything else,
including his nation.”
He continued, “The definition of a patriot is somebody
who puts … nation above anything else in their life. So
in that regard, Donald Trump is not a patriot.”
Planted articles in major media outlets accompanied
this effort, withNewsweek magazine publishing a report
on the Trump Organization’s business dealings in
Russia, arguing that Trump would have extensive
conflicts of interest should he become president. The
magazine raised questions about Trump’s alleged ties
to Vladimir Potanin, a Russian mining and real estate
billionaire.
ABC News chimed in Thursday with a lengthy report
citing claims—without any supporting documentation—
that wealthy Russians have invested large sums in
Trump business ventures, making him susceptible to
Russian economic pressure. Most of the deals cited by
ABC are Russians buying condos in Trump-branded
real estate developments in New York City and south
Florida, in which Trump did not have an equity interest,
but collected a licensing fee.
Trump declared in July that he has “zero investments
in Russia,” but this wording has been turned against
him by the Clinton campaign and its supporters, who
have suggested repeatedly that the investment flow is
in the other direction, making Trump dependent on
wealthy Russian investors who are themselves closely
tied to the Kremlin.
There have also been suggestions—most recently
floated this week byWashington Post columnist
Eugene Robinson, another Clinton advocate—that
Trump refuses to release his tax returns because they
would show substantial income or debts related to
Russian investment.
The Newsweek article led to the publication of an open
letter by 55 former US national security officials in
the New York Times, “calling on Mr. Trump to disclose,
in full, the nature of his business relationships
overseas.” Morell was describing as the “driving force”
behind the letter, along with Michael Vickers, former
undersecretary of defense for intelligence.
Other signatories included nine former officials of the
George W. Bush administration, including leading
architects of the Iraq war like former Deputy Secretary
of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and former Secretary of
Homeland Security Michael Chertoff.
A similar letter denouncing Trump and supporting
Hillary Clinton was released this week signed by 75
retired senior diplomats, former ambassadors or other
officials requiring Senate confirmation, none of them
previously identified with either the Democratic or
Republican parties.
The open letter declared that “none of us” will vote for
Trump, while noting that the signatories “have proudly
represented every President since Richard Nixon as
ambassadors or senior State Department officials in
Senate-confirmed positions. We have served
Republican and Democratic Presidents with pride and
enthusiasm.”
Among the most prominent of the signers was Ryan
Crocker, former US ambassador to Syria, to Iraq
during the US military occupation, and to Afghanistan
during the current war against the Taliban. He said in a
press interview, “I know Hillary Clinton a bit from my
time in Afghanistan. I thought she was a terrific boss.
She’s smart, focused, she knows how to make
decisions.”
Other signers included Daniel Kurtzer, former US
ambassador to Egypt and to Israel, Thomas Pickering,
former US ambassador to the United Nations with a
long record of working with death squad regimes in
Central America, and Nicholas Burns, undersecretary
of state for George W. Bush.
The letter from the 75 retired diplomats echoed the
Clinton campaign attacks on Trump, saying,
“shockingly, he has even offered praise and admiration
for Vladimir Putin, the leader of Russia whose
international activities and reported intrusions into our
democratic political process have been among the
most damaging actions taken by any foreign leader
since World War II.”
This was a reference to the claims—again, completely
unsupported by evidence—that Russian intelligence
agencies were responsible for hacking into the mail
server of the Democratic National Committee, and the
subsequent leaking of politically embarrassing
materials to WikiLeaks.
This aspect of the anti-Russian campaign reached a
new peak on Thursday, when two senior Democratic
congressional leaders, Senator Dianne Feinstein and
Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrats on
the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, issued
a joint statement accusing Russia of “making a serious
and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election.”
The statement was an effort to increase the pressure
on the Obama administration to issue a formal
determination of Russian responsibility for the hacking
of the DNC, something which the US intelligence
agencies have so far been unwilling to do publicly,
although they have apparently said as much in secret
briefings to the congressional committees.
The growing volume and hysteria of the anti-Russian
campaign has a clear political purpose: if Clinton wins
the November 8 election, she will portray her victory as
a mandate for a much more aggressive posture
against Russia, greatly increasing the danger of open
military conflict between the countries with the two
largest nuclear arsenals.

Jeremy Corbyn re-elected

leader of UK Labour Party
By Chris Marsden
24 September 2016

Jeremy Corbyn was re-elected Labour Party leader

today, with an increased majority and a higher turnout
than when first elected in September last year.
The vote, announced just after 11:45 a.m. on Saturday
at Labour’s special conference, was 61.8 percent for
Corbyn to just 38.2 percent for his challenger Owen
Smith. Corbyn won in all categories—members,
registered supporters (who paid £25 to do so) and
supporters affiliated through their trade unions. Over
half a million voted due to the near trebling of the
party’s membership over the past 12 months.
Corbyn’s victory was achieved in the teeth of a coup
attempt led by the party’s Blairite wing, supported by
the vast majority of the party’s MPs and backed by
every one of Britain’s TV channels and major
newspapers, including Britain’s state broadcaster the
BBC , and the nominally liberalGuardian. In the face of
witch-hunts, membership purges and slanderous
denunciations of his supporters as thugs, anti-Semites,
misogynists and “Trots,” the contest proved that the
Blairites and Brownites are widely despised even by a
majority of their own party—which is only a pale
reflection of how they are viewed more broadly. In
contrast, Corbyn’s stated aim of opposing austerity,
militarism and war has galvanised popular support—
despite his own record of capitulations to the right wing
since taking office.
Once again, Corbyn has sought to snatch defeat from
the jaws of his victory, by abasing himself before his
opponents in the name of party unity. He thanked
Smith, who he hoped to continue working with,
“Because we are part of the same Labour family—and
that is how it is going to continue to be.”
The Labour family must reunite, he insisted.
“Sometimes in election campaigns, things are said that
people regret.” But there was “far more that unites us
than divides us. ... Let's wipe that slate clean, from
today, and get on with the work we have got to do as a
party together.”
To add insult to injury, Corbyn accepted without demur
the slanders levelled against his supporters for the
“crime” of expressing hostility to the right wing—stating
that there would be no toleration of “personal abuse” or
“intimidation.”
Corbyn’s main allies joined in the unity chorus.
Shadow Health Secretary Diane Abbott said, “We’re
not going to hold anything said in the campaign against
anybody. ... We want the party to unite.”
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell told the BBC that
Labour MPs had nothing to fear and there is “no threat
of deselection.” Asked whether an invitation to return to
the shadow cabinet would be extended to Hilary Benn,
who spearheaded the walkout that precipitated the
leadership contest on a pro-war, pro-nuclear weapons
platform, McDonnell said yes: “Hilary’s incredibly
talented. We’ve worked together over the years.”
Speaking for Momentum, the pro-Corbyn umbrella
group that encompassed Labour members and the
various pseudo-left groups outside the party, national
organiser James Schneider said to MPs, “Come and
talk to us. ... We’re not campaigning for deselections.”
Corbyn’s overarching commitment to unity proves he is
not an opponent of the Labour bureaucracy, but its last
line of defence. His political role is a rebranding of
Labour, which has become politically toxic as a result
of its rightward lurch to overtly pro-business and pro-
war policies. His aim is to prevent the emergence of a
genuine struggle by workers and youth that would
inevitably lead to a break with Labour.
As the scale of the defeat for the party’s right became
apparent this week, its representatives retreated from
earlier threats to split the party, declaring their intention
to stay and fight to restore Labour as a reliable political
instrument of British imperialism. (See Blairite coup to
continue despite UK Labour leadership vote
outcome )
The chief Blairite think tank, Progress, declared, “None
of us came to this contest with sufficient ideas,
organisation and supporters,” but “This is our party and
we are going nowhere.”
It urged the creation of a “soft-Left” grouping to
mobilise Smith supporters because “it is this grouping
that halts their advance to their real aim: control of the
party machine.”
The ongoing schemes of the right rest entirely on
Corbyn’s efforts to demobilise the oppositional
sentiment that brought him to office. For this reason,
the Guardian, which has led the propaganda campaign
against Corbyn, editorialised that Labour would now be
judged above all by “the leader’s ability to bring the
party together again, not force it apart.”
Its columnist Owen Jones declared that, whereas “the
fury that has resulted” from the right-wing witch-hunt
“may be understandable ... it will prove fatal if
unchecked.”
He warned that “Leftwing politics could be subsumed
into a struggle against ‘the 172’”—a reference to the
MPs who supported a vote of no-confidence in Corbyn.
Referencing a recent photo op by the Labour leader,
Jones counselled: “Corbyn has posed by an olive tree
to demonstrate his sincerity in reaching out. In doing
so, he’s setting an example his followers must surely
follow.”
The main pseudo-left groups have all lined up to vouch
for Corbyn, while issuing only the mildest rebuke of his
“mistaken” capitulation to the right.
The Socialist Workers Party issued a press release
boosting Corbyn’s political bona fides and warning of
the “massive pressure” on him “to compromise and
appease the right wing.” “Boldness and a break from
‘politics as usual’ won Corbyn his support. He must not
back down,” it pleaded.
The Socialist Party declared his victory to be “a
bridgehead against the forces of capitalism within the
Labour Party” and “another step to transforming
Labour” into a socialist party--provided only that its
structures are “democratised” to allow them to rejoin.
The Socialist Equality Party is alone in making clear to
workers and young people the central lessons to be
drawn from Corbyn’s one year in office. The SEP’s
statement—which was circulated at Momentum’s The
World Transformed event in Liverpool—explained that
Corbyn’s declared aim of “transforming the Labour
Party into a vehicle for mass opposition to austerity,
militarism and war is a chimera. While he may remain,
at this point at least, Labour leader, on all substantive
issues of policy the right wing continues to hold
sway. ... The issue posed before workers and youth is
not who leads the Labour Party, but the building of a
new workers’ party based on a programme of socialist
internationalism.”

ahoo reports 500 million user

accounts were hacked in 2014
By Kevin Reed
24 September 2016
Internet service provider Yahoo acknowledged on
Thursday that the account information of at least 500
million users was hacked and stolen in late 2014.
According to a press release posted on Yahoo’s
investor relations page, the information theft “may have
included names, email addresses, telephone numbers,
dates of birth, hashed passwords (the vast majority
with bcrypt) and, in some cases, encrypted or
unencrypted security questions and answers.”
Hashing refers to server-level conversion of passwords
into strings of unreadable characters that are difficult to
convert back into their original form. Bcrypt is a specific
password hashing method that is used in Linux-based
on other open source computing environments.
The Yahoo announcement, written by Chief Information
Security Officer Bob Lord, also said the company’s
investigation shows that the copied data does not
include unprotected passwords or users’ bank account
information or payment card data. The statement went
on, “the investigation has found no evidence that the
state-sponsored actor is currently in Yahoo’s network.”
Although Yahoo’s assertion that the breach was the
work of a state-sponsored hacker has been repeated
widely in news reports, no facts have been presented
to substantiate the claim. The only additional
information that has been reported is that Yahoo is
working “closely with law enforcement” in their
investigation. This follows the pattern set when
Democratic Party mail servers were hacked and
material delivered to WikiLeaks. This was
subsequently blamed on Russian intelligence by
unnamed FBI sources without any evidence ever being
presented.
Meanwhile, the announcement that the hack took
place two or more years ago also places a number of
question marks over the Yahoo revelation. While large-
scale hacking of user information has been on the
increase and has become more sophisticated in recent
years, it defies logic that no one at Yahoo—the
company is a pioneer of the World Wide Web
technology—knew that their security had been
breached until 24 months after the event occurred.
It should not be ruled out that the timing of the hacking
report is related to the pending purchase of Yahoo by
Verizon for nearly $5 billion. The mega-merger was
announced on July 25 following more than a decade of
stagnation at Yahoo since the collapse of the dot-com
bubble on Wall Street in 2001. As the stock market
value of Yahoo has been sliding in the wake of the
hacking announcement, the Verizon deal will most
certainly be impacted. According to Verizon officials,
they only found out about the Yahoo security issue two
days before the public announcement.
The massive Yahoo data breach is the biggest ever,
eclipsing those of LinkedIn in 2012 and MySpace last
May, in which 164 million and 359 million accounts
were hacked, respectively. Cyber security experts are
saying that the impact of the Yahoo attack will be felt
for years to come as the information that was stolen
contains a “treasure of secrets” that can be used to
gain access to other online accounts of those affected.
For example, illegal access to an individual’s email
account can be used as a “stepping stone” to gain
entry into other sensitive information through
commonly used username and password resetting
methods. The same kind of access can be gained with
answers to online security questions such as “What is
your mother’s maiden name?” and “What is the make
and model of your first car?”
The Yahoo press announcement included a list of
steps the company is now taking to secure customer
data along with steps users need to take to protect
their accounts and other private information. The
Yahoo announcement also contains a link to a public
security page where FAQs are being published about
the issue.

uerto Rico hit by nationwide

blackout
By Kevin Martinez
24 September 2016

The entire US territory of Puerto Rico suffered a

blackout beginning Wednesday night after a fire
caused a substation to break down. The plant had not
been repaired in decades and the cause of the fire is
unclear, although a lightning storm is thought to be
responsible.
Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla told
reporters Friday morning that 75 percent of the island’s
1.5 million homes and businesses had electricity
restored, and that the entire system would be returned
to normal only by Saturday, 72 hours after the power
went out. During the press conference at the island’s
emergency management center, the lights went out
briefly prompting laughter from the assembled
reporters. Padilla was forced to admit that periodic
blackouts and shortages would still occur as the
demand for electricity increases.
The blackout shut down the entire island of 3.5 million
people, who are already struggling with an economic
crisis and forced bankruptcy analogous to the city of
Detroit, Michigan. Residents are angry that they are
being forced to pay for electric utilities that are already
charge double the rates in the United States.
Governor Padilla called out the National Guard and
declared a state of emergency, shutting down all public
schools and government buildings for the week.
Authorities warned that tropical storms could still knock
out power lines and black out areas that had power
restored. An estimated 250,000 people don’t have
access to water.
Temperatures were recorded at 100 degrees
Fahrenheit on Friday, causing many Puerto Ricans to
sleep outdoors for the third night in a row. Residents
formed long lines outside of grocery stores to get ice, a
precious commodity, and recharge their cell phones.
Hotels in the capital San Juan offered special rates to
island residents but were soon booked up. At least one
person died from carbon monoxide poisoning after
fixing up a personal power generator in their home. An
elderly man was also taken to the hospital after
spending the night in a stuck elevator, and at least four
police officer were hit by cars while trying to direct
traffic; they are all expected to recover.
While local power outages are common in Puerto Rico,
an island-wide blackout is extremely rare. Authorities
have since traded blame for the failure to maintain the
island’s outdated and grossly unmaintained
infrastructure.
The Electric Power Authority, which oversees the
Aguirre power plant in the southern town of Salinas, is
still investigating what caused the fire. Two
transmission lines were knocked down, causing circuit
breakers to automatically shut down as a safety
measure, affecting the broader power grid. The
authority’s executive director, Javier Quintana, said
that the preliminary investigation suggested that
lightning might have struck a transmission line, causing
the switch to explode.
Governor Garcia, for his part, denied that the blackout
was the result of the country’s decade long economic
slump. He insisted that the switch at the power plant
was not properly maintained. Puerto Rico’s electric
company faces a $9 billion deficit and numerous
allegations of corruption.
These corruption charges are not confined to the utility
companies by any means. Garcia’s own campaign
manager has been accused of illegally soliciting cash
donations, and the president of the House of
Representatives was forced to resign.
Puerto Rico is now undergoing massive austerity on
behalf of Wall Street banks and hedge funds that are
demanding the former US colony “restructure” $70
billion in public debt, $20,000 for every man, woman,
and child on the island. The country's gross national
product has contracted in eight of the last nine years.
Government corruption has diverted public funds from
going to socially useful projects to wasteful ones.
As Emilio Pantojas Garcia, professor of Sociology at
the University of Puerto Rico wrote in an article titled,
“Is Puerto Rico Greece in the Caribbean?” published in
the Winter 2016 edition of the Fletcher Forum of World
Affairs, the government used bonds starting under the
governorship of Pedro Rossello (1993-2001) to finance
“mega public works projects.”
“Examples of major projects undertaken with bond
issues guaranteed with future income to be realized
from the fees of [the Puerto Rico Electric Power
Authority and the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer
Authority] include the ‘Super Aqueduct’ of the PRASA
and two natural gas pipelines … of PREPA, which
were intended to deliver natural gas from ports to
various power plants. Other projects included the
‘Urban Train’ subway, a multi-purpose coliseum, and
various municipal projects.
“Of these the ‘Super Aqueduct’ was the only functional
project. The urban train operates with a large deficit,
and the two gas pipelines were never completed,
although the materials were bought and contracts to
develop them were issued, as a rule to party donors
and affiliates.”
Pantojas Garcia continued, “As a result, 33 members
of the Rosselló administration were later indicted and
convicted of corruption by U.S. Federal Prosecutors in
Puerto Rico. In general, these projects established a
'pay-for-play' scheme, requiring contractors to kick
back 10% of the contracts to the ruling party, a practice
that became known as 'tithing' (el diezmo).”
Puerto Rico’s economy has stagnated over the last
decade, particularly after the 2008 crash. The
population has declined every year since 2005
according to the Census Bureau. Last year saw the
population decline by 1.7 percent, the biggest drop
since at least 2000.
The exodus of Puerto Ricans abroad is the result of no
jobs at home. About 46.2 percent of the island lives
below the poverty line, compared to 14.8 percent in the
US. Puerto Rico’s unemployment rate is at 11.7
percent, down from a high of 16.9 percent after 2008,
though more than double the “official” US
unemployment rate of 5 percent.
Of course, these figures are an underestimation of the
real unemployment rate, which would include those
who have stopped looking for work entirely. Puerto
Rico’s labor force participation rate has fallen about 9
percentage points since 2007 to 40.6 percent. This is
triple the decline in the US, where it fell from 66.4 to
62.8 percent in the same period.
Total employment in Puerto Rico stands at roughly one
million, down nearly 300,000 from 2007. Government
employment accounts for 70,000 lost jobs. Tourism,
one of the few employers on the island, is now
threatened with the outbreak of the Zika virus.
Such conditions are what produced this week’s
ongoing blackout, the combination of a rotten
government infrastructure and over a century of
American colonialism.

Biden meets with Central

American leaders on refugee
crackdown
By Genevieve Leigh
24 September 2016

Vice President Joe Biden met with leaders of the

“Northern Triangle” nations—Honduras, El Salvador,
and Guatemala—at the Inter-American Development
Bank in Washington yesterday to discuss ways of
“strengthening border security” in light of the
reemergence of record numbers of immigrants fleeing
these countries.
The measures discussed at this meeting were
undoubtedly aimed at carrying out the objectives of
Washington: to implement policies that will forcibly
contain the influx of migrants fleeing to the US, and to
further strengthen the borders of fortress America.
The meeting, while ostensibly being held between four
representatives of sovereign nations, would in fact
more accurately be described as a meeting between a
leading member of the Mafia and his local
underbosses. As was demonstrated to the Honduran
ruling class by the US-backed 2009 coup, Washington
will not stand for any hindrance to the dictates of
finance capital in the region.
The hypocrisy of US policy is shown by the widely
publicized United Nations General Assembly session
just days ago, where President Obama attempted to
posture as a champion for refugees and immigrants.
The summit has been praised as a success for the
pledge by 12 countries to resettle some 360,000
refugees. This dismal figure amounts to less than a
drop in the ocean when compared to the millions of
refugees requiring resettlement.
In spite of Obama’s humanitarian rhetoric,
Washington’s real attitude towards refugees and
immigrants is on display daily at its own borders, and
also of course, in its historical record worldwide, with
Latin America being perhaps the most tragic example.
The truth is that the Obama administration can offer
nothing more than a dressed-up version of the same
failed tactics implemented in the aftermath of the 2014
border crisis, which was largely a result of a mass
influx of refugees, particularly unaccompanied children,
fleeing the Northern Triangle countries.
New data collected by the Pew Research Center show
that these policies have ultimately failed to achieve
their supposed goal of “deterring” migrants from
escaping their home countries. A report issued this
week finds that while the number of unauthorized
immigrants coming from Mexico has declined since
2014, this figure has been offset by an increase of
immigrants coming from Asia, Central America, and
sub-Saharan Africa, keeping the overall number of
undocumented immigrants steady since 2009.
Based on the “logic” of deterring refugees from fleeing
their home countries, a strategy adopted in the 2014
border crisis, the Obama administration took a series
of actions including mass deportations, increased
spending on border surveillance, and expanding
methods of capture and detention.
The consequences of these criminal policies have
been devastating. The Obama administration has
overseen the apprehension of more than 68,080 family
members this fiscal year alone. With no month this
year seeing fewer than 3,000 family members
detained, it is expected that the annual total will be a
national record. Of those deported last year, 32
percent were to the Northern Triangle region; 33,000
people were deported to Guatemala, 21,000 to El
Salvador and 20,000 to Honduras.
While Obama stood in front of the world’s leaders
saying, “The real measure of the summit will only be
what countries do and who they help,” his
administration was carrying out its version of “helping”:
forcing refugees to return to some of the most
impoverished and dangerous countries in the world.
According to the World Bank, at least 60 percent of
Hondurans, 54 percent of Guatemalans and 35
percent of El Salvadorans live below the official
poverty line. San Pedro Sula, Honduras, considered
the “murder capital of the world,” has the second-
highet homicide rate after Caracas, Venezuela. San
Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, was the third most
violent city in the world in 2015, with a homicide rate of
109 per every 100,000 people.
And those refugees who are “lucky” enough to be
considered for temporary relief may find themselves in
one of the three for-profit detention centers in
Pennsylvania and Texas, which have counted at least
31 deaths this year and currently hold dozens of
women who have begun a hunger strike to protest for
their release.
Other programs, such as the two-year-old child
refugee program, have had similarly dreadful results.
Of the roughly 9,500 child applications received, only a
fraction, about 267 children, have actually been
admitted into the United States. Far from fixing the
problem, detentions of unaccompanied children have
actually shown a dramatic increase over last year’s
totals, with the number of children traveling without
parents increasing 52 percent.
U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes
responded this week to the growing number of critics
of US refugee policy, saying, “We do have an
allocation for refugees from that region, but we’ve been
more focused on trying to get at those root causes in
Central America and try to prevent dangerous
migration patterns, particularly for unaccompanied
children up to the U.S. border.”
Any serious examination of the “root cause” of this
global crisis would lead immediately to the disastrous
effects of US imperialism throughout the world. The
three countries that make up the Northern Triangle
region are prime examples.
The roots of US imperialism in Guatemala go as far
back as a CIA-orchestrated coup that successfully
overthrew a democratically elected government in
1954. This intervention, prompted by the economic
interests of the United Fruit Company, led directly to
the country’s nearly four-decade-long dirty war,
causing well over 200,000 deaths. The effects of this
intervention are still being felt today.
The history of El Salvador and Honduras is also riddled
with similar events. The US armed and financed the
ultra-right government in El Salvador throughout the
civil war of the 1980s, while using Honduras as a
military base for the illegal Contra guerrilla war against
neighboring Nicaragua, after the 1979 revolution that
overthrew the Somoza dictatorship and brought the
Sandinistas to power.
Washington was responsible for providing nearly $6
billion to support and arm military juntas in El Salvador
while the CIA has continued its legacy of toppling
democratically elected leaders as late as 2009 in
Honduras.

ermany: Green-conservative
coalition in Baden-
Württemberg backs domestic
army operations
By Anna Rombach and Marianne Arens
24 September 2016

In the German state of Baden-Württemberg, the first

state government led by a coalition of the Greens and
conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has
agreed to a joint exercise involving the German army
(Bundeswehr) and police in February 2017. Five
months after coming to power, the coalition under the
leadership of Winfried Kretschmann is proving itself to
be a spearhead for militarism, austerity and attacks on
refugees.
Minister President Kretschmann (Greens) has long
welcomed the domestic deployment of the
Bundeswehr. While federal interior minister Thomas de
Maizière (CDU) chose World Peace Day and the
anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War,
September 1, to announce the joint exercises between
the police and Bundeswehr, Kretschmann justified it by
stating, “Since there is the possibility [of support for the
police from the Bundeswehr] as a last resort, it is
necessary to test such support.”
The transformation of the Greens from pacifists into
militarists occurred almost 20 years ago. Prior to the
Social Democrat/Green coalition in 1998, the Greens
voted in favour of NATO’s intervention in the war
against Yugoslavia. Now they are playing a key role in
normalising the deployment of military forces
domestically.
But the traumatic experiences with war, fascism and
police terror are very much alive among the population.
No government has dared since 1945 to deploy the
military domestically against the population. Even the
founding of the Bundeswehr in 1955 was imposed by
the Adenauer government in the face of mass popular
opposition. The population was promised at the time
that the army would never be deployed domestically.
Although Germany’s Basic Law was weakened in 1968
with the adoption of emergency powers and in 2012
the Constitutional Court agreed to domestic army
deployments, the opposition in the population to the
militarisation of society remains widespread.
This is why Kretschmann downplayed de Maizière’s
plans for joint exercises between the police and army
as merely preparation for administrative and
emergency assistance. It was covered by section 35 of
the Basic Law, where it is stated, “All federal and state
authorities provide mutual legal and administrative
assistance.”
The parliamentary group chair of the Greens in the
Baden-Württemberg state parliament in Stuttgart,
Andreas Schwarz, at first raised prominently in the
media “concerns” over the domestic deployment of the
Bundeswehr. He accused state interior minister Strobl
(CDU) of causing the population to feel insecure
without reason by calling into question the police’s
capabilities.
Schwarz subsequently asserted that he had been
reassured in talks with Strobl that in the February
operations, no armed soldiers will be publicly
deployed. Those in positions of responsibility in the
police and army were merely discussing in a so-called
operational exercise communication routes and the
police’s potential material requirements. On this basis,
Schwarz gave his assent to the deployment at a
meeting of the coalition on September 12.
In reality, it is clear that with the planned exercise, the
federal and state governments are preparing for civil
war-type scenarios. It was conceivable, declared de
Maizière, “that we will have complicated and difficult
terror situations lasting for days.”
The planned measures are in line with the domestic
build-up of the state apparatus adopted in
neighbouring France, where an open-ended state of
emergency is in place. The operation of armed soldiers
on the streets of Paris is now a daily occurrence. The
suppression of workers’ strikes and demonstrations in
France proves that these measures are less directed
against the threat of Islamist terror than they are
against the working population.
The agreement of the Greens in the Baden-
Württemberg coalition government to joint exercises by
the police and Bundeswehr makes clear that this party
is also prepared to enforce the ruling elite’s plans for
dictatorship and war at the federal level. Although the
question of whether the Stuttgart model (Green-CDU)
or Berlin model (SPD—Left Party-Greens) will
materialise remains undecided, it is clear that all
parties back the domestic and external build-up of the
state apparatus.
In Stuttgart, Kretschmann collaborates closely with his
interior minister and Deputy Minister President Thomas
Strobl (CDU), who will be directly responsible for the
civil war games. He uses this connection to
demonstrate to the CDU leadership and federal
finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble how seamlessly a
Green/CDU coalition works.
Schäuble is not only Strobl’s mentor within the party,
but also his father-in-law and considers a CDU/Green
coalition at the federal level as a possibility and well
worth striving for. In mid-September, Schäuble sent his
Berlin spokesman, Martin Jäger, to Stuttgart as a super
state secretary for security policy and crisis
management. To award Jäger an appropriate salary,
the Green/CDU coalition altered the provisions of its
state remuneration law.
Jäger was previously employed in the foreign ministry
under the CDU government of Helmut Kohl, as well as
the SPD/Green government under Gerhard Schröder
and the CDU/SPD government of Angela Merkel and
Frank-Walter Steinmeier. When he became chief
spokesman in Schäuble’s finance ministry in 2014, he
had already been chief lobbyist for Daimler AG and
ambassador for the Merkel government in Kabul,
Afghanistan. Lobbypedia reports that Jäger was also
chairman of the fundraising association for the Stiftung
Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP, German Institute for
International and Security Affairs), a government-
aligned think tank under whose auspices the foreign
and security policy shift was carried out. (See “How
the revival of German militarism was prepared”).
Jäger is therefore well connected in the intertwined
worlds of the economic and political elites. As a state
official, he embodies a system in which all political
parties are interchangeable and the politicians know
each other. In Stuttgart, this super secretary of state
will be responsible for the state police presidium,
protecting the population and crisis management, while
overseeing the state intelligence agency and managing
residency and asylum rights.
The increasing militarisation of society is clearly seen
in refugee policy.
Kretschmann’s previous coalition with the SPD already
deployed soldiers last year to conduct the
administration for refugees. His “turbo-asylum” project
(Süddeutsche Zeitung), is currently being trialled on
refugees who have fled war, persecution and
desperation by soldiers from the German-French
brigade at the Patrick Henry Village in Heidelberg.
Over the course of 24-48 hours, the refugees proceed
through the “processing stages,” where Bundeswehr
soldiers work hand-in-glove with representatives of the
Federal Agency for Migrants and Refugees (BAMF) to
complete all of the steps—from registration to health
checks, passport control and filing of asylum
applications. This sees basic constitutional principles
increasingly subordinated to the military-style methods
of a police state.
In 2014, Kretschmann ensured that the number of
deportations would increase when, with Baden-
Württemberg’s vote in the Bundesrat, the upper house
of parliament, he secured the designation of the
Balkan states of Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia-
Herzegovina as “safe countries of origin.” He
subsequently declared his support for restricting the
right to asylum for refugees from Tunisia, Algeria and
Morocco. His party ally Boris Palmer, mayor of
Tübingen, stated in August that it was necessary to
even deport refugees prepared to commit violence to
Syria. “There are also parts of Syria that are not at
war,” according to Palmer.
The Kretschmann government is also prepared to
ruthlessly enforce the austerity measures on the
population required to pay for the military build-up. A
drastic austerity programme is aimed at saving €1.8
billion annually. The “politics of hand-outs” would be
ended, Kretschmann announced in the summer. At the
presentation of the first key points for the 2017 budget,
Green finance minister Edith Sitzmann revealed
austerity measures of €800 million, including cuts
across ministries, municipalities and state services.
This means job cuts, wage reductions and the closure
of public services at the municipal level.
In the face of the deepening global economic crisis and
rapid development towards war, the Greens are
showing their true face as a representative of a well-off
section of the upper-middle class. There was nothing
progressive about this party when it was founded in
Karlsruhe in 1980. It brought together the petty-
bourgeois anti-nuclear and environmentalist
movements, along with diverse Maoist tendencies of
the 1970s; later the East German citizens movement
Alliance 90 joined. All of these tendencies shared a
common contempt and hostility towards the working
class.
Kretschmann was once a member of the Maoist
Communist League of West Germany (KBW) and
embodies the rightward evolution of these ex-Maoists.
Several weeks ago, weekly magazine Die Zeit praised
Kretschmann, saying he was “simply the better
conservative and his party the better CDU.”

SPD continues talks with the

Left Party, Greens about next
Berlin Senate
By Christoph Vandreier
24 September 2016

The first exploratory talks between the parties took

place this week following the Berlin state election last
Sunday. The Social Democratic Party (SPD), Greens
and Left Party have left it in no doubt that a so-called
“red-red-green” Senate (state executive) would pursue
an extremely right-wing agenda, and have agreed to
further meetings.
The SPD and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) both
suffered a massive loss in votes, and the Left Party,
the Greens and SPD received their lowest vote since
1999. The vast majority of Berliners used the election
to express their dissatisfaction with the policy of cuts
and the stepping up of state powers.
The Greens and Left Party are gearing up to continue
the hated policies of the SPD-CDU grand coalition in
the Berlin Senate, and to keep the reigning mayor,
Michael Müller (SPD), in office. After the exploratory
talks of recent days, all participants expressed their
broad agreement and stressed the good atmosphere
of the negotiations.
The Greens and SPD met on Thursday to hold initial
discussions. Representatives of both parties later
praised the “respectful relations,” which had produced
“a good feeling,” as Green Party state chair Bettina
Jarasch said. Müller stressed how “open, clear and
direct” the discussions had been about commerce,
financial and urban development issues.
On Wednesday, the SPD met with the Left Party in a
similarly harmonious atmosphere. During a break,
Müller and Left Party state leader Klaus Lederer
stressed it had been a “frank discussion” and that there
had been “no insurmountable obstacles.”
Lederer left no doubt that the loose campaign
promises of the Left Party, including its call for more
investment, was pie in the sky. The Left Party leader
made clear “that we will not impose suicidal new debt
on the city.” After the break, the parties discussed the
issues of education, internal security and rents.
The SPD also met with the CDU and Free Democratic
Party (FDP), but said “the commonalities are very
limited.” Müller has already invited the Left Party and
the Greens to further joint exploratory talks on Monday.
The fact that the first phase of coalition building
between the SPD, Left Party and Greens has run so
smoothly and amicably speaks volumes about the
reactionary nature of a possible red-red-green
coalition. It shows that there are no serious differences
between the previous Müller-government and the
former opposition parties.
Müller, who took over the mayoralty from Klaus
Wowereit in December 2014, has continued the rigid
austerity policies of his predecessor unchanged. In
particular, he has further driven up rents. His
government became infamous for its systematic
mistreatment of refugees by the State Office of Health
and Welfare (LaGeSo).
Refugees often had to endure weeks in the deepest
cold at LaGeSo facilities, being crammed into
makeshift camps for months before eventually being
deported in their thousands. At the same time, the
Senate has increased the powers of the state
apparatus and declared entire neighbourhoods to be
so-called danger zones where the police have
extremely far-reaching special powers.
That the Greens and Left Party have no major
differences with Müller is not surprising in light of their
own position in other state administrations. In the state
of Thuringia, the Left Party already heads a red-red-
green coalition, which is pursuing an anti-refugee
policy. State premier Bodo Ramelow supported the
election campaign of the Left Party in Berlin and was
praised by Lederer as a model.
In Berlin itself, the Left Party and SPD coalition that
ruled the city from 2002 to 2011 imposed social cuts
more vicious than any other state government in West
German history. Wages in the public sector and in
public transport were reduced by about 10 percent,
more than 100,000 apartments were privatized and
tens of millions of euros cut in the education system.
Given this record, there can be no doubt that a red-
red-green Senate will continue and intensify the policy
of social attacks and increased state powers. Shortly
before the elections, the former finance senator (state
minister), Thilo Sarrazin (SPD), praised the Left Party
for its rigorous austerity measures. “In some respects,
budgetary consolidation was easier with them than
with our own party comrades,” the right-wing populist
said.
For the ruling elites, a red-red-green Senate is also
attractive because in carrying out its ruthless policies it
can rely on various pseudo-left groups who seek to
dress up the right-wing policies of the Left Party in left
words. The Socialist Alternative (SAV) and Marx21
groups are part of the Left Party and organized a large
measure of its election campaign in Berlin.
Now both are drumming up support for the Müller
government. Marx21 openly advocates a red-red-
green Senate, but at the same time says this cannot
meet the “expectations of Berliners” because this
would require “radical tax increases for the rich and
corporations at federal level.” For this reason, the
group calls for “a massive social movement with the
participation of the trade unions.”
What this means can be seen in the actions of the
SPD-Left Party Senate. In its 10 years in government,
no cut was adopted without consulting the unions and
then jointly pushing it through against the workers. For
example, the wage cuts in the public sector were
agreed during the infamous “walk in the woods” by
Economics Senator Harald Wolf (Left Party) and Verdi
union boss Frank Bsirske. Now Marx21 is offering itself
as a mediator.
The SAV is advocating support for a red-green
government, without itself taking on ministerial posts.
The Left Party “should be ready to help an SPD-Green
Party minority government into office, to block the CDU
and Alternative for Germany (AfD), but cannot be
bound by any coalition or toleration agreement,” it
writes on its web site. Clearly the group believes it is
better able to keep social resistance to the Müller-
government under control if the Left Party nominally
remains in opposition.
Such considerations as to which constellation the Left
Party could be involved in, in order to enforce the
unpopular policy of social attacks and militarism
against the population, have long since even reached
federal level. The major media outlets are openly
discussing whether the red-red-green model could be
transferred to the federal government in 2017, when
there is a general election.
There was “hardly any fear of contact” between the
SPD and Greens, says newsweekly Der Spiegel. With
the “erosion of Merkel’s chancellorship, the political
constellation has changed,” writes Die Zeit. The most
important task facing a red-red-green government
would be to forge ahead with German militarism. Like
the Greens in 1998, the Left Party has the task of
mobilizing the petty bourgeoisie in order to justify the
war policy on “humanitarian” grounds.
“We are reaching agreement with the Left Party,” Die
Zeit quoted an SPD foreign policy expert. Maximum
positions have long since been conceded;
representatives of the Left Party leave no doubt about
this. For example, Left Party parliamentary leader
Sahra Wagenknecht told the RedaktionsNetzwerk
Deutschland, she saw “clear movement in the SPD’s”
foreign policy stance, and praised the policies of
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, one of the
architects of the return of German militarism.
In an interview with Die Zeit on Wednesday,
Wagenknecht did not exclude support for foreign
missions by the Bundeswehr (armed forces). One had
to discuss this in coalition talks, according to
Wagenknecht. In the summer, she had already
declared that “Germany would not, of course, leave
NATO on the day we join the government.” Former Left
Party leader Gregor Gysi and Ramelow had earlier
announced support for Bundeswehr peacekeeping
missions.

nrest in the Congo: Political

turmoil rocks Kinshasa
By Eddie Haywood
24 September 2016

Martial law was declared Monday in the capital city of

Kinshasa, Congo, after Congo’s main opposition
parties made a public call for mass demonstrations
against the government, declaring their fears that
President Joseph Kabila will refuse to leave office
when his term ends in December.
The electoral commission was set to announce a date
for elections on Monday, but has said that it will not be
possible to hold them in November.
Kabila has been president for 15 years and has served
the maximum of two terms allowed by the constitution.
His presidency is set to expire on December 20. He
took power in 2001, succeeding his father, President
Laurent Kabila, who was assassinated.
Several headquarters of various political opposition
parties were attacked with grenades and machinegun
fire. The Union for Democracy and Social Progress,
the largest political party opposing the current Kabila
government, was set ablaze, incinerating several
people inside alive.
Also attacked were the headquarters of the Forces of
Union and Solidarity (Fonus) party and the
headquarters of the Lumumbist Progressive Movement
(MLP). Witnesses report the attackers were soldiers in
uniform.
Several people have been reported killed in the unrest,
and much of the city was smoldering, with buildings on
fire, as well as scores of cars set ablaze. Hundreds of
police were called out to quell the violence.
Opposition sources put the death toll at 50, while
witnesses declared that police opened fire into crowds.
There have been reports of mass arrests and beatings
of demonstrators carried out by police.
On Thursday, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, condemned the
Kabila government, stating that he was particularly
shocked at reports that some men in uniform took a
direct part in some of the attacks against the
headquarters of six opposition political parties.
While it appears that that the unrest in Kinshasa has
abated, the threat of renewed chaos has not been
resolved.
The current political unrest is just the latest
manifestation of deep going instability within the
Congolese political setup. In May of last year,
opposition political parties staged a rally in Kinshasa
against the Kabila government, sparking a violent
government crackdown and resulting in scores killed.
The political forces opposed to Kabila are led by
various wealthy Congolese businessmen, former
Kabila allies, and individuals who formerly served in
the Mobutu Sese Seko dictatorship.
One of the leading candidates for president, Moise
Katumbi, a wealthy businessman and former governor
of Katanga, with previous close ties to the Kabila
regime, called for demonstrations for Monday, stating
on his Twitter account: “I call for peaceful
demonstrations everywhere in the country to ask for
elections!”
Katumbi fled the country last May after a warrant was
issued for his arrest. He was a one-time confidante of
Kabila, but the two have since had a falling out. He has
been sentenced in absentia to three years in prison
after being convicted of corruption in a land sale deal,
a charge he denies.
Katumbi’s main claim to fame is as the owner of the
Congolese football club TP Mazembe, which has won
several championships and is a major source of pride
for many Congolese. Katumbi is the most favored
candidate from the main opposition parties.
Étienne Tshisekedi also backed the call for
demonstrations. Tshisekedi is the leader of the
presidential candidate of the Union for Democracy and
Social Progress opposition party. Now aged 83,
Tshisekedi has a long and sordid history; he served
various ministerial positions in the reviled US-backed
dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko, including as Sese
Seko’s prime minister, during the period of the regime’s
worst crimes.
As finance minister for Sese Seko, Tshisekedi oversaw
the expropriation of vast sums of wealth from the
country that were funneled into the accounts of
international financial interests exploiting the Congo as
well as those of Sese Seko and his ruling clique.
Tshisekedi also oversaw the savage repression of
political opponents of the dictatorship.
Congo has had a long and brutal history, beginning
with Belgian colonial rule in the 19th century. After a
bloody and protracted fight, in 1960 Congo gained
independence from Belgian colonialism. The leader of
the anti-colonial struggle, Patrice Lumumba, emerged
as Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister
in 1960.
Less than satisfied with the election results, Belgium,
with aid from Washington and the Central Intelligence
Agency, set out to remove Lumumba from power.
Lumumba’s demands that Congo’s significant mineral
wealth be controlled by the Congo were considered his
death sentence by Belgium and Washington.
After being arrested, Lumumba and two of his closest
advisers were removed from their prison cell in the
dark of night and shot to death by a firing squad.
This barbaric act brought to power the brutal
dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko, which received
significant support and approval from Washington and
Belgium. The Mobuto dictatorship carried out the some
of the worst crimes of any post-colonial African regime.
The dictatorship ruled the Congo until 1997, when
Mobuto was forced to flee after a rebellion led by
Laurent Kabila, then a rebel military leader. This led to
the Congo War, which lasted from 1996 to 2003 and
resulted in millions of deaths.
For its part, Washington indicated its displeasure with
the Kabila regime in June when the Obama
administration threatened to impose sanctions against
the country if Kabila refuses to leave office.
Washington has warned Kabila not to seek a third
term, with the usual vacuous platitudes about
“respecting the constitution.”
The real concern from Washington is for the vast
mineral wealth of the Congo, and the maintenance of a
reliable and pliant regime in Kinshasa to facilitate the
exploitation of these resources. The chaos that would
ensue from a recalcitrant regime that refuses to leave
office is something Washington wishes to avoid, as this
would disrupt the flow of resources and profits.
Another point of contention between Washington and
Kinshasa is the Kabila government’s business dealings
with China. By reaffirming it dominance through
AFRICOM and US military alliances, Washington is
aiming to halt the growing economic influence of China
on the African continent.
China has invested heavily in Congo, particularly in the
mining sector and copper.
Congo is the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa and
one of the most socially and economically polarized. It
is home to some of the largest deposits of mineral
wealth in the world, including resources used in the
manufacture of electronics such as computers and
mobile phones, coveted by wealthy Western interests.
The Congolese economy has been drastically affected
by the sharp drop in commodities indices on world
markets in recent years; the fall in the price of copper
(Congo is Africa’s largest exporter of copper) has left
the Congolese economy reeling. The country’s oil and
mining sectors account for some 98 percent of
Congo’s exports. Claiming fears of hyperinflation,
Kabila is projected to cut the budget this year by as
much as 30 percent, slashing spending for public
services and other essential government functions.
Congo is controlled by a wealthy corrupt ruling class,
while the vast majority of Congolese live in dire
poverty, with millions across the country having no
access to clean water and enough food to eat. The
total mineral wealth and natural resources of the
Congo are estimated to be worth some $24 trillion, but
this vast wealth is completely out of reach for the
majority of Congolese.
The living conditions are miserable for the masses of
Congolese. Fewer than 25 of the population has
access to sanitary facilities, and fewer than half access
to clean water. This lack of basic sanitation results in
annual outbreaks of cholera and other air and water
borne diseases, such as dysentery, which affect
millions of people. Two out of every five child deaths
are caused by malaria, which afflicts nearly 7 million
Congolese.
The prevalence of these conditions and the
widespread misery for the majority of the population in
a country with such vast wealth and resources stands
as an indictment of both world capitalism and Africa’s
national bourgeoisie.

ustralia: Thousands more jobs

being destroyed
By Terry Cook
24 September 2016
The jobs crisis in Australia continues to mount, amid
world stagnation and falling demand for commodities
such as iron ore and coal, once the major mainstay of
the economy’s growth. Major companies are
restructuring their operations, destroying jobs and
working conditions in a bid to slash costs as part of a
ruthless fight for market share and profits.
During the July 2 federal election, the Liberal-National
Coalition claimed it would create “jobs and growth,”
while Labor promised it would generate “full
employment.” The stark reality for thousands of
workers is low-paid and insecure part-time or casual
employment, or poverty-level social security payments.
The official Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
unemployment rate for August fell to 5.6 percent, the
lowest level in three years, down from 5.7 percent the
previous month. But the survey counts as employed
anyone who has worked for more than an hour in the
month.
Even on these figures, there are more than 720,000
unemployed workers, an average of 18 per known
vacancy. As a result, thousands are dropping out of the
workforce.
The drop in the official rate was largely attributable to a
fall in the seasonally adjusted workforce participation
rate from 64.9 last November to 64.7 percent last
month. The number of people looking for work declined
by more than 100,000 over that period.
While 11,500 full-time jobs were added in August, part-
time positions fell by 15,400, an overall loss of 3,900
jobs. This does not alter the underlying shift toward
casualisation of the workforce at the expense of full-
time jobs. Over the past year to August, full-time jobs
fell by 64,500, while 136,300 workers were pushed into
part-time work.
The total number of hours worked in part-time jobs
climbed 5.3 percent this year, whereas full-time hours
worked increased by just 0.33 percent, well down from
the more than 5 percent pace of five years ago, at the
height of the mining boom.
According to the Roy Morgan employment survey,
based on a broader interview process, the situation is
far worse. Unemployment in August stood at 10.4
percent, with another 7.1 percent of workers under-
employed, that is, looking for more hours. On this
result, 2.249 million people were unemployed or under-
employed, up by 132,000 since August 2015.
Young people are most affected. According to the ABS,
the unemployment rate for 15- to 24-year-olds is 12.4
percent, more than double that for older workers.
Young workers also make up a growing percentage of
the casual and part-time workforce. The ABS estimates
that their under-employment rate is five times that of
the early 1980s.
Better-paying jobs are still being destroyed throughout
mining-related and manufacturing industries, as
commodity prices fall back from recent slight
recoveries. More than 2,300 mining jobs have been
axed this year as companies cut back workforces,
suspend operations or close mines entirely.
Iron ore prices have dropped by more than 9 percent
since August 23, down from almost $US62 per tonne
to $US56.09 last week. Iron ore and coal prices are
likely to remain low, because China has pledged to cut
steel production by 150 million tonnes a year by 2020.
Some 60 percent of Australia’s iron ore and coal is
exported to China.
The Joint Coal Board statistics report for the New
South Wales coal industry for 2014-16 shows that
more than one in five coal mining jobs have gone since
employment peaked four years ago. As of June 30, the
equivalent of 19,388 full-time employees were working
in or around a coal mine or coal washery, compared to
24,972 in June 2012. The number of operating coal
mines in the state fell from 62 in June 2010 to 40 this
June.
Retrenchments in the construction sector are mainly
driven by the lack of investment in new LNG and other
mining projects. According to ABS figures, the value of
total construction on a seasonally adjusted base fell in
the June quarter for the fifth consecutive quarter,
dropping 3.7 percent to $47 billion, a level not seen
since 2011. Over the year, construction was down 10.6
percent.
Major employers across a range of sectors recently
announced further job cuts.
Oil and gas company Santos revealed it will axe 600
jobs across its Australian operations, mainly in
Queensland, in a bid to rein in cash flow and pay down
debt. Telecommunications provider Optus will
eliminate over 90 jobs in its networks division, on top of
the 480 to be cut from a range of areas announced in
April. Competitor Telstra will slash over 50 jobs from
its wideband design workforce.
News Corp announced it will axe 300 jobs when it
takes over APM News and Media’s regional
newspaper businesses across Queensland and
northern NSW. Ship builder ASC will cut a further 175
jobs at its Port Adelaide shipyard in South Australia.
In the public sector, the State Library of South
Australia will shed 20 jobs in a bid to save $6 million
over three years following budget cuts. The state
government also confirmed that 200 nursing positions
will be cut fromSouthern Adelaide Local Health
Network when the Repatriation General Hospital
closes at the end of next year.
The New South Wales government plans to cut 132
full-time teaching positions from the state’s prison
education program by December.

inancial parasitism and the

rising war danger
By Nick Beams
24 September 2016

In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crash,

the US Federal Reserve, along with other central
banks and governments around the world, carried out
a rescue operation amounting to hundreds of billions of
dollars to bail out the banks and financial institutions
whose speculative and, in some cases outright criminal
activities, had set off the crisis.
The official rationale for this initial response was that it
was necessary to prevent the world sliding into a
repeat of the Great Depression of the 1930s.
It was followed by the instigation of the program of
“quantitative easing” under which central banks have
set interest rates at historically record lows and
pumped trillions of dollars into the financial system
through the purchase of government bonds and other
financial assets. The justification for this policy was
that lowering interest rates and making available ultra-
cheap money to the banks and financial institutions
would encourage risk taking, lift inflation, promote
investment in the real economy and bring about
economic growth.
It was carried out on the assumption that, however
severe the 2008–2009 crisis, it was, nevertheless, a
conjunctural downturn which could be reversed if only
sufficient stimulus were applied via financial markets. It
has been a manifest failure, indicating that what took
place in 2008 was a breakdown.
Global growth remains at its lowest levels for any
“recovery” in the post-war period, investment is far
below where it was before the crisis, productivity has
declined markedly, world trade is slowing and
deflationary pressures have spread. In the words of the
OECD, the world economy is in a “low-growth trap.”
For the working class in all the major economies the
past eight years have been characterised by stagnant
or declining real wages, endless austerity programs
which have cut social conditions—accompanied by the
mantra “there is no money”—and the growth of social
inequality to unprecedented levels.
Far from bringing about economic “recovery,” the
promotion of the very parasitism which led to the 2008
crash has now become de facto the official policy of
the world’s major financial authorities.
While the global economy has entered a period of
“secular stagnation”—a term first developed in the
1930s to characterise a period of permanent low
growth—US share markets have reached record levels
and quantitative easing has created a bubble in global
bond markets with the price of bonds so high that
around $13 trillion worth are trading at negative yields.
At every point over the past eight years, the response
of central bank and monetary authorities to continued
low inflation and growth has been to double down on
the QE program. The result is that, whatever their
intentions may have been at the start, they are now
completely beholden to the financial markets and their
insatiable demands for cheap money in order to
accumulate vast wealth through financial manipulation
and speculation.
This economic fact of life has been underscored by the
decisions taken by two of the world’s major central
banks—the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of
Japan (BoJ)—on Wednesday. The day began with the
BoJ announcing that it would continue to pump money
into its asset-purchasing program for the indefinite
future and pledging that it would continue until inflation
“exceeds” the target level of 2 percent “and stays
above the target in a stable manner.” With inflation at
minus 0.4 percent and showing no sign of an increase,
this was interpreted by financial markets to indicate
that quantitative easing had gone from being an
emergency measure to a permanent program, and
they duly celebrated pushing up stock markets
indexes.
Later on, the Fed delivered on what the markets
demanded by deciding to keep interest rates on hold,
fearful that even a rise of 0.25 percent would set off
financial turbulence. And they again celebrated
pushing major indexes to record or near record highs.
Meanwhile, staff at the European Central Bank are
engaged in research to discover new ways in which
they can expand the bank’s own QE program.
The immediate question which arises is: where is all
this leading? The answer is to be found by considering
some key economic processes and their historical
development.
Notwithstanding the delusion that profits can be
continually generated through financial operations, as
money seems to endlessly beget more money, all
financial assets are, in the final analysis, a claim on the
wealth produced in the real economy, or more
particularly a claim on the surplus value which is
extracted from the working class. But these claims now
vastly outweigh the real economy.
A study of long-term trends makes this clear. In the
period from the end of World War II until 1980, total
financial assets were roughly equal to global gross
domestic product. But with the onset of global
economic restructuring in the 1980s and the increased
financialisation that accompanied it, a widening
divergence set in. When the crisis erupted in 2008
financial assets were valued at 360 percent of global
GDP. Since then the divergence has increased. A
mountain of fictitious capital has been created which
dominates over the global economy, and to which the
central banks are completely beholden.
However, it cannot continue to grow indefinitely and
economic laws must eventually assert themselves as
each section of capital strives to eliminate its rival
claimants to wealth.
In “normal” times, this takes place through the struggle
in the market. But the present situation is very far from
“normal” and so the competitive conflict increasingly
acquires an added dimension. In conditions of ever-
greater expansion of finance amid global economic
stagnation, the turn is toward extra-economic and
political means. This process finds its highest
expression in war—the elimination of economic and
financial rivals through mechanical means.
War, however, does not arise out of the blue. It is
preceded by a period of the growing intertwining and
rise in economic and military tensions. These trends
are now clearly evident.
When the financial crisis broke in 2008, the major
economic powers declared there would be no return to
the protectionist, nationalist and beggar-thy-neighbour
policies that played such a disastrous role in the 1930s
and prepared the conditions for war.
These pledges have been repeated in all major
economic summit meetings since. But they are
increasingly honoured in the breach as the World
Trade Organisation and other economic bodies record
the rise in protectionist measures, particularly in the
recent period, as world trade growth slows.
The financial system is likewise beset with tensions.
The United States, concerned about American export
and investment prospects in Europe, has insisted that
the European Union governments, and above all
Germany, turn from austerity to stimulatory measures.
This has provoked fierce opposition from the German
ruling elites which blame the US for the financial crisis
and reckon that stimulatory measures will further
weaken their banking system, already significantly
impacted by the effects of the crash, to the advantage
of US banks.
Economic warfare is increasingly coming to the
surface. Earlier this month EU regulators ordered
Apple to pay $13 billion in back taxes, prompting an
angry reaction from the US treasury and politicians.
This was followed within days with a decision from the
US Justice Department that Deutsche Bank pay $14
billion in fines for mis-selling mortgage securities—a
claim which, if met in full, would almost certainly send it
 into bankruptcy. There was an angry reaction from the
bank which insisted it would not pay the full amount,
backed by a declaration from the finance ministry in
Berlin, demanding a “fair settlement.”
Commenting on the conflict, the Financial Times noted
that, coming just days after the Apple back tax
demand, “there is a strong suspicion in financial circles
that Deutsche could be the victim of the US taking
revenge on Europe.”
As part of its drive to maintain its global dominance,
the US has promoted the establishment of a
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)
to cover Europe. But the TTIP plan now lies dead in
the water with Germany and France declaring that
negotiations are virtually over because, in the words of
German finance minister Sigmar Gabriel, “we as
Europeans naturally cannot submit to American
demands.”
The two world wars of the 20th century arose out of the
conditions produced by the intersection and
intertwining of economic and political tensions. In
conditions where financial parasitism, an essentially
predatory mode of profit accumulation, has reached
extraordinary heights, those tensions are once again
on the rise.
These economic and financial developments and their
political consequences underscore the importance of
the conference convened by the SEP (US) on
November 5 to develop a socialist strategy against war
and the capitalist system that produces it.
Britain: Victory for Corbyn! The genie is now out of the
bottle
Written by Rob SewellSaturday, 24 September 2016




Ecstatic screams and cheers broke out across the country as the news came
through that Jeremy Corbyn has again won a decisive victory to become Labour
leader, with an even bigger mandate than last September. 313,209 members
voted for him, 61.8% of the vote, compared to 59.5% last year. His challenger
Owen Smith, the “unity” candidate, got 193,229 votes, or 38.2% of the vote. The
turnout was 77.6%, with 506,438 members and supporters taking part.

Corbyn won a majority over Smith in every

category: members, registered supporters and trades union affiliates. He won the support of
59% of voting members (10 points higher than last year), 70% of registered supporters and
60% of affiliated supporters. This result constituted a ringing endorsement of Corbyn and a
massive blow to Labour’s right wing.
The mass movement behind Corbyn
Let us remember that Corbyn’s victory today was in spite of a ferocious battle by the
Establishment, inside and outside of the party, to unseat him. Everything was thrown at him
in a bitter campaign. 130,000 new members were debarred from voting. Tens of thousands
were suspended - and even expelled - to prevent them voting. Despite this, Corbyn increased
his majority!

The right wing in the Parliamentary Party never accepted his first victory and immediately
worked to overthrow his mandate. This campaign culminated in the right-wing coup of a few
months ago, where 80% of Labour MPs voted for a motion of no confidence in him. They
moved heaven and hell to get rid of him. But their efforts have now completely blown up in
their faces.

The vote was no real surprise given the pro-Corbyn feelings in the rank and file. In the end,
Owen Smith was a no-hoper. This demonstrates the weakness of the right wing within the
Labour Party. They had lost control of the party with Corbyn’s victory, as hundreds of
thousands joined the Labour Party to defend and support Corbyn. The party has almost
tripled its membership since the May 2015 general election.

Corbyn has certainly strengthened his position within the party, especially amongst the new
members. As one commentator stated, he has massive support like no other party leader in
history. Such a victory must not be squandered but used to transform the Labour Party into a
mass, fighting socialist party.

Unity - on what basis?

 Of course, there have been immediate calls for the
right wing PLP to unite behind Corbyn. All the local Labour Party meetings next month will
certainly be pressing for this. There must be demands that the utter disloyalty of the PLP has
to stop. It is the continual back-stabbing by right-wing MPs, who have been all over the
media, which has undermined support for the party. These MPs must either accept the
mandate given to Corbyn by the party or they must stand down.
It is clear that the right wing have suffered a massive blow. They have suffered a head-on car
crash. Many right-wing MPs deliberately stayed away from the Labour Conference, knowing
full well that they were in for a hiding to nothing. They are licking their wounds, even talking
of “unity” and “listening”. Stephen Kinnock, who has been a vociferous opponent of Corbyn,
sent him a text message of congratulations as “sweet as a razor”, to use the words of Dylan
Thomas. A number will have seen how the wind is blowing and will now show “loyalty”. But in
reality they will simply be biding their time. Some will return to the Shadow Cabinet. Others
will refuse with a hungry smile. The right wing will never give up its hope of turning the
tables. Clutching their heads, they talk of a new organisation being set up in the PLP - a “party
within a party” - to guide and coordinate their actions. But they have had the stuffing knocked
out of them.

The battles ahead

Of course, they have a massive problem: the Labour membership, which has decisively
rejected Blairism and the policies of the right. They are very much looking for a real
alternative, which they see in Jeremy Corbyn. It is very likely that the membership will
continue to grow, meaning that the base for the right wing will continue to shrink. The
boundary changes will open up selection conferences locally in which the right wing will be
challenged. They will not be able to avoid this, despite pleas to Corbyn, who is in favour of
democracy and the membership having its say. When this happens, all hell will be let loose.
The idea that the right wing are going to roll over and accept this leftward shift is fantasy.

As the Financial Times, gritting its teeth, commented: “Jeremy Corbyn has returned as leader
of Labour, tightening the grip of the hard left over one of Britain’s oldest political parties.” The
ruling class is alarmed at this advance of the left and will do whatever they can to stop it.
The right wing is a Fifth Column of big business within Labour. They are careerists like their
counterparts in the capitalist parties. They will jump ship when the time comes. Britain is
heading into unchartered waters. The Tories, although repackaged, are heading for a bust up
over the Brexit negotiations. The splits in the Tory Cabinet can already be seen. This is simply
a foretaste. With a new economic crisis, the scene will be set for a general election showdown.
At that point, the capitalist Establishment may call on the right wing in the Labour Party to
split to prevent Corbyn coming to power.

Whatever the talk of “unity”, the divisions between the members and the right wing PLP are
unbridgeable. The fight to democratise the party must go hand in hand with the fight for bold
socialist policies to answer the crisis of capitalism.

We are in interesting times. The victory for Corbyn means that the genie is out of the bottle.
There is no going back. The fight is now on to change society.

Home » Europe » Britain

 Horror Film—The Decline of Capitalism
Through the Lens
Written by Mark RahmanMonday, 02 November 2015

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In an article on World War I, Lenin once remarked that,
“Capitalist society is and has always been horror without
end.” In discussing the early development of capitalism in his
classic, Capital, Marx said that upon its arrival in history
“capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore,
with blood and dirt.” In the same book, Marx stated that,
“Capital is dead labor, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking
living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.” In
the very same chapter, Marx compares the capitalists’ drive
for surplus labor to a “werewolf’s hunger.”
Armed with a Marxist understanding of society and a knowledge of the
enormous potential for a better world, these individuals saw capitalism
for what it was—a horror. Their identification of age-old folklore and
Victorian era tales of vampires, werewolves, and boogeymen with the
crimes, injustices, and enormous waste of capitalism is not surprising—
it is a feeling unconsciously shared by millions and reflected in the
popularity of the horror genre since the very beginning of cinema.

Whatever the intentions behind the production of these films, they have
inevitably tended to act as a mirror reflecting the anxieties and fears of
the time. The films that connected most with viewers were invariably
those that seemed most familiar and relatable, no matter how fantastical
the story was on the surface. Because of this it is no accident that you
can trace various points of the last century of capitalism’s prolonged
death agony through the most popular horror films.

The horror to end all horrors

The earliest film studios produced horror, but it wasn’t until the
aftermath of World War I that the genre really resonated with viewers.
World War I represented a historical turning point in the development
of capitalism. While capitalism had developed the means of production
to enormous levels unimagined in pre-capitalist society, it had begun to
reach its limits by the turn of the century. The major imperialist powers
had exhausted their national markets and desperately sought new
markets to exploit. Major powers like Britain and France had already
largely divided up the colonial world leaving German capitalism with
little option other than to attack its continental neighbors.
This was the beginning of the “war to end all wars,” a real-life horror
that left a profound impact on subsequent human development.
Capitalism had concretely proven to the whole world that it was no
longer an ascendant system, but a system of crisis that threatened to
drag all of humanity down with it. The war led to the destruction of huge
swathes of Europe; the death of more than 16 million people, nearly half
of whom were civilians; and left millions of soldiers emotionally and
physically scarred by the slaughter.

In Russia, the war had ended on the basis of a successful workers'

revolution led by the Bolshevik Party. In Germany, the revolution of
1918, while bringing the war to a halt, ultimately failed in its historic
objective of establishing a workers' government that could begin the
construction of a new society and save the Russian Revolution from
isolation. The following years in Germany saw an explosion in
filmmaking, including in the horror genre.

The landmark German expressionist

films The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari(1920) and Nosferatu (1922) tapped
into the psychology of unease and insecurity in postwar Germany.
Revolutionary upheavals and counterrevolutionary setbacks combined
with economic crises to characterize this period in German history.
Between the creeping vampire killing scores in their sleep (Nosferatu)
and the sleepwalker manipulated to commit murder at the behest of a
mad doctor (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), the films highlighted the
feeling of many German workers that they had been duped and cowed
by the German ruling class—and even their own leaders in the Social
Democratic Party—into participating in a reactionary slaughter.

The psychological and physical damage

the war caused the participants is also graphically illustrated by the
artist Otto Dix, who published a collection of 50 etchings entitled Der
Krieg (The War). Seeing the brutalities of war firsthand left many
soldiers struggling to adjust to “life as normal” on their return from the
front. This found its expression in a number of horror films from the
1920s which focused on monsters that were wrestling with their own
inner demons. In 1920 alone, two adaptations of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde were produced in the US and another German adaptation
titled The Head of Janus was directed by F.W. Murnau, the same
director as Nosferatu.
The decade produced other films that depicted physically disfigured and
psychologically tortured characters such as The Hunchback of Notre
Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925), both portrayed by
Lon Chaney, one of the first stars of horror film.
The Great Depression
The stock market crash on October 24, 1929 ushered in the deepest
crisis world capitalism had yet seen. The ensuing hardship felt by
millions of workers led to widespread cynicism and a deep questioning
of society. In the United States, Hollywood played no small role in
attempting to bolster confidence in capitalist society, “No medium has
contributed more greatly than the film to the maintenance of the
national morale during a period featured by revolution, riot, and
political turmoil in other countries,” said Motion Picture Producers and
Distributors Association head William Hays. But the popularity of
horror films at the time still reflected a bleak outlook that was
characteristic of the American psychology prior to the mid-1930s
fightback of labor. It also ushered horror into the commercial
mainstream which saw the production of many sequels.

Many of the films of the 1930s continued where the

films of the 1920s left off. Werewolf of London (1935) followed in the
footsteps of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dracula(1931) harkened back
to Nosferatu. Even White Zombie(1932), which was the first notable
zombie film, was in many ways an echo of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Bela Lugosi, star of Dracula and White Zombie, got his start acting in
Hungary where he participated in the 1919 Hungarian Revolution. For
his radicalism he was forced to flee in the period of counterrevolution
and made his way to Hollywood where he launched his career as a
boogeyman throughout the 1930s and 40s, alongside Boris Karloff.
Frankenstein (1931), starring Karloff, and Island of Lost Souls (1932),
starring Lugosi, zeroed in on the horrors that humanity itself could
conjure up. Loosely following Mary Shelley’s classic
novel, Frankenstein, the film depicted a monster who was brought to
life by a crazed doctor, abandoned, and rejected by the world he sought
acceptance in. Upon its release, unemployment in the United States had
nearly doubled in one year. Additionally, the phenomenon of vast
numbers of immigrant workers in search of a livelihood added to the
widespread feeling of rejection and alienation.
In Island of Lost Souls, an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr.
Moreau, the doctor is transforming animals into humans, but they are
incomplete, half human and half animal. Tapping into the insecurities of
the working class in the early half of the decade, Dr. Moreau’s creatures
experience the emotional and cognitive complexity of humans, but are
treated as animals for mere experimentation. The film ends with the
death of Dr. Moreau at the hands of his tortured subjects.
Another film, The Most Dangerous Game (1932), expressed the class
antagonisms of the time in a much more overt way, depicting a Russian
aristocrat who enjoys hunting human beings for sport. The film
poignantly ends with the aristocrat being mauled by his own hunting
dogs as the protagonists make their getaway.
By 1934, the American working class was regaining energy and
confidence. Three general strikes (Oakland, CA; Minneapolis, MN;
Toledo, OH) ushered in a new period of labor’s rebirth in the form of the
Congress of Industrial Organizations. The mood of doom and gloom had
been replaced with a mood of defiant fightback and this may explain
Hollywood’s shift towards campiness and commercialization in the
horror genre that lasted through subsequent decades.

Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Son of Frankenstein (1939), The Ghost of

Frankenstein (1942), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943),
and House of Frankenstein (1944) epitomize what was to eventually
become a trademark of the horror genre: sequels, remakes, and spinoffs
of lesser quality. Other films like The Cat and the Canary (1939)
and Zombies on Broadway (1945) introduced comedy to the genre at a
time when very real horrors and atrocities were once again being
experienced on a worldwide scale in the form of World War II.
Horror in the nuclear age
While maintaining much of the campiness and commercialization of the
1940s, many of the horror films of the 1950s turned towards science
fiction, dealing with fears about the effects of radiation, prehistoric
monsters, scientific experiments gone awry, and invaders from outer
space.
 Godzilla (1954), which was produced in
Japan, reflects the psychological impact of the dropping of the atom
bomb and the carpet bombing of many Japanese cities. The prehistoric
monster Godzilla is resurrected by nuclear testing in the Pacific and
wreaks havoc, rampaging through Tokyo. Perhaps nowhere else could
the idea of an entire city being destroyed overnight be more profoundly
understood than in Japan—the film was produced less than a decade
after the criminal atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which
leveled both cities and obliterated nearly a quarter of a million people.
Tapping into the fears of nuclear war, the film was an international hit
and ignited a series of sequels and other similar “big monster” films
like Them! (1954) and Tarantula! (1955).
The Thing from Another World (1951) was one of the first films to deal
with alien invaders, a theme that was to become common as the space
race ramped up. Later,The Blob (1958) depicted an alien creature that
interrupts and eventually engulfs a typical 1950s suburban town.
In Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) alien plant spores have rained
down on suburban America, creating clones of people that are devoid of
emotion. It was interpreted by some on the political right to represent
the soulless conformity that existed in the Stalinist Soviet Union but
many on the left saw in it the soulless conformity that was all-
consuming in McCarthy-era United States.
Supernatural horrors
As the postwar boom reached its peak in the 1960s, there was a shift
towards the supernatural in horror film. Many of the films began to deal
with ghosts, witches, satanic cults, and demonic possessions. The
middle of the 1960s was the historic height of religious belief in the
United States as belief in god was propagandized to differentiate the
country from the “godless” Soviet Union.
 Almost preempting the youth
movements of the late-1960s, many of the films also begin to highlight
intergenerational conflict, a theme that has continued ever
since. Psycho(1960) is perhaps the quintessential example of this. The
film begins as a typical Hitchcock thriller, with a woman stealing a large
sum of money from her employer and heading for California. On the
way she meets Norman, the young, sensitive, but awkward keeper of the
Bates Motel. Norman’s mother—who is later revealed to be dead and to
live on exclusively in Norman’s mind—is abusive and extremely jealous
of anyone who might steal his attention away from her.
The Haunting (1963) features a young woman who joins a team of
paranormal investigators at an old haunted house after the death of her
long-ill mother, whom she submissively spent most of her life caring for
—echoing the character of Norman Bates.
Alfred Hitchcock tried his hand at horror again in 1963's The Birds. The
film sets an unsettling mood with its complete lack of music. It is also
notable as one of the first films to deal with inexplicable happenings
that seem to imply worldwide apocalyptic consequences, versus the
overt “irradiated monster rampaging through the city” theme of the
1950s.
A small group barricading themselves in a home against the terrors
outside, as depicted in The Birds, was certainly an inspiration for
George Romero’s classicNight of the Living Dead (1968). Many themes
are at play in this film that highlight the political polarization of the
time. In a nod at the Civil Rights movement, the main protagonist is a
decisive and strong black man, Ben, who is often at odds with a
patriarchal white man, Harry, on how to defend themselves against the
zombies outside. The film was produced just months after the
assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ben’s death—not at the
hands of zombies but at the hands of police who mistake him for one—
seems to pay tribute to this.
Alongside anti-Vietnam War protests and the Civil Rights movement,
the women’s rights movement was raising issues such as reproductive
rights and domestic violence—themes that were dealt with in a number
of films over the following decades. Rosemary’s Baby (1968) deals with
a young housewife who is impregnated through a Satanic ritual
organized by her neighbors to bear the spawn of Satan. She lives
through her pregnancy alienated, fearful, at the whims of others, and
tortured by pain and poor health. The film is notable for compelling the
audience to identify with the plight of the female protagonist.
Following in a similar vein, Carrie (1976) depicts a lonely, outcast
adolescent girl who is picked on by her schoolmates and abused by her
Christian fundamentalist mother. She later discovers that she has
telekinetic powers and uses them to exact revenge on her tormentors. It
is also notable for getting the audience to identify with the problems of
an adolescent girl.

Other notable films of the 1970s

include The Omen (1976), the story of a young boy who is revealed to be
the Antichrist and who ends up being adopted by the President of the
United States and The Exorcist(1973), a story of a young girl possessed
by a demon. The Exorcistwas supported by Fordham University (a
Jesuit school) as it bolstered the church’s superstitious teachings. The
university allowed them to film on campus and to use a basement as a
set, and a number of real priests even acted in the film.
The end of the postwar boom
By 1973 the postwar boom had reached its limits, ushering in a two
year-long recession that was felt over much of the world. In the United
States it was characterized by the return of high unemployment,
stagflation, and the clawing back of gains made by the labor movement
throughout the postwar period.

The mid-70s recession made its mark felt in a number of films of the
later 1970s, particular George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978) in
which four people take shelter in an abandoned indoor shopping mall
where all their needs are within reach. Shopping malls were a new
phenomenon at the time, reflecting capitalism’s new dependence on
credit and consumerism to artificially keep the economy alive.
 In 1974, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre was released and began to introduce a number of
ideas that were to later be adopted by the slasher films of the 1980s. The
film—which, like Psycho years earlier, was inspired by serial killer Ed
Gein—focuses on a group of young hippies visiting rural Texas from the
city. Among them is the main character’s younger brother, Franklin,
who is wheelchair-bound and viewed by the other characters as a
burden. It has been interpreted by many that Franklin was intended to
represent the maimed soldiers returning home from the Vietnam War.
On their way they meet an unsettling hitchhiker who explains to them
the superiority of killing cows with a sledge hammer, versus the
machinery that took his job away from him. It is later revealed that he is
just one member of an entire family of sadistic murderers who
presumably all used to work at a nearby slaughterhouse. One by one the
hippies all meet their gruesome end, except for the “final girl,” a motif
that was to become characteristic of many horror films from the 1980s
onward.

Tobe Hooper followed up with 1982’s Poltergeist, which depicts a

suburban family’s simple life being rudely interrupted by the abduction
of their young daughter by a poltergeist that has come to haunt their
home. The reason is later revealed: the greedy real-estate developer that
the stereotypical yuppie father works for had built their neighborhood
on a graveyard—moving the headstones but leaving the coffins.
Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) shows a new police chief on the fictional
island of Amity Beach dealing with a killer great white shark that has
killed a series of locals. The tensions between characters like Hooper,
the independently wealthy shark biologist, and Quint, a rough-and-
tumble shark hunter highlight class tensions of the time.
Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), another adaptation of a Stephen
King novel, is brilliant in its timelessness. The film shows a family that
has moved into a haunted hotel where the father, Jack, plans to write a
novel. As inexplicable specters haunt the family, memories of the
father’s domestic violence and alcoholism are conjured up.
The Shining is viewed by some to be an allegory for the genocide of the
Native Americans at the hands of European settlers. References to the
hotel’s construction during Native American attacks, the mother’s
choice of clothing, and a seemingly off the cuff remark—"the white
man’s burden"—seems to indicate this possibility, especially when
Stanley Kubrick’s renowned perfectionism is taken into account.
Italian horror
The postwar period also saw the rise of the horror genre in Italy, where
political turbulence characterized a near decade-long pre-revolutionary
period. Directors like Mario Bava and Dario Argento produced films
that were representative of thegiallo (yellow) genre, which melded
murder mystery with oftentimes supernatural elements. Others
produced more overtly political films. Notable is Pier Paolo
Pasolini’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, which depicts the horrific
exploitation and torture of young peasant children under the Nazi-
occupied Salò regime in the latter part of World War II.
In 1980, Italian director Ruggero Deodato released Cannibal Holocaust,
which seems to be a critique of imperialism. The film tells the story of a
documentary film crew froym New York which goes to the Amazon
jungle to film a war between cannibal tribes. It is later revealed that the
war was consciously provoked by the film crew, who brutally murdered
a member of one of the tribes to spark the conflict. Deodato was
subsequently arrested and put on trial for producing a snuff film—as
erroneous rumors had spread that the film depicted actual murders!
Slashers
The late-1970s and early-80s saw the rise of the slasher genre in the
United States, which followed in the footsteps of the giallo films of Italy
and earlier American films like Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre.

John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), Sean S.

Cunningham’s Friday the 13th (1980), the late Wes Craven’s Nightmare
on Elm Street (1984), and evenAlien (1979) and Terminator (1984)
represent the quintessential films of the slasher genre. Each of these
films also includes the “final girl” motif, in which the lone remaining
(female) protagonist finally does the killer in.
Many of these films also stereotypically depict young adults being killed
by lone, often masked killers for their alcohol or drug use, or for
engaging in premarital sex. While many have pointed to a possible
"conservative agenda" behind the production of these films, these could
just as easily be viewed as having been created to appeal to young adults
of the time, who felt the pressure of their overbearing parents in the
Ronald Reagan's America—a continuation of the intergenerational
conflict touched on earlier.

Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981) can be viewed as a near inversion of
the slasher genre, with a male as the main protagonist battling against
his friends—largely female—who, one by one, come to be possessed by
an evil force. It was also one of the first films to introduce the “cabin in
the woods” motif.
A unique film of the early-90s was Candyman (1992) which deals with a
student studying an urban legend popular in Chicago’s housing projects
—the Candyman, who was lynched by a racist mob and whose spirit still
lives on if you say his name three times while looking in a mirror. The
film draws a clear distinction between the living conditions of the
student—who lives in a luxury apartment building which is revealed to
be a renovated former-housing project—and the people who live in the
Cabrini-Green housing project where poverty and crime are ever-
present.
The rest of the 1980s into the 90s was characterized by a series of
sequels, reflecting Hollywood’s increasing unwillingness to invest in
new ideas. One exceptionally good example was John Carpenter’s The
Thing (1982) which was a remake of the 1951 film The Thing from
Another World. Carpenter’s The Thing diverges from the original in that
the alien is no longer embodied in one monster, but is something that
can transform itself to look like any number of the crew members at an
Antarctic research base. The alienation and distrust that tear the
characters apart is perhaps the most terrifying aspect of the film along
with the gruesome special effects.

The same period brought classic genre-

bending horror films like 1987’sThe Lost Boys, Ghostbusters (1984),
and The Frighteners (1996) among others. They Live! (1988), also
directed by John Carpenter, was intended as a critique of the
consumerism and conservatism of the Reagan era. The film is famous
for an extremely long fight scene between Keith David and the late
Roddy Piper, whose character is trying to convince his friend that the
world is run by aliens who can only be seen using special sunglasses.

In 1996, the master of horror, Wes Craven returned with Scream, a

slasher film that was self-referential of the genre, where the killers
played on many of the motifs of earlier slasher films. 2006's Behind the
Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon brought this self-referencing yet
another step. It depicted a killer who is followed by a documentary film
crew in a world where killers like Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and
Michael Myers are real and have become celebrities. This idea was taken
to an even higher level in 2012’s Cabin in the Woods, which cleverly
references tropes present in much of the horror genre.
The 2000s continued to produce extremely commercialized movies that
were more often than not derivative of previous horror films. However,
a few innovations in the genre are worth mentioning. 2002’s 28 Days
Later relaunched the popularity of zombie films, which have come to
dominate the horror and apocalyptic genres, which has been dealt with
in another article.
Saw (2004) and its subsequent sequels—which seem to have been
inspired by 1997’s Se7en—hammered away at the idea of a killer who
places his victims in horrifying positions, offers them the choice to kill
or be killed, or to risk horrible disfigurement in order to survive. This is
not unlike the dog-eat-dog morality that capitalism promotes!
Hostel (2005) tells the story of two friends who travel to post-Soviet era
Eastern Europe and wind up in a dungeon in which wealthy
businessmen pay to torture and mutilate people for their
entertainment. Pontypool (2008) eerily depicts an inexplicable case of
mass hysteria, not unlike a zombie outbreak, from the point of view of a
radio station in rural Canada.
In recent years there seems to have been a small renaissance of well-
made horror films, like the Let the Right One In (2008), House of the
Devil (2009), The Innkeepers (2011), Sinister (2012), It
Follows (2014), The Babadook (2014), and others. It remains to be seen
which films will come to define the decade in years to come.
Overcoming horror
The horror film genre has become a part of modern folklore. In pre-
capitalist society, mythological tales of ghosts, specters, demons, and
gods—both good and bad—were used as explanations for forces of
nature that could not be explained and that humanity had no control
over.
Avalanches, forest fires, floods, droughts, volcanos, plagues, and more
were catastrophes that challenged humanity. It is the labor process by
which we reshape our environment to overcome these elemental forces
that defines us as a species. However, we live in a society in decline, in
which the very forces that hold the most sway over the fate over
humanity are out of our control. What can be more horrifying?
“Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property,
a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like
the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has
called up by his spells.”
This quote from the Communist Manifesto sums up the crossroads
humanity finds itself at. While capitalism has developed the means of
production to a level that can provide a comfortable life for all and give
us the tools to conquer nearly any obstacle nature can throw at us, we
are (for now) stuck in situation where the booms and slumps of the
stock markets determine the fate of billions of people. The only way to
overcome this contradiction is through the revolutionary transformation
of society with the organized working class at the helm, taking
conscious, democratic control over the tremendous forces we as a
species have created.
This would lead to a flowering of human science, technique, and culture
on an unimaginable scale, giving us the tools to build a society free from
the anxieties, insecurities, and horrors that psychologically maim and
scar millions of people. A society in which we are free from the blind
forces that affect our lives would likely result in the decline of a genre
that will almost certainly come to characterize class society on the whole
and the final stages of capitalism's decline in particular

A symbol that spread through the sports world

INTERNATIONAL
San Francisco 49ers players Eric Reid (L) and Colin Kaepernick
25 SEPTEMBER 2016
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has caused a storm in the
US by refusing to stand for the national anthem. The football star’s simple
act of protest against racism and police violence has now caught on, with
athletes in other codes following his lead as the political right reacts with
fury.

Dave Zirin is a Nation columnist on all matters sports and the author of
numerous books, including Game over: how politics has turned the sports
world upside down. He talked with SocialistWorker.org’s Danny
Katch about the tide of protest that has rolled over football at all levels and
far beyond since Kaepernick’s action.

Colin Kaepernick’s protest during the national anthem has

spread to other professional athletes, down to college and high
school athletes, and even a youth football team in Texas. Is
there any precedent for an athletic protest having this kind of
immediate viral impact?

There absolutely is a precedent, and we would know about it more if only there
were smart phones back in 1968. After the US Olympic athletes John Carlos
and Tommy Smith raised their fists in Mexico City at the 1968 Games, people
were doing it around the country – youth groups, high school graduating
classes, sports teams.

The lack of recording devices is one reason why we don’t know about it, and
another reason is that it often happened in the rural South – in Black high
schools, junior high schools and certainly Black colleges. In 1969, the entire
graduating class of Howard University raised their fists like Tommie Smith and
John Carlos.

So that act is a precedent. Obviously, social media makes it so much more

powerful in 2016, but there are parallels to the past – this incredible showing of
dissent on the sports field, but also the context of a broader movement that
amplifies it and makes it resonate.

Some of the biggest stars in the NBA have been publically

trying to figure out how to help the Black Lives Matter
movement, but Kaepernick has done more by just taking a
knee, a very simple gesture. What is about this protest that
strikes such a chord?

I respect the fact that people like Lebron James and Carmelo Anthony are
feeling an obligation to speak out. We should have all the respect in the world
that they – sorry to use this metaphor – moved the ball forward, just by saying
you have a right to speak out and you need to say something about the police
killings that are taking place.

The first thing that makes Kaepernick different, though, isn’t the taking the
knee at the anthem, but the political content of what he’s doing. He’s saying,
“No justice no peace”. He’s taking a side and going beyond what many people
have said – that we need stop the violence, and to bring police and community
together.

Kaepernick is saying that there’s something wrong with a system where police
won’t even be prosecuted when they kill someone. It isn’t about just getting to
know the police better or having more forums or building more bridges. It’s
about there being something systemically wrong about the way policing is done
in this country. That’s the political content, and it’s a huge part of what makes
this different.

Then there’s the act of first sitting and then kneeling during the anthem, which
is putting politics in a space that many sports fans – especially reactionary,
right wing sports fans – want to see as an apolitical space.

Kaepernick is violating this unspoken social contract between the team owners
and majority white fan base that says Black athletes are to be seen, but not
heard. They are here for entertainment, but you don’t have to really care what
they think about the world.

And then the simplicity of the gesture is something that allows itself for
replication. One of the reasons that it spread is that while people agree with
Kaepernick that we have to have a discussion about police violence, it also
became an act of solidarity against the death threats and racism that he is
receiving.

Kaepernick has a teammate named Eli Harold, who last week wasn’t going to
do anything about the anthem or the flag. But then ESPN’s Trent Dilfer
basically said Kaepernick should shut his mouth and play, and Eli was so mad
that he decided to join the protest.

Then there’s the social media aspect of it. You see that picture of Howard
University cheerleaders all taking a knee – cheerleaders are usually seen in the
football context as not to be taken seriously, and here you see the unsmiling
pose of these incredibly strong Black women.

That’s a powerful image, and the only thing you can do when you see an image
like that is respond. Some respond with respect, and others respond with
absolute, utter hate. What you don’t see is people being neutral when they see
it.

When Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in 1968,
they were immediately hustled away from Mexico City. Twenty
years later, when the basketball player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf
protested the national anthem, his career came to an end
pretty quickly.

Obviously, it’s way too early to say what will happen here, but
one clear difference is that a mainstream audience didn’t get a
chance to hear what Smith and Carlos or Abdul-Rauf thought in
their own words. Today, many people are listening to
Kaepernick’s interviews and hearing how thoughtful he is.
What do you think accounts for this? A change in the sports
media landscape, social media, a reflection of Black Lives
Matter? All of the above?

That’s a great question. Abdul-Rauf’s protest was in 1996, and Tommie Smith
and John Carlos were at the 1968 Olympic Games. I think the media of 1996
had far more in common with the media of 1968 than with the media of 2016.

The sports media of 1996 and before was made up largely of older, white
conservative sportswriters who set the tune for how things would be discussed
across the country. That’s not as much the case today

Don’t get me wrong – there are still a lot of racist sportswriters in 2016. At the
same time, you can see that the sportswriting landscape and the NFL business
landscape is much more responsive to what is said and discussed on social
media. In many respects, social media sets the tone for how these discussions
take place. Not entirely, but the balance of power is different from what it was
in 1996.

Let me give you an example of that. One of the media narratives when
Kaepernick started sitting was, “Oh, he’s disrespecting veterans!”

What happened in response to that? #VeteransforKaepernick. Photos all over

the internet of veterans kneeling during the national anthem. And so before you
know it, you have a radical veteran, my man Rory Fanning, invited onto CNN
to explain why he stands with Colin Kaepernick.

It’s not like we control the mainstream television and print media from social
media below. But the balance of power is changing dramatically. And
obviously, that balance of power wouldn’t be the same if there wasn’t a Black
Lives Matter movement.

So it’s a combination of those factors: the presence of the movement itself, plus
a sports media and a mainstream media that are much more responsive as
people talk about issues on the social media platform.

In your career, you’ve not only focused on the intersection of

sports and politics, but particularly on getting to know modern
athletes who are political. Based on your experience, to what
extent do you think things like the Black Lives Matter
movement and other issues are radicalising players, and to
what extent do you think there’s been a number of players
who have very interesting political things to say, and this is the
first time that millions of people are getting a chance to hear
it?

I think we’ve seen a bubbling of this for quite a few years. You have to
understand the continuity in what’s happening right now. It would be a mistake
to say, like a lot of the media is saying: “You had a lot of athletes who were
political in the late 1960s, and then maybe you had some women who were
political like Billie Jean King in the 1970s and now it’s re-emerging”.

That’s just not the truth. The same way that in the labour movement there are
people who stay active in the dark times and are able to be that connective
tissue between the ups and the downs, it’s the same way in sports. So that’s the
importance of knowing the history of people like Craig Hodges and Mahmoud
Abdul-Rauf in the 1990s, when it really was at its worst in terms of athletes in
struggle.
But I’m really thinking more of the post-9/11 period and the athletes who spoke
out against war unapologetically. People like Etan Thomas, Even a 19-year-old
Lebron James said his goal was to dunk on George W. Bush.

Athletes, of course, have always had political discussions in the locker room,
and I think they’ve always had a unique view of US society, because they’re
disproportionately African American in basketball and football, and
disproportionately Dominican and Latino in baseball. Many grow up in
poverty, and then they get a lot of money. Then, all of a sudden, everybody’s
pushing a microphone in front of their faces. That’s a crazy perch by which to
look at this country. It’s a crazy perspective.

Also, I think that what athletes have found in recent years in particular is when
they speak out and say something, they actually get some praise for that, too.
It’s not the boring “We play one game a time, the good lord willing” quote.
There’s a thirst to know these athletes more as personalities.

I think a lot of the leagues have marketed that. But for the front office, that
giveth and it taketh away – because what if you want to get to know a player,
and instead of hearing “Eat your vitamins and stay in school”, they’re saying
“Black Lives Matter” or “I support my gay teammates”. Or we demand equal
pay because we’re women soccer players, and we just won the World Cup.

Honestly, one big turning point in athletes feeling the confidence to speak out
was around 2008 with Barack Obama’s campaign. All of a sudden, a lot of the
media were going to Black athletes because it was good copy: “What do you
think about this historic moment of a first Black president?”

That’s the first time you heard people like Carmelo Anthony speak out. That’s
the first time you heard Lebron James say something really political. I think
that began to plant some seeds in a lot of these athletes. It’s almost like they
were trying on a new suit, and they said, “Hey, this feels pretty good”.

That’s all built us up to this moment. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again:
If it wasn’t Colin Kaepernick, it would have been somebody else. This was
ready to happen.

You’ve talked about how pro athletes in basketball and football

are disproportionately African American. It also seems like
throughout US history, among the ranks of athlete protesters in
the US – especially male athlete protesters – it’s been even
more disproportionately African American.
Of course, that has to do with the racism that they’re reacting
against. But African American athletes aren’t the only athletes
who face racism. To what extent to do you think, consciously or
unconsciously, Black athletes today have a strength from
drawing on the legacy of protest from previous generations –
whether it’s Muhammad Ali or Jackie Robinson, who, as you’ve
shown in your writings, was involved in a lot more protest than
mainstream history indicates?

First of all, there’s always been this intersection of politics and sports and anti-
racism because sport was one of the few avenues for Black men in particular to
show excellence and have standing.

Sport also became this place where all the lies of racism – the number one lie
being Black inferiority – could be disproven in a very public way. How are you
going to argue the inferiority of people based on the colour of their skin when
you have Jack Johnson as the heavyweight champion?

So it’s always been this politicised space. But when you talk about athletes in
2016, I really believe that the death of Muhammad Ali and the amount of
coverage that received has played an unspoken role in everything we’re seeing
right now.

The coverage of his death was an education for people. Based on their social
media feeds, a lot of athletes weren’t just saying: Rest in peace. They were re-
tweeting articles, too. It wasn’t that different for a lot of the country. There was
an education process about Ali once he passed away, and I think it made a big
impact on a lot of athletes.

This question is very specifically about the NFL. It’s interesting

that this protest sparked by Kaepernick hit the NFL. First,
because as you’ve noted many times, this is a league that has
wrapped itself in the flag and tied itself to uber-patriotism and
militarism. But second, this is a league where players have the
least amount of protection, not having guaranteed contracts.
And keep in mind that this protest was started by a backup
quarterback – who has more name recognition than many
because he wasn’t always a backup, but he doesn’t have great
job security.

But the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, has alienated

the hell out of the players in recent years by acting as judge,
jury and executioner with disciplinary issues and violating their
collective bargaining rights. To what extent do you think that
this might be a factor in fuelling the support for Kaepernick
among players?

Roger Goodell is someone who fines people for having the wrong colour
shoelaces. He fined Antonio Brown for twerking in the end zone. Terrell Pryor
pretty much lost the game for the Browns last weekend because he flipped the
ball at a referee, and they gave him a penalty because they said that was
showboating when it accidentally hit the guy guarding him on the helmet.

That’s the NFL – completely authoritarian and top down in how it polices
players.

But look how gingerly Roger Goodell has walked around this issue. The league
isn’t fining or suspending players for protesting during the anthem or walking
out onto the field with slogans written on their uniforms. You have to ask the
question: why is this cabal of right wing owners and their flak-catcher in the
commissioner’s office not cracking down?

I think the answer is that they realise they have a $20 billion business that’s
built on a very rickety foundation. The NFL has 0 percent Black owners and 70
percent Black players – and at the skill positions, the percentage is higher –
who destroy their bodies playing this sport. I think the numbers are 24 percent
of front-office people are Black, and 16 percent of head coaches are Black.

In other words, if the players say, “We’re mad about the situation of Black
people in this country”, the last thing they want to do is fine those players and
have them say, “Gee, I guess the NFL is no different from being Black in an
alley and running across a cop in South Carolina”. The last thing they want is
people drawing those kinds of direct parallels.

Rather than ask what you think will come of this protest, my
final question is: what’s the best case scenario that can come
of all this, and what’s the worst case scenario – so that we can
get a sense of the range of possibilities?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from looking at athletic protests, they’re a
feature of the broader movement, not a substitute for it. So this has already
been a success – another chapter in the history of sports and politics has been
written.

We already know this is going to happen in the NBA because players like Iman
Shumpert and Victor Oladipo say it’s going to happen. So this isn’t going
anywhere. The protests could stop in the NFL tomorrow – though they won’t –
and they would start up again November 1 in the NBA.
And tragically, as long as there are violent police officers in this country, these
protests will continue. As long as there is no justice, there’s not going to be
peace.

So the best-case scenario is that we keep the struggle going so that the families
who have been devastated by losing their loved ones to police and getting no
redress actually start to see real justice. As long as athletes shine a light on
what’s happening, in concert with broader movements, then that points to the
hope of ending the scourge of racist police violence once and for all.

harlotte erupts in protest after

another killing
Brian Bean reports on the bitter protests against racist police violence that swept
North Carolina after another case of racial profiling and mistaken identity led to a
shooting.

September 23, 2016

Protesters in Charlotte defy a curfew to

march for justice for Keith Lamont Scott

PROTESTS AND tear gas have filled the streets of Charlotte,

North Carolina, each night since the murder of 43-year-old
Keith Lamont Scott at the hands of police on September 20.
Scott's killing came just a day after the release of the chilling
video of the shooting of an unarmed Terence Crutcher by
police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which also led to angry protests.
In North Carolina, arrogant city and state authorities have
only further inflamed the situation by declaring a curfew and
state of emergency.
The intensity of the protests in the streets of the Queen City
is just the most recent example of a restlessness and
frustration at the continuing epidemic of police murders,
committed disproportionately against African Americans--
and at the failure of the system to hold the cops accountable
in any way. In Charlotte, as elsewhere, vapid calls for
"peace" do nothing to answer the legitimate questions and
justifiable anger of communities living under armed
occupation.
----------------
KEITH LAMONT SCOTT was a father of seven who, family
and neighbors report, waited every day in the parking lot
where the bus dropped his son off from school. He would
walk laps, with a cane in one hand and an ever-present book
in the other, to pass the time.
That parking lot is where he would be murdered.
Just before 4 p.m. on Tuesday, September 20, Charlotte-
Mecklenburg police officers approached Scott, allegedly
mistaking him for a suspect with an outstanding
warrant.Scott's brother reported that the cop who
approached him was an undercover plainclothes officer--this
was later confirmed by police department.
Minutes later, Scott was shot four times by Officer Brently
Vinson. Scott died in a matter of minutes.
The police version of events is that Scott emerged from his
car with a gun in his hand and "posed a threat" to the
officers who were approaching him. They claim to have
recovered a gun from the scene. (It should be noted that
North Carolina is an open-carry state where it is legal to
carry handguns.)
There is footage of the shooting from dash and body
cameras, but Police Chief Kerr Putney says that the
videos will not be released "to the masses."
Ironically, just over a month ago, Republican Gov. Pat
McCrory signed into law legislation blocking the release of
police videos without a court order. The new law goes into
effect in one week. McCrory described the legislation as
necessary to protect police officers--but for Black people in
Charlotte and around the country, it isn't the police who
need protecting.
The family was allowed to view the police video, and their
lawyer Justin Bamberg says the footage they saw shows
Scott walking slowly backward with his hands at his sides
when he was shot. Bamberg said it is impossible to tell if
Scott had a weapon, his familiar book or anything at all in
his hands.
Another witness described the aftermath of the shooting this
way:
They didn't even take a statement from anybody. Not a statement from his wife, not a
statement from his children, not a statement from anybody who was here watching.
Who are they going to take a statement from? The officer who took his life?...You get
shackled for reading while Black, walking while Black, driving while Black, running
while Black. Being born Black in this country is a goddamn crime.

----------------
REGARDLESS OF what the video shows, some facts are
obvious. Another Black man has been killed by police in
another case of racially profiled mistaken identity. He wasn't
committing a crime, there was no risk or danger present in
the situation, and there wasn't even a call to police. Scott
is the 790th victim of police murder this year and the sixth
person killed in Charlotte.
Desperation at the ongoing epidemic of killings--
disproportionately of African Americans turned to justifiable
rage and protest in Charlotte.
Within hours of Scott's death, dozens of people blocked Old
Concord Road where the shooting took place, chanting
"Hands up, don't shoot" as they raised their arms. As night
fell, the crowd swelled, and militarized riot police attempted
to forcibly disperse the protest, using tear gas.
Protesters--holding signs reading "Stop killing us" and "It
was a book"--fought back, throwing rocks and gas canisters
at the lines of police. Angry demonstrators took over a
stretch of nearby highway Interstate 85, where the contents
of blocked tractor-trailers were set on fire as part of the
barricades used to defend the highway sit-in. Later that
night, police dispersed the protests.
The next night, there were vigils across the state, from
Elizabeth City on the Atlantic coast to Asheville in the
mountainous Western region of the state. The vigils
includedcoordinated actions at five historically Black
colleges, including North Carolina A&T and North Carolina
Central.
In Charlotte, hundreds of people marched through the
central Uptown area for many hours. The demonstration
peaceful and included families and children--but police once
again responded with repression, using tear gas and flash
bang grenades.
One person later died after being shot in the face during the
protests. City officials claim the shooting was the result of an
unknown civilian firing randomly into the crowd.
But witnesses present a different story. They say police
began firing "non-lethal" rubber-coated bullets in order to
drive back protesters who had forced them back into a hotel.
Many eyewitnesses corroborate this account of police
opening fire--which makes more likely that officers shooting
on a peaceful protest are responsible for the death.
The shooting changed the tone of the protest that night.
Injuries, arrests and broken windows followed. The next
day, McCrory declared a state of emergency and deployed
the National Guard and Highway Patrol against protesters.
But in defiance of a curfew, the protests were even larger
Thursday night. With helmeted soldiers patrolling in
Humvees and helicopters hovering overhead, more than a
thousand people marched for hours through the Uptown
streets. With signs and banners demanding justice for Scott
and getting the National Guard out of Charlotte, the feeling
of defiance was larger and more resolute.
Police responded to the march with tear gas, pepper spray
and rubber bullets in an attempt to disperse the protest after
a large group tried to shut down Interstate 277. The
marching ended at the county jail, where prisoners flashed
their lights and raised fists from their windows in solidarity.
----------------
ALL OF the bias and victim-blaming so common in the
aftermath of police killings has been on display in
Charlotte--along with false praise for the "difficult job" that
police do.
First, there was the pervasive use of the phrase "officer-
involved shooting"--which downplays that fact that the
police aren't just "involved" in the shooting and killing of
people, they are the killers.
Next, for the first 24 hours after the killing, the city's main
newspaper, the Charlotte Observer, referred to Keith
Lamont Scott as "the gunman"--further evidence of
journalism operating as the propaganda arm of the police.
Similarly, the violence of the protests was cause for hand-
wringing among pundits and politicians. The New York
Times reported that "things got ugly," Gov. McCrory
lecturedthat "violence will not be tolerated," and pleas
urging calm and restraint echoed from every liberal corner
of the state.
If only these voices decried the "ugliness" of a racially
motivated murder and declared that the violence and
repression of police would not be "tolerated." Rev. William
Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP, exposed
this hypocrisy with his statement: "To condem the uprising
in Charlotte would be to condemn a man for thrashing when
someone is trying to drown him."
----------------
LIKE OTHER cities that have risen up in rebellion after a
police murder, what lies behind the demonstrations in
Charlotte is a long and deadly history of racism and
austerity.
The same governor who called in the National Guard to
suppress legitimate protest was at the helm of a state
legislature that pushed through massive state budget cuts
that effect all working people, and especially people of color.
Since 2013, McCrory and the Republican majority in the
state legislature are responsible for racist voter ID laws,
draconian restrictions on women's access to abortion, the
rejection of billions in federal money for Medicare, a green
light for fracking, 170,000 North Carolinians kicked off of
unemployment benefits, and more tax cuts for the rich.
They also repealed a law that allowed for challenging racist
bias in death penalty convictions and rammed through HB
2, the so-called "bathroom bill" that legalizes discrimination
against trans people, along with prohibiting living wage
ordinances.
The killing of Keith Scott also occurred one day before the
one-year anniversary of a mistrial in the prosecution of the
police officer who killed 24-year-old Jonathan Ferrell--who
was shot 12 times while he was trying to get help after being
in a car accident. Despite overwhelming evidence of police
wrongdoing, the state decided not to retry Ferrell's killer.
McCrory's hard pro-cop position in the case earned him the
endorsement and support of the Fraternal Order of Police in
for gubernatorial campaign. His allegiances are clear.
These are the conditions that protesters rage against while
demanding justice for Keith Lamont Scott. Until the
conditions change and until police stop killing people, we
can expect more fierce protests like in Charlotte.
In the meanwhile, opponents of police violence and racism
must try to build as broad a movement as we can. In
Charlotte, the demonstrations will continue, with organizers
calling for a regional mobilization on September 24.
As to those who would criticize how people in Charlotte
protest the epidemic of police murder, we would answer
with the words of Trinidadian Marxist C.L.R. James: "When
history is written as it ought to be written, it is the
moderation and long patience of the masses which men will
wonder, not their ferocity."

an Clinton stop Trumpism?

The pressure to vote for Hillary Clinton is becoming ever more intense. But the
left has to resist the political logic of lesser evilism that the Democrats rely on
every four years.

September 22, 2016

FIRST, IT was the shaming. Now it's fear--pure, raw terror

at the prospect of Donald Trump in the White House.
Polling expert Nate Silver tweeted the scary numbers on
September 14: "[T]here's no margin for error. Lose any one
of NH/PA/WI/MI/CO/VA and Trump is POTUS." Silver's
FiveThirtyEight.org website estimates the chances of Hillary
Clinton winning the presidency at less than 60 percent
today--down from nearly 90 percent a month ago.
Those statistics are the start of the one-two punch in a tidal
wave of e-mails, social media posts and articles: One, Trump
could win. So two, you better vote for Clinton--at least where
it matters--or we're all doomed.
The idea of Donald Trump in the White House will sicken
any reader of Socialist Worker. It's depressing that this
election is even close--and a sign of how awful a candidate
Hillary Clinton is. Trump's xenophobic, anti-Muslim
rhetoric has emboldened those on the right. It's hard to
guess from his erratic campaign exactly what he would try to
do as president, except that whatever it is would be aimed at
helping the 1 Percent and making the lives of everyone else
worse.
But the real question isn't whether Trump is dangerous. Of
course he is. It's whether supporting Hillary Clinton will
stop the danger of Trump or Trumpism.
Will having a Democrat in the White House make it easier
for the left and social movements to organize? What's
happened in the past? How will pressuring left-wing people
to vote for Clinton--who stands for none of the principles
they do--affect the movements we know need to be built to
push back against what Trump stands for?
These are serious questions that deserve serious discussion.
But that discussion won't take place if the starting point is
that it's game over--for the left, for social movements, for
any form of political freedom, for the future of the planet--if
Trump becomes president.
The doomsday scenarios being used to demand a vote for
Hillary Clinton overstate both Trump's potential power and
how different he actually is from Clinton. But more
importantly, they reduce the large majority of people who
oppose much of what bothcandidates stand for to passive
victims who will simply roll over and be crushed by the
Trump juggernaut.
A Trump presidency will be a disaster if those people--
including the left, as an important and catalyzing part of a
potential opposition--don't rise to the challenge of building
resistance. But it's also true that a Clinton presidency will be
a disaster if those same people don't rise to a different,
though related, set of challenges.
Put another way, it's not just who's sitting in the White
House that matters, but who'ssitting in, as the people's
historian Howard Zinn often said.
And if that's true, then the next question is whether it helps
the people who will need to do the sitting in to advise them
to vote for Hillary Clinton as the "lesser of two evils."
Our answer is no. The struggle to stop Trump and especially
Trumpism won't be advanced by giving in to the lesser-evil
panic--because that confuses and obscures something our
side needs to know to take on Trumpism: that the lesser evil
isn't opposed to the greater evil, but is part of a system that
allows both kinds of evil to thrive, unless they are confronted
from below.
----------------
AS THE election gets closer and the alarm bells--make that
the eardrum-splitting civil defense sirens--about the Trump
threat grow louder, the pressure is on not just to vote for
Clinton, but to suspend all criticism of the Democratic
candidate.
Clinton's former rival Bernie Sanders made this clear in an
interview for MSNBC'sMorning Joe:
I would say to those people out there who are thinking of the protest vote, think about
what the country looks like and whether you're comfortable with four years of a
Trump presidency...And I would suggest to those people, let us elect Hillary Clinton
as president, and that day after, let us mobilize millions of people around the
progressive agenda which was passed in the Democratic platform.
Sanders at least suggested that people who want change
should, at some point, start mobilizing again. Other
doomsayers have been content to heap abuse on anyone who
says wants to vote for a candidate they want, like Jill Stein of
the Green Party.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, for example,
chastised millennials with an op-ed titled "Vote As If It
Matters." While most of his fire was aimed at supporters of
Libertarian Gary Johnson, who is by no stretch of the
imagination a left-wing candidate, his condescending
message to young voters dissatisfied with the status quo
from the left was: "[D]on't vote for a minor-party candidate
to make a statement. Nobody cares."
Krugman has a lot of company, and not only among the
usual suspects like organized labor and mainstream liberal
organizations.
Independent journalist Arun Gupta made a startling case on
Facebook on the fifth anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, a
movement he helped give a voice to with the publication he
founded, the Occupied Wall Street Journal. In a long post
directed at leftists who are "obsessed with how terrible
Hillary Clinton is" and who supposedly refuse to take the
Trump threat seriously, Gupta wrote:
This election is a choice between two movements. Do you want to see movements like
Black Lives Matter, Climate Justice, low-wage workers, immigrant rights, and other
left social forces continue to grow and develop. Or do you want to see Neo-Nazis, the
Klan, the Alt-Right on the offense and backed by a Trump administration?"

----------------
LET'S SET aside the routine denigrating of the left as out-of-
touch purists who just don't get the high stakes of a Trump
win. It's an unfair accusation, especially when directed at
people who helped organize protests against Trump
campaign events--protests that were criticized or outright
condemned by Democrats like Clinton, by the way.
The heart of the Gupta's argument is the belief that if Trump
wins, it will be too late to organize resistance--because
"there will be little left of movements in the streets."
That's a frightening and provocative image. But is it true?
In 2006, the Republican right threw its weight behind anti-
immigrant legislation sponsored by Rep. James
Sensenbrenner, which proposed to criminalize all
undocumented immigrants in the U.S. With the White
House and both houses of Congress in GOP hands,
momentum seemed to be with the Sensenbrenner bill.
But the response from immigrants and their supporters was
some of the largest demonstrations in the history of the
U.S.--mega-marches of millions of people across the
country, made possible because large numbers of people
participated in one-day general strikes. Within months, HR
4377 was doomed--even Senate Republicans and the Bush
administration turned against it.
Fast forward a decade. Barack Obama--who promised
during his 2008 campaign that he would pursue
comprehensive immigration reform as a top priority--has
deported well over 2 million people during his two terms in
office, far more than his predecessor George W. Bush. The
"lesser evil" has proven to be a greater threat to a vulnerable
oppressed group than the one-time "greater evil" was.
Yet the response to Obama was not mass mobilizations of
the "movement in the streets." There have been important
struggles--for example, to win temporary and qualified legal
status for some immigrant youth--during the Obama years.
But by and large, the immigrant rights movement has
been absent from the streets, largely because liberal
organizations have been reluctant to mobilize against their
"ally" in the White House.
There's more to this story--but also more historical
examples of some of the most important and explosive
struggles in U.S. history erupting against Republican
presidents and the right wingers who looked to them.
----------------
BUT, GOES the counter-argument, Donald Trump isn't any
ordinary Republican--he represents a unique threat.
Run-of-the-mill Republican, Trump is not--though anyone
who thinks he is uniquely dangerous should remember what
it was like to live under the Bush regime, managed by
monsters like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
While far-right groups have gravitated to the Trump
campaign, there is still a difference between what exists in
the U.S. and the kind of organization among many far-right
political parties in Europe, with bases of hard-core
supporters that use systematic violence against oppressed
communities and the left.
Nevertheless, it is certainly true that "Neo-Nazis, the Klan
[and] the Alt-Right" would be emboldened by a Trump
victory. The hate and violence on display at Trump rallies is
quite enough evidence of a right-wing threat that needs to be
challenged.
But how? Any challenge to the right has to include putting
forward a political alternative that can win masses of people
away from the politics of despair and scapegoating that a
political candidate like Trump and far-right organizations
both thrive upon.
Calling for a vote for Hillary Clinton is the opposite of
putting forward a political alternative. It is putting forward
the status quo--which is exactly what allows the likes
ofTrump to pose as "populist" outsiders who stand up for
ordinary people.
There is intense bitterness in U.S. society about the growing
gap between rich and poor, the corruption of the political
system, inaction about climate change and many more
issues. Yet Hillary Clinton and the Democrats have
positioned themselves as the "complacency candidates," as
left-wing author Thomas Frank put it.
That leaves the field open--during the election and after--for
Trump and the right-wingers operating in his shadow to
pose as the people with a solution. The left needs an answer
tothat challenge, not a plea to vote for the lesser evil.
----------------
IT SHOULD go without saying--though sadly, judging from
the discussion especially on social media, it doesn't--that no
one thinks the left would be better off under a Trump
presidency.
Trump's ideas are abhorrent, and the policies and proposals
a Trump administration would put forward are equally so. If
he wins, it would give confidence to the right-wingers,
organized and not, who rallied to his campaign. Those on
the left would suffer a corresponding blow to their
confidence--exactly at a moment when there is a radical
awakening, especially among young people.
Our point, however, is that the left would not be better off
if Clinton is elected either--for different reasons, but no less
valid ones.
The Democrats in power have been able to rely on their
influence within official liberalism to get struggles for
change demobilized or blunted. The left would continue to
face the task of exposing the fraud that the Democratic Party
is more responsive to what the mass of working people want.
The neoliberal, pro-war agenda of the bipartisan
Washington establishment is the prime cause of the political
crisis that has allowed Trump and Trumpism to thrive. It
doesn't help to say that the Democrats' version of that
agenda is preferable to Trump's. Both versions have to be
fought together and at the same time, or both will be able to
gain strength.
A left-wing writer named Arun Gupta summarized the
challenges for the left very clearly in an article for Telesur
published after the Democratic National Convention:
[C]limbing on the Clinton train means muting criticism of her right-wing policies. It
would hobble the left going into four years of more war, more free trade, more oil and
gas drilling under Clinton. And that's exactly what the Wall Street Democrats want.

The left should concentrate on what it does best: laying the groundwork for new
movements such as the antiwar and global justice movements, Occupy Wall Street,
union, immigrant, and low-wage worker organizing, and Black Lives Matter. Clinton
has bankers and liberals, pundits and billionaires, hawks and Republicans all
advocating for her. Someone needs to advocate for people.

The closer we get to November 8, the pressure to vote for

Clinton to stop Trump will become enormous. But it's
important for socialists and the left to resist it.
The left, social movements, the mass of working people--
they need a political alternative that stands outside the two-
party box. Making concessions to the logic of lesser evilism
that's intended to keep them inside that box won't help build
an alternative.

ntergalactic imperialism
September 22, 2016

WHILE U.S. imperialism has increasingly been using

"diversity" and "multiculturalism" to refurbish its image at
home and abroad, it has always waged its wars in the name
of "freedom" and "democracy." Therefore, it should come as
no surprise that it chooses to honor Star Trek, a show that
celebrated the same practices ("the Federation's brand of
liberal military intervention"), albeit in a future age of
intergalactic imperialism, with a commemorative set of
stamps on its 50th anniversary.
What's more surprising is that Nicole Colson ("Socialism in
one galaxy?") has chosen "to boldly go where no man (or
woman) has gone before" in claiming that Star Trek's (or
rather its creator Gene Roddenberry's) vision of the future
was "about the hope for a sort of "space socialism" ("the idea
of a society that meets the needs of the many, not just the
few").
Indeed, Colson goes so far to claim that Star Trek envisages
a "society...so technologically advanced that the material
needs of the Federation's inhabitants are met, allowing for
the free and full development of individuals"--as if the
Federation emerged from a workers' revolution, with all that
it entails, and has evolved into the kind of socialist society
that Marx, Engels, August Bebel and Lenin (amongst others)
wrote about.
As someone who watched every episode of the original series
almost every night throughout the 1980s, I cannot
remember ever hearing about or seeing who actually ran the
Federation or how they ran it, other than a few admirals
busting Kirk's chops every once and a while. Nor do I
remember seeing any episodes in which we saw the people
who did whatever work still had to be done or how they did
it (except, maybe, for the "hortas" doing the tunneling on
Janus VI in "The Devil in the Dark" episode).
While 1960s subjects like war and racism may have been
given their due, the economics of wage labor and capital
(and the lives and aspirations of working people) were about
the last thing that Star Trek dealt with.
READERS' VIEWS
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reflect those of SW.
Roddenberry's description of the show as a "Wagon Train in
space" was indeed an apt one since those "Wild West"
wagons carried within them the cross-continental expansion
of American capitalism and the extermination of the Native
Americans who stood in its way. Updated for a 1960s
audience, the modern version was a Cold War, liberal "New
Frontier/Great Society" in space; "the final frontier"...for
imperialist expansion.
And whether or not imperialism has a few Black or female
faces fronting for it, it is still imperialism. The earth-
dominated "United Federation of Planets," a science-fiction
stand-in for the then U.S.-dominated United Nations, is out
to dominate the galaxy under the guise of "non-interference"
(the "Prime Directive") in much the same way that the U.S.
empire confronted the Soviets and the then-dreaded "red"
Chinese in the Cold War--i.e., in the name of "freedom" and
"democracy."
----------------
OFFICIAL IMPERIALIST propaganda always claimed that it
was the commies who (like the Klingons) were the purveyors
of "outside interference" whenever and wherever a popular-
based insurgency asserted itself, and that U.S. involvement
was only a response to it. Thus, the U.S. accused the "North"
Vietnamese of "aggression" for aiding the revolution against
a U.S.-installed dictatorship in "South" Vietnam.
In 1965, when U.S. Marines invaded the Dominican
Republic to thwart a popular revolt aimed at restoring a
democratically elected reformist president that a U.S.-
backed military coup had previously overthrown, it was
done to stop a "Cuban communist conspiracy."
Both actions took place under the liberal Democratic
Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Or in "A Private
Little War," when Kirk only provided "modern" weapons to
the "Hill People" since the Klingons--"a military
dictatorship," according to Kirk--had already armed their
enemies in the village with "fire sticks."
That the Federation is dominated by a U.S.-dominated earth
is taken for granted. How the earth is run is never discussed,
but one would assume from the military structure of the USS
Enterprise, where most of the action takes place, that it isn't
much different than earth was in the 1960s--i.e., it is still
capitalist.
The Kennedy-esque Captain Kirk (who, in one episode,
claims that the Federation is "a democratic body") is as red,
white and blue as they come, with a batch of token
underlings (which today would be oh so very PC), and he, in
fact, commands a warship (named after a WWII aircraft
carrier) prowling the planets, while crusin' for a brusin' with
either the Klingons (Mao's China, combined with a heavy
dose of Second World War Imperial Japanese kamikaze
fanaticism) or the Romulans (Second World War Germans
of both the anti-Nazi Prussian and Nazi varieties, with a
Roman veneer) as they compete for control of the rest of
space.
Since the Soviets were in midst of their "detente" days of
"peaceful coexistence" with the U.S., the Chinese commie
stand-ins are the heavies, and the Ruskies are even given a
token crew member...who makes occasional references to
Tsarist Russia, but none to the Soviet Union...even though
the USSR was, in fact, the main pioneer of space travel.
But as JFK himself once said, if there are going to be any
dogs in space, they better be named "Rover" and "Fido," and
not "Laika" or "Belka" and "Strelka." And apparently, if
there are going to be any Ruskies in an American space
show, they're going to refer to Peter the Great and not Yuri
Gagarin.
----------------
I WILL only cite a few of the episodes that sum up
Roddenberry's Cold War liberal worldview, and none of
them have any connection with socialist ideas or aspirations.
"Let that Be Your Last Battlefield," cited by Colson, concerns
a race war that immediately brings both South African and
American apartheid to mind. Since I watched Star Trekmore
in late-night reruns during the 1980s, I always assumed it
was South Africa, but as the show was made during the
1960s, it's now apparent to me that it was the U.S. that was
being cited.
The message is hardly progressive, let alone radical, since in
typical liberal fashion, Rodenberry sees both sides, the
oppressed and the oppressor, as being equally at fault, since
both resort to the use of force and violence.
This was a fairly common view among white (and even many
Black) liberals at the time in response to the rise of Black
nationalism. While they were prepared to support the turn-
the-other-cheek "integrationism" of the then-liberal MLK
(but not his latter opposition to the Vietnam War), they
would have nothing to do with what they termed the
"reverse racism" of the "radicals" and the "militants," which
they blamed for encouraging "white backlash."
This same methodology asserts itself in the "Cloud Minders"
episode, a rip-off of the equally reactionary 1920s silent
movie classic Metropolis by Fritz Lang. Here, Kirk uses his
manly charms to con the female leader of the workers, the
Troglytes, into a rotten compromise with their exploiters in
the "Stratos" penthouses so that the Federation can get them
to return to work and provide the raw materials they need.
(The scene in which Spock talks about how "illogical" a
society in which those who work have nothing and those
who don't work have everything was originally edited out,
but appeared in the reruns 20 years later when America was
no longer in a rebellious mood...and the show was on at
midnight, not in prime time.)
In "Patterns of Force," the "Nazi episode," Kirk helps
persecuted "Zeons," obviously stand-ins for Jews, and a few
"good" Nazis, install a more benevolent variety of fascism
which promises to live up to the ideals of its former Fuhrer,
rather than sweeping away the whole rotten regime. In other
words, if it wasn't for excessive anti-Semitism, Nazi
Germany might not have been such a bad place after all,
since it did know how to keep its workers in line.
Indeed, the Federation rep-turned-Fuhrer tells Kirk that he
initially imposed Nazism because he believed it to be "the
most efficient system of government ever devised." Spock
surprisingly agrees, claiming that Nazism "enabled a
defeated and bankrupt Germany almost immediate
governmental recovery to the level of near global
domination."
Then again, one wouldn't expect him to have cited the
Russian Revolution or the Paris Commune as examples to be
emulated. Let's not forget, many an enlightened liberal (not
to mention right-wing reactionary like Winston Churchill)
saw Mussolini in the same vein in the 1920s. Hell, Il Duce
would have been welcomed into the Allied ranks up until the
day he signed on with Hitler.
And then there is "The Omega Glory," with its "Yangs"
(Yankees) versus "Khoms" (commies), where Kirk takes out
a rogue representative of the Federation who "interfered" on
the side of the Chinese--or is it North Korean?--lookalikes
against the Yangs.
The latter are a lovable lot of noble white savages to whom
Kirk proudly reads the "worship words" from the U.S.
Constitution while clutching the Stars and Stripes,
Superman-style. Can't imagine that either Kirk or the Yangs
would have much use for Colin Kaepernick.
----------------
SINCE MOST of us have grown up and become politically
aware in a period dominated by neoliberal austerity, it's
hard to imagine a ruling class that wasn't cutting wages,
laying off workers and gutting their living standards. But at
the time Star Trek first appeared, Keynesian welfare-state
economics (what the right calls "tax-and-spend liberalism")
were still dominant among the ruling class.
As Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" showed, the ruling rich
still thought that there could be both guns and butter (at
least for the better-off sections of the working class) and
even "civil rights"--as long as they didn't encroach on
economic inequality could be tolerated as well. Back in those
days, having a domestic market was valued by the bosses, so
paying workers enough to buy back some the stuff they
produced wasn't frowned upon the way it is now.
So while Roddenberry may have displayed advanced views
regarding racism and sexism for a TV producer, at least in
comparison to those held by the studio heads or the
sponsors, it's not as if he was advocating anything
incompatible with the mainstream of bourgeois liberalism
that was still the preferred policy of the ruling class.
While backwater bumpkins and Southern Neanderthals like
George Wallace or Lester Maddox (both Democrats) clung to
Jim Crow segregation, the more enlightened representatives
of the ruling rich saw it as an international embarrassment
in their Cold War competition with the USSR and China in
the "Third World" as well as being an obstacle to bringing
more Blacks into the larger labor market and corporate fold
as consumers.
Today, political correctness, "diversity," multiculturism and
identity and gender politics have all been embraced by the
mainstream of the ruling class and constitute the official
face of imperialism and neoliberal capitalism. All exploiters,
wannabe exploiters and apologists for the exploiters are
welcome as long as they support the system.
The recent Democratic National Convention certainly
displayed that for all to see. While the reactionary right may
rant and rail against abortion or gay marriage, the ruling
class has no problems living with them--as long they don't
have to pay for them.
In other words, they are commodities, like everything else
under capitalism, available to anyone--be they Black or
white, male or female, gay or straight--who can afford them.
Paying workers enough to do so, providing free abortions for
poor women or a national health care service, on the other
hand, that's a whole different ball game.
Today, the U.S. empire, which is a hell of a lot stingier than
it was in "Great Society" days, is currently headed by a Black
man, and he will probably be followed by a woman. Official
diversity allows for a small layer of middle-class women and
minorities to get a piece of the action and in the process
become a base of support to the system, the same way Jews
and Italians were allowed to become white after the Second
World War in order to further expand the base of support
for the Cold War.
Tokenism and co-option to increase support for exploitation
and imperialism, whether it's in the U.S. of Obama and
Clinton, or in the Federation of Kirk and Uhura, hardly
constitutes "socialism" in one or any galaxy.
Roy Rollin, New York City

Socialism in one galaxy?

Fifty years after it debuted on network television, Nicole Colson considers the
legacy ofStar Trek--and the idea of a society that meets the needs of the many,
not just the few.

September 15, 2016

Uhura and Kirk during the classic Star

Trek episode "Plato's Stepchildren"
ON SEPTEMBER 8, 1966, a new show debuted on American
television.
Billed by creator Gene Roddenberry as "Wagon Train in
space," for its loyal viewers--and legions more to come over
the following five decades--the voyage of the
starship Enterprise and its 23rd century crew, as it carried
out its mission "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out
new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no [one]
has gone before," would permanently alter the landscape of
popular culture.
Star Trek's cultural staying power came despite its failure to
last on television. The "five-year mission" of
the Enterprise lasted just three years--until 1969, when the
show was canceled by NBC because of low ratings after 79
episodes.
In fact, the show barely made it to the air at all: In 1964,
NBC passed on the first attempt at a pilot, declaring it "too
cerebral." A second attempt was filmed in 1965 when
comedy legend Lucille Ball, who owned the studio that
employed creator Rodenberry as a producer, personally
intervened to persuade NBC to give the series another shot.
Despite its cancelation, the series--which was worked on by
some of the premiere science fiction writers of the day--
became a hit in broadcast syndication, firing the imagination
of a wide audience.
Today, the original series continues to inspire legions of
Trekkers, one of the most rabidly loyal fandoms in all of
popular culture. It has spawned four syndicated spin-offs
(with a fifth planned for next year)--and endless
debates about the relative merits of each show's
captain in comparison to William Shatner's James Tiberius
Kirk.
Along with 13 movies (and counting), a complete language,
and a rather unique brand of fan fiction, Star Trek stands as
a testament to the desire of people for a vision of the future
which is both recognizable to them, and better than the
present.
----------------
STAR TREK'S vision of the future was, in a word, cool. Geek
toys and tech like tricorders, replicators and transporters
suggest a future where technology has been harnessed to
make life vastly better for the majority of people.
But as Wired.com noted, the reason Star Trek continues to
inspire such devotion 50 years after its premiere is because
of what it says about people, not technology:
The original show's most visionary aspects were social, not scientific, and that had
everything to do with the times. The country was in turmoil, embroiled in Vietnam
and the growing civil rights movement. Roddenberry said later that these events
influenced many of the themes, as well as the multicultural makeup of the crew.

For a 1960s audience, the 23rd century world envisioned

aboard the Enterprise was immediately notable for the fact
that it was multiracial and included women in positions of
importance among the crew.
In the original series, despite the roles for women being
somewhat limited--with the exception of Lt. Uhura, they are
primarily nurses, junior officers and scantily clad alien and
human love interests for Kirk--a vision of the future in which
women are defined primarily through their work as opposed
to their husbands, children or home-making abilities was
rare on television.
(It has to be admitted, however, that the female
crewmembers' uniforms were utterly sexist, as even
Roddenberry's partner Majel Barrett would later concede.)
At the height of the civil rights movement and the Cold War,
the fact that a show could assert that a superior, advanced
human society was one in which white Americans lived and
worked side by side on a mission of peaceful exploration
with not only aliens, but Russians (Chekov) and people of
Japanese descent (Sulu), as well as African Americans
(Uhura), mattered in the larger cultural context.
According to Whoopi Goldberg, who would later play
Guinan on Star Trek: The Next Generation, the impact of
being able to see Nichelle Nichols' Lt. Uhura was life-
changing. "[W]hen I was 9 years old, Star Trek came on,"
Goldberg said. "I looked at it and I went screaming through
the house, 'Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come
quick, there's a Black lady on television, and she ain't no
maid!"
Martin Luther King himself considered Nichols' Uhura to
be "the first non-stereotypical role portrayed by a Black
woman in television history." When Nichols was thinking of
leaving the show for Broadway, it was King who convinced
her to stay with Star Trek. As Nichols recounted:
Dr. Martin Luther King, quite some time after I'd first met him, approached me and
said something along the lines of "Nichelle, whether you like it or not, you have
become a symbol. If you leave, they can replace you with a blonde-haired white girl,
and it will be like you were never there. What you've accomplished, for all of us, will
only be real if you stay."...I saw that this was bigger than just me.

----------------
ONLY THE willfully ignorant could pretend not to see the
message Roddenberry was intent on sending, as he
frequently and gleefully pushed buttons. In "Plato's
Stepchildren," an episode broadcast in 1968, Nichols and
Shatner shared what is widely cited (though the matter is
hotly debated) as the first interracial kiss on U.S. television.
Skittish network executives worried about the audience
reaction and tried to squash the kiss, but Shatner hilariously
ruined all of the alternative takes with his famous!
punctuated! delivery! and even, in one take, crossed his eyes
to ruin the shot. Nichols recounted in her autobiography:
Knowing that Gene was determined to air the real kiss, Bill shook me and hissed
menacingly in his best ham-fisted Kirkian staccato delivery, "I! WON'T! KISS! YOU!
I! WON'T! KISS! YOU!"

It was absolutely awful, and we were hysterical and ecstatic. The director was beside
himself, and still determined to get the kissless shot...

The last shot, which looked okay on the set, actually had Bill wildly crossing his eyes.
It was so corny and just plain bad it was unusable...I guess they figured we were going
to be canceled in a few months anyway. And so the kiss stayed.
Critics today sometimes declare the scene a "cop out"--since
the kiss isn't a result of genuine desire, but of aliens
telepathically forcing Kirk and Uhura to kiss against their
will. But that misses the larger context of what it took to
even get it on the air at a time when the Supreme Court
decision striking down bans on interracial marriage had only
just been handed down the year before.
Other episodes, like "Space Seed," which introduced the
character of Khan Noonien Singh--a genetically engineered
"ubermensch" who, the show tells us, was part of "Eugenics
wars" that broke out on Earth in the late 20th century--raise
the specter of racism as a threat to the continued existence
of humanity.
(While Kirk fails the "of course you should kill Hitler if you
have the chance, you dummy" test, since Star Trek II: The
Wrath of Khan gifted us with one of the best moments of
scenery-chewing ever committed to film, however, he can
perhaps be forgiven.)
Another episode, "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,"
famously featured Frank Gorshin (the Riddler on
TV's Batman) in a story about a species divided into two
races--and mortal enemies--by skin color. Resembling alien
black-and-white cookies, one race has a left side that is
white and a right side that is black. The colors are reversed
for the other race.
As Roddenberry explained, "Star Trek was an attempt to say
that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day
that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in
differences in ideas and differences in life forms."
----------------
BUT IF Star Trek's vision of an inclusive society, in which
various races live and work side by side without the specter
of racism, is one of its main strengths, its conception of race
overall is, paradoxically, sometimes also a weakness.
Often, Star Trek--not only the original series, but spinoff
series as well--slips dangerously close to essentialist notions
of race.
In the 23rd century, racism no longer exists in the advanced
civilization of the United Federation of Planets--yet time and
again, species like the Klingons are portrayed as "naturally"
warlike and violent; the Ferengi are "naturally" greedy;
Romulans are "naturally" calculating and contemptuous of
difference.
These species-wide characteristics are then used to set the
species up as villains--and, more troubling, the audience is
told in several instances that such "differences," whether
culturally ingrained or biological, should be respected.
This is where the contradictions at the heart of the Star
Trek universe become most pronounced. (Though in the
case of Deep Space Nine series, later seasons did at least
examine this when it came to the characterization of the
Ferengi and the Klingons.)
If Star Wars movies are essentially about the threat of space
fascism and the resistance to it, then Star Trek is, at heart,
about the hope for a sort of "space socialism"--a liberal,
military-style socialism, but nevertheless one in which
society is so technologically advanced that the material
needs of the Federation's inhabitants are met, allowing for
the free and full development of individuals.
In the world of Star Trek, the availability of replicator
technology generally means that anything you need can be
beamed into existence. Yet because of the "Prime
Directive"--the guiding principle of the Federation, which
prohibits its members from interfering in the development
of technologically backward alien societies--the Federation
ostensibly ignores oppression, slavery and other horrors in
less-developed societies, on the theory that working through
these processes is part of a society's internal development.
Since our heroes would never actually condone such
oppressions, episodes often hinge on finding a way to skirt
the letter of the Prime Directive--or in some cases, to justify
inaction when individuals and even entire races, societies or
planets face extinction.
The various Star Trek series broadly offer a critique of war
and militarism even as they extol the Federation's brand of
liberal military intervention--a kind of United Nations in
space. (In fact, the Charter of the United Federation of
Planets actually drew text and inspiration from the UN
Charter, as well as other sources.)
Though its internal logic is often convoluted or
inconsistent--while replication technology has eliminated
the need for money, there still are outposts, like that
depicted in Deep Space Nine, which are run on a partially
capitalist basis and where small businesses thrive, for
example--Star Trek presents a vision of the future that is
hopeful in its inclusivity and its suggestion of the possibility
of a society free of deprivation and want.
As Captain Picard of The Next Generation series explains to
several cryogenically frozen survivors of the 20th century
when they are awoken onboard the Enterprise in the 24th
century: "A lot has changed in the past 300 years. People are
no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things. We've
eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions. We've
grown out of our infancy...We work to better ourselves and
the rest of humanity."
In the Star Trek universe, without capitalist class relations
to put the same kinds of strictures on people, individuals are
free to develop themselves as they see fit. It's one reason
why the Borg--the most compelling villain from the Picard-
era series--are so frightening. The Borg also provides for the
material needs of its collective component worker
members--but extinguishes all individuality among them.
Individuals are assimilated, reduced to their work function
as part of the hive--and nothing more.
----------------
AS RODDENBERRY once explained, the show's creators
resisted the idea that TV audiences were too stupid or
backward to appreciate the show's message:
We believed that the often ridiculed mass audience is sick of this world's petty
nationalism and all its old ways and old hatreds, and that people are not only willing
but anxious to think beyond most petty beliefs that have for so long kept mankind
divided. So you see that the formula, the magic ingredient that many people keep
seeking and many of them keep missing is really not in Star Trek. It is in the
audience. There is an intelligent life form out on the other side of that television,
too...

What Star Trek proves, as faulty as individual episodes could be, is that the much-
maligned common man and common woman has an enormous hunger for
brotherhood. They are ready for the 23rd century now, and they are light years ahead
of their petty governments and their visionless leaders.

But that creates a problem: How to create compelling

characters and stories when the foundation of so much
drama is precisely the kind of petty conflict that supposedly
doesn't have a place in the Star Trek universe?
As Manu Saadia, author of the recent book Trekonomics,
explained to Wired's "Geek's Guide to the Galaxy" podcast:
[The characters] are consistent with the economic circumstances in which they live.
Imagine yourself growing up in a society where there is never any want or need or
financial insecurity of any sort. You will be a very different person. You will be
absolutely uninterested in conspicuous consumption...You will probably be interested
in things of a higher nature--the cultivation of the mind, education, love, art and
discovery. And so these people are very stoic in that sense, because they have no
worldly interests that we today could relate to...

I usually say that they're all aliens, in a way. My friend Chris [Black], who wrote on
[The Next Generation], said it was really hard for the writers, because it's a workplace
drama, but there's no drama.

That's similar to what Karl Marx wrote in The German

Ideology about the ways in which capitalism constrains
human activity by alienating workers from their labor:
For as soon as the distribution of labor comes into being, each man has a particular,
exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot
escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman or a critical critic, and must remain
so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist
society...society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to
do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the
afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind,
without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.
In the Star Trek universe, I can be a ship's captain in the
morning, a detective in the afternoon, a winemaker in the
evening, and a flute player after dinner (assuming my ship
doesn't get attacked by hostile Romulans that day, that is).
As the eminently logical Mr. Spock might have put it,
the Star Trek universe is one in which humanity has
determined that "the needs of the many outweigh the needs
of the few...or the one" (percent, that is).
"The human race is a remarkable creature, one with great
potential," Gene Roddenberry said, "and I hope that Star
Trek has helped to show us what we can be if we believe in
ourselves and our abilities."
It's up to the audience to go boldly--and make it so.

ritain:The bitter fruit of Brexit

Dave Stockton, Red Flag 7, September 2016 Mon, 19/09/2016 - 07:01

The first of the reactionary consequences of Brexit is the major boost it has given to racist attacks on

people perceived to be migrants. The effect was immediate. In the first four days following the 24 June

announcement, True Vision, a police-funded website, reported a 57 per cent increase in reported hate

incidents, month on month.

Passers-by believed to be immigrants were shouted at and even physically abused on public transport

and in the street, often in broad daylight and in front of large numbers of people.

Polish cultural centres and shops were vandalised and “No More Polish Vermin” signs put up outside

schools in Huntingdon. Women wearing Islamic dress reported increased abuse, along the lines of,

“You’ve all got to get out now ” and, “We’re taking back our own country”.

The most savage took place in Harlow, Essex on 27 August. A group of young teenagers assaulted two

men overheard speaking Polish. One, local factory worker 40-year-old Arkadiusz Jozwik, died from head

injuries two days after the beating. The victim’s brother told the press, “The young teenagers are so

aggressive. After the Brexit vote it has got worse – I have seen people change – it is hard at the

moment”.
Of course, it would be wrong to suggest the racist perpetrators of such attacks are more than a tiny

fraction of the population or that those who voted “Leave” condone this sort of repulsive response. It

may well turn out to be far right or fascist groups that are responsible for many of these actions.

But there can be no doubt about those who have incited the attitudes which led to violence. This

phenomenon has been chronic for decades. Once it was those fleeing the Balkan wars in the 1990s.

Today, it is Syrian refugees and Polish builders.

The demonisation of European migrants and Middle Eastern refugees by the bulk of the tabloid press,

particularly the Mail, The Express and the Sun, has fuelled hatred and fear in a wide spectrum of the

population. During the referendum campaign, these papers went into overdrive. “300,000 migrants

prove we cannot control our own borders”, “The great migrant con”, “How to be a Pole on the dole”,

“One in five Britons will be ethnics” were just a few of their headlines.

Nigel Farage hammered home the message with his billboard of Syrian refugees with the message

“Breaking point – we must break free of the EU and take back control of our borders”.

Migration

The “argument” they spread was that it was migration – due both to EU “free movement of labour” and

EU members like Germany (temporarily) opening their frontiers to Syrian and other refugees – that was

responsible for putting intolerable and unsustainable pressure on the NHS, schools and housing.

No matter that EU migrants are greater net contributors to taxes and national insurance than British

citizens; that failure of real wages to keep up with the cost of living had more to do with wages so low

you have to claim benefits on top; or that the numbers of migrants quoted by press and politicians was

vastly in excess of the real number.

Their argument drew strength from the fact that there certainly is a chronic housing shortage, the NHS is

in a bad way, and zero hours jobs have replaced well paid industrial jobs. Regions like Wales (which

voted for Brexit) have received large EU regional investment, but not enough to offset the neglect of

Labour and Tory governments.

That parts of the working class blamed the EU and voted heavily for Brexit is proof that it is possible to

deflect blame if there is not a deeply rooted force in these communities fighting these arguments. It is no

accident that the Welsh Labour leaders are anti-Corbyn.

Fightback

The fight against the spread of anti-EU and migrant hatreds is, therefore, not just a matter of mounting
antiracist propaganda or holding marches wherever fascists try to foment attacks, important as these

are.

Under Jeremy Corbyn, we have the opportunity to mobilise the growing Labour Party and the trade

unions on a truly mass scale, to take our message into the communities, onto the doorsteps. We can

use canvasing not just to count up potential voters and pass on quickly when we encounter prejudices,

or pander to them as Blue Labour does. In so-called Labour heartlands, where voters are attracted by

the UKIP and tabloid message, we have to combat the lies, face to face.

This will not be fully effective unless our message is that Labour will fight to end the conditions caused

by workplace closures, government and council cuts. That will mean not simply fighting for these

communities at Westminster or in the Town Halls, but with them, on the streets.

In the end, it is only by activity, becoming the agents of our own liberation, that we will explode the false

consciousness of racism. Once Labour and the trade unions really get moving, and actually become a

social movement to end austerity, to create jobs and housing, then the phobias spread by the media and

Brexit will begin to disappear.

Labour must also intervene in the Brexit process itself. The Tories are floundering, divided on what it

means. Our party must fight every Tory attempt to cut our social, workplace and human rights, plus

every measure directed at EU citizens resident here. We must expose the disastrous effects of severing

ties with Europe and put the blame on Britain’s bosses.

Europe

Just as raising the tempo of the class struggle against austerity at home will combat racism, so we have

to play our part in combating it with the same methods across Europe. Racism is on the rise across the

continent, with parties like the National Front in France and the Alternative for Germany rising in the

polls and winning elections.

During the referendum, Jeremy Corbyn spoke of, “working together with our European socialist allies,

offering the best chance of meeting the challenges we face in the 21st century”. Labour should take the

lead now in calling for a conference of all parties of the left and the unions that are opposed to austerity

and racism, from across Europe. It should plan coordinated action, both in opposition and in

government.

If we fight in this way we can halt the break up of the EU into economically warring states, each infested

with national chauvinism. We can win a powerful popular majority for junking the Brexit disaster and
taking up the struggle for a socialist Europe with borders open to those seeking work and asylum in the

richest continent on the planet.

916: Use workers’ power to end the war

By Käte Duncker, introduction by John Riddell

September 21, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/John Riddell:

Marxist Essays and Commentaries — 100 years ago today, a leading antiwar
socialist in Germany explained the need for revolution to end the First World War.
Her audience was delegates to the last unified national conference of the Social-
Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), held in Berlin on September 21-23, 1916.

The vote by SPD parliamentary representatives in support of German war spending

on August 4, 1914, had split the party. At the September 1916 conference, the right-
wing pro-war Majority Socialists were opposed by the Working Group (later USPD –
a centrist grouping), as well as by the revolutionary current, the International Group
(later the Spartacus League), led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. In
November 1918, supporters of the USPD and Spartacus League led a workers’
revolution that overturned the German emperor and brought the war to an abrupt
end.

Duncker was another leader of the Spartacus League and the German Communist
Party formed later (KPD). She was born and raised in Thuringia in 1871, and worked
as a teacher. She met Clara Zetkin at a union congress and joined the SPD in
Leipzig in 1898. As an SPD member, she was a prominent speaker and writer, an
assistant editor of the SPD publication for women Gleichheit, and a part of the SPD
educational committee with Rosa Luxemburg. During the war, she co-founded the
International Group and was arrested in 1916 and banned from speaking publicly. As
a leader of the KPD, she was forced into exile by the Nazis and lived in New York—
during the Second World War, her third child became a victim of the Stalinist regime
in the USSR. She died in 1953.
This speech forms part of a series of documents on socialist resistance to World War
1, each published on the 100th anniversary of their origin.

*****

Comrades! The International (Spartacus) Group asked me to speak here today

because we not only sharply disagree with the SPD Majority’s policies, but are also in
disagreement with the Working Group on significant issues. This applies above all to
our position on the International and to “defense of the fatherland.”

To the extent that the Working Group and its members’ positions are not limited to
rejection of war credits, they strive to restore the party and the International to the
point of view they maintained before August 4, 1914, and to take up again its prewar
policies, supposedly tried, true and triumphant.

But what August 4 really showed was that these policies had utterly failed. They had
led us not to victory but to a devastating defeat precisely on the issue that put them
to the test. (Interjection: “Very true”)

In our opinion, the Second International collapsed irretrievably on August 4, 1914. It

was fated to collapse, because—despite all the fine speeches and decisions at its
congresses—it was not an organic whole but only a loose structure with no internal
cohesion. The national parties were autonomous. The German party in particular was
unwilling to see its freedom of action restricted by any solid international agreements.
Every attempt to convert the International into a genuine force shattered against the
German delegation’s response: “Unacceptable.”

The International that we are striving for will stand above the national parties. It must
be both the goal and the fulcrum of proletarian class organization. It must make the
decisions on all questions whose significance extends beyond national frontiers, such
as military and naval policy, colonialism and, above all, the policy to be adopted in
case of the outbreak of war.

After the war, we want to build the International on a more secure foundation and
make it a real political force. To that end, it is above all essential that the concept of
the International, and along with it that of the class struggle, becomes the very
essence of our educational work across the country. Every party member in every
village must feel and understand that proletarians on the other side of our borders
are our brothers, our working-class comrades. They stand closer to us than the ruling
classes of our own country, and so too our obligations to workers abroad are much
greater.

Against the ideology of nationalism, before which the Party capitulated in 1914, we
uphold that of internationalism. Organizationally, we do not conceive of the new
International as a loose structure of autonomous parties with some office in Brussels
or The Hague, where comrades gather for inconclusive discussion of international
issues. Nor do we imagine it, contrary to what was said of us in a Working Group
publication, as a general staff commanding from on high, above the clouds, and
sending down orders to the international proletarian multitudes from above.

On the contrary, we conceive of the organizational ties as much closer, as an

ongoing structure that is equipped with decision-making power. It will have this
capacity because it is based on the internationalist consciousness of the masses in
all capitalist countries, and because its decisions are thus binding for Social
Democracy in all these countries. (Interjection: “How will you manage that?”)

What we are asking is, so to say, that the “alliance of provinces” that existed in the
past be transformed into a “federal state.”

Our position on national defense flows from our positions on the International and on
the imperialist nature of the war. As we know, every war begins with the battle cry,
“The fatherland is in danger.” This is a marvelous way to deceive the less informed
masses. This slogan of the endangered fatherland was already a conscious swindle
in most earlier wars; it is all the more inapplicable in the era of imperialism regarding
relations among the leading imperialist great powers.

There is no longer any such thing as a defensive war among the imperialist great
powers. The claim to be going to war in defense of national frontiers and national
independence is now simply outright deception. (Interjection: “How’s that again?”)

When one pirate ship attacks another in order to seize its booty, we don’t talk about
justified self-defense. The imperialist states always seek to expand, to seize more
booty. Their wars are about conquest from the very beginning. (Interjection: “Very
true!”)

It makes no difference on whose territory the war is fought. When a war breaks out, it
must be fought out somewhere. (Laughter) Just where it takes place depends on the
fortunes of war, but that is not the basis on which we determine the war’s character.
(Interjection: “Very true!”)

As a human being and a socialist, I am just as pained and shocked by the killing of a
French, Belgian and Russian proletarian as I am when the victim is German. “Sound
the alarm: They’re killing our brothers”: This principle holds true for internationalist
socialists no matter where war breaks out. And that is why we cannot base our stand
on the war and the approval of war credits on the state of the war at any given
moment, as the Working Group did in its December 21 statement and influential
comrades have done in various speeches.

Imagine: If we were now in France’s situation; if large portions of Germany were

occupied by enemy troops, who knows—the Social Democratic Working Group might
not even exist. (Loud laughter)

Let me repeat: Our position on the war is not dependent on the state of the fighting at
any given moment. This way of thinking would always block any chance for unified
action against the war by the international proletariat. In any given war, the Social
Democrats of a country would pursue a policy based on the success of their
country’s armies, and thus necessarily opposed to that of their counterparts in
another country. That would amount to an admission of bankruptcy as regards any
international proletarian policy.

A member of the Working Group reproached us for an attitude of so-called “defense-

nihilism.” That term is quite inapplicable. We stand on the foundations of the Stuttgart
resolution,[1] which laid on us the obligation, if we were unable to prevent war, not to
defend the fatherland but to use every means to end the war rapidly and to utilize the
crisis it creates in political and economic life to speed the abolition of the capitalist
order.
If socialists achieve power in a given country, they will have to use against invading
enemies, just as the revolutionaries of the French revolution defended their
bourgeois freedom against feudal Europe, and the fighters of the Paris Commune in
1871 defended their commune against the Prussian troops.

Henke[2]: And that is precisely what our program says.

Duncker: I will refrain from taking up here the other points of disagreement between
us and the Working Group. These include disagreements on taxation, submarine
policy and the party executive’s appeal for peace. With regard to taxation, let me just
say that we reject war credits regardless of whether they are paid for out of the slim
wallets of the masses or directly from the wealth of the propertied. They provide
resources for war regardless.

This brief outline of the differences between us and the Working Group aims not at
involving ourselves in a polemic with them but rather at showing why our group has
to act independently and to refute the concept that the opposition is united. We will
march separately, but we will unify to deal blows to our opponents, and the main task
today is to deal that unified blow.

Delegates of the SPD Majority: “Aha” and laughter.

Duncker: We, too, have to settle accounts with the party executive, with the so-
called Majority. But not with the social imperialists. We do not discuss with Kolb,
Lensch, Cohen, Heine, Heilmann and the like. Nor do we discuss with those who, like
Konrad Haenisch,[3] sing the “Workers Marseillaise” to the tune “Deutschland,
Deutschland Über Alles”—

SPD Minority delegates: “Very good” and laughter.

Duncker: —because these people have moved outside the framework of the party
program and its convention decisions. Almost every comrade understands this.

Minority delegates: “Very true.”

Duncker: Keeping them in the party would require a complete transformation of its
program. (Interjection: “Very true.”)

Duncker: Or we could take a shortcut here and simply adopt the program of the
National Liberals,[4] adorned by a few socialist turns of phrase. So long as our
present party program is in force, these social-imperialists and their supporters are
outside our party’s framework. We have nothing in common with them.

Ledebour[5]: Not with us either.

Duncker: They have belonged for a long time to the bourgeois camp and are
intruders in the house of socialism. When the day of reckoning comes, then those
who adhere to the party’s program, tradition and decisions will exercise this authority
by throwing out these intruders.

Minority delegates: “Very good” and loud laughter.

Duncker: These people desecrate the temple of socialism and the socialist world
outlook.
Ebert[6]: I must request that the speaker frame her remarks in a fashion consistent
with debates among party comrades.

Ledebour: If you followed the example of Heine and Timm, the Chair would not call
you to order!

Ebert: Silence, please. What I have just said applies to all party comrades and has
always been the procedure at party congresses. (Interjection: “Very true.”)

Duncker: We are dealing today above all with comrades who claim to adhere to the
party’s program and statutes but are in fact trampling program and statutes
underfoot. They misuse the words “internationalism,” “party unity,” and “party
discipline” in order to consciously deceive comrades across the country.

Despite the incontestably imperialist nature of the war, comrades of the party
executive and the official (Majority) parliamentary fraction continue to call for “holding
out to the end” and approve war credits, despite the unambiguously imperialist nature
of the war. They continue to support and defend the government despite its open
calls for annexations. They therefore have no right to speak of working to reestablish
international relations (among socialists) and peace. (Interjections: “Aha!” and “Very
true.”)

Duncker: The first precondition for resumption of international relations is to stop

making charges against the parties in other countries, and clean up one’s own
backyard (Interjection: “That means the defeat of Germany.”) and to break with the
policy of August 4…

We call on all those who uphold the class struggle and international socialism not to
be deluded by fanatical uproar about violations of party unity and discipline but to
defend the integrity of our principles and to be disciplined in defending our world
outlook.

That means we must also renounce obedience to the policies of the party’s leading
bodies. We must put an end to half-measures and abandon illusions that it is simply
a matter of resolving the purely parliamentary issue of approval or rejection of war
credits. The task is rather to call on the masses to wage a mighty struggle against
imperialism and against the war.

Let us be clear on one thing: If the war ends as it began, as a gift from on high
without the proletariat’s involvement, as a result of diplomatic negotiations, then
peace on that basis will seal the defeat dealt to socialism during the war.

Let this peace be achieved by utilizing all the proletariat’s instruments of power. In
that case, such a peace will prepare the road for the victory of socialism and shape
the International into a power that will prevent any repetition of such horrendous
genocidal slaughter for all time.

Source: Dokumente und Materialien zur Geschichte der deutschen

Arbeiterbewegung, series 2, vol. 1, pp. 457-63.

Footnotes

[1] The Stuttgart Resolution was adopted by the Socialist (Second) International’s
congress of 1907. See “1907: The Birth of Socialism’s Great Divide” by John Riddell.
[2] Alfred Henke (1868-1946) was a member of the Working Group.

[3] The named figures formed part of the SPD’s extreme right wing, which openly
embraced the aims of German imperialism and expressed confidence in the German
emperor and his government. The “German Marsaillaise,” written 1864 by Jacob
Audorf, was a socialist poem sung to the tune of the French revolutionary anthem.

[4] The National Liberals were the main political party of the German bourgeoisie.

[5] Georg Ledebour (1850-1947) was a member of the Working Group and a
prominent supporter of the Zimmerwald Manifesto.

[6] Friedrich Ebert (1871-1925) was the SPD’s chair from 1913 and president of the
German republic (1919-25).