People Before Profit blog

Explosions in Venezuelan capital, ultra-left blamed as tensions rise

Thu, 28 Jan 2016 10:42:00 +0000

Four small explosive devices were detonated on Tuesday in Caracas, three at a shopping mall and another near the Venezuelan National Assembly building. No injuries or major damage have been reported. The blasts come at a time of heightened political tensions, however, as the opposition-controlled legislature and the socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, face off over the future direction of the country.

One early report out of the capital described the bombs as "homemade," and said they threw pamphlets into the air upon detonation. The tracts were purportedly issued by a group calling itself the Bolivarian Liberation Forces (FBL).

In the pamphlets, the group proclaimed its loyalty to the Bolivarian Revolution inaugurated by Venezuela's late president, Hugo Chávez but also apparently criticized Maduro's government for supposedly not being true to the late president's vision. The pamphlets accused Maduro of not carrying forward Chavez's work and called for an armed offensive against the opposition. This all comes on heels of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela's (PSUV) loss in the legislative elections in December last year.

In its call for guerilla war, the FBL declared, "It is time for the revolution's base to take the government... Social conflict is what guarantees the continuity of the process of change launched by Comandante Chávez." The language in the pamphlets is out of sync with the political line taken by the PSUV government since the elections. So far the Maduro government has publicly remained committed to democratic procedure and the rule of law, despite destabilization attempts by its political opponents.

The tactic of bombing civilian areas, calling for a revolution within the revolution, and the vague appeal for increasing social conflict all raise questions about the FBL's credentials as a left-wing group. The effect of its anti-democratic tactics, so far, is to bolster those opposing the government's socialist agenda.

For several years the right-wing opposition has been engaged in attempts to reverse the advances that the Chávez government made in areas such as healthcare, education, and economic reform. In 2002, it acted in conjunction with the Bush Administration to overthrow the elected government. It was only after Venezuelans in their tens of thousands poured into the streets that the coup was defeated and Chávezwas returned to power.

The campaign of destabilization by the opposition and external forces, however, did not ease up after the coup. It has continued up to the present, with the National Assembly, now under right-wing control for the first time in years, becoming the new center of anti-government activity.

In such an atmosphere of tension, the FBL bombings bear all the hallmarks of ultra-left adventurism and political provocation. Opposition politicians are wasting no time as they move to capitalize on the bombings for their own purposes.

One of their leaders, Julio Borges, immediately sought to pin blame for the bombings on the Maduro government. He told the press that the attacks were the work of "people close to the government or with the complicity of those in power who want to create...panic to drown out discussion on important issues."

Borges is a close associate of Henrique Capriles, who lost presidential elections toChávezin 2012 and Maduro in 2013. He is also affiliated with Leopoldo López, the opposition leader who currently sits in jail for inciting riots in February 2014.

As tensions soar and accusations fly back and forth between the government and the opposition, the political situation in Venezuela only deteriorates further. Just last week, a prominent journalist working for the state media, Ricardo Durán was assassinated. The army has declared its loyalty to the elected government, but the right-wing leaders of the National Assembly appear determined to utilize their new-found position of power to chip away at Maduro's base of support.

Tuesday's bombings by the FBL play right into their hands.

Photo: A pedestrian walks in front of the administrative offices of the Venezuela National Assembly in downtown Caracas, Venezuela. | Fernando Llano/AP

Peace finally possible in Colombia, justice less certain

Wed, 27 Jan 2016 15:01:00 +0000

An agreement to end five decades of armed conflict between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the government of that country now seems inevitable. With the parties submitting a joint request to the United Nations to send a team to monitor implementation, it appears they are confident of making a March deadline for a final resolution.

Throughout the negotiations, which have already stretched for more than three years, FARC has consistently said it wants not just peace, but a peace that includes social justice. Recent moves on the part of the government to entrench the power of domestic and international capital, however, make the likelihood of such an outcome look more uncertain by the day.

Already falling by the wayside is FARC's proposal for a post-agreement constituent assembly to deal with issues of societal change that were left unaddressed in negotiations. As the government moves ahead with measures that delight the country's wealthy elite and enforce the economic oppression of Colombia's majority population, it is clear the idea of social change is definitely not on its agenda.

Instead, just as a deal finally seems possible, the government is demonstrating a renewed aggressiveness that will severely test peacetime struggles by ex-guerrillas and Colombia's broader progressive movement.In the wake of the left's feeble showings in both the March 2014 parliamentary elections and local contests held in Octoberlast year, Colombia's old guard has re-asserted itself.

On January 13, President Juan Manuel Santos' government auctioned off a 57.6 percent interest in the state-owned Isagen power company to Brookside Asset Management of Canada. The alleged purpose of the salewas to raise funds for highway-building.

Brookside, with assets worth $225 billion and 28,000 employees in 20 countries, paid $1.9 billion for Medellin-based Isagen, operator of Colombia's largest hydroelectric plant and supplier of 20 percent of the country's electricity. In what is described as the "largest privatization in the country in nearly a decade," the government achieved no more than its minimum selling price. Brookside, the sole bidder, values Isagen at $2.2 billion andis looking to add the company to its international portfolio of assets in "property, renewable energy, infrastructure and private equity." Half of these are in the United States.

The left-leaning USO oil-workers union predicted recently that state-owned Ecopetrol corporation would be next on the list for privatization. And newly elected right-wing Bogotá mayor Enrique Peñalosa has revived a campaign to privatize the city-owned ETB telephone company as well as a plan to sell off Empresa de Aqueducto, the state-owned water company.

Other measures that strengthen the position of big capital have also been in the works. A month prior to the Isagen sale, the Colombian Congress approved Law 223, establishing what it called "Zones of Interest for Rural, Economic and Social Development," or ZIDRES. Head FARC negotiator IvánMárquez castigated the ZIDRES as a "crafty stab wound" to the agreement on agrarian reform, which was the first agenda item in discussions with the government. The victimization of small farmers and rural inhabitants is one of the primary injustices that prompted the FARC'sformation all the way back in 1964, and the ZIDRES plan seems destined to recreate the same problems.

According to the government, the ZIDRES will "create special lines of credit and action plans for bank funding of productive projects." The question then becomes what projects will be designated as "productive." The agricultureminister, Juan Fernando Cristo,has declared the ZIDRES will be a "sort of free trade zone for agriculture." Primarily, the new regulation modifies a 1994 agrarian reform law that had authorized the transfer of idle land to family-sized agricultural units. That previous law didn't apply to land declared idle under earlier agrarian reform laws. The new legislation, however, opens up that previously protected land and allows it to be concentrated for industrial agricultural purposes under perpetually-renewable leases.

Oxfam has criticized the ZIDRES measure, saying it"works against...small-scale agricultural production," and would legalize large-scale land accumulation and increase the inequality already plaguing Colombia. The law's reach is immense. Referring to some of the regions in Colombia, one critic characterized it as a handover of "all of Orinoquia, part of Magdalena Medio, part of Pacífico, part of Amazonia, and part of Catatumbo to businesses that produce bio-fuels."

The government's sell-offs, along with its other recent oppressive measures, are provoking opposition.Rising inflation and a hike in the sales tax from 16 to 19 percent, for instance, erase any positive effect from a recent increase in the minimum wage.The Agrarian Summit, a formation that arose following a 2013 agricultural strike,recently issued an open letter to President Santos with multiple complaints implicitly threatening another strike. A report from the Rural Press Agencywarns that the government's failure to pull back from its program of privileging private interests over those of the poorest people and the middle classes "will create the right conditions for a national strike."

The United States has not been absent from the Colombian peace negotiations. It's role in the country's future is linked to the continued presence of seven U.S. military bases and personnel, $9 billion of military support under Plan Colombia, and its position as the nation's largest trading partner.

Participation in the talks by former U.S. diplomat Bernard Aronsonas a "special envoy"symbolizes U.S. concerns over post-conflict arrangements in Colombia. According to a report in theThe Washington Post Aronson has tried to assure negotiators on both sides "that the United States, having funded one side of the war, is prepared to help fund the peace for both." Aronson is quoted as saying, "The United States is going to be supportive of the implementation, just as we have been in other post-conflict settlements."

The other settlements referred to include the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran peace processes, both of which Aronson himself participated in. The Salvadoran settlement in 1992 enabled leftist insurgentsto enter regular politics. Their political party, the FMLN, went on to hold power, yet El Salvador remains stuck with great wealth inequalities, deadly violence, and exploitative natural resources extraction. It was years before the left returned to power in Nicaragua, where inequality and poverty remain major problems.

Such outcomes overshadow FARC's hopes for a better result in Colombia.Echoing former Cuban president Fidel Castro, FARC guerrilla Ronald Guerrero told an interviewer in 2008, "We don't want a pax Romana. We want a democratic and socialist government and land for those who work it." The fear is that such a U.S.-imposed peace is just what the Colombian government is abetting.

Photo: AP

World facing "new extremes" in the widening wealth gap

Mon, 25 Jan 2016 12:45:00 +0000

"Capitalism does not self-correct toward greater equality-that is, excess wealth concentration can have a snowball effect if left unchecked." - Bill Gates, 2014

Days before global political and corporate leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam International released a new report showing that the gap between rich and poor "is a crisis reaching new extremes."

The top 1 percent richest people in the world now own as much wealth as the bottom 99 percent. And the richest 62 people on the planet have as much wealth as half of the world's population.

"Meanwhile, the wealth owned by the bottom half of humanity has fallen by a trillion dollars in the past five years," according to the Oxfam report.

This extreme wealth concentration has led to the re-emergence of what French economist Thomas Piketty calls oligarchical rule, not seen since the Gilded Age.

The Oxfam study shows wealth concentration accelerating since 2000, due in large part to the mere concentration of economic and political power of the world's wealthiest individuals and corporations.

"Economic and policy changes over the past 30 years - including deregulation, privatization, financial secrecy and globalization, especially of finance - have supercharged the age-old ability of the rich and powerful to use their position to further concentrate their wealth," according to the report.

Wielding political power

The wealthy employ their power to affect government policy, budget priorities and allocations, subsidies and tax policy. For example, the rich hide $7.6 trillion in a global network of tax havens. The New York Times exposed the existence of a private tax system in the U.S. that allows the wealthy to write their own tax rules and shield billions of dollars of income.

They game financial markets. As of 2013, the wealthiest 1 percentholds 49.8 percent of stock and mutual fund assets, and the top 10 percent hold 90.9 percent.

The oligarchy has an outsized influence on politics, a situation which threatens our democratic institutions, as imperfect as they are. Money from wealthy individuals and corporations has cascaded into the electoral arena as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court'sCitizens United decision.

A few billionaires are among the main patrons of this year's crop of Republican candidates for president. Just 158 families contributed half of the early money to the primary campaigns.

In her new book, Dark Money, investigative journalist and New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer documents the extensive network of institutions created by the Koch brothers and other billionaires that has fueled the rise of the neoliberal right wing movement and efforts to eliminate all forms of government regulation on business.

Billionaires like Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner and his cohorts are attempting to upend state politics and impose direct oligarchic rule. Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, is considering a run for president and is prepared to tap $1 billion of his immense fortune.

Forming oligopolies

This is not all. Massive individual wealth concentration is interconnected with massive corporate wealth concentration. Drug giant Pfizer made waves when it announced its merger Nov. 23 with Allergan in a $160 billion deal to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

A few days later DuPont announced a $120 billion merger with Dow Chemical.

2015 quietly set a global record for corporate mergers and acquisitions of over $4.7 trillion in activity. In addition to the mega deals, there were nine transactions valued at $50 billion or more.

Many economists see this current wave of corporate mergers and acquisitions as the seventh great wave over the past 100 years. They include 1897 - 1907 (many iconic U.S. corporations were founded in this period including DuPont), 1916-1929, 1965-69, 1981-89, 1992-2000 and 2003 -2008.

The latest merger and acquisition wave is being facilitated by the massive amounts of cashthat global corporations are sitting on. According to financial observers, the current wave is 40% higher than previous ones in cross-border mergers and acquisitions. It has led to the creation of oligopolies in industries across the globe.

"We are seeing very high levels of concentration in key industries like food, healthcare and airlines," American Antitrust Institute President Diana Moss told Corporate Crime Reporter.

Through their power, domestic and global oligopolies are able to suck up the lion's share of corporate profits. According to the Atlantic, "In 2007, at the outset of the Great Financial Crisis, the 200 largest U.S. corporations accounted for over 30 percent of all gross profits in the economy (up from 13 percent in 1950), while the world's 500 largest firms were taking in about 35-40 percent of all global revenue (up from less than 20 percent in 1960)."

The drive for profits

Karl Marx predicted this process of capitalistic monopolization over 150 years ago. Capital accumulation, the drive for maximum profits, is the essence of the capitalist system.

Capitalists boost profits by expanding their market share through acquisition. More profits can be gained through monopoly pricing rather than expanding production.

In the US, four major airline companies now control 70 percent of the air travel market. Five banks now control 50 percent of bank assets. Verizon and AT&T control two-thirds of the wireless market.

Twelve health insurance companies control two-thirds of the market, while in half the states just 2 corporations cover 70 percent of the privately insured population. Even our food supply is controlled by a dangerously few actors: four corporations control 85 percent of the breakfast cereal market, and another four control 82 percent of the meat packing market.

And indeed, we are paying more for these goods and services. In the healthcare field it is estimated that 80-90 percent of profits are due to monopoly pricing."Food prices have gone up at a rate higher than inflation. We have seen documented evidence of fare increases following airline mergers," says Moss.

And not only are monopolies gaining greater market share, they are also colluding with other monopolies in their industry on prices, research, shared facilities, etc.

There is another way

Where is this headed?

Extreme wealth inequality is deepening instability in the global economy, leading to more frequent and deeper crises. Crises that begin in one country or region can quickly spread worldwide. Witness the 2008 financial meltdown, which began in the U.S. and spread globally.

The massive shift in wealth upward is a tremendous drag on the global economy. It results in a growing crisis of under consumption as workers real wages have stagnated and declined, the growth of slavery, poverty, joblessness and homelessness. Whole countries, regions and continents are mired in prolonged economic crisis and stagnation.

In fact, Sam Webb, Fred Magdoff, and John Bellamy Foster assert stagnation, financialization and monopolization mark a new phase of capitalist development.

They argue that the greater the monopolization, concentration and centralization of production, the greater will be the resultant economic stagnation. The productive capability of industry has reached such a degree that it has saturated the global market with consumer products. The tremendous surplus value being produced by workers cannot find a profitable outlet and a larger share is accumulated by the global oligarchy at the expense of workers.

"Comparing economic growth between the 1950s and '60s with the subsequent decades, the real GDP growth rate slows down from over 4 percent in the 1950s and '60s, to around 3 percent for the 1970s to '90s, to less than 2 percent for the 2000s," write Magdoff and Foster.

To overcome the falling growth rate, capitalism increasingly turns to external stimulus, i.e. consumer debt and the bubble economy.

An alternative path of development is needed, one that radically redistributes wealth and curbs the power of wealthy individuals and corporations.

The Oxfam report proposes policy solutions like shutting down the tax havens, raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations, increasing wages, ending the wage gap between men and women, eliminating corporate and oligarchic money from politics, etc.

This is a good start, but more radical solutions are needed. These should include: elimination of vast corporate subsidies, forcing corporations to assume total costs for pollution and environmental damage, ending privatization and wage, working and living condition disparities in the global south and eliminating structural racism and discrimination against workers of color in the U.S. and other advanced capitalist countries.

Collective bargaining rights must be extended to all workers.

The public sector must be vastly expanded to include natural resources, banking and finance, healthcare, telecommunications and transport and the reallocation of budgetary resources to healthcare, education, transit and housing.

A massive rebuilding of the nation's infrastructure is needed that will create millions of jobs and transition to a sustainable energy economy. Special measures are needed to redress historic racism, commonly called reparations, to achieve full equality in African American and other communities of color.

Implementing these reforms will require the election of radical anti-monopoly governments at every level and presume a much larger, more united and politically conscious people's movement than exists at present.

The first step is the defeat of right wing extremists for president and stopping GOP majorities in Congress and statehouses in November.

In the meantime, the "crisis of extreme wealth inequality" will grow, and with it greater instability, continued crisis and deepening misery for the world's working people - and greater struggle.

Photo: Swiss riot police officers arrest a demonstrator during a demonstration against the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. | AP

Iran sanctions eased, exiles urge more progress on democratic rights

Fri, 22 Jan 2016 14:16:00 +0000

News of a prisoner swap between the United States and Iran last Saturday was followed up just a few hours later by the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) announcement that Iran was now fully in compliance with the inspection regime concerning its nuclear energy program. The IAEA confirmation signalled the easing of most of the international sanctions that have been in place against the country since 2006.

Though restrictions banning U.S. businesses from trading with Iran remain in place, the removal of nuclear-related sanctions represents the fruition of President Obama's 2008 pledge to restart diplomatic engagement between the two countries. The negotiations leading to Saturday's announcement included Iran, Germany, and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, but the U.S.-Iran rapprochement has been widely seen as the primary reason for their success.

The deal,hailed by peace activists when it was concluded last year, has been seen as a possible foundation for a new approach to U.S. foreign policy premised on diplomacy rather than armed force and threats. Its potential to speed up cooperation on dealing with ISIS and the threat of reactionary extremists in the region has also been highlighted. Several members of Congress, most of the GOP presidential candidates, as well as hardliners in the Iranian parliament and the government of Israel, have all attacked the move toward normalization.

Progressives in the Iranian exile community, meanwhile,have praised the lifting of sanctions, but are also warning against international complacency in the face of continued repression of domestic democratic forces by the Iranian government.

In a statement issued immediately after the IAEA's announcement, the Committee for Defense of the Iranian People's Rights (CODIR) said the end of the sanctions regime would bring opportunities for the "beleaguered Iranian economy and its impoverished workforce."

CODIR cautioned, however, that there is still much work to be done to advance and protect human and democratic rights inside Iran. It urged the international community not to retreat from such challenges. Jamshid Ahmadi, the assistant general secretary of the group, described the situation that still prevails in the country:

"The detention of hundreds of trade unionists and political activists remains a reality of life in Iran today. They are often detained without charge or for alleged 'crimes' which cannot be justified on any basis according to the laws of natural justice. Trade union rights are a basic human right and international pressure upon the Iranian government is vital if we are to achieve the release of those unjustly imprisoned."

If the Iranian government is willing to negotiate the release foreign citizens held prisoner, CODIR says that it should do the same for domestic political prisoners including trade unionists, women's rights campaigners, and leaders of the "Green Movement." The Green Movement brought thousands together in protest against the alleged electoral fraud that returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office in 2009.

CODIR also raised concerns that the new economic opportunities opened by the easing of international tensions will not be widely shared among the Iranian people. It cited widespread corruption in the system and noted that the new funds gained from selling oil and gas on the international market will likely accrue mostly to the Iranian elite.

"The theocratic regime will exploit the agreements made with the U.S. and EU to shore up its crisis-ridden policies internally," Ahmadi further stated. "Leaders of the regime will try to use the agreement as a justification for their policies...which have not only isolated the country internationally but have also resulted in a system of economic sanctions that have absolutely devastated the economy."

In its own statement, the left-wing Tudeh Party of Iran also brought attention to the government's economic failings as one reason for its willingness to negotiate with international powers. "The regime's factions collectively supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [i.e. the deal] because the more than eight years of damaging policies of Ahmadinejad...and the devastating sanctions of imperialist states created immense problems for our country." The party said that inflation, bankruptcy of many manufacturing firms, high unemployment, and skyrocketing poverty all raised the danger of social implosion and forced the regime to the bargaining table.

Back in the U.S., defending the nuclear agreement and demanding that it be expanded is now the task of the peace and international solidarity movements. The forces opposed to international cooperation in both of the major parties, as well as the military-industrial complex will be actively moving to sabotage the progress made so far. For them, power and profits are at stake. The success achieved so far in the U.S.-Iran negotiations provides powerful evidence, however, that diplomacy can work.

Photo: Wikimedia (CC)

U.S. vultures circle Argentina, demand repayment of odious debt

Tue, 19 Jan 2016 15:27:00 +0000

Argentina's new right-wing president, Mauricio Macri, has announced that he is restarting negotiations with U.S.-based hedge funds which have been harassing the country in recent years. Though the bargaining is not yet very far along, this move by Macri is cause for worry, and not only for Argentines.

Under Macri, Argentina is returning to the neoliberal approach of making concessions to attract direct foreign investment, rather than relying on internal resources and taxing wealthy domestic interests to pay for improvements in infrastructure, housing, health care, and education - as previous government attempted to do. Evidently, Macri's idea is that by surrendering to the "vulture funds," he will be able to create an investment-friendly atmosphere to bring in more foreign money.

To further sweeten his deal, Macri has fired over 10,000 public sector employees as "fat" left over from the previous government of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. The move is prompting massive protests from Argentine labor unions. He also ordered the removal of taxes on exports of agricultural commodities, pleasing the big agricultural interests but creating an immense potential budgetary problem for the future.

Fernandez de Kirchner and her husband and predecessor, Nestor Kirchner, restructured Argentina's foreign debt after the country defaulted in 2001. This allowed Argentina to return to the bond markets to finance government priorities. A small percentage of debtors, including, principally, U.S.-based Elliot Management and Aurelius Capital Management, refused to accept the debt restructuring efforts and moved to destabilize the Argentine state. Elliot's head, Paul Singer, has been leading the international campaign of harassment against Argentina with the legal backing of a New York judge.

The trouble is that if Argentina now lowers its flag to Singer and his ilk, it could undo the whole debt restructuring the Kirchners achieved. The bondholders who had earlier agreed to be paid a partial payment for their bonds could now come back and demand equity - to be paid back in full as Elliot and Aurelius demand. This would be a disaster for the country. Is Macri really willing to risk it?

How did Argentina acquire these debts? A good part of it started with the military regime that was in power from 1976 to 1983. In addition to massive arms purchases and corrupt contracts, the generals started a truly foolish (and losing) war with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands. Domestically, the military enforced a system where anyone who dared call them to account risked losing their life, as 30,000 people eventually did. This was an unelected government that came to power by violence and was not accountable to any legislative body or legal system, let alone to the Argentine people.

The vulture funds bought up these distressed debts from the past for pennies on the dollar. Now, they are demanding repayment of the whole original value, thus making a killing on the deal.

This brings up the subject of odious debt. This refers to debt payment demands so reprehensible that they shock the conscience.

One extreme past example of odious debt was that which France claimed against Haiti after that country achieved its independence from Paris in 1804. Estates of French nationals were confiscated by the new Haitian government, and King Charles X responded by sending the French fleet to menace Haiti in 1825. In addition to the value for the seized land, the King demanded compensation for the value of the slaves who had been freed by Haiti's revolution. With its overwhelming economic and military power, by 1838 France was able to force Haiti to agree to pay this outrageously odious debt. It was not until 1947 that Haiti paid France in full for its liberated slaves. This is a major cause of Haiti's historic poverty and remains a point of contention between the two governments to this day.

A second case is that of the Jecker Bonds and the French intervention in Mexico. Jean Baptiste Jecker was a Swiss banker operating in Mexico during the mid 19^th Century. In the 1850s, Mexico was wracked by the Wars of the Reform, which pitted the old landowning elites and the Catholic hierarchy on the one side against the modernizing liberals led by Benito Juarez on the other. In 1859, a young military adventurer, Miguel Miramon, seized power in a coup against Mexico's liberal elected government.

To finance his regime and his military campaign, Miramon organized a loan from Jecker on terms outrageously unfavorable to Mexico. Miramon's government got only $700,000 up front from the deal but committed to pay back Jecker and his partners $15,000,000. As if this were not bad enough, Miramon put up vast amounts of Mexican national territory as security.

When it was clear that Miramon could not hold onto power and the liberals, headed by Benito Juarez, were going to triumph against him, Jecker arranged to have himself made a citizen of France. He cut a deal with the Duke of Morny, who was half brother of the French emperor, Napoleon III. The politically influential Duke made the agreement with Jecker to ensure that he would also profit handsomely from this crooked bond deal.

When Juarez, temporarily back in power, repudiated the deal that Miramon, Jecker, and Morny had cooked up, France saw this as an opportunity to intervene in Mexico. A campaign was launched to force the supposedly deadbeat Mexicans to pay this and other debts owed to French citizens. But Napoleon III also saw it as an opportunity to extend the French Empire into the Americas. The French initially persuaded Spain and the United Kingdom to join in their debt collection adventure. When the British and Spanish military leaders realized the French had other ambitions, however, they withdrew their troops from Mexico.

The French army, after suffering an initial defeat at the Battle of Puebla on the 5^th of May (Cinco de Mayo) 1862, eventually captured Mexico City and installed Archduke Ferdinand Maximillian as the Emperor of Mexico. Their puppet was the brother of Austrian Emperor Franz Josef. Maximillian's "empire" would survive only a few years.

Things did not end well for him or Miramon. They were both shot by a firing squad when the French eventually pulled out and Juarez's forces again triumphed. Mexico beat back the French but at the cost of many casualties and much suffering and destruction.

There was no happy ending for Jean Baptiste Jecker either. In 1871, he too faced the guns of a firing squad. He met his fate during the uprising known to history as the Paris Commune. The financial wizardry which had made him so influential in the grand game of world politics was of no help to him in the end.

The Haiti story, and especially the one of the Jecker bonds, are perfect illustrations of the concept of odious debt. The Argentine debt which the vulture funds are trying to collect on today is only the latest case. In each instance, the original contracting of the debt was illegitimate, because it was done by governments that did not represent the people who would eventually have to pay.

The terms were outrageously usurious and would be considered illegal under the laws of most countries today. Yet in all three cases, the creditors assumed an attitude of moral superiority, for no other reason than that they were backed by wealthier and more powerful countries than the debtors. Might makes right - especially if you're white.

If President Macri hauls down the Argentine flag and buckles to Elliot and Aurelius, it will set a horrible precedent for other relatively poor and indebted countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. It could bring vast suffering to some of the neediest people in the world.

In such an outcome, things will not go well for Mauricio Macri in the history books of the future. The hope now is that the Argentine Congress, where Macri still lacks a majority, will be able to stop such a surrender.

Image: Jubilee Debt Campaign, a global movement to break the chains of debt.

Right and left face off in Venezuelan legislature

Fri, 15 Jan 2016 16:17:00 +0000

Since Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's left-wing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) lost its majority in the December 6, 2015 legislative election, its battle with right forces has entered a new stage. With control of the National Assembly, the right is moving quickly to consolidate its power while the PSUV has shifted to defense in order to protect the "Bolivarian" heritage built by the late President Hugo Chavez. The latest showdown is centered on the question of the exact size of the majority held by the right in the National Assembly.

In December, the right-wing Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) coalition won 112 out of 167 seats in the National Assembly, a majority of precisely two thirds. But four elections in Amazonas state - three of which went to the right and one to a PSUV allied party - have been challenged. Questions have been raised about suspected violations of election law.

On January 2, the Supreme Court suspended the seating of the four legislators until an investigation of the corruption allegations could be conducted. If any violations are confirmed, it could trigger new elections for the seats in question.

Defying the Supreme Court's order, however, the right moved quickly to swear in their three challenged legislators. Their action prompted the Court to declare the National Assembly in violation of its previous order and said any laws passed by the body would be invalid until further notice. The MUD coalition, led by Henry Ramos Allup from disgraced former President Carlos Andres Perez's Accion Democratica party, accused the court of being under the control of President Maduro and the PSUV. He pointed to the government's installation of twelve new judges by the PSUV before it lost its majority. Within days, however, Ramos Allup climbed down and accepted the court's ruling.

The stakes are so high because, if its two-thirds majority in the Assembly is confirmed, the right can theoretically begin a process to remove President Maduro from power. Upon his ascension to the Assembly leadership, Ramos Allup declared his intention to do just that within six months. Signaling his hostility to the Maduro government, he ordered portraits of former President Hugo Chavez and South American liberation hero Simon Bolivar taken down from the legislative chamber. According to leaked documents, Ramos Allup has also been linked with the U.S. embassy in Caracas in the past and has often requested money from officials there for his group's political campaigns.

If the right can hold on to its challenged seats, it would be possible to set in motion the process of calling a national referendum on Maduro's presidency. There are also other powers that come along with the crucial two-thirds majority: the ability to remove other public officials, such as Supreme Court judges, and authority to amend the constitution.

Though Ramos Allup and the MUD coalition have backed down on seating their three contested legislators, they have not given up and are now attempting to reinterpret the rules of the Assembly. According to Ramos Allup, his group still has a two-thirds majority even without the challenged seats because the majority should be calculated on the basis of legislators actually sworn in.

The right argues the removal of the four challenged legislators shrinks the membership of the National Assembly to only 163 seats, meaning they would maintain their majority. The Maduro government and the PSUV contend that the two thirds majority would have to be calculated on the basis of all 167 seats in the Assembly, in which case the MUD majority falls under two thirds - at least until the controversy of the four seats is settled. The dispute will almost certainly go back to the courts.

Meanwhile, the right has introduced legislation to privatize the thousands of housing units which were built for the poor by the Chavez-Maduro government. Currently, residents of these units hold them under a perpetual lease from the state. This was done to prevent the creation of a speculative market in real estate. The new law proposed by the right would hand over the units as simple private property. The government sees this as a demagogic move to win support from people who like the idea of being property owners.

Legislation to dollarize the Venezuelan currency, or to drop the Bolivar and adopt the U.S. dollar as happened in Ecuador and El Salvador, is also being considered. The right-wing legislative majority also plans to give amnesty to a number of people convicted of fomenting violence during the "guarimba" riots of 2014 that killed 43 people. Most of those killed were supporters of Maduro's government, security personnel, or innocent bystanders.

The main individual the right wants to spring from prison is Leopoldo Lopez, an extremist and one of the wealthiest people in Venezuela, whose incendiary agitation was a major factor in the riots. He is currently serving a 13-year term.

Coupled with the right-wing offensive inside Venezuela, there are also pressures coming from outside the country. The Washington Post, the Economist, the New York Times, and others have questioned the validity of the Venezuelan Supreme Court's decisions because the president chose its members. Multiple governments and political figures overseas, including in the United States, Argentina, and Spain, have joined in the efforts to destabilize Venezuela and bring it back into the neoliberal program of corporate-dominated free trade, privatization, and austerity. The newly elected right-wing president of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, has called for Venezuela to be suspended from the MERCOSUR trade group, though he has so far not succeeded.

On the other hand, labor unions and other people's organizations, as well as the pro-Bolivarian left in Venezuela, are intensifying their activities at the grassroots. They are mobilizing forces to defend the gains made in areas such as labor rights, land reform, education, and healthcare, while also criticizing past government practices which are seen as having created an opening for the right's advance.

Photo: Economy Minister Luis Salas. | Telesur Twitter

Icy times and rays of hope in Germany

Fri, 15 Jan 2016 15:10:00 +0000

BERLIN -- 2016 began here with an icy chill, not only with the weather but far worse, with human relations. It also offered some, like myself, at least a few warm rays of hope.

Germany split over asylum-seekers

The influx of immigrants and asylum-seekers--over a million in 2015--has split Germany, which is economically the strongest country in Europe, into two nearly equal halves. One half, motivated by empathy, generosity, a feeling of brotherhood and sisterhood, went out of its way to help the new arrivals, contributing everything from teddy bears, warm clothing, and medical care to German lessons, and volunteering many unpaid hours, often to the point of exhaustion, to help and care for them.

This was sometimes accompanied by admirable endeavors of local public employees, many of whom stayed on their jobs far beyond daily and weekly working hours.

Countless immigrants in Berlin received food, warm clothes and at least a mattress, bedding and a narrow spot in a school gymnasium or empty airport building. But far too many waited long, cold, also rainy hours, often much of the night, to get the required registration documents, medical passes or a small allowance.

Callousness toward their plight was all too frequent; one official had to quit in disgrace, while his boss, a cabinet member, has had to bury any hopes of moving upward to the job of Berlin mayor. But some negative responseshad a worse motivation, reflecting the reaction of that other xenophobic half of the population. Hatred toward anyone who is different or "other" is all too common in the world. But a brief look in a book on German history adds an especially frightening aspect.

Such hatred grew fast in 2015, often connected with worries about jobs and housing, but also with malicious, unproven tales of immigrant crimes. The internet flooded with racist, fascistic remarks. There was an alarming increase in attacks- 850 were officially registered as having come from right-wing extremists - against buildings reserved or planned for the arrivals and nearly 400 violent attacks against presumed immigrants.

New Year's Eve marred

And then came New Year's Eve! In Hamburg and elsewhere, but most nastily in Cologne, the celebrations were horribly marred by attacks on several hundred women. Groups of young men surrounded and groped them and, while they resisted, stole handbags or cell phones. Much is still unclear about what actually took place.

According to news sources, a few of the suspected attackers are German citizens, one is an American, but many seem to be from Morocco and Algeria, which were not part of last year's influx of mostly Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis. Some questions are still unanswered: were the attacks spontaneous, internet-connected or somehow organized - and if so by whom and why?

On New Year's Eve, German cities often offer organized fireworks. But many also buy fireworks privately (their sale is permitted two days in advance) and fire rockets, often ten, twenty or fifty from one box, from sidewalks, balconies or in city squares, resulting in several hours of pandemonium. This must have been new to many immigrants, possibly frightening to children from war-torn regions. There were many young husbands who left families behind until, as they hoped, they could find a job and a home, but also many single men. A large number came from backgrounds where women are more "covered-up", rarely alone without a male relative and far less respected. An all too common oversupply of untamed testosterone in a loud, wild, crowded night may also help explain (but in no way excuse or rationalize) the criminal conduct.

The generalizing results of the attacks were all too predictable, especially coming so soon after the aroused, also bigot-based reaction to the tragic murders in Paris. Messengers of hatred against undesirable nationalities, wherever they are from and whoever they are, if not "German",have had a hey-day, resulting in more violent attacks and almost certainly upsetting the balance of political views in 2015.

The Bavarian sister party of Angela Merkel's CDU (Christian Democratic Union), the only such separate state unit, is named the Christian Social Union, an egregious misnomer. Though closely tied to the CDU in the Bundestag, it has been growing increasingly independent. It would strongly reject being called "racist" but Bavaria, where all immigrants from the southwest must enter, is the most rightwing of Germany's 16 states and has led the way in pressuring Merkel to abandon her welcome to all refugees, whatever her motives. Faced by growing signs of mutiny, includingin her own party, she has retreated, step by step, followed by her coalition partner the Social Democratic Party. Immigration rulings are to be tougher, numbers cut, far more denied entry or sent home, most especially after any trouble with the law. Speculation that usurpers might use the question to replace this clever, powerful tactician has become far-fetched.

Entire political scene has been pushed to the right

But the entire political scene has been pushed to the right. The racist Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is sure to get seats in three state elections in March, and most likely in the Bundestag in 2017.Pegida (an Islamophobic group that has staged anti-immigrant demonstrations in recent weeks) marchers still hoist "Save our western world from the Islamists" signs, most recently in Leipzig and again with violence. A vigilante posse descended on Cologne calling for "vengeance" and the rescue of endangered German womanhood - while waving thinly disguised pro-Nazi signs and openly giving the Hitler salute.

Rays of hope

One ray of hope is that there has rarely been a parade of the Pegidas or similar rightist groups without an active opposition group, often outnumbering them. In Leipzig their march was opposed by a ring of people holding candles in protest, while others, more militant, tried to block their path, with the usual giant police contingent keeping them apart.

Jan. 2 in Cologne, at least a thousand women (and a few men) met at the site of the New Year's Eve attacks and demanded respect and protection for women. It was loud and jolly, but it was also very determined! Many signs made clear; the women were not joining in the hatred scene; their protest was not aimed at immigrants or Arabs but against the sexist atmosphere everywhere, including harassment or violence at drunken Bavarian Oktoberfests, in many a private home and in too many police stations which ignored women's rights.

Remembering peace activists

The following weekend was a special one. Jan. 10was the annual memorial day for Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, courageous, still dearly-loved left-wing Social Democrats who opposed World War One, founded the German Communist Party and were murdered two weeks later, in January 1919. Several thousand faithful old rebels and many young people went by subway and walked the final six or seven blocks to lay red carnations on the monuments to Karl, Rosa, and the urns of leftwing leaders, writers and fighters from 1900 to 1990.

Others, starting at Karl Marx Allee, took a far longer route, with flags, banners and loud music. Again there were disputes, even a partial boycott, by some who objected not only to the usual groups of ultra-left admirers of Mao or Stalin but also to the presence of Palestinians and others who called for a boycott of Israel. As for me, though I certainly don't love all the strategies and tactics advocated here by some, I am still ready to walk in the same march with anyone who opposes exploitation and the war-loving One Percent.

Die Linke rally

After the visit to the memorial site, tired from the long walk, my hopes were again rekindled and my heart moved by a Die Linke (meaning "the left," a progressive political party in Germany)rally in a beautiful auditorium, formerly a film theater. There were many songs: by an Andalusian guitarist, a Turkish band, and by Esther Bejarano, now 91, who survived Auschwitz as an accordion player in the girls' orchestra, lived for many years in Israel and moved to Hamburg in 1960, where she became a singer and activist. In recent years she was persuaded to join young rap musicians in an attempt to offer progressive songs in German, Yiddish and Hebrew in a novel, blendedmanner that has made a hit with all audiences, old and young. We heard three of them here - with long, standing ovations for her voice, vigor and musicality. Then Bejaranospoke about her life-long fight against Nazis, old and new, and those who learned nothing from the past and are making war again.

There were many short speeches as well, by visiting leaders from Spain, Portugal, from Turkey on Erdogan's extremism and by a Jewish Knesset member who champions equal rights for Palestinians. It was a truly international occasion.

Most important were speeches by top leaders of Die Linke. Both co-presidents spoke, Sahra Wagenknecht and Dietmar Bartsch,who also chair the Left caucus in the Bundestag.Their past quarrels were forgotten; both were in friendly accord, near each other on the stage and in their speeches, in enthusiastic calls for a fighting program.

In the final speech the one-time national party leader Oskar Lafontaine made a stirring speech: for action against German military involvement in Afghanistan, Mali or anywhere;against armament shipments worth billions to bellicose oppressors like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. Such actions give a sharp smell of hypocrisy to wordy welcomes to refugees, as Germany joins the USA, France and Britain in supporting these culprits of conflict while worsening poverty in southern continents with cheap exports, suffocating local agriculture and industry and forcing people to emigrate.

"The Linkewill fight such policies and such hypocrisy," he said,"demanding resources for integrating refugees but also opposing attacks against working people here, the higher medical care fees, soaring rent costs and fewer permanent jobs. It will join progressives around Europe in fighting austerity policies dictated by German politicians and banks to Greece and others. Nor will it forget its ultimate aim - replacing a system which must always breed poverty and war."

There were many valiant words and songs; it remains to be seen how well they are transformed into action in the streets, factories, colleges and job offices. Only insofar as this program reaches wider circles can it invigorate the disillusioned, filling a political vacuum where extreme rightists have been winning ground so alarmingly. Many, I think, went out into the icy, slippery night with new hope.

Photo: Women and men protest in front of the train station in Cologne, Germany, on Jan. 6. The poster reads: "No to Racism, No to Sexism." Women have come forward alleging they were sexually assaulted and robbed during New Year's celebrations in Cologne, as police faced mounting criticism for their handling of the incident. Hermann J. Knippertz | AP

New bombings raise tensions, repression in Turkey

Fri, 15 Jan 2016 10:21:00 +0000

On Tuesday, a suicide bombing, evidently carried out by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or Daesh as it is called in Arabic, killed ten German tourists in a historic square in downtown Istanbul, Turkey. This bombing, and another carried out shortly thereafter in Diyarbakir, in the heavily Kurdish Southeast of the country, have raised tensions in this country of 78 million to the boiling point, and have led to threats of more repression of the government's many critics.

The bombing in the Sultanahmet district, within sight of the beautiful Blue Mosque and a major tourist area, was carried out by a Syrian ISIS member. In addition to the dead, there were many people injured. Speculation locally is that ISIS wishes to disrupt Turkey's lucrative tourism industry. Last year, there were several deadly bombings, also attributed to ISIS, that were aimed at Turkey's large and disaffected Kurdish population. There the motive appears to be related to the fact that Kurdish militia in Northern Syria have become recognized as one of the most effective forces fighting against ISIS in that country's civil war. A bombing on July 20 in Suruç killed 33 young Kurds who were meeting to organize support for the besieged people of Kobani, across the border in Syria. Then on October 10, another bombing targeted a pro-Kurdish rally in Ankara, Turkey's capital, killing at least 102 people, including several political leaders of the opposition organizations that had organized the rally.

After those bombings, Kurdish and left-wing organizations in Turkey fiercely denounced the conservative Islamist government of President RegepTayyipErdogan, of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), accusing it of possible complicity in the bombing attacks, or at least of negligence in preventing them. This time, the accusations were repeated with greater intensity.

Before the latest bomb attacks, a group of more than a thousand academics and intellectuals from 89 different universities, most of them Turkish but including distinguished international scholars such as Noam Chomsky, David Harvey, Emmanuel Wallerstein and SlavojZizek, sent a strongly worded open letter to Erdogan demanding that he prioritize the fight against ISIS/Daesh and return to negotiations with the Kurdish Workers' Party (known by its Kurdish initials, PKK).

In fact, Erdogan had earlier received credit for involving the PKK in peace negotiations to end the decades-long standoff between the Kurdish leftist group and successive Turkish governments. However, on June 7, 2015, Erdogan's party, the AKP, lost its parliamentary majority when it was taken by surprise by the electoral advance of another left-wing, mostly Kurdish party, the People's Democratic Party, or HDP.

This prevented Erdogan from moving forward on his plan to change Turkey into a presidentially dominated republic instead of a parliamentary democracy. After that, Erdogan, accusing the HDP of being a stalking horse for the PKK, essentially scuttled his peace approach and soon had the relationship between the government and the Kurds on a war footing once more. As the level of violence between the military and the PKK rose again, Erdogan and his Prime Minister, DavudAhmetoglu, called a snap election on November 1, 2015, in an atmosphere in which the opposition HDP and its press were under harassment and repression by the government. Unsurprisingly, the AKP majority was restored, though the HDP was not driven from parliament.

Erdogan's critics voiced suspicions that the government, which has played a major role in efforts to overthrow Syria's President Bashir Al Assad, had made a de facto alliance with violent Islamist factions in Syria, and was making a minimum effort against ISIS while concentrating the military's major resources against the Kurds. The suspicion also arose that ISIS was funding itself by shipping oil out of Syria into Turkey, finding ready purchasers there while the government turned a blind eye.

The United States, meanwhile, has developed a de facto military alliance with Kurdish fighters in Northern Syria whom the Obama administration sees as the most effective anti-ISIS force. As the Syrian Kurdish militia is seen as closely allied to the PKK, this complicates U.S. relations with Turkey, its ally in NATO. Erdogan has wanted to declare a no-fly zone over northern Syria, something Obama opposes. Responding to these pressures, the Turkish government has made recent moves to hit ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq.

Erdogan has gotten his country into a complicated situation. But the bold and aggressive response to criticism remains his hallmark. In response to the academics who signed the open letter, Erdogan has called them complicit with terrorism and is evidently going after them with repressive moves. He has asked academic authorities in Turkey to require that universities fire all signatories of the letter, who may also be prosecuted for their words.

He is unable to fire the international signatories, but he can insult them. He accused Noam Chomsky, the distinguished linguist and trenchant critic of imperialism, of having a "colonialist" mentality. Erdogan challenged him to come to Turkey and present his views and have them refuted. Chomsky declined the invitation.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, a notorious Turkish gangster, SedatPeker, called for signatories of the academic letter to be killed. He was quoted in the English-language edition of the opposition daily paper Hurriyet saying, "We will let your blood [flow] in streams and we will take a shower in your blood." Peker was active in supporting Erdogan's AKP in the November elections and is considered a government ally. Needless to say, his comments elicited further pointed protests from the opposition.

Photo: AP

Israel and Palestine: Occupation, the peace movement, and the international left

Wed, 13 Jan 2016 13:28:00 +0000

The following is the text of a talk,"The Israeli Peace Movement, the Occupation of Palestine, and the Role of the International Left," presented on November 21, 2015, at the meeting of the Federal Committee (Bundesausschuss) of Die Linke, the left party of Germany.

Dear Comrades,

I thank you for the invitation and for the opportunity to address you and bring you a critical Left perspective from the Israeli peace movement. Die Linke is an important factor in the political life of Germany, and we expect and hope for it to assume a more central role in the coming years. Your party is helping to shape public opinion and influence policies, in Germany and beyond. Therefore, deepening the dialogue between the German Left and the Israeli Left, exchanging views and sharing assessments and perspectives about the ways peace can be achieved in the Middle East - can provide great assistance in the struggle.

In Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, these are difficult times. On Thursday, Nov. 19, two violent attacks occurred which cost the lives of five civilians. Two Israeli citizens were stabbed to death in a TelAviv synagogue, and three people lost their lives in an attack near the Israeli settlement of Gush Etzion - an Israeli settler, an American citizen and a Palestinian bystander.

These innocent lives add to the dozens of Palestinians and Israelis who were killed or injured in the recent wave of escalation. According to a report published by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), during the month of October Israeli forces killed 73 Palestinians, and Palestinians killed 11 Israelis. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 2,250 Palestinians have been injured, including children. Many were injured as a result of being shot with live ammunition or with rubber-coated steel bullets. More than 5,000 Palestinians have suffered from tear gas inhalation. Israeli settlers also took part in these attacks, and in total there were 287 incidents which included settlers torching agricultural fields, committing hit-and-run car attacks against Palestinians, and stoning Palestinian homes and cars. Very few, if any, Israeli settlers were arrested by the Israeli army and police for launching these attacks. Yet more than 1,200 Palestinians have been arrested since the escalation began.

Some wish to portray this escalation as a religious uprising, following Israel's violation of the statusquo in the religious sites in Occupied East Jerusalem. Indeed, Israeli Right-Extremists - including members of Knesset (the Israeli parliament) and even government ministers - went inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Some even expressed their wish for the mosque to be demolished and for a so-called "Third Temple" (Ezekiel's Temple) to be built on its ruins.

For the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, portraying the escalation as a religious conflict is beneficial. His strategic perspective is that of branding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as insolvable, as a fact of life that will continue to exist for eternity. He has spoken numerous times about the need for Israel to "manage the conflict," rather than solve it. A month ago (Oct. 26), he appeared before the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Knesset, and when asked about the prospects for peace, said: "There are movements here of religion and Islam that have nothing to do with us." When asked if "we will forever live by the sword," his answer was: "Yes." Netanyahu is known for being an untruthful politician. But in that moment he let out what he really believes: He is promising the people of Israel nothing less than a perpetual war.

How does the Left see the situation?

The analysis of the Israeli Left is quite different. We believe that the question here is not a question of "Islam against Judaism," but rather a question of a nationally oppressed people - the Arab-Palestinian people - that is struggling to end the Israeli Occupation that's been ongoing since 1967. What is at stake is not a so-called "Clash of Civilizations," but the clash between the will of the Palestinian people to live in its own independent state, with the attempts of the Israeli rightwing government to deepen the Occupation and to perpetuate the existing situation.

The Israeli government is attacking democratic rights and freedoms, and is taking steps to silence critical voices from civil society and human rights organizations. New legislation introduced in the Knesset would make it more difficult for NGOs to raise money and receive support and donations from abroad, a step openly directed against those Israeli organizations that work against racism and against human rights violations.

A special target for the attack of the Israeli rightwing politicians, is the Arab-Palestinian minority within the State of Israel. More than 20 percent of the citizens of Israel are Arab-Palestinians. Although nominally equal citizens - with all civil rights, including the right to vote - they are in fact being systematically discriminated against in all walks of life.

On Oct. 17, the Israeli government announced that it is outlawing the Islamic Movement, which is one of the political organizations that operate among the Arab minority in Israel. The excuse was that the Islamic Movement was supposedly inciting violence, although even the Israeli General Security Service advised the government against this step. In a cynical "Shock Doctrine" move, Netanyahu was using the Islamophobic atmosphere that followed the terrorist attack in Paris to portray the local Islamic Movement in Israel as similar to ISIS, and thus justify the decision to illegalize it.

The Communist Party of Israel - which is the only political party in Israel that defines itself as a Jewish-Arab party, and works politically within both the Jewish population and the Arab minority in Israel - has also been the target of the campaign of delegitimization by the rightwing.

Thus the ongoing Occupation is taking a heavy toll on the democratic space inside Israel. And it is also important to remember, that the Occupation has severe social and economic consequences on the Israeli economy and society. On Nov. 18, the Knesset voted to approve the state budget for the year 2016, which amounts to 347 billion shekels - 59 billion of which are allocated to military expenditures. Having 17 percent of the state budget allocated for the purchase of new weapons and for maintaining a large military apparatus is unprecedented among developed countries. These are resources that could have been given to education, to healthcare, to welfare, or to solve the acute housing crisis. Israel has the second highest rate of poverty among OECD countries, following Mexico. It is ranked 5th in the world in terms of the Gini index for income inequality. A third of the children in Israel live below the poverty line - a figure twice as high as the OECD average. Among the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, 2 out of 3 children live below the poverty line.

The Israeli government says these military expenditures are a necessity, needed to maintain "security." But the concept of "security" should not be viewed from a militaristic perspective, as if security can only be created through tanks and helicopters. Real security also means knowing that if you become ill you will be treated in a properly equipped hospital, by doctors who are not overworked, in rooms that are not overcrowded, and receive medical treatment that will not cost a fortune. Real security also means knowing that at an older age you will receive a livable pension, one that will not force you to choose between purchasing medicine or buying food. The militaristic attitudes of the Israeli political establishment, stemming from the ongoing Occupation, don't take into account this wider notion of security.

It is a telling example, that after the social protest movement in Israel, in the summer of 2011, the government set up a committee to formulate recommendations about how to meet the demands of the people. One of the recommendations was to introduce free education from the age of 3, and to fund this measure through cutting 2.5 billion shekels from the Ministry of Defense. The government did implement this measure, but funded it by cutting across all government ministries - except the Ministry of Defense. That year, the budget of the Ministry of Defense actually grew.

At what cost settlements?

When talking about the price that Israeli society is paying for the Occupation, we should take into account not only the direct military expenditures, but also the enormous price of the settlement project. This project is one of the most wasteful projects in the history of Israel, in terms of the resources allocated to it. Even small, remote and isolated settlements - located deep within the Palestinian West Bank - receive services from the Israeli government, have paved roads that lead to them, and have soldiers stationed to defend them. It is economically irrational and it does not in any way contribute to the security of Israelis; it is purely an ideologically motivated step.

In the past 30 years, neoliberal structural reforms were implemented in Israeli economy, that cut social services and the public sector. But the welfare state is still alive in the settlements, where the government is allocating budgets that are about twice as high as those allocated inside Israel itself. The settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories also receive tax exemptions and housing subsidies.

Therefore, ending the Occupation, dismantling the settlements project, and achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians will bring not only justice to the Palestinian people, but it will also create a possibility of fighting against poverty and inequality in Israeli society. Peace and social justice go hand in hand.

The Israeli settlements in the West Bank are one of the main ways in which the Occupation is disrupting and harming the lives of Palestinians. More than half a million Israelis live in the settlements in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, out of a total Israeli population of close to 8 million people. These settlements are built on lands confiscated from the nearby Palestinian towns and villages, annexing their agricultural lands and their water resources, leaving farmers without a source of income.

The Israeli government has constructed a series of roadblocks and checkpoints, as well as the so-called Separation Wall, in order to place barriers between the settlements and the surrounding Palestinian population. This has tremendous impact on the freedom of movement of Palestinians, since it forces Palestinians to take long and indirect roads to reach from place to place, even between nearby places. A car drive which should have lasted minutes now could take a few hours, which would include waiting and being searched at a checkpoint. This, of course, has grave consequences for the development of the Palestinian economy.

Behind the colonial settlement project there is a logic of creating facts on the ground which would place obstacles before the possibility of an independent Palestinian state. The leaders of the extremist settler movement - who are represented in almost every Israeli government - know very well that the settlements are an obstacle for peace. For them, expanding existing settlements and building new ones is a way to deepen the Occupation and to push aside the option of peace.

What about the Green Line?

Considering these facts, I believe that the decision that the European Commission took on Nov. 11 to label products that are manufactured in Israeli settlements inside the Occupied Palestinian Territories, is a positive decision.

Clear difference must be made between, on the one hand, the sovereign State of Israel, which exists within the internationallyrecognized borders that were the outcome of the 1948 war; and on the other hand, the Occupied Palestinian Territories - the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - that were occupied by Israel during the 1967 war, and remain illegally occupied ever since. Between the State of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories lies the so-called "Green Line Border," that is, the borders of Israel that existed up until June 4, 1967, after which Israel launched its aggressive war of expansion.

It has been an ongoing policy of the various Israeli governments to blur the distinction between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, to conceal the Green Line Border and to project to the world a false image, as if these territories - that are under military control, that are the home of 4.5 million Palestinians who are devoid of citizenship - as if these territories are actually part of the State of Israel itself. On official Israeli maps, for example, the Green Line Border is nonexistent.

The basis for Israeli-Palestinian peace remains the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel, with the Green Line as a border of peace between the two states. It is for this reason that the rejectionist and hawkish governments in Israel have been making every effort to treat the Green Line Border as politically irrelevant, to create a façade of normality and sovereignty even in those territories that are under military control. It is the responsibility of the peace movement to expose this deception.

Restating legitimacy

To stress the illegality of the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the illegality of the Israeli military presence in the territories beyond the Green Line Border is not just an act of solidarity with the Palestinian people, but also helps to reinforce the legitimacy of the existence of the State of Israel, and the right of the Jewish-Israeli people for national self-determination.

The Israeli political establishment hoped that by concealing the difference between the State of Israel and the settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the legitimacy that the former enjoys in world public opinion, will whitewash the latter. But actually, this process is working exactly the other way around: The illegitimacy of the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is contributing to the wholesale illegitimacy of the State of Israel itself.

Therefore, to make a clear-cut distinction between the State of Israel and the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories not only helps the struggle of the Palestinian people to end the Occupation and achieve an independent state, but at the same time also weakens the case of those who reject the idea that both peoples - the Palestinian people as well as the Jewish-Israeli people - have the right to national self-determination. For me, as an Israeli peace activist, as an activist from the Israeli Left, making this distinction between Israel and the settlements is an act of internationalism and patriotism.

Labeling and boycotting

It is for these reasons that I believe that the decision of the EU bodies to label products that are manufactured in Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is a correct decision. A product should not be able to carry the label "Made in Israel" when it is actually produced in a territory that is not part of the sovereign State of Israel, in a territory which is under military rule, in a territory which should be part of the future independent Palestinian state that will be established alongside Israel.

Implementation of the EU regulations about the labeling of settlement products is a responsibility of the member states. But already we have seen several rightwing governments which have publicly stated their opposition to this step.

Jürgen Hardt, foreign policy spokesperson of the parliamentary group of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), spoke out on Nov. 12 against the regulations. Another voice which echoed Netanyahu is the foreign minister of Hungary, who visited Israel on Nov. 16 and called the new regulations "irrational," saying his government - headed by the increasingly authoritarian Viktor Orban - will not implement them.

Therefore, it remains a struggle for the European Left to make sure the regulations adopted by the EU Commission are implemented in full. But I think the EU should do more than just label products that are manufactured in the illegal settlements. I believe these products should be boycotted, prevented from being imported to Europe and elsewhere. This has been a project of the Israeli peace movement since the 1990s. The Israeli organization called "Gush Shalom" (Peace Bloc), headed by the veteran peace activist Uri Avneri, has for years advocated boycotting settlement products, and compiled lists of products that are manufactured in the settlements.

This pressure - from both the Israeli peace movement and also from the international peace and solidarity movement - led to several victories. These include, for example, the case of the Swedish lock company "Mul-T-Lock," that in 2011 moved its factory from the illegal settlement Barkan to the Israeli town of Yavneh. Or the French-Belgian bank Dexia, that in the same year stopped giving long-term loans to Israeli settlements. Just recently, in September, the "Soda Stream" company announced that it is closing its West Bank factory and reopening it in the southern part of Israel, after an intensive international boycott campaign.

In Germany, because of its history, there are some apologists for the Israeli government who try to smear those who call for a boycott of products from the settlements. On this question we must be very clear: Criticizing the policies of the Israeli government, calling to apply international pressure for it to comply to UN resolutions is not only legitimate, but for Leftwing activists, it is their duty.

The fallacy of "self-hatred"

We should not fall into the trap of accepting the discourse and the terminology of the Israeli rightwing. They try to portray the Jewish opponents of the Zionist ideology, or the Jewish opponents of the Occupation as so-called "self-hating Jews." They try to say that those on the international Left who hold these positions are "anti-Semites." But they were not the first to employ these tactics.

In the United States Congress, in the early 1950s, at the height of the Cold War hysteria, Senator Joseph McCarthy led a witch hunt against progressives, against Communists and people on the Left. The main mechanism for McCarthyism was a committee of Congress set up to investigate so-called "Un-American" activities. Were all those progressives who were investigated really "Un-American" or "anti-American"? No, by doing the kind of political work that they did - calling for nuclear disarmament or criticizing U.S. foreign policy, etc. - they were serving the true national interests of the American people, and they did so by opposing the US government, not by supporting its policies.

In the Reichstag, on December 2, 1914, the great working-class revolutionary Karl Liebknecht voted alone against the war budget. Was he a "self-hating German?" No, by voicing his opposition to the imperialist war, he was serving the true national interests of the German people and all the peoples of Europe. He did so by opposing the German government, not by supporting its policies.

Likewise, in Israel today, opposing the colonial policy of expanding the settlements, opposing the criminal blockade on the Gaza strip, opposing the wars of aggression that Israel launches every few years, is serving the true national interests of the Jewish-Israeli people, of the Palestinian people, of all the peoples in the Middle East.

The equation is very simple: Those who support peace, must oppose war; Those who are on the Left, must criticize the Right; Those who wish for the Jewish-Israeli people to live in peace and security, must take part in the struggle against the policies of the Israeli government, which is the number one contributor to the undermining of peace and security for the Jewish-Israeli people.

A one-state solution?

The equation is very simple, but it should not be made simplistic. There are some people in the international Left who employ formal logic, and ask: If we are for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and believe them to be equal, then why can't peace and equality be materialized within the framework of a single state for the two peoples?

In reality, there is already one state that exists in all the territory of historic Palestine, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and that is the current State of Israel, which controls all of the territory. Within this area, there exist two completely different political regimes: On the one hand, there are the citizens of Israel - the majority of whom are Jewish citizens, with a national minority of Arab-Palestinian citizens.On the other hand, there are the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, who have no civil rights, because they don't have any state to call their own.

Calling for a one state today, as a concrete proposal to address the existing reality of Occupation, means preserving many aspects of this existing reality. A one state - with the current socio-economic discrepancies between Israelis and Palestinians, and the Palestinians with no viable economy of their own - will mean a state where the Palestinian are reduced to the lower social strata, and their oppression will continue in a different form.

Furthermore, neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians support the creation of a one state, but rather each people wishes to live in a state which represents its right to national self-determination. In a joint survey of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey, published in June, 51 percent of Israeli respondents and 51 percent of Palestinian respondents supported the two-states solution. That is not to say that 49 percent of Palestinians and Israelis support a one state. Rather, a large section of Israeli and Palestinian society believes that nosolution will be possible. Thus, the challenge for the Left in Israel and Palestine, is not only to struggle against injustice, but also to show the people that there is hope for this injustice to end.

The debate about the form of the solution - a one state, twostates, federation, confederation, etc. - is a debate that we can have, since within the Left, in general, there should exist a critical space for discussion between different views. However, this debate should be grounded in principles - such as the principle of not correcting one injustice by creating another.

I believe that the framework for a just peace remains clear: The establishment of an independent Palestinian state, alongside the State of Israel, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and with the June 4, 1967 borders ("The Green Line") as the internationally-recognized border of peace; the evacuation of all Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the dismantling of the Separation Wall; the release of all Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails; a just solution of the problem of Palestinian refugees according to all relevant UN resolutions, including resolution 194. Furthermore, in order to advance toward peace between Israel and all its neighboring countries, Israel must withdraw from the Occupied Syrian Golan Heights and from the Shebaa Farms in South Lebanon. For a Middle East free from nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, the Israeli government most respect the international Non-Proliferation Treaty.

This framework - which forms the basis for the peace program of the Communist Party of Israel and its electoral front Hadash - is also detailed in the decision of the Die Linke fraction in the Bundestag, from April 20, 2010.

The solidarity and the principled position of Die Linke, in favor of a just Israeli-Palestinian peace, are welcome and necessary. For Germany and other EU member states to adopt critical positions towards the current Israeli policies, is a step that will help the struggle for peace. This struggle is advanced not only on the international level, and not only by the struggle of the Palestinian people, but also by the struggle of the peace movement in Israel itself.

The peace movement is still active

During the 2014 war on Gaza, the Israeli peace movement mobilized on the streets of TelAviv, Haifa and West Jerusalem. We did so under difficult conditions, with government spokespersons accusing us of treason, and in a general atmosphere fueled by racism and fear. Peace demonstrations were physically attacked by right extremists, with the police standing idly by. The major media outlets, television channels and newspapers were doing their best to ignore the critical voices, and helped to convince many people that rallying behind the government is the only real option.

Nonetheless, the peace movement persisted. On July 26, 2014, a major anti-war demonstration was organized to take place in Rabin Square, the main square in the center of TelAviv. The demonstration was initiated by the Communist Party of Israel, with several peace organizations joining. It was about to take place at a time when TelAviv was targeted by rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. A few hours before the demonstrations, the police announced that it was revoking the license for the demonstration, since there was danger of rocket fire. Police spokespersons issued a statement in the media, saying the demonstration was canceled. However, thousands of Israelis filled Rabin Square that night, demanding that the war on Gaza end. A few weeks later, on Aug. 16, Rabin Square was filled once again with a peace protest, this time also with the participation of the Meretz Party.

Recently, as the wave of violent escalation began in October, a new grassroots peace initiative was launched called "Standing Together," which aimed to bring together Jewish and Arab activists. In October, at the height of the escalation, this new initiative organized a peace rally in West Jerusalem that was attended by thousands, many of whom were young people. It was followed in the next weeks with successful joint Jewish-Arab anti-racist and anti-Occupation demonstrations in the northern city of Haifa and in the southern town of Rahat.

On Nov. 20, the initiative "Standing Together" was supposed to organize a joint Israeli-Palestinian peace demonstration near Bethlehem, with participation from both inside Israel as well as the Occupied Palestinian Territories. However, because of the violent attacks which cost the lives of civilians in TelAviv and near Jerusalem, the Israeli army placed a curfew on the region of Bethlehem, which prevented the Palestinian peace protestors from attending. Therefore, the demonstration was postponed.

The initiative "Standing Together" represents an attempt to create a dynamic new force in the Israeli peace movement, a pluralistic initiative, where people who come from different parties and organizations can work together, bringing together both Jews and Arabs. The initiative is supported by the TelAviv Office of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (Foundation), and I'd like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the Stiftung and to Tsafrir Cohen, the head of the TelAviv Office, who recognized the importance of this new initiative.

Solidarity and cooperation between the German Left and the Israeli Left are needed. In a deeply globalized world, issues never remain local, and the situation in Israel and Palestine has its effects elsewhere, in Europe and in Germany also. By taking as a point of departure our common values - our internationalism, our opposition to injustice and wars - we can assist each other in our struggles to build better societies and a better world.

Uri Weltmann is an Israeli peace activist, member of the Executive Board of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian and Israeli Studies, and member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Israel.

This article also appeared on Die Linke website here.

Photo: Palestinian child stands by a damaged wall of a house following an overnight Israeli missile strike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, July 15, 2014. Lefteris Pitarakis | AP

Why the B-52 failed

Tue, 12 Jan 2016 14:14:00 +0000

On the plane to Hanoi earlier this month, I opened my copy of the New York Times to find an article by Dave Philipps: "After 60 Years, B-52's Still Dominate the U.S. Fleet." The piece stuck with me for weeks as I traveled through north Vietnam, trying to unravel U.S. amnesia towards the people of this country and what they call "the American war."

Philipps ends with a quote from a former South Vietnamese Navy officer, Phuoc Luong. "American technology is super," he tells him. "It's a great plane. In Vietnam we didn't use it enough. That's why we lost."

If anyone knows the B-52, it's the people of Hanoi. The enormous planes bombed them day and night for twelve days at Christmas in 1972. Today there's a museum dedicated to the bomber, and the wreckage of one still sits in a small lake in the middle of the city.

When I tried to imagine what it was like living amid the constant deafening explosions, I found an earlier article in the archives of Mr. Philipps' newspaper that gives an idea. It describes a visit by Telford Taylor, who'd been a judge at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, folksinger Joan Baez, and two other U.S. citizens in 1972. They'd gone to Hanoi that Christmas to deliver mail to pilots of those B-52s. Some had managed to survive being shot down while delivering President Nixon's brutal holiday greeting, and then were apprehended by the people they'd been bombing.

The visitors described their fear in the midst of cataclysmic destruction, and their subsequent journey through the city and its ruins. "The most horrible scene that I've ever seen in my life was when we visited the residential area of Khan Thieu [sic], and as far as I could see, everything was destroyed," mourned Yale University Divinity School associate dean Michael Allen.

Thirty years later another Times writer, Laurence Zuckerman, also wrote about this iconic airplane: "The B-52's Psychological Punch: The Enemy Knows You're Serious." Zuckerman was reacting to a documentary on the B-52s by filmmaker Harmut Bitomsky. Zuckerman's piece was not exactly a paean to the aging airplane, but like Philipps, he couldn't quite hide a certain admiration for its long life.

The B-52 was built originally in the early 1950s to drop nuclear bombs on the Soviet Union. Since then it's carried "conventional" bombs, releasing them instead over people and homes in dozens of other countries. "It is the longevity and versatility of the giant bomber, which started flying in 1952 and is expected to remain in service until 2037, that is so fascinating," Zuckerman commented.

While both writers carefully note that carpet bombing inspired massive protests both in the U.S. and internationally, what's glaringly absent in their pieces is any sense of what it means to be under the B-52, on its receiving end.

The Christmas bombing of Vietnam was a war crime. No U.S. official was ever tried and punished for it, and it was as irrational as it was savage. The negotiations for the U.S. troop withdrawal from South Vietnam would reach a conclusion within a few weeks of it. Could some minute extraction of leverage in those talks have been worth the deaths of more than a thousand Vietnamese?

Throughout the eight years in which the U.S. bombed North Vietnam, its bombers had few military targets. One airman quoted by Philipps tried to claim that bombing nevertheless had some strategic value: "We're doing a lot more than killing monkeys and making kindling wood out of the jungle," he claimed. The B-52s targets, however, were people and the infrastructure that held their lives together. U.S. planes bombed dikes to try to cause flooding in Hanoi and the countryside. They bombed the Long Bien railroad bridge - the link that brought food and coal into Hanoi so that people could eat and keep warm.

The B-52s and their accompanying F-4s and F-14s bombed the small town of Sapa in the hills north of Hanoi, near the Chinese border. Sapa is the cultural center for many of Vietnam's ethnic minorities. It has no military value. Why bomb it, if the purpose was not to terrorize people and extract revenge for their defiance?

Traveling through the north, I sometimes asked ordinary people - taxi drivers or restaurant workers - what I should see in Hanoi. Mostly they'd tell me to go to the Army Museum. One morning I did, and I could see why. On the ground outside the main halls are captured tanks, a Huey helicopter, and rows of bombs. In the courtyard pieces of shot-down planes have been welded together into a tower, topped by the tail assembly of a U.S. jet.

Kids are climbing all over them. At the museum entrance sits an old MIG fighter the Vietnamese got from the Soviet Union. Parents send their children up a small ladder bolted to the side, and there they pose for iPhone pictures, next to the 14 red stars painted on the fuselage, each representing a U.S. plane it shot down.

It was a moment for conflicting feelings. I was glad to see the instruments of war surrounded by happy families - no war anymore. Then I thought about the pilot of the MIG. How terrifying it must have been to fly up into the anti-aircraft and missile fire above Hanoi and shoot at the B-52s and their phalanx of fighter escorts. And then I realized, it must have been terrifying for the U.S. pilots too. Eighty four planes were shot down over Vietnam during the Christmas bombing, including 34 of the giant Stratofortresses, according to the museum.

Today's remote controlled wars, with drones guided from computer screens in Colorado, seem antiseptic by comparison -- for the pilots. Not so for those under the bombs. For people living in the ancient cities of Sana'a or Kunduz, the reality today is much as it was for people in Hanoi that Christmas.

I believe people also had another reason for urging me to go to the museum. Hanoi has long since been rebuilt. In the city and its environs Vietnam is on a building binge, and the impact of the war is no longer so visible. Children born during the Christmas bombing are celebrating their 43rd birthdays.

People walk through the Army Museum exhibit halls, mostly lined with photographs showing all the things they did during that war. Some show Central Committee meetings that made the decision to fight the Americans. Some show people in demonstrations, especially in the South, demanding that the foreigners leave. Some show the hard work of people in the north, sending food and soldiers south to drive them out. There are many portraits of people killed, or imprisoned in the infamous tiger cages, for fighting the U.S. and the South Vietnamese government it propped up until the last helicopter took off from the roof of the U.S. Embassy on May 1, 1975.

But despite the bombing and the meticulous documentation of the war's terrible cost, I felt little hostility or bitterness in the people I met. In the end, they'd won. How could the war's planners back in Washington have thought it would turn out otherwise? The Vietnamese were no latecomers to insurrectionary organizing. They were hardly ignorant or apolitical countryfolk, although this was certainly the prevalent stereotype in Congress and the Pentagon.

The Army Museum is focused on the American war. But the half dozen other museums in Hanoi that also document Vietnam's revolutionary history make plain how long liberation took. Sophisticated political organizations took decades to mature and gain experience. By the time of the U.S. intervention, they'd been at it for many, many years. That experience finally brought about the U.S. defeat.

If anything, the Vietnamese official history on display in museums is even angrier with France than with the U.S. Long rooms and galleries of photographs show the nationalists and their first resistance to the French colonizers starting in 1858. It joined the rising revolutionary wave of the early 20th century, and crystallized in the launch of the Indochinese Communist Party in the 1930s.

Hanoi's Hoa Lo monument (now largely overshadowed by a new office and residential complex) preserves the prison where the anti-French resisters were held. In the cells of the old French Maison Centrale, dioramas of prisoners in manacles and leg irons shout at their jailers with their fists raised. Two guillotines, used to chop the heads off those who couldn't escape, sit in dark corners of this and the official history museum. Even the women's museum has a floor dedicated to those imprisoned by the French.

That history of resistance went on far longer than the U.S. war - almost a hundred years. During much of it Ho Chi Minh was not even in Vietnam to lead it. He was first an itinerant sailor, then in Moscow working for the Comintern, and finally was sent to one country after another, to jumpstart movements like those that had already begun in his own country. While it's possible to see why western governments feared and demonized him as a hardened revolutionary, the Vietnamese resistance movements were not dependent on any single person. The final defeat of the U.S., in fact, came several years after Ho had died.

The language used to demonize Vietnam's Communists and nationalists by those they sought to overthrow was just as vituperative as that used in the U.S. Congress against Muslim radicals today. Terrorist, after all, was a term used to describe anarchists and socialists for over a century. That language of terrorism and the cold war was used to create hysteria that easily justified sending U.S. advisors, and then troops, into Vietnam once the French had been defeated in 1954. Ultimately, it was used to justify the B-52s and the 1972 Christmas bombing. It cost millions of Vietnamese lives, and tens of thousands of U.S. lives as well.

When President Reagan and his successors sought to overcome the "Vietnam Syndrome" to make later interventions acceptable, they once again used that language. It justifies even today's use of the B-52s, 63 years after they began flying. The U.S. Air Force has no intention of retiring the 76 remaining planes in its fleet. In fact, the successors to General Curtis ("Bomb them back to the stone age") LeMay now want to deploy them in Syria.

They are institutionally unwilling to remember. Bombing did not defeat the Vietnamese. Phuoc Luong is wrong. More B-52s would not have won that war. They will not win any new war against a people willing to do whatever it takes to survive and win.

Walking through the streets of Hanoi, I could see see why. One morning I went out to Long Bien Bridge to take photographs at sunrise. The trains going north leave downtown Hanoi just as it gets light. It's a great moment to see them emerge from the warren of houses next to the tracks, their old cars flashing past as they set out across the long span over the Red River.

Long Bien is an old bridge, and was one of the four great bridges of the world when it was built in 1902. A plaque at one end reminds the commuters who trundle past on bicycles and scooters that it was built by Gustav Eiffel, who used the same iron that went into his tower along the Seine in Paris. During the American war it was probably the one structure U.S. bombers could clearly see from on high, and they blew it apart over and over.

Down below the bridge abutment is the Long Bien market, where many of the city's fruit and vegetable sellers go to meet farmers bringing produce into the city. As I took pictures of the train and the stalls below, I tried to imagine the columns of smoke, the deafening roar of jet engines and then explosions, the screams of people torn to shreds with their dogs, their pushcarts and melons.

As the trains passed I wondered if the locomotives were the same as those that must have been repaired a thousand times during the war. They look old. Despite the glitz of Hanoi's new wave of foreign investment, Vietnam is still a poor country. Things must be saved and reused again and again, including railroad cars and bridges.

I felt that persistence as the sun came up. It's why the bombing, despite its immense destruction, failed so utterly.

Photo: The bombing of Hanoi Station on Christmas Day, 1972.

Heirs to notorious gangster seek to be compensated by Cuba

Mon, 11 Jan 2016 15:51:00 +0000

Meyer Lansky, born in Poland in 1902 as Meier Suchowlanski, was a close associate of Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, and others of the worst 20^th-century gangsters. He was one of organized crime's chief experts on running gambling casinos and money laundering, and so adept at it that he was sometimes called "the Mob's accountant." He died unrepentant at age 80 in 1983 after serving very little jail time.

Now one of his heirs is trying to cash in on the process of normalization between the United States and socialist Cuba.

Lansky had his fingerprints on Mafia activities in New York, Chicago and Las Vegas, where he and Siegel had been two of the "leading lights" in establishing Mafia control of gambling casinos. He also developed ties to the U.S. government. During World War II, if his claims are accurate, he and Luciano helped the U.S. military to fight against Axis agents who were threatening U.S. shipping. Lansky's working relationship with Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista, was most profitable for him and his associates, and for Batista and his family as well.

In December of 1946, Lansky organized a star-studded meeting of the most notorious and violent Mafia dons from both the Italian Cosa Nostra and the Jewish "mob" in the United States, including Luciano, Santo Trafficante, Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia, Carlos Marcello, Sam Giancana, Tony Accardo, Joe Bonano and others. All the major Mafia families were represented. The venue was the Hotel Nacional in Havana.

Film buffs will recall that this meeting is a key scene in Francis Ford Coppola's film "The Godfather Part II." In the film, Lansky is called "Hyman Roth"and is played by Lee Strasberg. Although the meeting took place when Fulgencio Batista was temporarily out of power and replaced as president by Ramón Grau San Martín, it was made possible by Batista's continued influence in Cuba. And Grau's administration was hardly clean either. Batista returned to power via a coup d'état in 1952, and Lansky and his colleagues continued on their merry way, making huge profits from gambling casinos, race tracks and vice in Cuba.

By all accounts this was a very "fruitful business meeting," even if several of the attendees, including Giancano and Anastasia, were later "whacked," as the Hollywood scriptwriters put it, by disgruntled colleagues. Besides setting the stage for massive crime syndicate infiltration of Cuba, all with the blessings of Batista and his family and cronies, the meeting straightened out working relationships among "the families."

In 1931, another conference had ended the traditional system of the "capo di tutti capi" (boss of all bosses) and replaced it with "the Commission," a sort of gruesome corporate board to run organized crime, in which Luciano played a key role. At the Hotel Nacional, the "capo" system was, de facto, resurrected without abolishing the Commission, with Luciano taking the job and sidelining rival Vito Genovese. There was a disciplinary decision that "Bugsy" Siegel would have to be killed for skimming money from the "Flamingo" casino in Las Vegas. Lansky "reluctantly" assented: Siegel was duly bumped off by a sniper in 1947.

But perhaps the most momentous decision at the Hotel Nacional was for organized crime to enter the international narcotics trade full blast. Luciano was already heavily involved in this, and had connections in Italy and France. With the help of Lansky's presence and connections in Cuba, the island became a major transshipment and money laundering point for heroin shipped from Eurasia and bound for U.S. markets.

And then a revolution...

Then came the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and the fun and games ended. Angry Cubans trashed and looted some of Lansky's operations in the first days of the new regime. The new government, headed by interim President Manuel Urrutia and led by Fidel Castro, took over and shut down all the gambling casinos, the narcotics trade and other dens of vice. There was no talk about compensation for Lansky and his ilk, although Cuba did offer to negotiate compensation terms with other U.S. businesses it had nationalized (the U.S. government, thinking it would be easy to overthrow the Cuban Revolution, did not cooperate).

Cuba arranged to compensate citizens of other nations which the Revolution nationalized, but no government anywhere would compensate the owners of a criminal enterprise.

During the first years of the Cuban Revolution, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) joined forces with several of the gangsters who participated in the 1946 Havana meeting, to get underway multiple plots to assassinate Fidel Castro. The motive of the Mafiosi was to get back at Castro for the loss of their investments and crooked profits.

Now that relations with the United States are on a new footing, and negotiations are taking place between the two countries on the issue of mutual compensation claims (the U.S. for $1.9 billion plus interest for private properties, formerly belonging to U.S. citizens and companies, which were nationalized by Cuba; Cuba for $121 billion of damage and thousands of Cuban lives lost due to the 57-year U.S. campaign of economic sabotage and terrorism against the socialist government), Meyer Lansky's grandson, Gary Rapoport, suddenly pops up and asks for a modest $8 million in compensation for the gangster's nationalized Habana Riviera Hotel.

What is Rapoport thinking? Cuba would certainly never agree, and it is hard to imagine the U.S. government putting any effort into getting compensation for a property whose origin was so tainted by criminality and corruption.

How would it look in the newspaper headlines? The controversy would likely open up anew the whole "can of worms" about CIA involvement with organized crime and murder plots.

So why is this important? Only because the Lansky story illustrates how it came to pass that Cuba had become the site of so much U.S.-based criminal activity by 1959, and why not just the Revolution's leadership but also the whole of the Cuban people were so eager to wipe the slate clean.

A close examination of the books of many former U.S. enterprises in Cuba would no doubt show a whole lot more questionable activity, including corrupt ties to prerevolutionary Cuban politicians and officials.

Photo: Meyer Lansky. | Wikimedia

Courageous prosecutor indicts 18 high-ranking military officers for Guatemala genocide

Mon, 11 Jan 2016 15:46:00 +0000

On Thursday, January 14, Jimmy Morales, Guatemala's new president, will be inaugurated. He owes his election victory to a massive outpouring of popular anger against corruption in the administration of former President Otto Pérez Molina, who was forced to resign under pressure and is now facing prosecution. Morales, a comedian who never held public office before, was elected as the "least worst option" because other major candidates were all implicated in corruption scandals.

But there will be no honeymoon for Morales or for Guatemala.

On December 30, the acting president until the inauguration, former judge Alejandro Maldonado, announced a plan to apply sub-minimum wages to four areas of the country as bait to attract new direct foreign investment by offering even cheaper labor in this already impoverished country.

Then on Wednesday, January 6, Guatemala's courageous top prosecutor, Thelma Aldana, announced the capture and imminent prosecution of 18 former high-ranking military officers for murder, kidnapping and crimes against humanity which were committed by the U.S.-backed Guatemalan army during the military dictatorship of General Fernando Romeo Lucas García (in power 1978-1982). Similar massacres and crimes against human rights continued under Lucas García's successors, Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt (1982-1983) and Oscar Humberto Mejía Victores (1983-1986). Ms. Aldana's efforts also were crucial in the fall of President Pérez Molina last year.

Finally, there will be a new trial, starting next week, for Ríos Montt, who overthrew Lucas García and succeeded him as dictator. He had been convicted previously but his conviction was overturned on technical grounds by none other than Alejandro Maldonado, at that time a judge.

The arrested military officers include dictator Lucas García's brother, Gen. Manuel Benedicto Lucas García, former army chief of staff. Not indicted is former Colonel Edgar Justino Ovalle Maldonado, who has immunity because he is a member of Congress. The prosecution will ask for this immunity to be lifted, but another issue is that Ovalle Maldonado, who is one of the key suspects in multiple massacres in the Ixil Triangle region during Ríos Montt's regime, is described as the "right hand man" of the new president, Jimmy Morales, who was elected with the organized support of former military officers. Morales appears to be very much a figure of the right, so it is not to be expected that he will, as president, be supportive of the prosecution of these officers.

Atrocities and the U.S. role

The specific atrocities of which the officers are accused took place from 1981 to 1982, in the area of Cobán, the capital of Guatemala's Alta Verapaz Department (province), where a large proportion of the population belongs to the Q'eqchi branch of the Maya people. The army, many of whose top officers were trained by the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, which coordinated closely with U.S. officials and had the full support of the Reagan administration, had the mission of sweeping through the region to suppress real or imagined popular support for left-wing guerrillas. In the process, entire villages were wiped out and a vast number of people killed by the most sadistic methods imaginable, including crucifixion, often after being tortured and raped.

Key evidence in the trial will be the discovery last year of 558 human skeletons at the military base in Cobán, of which at least 90 belong to children. These people had been captured in the military sweeps and subsequently murdered. A second case involves a single death: that of a 15-year-old boy whose sister, an activist, had been captured by the army but who had escaped after being raped and tortured. The boy was killed in revenge for her escape.

All in all, Guatemala's civil war cost up to 250,000 lives, the vast majority civilians killed by the military or by right-wing, military-allied death squads. Up to now very few of the direct perpetrators - and none of the U.S. abettors and enablers in the CIA, the School of the Americas, or our national political leadership - have ever been brought to account.

The war between the Guatemalan military and the guerrillas ended, more or less, with a peace agreement in 1996. But Guatemala has remained one of the most violent countries in the world, and the violence has a racist edge directed principally against the indigenous people who form almost half of the population of this country of 16 million. More recently, the Mexican "Zetas" narcotics cartel has been operating in the area, which has upped the violence once again.

The poor in Guatemala have been getting poorer in recent years. In 2014 a coffee blight decimated that key export crop, and now an unusually strong "el Niño" phenomenon has led to a massive drought that has displaced hundreds of thousands of farmers. Recent Guatemalan governments have followed the strategy of trying to keep wages low and the population quiet so as to attract, they say, more direct foreign investment. So when acting president Maldonado announced his sub-minimum wage plan for four areas in the country and was met by protest demonstrations, a lawsuit by rural workers and a temporary court injunction, he exploded in a bizarre tantrum. Shouting and gesticulating, he accused protesters of being "the worst kind of people,""Leninists" and "fascists," and said that if anyone did not want to work for the sub-minimum wage they didn't have to because some other person, with a sick mother perhaps, would be glad to take their jobs.

Between the violence and the intractable poverty, many Guatemalans see no other option than to migrate to the United States. This is the source of the Guatemalan part of the "child migrant wave" that has created such hysteria among politicians in our own country.

Photo: Jimmy Morales/AP

Spain’s elections: Establishment parties punished, road ahead uncertain

Mon, 04 Jan 2016 13:07:00 +0000

On Dec. 20, Spaniards went to the polls for elections to the Cortes, the bicameral parliament. The results constitute a sharp blow against the main establishment parties and an advance for the left, but leave the country with the prospect of months of wrangling before a new government can be formed. So difficult is this prospect that it is deemed "highly likely" that a new election will have to be called soon.

As many expected, voters severely castigated the People's Party (PP) of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, which lost its majority in the 350 seat Congress of Deputies. With a high voter turnout (73 percent), the PP got only 28.7 percent of the popular vote as opposed to 45 percent in the last election in 2011.

It lost 64 seats in the 350 seat lower house, dropping from 187 to 123. This was the Spanish voters' way of punishing Rajoy and his party for the harsh austerity measures imposed on the Spanish people at the behest of the European ruling class. Their austerity mandate has left Spain with a more than 20 percent unemployment rate (much higher among young workers) and a shredded social safety net. Hundreds of thousands of Spanish citizens have been forced to leave the country entirely to look for work.

But the biggest opposition party, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, did not reap the benefit. They dropped from 110 seats to 90 in the lower house, with a drop in the popular vote from 28.8 percent to 22 percent. In the 2011 election, they had already lost 59 seats.

Spanish voters had evidently not forgotten that under the previous Socialist Workers Party government of former Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, some of the same austerity measures had been imposed. Although the PP and Prime Minister Rajoy have been particularly disgraced by various corruption schemes, the Socialist Workers' Party has not been immune to such defects and so they too faced punishment.

The main winner was the left-socialist Podemos Party which, running in its first Spain-wide election, has become the third largest party in the lower house with 65 seats and 20 percent of the vote, defying pre-election polls. Podemos is a new party that arose from the "indignados" ("indignant ones") protest movements against austerity and corruption that have rocked Spain for the last 5 years. Due to the indignados movement, left wing candidates won the mayoralties of Madrid and Barcelona earlier this year.

The rest of the vote went to a variety of smaller parties including the United Left (IU), a coalition of the Spanish Communist Party and others, a new centrist party called "Ciudadanos" ("Citizens") which also arose from the indignados movement but which opposes Catalan and Basque nationalism, and several Catalan and Basque parties that support separation from Spain.

The vote for the United Left dropped from 5.5 percent in 2011 to 3.7 percent in 2015, losing six of the eight seats it held previously. It is probable that some United Left voters joined the tide in favor of Podemos, due to the two parties running united tickets in some areas. Ciudadanos got 40 seats on 13.9 percent of the vote, taking further votes away from Rajoy's PP.

The next biggest vote in the lower house went to the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, the Republican Left of Catalonia, or ERC. It got 9 seats and 2.5 percent of the popular vote. The ERC is a left wing party that advocates for the independence of Catalonia from Spain, a very important issue in the country at present. ERC goes back to before the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939. It was part of the coalition that defended the Spanish Republic against the Fascist uprising headed by General Francisco Franco, and many of its leaders were murdered, tortured, imprisoned or driven into exile when Franco won.

More right wing Catalan nationalists won eight seats.

In the Basque country in Spain's northwest, right leaning Basque separatists won 6 seats, while left wing Basque nationalists of the Basque Country Unite Party won two. A conservative party advocating Canarian (Canary Islands) nationalism won one seat.

In the elections to the less powerful Senate, PP and the Socialist Workers also lost seats but PP retains its majority because only 208 of the 266 seats were up for election. Podemos, running for the first time, won 16 seats. Basque and Catalan nationalists of both left and right also picked up some seats.

It is difficult to see, based on these numbers, how any combination of parties could be put together to form a stable coalition government. Podemos, Socialist Workers and others on the left, will not form a right-center or right-center-left coalition with the disgraced PP. Socialist Workers will not form a coalition with Podemos because Socialist Workers, like PP, opposes a referendum on separation that the Catalan government has advocated. Podemos recognizes the right of the Catalans to hold their referendum, but does not support the idea of Catalonia breaking away from Spain.

On the left, many are working under the assumption that new elections are inevitable. Jose Luis Centella, the Secretary General of the Spanish Communist Party, wrote in an opinion piece in the party's newspaper on January 1, that the suffering that the Troika (European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund), the Spanish ruling class and monopoly capital have imposed on the people can only be combatted electorally through uniting the forces of Podemos, the Communist Party, the United Left and mass formations.

Photo: AP

Cuba celebrates triumph of its revolution

Mon, 04 Jan 2016 12:10:00 +0000

For Cubans, January 1, 1959, marks the "triumph of the revolution." That day revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro gained state power. Today socialist Cuba seems to stand alone, an anomaly. Russia's socialist revolution failed after 83 years. Socialist revolutions in China and Vietnam have been durable, but capitalist enterprises and market forces predominate in both places.

Cuba is different, seemingly, because of its history both before and after January 1, 1959. Traditions of revolutionary struggle account for the staying power of Cuba's socialist revolution. In particular, aspirations toward national independence and a socially just society date from long ago and yet are undiminished.

Cubans fought two wars for independence from Spain; one began in 1868, another in 1895. At the time many wealthy Cubans opted for joining the Spanish colony to the United States. Jose Marti, organizer, leader, and ideologist of the 1895 war, had long inveighed against these so-called annexationists.

In a letter written in 1895 from a Cuban battlefield, where he would die, Marti attested to his "duty of preventing the United States from spreading through the Antilles as Cuba gains its independence, and from overpowering with that additional strength our lands of America. All I have done so far, and all I will do, is for this purpose."

The war ended. Afterwards, the United States commandeered Cuba's economic resources, unleashed military interventions, and manipulated one government after another. Students and unionists in 1933 rose up against the Geraldo Machado dictatorship. Military strongman Fulgencio Batista shortly took over. With U.S. backing, Batista would dominate Cuban politics, either as president or from behind the scenes, until his forced departure on January 1, 1959. Poverty and deprivation prevailed during the era of the republic, from 1902 to 1959.

The night of January 1, 1959, rebel commander Fidel Castro told people in Santiago, Cuba, "This time, lucky for Cuba, the revolution really will be completed ... It won't be like in '95 when the Americans came and took possession of it. [They] wouldn't even let Calixto García [and his rebel army] enter Santiago de Cuba."

Cuba had regained its national sovereignty. The United States, in response, resorted to military invasion, terror attacks, guerrilla raids, microbiological warfare, sponsorship of an internal opposition, economic blockade, international financial isolation, media hostility, and radio and TV propaganda broadcasts.

Nothing worked. Cuban independence has survived. In defending national sovereignty, Cuba has had international law and world opinion on its side. Generalized respect for Cuban independence has extended to acknowledgement of Cuba's right to choose a socialist course.

Likewise, long struggle for social change, that other marker of Cuban exceptionality, has buoyed up Cuba's revolution, mainly due to its evident success. Rebel combatants in both independence wars were mostly slaves or ex-slaves, landless agricultural laborers, and poor urban workers. Their teacher, Jose Marti, had armed them with ideas, the primary one being "With all, and for the good of all."

Speaking before a judge on October 16, 1953, Fidel Castro outlined tasks: "The problem of the land, the problem of industrialization, the problem of housing, the problem of unemployment, the problem of education, and the problem of the people's health - these are the six problems we would take immediate steps to solve." Defending the earlier attack by himself and young rebels on the Moncada Barracks, he ended his plea with: "History will absolve me."

On January 1, 1959, the people of Santiago learned from Castro that, "The revolution begins now ... The revolution will be a hard undertaking, full of dangers." That being so, what did happen to meet the basic needs of all Cubans? The answer is at hand.

A recent article entitled "57 Realities of the Cuban revolution in 2015" takes note of achievements. A few of them are: 4 percent unemployment; maternal death rate, 35.1 deaths per 100,000 births; infant mortality, less than five deaths per 1,000 births (almost 70 prior to 1960); and life expectancy, 78.45. The data rank among the world's most favorable. The state budgets 25 percent of its outlay for health care, 24 percent for education. There are 150 hospitals, 400 polyclinics, 11,000 primary care medical offices, and 140 maternity homes. In 2015-16, school enrollment from pre-school to secondary school totaled 1,792,600 students. Cuba has 60 "centers of higher education,"11.9 percent of Cubans are university graduates, 100 percent of Cubans age 15-24 are literate, and 99.8 percent of adults are literate.

So, ultimately, January 1 in Cuba marks a continuum from partial revolutionary fulfillment to future promise. Rosa Miriam Elizalde, editor of the Cubadebate.cu website, elaborates:

"Welcome, the 57th year of the triumph of the Revolution," she writes, but "[t]ime does not begin, nor does it stop; it passes. ... Time is a space made possible for our projects and those of others. It's a field of struggle: A fight, A history. You and I ... whether we like it or not, we form part of it."

Photo: Cuban children in Old Havana, March 2015. | PW

South America: The Bolivarians strike back

Mon, 04 Jan 2016 10:45:00 +0000

As 2015 wound down, the left wing Bolivarian "pink tide" in Latin America suffered two serious setbacks. On Oct. 25, in a runoff election, right winger Mauricio Macri won the presidential elections in Argentina by a small margin, ending a 12 year streak of left-center rule under first Nestor Kirchner and then his wife and successor, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Then in Venezuela on December 6, the right wing MUD coalition was victorious in elections for the national legislature, giving it an ability to undo some of the progressive measures that governments run by the Venezuelan United Socialist Party (PSUV) and allies have accomplished since the election of Hugo Chavez as president back in 1998.

Both are sobering results for the left, which have it reassessing its political tactics and approaches to governing not only in those two countries but in other left-wing governed nations as well. At the same time, the left is launching a fightback aimed principally at defending the gains made by the working class and poor during the last decade and a half.

The defeat of the left in Argentina was not by a huge margin. Macri of the CAMBIEMOS coalition beat Daniel Scioli of the leftist Front for Victory, by only 2.6 percentage points, or 681,000 votes out of the approximately 25 million cast. Moreover, the Front for Victory continues to have a solid majority in the Senate, and Macri has a plurality but not a majority in the lower house. This will make it difficult for Macri to dismantle Kirchner era programs and policies that have strong popular support.

In Venezuela, the situation is more dire. Election results showed the right wing MUD (Mesa de Unidad Democratica) coalition winning a bare two thirds majority in the unicameral National Assembly, with a total of 112 seats. This is a very serious matter for left wing President Nicolas Maduro of the PSUV and his supporters.

With a two thirds majority, the right can do serious damage to the progressive heritage of the Chavez-Maduro governments. Once the new legislature is sworn in on January 5, it can potentially not only pass its own legislation to undo some of the social and labor reforms enacted by the PSUV and allies, but also call a constitutional convention, remove officials and begin proceedings to remove President Maduro from power.

In both Argentina and Venezuela, the right wing victors have moved fast to consolidate their gains and to return their countries to old pro-corporate, neo-liberal economic strategies, while the left has gone into an emergency mobilization mode to block threats to working class gains. In both countries, the right, during the election campaigns, had downplayed plans to dismantle popular social policies. But it is hard to see how some of the proposed changes can be brought about without this.

Macri, who was inaugurated on December 10, immediately implemented a de facto 30 percent currency devaluation and a cut in or elimination of taxes on agricultural goods such as beef, soybeans, d wheat, and other products. The former led to a quick jump in prices and was seen as detrimental to the working class and other low and middle class sectors while the latter was hailed by big landowners, major supporters of the Argentine right.

Macri's new cabinet is full of people from major transnational corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Monsanto and General Motors, as well as the International Monetary Fund. A major question is how Macri will deal with the matter of the "vulture funds", U.S. based hedge funds which have been bedeviling Cristina Kirchner's government with their demands for full payback on bonds that they acquired for pennies on the dollar when Argentina defaulted in 2001.

Macri says he will restart negotiations with these funds, but it is hard to see how he could accede to their demands without undoing the entire restructuring of Argentine debt which was one of the major achievements of the two Kirchners. On foreign policy, Macri has tried to marginalize Venezuela within the MERCOSUR trade bloc.

In Venezuela, some in the MUD coalition which, after next week, will dominate the National Assembly has called for an end to the PETROCARIBE system of Venezuelan oil aid to poorer countries in the Caribbean area, and is demanding the freeing of right wing leader and wealthy businessman Leopoldo Lopez, who is serving a prison sentence for his part in violent rioting that killed 43 people in 2014.

How is the left responding? First, in both countries there is clear recognition that an electoral loss is not just due to someone else's wickedness, whether it be the wickedness of U.S. imperialism or the local reactionaries. Especially in Venezuela, strong criticisms and self-criticisms are being made of the performance of both the PSUV and the government in the period leading up to the elections.

The Venezuelan Communist Party, grassroots and labor groups and President Maduro himself have been critical of the failure of the PSUV to maintain its democratic relationships with the mass sectors that have benefited from progressive policies. As well, there are criticisms of policies and management, such as the absurdly generous subsidy on gasoline which encouraged a damaging degree of smuggling across the border to Colombia.

The Maduro government has been moving quickly to minimize the damage that the new right wing legislative majority can do. Challenges have been mounted to four of the newly elected legislators on the grounds of electoral irregularities: Three of them are right wingers and one is a PSUV legislator.

Against the wishes of the right wingers, the Supreme Court has ruled that their swearing in has to be delayed until these challenges are dealt with. If even one of the right wingers is forced into a new election, the right will lose its crucial two thirds majority, at least for a while.

Maduro moved fast to name 12 judges on the Supreme Court to replace the same number whose terms are about to expire. He handed over control of the television and radio stations that cover legislative deliberations (a la C-Span) to the stations' employees, and removed control of the mausoleum containing the remains of Hugo Chavez to a private foundation because some of the MUD leaders had threatened to close it.

Maduro also moved ahead to create a "communal parliament." This is a logical extension of the Chavez-Maduro policy of empowering local communal councils at various levels as an integral part of the Venezuelan state.

In Argentina, protest demonstrations have been growing in response to the moves of Macri toward a return to neo-liberal policies of free trade and foreign domination of the economy that caused such havoc in the past. Major labor unions, including the very powerful CGT (General Labor Confederation) have hit the street to protest the damage that Macri's policies have done to their members' purchasing power and to demand redress. There are also protests against Macri's dismantling of government agencies that oversaw the media reform law which has functioned to break up big corporate media monopolies.

The signs of a possible return to repression are also there: The government is threatening to prosecute Hebe de Bonafini, the 83 year old leaders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group that for decades has protested against the "disappearances" of victims of the bloody 1976-1983 military dictatorship, because of her fiery rhetoric at the demonstrations.

Photo: Argentine workers protest pro-business, neo-liberal policies. | Popular Resistance