People Before Profit blog

Ukraine’s communists, under attack, seek solidarity

Wed, 29 Jul 2015 14:34:00 +0000

The Ukraine is now suffering under a totalitarian regime, the head of that country's beleaguered Communist Party told me.

I spoke with Petro Symonenko, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, in June, about the present situation in his beleaguered country. The occasion was

a conference in Nicosia, Cyprus, that both he and I attended in June - the 22nd congress of the AKEL party of Cyprus, the direct descendant of the Communist Party of Cyprus.

Symonenko said that business elites, working primarily under the dictates of the U.S. and European Union powers, mainly Germany, and also of international agencies such as the IMF, succeeded in staging a coup and installing a puppet government in Ukraine.

One thing that the coup government promised was to reduce the power of the business elites - the oligarchy, Symonenko noted. However the oligarchs remain, he said, some having simply switched sides from one politician to another, and the recently installed president, Petro Poroshenko, himself comes from the oligarchy.

The coup has produced a conflict that may well morph into a larger war, Symonenko warned.

As many Ukrainians see it, he said, the U.S. and certain forces within the EU are trying to do what Hitler failed to do: The government and its far-right enforcers are hailing the Hitlerites and collaborators as heroes and condemning as occupiers the Soviet soldiers,who defeated the Nazis and liberated the concentration camps. Partly towards this end, new, repressive, laws are being implemented and opposition parties are being harassed.

One measure mandates five years imprisonment for speaking positively about the Soviet period in the Ukraine, part of a drive by the coup government to ban all reference to and symbols of communism. The law hypocritically links support for communism with support for Nazism, while the regime itself incorporates neo-Nazi-type elements. So extreme are the new measures that they were criticized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European human rights watchdog group. Symonenko said it is now the Communist Party of the Ukraine that is the main force protecting democratic rights in his country.

At the present time, he said, international support is very important and indeed at the AKEL congress a resolution in solidarity with the Ukraine was signed by representatives of most of the international delegates. He called for unity of the left against the resurgence of fascism until it is defeated.

Since I spoke with Symonenko in June, the situation in the Ukraine has continued to deteriorate. In early July there were several violent incidents involving security forces and armed bands. The Ukrainian government claimed that these were the result of attempts to control far-right elements but others say they were actually squabbles between political factions and disputes over smuggling.

In a recent development, Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko has signed a decree prohibiting communist parties from participating in elections this October. Symonenko called it one more step towards outlawing the entire left. He said the KPU would challenge the ban. The party's constitutional right to run in the elections cannot be cancelled by the justice minister, he said.

Photo: Ukrainian Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko, at a meeting in Nicosia, Cyprus, June 2015. Gary Bono/PW

Is Russia a threat in Ukraine?

Wed, 29 Jul 2015 14:12:00 +0000

"If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I'd have to point to Russia. And if you look at their behavior, it's nothing short of alarming."

- Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chair, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff

"This is not about Ukraine. Putin wants to restore Russia to its former position as a great power. There is a high probability that he will intervene in the Baltics to test NATO's Article 5."

- Anders Fogh Rassmusen, former head of NATO

It is not just defense secretaries and generals employing language that conjures up the ghosts of the past. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton used a "Munich" analogy in reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and a common New York Times description of Russia is "revanchist." These two terms take the Ukraine crisis back to 1938, when fascist Germany menaced the world.

Yet comparing the civil war in the Ukraine to the Cold War - let alone Europe on the eve of World War II - has little basis in fact. Yes, Russia is certainly aiding insurgents in eastern Ukraine, but there is no evidence that Moscow is threatening the Baltics, or even the rest of Ukraine. Indeed, it is the West that has been steadily marching east over the past decade, recruiting one former Russian ally or republic after another into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Nor did the Russians start this crisis.

It began when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych turned down a debt deal from the European Union (EU) that would have required Kiev to institute draconian austerity measures, reduce its ties to Russia, and join NATO through the backdoor. In return, Ukraine would have received a very modest aid package.

Moscow, worried about the possibility of yet another NATO-allied country on its border, tendered a far more generous package. While the offer was as much "real politik" as altruism, it was a better deal. When Yanukovych took it, demonstrators occupied Kiev's central square.

In an attempt to defuse the tense standoff between the government and demonstrators, France, Germany and Poland drew up a compromise that would have accelerated elections and established a national unity government. It was then that the demonstrations turned into an insurrection.

Who's to blame?

There is a dispute over what set off the bloodshed - demonstrators claim government snipers fired on them, but some independent investigations have implicated extremist neo-Nazis in initiating the violence. However, instead of supporting the agreement they had just negotiated, the EU recognized the government that took over when Yanukovych was forced to flee the country.

To the Russians this was a coup, and they are not alone in thinking so. George Friedman, head of the international security organization Stratfor, called it "the most blatant coup in history," and it had western fingerprints all over it. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt were recorded talking about how to "midwife" the overthrow of Yanukovych and who to put in his place.

Besides making Kiev a counterproposal on resolving its debt crisis, no one has implicated the Russians in any of the events that led up to the fall of Yanukovych. In short, Moscow has been largely reacting to events that it sees as deeply affecting its security, both military and economic.

Its annexation of Crimea - which had been part of Russia until 1954 - followed a referendum in which 96 percent of the voters called for a union with Russia. In any case, Moscow was unlikely to hand over its strategic naval base at Sevastopol to a hostile government.

Somehow these events have morphed into Nazi armies poised on the Polish border in 1939, or Soviet armored divisions threatening to overrun Western Europe during the Cold War. Were it not for the fact that nuclear powers are involved these images would be almost silly. NATO spends 10 times what Moscow does on armaments, and there is not a military analyst on the planet who thinks Russia is a match for the U.S. To compare Russia to the power of Nazi Germany or Soviet military forces is to stretch credibility beyond the breaking point.

So why are people talking about Article 5 - the section of the NATO treaty that treats an attack on any member as an attack on all - and Munich?

The answer is complex because there are multiple actors with different scripts.

The neocons of Project for a New American Century

First, there are the neoconservatives from the Bush years that have not given up on the Project for a New American Century, the think tank that brought us the Afghan and Iraq wars, and the war on terror. It is no accident that Nuland is married to Robert Kagan, one of the Project's founders and leading thinkers. The group also includes former Defense Department Undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams, and former UN Ambassador John Bolton.

The neocons believe in aggressively projecting American military power and using regime change to get rid of leaders they don't like. Disgraced by the Iraq debacle, they still have a presence in the State Department, and many are leading foreign policy advisors for Republican presidential candidates, including Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, and Jeb Bush. They are well placed and persistent, and if Bush is elected president there is talk that Nuland will become Secretary of State.

Military-industrial complex

Then there are the generals, who have a number of irons in the fire.

There is a current in NATO's leadership that would like to see the alliance become a worldwide military confederacy, although the Afghan disaster has dampened the enthusiasm of many. In fact, there is not even a great deal of support within NATO for enforcing Article 5, and virtually none for getting involved with sending arms to the Ukraine. Most NATO countries don't even pony up the required level of military spending they are supposed to, leaving the U.S. to pick up 70 percent of the bills.

But there is nothing like conjuring up a scary Russian bear to loosen those purse strings. And indeed, a number of former scofflaws have upped their military spending since the Ukraine crisis broke.

The military and its associated industries - from electronics companies to huge defense firms - need enemies, preferably large ones, like Russia and China, where the weapons systems are big and the manpower requirements high.

Squeezing Russia, and China

Right now there appears to be a split among U.S. decision makers over whether Russia or China is our major competitor. For the neocons and most of the Republican candidates, the Kremlin is the clear and present danger. For the Obama administration and most Democrats - including Hillary Clinton - China is the competition, hence the so-called "Asia pivot" to beef up military forces in the Pacific and establish a ring of bases and allies to obstruct Beijing's ability to expand.

One can make too much of this "division," because most of these currents merge at some point. Thus the sanctions targeting Russia's energy industry also squeeze China, which desperately needs oil and gas.

In response to sanctions, Russia is shifting its supplies and pipelines east. Russia and China have also begun establishing alternatives to western dominated financial institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank. Organizations like the BRICS countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - have established a development bank and currency reserves, and the new Chinese-initiated Asian Infrastructure Development Bank has already attracted not only Asian nations, but the leading European ones as well. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization now embraces over 3 billion people.

The U.S. has tried to derail a number of these initiatives.

The sanctions against Russia have made it difficult for Moscow to develop oil and gas in the Arctic, and Washington pointedly told its allies that they should not join the China development bank. Both campaigns failed, particularly the latter. Only Japan and the Philippines heeded the American plea to boycott the bank. And Asia's need for energy is overcoming many of the roadblocks created by the sanctions.

However, the campaign against Russia has damaged the Kremlin's energy sales to Western Europe. The EU successfully blocked a Russian pipeline through Bulgaria, and the Americans have promised that its fracking industry will wean Europe off Russian energy. Fracking, however, is in trouble, because Saudi Arabia stepped up production and crashed oil prices worldwide. A number of U.S. fracking industries have gone belly up, and the industry is experiencing mass layoffs.

Stay tuned for EU-Russian energy developments.

Why are we in this dangerous standoff?

Why are we in a dangerous standoff with a country that is not a serious threat to our European allies or ourselves, but does have the capacity to incinerate a sizable portion of the planet?

At least part of the problem is that U.S. foreign policy requires enemies so that it can deploy the one thing we know best how to do: blow things up. The fact that our wars over the past decade have led to one disaster after another is irrelevant, explained away by "inadequate" use of violence, lack of resolve or weak-kneed allies.

Americans are currently looking at a host of presidential candidates - excluding the quite sensible Bernie Sanders - who want to confront either Russia or China. Both are hideously dangerous policies and ones that are certainly not in the interests of the vast majority of Americans - let alone the rest of the planet.

It is really time to change things, and, no, the bear is not coming to get you.

This article originally appeared at Conn Hallinan's blog Dispatches From the Edge, and at Foreign Policy in Focus.

Photo: A Russian bear. David Van Horn/Flickr

Today in history: The city of Santiago de Cuba is 500 years old

Thu, 23 Jul 2015 12:12:00 +0000

Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city of Cuba and capital of Santiago de Cuba Province in the south-east of the island, some 540 miles from the national capital of Havana. It was founded by Spanish conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar on July 25, 1515.

The municipality extends over 395 square miles on a bay connected to the Caribbean Sea and is a vital port. Its population surpasses half a million.

Santiago was the starting point of the expeditions led by Juan de Grijalba and Hernán Cortés to Mexico in 1518, and in 1538 by Hernando de Soto's voyage to Florida. The first cathedral was built in Santiago in 1528. From 1522 until 1589 it was the capital of the Spanish colony of Cuba.

Santiago saw an influx of French and British immigrants in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, many coming from Haiti after the Haitian slave revolt of 1791. This added to the city's eclectic cultural mix, already rich with Spanish and African, and some remnants of indigenous culture.

Here Spanish troops faced their defeat at San Juan Hill on July 1, 1898, during the Cuban-Spanish-American War. Spain surrendered to the U.S. after the Americans destroyed the Spanish Atlantic fleet just outside Santiago's harbor on July 3, 1898.

Role in revolution

Cuban poet, writer, and national hero, José Martí, is buried in Cementerio Santa Efigenia in Santiago, which was also the home of the revolutionary hero Frank País. On July 26, 1953, the Cuban Revolution began with an armed attack on the Moncada Barracks by a small contingent of rebels led by Fidel Castro. Shortly after this incident, País began talking with students and young working people informally, drawing around him what became an effective urban revolutionary alliance. This developed into highly organized groups coordinating a large scale urban resistance that became instrumental in the success of the Revolution.

País's group amassed weapons and collected both money and medical supplies. They published a newsletter criticizing the government, attempting to counter Batista's censorship. In the summer of 1955, País' organization merged with Fidel's July 26 Movement. País became the leader of the new organization in Oriente province, but two years later he was betrayed to the police and was shot after his capture.

On January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro proclaimed the victory of the Cuban Revolution from a balcony on Santiago de Cuba's city hall. From there the Santiago contingent of the guerrilla army marched across Cuba, reaching Havana about a week later.

Culture in Santiago de Cuba

Santiago de Cuba was the hometown of poet José María Heredia. It houses a museum that displays the extensive art collection of the Bacardí rum-making family.

Santiago is well known for its cultural life. Some of Cuba's most famous musicians, including Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer and Elíades Ochoa (all of them in the Buena Vista Social Club), and trova composer Ñico Saquito (Benito Antonio Fernández Ortiz) were born in the city or surrounding villages.

Furthermore, Santiago is well known for its traditional dances, most notably son, from which salsa is derived, and guaguancó, which is accompanied by percussion music only. The city is also famous for its Carnival, which is strangely enough celebrated in July. During Carnival, traditional conga music is played in the streets on a traditional pentatonic trumpet, called the trompeta china.

A relatively high number of residents of the city adhere to Afro-Cuban religions, most notably santería. Some aspects of the religious "vodún" heritage of the city can be traced back to the Haitian immigrant community from the 19^th century.

Santiago features multiple architectural styles, from Baroque to neoclassical and contemporary. Of special interest are the wooded parks, the steep streets, colonial buildings with huge windows and crowded balconies. Preserved historical treasures include the first home in the Americas, the first cathedral in Cuba, the first copper mine opened in the Americas, and the first Cuban museum.

The local citadel of San Pedro de la Roca is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as "the most complete, best-preserved example of Spanish-American military architecture, based on Italian and Renaissance design principles." Baconao Park, about 40 miles from Santiago, is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage Biosphere Reserve List.

Santiago de Cuba is a sister city of Oakland, Calif.

Worth a visit, wouldn't you say?

Adapted from Wikipedia and other sources.

Photo: View of Santiago de Cuba and sky at night, March 11, 2011. Alex Cano, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.

The story behind little Elizabeth’s Nazi salute

Wed, 22 Jul 2015 16:44:00 +0000

LONDON - The Queen was urged July 20 to make a personal statement regarding leaked footage showing her at aged six or seven performing a Nazi salute with her mother and her uncle Prince Edward (later King Edward VIII, who abdicated in 1936). The grainy footage shows the Queen as she played alongside her younger sister, Princess Margaret, then three years old.

Republic, which campaigns for a democratic alternative to the monarchy, said the palace should stop dodging responsibility. Chief executive officer Graham Smith told the Star: "Rather than playing the victim the Queen should make a personal statement to explain herself about the contents of the video. The footage is clearly in the public interest. It's a public record about our head of state and the public has every right to see it."

Conservative John Whittingdale, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said he understands why the palace is upset by the publication, but defended the right of the press to make editorial judgments.

It is understood that depending on the outcome of the investigation, the palace will be looking at issues of copyright and possible criminality. A Palace spokesman said: "It is disappointing that film, shot eight decades ago and apparently from Her Majesty's personal family archive, has been obtained and exploited in this manner."

Ricky Gervais defends the actions of a seven year old child

British Comedian Ricky Gervais tweeted, "If the Queen does another Nazi Salute let me know about it. Until then... she was seven and it didn't even have its eventual context. Not news."

The outspoken atheist later added, "Now I'm terrified someone is going to dig up a photo of me praying when I was seven. Never mind The Queen, I actually looked like a tiny Hitler when I was seven."

Uncle Edward and Wallis were Nazi sympathizers, visited Hitler

More importantly, the Huffington Post UK reported that photographs revealing the Queen's uncle, the then Duke of Windsor, apparently raising his right arm in a 'Heil Hitler' salute, are to be auctioned July 30.

The pictures were taken during an unofficial visit to the Friedrich Heinrich colliery in Germany's Lower Rhine area in 1937, a year after he gave up the throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, also a Nazi sympathizer.

The former King is pictured surrounded by senior Nazis in uniform, some wearing Swastika armbands. Edward's visit also saw him attend a political rally flanked by SS guards and meet with Adolf Hitler at his Alpine retreat at Berchtesgaden.

It has been speculated that if Edward had not abdicated, there would have been a government crisis in the U.K. over his support of Nazi fascism.

Meanwhile in the U.S., rallies by klansmen, neo-nazis, gun nuts, and other ultra-right groups often show impressionable children whose parents are carefully teaching them to hate.

Morning Star and Barbara Russum contributed to this article.

Photo: Edward reviewing a squad of SS, 1937. "Bundesarchiv Bild 102-17964, Ordensburg Krössinsee, Herzog von Windsor" by Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-17964 / Pahl, Georg. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 de via Wikimedia Commons

Turkey: 30 young socialists massacred in Suruç suicide bombing

Wed, 22 Jul 2015 13:27:00 +0000

A terrorist bomb attack in southern Turkey killed at least 30 members of a socialist youth organization July 20.

The attack in the southern city of Suruç targeted a gathering of 300 Socialist Youth Associations Federation (SGDF) members from Istanbul.

SGDF is a youth branch of the Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP), which is a Marxist-Leninist political party that defines itself as "a militant revolutionary socialist party fighting for a workers'-laborers' federative republic in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan." SGDF's organizational structure mainly consists of university and high school students.

The SGDF was holding a press conference in the garden of the Amara Cultural Centre, before leaving for the nearby city of Kobanî in northern Syria to help with reconstruction there, when the bomb detonated. The district of Suruç is located on the Syrian-Turkish border approximately 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from the Syrian town of Kobanî.

The Party of Democratic Regions (a Kurdish political party in the Republic of Turkey) Urfa co-chairman Ismail Kaplan said that the explosion had been caused by a suicide bomber.

The garden was turned into a bloodbath with young people's bodies scattered around, some torn to pieces. Suruç's hospital appealed for blood donations in the wake of the atrocity.

Fatma Edeman said: "One of my friends protected me. First, I thought: 'I am dying,' but I was OK. I started to run after I saw the bodies." Ms. Edeman said that she and her comrades had expected Kobanî to be relatively safe. "Our friends went there and it didn't seem dangerous at that time. We couldn't even think something like that would happen," she said.

In Kobanî, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party in the Kurdish region of Syria) stopped a car bomb attack on a checkpoint near a school.

The Islamic State group was suspected of carrying out both attacks.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: "I personally and on behalf of my nation condemn and curse those who perpetrated this savagery."

The World Federation of Democratic Youth at its headquarters in Budapest condemned the murderous attack stating, "the attack is considered as a fascist action, and WFDY remarks that fascism in the region is the result of the imperialists plans and interventions in the Middle East.

"WFDY express its solidarity to the families of the dead and injured people in Suruç, and calls the anti-imperialist youth to follow the path of the organized massive struggle against imperialism and its plans, and also to resist and fight against any reactionary fascist power which is aiming to break the unity of the peoples, which is aiming to brake the unity of the anti-imperialist youth movement."

Morning Star, WFDY and Barbara Russum contributed to this article.

Photo: Faces of the victims, Ezilenlerin Sosyalist Partisi, Facebook.

Cuba-U.S. relations: the hard road toward normalization begins

Tue, 21 Jul 2015 13:22:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - In a ceremony here marking the official re-opening of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez raised his nation's flag in front of the Cuban embassy building here.

Later he said, "Only the lifting of the economic, commercial and financial blockade which has caused so much harm and suffering to our people; the return of the occupied territory in Guantánamo and the respect for Cuba's sovereignty will lend some meaning to this historic event."

The building had housed the Cuban embassy since 1917, but has officially been an "interests section" operated by Switzerland on behalf of Cuba since 1977. At midnight last night, when U.S.-Cuban diplomatic relations officially resumed, it became an embassy once again.

A large crowd of people gathered to watch the flag raising. They cheered, and some cried for joy, as the Cuban flag flew over the embassy for the first time in 54 years. Many in the crowd chanted "¡Cuba, Si; Bloqueo No!"

In his speech, Rodriguez thanked the "activists and solidarity groups and many U.S. citizens who struggled throughout many years" to support Cuba's efforts to normalize relations with the U.S.

As he raised the flag, Rodriguez was flanked by a Cuban color guard and surrounded by hundreds of dignitaries from around the world, including U.S. Congressional representatives.

It was the exact same flag that had been lowered on January 3, 1961 when the U.S. unilaterally broke relations with Cuba. I was in Havana at the time, visiting Cuba with a group of Antioch College students. We had flown in from Key West on Air Cubano Airlines, for five dollars, with no red tape involved. To return, we had to get permission from the State Department.

Everywhere we went in Cuba, people were exuberant. They felt empowered and enthusiastic about the future. Everyone felt that the Cuban Revolution was their own. They spoke familiarly about "Fidel" and "Che." No one referred them as "Premier Castro" or "Industrial Minister Guevara."

Across the island, Cubans spoke excitedly about the coming year, the third year of the Revolution, which was the Ano de Alfabetización , the Year of Education, dedicated to wiping out illiteracy. People were eager to begin the program of "each on teach one."

The average Cuban was well aware that for many decades U.S. corporations had drained Cuba's resources and impoverished the Cuban people. They knew that the challenge faced by the Revolution was to undo this harm.

The Eisenhower Administration had rebuffed Fidel and other leaders of the Revolution when they travelled to Washington on a goodwill tour. To gain resources desperately needed by the Cuban people, the revolutionary government began to nationalize the property of ruthless U.S. corporations.

The Cuban government paid for the properties, using the amounts the corporations for years had said their properties were worth for purposes of taxation. In retaliation, the U.S. government broke diplomatic ties with Cuba and began to plan an armed invasion.

Our student group heard Fidel on January 4, 1961, alert Cubans about the invasion plans being hatched in the U.S. in one of his famous four hour speeches in the Plaza de la Revolución. The U.S. government told the world he was being "ridiculous."

The following April, the U.S.-backed invaders attacked Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. They were repulsed by Cuban volunteers, many of whom also participated in the teaching campaign, which succeeded in raising the literacy rate from around 60 to 76 percent. However, Cubans continued to live under the threat of seeing what they were building destroyed.

They still live under that threat, despite the resumption of U.S.-Cuban diplomatic relations.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has announced that the Republicans will block any one who is nominated to be the U.S. Ambassador to Cuba. Also, the blockade is still firmly in place.

Cuba is prepared for the hard road toward normalizing relations with the U.S., Rodriguez said.

"The challenge is great," he said, "because there has never been normal relations between the United States and Cuba despite a century and a half of intense and enriching links between peoples." He referred to the Platt Amendment, imposed by the U.S. in 1902 under a military occupation. It paved the way for U.S. corporate domination of Cuba.

Rodriguez said that despite this history, "today an opportunity has opened up to begin working in order to establish new bilateral relations, quite different from whatever existed in the past. The Cuban government is fully committed to that."

Photo: Edwardo Clark, a Cuban-American, holds an American flag and a Cuban flag as he celebrates outside the new Cuban embassy in Washington, Monday, July 20, 2015. | Andrew Harnik

Today in history: reading the Riot Act for 300 years

Mon, 20 Jul 2015 12:55:00 +0000

Has anyone ever "read you the Riot Act?" You may not have known that the Riot Act was passed by an act of the British Parliament on this date exactly 300 years ago, July 20, 1715.

The Riot Act authorized local authorities to declare any group of twelve or more people to be unlawfully assembled, and thus have to disperse or face punitive action. The Act came into force on August 1, 1715. It was repealed for England and Wales by the Criminal Law Act of 1967, and overall in Britain in 1973. A version is still in force in Canada.

The Riot Act was introduced during a time of civil disturbance in Great Britain, such as the Sacheverell riots of 1710, the Coronation riots of 1714 (against King George I), and the 1715 riots. The preamble makes reference to "many rebellious riots and tumults," labeling them "heinous offenses."

If local officials read the Riot Act, and the group failed to disperse within one hour, anyone remaining gathered was guilty of a felony without benefit of clergy, punishable by death.

The proclamation had to follow the precise wording detailed in the act; several convictions were overturned because parts of the proclamation had been omitted, in particular "God save the King." The wording to be read aloud went as follows:

"Our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God Save the King!"

Punishment by death could befall anyone preventing the reading of the proclamation, or damaging buildings while on a riot. If law enforcement officers happened to injure or kill a rioter, they were immune from prosecution. Owing to its broad authority, the act was used not only for the maintenance of civil order, but for political means and the gagging of labor as well.

Prosecutions under the Riot Act were restricted to within one year of the event. But another problem for civil authorities was actually reading the Riot Act during a serious disturbance. For example, after the 1819 Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, most of the demonstrators who were convicted claimed that they had not heard the Riot Act being read. The Riot Act was unsuccessful in controlling many other disturbances, including the 1743 Gin Riots, the 1768 St George's Massacre and the 1780 Gordon Riots.

The United States has many similar laws inherited from British rule. Even when a demonstration or picket line is perfectly legal, an official order to disperse can be employed to hobble a legitimate protest movement. Even knowing that issuing such an order is inappropriate, authorities are usually confident that the courts will uphold their claims, and in any case cause the protesters damages in loss of time, arrest, imprisonment and lawyers' fees, and perhaps loss of employment. The struggle for the proper balance between government and civil society continues!

Adapted from http://spartacus-educational.com/Lriot.htm, Wikipedia, Chase's Calendar of Events, and other sources (which differ as to the date the Riot Act was passed: Chase's uses this date).

The full Riot Act. The lower part contains the proclamation that was to be read aloud.

Photo: Wikipedia (CC)

A view of the Greek crisis from Germany

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 14:01:00 +0000

BERLIN - The debt crisis in Greece is only a vehicle to exploit the resources of the Greek nation.

History is repeating itself: The same measures that initiated the crisis are being used today: tricks, blackmail and falsification for the benefit of a small circle of the leading political and economic class here in Germany and in Europe.

It was clear, for example, from the very beginning that Greece was not in a position to fulfill the criteria for joining the Eurozone. Nevertheless European ruling circles wanted access to their market and to get it, glossed over the Greek state budget.

In addition one can't ignore the influence of Wall Street. During the whole recent discussion it was seldom mentioned that it was none other than Goldman Sachs that provided an economically irresponsible loan to the Greek government in order to allow them to fulfill the economic criteria for entering the Eurozone in the first place.

Of course then there are the Greek government partners who signed the deal for their own personal advantage. The first contracts after the loans were deals for new arms for Greece. No further comment is necessary.

It was obvious from the very beginning that the poor would have to shoulder the burden of such a policy.

It's also not at all surprising that the former presidents, directors and high-ranking advisors of Goldman Sachs took over high governmental posts after Europe went into the crisis, among them Mario Monti as prime minister in Italy from 2011 to 2013, Antonis Samaras as prime minister in Greece from 2012 to 2015 and Mario Draghi as president of the European Central Bank (ECB) since 2011. Was that an accident? Hardly, since Goldman Sachs was the financial advisor of the Greek government, even earning $300,000,000 for this "job."

After all the developments here in Germany, I'm prepared for even worse incidents in Europe. I think they are even ready for a war, even if in their eyes it's the last measure to gain profit and to restore, if needed, power.

When it comes to today's political developments these forces have once again shown their true face: They remain democratic only as long as it serves their goals.

Here I can only but agree with the wise words of the great Greek composer, Mikis Theodorakis, in 2012, where he denounced the European, especially the German, governing class for destroying the principles on which Europe should be founded.

Thus the treatment of the Greek government over the past weeks has laid bare for all to see the complete abandonment of these fundamental principles.

The disrespect shown to the Greek referendum and the wishes of the Greek people indicates that Europe is no longer a champion of democracy or human rights. On the contrary, Europe is in the hands of economic institutions which protect the interests of the rich at the expense of ordinary citizens and even member states.

Democracy gets betrayed and destroyed - and in this case against the very creators of democracy. It's more than a scandal.

The European Union (EU) and its institutions, which function purely economically (since the political institutional framework is still missing), and are under German diktat, act with a narrow domestic political agenda at the expense of democracy, humanity, decency and even the best interests of ordinary European people.

Hopefully the treatment shown Greece will further increase the growing disillusionment among citizens across Europe. This cannot be the implementation of the European idea based on the implementation of the interests of big capital and the improvement of their class. Such a Europe cannot work.

And finally there is another major point to be made: The Greek tragedy proves that the conservatives and right-wing forces will never allow any left government to govern their country to the benefit of ordinary people. History has shown how they then behave. We should be careful and prepared.

Herbert Griessig lives in Berlin and writes commentaries on sport and policy issues.

Photo: Protest in Athens against austerity measures. | Petros Giannakouris/AP

Greek government “waterboarded” into submitting to German demands

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 11:11:00 +0000

On Monday, after being submitted to a ferocious pressure campaign that some compared to "waterboarding," Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras agreed to a draconian and humiliating set of demands from the "Eurogroup" of 18 countries, besides Greece, which participates in the Euro currency.

As demanded by the Eurogroup, he submitted an initial bill to approve the measures for quick approval by the Greek parliament, though he himself says he "does not believe" in them but only accepted them under duress, and though it is not guaranteed that the parliaments of the other countries, especially Germany, will approve them.

Amid great uproar and consternation, with several cabinet members and 32 deputies from Tsipras' own Syriza Party voting "no," the bill passed 229-64 with six abstentions.

Just a week before, on July 5, Greeks had voted in a referendum to reject a milder set of demands by a margin of 61 to 39 percent.

But Greek banks are on the point of running out of money and all aspects of the economy are in dire straits. Without money, Greece will not be able to import even food, in which it is far from self-sufficient, nor medicines, nor fuel. This was used by the wealthy countries of Northern Europe, led by German Finance Minister Dr. Wolfgang Schäuble, as the anvil on which to hammer Tsipras into submission.

Tsipras came to power when his left-wing SYRIZA party won a large plurality in elections in January. He had promised to fight against the fierce austerity program imposed on Greece by the "Troika" of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission (the executive body of the European Union) starting in 2010, as the condition for bailouts, in 2010 and 2012, for the country's unsustainable debts.

However, Tsirpas and his government had to deal, also, with the fact that public opinion polls showed that a large majority of the people in this trading nation did not want to leave the Euro currency and go back to the old Greek currency, the drachma. So he set himself the task of fighting against the austerity program while doing his best to keep Greece within the Euro.

This should perhaps not have been an impossible task, but it made Greece vulnerable to a vicious campaign of coercion, especially from the German ruling class, working through the Troika and the Eurogroup. Perhaps Tsipras hoped that the referendum on July 5 would strengthen his hand, but the views of Greek voters count for nothing in the minds of Europe's corporate rulers.

There is massive grassroots opposition to the austerity program imposed by the Troika on poor European countries. This is building to a possible electoral threat to right wing governments in Portugal, Spain and perhaps other countries. However Greek banks are very close to running out of money, with their operations closed and deposit holders only permitted to take out 60 euros a day, with a possibility of a complete bank shutdown looming. The European Central Bank, under strong influence from the German government has denied a new cash infusion to tike Greece over, adding to the pressure on Tsirpas' government. On Monday July 20, also, Greece is expected to come up with a payment of $3.5 billion to the European Central bank, having defaulted on a payment to the IMF on June 30.

The Greek government has questioned the legality of much of this debt, and repeatedly asserted that it is unpayable and moreover that austerity measures make this situation worse. Since 2010 Greece has seen at least a 24 percent contraction of its economy, with a quarter of its workers unemployed, including half of younger workers. Wages and pensions have been slashed, thousands have been laid off, and many enterprises shuttered as the economy has shrunk. Tsipras has argued that it is madness to try to "solve" this problem by adding more austerity and shrinking the economy even more.

Now he will have to re-fire laid off government workers he had re-hired earlier in the year, sharply increase value added tax (similar to sales taxes in the U.S., and also highly regressive), cut pensions, increase the retirement age, and put numerous Greek state assets, including entire coastal islands plus ports and other basic infrastructure up for sale to private interests (and all of this under the control of the Troika, a direct insult to Greek national sovereignty).

Much of the language of the memorandum agreed to on Monday is vague and subject to further tugs of war. There is ominous language about "modernizing" Greece's labor laws. This almost certainly means weakening them, to the detriment of Greek workers and their unions.

A recent analysis by the International Monetary Fund, agrees with the Greek position that the debt is unpayable, and that more austerity will only make the situation worse. If the problem is that the Greek state does not have the income flow to pay its bills, shrinking the economy further will reduce that income flow even more.

The IMF report suggests that Greece's creditors may have to accept losses or extend the program of Greece's payments, and contains the threat that the IMF will withhold funding for the bailout otherwise.

Former Finance Minister Varoufakis, in an interview with the New Statesman, said that when he would bring such commonsense economic arguments to his fellow finance ministers from the Euro group, they would pay absolutely no attention. So the harshness of the new austerity regime imposed on Greece is motivated as much by politics as by economics.

Schäuble had been hinting broadly that a Grexit, an exit of Greece from the Euro currency group, at least temporarily, might be a better option. He and others in the governments of the wealthy Euro countries have accused the Greeks of being unreliable and were particularly incensed by the July 5 referendum, which they saw as a ploy by Tsipras to get out of commitments agreed to by previous Greek governments, and not as an elementary democratic right of the Greek nation to express itself on its own future.

German companies are highly involved in the Greek economy and stand to gain by a new round of privatizations. For example the Hochtief Construction, a group with deep roots in the Nazi period of German history (it used slave labor) now has been fingered as one of the worst tax scofflaws in Greece, owing between $654 million and $1 billion to the Greek Treasurary. A Hochtief spinoff has the privatization concession to run the Athens airport. More such contracts will now be on offer.

Greece got zero support from the governments of Portugal and Spain, two other countries under the hammer of Troika-imposed austerity. Its "populist" policies were also condemned by representatives of former socialist countries in the Euro group. The right wing governments in all of these lands have been complicit in shredding the safety nets and busting the unions of their own people, and don't want Greece to prosper and give their toiling majorities ideas.

We in the U.S. should take heed; this is the same juggernaut that is headed our way.

Photo: Greeks take part in a demonstration supporting the anti-austerity movement. | Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

Schäuble prescribes medicine for Greece he first tested on East Germany

Thu, 16 Jul 2015 15:44:00 +0000

BERLIN - In a recent news video I watched people pushing and shoving at a bank entrance. I immediately recalled another scene, also with people pushing at a bank entrance. In the older scene people looked eager and gleeful, pushing so hard, I believe, that one man's rib was broken. In the recent pictures they looked very grim. Uncannily, the two events were exactly twenty-five years apart to the day: July 1, 1990 in Berlin and July 1, 2015 in Athens. And strangely, despite the quarter-century lapse and differing expressions, they were related, and in both cases one man was a major actor:

Wolfgang Schäuble

Wolfgang Schäuble (pronounced Shoy-bleh), West Germany's Interior Minister in 1989-1990 when the German Democratic Republic went down the drain, played a central role in welding the pipes. Four months after the Berlin Wall was opened, when the eastern sister of his Christian Democratic Union won out in the first open East German elections, he produced, after two and a half exhausting months together with an overly willing, later well-rewarded eastern yes-man, an 800-page Unification Treaty.

Its first result was the switch from GDR currency to the West Mark, the yearned-for dream of millions of East Germans, to whom it represented fashionable western consumer goods, free world-wide travel - and the feeling, at long last, that as Germans they too would be a factor of strength and respect, to be looked up to in the world.

Their eager rush to the banks, so different from the sad, angry elder men in Greece who later hoped for some sorely-needed Euros, was caused only by a wish to be among the first to get and own the new currency.

After a wild night of joyfully dancing on cars and waving flags, the next day saw a consumer run on newly-stocked shops - for the fanciest cars, the latest electronics, hitherto unavailable books, from Leon Trotsky to Stephen King, and maybe, if no one was looking, a sample or two from the sudden rash of porno magazines.

The Privatization Fund ("Treuhand")

On that very same day a new institution was set up: the Privatization Fund ("Treuhand"), a model for what Schäuble has now forced down the throats of the Greek people. But the effects of this Fund soon hit like a battering ram. Former trade partners to the East could no longer afford products now payable only in very hard currency. At home the local GDR products were spurned for years - and were suddenly almost unavailable, while competition from the West was overwhelming.

To guarantee against any "populist" solutions like dividing up shares in the nationally-owned industry among the population, its former owners, as some had suggested, the Privatization Fund made sure that it was all either sold to private owners or shut down; by September the lights had been turned off in a third of the East German economy. West German competitors or speculators from everywhere but East Germany bought factories for a song, made a quick buck, then removed any machinery worth selling and shut down. East German industry, calculated to be worth 1.2 trillion marks in January 1990, and in September, even by the biased Privatization Fund, still at 600 billion, was somehow hexed by that fund, until it closed down in 1994, to a weird deficit of minus 250 billion.

This despite some true gems like the Baltic coast shipbuilding industry, an especially modern new steel plant or a heating equipment factory in East Berlin, worth an estimated 68 million plus liquid assets of 150 million and valuable real estate, which went to a shady speculator for two million and was soon shut down. Or the company which developed the first Chlorofluorocarbon-free, climate-friendly refrigerators, a possible source of billions, but quickly axed by West German competitors.

Within twenty months 3700 plants were shuttered, their work force cut from 4.1 million to 1.24 million. Jobless rates soared and that eager early buying rush leveled off. Of course the kindergartens, libraries, music, hobby and sport clubs, well-staffed medical clinics and seaside or lakeside vacation homes, so typical of GDR factories but not productive, were the first to disappear.

East Germany is still well behind West Germany in full-time job rates, wage levels, even pension rates. Many towns and whole areas are still relatively barren, with young people off to job chances in the West. But with Germany as a whole profiting from its trade advantages, it has been possible to squeeze past catastrophe and keep at least a fair section of the East Germans more or less satisfied.

Key aims of European Union 45 years ago

Schäuble and Germany's bosses couldn't be more satisfied. The attempt at socialism, despite its many blunders with many successes, had been choked to death. Krupp-Thyssen, Siemens, Bayer, BASF and the Deutsche Bank could move back to where they had been ejected 45 years earlier and expand from there.

Also achieved were key aims of the European Union, whose earliest founders, OSS boss William Donovan, CIA boss Allen Dulles, West German Chancellor Adenauer and Winston Churchill, wanted not simply "the union of Europe as a whole" but, as Churchill stipulated, "the liberation of the nations behind the Iron Curtain."

Despite many fine words, Schäuble's visions had little to do with "human rights." An unusually frank fellow Cabinet minister accused him, then Interior Minister in charge of the police force, of trying to turn a "state based on justice" into a "state based on government monitoring and surveillance... reducing all basic human rights to a fictitious right to security." Others recalled charges against the secret police in the GDR and spoke of his plans as "Stasi 2.0."

Schäuble, unperturbed, might have been fully satisfied at the amazing success in defeating the Communists - and any socialist ideas. But nine days after GDR annexation was finalized on October 3 1990 two bullets fired by a mentally deranged man paralyzed him from his waist down, forcing the use of a wheelchair. Nine years later he was exposed for illegally accepting secret envelopes with large bribes for his party from a notorious weapons-dealer. But, always tough, he defied the consequences of both events and remained powerful.

Hopes of becoming chancellor were dashed but he came back, first as powerful Minister of Interior and in 2009, even bigger, as Minister of Finance. Working closely with Angela Merkel, he keeps pushing for wage and job uncertainty in the labor market, keeping German exports strong, and step by step achieving central power in the European Union, with Merkel as a sort of motherly "good cop" (the concealed firearm only rarely visible) while Schäuble, the bad cop and main spokesman for ruinous pressures on southern Europe only occasionally used a bitter, sardonic sarcasm to augment his brutal message.

With German domination within the European Union ever clearer, and most of what had once been Yugoslavia subordinated, several goals remained very much on the agenda.

EU goals today

The EU must move ever closer to the Russian borders in Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Rumania, if possible Georgia, Azerbaijan and above all the Ukraine - with the military might of NATO close behind. Any allies were welcome, even swastika-marked armed hate groups based in Lvov and Kiev. And who could say what might someday be further possible?

Secondly, any attempt at independence, any move towards a progressive or, God help us, some socialist solution to the growing crisis lurking just below the surface of the European economy, must be halted in its tracks. This had already been accomplished in Cyprus. The victory of Syriza in January proved a far greater threat. If the ruinous austerity measures imposed on Greece with the help of a corrupt government were resisted by this new force and it achieved any success, the danger of contagion was alarming.

It was clear from the start that Schäuble wanted not compromises but Syriza's total capitulation, indeed, its removal from office.

Recent statements by the International Monetary Fund that it was impossible to solve the Greek debt situation with severe austerity measures arrived too late, went unheeded and were irrelevant. This knock-out victory was against any attempts anywhere to find independent policies helping not the giant banks but the "common people", the 99 percent. Willing helpers, or subordinates, were found: the curly-locked unelected head of the Euro Group, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, a right-wing Dutch Social Democrat, the staunchly conservative European Council President Donald Tusk from Poland, and Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission President, who was finance minister, then prime minister of Luxembourg from 1989 until 2013 when 343 major companies, including Ikea, Deutsche Bank and Pepsi, benefited from secret tax deals with the Grand Duchy so as to pay as little tax as possible on their global profits.

Aided by such men, supported by arch-conservative countries in eastern and northern Europe, with the governments of Italy, Spain and Portugal kowtowing to Schäuble for fear that a party like Syriza might threaten their own rule in coming years, and with the weak resistance of France succumbing to smiling Angela Merkel's steely pressure, the threat has now seemingly been contained.

Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund, or TAIPED

Greece must now raise value-added taxes in poverty-stricken Greek island communities, cut pension benefits, further slice government jobs on which so many were dependent, and further cut social services. These Spartan measures, meaning more hunger, untreated illness, emigration of the youth and suicide for many of the elderly, now forced on Greece and endorsed by its Parliament, involve a new institution, the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund, or TAIPED. Behind the fine name is a rebirth of the privatization fund or Treuhand of 1990 to 1994 which destroyed the GDR economy. TAIPED, closely monitored by the hostile foreign officials who humiliated Greece before the Syriza victory, will organize the sale of everything the Greek state owns, its international airport, seaports, its Olympic site, rail system and utilities. Unlike the other measures such actions, once taken, are almost irreversible and are a retreat from the hesitant steps once taken towards an economy not totally ruled by big business and its oligarchs. Since buyers know it is obliged to sell these items, they will offer as little as possible. The bargain sale of state-owned property, going for a song like that hummed in Germany after 1990, will not help the country find its legs but ruin it as a dire warning to all concerned - never to move the clock forward. Despite occasional squawks and a few improvements won by the European Parliament, the only popularly elected section of the EU, the true character of the European Union has become unmistakably clear.

Another cause for tears: Not a single country in the world was willing or able to help Greece in its travail; foreign solidarity was never strong. The demonstrations I joined in Berlin were brave, loud but not big enough; the fact that Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, a Social Democrat, backed Schäuble, left the smaller LINKE (Left Party), some Greens and various rebellious organizations too weak with their OXI - "No" - signs. A long, vicious media campaign was far too successful in picturing Greeks as lazy, spoiled, no-goods dodging legitimate debt payments at the cost of "us industrious German working people."

The end of the GDR had eased the way for a wave of increasingly visible racists and open Nazis, marching in towns all over Germany and especially menacing if times get worse. A defeat of Syriza and the hopes it raised could well open the door to a strengthened the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn movement which threatens Greece with violence, bloodshed and reversion to terrible times like those the country has faced so often. This is the specter now haunting Europe; men like Schäuble are greatly responsible.

Photo: Germany's smiling finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble is being called "the most dangerous man in Europe," ala Dr. Strangelove. | European University Institute/AP

Swazi human rights leader released from prison

Thu, 16 Jul 2015 11:30:00 +0000

Imprisoned Swazi human rights leader Mario Masuku and student activist Maxwell Dlamini were granted bail today by the Supreme Court of Swaziland, according to the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA). The two were charged with terrorism and jailed in May 2014 for slogans they allegedly shouted at a May Day rally.

Masuku and Dlamini were awaiting trial, and if found guilty, each could have faced up to 15 years of hard labor. Masuku, who became seriously ill in prison, was twice denied bail, and prison officials would not allow his doctor to see him. In a statement, TUCOSWA praised the release of the two men, noting, "these are but a few steps, which though appreciated, must tell all of us not to lessen our resolve for change in Swaziland."

The action follows the acquittal and release early this month of Thulani Maseko and Bheki Makhubu. Maseko, a human rights lawyer, and Makhubu, a newspaper editor, were arrested in March 2014 for writing about government corruption and judicial independence and were serving two-year prison terms.

TUCOSWA continues to be a consistent leader in support of union leaders, journalists and human rights activists who have been threatened with violence, arrest and prosecution for their human rights advocacy. Swazi police have harassed members of TUCOSWA, an AFL-CIO Solidarity Center ally, breaking up their union meetings and banning rallies.

In May, an international delegation of union leaders traveled to Swaziland, calling on the government to guarantee the rights of workers to freely form unions and exercise freedom of speech and assembly. Led by Wellington Chibebe, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) deputy general secretary, and joined by Jos Williams from the AFL-CIO Metropolitan Washington Council and Richard Hall from the Solidarity Center, the fact-finding group found that repressive legislation used by police against union activities had not been addressed by Parliament, even as the government continues to imprison human rights activists for exercising their right to freedom of speech.

Just days before the delegation arrived on May 14, the Swaziland government announced it had registered TUCOSWA after a three-year delay since the federation's founding.

Photo: AFL-CIO

Major nuclear deal struck between Iran and six world powers

Wed, 15 Jul 2015 11:30:00 +0000

Iran struck a historic nuclear deal Sunday with the United States and five other world powers -- U.K., Russia, China, Germany and France -- in the most significant development between Washington and Tehran in more than three decades of estrangement between the two nations.

The agreement commits Iran to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for limited and gradual sanctions relief. It builds on the momentum of the dialogue opened during September's annual U.N. gathering, which included a 15-minute phone conversation between President and Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani.

It marks a milestone between the two countries, which broke diplomatic ties 34 years ago when Iran's Islamic revolution climaxed in the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Since then, relations between the two countries have been frigid to hostile -- until the recent outreach between the two presidents.

Obama hailed the deal as putting "substantial limitations" on a nuclear program that the United States and its allies fear could be turned to nuclear weapons use.

"While today's announcement is just a first step, it achieves a great deal," Obama said. "For the first time in nearly a decade, we have halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear program, and key parts of the program will be rolled back."

"Agreement in Geneva," tweeted U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who flew to Geneva on Saturday, joining foreign ministers of the nations negotiating with Iran to push the deal through. "First step makes world safer. More work now."

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has loudly criticized the agreement, saying the international community is giving up too much to Iran, which it believes will retain the ability to produce a nuclear weapon and threaten Israel.

A White House statement called the nuclear agreement an "initial, six-month step."

Specifically, the statement said the deal limits Iran's existing stockpiles of enriched uranium, which can be turned into the fissile core of nuclear arms.

The statement also said the accord curbs the number and capabilities of the centrifuges used to enrich and limits Iran ability to "produce weapons-grade uranium" from a reactor in the advanced stages of construction. The statement also said Iran's nuclear program will be subject to "increased transparency and intrusive monitoring."

"Taken together, these first step measures will help prevent Iran from using the cover of negotiations to continue advancing its nuclear program as we seek to negotiate a long-term, comprehensive solution that addresses all of the international community's concerns," said the statement.

In return, the statement promised "limited, temporary, targeted, and reversible (sanctions) relief" to Iran, noting that "the key oil, banking, and financial sanctions architecture, remains in place."

It said any limited sanctions relief will be revoked and new penalties enacted if Iran fails to meet its commitments.'

Asked if there was a deal, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said "Yes" and gave a thumbs up sign.

The goal had been to hammer out an agreement to freeze Iran's nuclear program for six months, while offering the Iranians limited relief from crippling economic sanctions. If the interim deal holds, the parties will negotiate final-stage agreements to ensure Iran does not build nuclear weapons.

The deal came after the personal intervention by Secretary of State John Kerry and other foreign ministers whose presence had raised hopes for a breakthrough.

Diplomats refused to spell out details of the talks, which dragged on past midnight and into early Sunday.

Photo: Overview of a last plenary session of the talks on the Iranian nuclear program that is being held at the U.N. building in Vienna, July 14. (Joe Klamar/Pool Photo via AP)

Benghazi & Hillary: missing the story

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 15:38:00 +0000

The congressional harrying of former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over emails concerning the 2012 death of an American ambassador and three staff members in Benghazi, Libya, has become a sort of running joke, with Republicans claiming "cover-up" and Democrats dismissing the whole matter as nothing more than election year politics. But there is indeed a story embedded in the emails, one that is deeply damning of American and French actions in the Libyan civil war, from secretly funding the revolt against Muammar Gaddafi, to the willingness to use journalism as a cover for covert action.

The latest round of emails came to light June 22 in a fit of Republican pique over Clinton's prevarications concerning whether she solicited intelligence from her advisor, journalist and former aide to President Bill Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal. If most newspaper readers rolled their eyes at this point and decided to check out the ball scores, one can hardly blame them.

But that would be a big mistake.

While the emails do raise questions about Hillary Clinton's veracity, the real story is how French intelligence plotted to overthrow the Libyan leader in order to claim a hefty slice of Libya's oil production and "favorable consideration" for French businesses.

The courier in this cynical undertaking was journalist and right-wing philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy, a man who has yet to see a civil war that he doesn't advocate intervening in, from Yugoslavia to Syria. According to Julian Pecquet, the U.S. congressional correspondent for the Turkish publication Al-Monitor, Henri-Levy claims he got French President Nicolas Sarkozy to back the Benghazi-based Libyan Transitional National Council that was quietly being funded by the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE), the French CIA.

According to the memos, in return for money and support, "the DGSE officers indicated that they expected the new government of Libya to favor French firms and national interests, particularly regarding the oil industry in Libya." The memo says that the two leaders of the Council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil and General Abdul Fatah Younis, "accepted this offer."

Another May 5 email indicates that French humanitarian flights to Benghazi included officials of the French oil company TOTAL, and representatives of construction firms and defense contractors, who secretly met with Council members and then "discreetly" traveled by road to Egypt, protected by DGSE agents.

Henri-Levy, an inveterate publicity hound, claims to have come up with this quid pro quo, business/regime change scheme, using "his status as a journalist to provide cover for his activities." Given that journalists are routinely accused of being "foreign agents" in places like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Afghanistan, Henri-Levy's subterfuge endangers other members of the media trying to do their jobs.

All this clandestine maneuvering paid off.

On Feb. 26, 2011, the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1970 aimed at establishing "peace and security" and protecting the civilian population in the Libyan civil war. Or at least that was how UNR 1970 was sold to countries on the Security Council, like South Africa, Brazil, India, China and Russia, that had initial doubts. However, the French, Americans and British - along with several NATO allies - saw the resolution as an opportunity to overthrow Gaddafi and in France's case, to get back in the game as a force in the region.

Almost before the ink was dry on the resolution, France, Britain and the U.S. began systematically bombing Gadhafi's armed forces, ignoring pleas by the African Union to look for a peaceful way to resolve the civil war. According to one memo, President Sarkozy "plans to have France lead the attacks on [Gadhafi] over an extended period of time" and "sees this situation as an opportunity for France to reassert itself as a military power."

While for France flexing its muscles was an important goal, Al-Monitor says that a September memo also shows that "Sarkozy urged the Libyans to reserve 35 percent of their oil industry for French firms - TOTAL in particular - when he traveled to Tripoli that month."

In the end, Libya imploded and Paris has actually realized little in the way of oil, but France's military industrial complex has done extraordinarily well in the aftermath of Gadhafi's fall.

According to Defense Minister Jean-Yves Lodrian, French arms sales increased 42 percent from 2012, bringing in $7 billion, and are expected to top almost $8 billion in 2014.

Over the past decade, France, the former colonial master of Lebanon, Syria, and Algeria, has been sidelined by U.S. and British arms sales to the Middle East. But the Libya war has turned that around. Since then, Paris has carefully courted Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates by taking a hard line on the Iran nuclear talks.

The global security analyst group Stratfor noted in 2013, "France could gain financially from the GCC's [Gulf Cooperation Council, the organization representing the oil monarchies of the Persian Gulf] frustrations over recent U.S. policy in the Middle East. Significant defense contracts worth tens of billions of dollars are up for grabs in the Gulf region, ranging from aircraft to warships to missile systems. France is predominantly competing with Britain and the United States for the contracts and is seeking to position itself as a key ally of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as it looks to strengthen its defense and industrial ties in the region."

Sure enough, the French company Thales landed a $3.34 billion Saudi contract to upgrade the kingdom's missile system and France just sold 24 Rafale fighters to Qatar for $7 billion. Discussions are underway with the UAE concerning the Rafale, and France sold 24 of the fighters to Egypt for $5.8 billion. France has also built a military base in the UAE.

French President Francois Hollande, along with his foreign and defense ministers, attended the recent GCC meeting, and, according to Hollande, there are 20 projects worth billions of dollars being discussed with Saudi Arabia. While he was in Qatar, Hollande gave a hard-line talk on Iran and guaranteed "that France is there for its allies when it is called upon."

True to his word, France has thrown up one obstacle after another during the talks between Iran and the P5 + 1 - the permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany.

Paris also supports Saudi Arabia and its allies in their bombing war on Yemen, and strongly backs the Saudi-Turkish-led overthrow of the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, even though it means that the French are aligning themselves with al-Qaeda-linked extremist groups.

France seems to have its finger in every Middle East disaster, although, to be fair, it is hardly alone. Britain and the U.S. also played major roles in the Libya war, and the Obama administration is deep into the ongoing wars in Syria and Yemen. In the latter case, Washington supplies the Saudis with weapons, targeting intelligence, and in-air refueling of its fighter-bombers.

But the collapse of Libya was a particularly catastrophic event, which - as the African Union accurately predicted - sent a flood of arms and unrest into two continents.

The wars in Mali and Niger are a direct repercussion of Gadhafi's fall, and the extremist Boko Haram in Nigeria appears to have benefited from the plundering of Libyan arms depots. Fighters and weapons from Libya have turned up in the ranks of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. And the gunmen who killed 22 museum visitors in Tunisia last March, and 38 tourists on a beach July 3, trained with extremists in Libya before carrying out their deadly attacks.

Clinton was aware of everything the French were up to and apparently had little objection to the cold-blooded cynicism behind Paris's policies in the region.

The "news" in the Benghazi emails, according to the New York Times, is that, after denying it, Clinton may indeed have solicited advice from Blumenthal. The story ends with a piece of petty gossip: Clinton wanted to take credit for Gadhafi's fall, but the White House stole the limelight by announcing the Libyan leader's death first.

That's all the news that's fit to print?

Photo: Map of the distribution of oil in Libya's three states: Triplitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan. Via de Gaspari/Wikimedia Commons

South African Communists reassess country’s national democratic revolution

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 12:17:00 +0000

The South African Communist Party's Special National Congress, held July 7 - 11 in Soweto, Johannesburg, took stock of a range of problems besetting South Africa's young democracy and efforts to tackle the legacies of the colonial and apartheid past.

The SACP is a tripartite alliance partner of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). The Alliance held a summit meeting just before the SACP congress in part to examine the impacts of a range of problems involving the ANC and COSATU.

COSATU has been involved in bitter internal divisions, in part rooted in antio-labor attacks against the union movement. The National Union of Metal Workers and its general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, were expelled.

The declaration of the SACP Congress noted, "In our present reality, the SACP is the most stable and ideologically coherent formation within the Alliance. This is a time when the ANC is acknowledging many challenges related to incumbency and the influence of money on internal democracy... [and]... the unrelenting capitalist offensive against COSATU coincides with serious challenges to its unity and strength."

The strength of the SACP is evident in its mushrooming membership numbers of 35,000 a year in the last two years to its current high of 230,000. It is the second largest political formation, in terms of members, after the ANC. But, as its general secretary Blade Nzimande pointed out in his political report to the congress, the party "is itself not immune to the dangers of factionalism, incumbency, careerism and money politics."

The main aim of the party gathering was to address this situation in terms of other crosscutting developments. Mainly, these are the more aggressive stance of monopoly capital in South Africa and internationally, and the impact it has on South Africa's National Democratic Revolution (NDR) - the overarching transformative strategy of the ANC and its allies.

"It is no secret that we are confronting a very challenging period in our national democratic revolution with risks, threats but also important opportunities and responsibilities," said Nzimande. His report to the Congress detailed the vast problems confronting South Africa in the face not only of a global economy under increasingly desperate imperialist hegemony but of more intense attacks in South Africa on the left by right-wing and populist semi-fascist formations.

In one area, the mainstream media, there has been a robust offensive by the Naspers media group, resulting in the brutal and well-funded corporate capture of the public broadcaster, the SABC, and its transformation from a vehicle serving all South Africans into one for the middle class and rich. Naspers is also using its vast resources to destroy the country's independent local newspaper operators. This is all part of an offensive designed to set the course of political and social developments in the country and keep it safe for corporate domination.

The main business of the Congress was to formulate resolutions in five main areas: party building, economic transformation, the workplace, the battle of ideas, and the upcoming 2016 local government elections. The work resulted in a hefty register of resolutions that will be taken to the party's provinces, districts and branches to be carried out.

But much of the discussion of the Congress focused on reassessment and self-criticism concerning the direction of the transformation attempted since 1994. This needs some explanation.

Going to the Root

Toward the end of last year the SACP published a discussion document, Going to the Root, which aims to open up debate in the party, the broader alliance movement and the wider public on the heavy problems that persist in the country despite just over 20 years of democratic reconstruction.

The main problem the party identifies is the deepening of the triple crises that have long afflicted the majority of South Africans - unemployment, poverty and inequality, all of which are heavily racialized according to the raw legacies of the long colonial and apartheid period. The question Going to the Root seeks to answer is why, despite massive redistribution programmes over the past 20 years, these three disastrous trends continue.

For those of us on the receiving end of the sketchy mainstream media coverage of events in South Africa, the news is unremittingly bad: striking mine workers shot down by cops at Marikana, all-pervasive corruption in government, protests in poor areas against lack of service delivery, upheavals in parliament instigated by new 'radicals' fed up with government cronyism, and violent xenophobia directed at migrants from other parts of Africa.

And, in the midst of all this, plummeting ratings issued by various international agencies, covering everything from South Africa's deteriorating economic viability due to bad labor relations, hopeless education performance, lack of transparency and accountability and general bad governance.

This mainstream, largely Western, narrative has been so powerful as to convince many, even progressives of various hues, that there is nothing else going on in South Africa. As a result, few people outside the country - and a good many inside it - have any idea of the achievements made by the African National Congress in government since 1994.

Some of these post-Apartheid successes easily eclipse those of progressive left governments in South America, and yet South Africa is never characterised in the same terms as those governments. One reason is that, if it were, it would challenge the dominant Western corporate and government conventional wisdom of South Africa as the focal point of Western interests in Africa. And it is this conventional wisdom, a fairly coherent neo-liberal offensive, which we find replicated in the ways South Africa is viewed and gets depicted.

As it is, nothing is reported about the creation of a welfare program providing monthly state allowances for 16 million people, and including benefits for housing, disability and sickness, child support and income support. When the democratic government took office in 1994 there were just three million South Africans receiving rudimentary welfare grants.

Nothing gets reported about the 3.3 million free houses built for people in the poorest areas, and benefitting some 16 million people. What does get reported is that some of this government housing has been substandard due to corrupt cost- cutting by private building contractors benefitting from local government tenders. But then again what doesn't get reported is that government is now ensuring that all substandard free housing is replaced or renovated.

Nothing gets reported about the electrification program providing seven million household electricity connections since 1996. Contrast this to the achievement of all the apartheid administrations put together, which in half a century electrified just five million households, and just a few in poor areas.

Nothing gets reported about the vast overhaul of the education system, which for the black majority has meant the replacement of crude rote learning, sufficient only for unskilled employment, by multidiscipline curricula leading to university level education. What's more, nine million pupils in 20,000 schools across the country now benefit from free school meals.

And nothing gets reported about the free distribution and installation of solar water heaters to poor households, allowing people to generate their own hot water.

All these programs are works in progress and are continuing apace. They are, as the SACP, notes in its Going to the Root discussion paper, "all part of the 'good news story'...the most important factor in the continued overwhelming majority electoral support achieved by our movement."

But, the SACP points out, "since we are dealing with a real life process and not an abstract theory, this massive redistributive process underway since 1994 has often been uneven." This means that targets have been missed, the quality of delivery has been poor, and maintenance of new infrastructure gets neglected.

Demand is overwhelming

Another deeper problem is that the scale of demand overwhelms the scope for delivery to provide poor communities with services and amenities. And with crisis levels of poverty, unemployment and inequality not diminishing but worsening, the demand for services is only increasing.

The compounded problems the situation generates makes the ANC government an easy target of neo-liberal attacks to, as the SACP puts it, "sow popular demoralization and a lack of belief in the capacity of popular forces and the democratic state to advance development."

In other words, by telling just one half of the story, the negative one, the opponents of progressive change in South Africa are able to cast the ANC government, and its alliance partners - the SACP and Confederation of South African Trade Unions in a completely unfavorable light. And so, while these adversaries are all too keen to spotlight public sector corruption they are silent about the intense fight-back against corruption or about the staggering scale of private sector corruption.

But the SACP goes further, and places the country's current problems in the context of insufficient structural transformation, particularly of the productive economy, since 1994. The ANC took this self-critical approach at its last National Conference, held in 2012, and called for a "second radical phase of the national democratic revolution" - the first being the fundamental break with the past that culminated in the 1994 democratic elections.

The thinking behind the "second phase" is that while the negotiations led to the democratic breakthrough of 1994, this advance did not create a bridgehead for a radical social-economic transformation agenda. While the redistribution of surplus, largely through the fiscus, has clocked up successes, it has been conceptualized as a top-down state delivery process, and is generated from an unchanged productive economy and growth path fixated on GDP.

The result is an essentially neo-liberal, trickle-down development notion, whereby the "cake" must get bigger for everyone - particularly the working class and the poor - to have a share of it. This course of development has essentially left monopoly capital unchallenged and in the lead.

From this position it has had a free hand in aggressively restructuring production - including, as we see with Naspers, information - shifting investments from manufacturing to speculative and non-productive activities like financial services and real estate and in the process fragmenting organised labor through casualization, informalisation, labour brokering and retrenchments. To make matters worse it has presided over massive capital flight out of the country and tax evasion.

In this situation, the SACP argues, the state's redistributive successes have been muted by turning the mass popular base of the ANC and the Alliance into recipients, beneficiaries and clients of services that are "delivered." Instead of being protagonists of transformation, the mass base has been pushed into passivity, which tends to rebound against government when it fails to "deliver."

The ANC government, which includes strong input from the alliance partners at national and local level, has moved swiftly since the 2012 National Conference to create the bases for a new growth and development path through a range of policies and programmes.

They include the New Growth Path strategy for expanding jobs and development drivers in 13 key sites of production, the Industrial Policy Action Plan for state-led reindustrialization, the National Infrastructure Plan and various smaller programes, including the development of cooperatives and SMMEs. Abundant information on all of these macro policy plans is easily available from South African government websites.

The key point made by the SACP at its Congress was that despite the positive bases for change created by these policies, they will only succeed to change the social and economic landscape in South Africa if they are carried through by more mobilized and politically engaged urban and rural poor communities.

This is the decisive task confronting the Party and the Alliance as they wrestle self-critically with the ever-pertiment question, "What is to be done?"

Photo: A boy with "Rest In Peace Nelson Mandela" painted on his face looks up to the skies during the memorial service for former South African president Nelson Mandela at the FNB Stadium in Soweto, near Johannesburg, South Africa. | Peter Dejong/AP

Communist Party of South Sudan calls for negotiations to end civil war

Fri, 10 Jul 2015 14:12:00 +0000

The new nation of South Sudan has become embroiled in a civil war. While many have heard of the conflicts in the notorious Darfur region in the North, the post-independence conflict in the South has been less widely covered.

In an interview conducted in Cyprus in early June, Luciano Dojack, secretary for external relations of the Communist Party of South Sudan, spoke about the creation of the new state and the civil war.

South Sudan was founded in 2011 as a consequence of the division of Sudan between North and South.

Before the split, Sudan was the third largest country in Africa. Its communist party, the Communist Party of Sudan, has a storied history. Founded in 1946, it quickly became, along with the Iraqi Communist Party, one of the major communist parties in that part of the world. In the early 1970s, however, it suffered severe repression at the hands of Sudan's military dictator Gaffar Nimeiry, viewed by many as an imperialist agent, and many of the party's leaders were executed.

The Communist Party of Sudan initially did not support the secession of South Sudan, but divisive Islamism in the North and separatist moves in the South impeding efforts to maintain the unified state, in the end the party acceded to the creation of a separate state in the South. Its members there became the Communist Party of South Sudan, which works cooperatively with the Communist Party of Sudan.

Dojack said that, basically, the current civil war in South Sudan is between factions within the ruling party, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). This is the party that had originally championed the independence movement. The original leader of the SPLM was Dr. John Garang. Garang was very progressive, a Marxist, but he died in a plane crash in 2005. His vice president, Salva Kiir, took over and is now president.

Under Kiir the country has moved more and more to the right, Dojack said, and Kiir himself has become more and more dictatorial. In 2013, Kiir's vice president, Dr. Riek Machar, announced that he would run in the 2015 election for president against Kiir. According to Dojack, Kiir became incensed, dismissed Machar and began to arrest Machar's supporters, accusing them of planning a coup. These allegations, however, were "nothing but an excuse" to suppress the opposition, the Communist leader said.

The civil war has grown out of this, Dojack said, with the general population originally lining up behind either Kiir or Machar. Now there is a another grouping, he said: former detainees, people who had been arrested by Kiir but are now free. Although at one time they were considered to be Machar supporters these former detainees are now leading a third faction in the civil war.

The war has taken on ethnic dimensions. South Sudan, with a population of 8 million to 10 million, is made up of a number of ethnic groups. The two biggest are the Dinka, about 15 percent of the population, and the Nuer, about 10 percent. The regular army, primarily composed of Nuer people, is supporting Machar. The Republican Guard is made up of Nuer and Dinka people and has split, with the Nuer supporting Machar and the Dinka supporting Kiir. Kiir, however, has the support of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), which was originally the military wing of the SPLM but has now become, essentially, a pro-Kiir militia and is accused of carrying out atrocities against Kiir's opponents and the general population. A third important ethnic group, the Shilluk people, had been neutral but have been attacked by Kiir supporters who have perpetrated atrocities against them. Reports say both government and opposition forces have committed atrocities such as burning villages and killing civilians because of their ethnicity.

Dojack said that all parties to the conflict give lip service to reunifying the SPLM but this is likely futile at this point. The last talks between the sides were in March and, although it was agreed to continue talking, there have been no meetings since and no new talks are scheduled.

The Communist Party of South Sudan is calling for inclusive negotiations which bring together all parties, factions and groups affected by this civil war.

Photo: In this photo taken June 26, 2015, a family displaced by the civil war arrives at the United Nations base in Bentiu, South Sudan. | Jason Patinkin/AP

United States still trying to undermine Cuba’s government

Thu, 09 Jul 2015 13:27:00 +0000

Cuba and the United States will soon open embassies in their two capital cities, ending 54 years of no diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Yet normal bi-national relations are unlikely anytime soon. Remaining problems include the U.S. economic blockade, land in Guantanamo the U.S. occupies for its base and prison, and the 1965 Cuban Adjustment Act affecting Cuban migration.

Additionally, U.S. attempts over many years to recruit a political opposition to Cuba's revolutionary government are a particular sore spot for Cuban leaders. Their aim has always been is destabilization and Tracey Eaton sees them as continuing.

The former Havana bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News has long kept track of U.S. funding of this mode of intervention in Cuba's internal affairs. His findings, obtained from official U. S. sources, appear on his blog, "On the Malecon."

In an interview with Cuban journalist Iroel Sánchez, he surveyed the current status of U.S. "democracy promotion" programs. A summary of information emerging from the encounter testifies to tension between initiatives of the elected Obama administration and sectors of the U.S. diplomatic and intelligence bureaucracy working in conjunction with the U.S. Congress. It highlights an obstacle to future relations based on mutual respect.

Asked about current intentions of U.S. officials, Eaton said that, "I think they are going to keep on as long as the Helms-Burton Law exists that authorizes these programs." He quoted from recent recommendations from the House Appropriations Committee: "Consistent with the President's Cuba policy, the United States will continue to provide democracy assistance for Cuba to promote human rights and fundamental freedoms, and support the free flow of information." For Eaton, Committee members "see an opportunity" created by the Obama administration's opening toward Cuba.

The Committee is calling for $30,000,000 to pay for "programs to promote democracy and strengthen civil society in Cuba." At least $8,000,000 of that will be funneled through the National Endowment for Democracy, with much of the remainder going to the United States Agency for International Development.

There are recommendations for $28 million in continued funding for Radio and TV Marti broadcasting of U.S. propaganda to Cuba and almost $18 million for "Internet freedom programs" in Cuba.

The State Department in December, 2014 indicated it was making $11 million available for U. S. and foreign-partner organizations that could develop programs "aimed at boosting civil, political and labor rights in Cuba."

Tracey Eaton sees as significant the three-year duration of U.S. government grants for these programs. Crucially, "one can have many programs functioning at the same time because some began three years ago, others two years ago, and others now." He is describing, in effect, institutionalization of the programs.

Eaton mentioned that "from 1996 to 2012 the USAID and the State Department awarded 111 Cuba-related contracts and grants to 51 partners." He points out that with each contract giving rise to an average of 11 sub-contractors, the Department funded 1,332 programs in all.

And, administrations in Washington have spent "$304,300,000 on Cuba-related democracy programs since 1996." The figure covers activities extending throughout 2016. The Radio and TV Marti endeavor has consumed some $700 million. But, he adds, 85 percent of the total outlay for all programs goes toward "salaries, office expenses and travel" of organizations administering the interventionist programs.

State Department budgetary proposals for converting the U.S. Interests Section in Havana to an embassy hint at plans for the future. As part of the $11 million requested for fiscal year 2015 - up from $ 4.7 million - the State Department wants $528,000 for something called "Cuba Outreach."

Tracey Eaton noted, finally, that "I don't hear many people [there] asking if the United States has the right to insert itself in the internal affairs of Cuba, neither in discussions or the media...The question for me is the role of the United States in the evolution of the political system in Cuba. When there is such a lack of transparency, that's no help to anybody."

Photo: U.S. taxpayers, after having spent a billion dollars to keep Radio and TV Marti, which both broadcast anti-Cuban propaganda into Cuba from studios run by right-wing exiles in the U.S., learned that the broadcasts are actually listened to or watched by only a tiny sliver of the Cuban population. | Wikipedia (CC)

Today in history: Russell-Einstein manifesto for peace

Thu, 09 Jul 2015 13:18:00 +0000

On this date in 1955, citing a world "full of conflicts; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between Communism and anti-Communism," British philosopher Bertrand Russell released the so-called "Russell-Einstein Manifesto" co-signed by 11 prominent scientists, three months after Albert Einstein's death. Einstein had agreed to put his name to it in his final days. Issued at the height of the Cold War, the manifesto urged nations to find peaceful ways to settle differences and to renounce the use of nuclear weapons, which only promised "universal death."

The concluding passages of the manifesto read as follows:

Although an agreement to renounce nuclear weapons as part of a general reduction of armaments would not afford an ultimate solution, it would serve certain important purposes.

First, any agreement between East and West is to the good in so far as it tends to diminish tension. Second, the abolition of thermo-nuclear weapons, if each side believed that the other had carried it out sincerely, would lessen the fear of a sudden attack in the style of Pearl Harbor, which at present keeps both sides in a state of nervous apprehension. We should, therefore, welcome such an agreement though only as a first step.

Most of us are not neutral in feeling, but, as human beings, we have to remember that, if the issues between East and West are to be decided in any manner that can give any possible satisfaction to anybody, whether Communist or anti-Communist, whether Asian or European or American, whether White or Black, then these issues must not be decided by war. We should wish this to be understood, both in the East and in the West.

There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.

Resolution:

We invite this Congress, and through it the scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution:

"In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them."

Aside from Russell and Einstein, the other signatories included: Max Born, Percy W. Bridgman, Leopold Infeld, Frederic Joliot-Curie, Herman J. Muller, Linus Pauling, Cecil F. Powell, Joseph Rotblat, and Hideki Yukawa.

Adapted from Chase's Calendar of Events and other sources. At this site, you will find the complete manifesto.

Photo: Bertrand Russell leads an anti-nuclear march in London. | Wikipedia (CC)

Puerto Rico petition for bankruptcy struck down by Appeals Court

Wed, 08 Jul 2015 12:34:00 +0000

Puerto Rico's Governor Garcia Padilla recently announced that Puerto Rico is unable to pay back its $72 billion dollar deficit and announced that the island's economy is on the verge of collapse.

At the turn of the 19th Century the U.S. seized Puerto Rico from Spain and proceeded to destabilize its agricultural industry, composed of mostly small landowners and subsistence farmers by selling the majority of arable land to powerful U.S. corporations.

In addition, Puerto Rico was prohibited from negotiating its own bilateral trade agreements and had much of its economic growth limited by U.S.-imposed restrictions.

This has resulted in the commonwealth never being allowed to direct its own economic development.

Over time Puerto Rico, like many Caribbean islands, became dependent on the investments of the wealthy in the form of tax-free investments, such as municipal bonds.

In 2006 several provisions of the Puerto Rican tax code which allow investors to avoid federal and state taxes expired, causing a drop in investment revenue.

Since 2013 various hedge funds became interested in Puerto Rico as many of the commonwealth's usual investors had become skittish around it's steadily declining economy.

These hedge funds were able to purchase bonds from these frightened investors at a fraction of the cost due to their desperation to be rid of them.

Then result was that these hedge funds were left holding promises given by a commonwealth on the edge of collapse.

It is clear that the hedge funds were well aware of the risk, so why did they buy in?

The answer goes back to the same U.S. restrictions: Puerto Rico, unlike Detroit or Stockton, has no legal right to declare bankruptcy.

Since it cannot discharge its debts, the investors are guaranteed profit either way.

If Puerto Rico pays back the bonds then the bankers get the full value of the bond at a fraction of the price.

If Puerto Rico doesn't pay them back, the bankers and their lawyers divide the spoils of the crippled country, which may end up being far more lucrative than Puerto Rico actually paying them back.

It may be that this is what the hedge funds were hoping for all along.

This is why hedge funds are lobbying hard against Puerto Rico's petition to be allowed to declare Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

If the bankruptcy goes through then the hedge funds lose millions and Puerto Rico gets to enjoy luxuries such as schools, clean water, and infrastructure.

In a rare moment of bipartisan solidarity both Presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush have expressed that bankruptcy should be allowed to Puerto Rico.

Most recently, however, a U.S appeals court has struck down the petition, effectively putting the needs of hedge fund managers before a commonwealth where 41 percent of people live below the poverty line.

Photo: A homeless couple sleeps in front of a closed business in San Juan. Over 41 percent of Puerto Rico's population lives below the poverty line. | Ricardo Arduengo/AP

What the Greek “no” vote means for American workers

Mon, 06 Jul 2015 13:20:00 +0000

"... little Greece is not marginal now! ...This courageous vote hit usually smug politicians and bankers so hard you could almost hear their teeth rattle - or gnash - in well-appointed cabinet rooms from Berlin's Tiergarten to the Palais de l'Élysée, and oak-paneled bank executive offices in skyscrapers high over Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Luxembourg." - Victor Grossman

Imagine yourself back in 2007 when the biggest financial crisis in 80 years descended on American working people with a hurricane force. Home equity was wiped out for many. Millions lost jobs. Retirement funds were destroyed. Lending dried up completely for anyone except millionaires. Small businesses and large, if they were not "bailed out," went under. Long-term unemployment benefits extension battles raged in Congress. Most have still not regained their previous incomes. Grown children moved back into their parents' house. Debts went unpaid. Foreclosures boomed. Cupboards and refrigerators were bare. Violence and inequalities grew together ....

Now, double or triple all that harm and damage - and you have the condition of the Greek people, or at least its working class. European Union bankers and their friends - creditors to Greece - now say: "We will 'bail you out' with some more loans you won't ever be able to repay. But only if you kneel and double down on the misery, so you don't ever forget to pay your debts again. Oh - don't worry, you will be better off in the long run." Long after we are all dead, that is.

James Galbraith is a progressive American economist and a close friend and economic policy advisor to the Greek Syriza party - the leftward leadership of Greece elected to resist and oppose imposing further austerity on the Greek people. He published a cogent refutation this week of the slanders and misinformation leveled against Syriza and Greece by their adversaries - the vultures of austerity. The propaganda characterizing Syriza as laughable and "incompetent" is flowing like a river from the financial citadels of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (to a lesser degree), and the whole universe of austerity-loving billionaires and their putrid retinue of ideological jackals - including the entire U.S. Republican presidential field - are joining in. Starving a whole nation, turning one of the world's oldest civilizations into a failed state, is trivial to the banking class compared with Greece defaulting on the loans the bankers issued - issued, by the way, without any "due diligence" at all.

On July 5, in a national referendum, the Greek people voted resoundingly, by a 60+ percent margin, "No" ("Oxi" in Greek), to reject the EU bailout terms.

Gary Bono has an excellent review of the buildup to the referendum. To add additional pressure and terror before the vote EU banks dried up liquidity (cash) for Greek banks, seeking to create panic. There was a run on the banks as people tried to protect their savings.

The usual "super-patriotic" suspects among the rich, and their hangers on among the doctoring and lawyering classes, have been desperately trying to leave their country with their money. Faux critics of austerity, like the ones that threw the big party that got the country into its current mess, voted "Yes" to the EU terms.

The outright fascists - called Golden Dawn - said "No." But unlike Syriza, and most Greeks, the fascists do want to leave the EU, and the euro, return to a near worthless drachma (the original Greek currency), and abolish democracy and unions under the cover of terrorizing immigrants.

The Greek Communist Party, a declining but still significant force in Greek politics, said, "Neither yes nor no." Maybe that meant, "Don't vote." Even from afar, that seems like a feet-planted-in-mid-air position, or maybe head-up-your-behind position.

EU bankers and their "political shop stewards", Angela Merkel of Germany, Francois Hollande of France, David Cameron of the UK, aggressively, openly and covertly, intervened in Greek politics to assert that a "No" vote means Greece will leave both the euro (EU common currency) and the European Union. But Syriza has repeatedly said Greece will NOT leave either the euro or the EU regardless of the vote.

The IMF and EU creditors say they have been "flexible and generous." Christine LaGarde herself, managing director of the IMF, called the EU creditor demands "impossible to meet." However, since the IMF's stance on Greece omits any relenting on taxes, wages, pensions or collective bargaining rights ("cut them all"), one wonders what she really means. And, of course, not a word, please, about the reckless EU lending practices to the previous right-wing Greek government, and their own obligations to write off a substantial part of the Greek debt.

Syriza is strongly recommended a "No" to unsustainable austerity. All the enemies on the right in Greece, and among phony liberals - and some phony socialists - all over Europe are caving and showing their true class colors and lining up behind the austerians.

Of course, it's not over. The pressures on Greek working families are immense. To widen its mandate, the Greek leadership is winning more participation by centrist (less "socialist-Marxist" etc) forces. If Greek banks fail, and only EU banks have any money, Greek exports will suffer very high credit costs or no credit at all. The bargaining position of the Greek leadership is the most complex and difficult I can imagine. Its majority is thin. None of the options are easy or certain. But the people have spoken in clear voice above the noise: "NO" to unsustainable austerity.

If the working class even just shrugs its shoulders in unison, mountains can move and kings can fall. Since Greece cannot legally be expelled from the EU, the already demonstrated power or ability to pay, or not pay, debts (that Greece has not renounced, by the way) while refusing to leave the EU probably gives it the best long-term leverage to compel better terms from the EU, although any success will require a sustained and disciplined struggle.

One thing seems certain to me: If you go to the banking class with your hat in your hand, they will fill it with excrement before forgiving a debt. On the other hand - if you can threaten their money, or in Chuck Colson terms, "have them by the testicles," then their laughing and sneering will become decidedly more respectful. Who knows? Their hearts and minds may then follow!

The U.S. is not in the same shape as Greece, and our politics are far different. Unlike Greece, our economy received about 30% of the bailout needed. Plus we can print our own money, giving us lots more flexibility. But here, like there, the issue is also austerity: regressive taxation (i.e. tax the workers, not the rich), wage-cutting, exporting jobs, killing unions and the very right to collectively bargain; cutting unemployment benefits, health care, education, affordable housing, and infrastructure; accelerating inequality and its racist, sexist, discriminatory reactionary consequences for fairness and democracy. Can't you just SEE the Koch brothers chortling in their joy to see everyone scrambling for crumbs while they rake it in? We see all the components of the austerity ripoff and robbery here in the U.S.

The EU financial elite's refusal to back off the lie of economic growth from "kick the working class in the ass" policies - policies that abundant evidence demonstrate are frauds - shows that these people cannot be reformed by reason and evidence. Indeed, they must be isolated and defeated and removed from power in every social and political arena If we don't get that done, "failed-state-ism" - with all the terrors that implies - will spread worldwide and put a knife in the back of democracy and progress, for ourselves, and for the Greeks.

All the workers of the world, I hope, hear the Greek voice, as in ages past they did. Solidarity. Its time is now.

Photo: Two days before the national referendum, Greeks rally for a "No" ("Oxi") vote to reject the European bankers' austerity demand, in Syntagma Square in the heart of Athens, July 3, 2015. | linmtheu Creative Commons

Today in history: Jan Hus burned at the stake 600 years ago

Mon, 06 Jul 2015 11:21:00 +0000

On this date in 1415, the Czech religious reformer Jan Hus (in English, John Hus or Huss), condemned as a heretic against the doctrines of the Catholic Church, was burned at the stake. This date has long been a Czech national holiday in his honor.

The story of Jan Hus (born ca. 1369) is more than a question of internal church disputes. As a priest, philosopher, and Master at Charles University in Prague, he is considered, after John Wycliffe, the English theorist of ecclesiastical Reformation, the first church reformer, living before Martin Luther, John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli.

Hus was a key predecessor to the Protestant movement of the 16th century. His teachings had a strong influence on the establishment of a reformist Bohemian religious denomination and, more than a century later, on Martin Luther himself.

A century after his death, as many as 90 percent of inhabitants of the Czech lands were non-Catholic; to this day some still follow the teachings of Hus. In asserting their independence from Rome, the Hussites represented an early expression of Czech nationalism.

After earning two university degrees, Hus was ordained as a priest in 1400. In 1402 Hus began preaching in Prague demanding the reformation of the Church.

Hus tried to delineate the moral failings of clergy, bishops, and even the papacy from his pulpit. He enjoyed some local support, but on June 24, 1405, Pope Innocent VII, directed Hus's archbishop to counter Wycliffe's heretical teachings, and to ban any further attacks on the clergy. Hus, however, continued to promote Wycliffe's ideas.

Like Wycliffe, Hus spoke out against indulgences. Hus asserted that no pope or bishop had the right to take up the sword in the name of the Church; that a Christian should pray for his enemies and bless those who curse him; and that a person obtains forgiveness of sins by true repentance, not by a donation of money to the church. Hus's followers considered the church a fraudulent mob of adulterers and "Simonists," people who bought their positions.

To some, Hus's efforts were predominantly designed to rid the Church of its ethical abuses, rather than a campaign of sweeping theological change. To others, the seeds of the Reformation are clear in Hus's and Wycliffe's writings. In explaining the plight of the average Christian in Bohemia, Hus wrote, "One pays for confession, for mass, for the sacrament, for indulgences, for churching a woman, for a blessing, for burials, for funeral services and prayers. The very last penny which an old woman has hidden in her bundle for fear of thieves or robbery will not be saved. The villainous priest will grab it."

In response, three men from the lower classes who openly called the indulgences a fraud were beheaded. They were later considered the first martyrs of the Hussite Church.

Martyrdom and vindication

Sigismund of Hungary, who was "King of the Romans" (i.e., head of the Holy Roman Empire, though not then Emperor), and heir to the Bohemian crown, was anxious to end religious dissension within the Church. He arranged for a general council to convene in November 1414, at Konstanz in southern Germany, on Lake Constance just across from Switzerland. The Council of Constance (1414-1418) became the 16th ecumenical council recognized by the Catholic Church. Hus willingly agreed to go to Konstanz, under Sigismund's promise of safe conduct.

A few weeks after his arrival in Konstanz, Hus was arrested and thrown into the dungeon of the Dominican monastery. In December a formal investigation against Hus began, but Hus was not allowed an advocate for his defense. Transferred to the castle of the Archbishop of Konstanz, Hus was kept for 73 days, separated from his friends, chained day and night, poorly fed, and ill.

On June 5, 1415, his trial began, and Hus was moved to a Franciscan monastery. He declared himself willing to recant if his errors should be proven to him from the Bible, but otherwise defended his reformist protests against the Church.

The condemnation took place on July 6, 1415, in the presence of the assembly of the Council in the Cathedral. After the High Mass and Liturgy, Hus was led into the church. He protested that even at this hour he did not wish anything, but to be convinced from Scripture. He fell upon his knees and asked God to forgive all his enemies.

At the place of execution, he knelt down, spread out his hands, and prayed aloud. The executioner undressed him, tied his hands behind his back, and bound his neck with a chain to a stake around which wood and straw had been piled up so that it covered him to the neck. At the last moment Hus refused to recant and thus save his own life.

"God is my witness that the things charged against me I never preached," Hus said. "In the same truth of the Gospel which I have written, taught, and preached, drawing upon the sayings and positions of the holy doctors, I am ready to die today."

Hus's ashes were thrown into the Rhine River.

Responding with horror to Hus's execution, the people of Bohemia moved even more rapidly away from papal teachings, prompting an announced crusade against them. Pope Martin V issued a papal bull that all supporters of reformers like Hus and Wycliffe be slaughtered. Some two thousand Hussites were thrown into the Kutná Hora mines by pro-Catholic townsmen. The Hussite community became a major military power, and defeated a wave of crusades that lasted until 1434. Fighting ended with a compromise in 1436.

According to Hus, the Church is not the hierarchy; it is the entire body of those who have been predestined for salvation. Christ, not the pope, is its head. It is no article of faith that one must obey the pope to be saved. Neither membership in the Church nor churchly offices and dignities assure that the persons in question are members of the true Church. Hus's theology predates by almost a century similar developments that would take place in the Lutheran Reformation. His extensive writings earn him a prominent place in Czech literary history.

Nearly six centuries later in 1999, Pope John Paul II expressed "deep regret for the cruel death inflicted" on Hus. Cardinal Miloslav Vlk of the Czech Republic was instrumental in crafting John Paul II's statement.

Adapted from Wikipedia.

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