People Before Profit blog

The Bushes, dirty tricks and regime change in nuclear-free Palau

Tue, 30 Jun 2015 12:36:00 +0000

On June 30, 1985, 30 years ago today, Haruo Remeliik, the president of anti-nuclear Palau, had his brains blown out. What - if anything - did former CIA Director George H.W. Bush have to do with this and what does it say about who the Bushes really are?

Last December, as Jeb Bush prepared for his presidential bid, reports about his financial dealings revealed that, according to the L.A. Times: "Bush and his partners also set up two other funds. BH Logistics raised $26 million and invested it in Dorian LPG Ltd., a shipping company incorporated last year in the Marshall Islands to transport propane gas." While Politico noted that BH Logistics is involved in the shale oil industry, a more intriguing point is: Why has Jeb Bush been connected to the remote Republic of the Marshall Islands, site of numerous postwar U.S. hydrogen and atomic bomb tests?

In fact, Bush dynasty involvement in Micronesia - those Western Pacific Islands roughly stretching between Hawaii and the Philippines - dates back to World War II's Pacific Theater campaign. It is a sordid saga of terrorism against peace and eco-activists, including presidential assassinations, primarily aimed at destroying Oceania's 1980s environmental movement, from Moruroa to Auckland to Koror and beyond.

On July 25, 1944, fighter pilot George Herbert Walker Bush's plane sank a Japanese trawler at Kayangel atoll, the northernmost tip of what is now the Republic of Palau, in Micronesia. Interestingly, according to a 1993 cover story in Harper's Magazine, after Bush's plane sank the Japanese ship, survivors in two lifeboats were strafed, a violation of international law. Decades later, when Mark Hertsgaard of Harper's asked Bush's Houston office if Bush had committed this war crime, the response was: "No comment." (This story was suppressed until after the 1992 election, although much was made of Clinton's draft record. In the 1991 Gulf War, while George H.W. Bush was commander-in-chief, U.S. forces repeatedly killed Iraqis after they fled and/or surrendered.)

From September to November 1944, the Battle of Peleliu raged in southern Palau, and was one of the bloodiest conflicts during WWII's island hopping campaign, costing the Marines and Navy 6,526 casualties. As a very young man, Navy pilot Bush had impressed upon him the strategic importance and value of this island chain that stretches across vital Australia/Japan/Indonesia shipping lanes in the southwestern Pacific. George H.W. Bush's mysterious connections to Palau continued while he was CIA Director, Vice President and President.

After the U.S. conquered Palau, Washington administered the far-flung archipelago as part of the United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands from 1947 to the 1990s. Following WWII, America agreed to a sacred trust: to develop Micronesia so it could eventually exercise a legitimate act of self-determination via a plebiscite, with voters freely voting on the islands' future political status. However, Washington recognized the military value of this 3 million square mile area stretching between Hawaii and the Philippines (with Palau as its southwestern tier), and it became the only Strategic Trust of the 11 U.N. trusteeships.

The Defense Department used the Marshall Islands as a nuclear test site from 1946-1958, and in the 1970s, as Palau prepared for self-rule, concerned about nuclear fallout and irradiation, a super-majority of Palauans passed a nuclear-free constitution. However, this clashed with Pentagon policy to neither confirm nor deny that its crafts are nuclear-powered or -armed, plus DOD plans to relocate U.S. forward bases from the Philippines to Micronesia. The conflict came to a head while George H.W. Bush, veteran of WWII's Palau campaign, was CIA Director and in the Executive Branch.

The not so pacific Pacific

According to Bob Woodward in The Washington Post, CIA chief G.H.W. Bush presided over illegal bugging of Micronesian political status negotiations in the 1970s, ordered by Henry Kissinger, carried out by Bush ally Brent Scowcroft, and aimed at "exerting covert influence on key elements of the Micronesian independence movement." While Vice President, Bush had his longtime crony Fred Zeder, an ex-Pacific fighter pilot and Texas businessman, appointed the President's personal representative for Micronesian status negotiations in 1982.

Zeder had been admitted to the Young Presidents' Organization in 1960 at the University of Michigan, where his roommate was Prescott S. Bush Jr., the brother of George Bush Sr. While he was chairman and CEO of the diversified manufacturing company Hydrometals Corporation, Zeder moved the firm from New York to Dallas in the early 1960s. Zeder was elected to the City Council in Dallas in 1971 and also served on the Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Airport Board. His business interest in the Pacific Islands is evinced by the fact that he was chairman of the board of Paradise Cruise Corporation in Hawaii from 1978 to his death in 2004.

Zeder played a role in bankrupting tiny Palau by supporting IPSECO - an apparent covert action disguised as a power plant, with generators and a fuel farm far too big for Palau's 15,000 people (but large enough to provide power/fuel for future possible U.S. military bases). The only way the emerging nation could pay off its enormous power debt was by approving a treaty called the Compact of Free Association. The accord would nullify Palau's anti-nuclear constitution - in exchange for U.S. aid.

Much was made about "regime change" in Iraq because of Saddam's purported weapons of mass destruction. But scant attention has been paid to the tragic tale of regime change in a Pacific Island of 15,000 indigenous people who dared oppose U.S. WMDs - and the Bush connection to Palau. George W. Bush may ballyhoo the notion of spreading democracy, but while his father was in the executive branch, Palauans were compelled to vote about 15 times in around as many years on self-rule and their nuclear-free status. Palauans could vote, but their vote didn't count unless it favored U.S. policy. Palauans had to keep casting their ballots until Washington attained its desired result: the rescinding of the anti-nuclear clauses of Palau's constitution.

During this display of democracy, Palau was gripped by a mysterious reign of terror. On June 30, 1985, Pres. Haruo Remeliik was assassinated, which reopened the then-deadlocked treaty negotiations. Shortly after the liquidation, then-Vice Pres. Bush personally flew to Saipan, where the Trust Territory administration was headquartered, to reopen stalled negotiations, and struck a new deal.

However, antinuclear activists defeated the treaty in court, where the Palau High Court ruled that a 75 percent vote in favor of a proposed Compact of Free Association was required in order to override the tiny nation's anti-nuclear laws. In 1987, terrorists firebombed and shot Pacific pacifists, and besieged Palau's congress. A U.S. Congressional General Accounting Office investigation found a $2 million U.S.-derived slush fund that financed political violence. In 1988, Palau's second elected president, pro-U.S. puppet Lazarus Salii, also mysteriously had his head blown off. Although this was officially declared a suicide, the elimination of Salii - who was unable to pass the Compact - untied the Gordian knot that led to the elimination of Palau's anti-nuclear clauses.

Other high ranking U.S. officials during the Reagan-Bush era who had links to Palau include: Secretary of State George Shultz, who secured Palauan beachheads as a Marine sergeant during WWII. Shultz returned to Palau in 1986 during the Compact re-negotiation process. In the late 1970s, Admiral William Crowe surveyed land in Palau for U.S. bases, and became CINCPAC (Commander in Chief, Pacific Command) and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman 1985-1989. President George H.W. Bush appointed Brent Scowcroft - who'd arranged the Kissinger-ordered surveillance of Micronesian status negotiations - National Security Adviser.

Remembering the Rainbow Warrior

Paris was Washington's colonial partner in Oceania, and in the 1960s Moruroa, in French-occupied Polynesia, became France's South Pacific nuclear testing site for atmospheric and underwater N-blasts. Ten days before French secret agents bombed the Rainbow Warrior in antinuclear New Zealand (July 10, 1985), as Greenpeace prepared to protest France's nuclear testing near Tahiti, the first president of the world's first national nuclear-free zone was gunned down. Saboteurs of the Rainbow Warrior were captured and convicted, and the implicated chiefs of France's military and intelligence services resigned. It's an established fact that French state terrorism was responsible for the Greenpeace ship bombing. Is it farfetched to think the assassination of two of Palau's presidents and the reign of terror there constituted American state terrorism?

As former CIA chief, George H.W. Bush headed what LBJ called "Murder, Inc.," and, as mobsters say: "The fish stinks from the head down." The Pentagon had motive: relocating bases from the Philippines (closed after Marcos' overthrow) to Palau - thwarted by the world's first nuclear-free constitution. To find out who commits a crime, see who benefits from it: The IPSECO debt and political violence finally wore Palauans down, and in the 1990s their antinuclear framed rules were defeated. Palau was, in effect, annexed by Uncle Sam, as was the rest of Micronesia.

The story of Palau is full of irony and a case study in U.S. imperial rule and Bush governance. During the Iraq War, the beaten-into-submission islands joined the so-called "coalition of the willing." Washington claimed it invaded Iraq and brought about regime change because of its purported WMDs. On the other hand, regime change happened in nuclear-free Palau because it refused to allow actually existing WMDs to transit its waters and skies or on its land. The second Bush administration cited Iraqi ties to Al-Qaeda and international terrorism as another (subsequently debunked) rationale for war, but when tiny Palau dared resist Washington's will, a real reign of terror was unleashed on the island nation that included the mysterious gunshot deaths of its first two elected presidents. Although Bush II purports that spreading democracy was another reason for invading Iraq, Palauans were forced to keep going to the polls until the outcome of a vote was finally deemed acceptable to the White House.

And all this took place while somebody named George Bush - senior, then junior - was in the executive branch. Now, another member of this ruling-class family - which puts the "nasty" into dynasty - is seeking the White House. As Jeb Bush's idiotic Iraq War comments made while he was on the campaign trail in May indicate, along with his choice of Bush regime-era advisers, the apple doesn't fall far from the foreign policy tree. (As Donald Trump pithily put it after Jeb's Iraq blundering: "Is he intelligent?") And as Jeb's business dealings in the Marshalls reveal, he too has interests in islands which suffered so much while his father was CIA chief, vice president and president, destroying the world's first national nuclear-free zone.

Thirty years after the assassination of Palau's president (and the bombing of Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior), voters need to know about and take into account the Bushes' real role in the Pacific. With another Bush running for the White House, it's time for the news media to get serious and to investigate whether Bush Sr. was involved in Haruo Remeliik's assassination - and exactly who the Bushes really are and how they do business.

Ed Rampell covered Palau during Bush's vice presidency for AP, Reuters, Newsweek, Radio New Zealand, Radio Australia, Gannett Press, Pacific Islands Monthly, etc. He initiated and was the investigative reporter for ABC News' "20/20" segment, "The Puzzle of Palau," which aired in July 1987 and proved that three young men related to the opposition leader who were convicted of assassinating President Remeliik were framed political prisoners. Within two weeks of the Barbara Walters-introduced report, the trio was fully exonerated of the murder by Palau's Supreme Court. Rampell went on to report for the Australian Broadcasting Corp.'s Background Briefing two-part exposé that directly resulted in the conviction of Palau's pro-Washington Minister of State for soliciting the homicide of President Remeliik.

Photo: Haruo Ignacio Remeliik by TTPI(Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands) Headquarters - Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands Archives Photograph Collection. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons-.

Robert Redford demands global action on climate change

Tue, 30 Jun 2015 06:34:00 +0000

Robert Redford, speaking at the United Nations yesterday sounded an urgent warning about the danger of climate change and called for immediate action to end it. "This is it, " he said. "This is our only planet, our only life source. This is our last chance."

The 78-year old actor and environmental activist continued, "Our planet's resources are limited, but there is no limit to the human imagination and our capacity to solve our biggest problems".

He went on to urge the world's leaders to adopt a climate agreement in Paris in December. "This December, the world must unite behind a common goal," demanded Redford.

The goal of the Paris conference is to cut green house gases, "The landmark agreement would limit global warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (two degrees Celsius) from pre-industrial revolution levels as of 2020. Redford said moderate weather is going extinct. Redford's statement can be viewed below.

Today in history: The United Nations Charter is signed in 1945

Fri, 26 Jun 2015 10:53:00 +0000

On June 26, 70 years ago, on the stage of San Francisco's Veterans Auditorium (now the Herbst Theatre in the center of the War Memorial Veterans Building), delegates from 50 nations signed the United Nations Charter, establishing the world body as a means of saving "succeeding generations from the scourge of war." The Germans had surrendered to the Allied forces a month earlier; the war in the Pacific continued for another six weeks.

The Charter of the United Nations is the foundational treaty of the newly created intergovernmental organization that emerged from World War II.

The document entered into force on October 24, 1945, after being ratified by the original five permanent members of the Security Council - China, France, the USSR, the United Kingdom, and the United States - and a majority of the other signatories.

As a charter, it is a constituent treaty, and all members are bound by its articles. Furthermore, its Article 103 states that obligations to the United Nations prevail over all other treaty obligations.Most countries in the world have now ratified the Charter.

The document describes the organs and institutions of the UN and their respective powers, including arrangements for integrating the UN with established international law. Various chapters deal with the Security Council's power to investigate and mediate disputes, and to authorize economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions, as well as the use of military force; the role of regional arrangements to maintain peace and security within their own region; the UN's powers for economic and social cooperation; the Trusteeship Council, which oversaw decolonization; and the powers of the International Court of Justice and the United Nations Secretariat.

The Preamble to the treaty reads as follows:

We the peoples of the United Nations determined

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

And for these ends

to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors, and
to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

Have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims.

It hardly bears mentioning that the lofty goals of the United Nations have all too often been ignored in the 70 years since 1945. The UN has received full, unqualified support from few of its members, who have often gone to war and acted unilaterally where consultation and cooperation would clearly have been the wiser course. Owing to the veto power on the part of the permanent members of the Security Council, the UN has sometimes been incapacitated from securing peace. The UN has also served as a sounding board for grandstanding political leaders trying to promulgate their views to an international audience, although in some cases (speeches by representatives of Cuba come to mind) corporate media control has often denied these voices any other exposure.

Nevertheless, in many of its programs, the UN has also served as a widely respected moral voice for refugees, the environment, women's rights, labor, agricultural development, disaster relief, and cultural preservation, to name a few of its concerns. The model for a more concerted community of nations exists and would be more effective if especially the great powers would be willing to sacrifice some of their hegemony for the broader benefit of humanity.

Adapted from the Peace History Index, Wikipedia and other sources.

Photo: Gerard E. Lescot, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chairman of the Haiti Delegation, addresses the 6th Plenary Session at the Opera House, 1 May 1945, San Francisco, United States. UN Photo/Rosenberg.

Today in history: Mozambique achieves independence in 1975

Thu, 25 Jun 2015 12:34:00 +0000

June 25 marks the 40^th anniversary of independence from Portugal for the African nation of Mozambique.

Portuguese explorers were among the first Europeans to reach Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Starting in the early 1500s they established colonies on all these continents.

Inspired by the post-WWII spirit of anti-colonialism, movements for independence emerged in the Portuguese colonies of Guinea-Bissau, Angola, and Mozambique, as well as on the islands of Cape Verde and São Tomé e Príncipe. The decade of 1964-1974 marks the height of their anti-colonial wars of independence. In Mozambique the leading force was FRELIMO - the Mozambique Liberation Front - led by Eduardo Mondlane, Samora Machel and others. By the late 1960s, FRELIMO controlled a third of the country's land, although no urban areas.

"A luta continua" - the struggle continues - was FRELIMO's rallying cry, and soon became a popular slogan worldwide. Its special power lay in its celebratory and consoling character: It could be uttered to seal a victory as well as to mark a setback, and to point people's attention forward. A listener hearing these words would often reply, "Vitória é certa" - victory is certain. Even after independence, Mozambicans continue to use this phrase as an unofficial national motto.

The struggle for freedom in Portuguese Africa cannot be separated from global politics. The fascist government in Lisbon was linked to the Cold War preoccupation with "communism" in the national liberation movements. Imperialist powers collaborated in supporting the apartheid regime in Mozambique's neighbor, South Africa. But as a small, poor European country, Portugal no longer commanded the forces to hold its far-flung empire within its grasp. Portuguese soldiers, as well as the people in general, started questioning the value of losing lives and vast treasure in the ever more futile attempt to retain the rebellious colonies.

This was a case of the colonies "freeing" the motherland: The April 1974 "Carnation Revolution" in Portugal, with the support of the military, overthrew the Portuguese regime. The country embarked on a democratic course, and ended its long and draining colonial wars. Portugal and FRELIMO negotiated Mozambique's independence, official in June 1975. The other Portuguese colonies achieved independence around the same time.

FRELIMO established a one-party state based on Marxist principles, with Samora Machel as president. The new government received diplomatic recognition and some military support from Cuba and the Soviet Union, and was almost immediately thrust into the conflict over South Africa. Anti-apartheid freedom fighters often found refuge, and even established offices in Mozambique and the other frontline states. South African military conducted frequent raids and bombings in Mozambique to liquidate its opponents. Machel himself died on October 19, 1986, in a plane that crashed in Mbuzini, just over the border in South Africa, under conditions that strongly suggest South African complicity. (His widow Graça Machel later married Nelson Mandela, the only woman in history ever to be the wife of two presidents.)

Most of the 250,000 Portuguese colonists in Mozambique left the country and returned to Portugal penniless. The first years of independence were rough: South African- and Western-financed anti-Communist rebel militias started a long and violent civil war against FRELIMO, and this combined with inexperience, lack of investment, drought and economic collapse. The central government barely exercised effective control outside of urban areas. After apartheid ended, however, Mozambique stabilized, and in recent years has shown substantial progress. By 1993 more than 1.5 million Mozambican refugees who had sought asylum in neighboring countries returned. Today South Africa is Mozambique's main trading partner and source of foreign investment, and the tourism sector is growing.

At 309,475 sq. miles, Mozambique is the world's 36^th-largest country, comparable in size to Turkey, and slightly smaller than the combined area of California, Oregon and Washington. Its population is estimated at 24 million.

In an echo of the 1970s history of "the colonies freeing the motherland," over the past decade Portuguese have been returning to Mozambique because of the growing economy there and the poor economic situation at home.

A luta continua.

Image: Wikimedia Commons .

Today in Pride Month history: Homosexuals in Holocaust first publicly recognized

Wed, 24 Jun 2015 16:05:00 +0000

On this date in 1976, speakers at a public program in Hartford, Conn., told the history and paid homage to the homosexuals exterminated in the Nazi concentration and labor camps.

A West Hartford resident in the 1970s, I noticed that local Jewish and human rights activists were planning to build a Holocaust memorial, a "Mandala," in the city. As an activist, I saw an opportunity for inclusion of the homosexuals, about whom testimony and scholarship had begun to emerge. According to available sources then, some 250,000 homosexuals had been killed, although later historians have greatly reduced that estimate to perhaps 10,000.

In a December 1975 letter to the West Hartford Human Rights Commission (WHHRC), I offered to show them my research, but was summarily dismissed. It appeared to me that these prominent citizens were themselves perpetuating one of society's oldest and most deeply embedded prejudices - against gay people - while calling public attention to the racism, bigotry, and genocide of the Holocaust.

Leaders of the local Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), a Christian communion oriented toward gays and lesbians, joined me at the WHHRC Holocaust memorial meeting on April 27, 1976, handing out informative leaflets to the public, since no one would talk with us in person or allow us onto their program. We noted the irony that Governor Ella T. Grasso gave the opening welcome to the meeting - she who for years had openly voiced concern about homosexual schoolteachers in a blatant attempt to quash the first legislative attempts in Connecticut to pass anti-discrimination laws. We were outsiders to history.

The neglect was willful. The WHHRC program did recognize Christian victims of the Holocaust, so awareness of other-than-Jews had broken through. But no homosexuals, please, despite the stirring call to action: "We have stood by and watched Blacks being lynched, American-born Japanese being interned, Indians being deprived of their rights...when will it all end? Only when we as individuals take a firm stand and act positively against any form of human degradation."

In response to the resounding silence we got from the good folks of West Hartford, MCC and "None of the Above" - a weekly show which I co-produced on WWUH, the community radio station of the University of Hartford - planned an evening called "The Pink Triangle: A Gay Community Holocaust Memorial" at the Unitarian Church in Hartford, on Thursday, June 24, 1976, during Gay Pride Week. After an organ prelude, a formal welcome and an invocation, I delivered the main address about this untold story, drawn from a number of published sources, some in German, that we cited in the printed program. "History is a living lesson," I reminded our audience. "We are now saying - along with the Jews of the world - never again!"

The audience of about 50 experienced some nervousness when a television camera appeared - people could lose their jobs!

My partner at the time, Michael Jospe, designed the poster for our program, which depicted a swastika emitting flames that were consuming a pink triangle. Michael was a Jewish South African whose parents had fled from Germany in the 1930s, as Michael himself had left his own native country in the 1960s out of disgust with apartheid.

That day remains one of my proudest: This was the first public recognition anywhere in the world of the experience of homosexual repression and extermination in the Holocaust. Our "None of the Above" collective edited the program for broadcast on August 2.

MCC and I continued to offer to help the Mandala project with fundraising in the gay community and with my research if they would use it. Over the next couple of years I ran into one brick wall of refusal after another. Clergy attacked us as sinful people. The homophobia deeply ingrained in the greater Hartford community illuminated for me how susceptible the "good Germans" could be regarding minority - or let us say, full - human rights.

The story got into local papers, and the Mandala people did not come off well. It seemed like human rights were fine concerning those far away or dead, but we were implicitly challenging complacency and prejudice right here at home.

In the end, the Mandala never got built. Some town body vetoed the project and the whole plan was dropped. Did our campaign for inclusion put the kibosh on it? I have no way to know, but maybe there was some fear that the site would always attract protest, or perhaps vandalism. Perhaps the town decided after all that if the Mandala was meant to serve exclusively Jewish memory, it should be built on private, not public property.

I have remained alert to the issue of broader acknowledgment of loss in the Holocaust. For many years now I have consistently noted that groups other than Jews regularly get named - political resisters, trade unionists, Rom (Gypsies), Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals - with frequent illustrations of the different colored badges each group was forced to wear, including the Pink Triangle. There are even physical monuments to the homosexuals in places today. Over time, we made our point effectively. I look back with satisfaction on our efforts of those years.

Image: Nazi camp ID-emblems in a 1936 German illustration. "Kennzeichen für Schutzhäftlinge in den Konzentrationslagern" by Unknown - United States Holocaust Museum Washington. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons .

Ingeborg Rapoport: A doctor's degree at 102

Wed, 24 Jun 2015 12:24:00 +0000

BERLIN -- The frail, white-haired little lady stepping slowly up onto the stage of the Babylon cinema theater in Berlin - to giant applause - was not wearing a collegiate cap and gown. But she had undoubtedly made academic history. Two weeks earlier Ingeborg Rapoport had been awarded a doctor's degree - at the age of 102! And after 78 years!

Her amazing story had just been show in a full-length TV documentary film to an audience filling every last seat. Not so many had known the Rapoports, wife and late husband, but all had read the news item a few days earlier about how she had properly defended her dissertation of 1938 about diphtheria and paralysis, then gone to the university in Hamburg two weeks later to receive a degree denied her many years ago. That news story filled the theater.

But unlike the very honest film, few of the media reports told the full story, not only about the anti-Semitism of the Nazis at its beginning but about the anti-Communism which later followed.

In 1938 Ingeborg Syllm (her maiden name) submitted her dissertation. But its oral defense was also required, this was Nazi Germany, and her mother was Jewish. The director of the University Children's Clinic, a Professor Degkwitz, once a Nazi but increasingly disillusioned, gave her a paper on university stationery saying: "I would have accepted her doctorate dissertation if current laws regarding Fräulein Syllm's family descent had not made permission for a degree impossible."

Shortly thereafter she was able to leave for the USA, just months before the rector announced: "Until further notice Jewish students are forbidden from taking part in lectures or other college events or from setting foot in the university building, its clinics, institutes or seminar rooms."

The little letter proved useless in the USA, however, and she had to find a college to win a new doctorate. Of 48 applications only two responded. One was Columbia, but when the dean of the medical school asked her "How much money do you have?" and she had to answer "None at all" he ended the interview. She was finally accepted at the Women's Medical College in Philadelphia and after two years could start up as a doctor at Cincinnati Children's, one of the best pediatric hospitals in the USA. It was there she met and married one of its top research men, the Viennese biochemist Samuel "Mitja" Rapoport (born in Volhynia, now in the Ukraine), also a refugee from fascism, whose distinguished work on blood conservation, permitting its use for three weeks, not just one week, saved the lives of many wounded soldiers and won him a top award from President Truman.

Her husband's reputation was so good that he was invited to Japan to find the causes of an epidemic affecting children there, a problem he was able to solve. But even before his return to Cincinnati the anti-Communist vultures circled in; both Rapoports had always been politically active, especially, as convinced Communists, against racism. (He had become a leftist at 13 after reading "Anti-Dühring" by Friedrich Engels.) Although highly respected and liked by most if not all their colleagues, media pressure became intolerably rabid. After a summons from the Un-American Activities Committee, the kind of invitation which ruined the careers and often the lives of so many, he decided to remain in Europe where he was attending a congress while Ingeborg regretfully but swiftly took their three small children (and she was very pregnant with their fourth) and fled the country.

They went to his former hometown but, she reported, the McCarthy fever "reached us in Vienna too". With US pressure also barring proper jobs in France and Britain and a long, difficult year, they overcame reservations and accepted an invitation to teach and practice in East Berlin.

Mitya was soon busy with research and teaching; he founded an Institute for Physiological und Biological Chemistry, published a textbook whose nine editions sold 60,000 copies and became the GDR's leading biochemist.

As for Ingeborg, after working as senior consultant at one hospital she joined Mitya at the famous Charité, Europe's largest university hospital, founded in 1710, and famous for the work of Paul Ehrlich and Robert Koch. She was soon a professor and headed a project in the field of perinatology, involving special care for mother and fetus with higher risks of complications, and so she aided in substantially reducing infant mortality. She retired in 1973; as she enthused in an interview: "That was a time of learning and of so many initiatives for the constant improvement of the medical care system, a time I never before and never afterward experienced."

In 1997 Ingeborg Rapoport wrote her autobiography, which inspired two film-makers to make the hour-long, prize-winning documentary for Arte, a German-French TV Channel. Two years ago the dean of the children's clinic at Hamburg University also read her book - and decided to go into action, especially since she still possessed that original testimony on her dissertation. She and the dean rejected a purely "honorary degree" - which led to the visit in her Berlin home. Because of her very weak eyesight, former colleagues had telephoned her with reports on modern developments.

After an hour of questioning the dean and two other professors reported: "With no concessions to her advanced age, she was simply brilliant. We were impressed by her intellectual alertness and speechless at her knowledge of her field - even including modern medicine." Their verdict: magna cum laude. The dean added: "This belated award of a degree cannot undo past injustice. But we can thus contribute in making some amends for the most sinister pages of German university history."

Happy as she was to receive the degree, the preparations recalled enough bad memories to rob her of sleep - of brown-shirted Nazis shouting and trampling at lectures by partly Jewish professors, but also of the years after the end of the GDR in 1989. She learned of its demise during a scientific congress in the USA, but when Americans congratulated her on "German unification" she felt no joy. Of the years that followed she wrote: "I would never have believed, more than 45 years after the victory over Hitler fascism and 40 years after the McCarthy Era, that I would again experience such a flood of firings, such mass destruction of livelihoods and contempt for talents."

As she wrote: "It is infused into people either by the pailful or in small drops, in television talk shows, in novels and public speeches, with "Stasi" accusations and slander, with learned 'analyses', even in crime fiction. Sometimes dispensed in massive doses, but mostly in tiny injections, it is at times unthinking but often extremely conscious and well-aimed, with one goal: to convince people that the first great socialist experiment failed only on its own, that socialism proved basically incapable of creating a just world order...The term 'unjust state' is used like a poison arrow to paralyze free thinking so that no one lifts their head, looks around and realizes the good and humane aspects of the GDR, so that no one searches for a better path."

Her book was on sale at the theater, and over fifty - too many - lined up for

an autograph. The two women with her, co-directors of the film, then called it quits and asked her a few questions. One was why she had again come that evening, after certainly seeing the film before. "I just wanted to see my husband again," she said with a melancholy smile; the scenes indicating their obvious deep affection at a ripe old age were perhaps most moving of all.

Indeed, the feeling of warm sympathy in this full theater was itself moving - until this gentle spirit, now, in accord with German custom, officially titled "Prof. Dr. Dr. Ingeborg Rapoport", slowly but with great dignity finally left the stage.

Photo: Prof. Dr. Dr. Ingeborg Rapoport. Fair usage, Abendblatt.

Hundreds of thousands march against austerity in Britain

Mon, 22 Jun 2015 17:26:00 +0000

LONDON -- A quarter of a million angry voices challenged the government's "dangerous and unjust" spending cuts at the weekend.

The hundreds of thousands who turned out to the End Austerity Now demo in London vowed to step up the fight in the months to come with a series protests while trade union leaders at a sister demo in Glasgow vowed to break the law if the Tories push through their anti-strike plans.

In one of Britain's largest demonstrations, marchers in London wound their way from the Bank of England to Parliament Square on June 20 in a spectacular display of strength and solidarity.

The protest was so large that the last marchers only reached the Parliament Square rally when the speeches had nearly finished three hours later.

But union leaders, politicians and celebrities told the vast sea of protesters that it will take more than one demonstration to kick the Tories out of office.

People's Assembly Against Austerity organizer John Rees whipped the crowd into a thumping frenzy with his call for everybody to continue fighting against cuts.

He said: "This magnificent demonstration is only the beginning. We cannot win with one demonstration. We have to hit this government again and again."

Mr. Rees also called for direct action against Chancellor George Osborne's emergency Budget on July 8 and for people to "lay siege to Manchester for every single day" during the Tories' conference in October.

Singer Charlotte Church said "the big lie" of austerity is perpetrated by Tories who want to "permanently restructure the economy," while their big business chums enjoy tax avoidance schemes and profit from privatized public assets.

She added: "We need to get the [economic] blood pumping and that cannot be achieved by stringing tourniquets around the limbs of social welfare."

Left-wing Labour leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn MP attacked the government for allowing people to sleep rough while bankrolling employers by spending £11 billion on in-work benefits and subsidizing private landlords by blowing £25bn [$39.5bn] a year on housing benefit.

The answer was to build council houses and regulate extortionate private rents, he said.

Speakers also agreed that scrapping the renewal of Trident would save the government a minimum of £25bn [$39.5bn] - more than double that of the latest round of welfare cuts.

Comedian and social activist Russell Brand defended the need for a welfare state as "we are all vulnerable members of society" and because his own life had relied on it before he became successful.

He said: "Without the welfare state, I wouldn't have been educated, I wouldn't have had anywhere to live and my mother would have died of cancer, several times."

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said that it was not benefit claimants who brought down the banks, therefore it is wrong to "make them pay for a crisis that was none of their making."

She added: "George Osborne, you have no mandate for these cuts so stop your ideological war on welfare and end austerity now."

People's Assembly national secretary Sam Fairbairn urged everyone to go back to their communities and workplaces to organize the biggest mass movement to remove the Conservatives from power.

Reposted from Morning Star.

Photo: Communist activists from Iran, Greece, India, Chile and Bangladesh marched with the Communist Party of Britain to condemn the austerity policies of the Tory government. Navid Shomali

Turkey's election earthquake shakes things up

Mon, 22 Jun 2015 12:19:00 +0000

Among the many things behind the storm that staggered Turkey's ruling party in the June 7 elections, a disastrous foreign policy looms large. But a major factor behind the fall of the previously invincible Justice and Development Party (AKP) of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was a grassroots revolt against rising poverty, growing inequality and the AKP's war on trade unions.

Growing poverty and inequality

On the eve of the election, the government's Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) found that 22.4 percent of Turkish households fell below the official poverty line of $1,626 a month for a family of four. The country's largest trade union organization, TURK-IS, which uses a different formula for calculating poverty levels based on incomes below the minimum monthly wage - $118 - argues that nearly 50 percent of the population is at, or near, the poverty line.

Figures show that while national income has, indeed, risen over the past decade, much of it has gone to the wealthy and well connected. When the AKP came to power in 2002, the top 1 percent accounted for 39 percent of the nation's wealth. Today that figure is 54 percent. In the meantime, credit card debt has increased 25 fold, from 222 million liras in 2002 to 5.8 billion liras today.

In 2001, Turkey was in a serious economic crisis, with the unemployment rate at 10.8 percent. Today 11.3 percent are out of work, and that figure is much higher among young people and women. TUIK estimates that over 3 million Turks are jobless, but at least another 2.5 million have given up looking for jobs. The total size of the Turkish workforce is 28 million.

Women have been particularly hard hit. Over 227,000 women have been laid off this past year, a higher percentage than men. According to Aysen Candas of the Social Political Forum of Bogazici University, the "situation of women is just horrible."

While the average rate of employment for women in the 34 countries that make up the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development is between 62 and 63 percent, in Turkey it is 25 percent. According to Candas, in access to jobs, political participation and economic power, Turkish women rank near the bottom of the 126 countries the Bogazici University study examined.

The attack on unions

Turkish workers have seen their unions dismantled under the AKP government, and many have lost collective bargaining rights. According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, unionized workers have fallen from 57.5 percent of the workforce in 2003 to 9.68 percent today. And, of those unionized workers, only 4.5 percent have collective bargaining agreements. Add to this police repression, the widespread use of the subcontracting system, and a threshold of 3 percent to organize a new union, and there are few barriers to stop employers from squeezing their workforce.

In comparison, Sweden has a unionization rate of 67.7 percent, Finland 69 percent, Italy 35.6 percent and Greece 28.7 percent.

The HDP and the GHP

In the last election, the left-wing People's Democratic Party (HDP) and the social democratic People's Republican Party (CHP) pounded away at the AKP's record on poverty and union rights. "During its 12-year rule, the Justice and Development Party has curbed all labor rights through laws that are unlawful, siding with the capitalist class," CHP parliamentarian Suleyman Celebi told Al-Monitor. "It has besieged workers from all sides, from their right to strike and collective bargain, to their right of choosing their trade unions. The rights of tens of thousands of subcontracted workers have been flouted despite court rulings."

Erdogan has increasingly come under criticism for relying on force to deal with opponents, like the crushing of Istanbul's Gezi Park demonstrations in 2013. And his drive to change the constitution from a parliamentary system to an American-style powerful executive apparently did not sit well with the majority of Turks.

The AKP's bread and butter has always been bread and butter: it handed out free coal, food, and financial aid to the poor, but as economic disparity grew and unemployment climbed, it was the Left that seized upon those themes, forcing Erdogan to defend spending $615 million plus for his lavish, 1,000 room presidential palace, and his $185 million presidential airplane

With the economy in the doldrums, the AKP fell back on foreign policy and Islam.

"Islamization" has been a major AKP theme, but one that may have misfired in this election. A recent book by Turkish scholar Volkan Erit argues that Turkey is becoming less religious and more secular, particularly among the young. In any case, religion did not trump Turkey's growing international and regional isolation, Erdogan's fixation with the war in Syria, or his sudden reversal on making peace with the Kurds.

He refused to come to the aid of the besieged Syrian Kurds at Kobane last year, and his back pedaling on a peace agreement with Turkey's Kurds alienated even conservative Kurds, who abandoned the AKP and voted for the leftwing HDP.

A corruption scandal that implicated several of Erdogan's family members also hurt the AKP's image and caused some foreign investors to pull back, further damaging the economy.

Turkey's foreign policy

And as far as the AKP's foreign policy goes, what was once a strength is now a liability.

In the past four years Turkey has gone from a regional peacemaker - "zero problems with neighbors" was the slogan that wags have since changed to "zero neighbors without problems" - to odd man out, so isolated that it lost out to Venezuela in a bid for a UN Security Council seat.

It is not talking with Egypt, has an icy relationship with Iran, is alienated from Iraq, at war with Syria, and not on the best of terms with Russia and China. In fact its only real allies in the Middle East are the Gulf monarchies, although in an indirect way it is teaming up with Israel to overthrow the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.

The AKP has tried to make this isolation into a virtue - Erdogan's chief foreign policy advisor Ibrahim Kalin called it "precious loneliness" - but voters saw it less as a virtue than as alienation.

Its exports are down sharply because it has estranged its leading trade partners Iran and Iraq, and, by choosing the losing side in the Libyan civil war, it is out $28 billion in Libyan construction contracts. Its plans for expanding into sub-Saharan Africa are now on hold, and Libya owes Turkey $5 billion, money it is not likely to see in the near future.

The Syrian war is not popular with the average Turk and, with the influx of some two million refugees from that conflict, less so by the day. The Turkish army opposes any involvement in Syria, because it sees nothing ahead but a quagmire that would ally Turkey with the al-Qaeda linked Nusra Front.

In short, the AKP lost the election because almost 60 percent of the Turks opposed its domestic and foreign policies.

What happens now, however, is tricky, and not a little dangerous.

The AKP took a beating, dropping from 49.8 percent to 40.8 percent, and losing 53 seats in the Parliament. Not only did the party not get their magic 330 seats that would allow Erdogan to change the constitution, at 258 seats the AKP needs a coalition partner to rule.

They are not likely to find one on the left.

The left-wing HDP - formerly largely a Kurdish-based party - shattered the 10 percent ceiling to serve in the Parliament, taking 13.1 percent of the vote and electing 79 representatives. The HDP's breakthrough came about because the party allied itself with other left and progressive parties in 2012 - much as Syriza did in Greece - and campaigned on an openly left program.

Led by the dynamic Selahattin Demirtas, its candidates included many women, as well as gays and lesbians. Some 40 percent of HDP's parliamentarians will be women, and openly gay candidates will serve in the new Grand Assembly. "We, the oppressed people of Turkey who want justice, peace and freedom, have achieved a tremendous victory today," Demirtas said in the election's aftermath.

The AKP's traditional opponent, the social democratic CHP, came in at 25.9 percent, a slight improvement over 2014, and an increase of seven seats. The party now has 132 representatives in Parliament.

Right wing danger

The danger comes from the performance of the right-wing National Action Party (MHP), which won 16.9 percent of the vote and picked up 28 seats. It now has the same number of seats as the HDP. The MHP is sometimes called "The Gray Wolves" after a neo-fascist hit squad that routinely assassinated left-wingers, academics and Kurds in the 1970s and '80s, and still has a shadowy presence in Turkey. The MHP claims it supports parliamentary rule, but the party's commitment to democracy is suspect.

At this point the MHP's leader Devlet Bahceli says he has no interest in a coalition with the AKP, but the authoritarian streak that runs through both parties might just bring them together. If they do unite, peace with the Kurds will vanish, and engaging in internal dissent will be an increasingly risky business.

But Turkey has tamed its formally coup-obsessed military, gone through several elections and, in spite of setbacks like Gezi Park, is a democratic country. It is also one that is in trouble at home and abroad, problems that the right is notoriously bad at solving, but for which the left has programmatic solutions.

It may be that the parties will deadlock, in which case new elections will have to held. In the meantime, the Turkish lira is at a record low, the stock market has tumbled 8 percent, and neither the economic crisis nor the foreign policy debacles are going away. Stay tuned, the future of a major player is in the balance.

This article originally appeared at Conn Hallinan's blog Dispatches from the Edge.

Photo: Leaders of the People's Democratic Party (HDP) at a rally in 2014. Wikipedia

Today in history: 200 years since the Battle of Waterloo

Thu, 18 Jun 2015 12:29:00 +0000

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the defeat of Napoleon by the British Duke of Wellington and Prussian field marshal Gebhard Blücher, near Waterloo in central Belgium. It marked the end of Napoleon's career; he surrendered in July and was transferred to St. Helena, an isolated British possession in the South Atlantic, where he died May 5, 1821.

Napoleon Bonaparte was a skilled military leader, trained under the royal Ancien Régime, but later siding with the Revolution. He won Italian campaigns in the late 1790s, and successfully occupied Egypt as a projected launching point for capturing India, although Nelson destroyed his fleet at the Battle of the Nile in August 1798.

Napoleon formed a provisional government in France on the 18th of Brumaire (November 9, 1799), promulgated the Constitution of Year VIII (of the French Revolution), and became first consul by the end of the year.

His military campaign to spread the ideals of democracy in lands ruled by the aristocracy and the church continued across Europe. He won the Battle of Marengo on June 14, 1800, which is referenced in Puccini's opera Tosca. He became a hero to reformers and Enlightenment figures such as Beethoven, who dedicated his "Eroica" symphony to him (retracting it shortly afterward owing to Napoleon's tyrannical excesses.)

By1802 Napoleon had most of central Europe under his control, partly by military and partly by diplomatic means. He extended the boundaries of France, signed the Concordat of 1801 which reestablished the Roman Catholic Church in France, and reorganized government and the educational system. From 1804-10 he effected the codification of laws called the Napoleonic Code, which guaranteed citizenship in the nation (as opposed to being subjects to a monarch). He was forced to sell off Louisiana (recently acquired from Spain) to the U.S. to wage his wars.

Crowned emperor at Paris on December 2,1804, he became the virtual master of the European continent, although losing supremacy of the seas at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. His occupation of Spain during the Peninsular War lasting until 1814 is remembered in Bizet's opera Carmen.

Napoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia (Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture), led to an ignominious retreat and quickly building nationalist upsurges across Europe. In March 1814 the monarchist allies took Paris, Napoleon was exiled to Elba, and Louis XVIII was placed on throne. But Napoleon escaped from Elba, returned to Paris, raised a new army, and was defeated at Waterloo.

Napoleon's remains were brought back to France from St. Helena in 1840. His tomb in Paris remains a site of profound reverence to this day.

One of the most written-about figures in history, Napoleon is depicted as a champion of the French people and defender of the principles of revolution and democracy. Others see him as an adventurer and despot, exploiting the Revolution to his own ends. His life exemplifies the old conundrum: By what means do radicals and revolutionaries effectively promulgate their ideas?

Waterloo entered the language as both a symbol of decisive defeat, and as a turning point in history. In 1859 the prominent American reformer and abolitionist Wendell Phillips said, "Every man meets his Waterloo at last."

W. S. Gilbert's "modern Major-General" in The Pirates of Penzance, brags, "I know the Kings of England, and I quote the fights historical/From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical."

Carl Sandburg, in his poem "Grass," published in 1918, as World War I ended, wrote these sad, elegiac lines: "Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo./Shovel them under and let me work -/I am the grass; I cover all./And pile them high at Gettysburg/And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun./Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:/What place is this?/Where are we now?"

In a conference at the White House in December 1941, shortly after the U.S. joined World War II, Winston Churchill quoted lines by the English poet Lord Byron: "Thou fatal Waterloo...where the sword united nations drew/Our countrymen were warring on that day." From that reference the wartime leaders changed the name of the allies from Associated Powers to United Nations.

Photo: Wikipedia (CC)

Ecuador proposes moderate tax increase on rich, right wing runs amok

Tue, 16 Jun 2015 13:39:00 +0000

On June 5, Ecuador's left-wing president, Rafael Correa, announced that he was sending to his legislature a proposed tax reform bill to moderately increase inheritance taxes and to make other adjustments in the tax laws.

Last week, right-wing protesters besieged the offices of Correa's "Alianza Pais" party in the capital of Quito. To demands that the tax reform bill be withdrawn were soon added calls for Correa to step down, in spite of the fact that he won his last election (in 2013) by a solid 57 percent margin. Violence has also been part of the demonstrations, and Correa says that a major destabilization effort is afoot.

Anti-Correa demonstrators have issued calls asking for the army to be ready to intervene, and on Sunday attempted to block roads from Quito's airport to prevent the president from returning from a European trip.

In most Latin American countries, including those with relatively progressive governments, huge wealth disparities are an obstacle to the pursuit of social justice and greater democracy. Much of the wealth of the Latin American "one percent" is inherited, often in the form of non-transparent trusts, and tax laws have not been tough enough to tap into these large fortunes for development needs.

Increased graduated income taxes are also resisted. So lower and middle income workers, farmers and small businesspeople end up carrying an especially unfair tax load via consumption taxes, often in a "value added" mode. It was this kind of situation that President Correa set out to modify.

The tax reforms that Correa proposed are modest enough, and by no means "confiscatory", though their aim is unapologetically redistributive - the government promises that all the new revenues achieved by the reforms will go to benefit the mass of the people directly.

Only about two percent of the population would be affected by the changes in the inheritance law. Under the changes, there would be a 2.5 percent tax on inheritances valued between $35,000 and $70,000. The previous bottom rate was 5 percent on inheritances valued between $69,000 and $137,000, with a top rate of 35 percent charged on inheritances above $827,000.

Under Correa's plan, the new top rate on the larger fortunes would be 47.5 percent. The plan also proposes stiff taxes on windfall capital gains profits from the sale of real estate, and other adjustments.

The per capita gross domestic product of Ecuador is about $11,000 per year, calculated by the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) method, compared to about $55,000 a year for the United States.

Correa's supporters have a huge legislative majority, so it is fairly certain that the proposal will be approved.

Right wing demonstrations are continuing, and are being answered by pro-Correa demonstrations supporting the tax changes, and praising the impressive economic improvements for the poor which Correa has achieved since he was first elected in 2007.

The hint of coup plotting in Ecuador brought out regional memories of a failed attempt by police officers in 2010, bringing statements for support against any coup attempt from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and others.

Photo: Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa addresses a crowd of thousands from the presidential palace in Quito, Ecuador, June 15. | Ecuadorean Presidency

UN agency praises Cuba’s food security program

Mon, 15 Jun 2015 12:18:00 +0000

United Nations agencies, notably the World Health Organizations, UNESCO, and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), have often praised Cuba for achievements in satisfying its people's basic needs.

On May 30 in Havana, the FAO representative in Cuba, Theodor Frederick, testified to the Cuban government's success in maintaining food security for all Cubans. He based his remarks on the recently published FAO document titled "Panorama of Food and Nutritional Insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean- 2015."

Some of the data provided in that publication appeared earlier in the FAO publication "The State of Food Insecurity in the World - 2014," which offers a wide-ranging survey of hunger in the world - more precisely, under nutrition. It cites a total of 805 million persons who were hungry that year, or nine percent of the world's population.

Latin America and the Caribbean "registered the greatest progress [among regions of the world] in reducing hunger," according to the publication.

Theodor Frederick's comments, taken from the "Panorama" report, are more revealing than the actual data as to Cuba's exemplary role within Latin America in promoting adequate nutrition. That's because the FAO system of data recording abandons numerical specifics once the tally of hungry people in a nation falls below five percent. At that point numbers are replaced by "n. s." signifying "not significant."

As reported by journalist Jose Manzanada, Frederick "emphasized the role of the state in Cuban food security, evidenced in generous subsidies provided to cover the costs of basic foods which supply half of the individual's nutritional requirements. The state [also] makes food available at health centers, schools, and workplace dining rooms that is free or at the lowest price. Food is provided for vulnerable groups such as people who are sick, handicapped, or elderly."

Yet numbers appearing in the two FAO reports are telling. Under-nutrition afflicts 51.8 percent of Haitians, 14.7 of people in the Dominican Republic, 14.3 percent of Guatemalans, 12.1 percent of Hondurans, but fewer than five percent of Cubans.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of undernourished people dropped from 66.1million in 1990-02 to 34.3 million in 2012-14. During the same period the percentage of the hungry fell from 14.7 percent to 5.5 percent. In Cuba 600,000 people - 5.7 percent - were hungry in 1990-02. Since then the numbers have shown as "n.s."

Importantly, "Cuba - with Venezuela - is among the 29 countries of the world - [11 of them in Latin America and the Caribbean] - that have fulfilled the goal proposed at the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome in of reducing the number of the world's hungry people by half as of 2015."

One of the Millennium Development Goals, proposed by the United Nations in 2000, spoke of hunger. The goal was set that over the next 15 years nations would reduce the percentage of their hungry people by half. Sixty three countries, all of them in the poor world, have done so; 17 are in Latin American and the Caribbean. And 11 of them have "maintained the prevalence of under nutrition at below 5 percent," Cuba among them. Caloric intake in Cuba has recently averaged a relatively high 3,533 calories per person for 2012 - 2014, according to the FAO.

Manzanada, however, points out that Cuba may be facing difficulties in maintaining future food supplies. He claims that the $2 billion annual cost of importing food results in part from shipping costs that are 30 percent extra due to the U. S. economic blockade.

He refers also to problems with food production, without providing details. Indeed, 2.5 million of Cuba's 16.1 million acres of usable land still remains idle, even though, beginning five years ago, 3.7 million acres have been delivered to 174, 000 new farmers or to cooperatives on a long-term usage basis. Presently Cuba has to import almost 70 percent of food it needs for domestic consumption.

Significantly, Cuba has struggled not only to feed its own people, but has also promoted efforts toward food sufficiency in the region. Cuban leaders joined former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in founding and shaping the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), an alliance epitomizing trends toward long - anticipated regional unity.

In March 2015 at its third Summit meeting, held in Chile, CELAC launched its "Plan for Food and Nutrition Security and Eradication of Hunger 2025." CELAC had collaborated in the effort with the FAO and two regional organizations. The Latin American FAO representative, Raúl Benítez, told reporters he anticipates "a region free of hunger."

Photo: A worker rides on an oxen-drawn cart as he heads to work at an agricultural cooperative in Cuba. | AP

Today in history: 800th birthday of the Magna Carta

Mon, 15 Jun 2015 11:14:00 +0000

On this date, June 15, 1215, humanity took one of its greatest steps in the long march toward democracy.

King John of England affixed his seal to the Magna Carta in the meadow at Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on this day in the 17th year of his reign. The Magna Carta, or the Great Charter, is regarded as the first chapter of English liberties and one of the most important documents in the history of political and human freedom.

Confronted by 40 rebellious barons, the king consented to their demands in order to avert civil war. Just 10 weeks later, Pope Innocent III - exerting his even higher "divine right" (only one step down from You Know Who) than the mere divine right of a monarch in a far-distant land - nullified the agreement, and England plunged into internal war.

Although Magna Carta failed to resolve the conflict between King John and his barons, it was reissued several times after his death.

Magna Carta was written by this group of 13th-century barons to protect their rights and property against a tyrannical king. It is concerned with many practical matters and specific grievances under the feudal system in which they lived. The interests of commoners were hardly apparent in the minds of the men who brokered the agreement. But there are two principles expressed in Magna Carta that resonate to this day:

"No freeman shall be taken, imprisoned, disseised [dispossessed], outlawed, banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will We proceed against or prosecute him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land." And

"To no one will We sell, to no one will We deny or delay, right or justice."

More than 400 years later, the English jurist Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), in a debate in the House of Commons on May 17, 1628, perhaps unwittingly foreshadowed the spirit of republicanism when he openly stated: "Magna Carta is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign." In that same vein, it was also Coke who affirmed (against royal privilege?) that "a man's house is his castle." And it was Coke who anticipated civil disobedience, and even the right of rebellion, when he said, "How long soever it hath continued, if it be against reason, it is of no force in law." With a deep nod to the Magna Carta, Coke decided in 1610, as Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, that the king's proclamations cannot change the law.

During the American Revolution in the 1770s, Magna Carta served to inspire and justify action in liberty's defense. The colonists believed they were entitled to the same rights as Englishmen, rights guaranteed in Magna Carta. They embedded those rights into the laws of their states and later into the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution ("no person shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law") is a direct descendent of Magna Carta's guarantee of proceedings according to the "law of the land." Obviously - but necessary to repeat - this advanced concept of liberty still fell far short of true universalism in a society that enshrined slavery in the Constitution and proffered the vote only to property-holding white men.

And more than 700 years after its signing, in his 1941 inaugural address, while a new world war raged across the European continent, Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared, "The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history.... It was written in Magna Carta."

Four original copies of the 1215 charter survive.

Adapted from the Peace History Index, the National Archives and Records Administration, and other sources.

Photo: Cotton MS. Augustus II. 106, one of only four surviving exemplifications of the 1215 text. Wikipedia (CC)

Changing captains in Germany’s Left Party

Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:32:00 +0000

BERLIN - That weekend of wealthy, powerful heads of state and other bosses high up in the Bavarian Alps, and the vigorous protests from opposing crowds kept out of earshot downhill, largely stole media thunder this past weekend. Far lower in altitude and attention, with almost no thunder from the media or otherwise, another meeting was held in less scenic West German Bielefeld. It was a congress of DIE LINKE, the Left Party. Yet a gathering of arguably the only opposition force with any real clout in Germany, with representatives of its 60,000 members, was important enough.

Gregor Gysi

What media attention it did receive centered on one question: "Will he or won't he?" The "he" was Gregor Gysi. In 1989 this skilled speaker with sharp wit and tongue, played a key role, if not THE key role, in salvaging the devastated remains of the East German ruling party, the Socialist Unity Party (SED) and, instead of dissolving it, transforming it into a democratic, undogmatic organization renamed Party of Democratic Socialism, with a range of accepted different views, formerly denounced as factions. He led the party in winning back 15 to 25 percent of the vote in all East German states and Berlin, and currently heading a coalition in one state and being a partner in another. In 2007 he steered it into joining a new left-wing party in the larger, more populous West German states to form a united Left Party, which now gets eight to ten percent in the all-German polls.

Though currently trailing the Greens by a point or two, in the 2013 elections it managed to beat them out and win leading opposition status in the Bundestag, giving Gysi, chair of the party's 64-strong caucus, a chance to deliver most of his party's speeches and, thanks to his wit, get many talk show invitations and TV sound bites. He is the best known Left leader, though ably followed by the thoughtful, theoretical, dryer but equally hard-hitting Sahra Wagenknecht.

The big question, full of suspense, was: would Gysi, now 67, wish to remain head of the Left caucus - or quit this limelight post? In a long, always interesting speech he supplied the answer. He will step down, remaining a deputy but no longer chairperson. At first there was something of a collective gasp in a speech then constantly interrupted by applause and causing not a few tears; many saw this as the captain giving up the helm. Unfriendly journalists predicted that the ship might sink as a result.

Evaluating the GDR

That was wishful thinking. Despite media one-sidedness, this party is definitely not a one-man show; it has many active members and leaders on all levels, including co-chairs Katja Kipping, courageous with hostile interviewers, and clear-speaking union man Bernd Riexinger. Its effect has long been felt as a force from the left on social issues and foreign policy, impelling other parties to tread more carefully if they want to avoid further losses in popularity and voters.

But Gysi's farewell speech did touch on issues which continue to divide members; it is hard to tell whether his waning influence will help its wings flap more rhythmically or send them further in diverging directions.

One issue is the evaluation of the GDR. Whereas Gysi and the so-called "reformer" or "pragmatist" wing tend to reject almost everything connected with "a state based on injustice," allowing that, yes, there were some accomplishments, like free child care, and its citizens did work hard for what they may have believed in, they generally join the choir; it was basically a Stalinist bungle from the start.

Opinions on this vary widely, but many of those called "radicals" or "traditionalists", while rejecting idealization and condemning the GDR's undemocratic and repressive nature, stress that not only are many good sides now ignored, falsified or distorted, but also see its main accomplishment as historic: throwing out the corporate, banking, Junker-landowner and other criminal elements which governed Germany so long and so disastrously for itself and the world. And the GDR was, they say, an attempt, however faulted, toward a socialist future. And this goal, they maintain, is still very relevant!

Send arms and military abroad?

A more immediate issue is whether armaments should be exported, especially to conflict areas, and whether German soldiers should be sent on foreign missions. The "more left" wing says: "No, never!" While recalling what German soldiers were responsible for in the 20^th century (starting with genocide in earlier African colonies), they ask whether the military arm of a state dominantly repressive in the European economy, which has already expanded to the waters off Lebanon and Somalia, to Balkan and Afghanistan mountains and now to parts of Africa, can ever be trusted.

The "reformer" wing, like the captain of HMS Pinafore in Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta, weakens from "Never" to a "Well, hardly ever!" Gysi criticized the use of troops in Serbia and Afghanistan but left possible exceptions open. Some speak of humanitarian causes, OK'd by the UN, where Germany should not stand aside. But for the "radicals" these are breaches of a basic principle. With a side glance at reports of child abuse by UN troops in Central Africa and their misuse in Haiti, they reject the constantly modernizing Bundeswehr [the unified armed forces of Germany and their civil administration and procurement authorities] as intrinsically repressive and repeat: "No, never!"

Coalition problems

This raises a third most fundamental issue. Over the years the Left joined ruling coalitions as junior partner in two East German states and Berlin, which ended in a loss in popularity in every case. It now heads a government in the state of Thuringia in a so-called red-red-green coalition. (Since both the Left and the Social Democrats claim the color red, this is now often abbreviated as "R2G").

Though controversial enough, this state level is unaffected by issues like sending soldiers abroad. They would inevitably arise if the Left were to seek or gain junior partnership in a "R2G" coalition on a national level, a possibility after the 2017 elections. As it now looks, only such a 3-way endeavor could beat the Merkel party and its possible allies. A few leftish Greens and leftish Social Democrats are weighing this option but insist they will never accept a Left which insists on "No, never!" for military actions. Thus, the "Hardly ever" back-down must be seen as a bid to be flexible enough to join in a future government; indeed, Gysi stated in his farewell speech that a party can exert opposition even from within a government, not only when it is out in the cold.

But this raises many doubts. Social Democratic head Sigmar Gabriel approves the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal with the USA, the sister of the Trans-Pacific Treaty TPP. His party joins Merkel in pushing "austerity" measures against Greece, insisting that paying banking debts is more urgent than rescuing Greek working people, children and pensioners from extreme poverty. It abandoned promises to reverse huge tax breaks given millionaires and billionaires when it headed the government. Most urgently, both Social Democrats and Greens offer all but direct military aid to the government in Kiev, despite its increasingly horrific far-right and corrupt taint, they support the increase of NATO weaponry along the Russian borders and the resulting threat to world peace. The Social Democrats only vaguely criticize the German Defense Minister in her build-up of ever more modern, threatening armed forces.

Compromises?

In how many such issues would the Left have to make compromises if it were to join a R2G government and get a cabinet seat or two? What could it achieve in the way of "opposition from within the government"? Could a little tail really wag a big dog? Would its basic principles end up in that fabled "round file"? The party chairpersons Katja Kipping and Berndt Riexinger have shown skepticism about such a policy, despite Gregor Gysi's moving words. Those mentioned most often as possible double successors to Gysi as heads of the Linke Bundestag caucus, to be chosen in October, the more leftist Sahra Wagenknecht and the "reformer" Dietmar Bartsch, will be kept busy debating these issues. So will the party membership. Hopefully they will also be increasingly active "in the streets" for peace and social justice.

Photo: The Left Party members in the German Parliament gathered in Berlin on June 9 for a group photo holding a campaign banner, part of a national week of action for "A Good Job and a Good Life!" DIE LINKE website.

Dark plots in the Middle East?

Wed, 10 Jun 2015 17:33:00 +0000

A quiet meeting this past March in Saudi Arabia, and a recent anonymous leak from the Israeli military, set the stage for what may be a new and wider war in the Middle East.

Gathering in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh were Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, newly crowned Saudi King Salman, and the organizer of the get-together, the emir of Qatar. The meeting was an opportunity for Turkey and the Saudis to bury a hatchet over Ankara's support - which Riyadh opposes - for the Muslim Brotherhood, and to agree to cooperate in overthrowing the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.

Taking aim at Assad

The pact prioritized the defeat of the Damascus regime over the threat posed by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, and aims to checkmate Iranian influence in the region. However, the Turks and the Saudis are not quite on the same page when it comes to Iran: Turkey sees future business opportunities when the sanctions against Tehran end, while Riyadh sees Iran as nothing but a major regional rival.

The Turkish-Saudi axis means that Turkish weapons, bomb-making supplies, and intelligence, accompanied by lots of Saudi money, are openly flowing to extremist groups like the al-Qaeda associated Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham, both now united in the so-called "Army of Conquest."

The new alliance has created a certain amount of friction with the United States, which would also like to overthrow Assad but for the time being is focused on attacking the Islamic State and on inking a nuclear agreement with Iran. This could change, however, because the Obama administration is divided on how deeply it wants to get entangled in Syria. If Washington decides to supply anti-aircraft weapons to the Army of Conquest, it will mean the United States has thrown in its lot with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, and that the "war on terror" is taking a back seat to regime change in Syria.

Not that the Americans are overly concerned about aiding and abetting Islamic extremists. While the U.S. is bombing the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the Obama administration is also training Syrians to overthrow Assad, which objectively puts them in the extremist camp vis-à-vis the Damascus regime. Washington is also aiding the Saudis' war on the Houthis in Yemen. Yet the Houthis are the most effective Yemeni opponents of the Islamic State and the group called Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, against which the United States is waging a drone war.

The Turkish-Saudi alliance seems to have already made a difference in the Syrian civil war. After some initial successes last year against divided opponents, the Syrian government has suffered some sharp defeats in the past few months and appears to be regrouping to defend its base of support in the coastal regions and the cities of Homs, Hama, and Damascus. While the Syrian government has lost over half of the country to the insurgents, it still controls up to 60 percent of the population.

Turkey has long been a major conduit for weapons, supplies, and fighters for the anti-Assad forces, and Saudi Arabia and most of its allies in the Gulf Coordination Council, representing the monarchies of the Middle East, have funneled money to the insurgents. But Saudi Arabia has always viewed the Muslim Brotherhood - which has a significant presence in Syria and in countries throughout the region- as a threat to its own monarchy.

The fact that Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party is an offshoot of the Brotherhood has caused friction with the Saudis. For instance, while Turkey denounced the military coup against the elected Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, Saudi Arabia essentially bankrolled the takeover and continues to bail Cairo out of economic trouble.

But all that was water under the bridge when it came to getting rid of Assad. The Turks and the Saudis have established a joint command center in the newly conquered Syrian province of Idlib and have begun pulling the kaleidoscope of Assad opponents into a cohesive force.

A war on Hezbollah?

Three years of civil war has whittled the Syrian Army from 250,000 in 2011 to around 125,000 today, but Damascus is bolstered by Lebanon's Hezbollah fighters. The Lebanese Shiite organization that fought Israel to a draw in 2006 is among the Assad regime's most competent forces.

Which is where the Israeli leak comes in.

The timing of the story - published on May 12 in The New York Times - was certainly odd, as was the prominence given a story based entirely on unnamed "senior Israeli officials." If the source was obscured, the message was clear: "We will hit Hezbollah hard, while making every effort to limit civilian casualties as much as we can," one official said. But "we do not intend to stand by helplessly in the face of rocket attacks."

The essence of the article was that Hezbollah is using civilians as shields in southern Lebanon, and the Israelis intended to blast the group regardless of whether civilians are present or not.

This is hardly breaking news. The Israeli military made exactly the same claim in its 2008-09 "Cast Lead" attack on Gaza and again in last year's "Protective Edge" assault on the same embattled strip. It is currently under investigation by the United Nations for possible war crimes involving the targeting of civilians.

Nor is it the first time Israel has said the same thing about Hezbollah in Lebanon. In his Salon article entitled "The 'hiding among civilians' myth," Beirut-based writer and photographer Mitch Prothero found that "This claim [of hiding among civilians] is almost always false." Indeed, says Prothero, Hezbollah fighters avoid mingling with civilians because they know "they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators - as so many Palestinian militants have been."

But why is the Israeli military talking about a war with Lebanon? The border is quiet. There have been a few incidents, but nothing major. Hezbollah has made it clear that it has no intention of starting a war, though it warns Tel Aviv that it's quite capable of fighting one. The most likely answer is that the Israelis are coordinating their actions with Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Tel Aviv has essentially formed a de facto alliance with Riyadh to block a nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 - the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, and Germany. Israel is also supporting Saudi Arabia's attack on Yemen and has an informal agreement with Riyadh and Ankara to back the anti-Assad forces in Syria.

Israel is taking wounded Nusra Front fighters across the southern Syrian border for medical treatment. It's also bombed Syrian forces in the Golan Heights. In one incident, it killed several Hezbollah members and an Iranian general advising the Syrian government.

The realm of uncertainty

The Saudis have pushed the argument that Syria, Iraq, and Yemen are really about Iranian expansionism and the age-old clash between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Hezbollah is indeed a Shiite organization, and the majority of Iraqis are also members of the sect. Assad's regime is closely associated with the Alawites, an offshoot of Shiism, and the Houthis in Yemen are a variety of the sect as well.

However, the wars in the Middle East are about secular power, not divine authority - although sectarian division is a useful recruiting device. As for "Iranian aggression," it was the Sunni-dominated regime of Saddam Hussein, bankrolled by Saudi Arabia and supported by the United States, that started the modern round of Sunni-Shiite bloodletting when Iraq invaded Iran in 1981.

If the Israeli Army attacks southern Lebanon, Hezbollah will be forced to bring some of its troops home from Syria, thus weakening the Syrian Army at a time when it's already hard pressed by newly united rebel forces. In short, it would be a two-front war that would tie down Hezbollah, smash up southern Lebanon, and lead to the possible collapse of the Assad regime.

As Carl von Clausewitz, the great Prussian theoretician of modern war, once noted, however, war is the realm of uncertainty. All that one can really determine is who fires the first shot. That the Israelis can pulverize scores of villages in southern Lebanon and kill lots of Shiites, there is no question. They've done it before. But a ground invasion may be very expensive, and the idea that they could "defeat" Hezbollah is a pipe dream. Shiites make up 40 percent of Lebanon's ethnic mélange and dominate the country's south. Hezbollah has support among other communities as well, in part because they successfully resisted the 1982-2000 Israeli occupation and bloodied Tel Aviv in the 2006 invasion.

An Israeli attack on Hezbollah, however, would almost certainly re-ignite Lebanon's civil war, while bolstering the power of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. The Turks might think that al-Qaeda is no threat to them, but recent history should give them pause.

Creating something like the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan and the anti-Gaddafi forces in Libya is not terribly difficult. Controlling them is altogether another matter.

"It always seems to blow back"

"Every power in the Middle East has tried to harness the power of the Islamists to their own end," says Joshua Landis, director of Middle Eastern Studies at Oklahoma University, but "it always seems to blow back."

The Afghan Mujahedeen created the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the U.S. invasion of Iraq spawned the Islamic State, and Libya has collapsed into a safe haven for radical Islamic groups. Erdogan may think the Justice and Development Party's Islamic credentials will shield Turkey from a Syrian ricochet, but many of these groups consider Erdogan an apostate for playing democratic politics in secular institutions.

Indeed, up to 5,000 Turkish young people have volunteered to fight in Syria and Iraq. Eventually they will take the skills and ideology they learned on the battlefield back to Turkey, and Erdogan may come to regret his fixation with overthrowing Assad.

While it's hard to imagine a Middle East more chaotic than it is today, if the Army of Conquest succeeds in overthrowing the Assad government, and Israel attacks Lebanon, "chaos" will be an understatement.

This article originally appeared at Conn Hallinan's blog, Dispatches from the Edge.

Photo: Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, stands with Saudi King Salman during an arrival ceremony for Erdogan, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 2, 2015. (AP/Saudi Press Agency)

A hot weekend and a chilly G7 summit

Tue, 09 Jun 2015 13:49:00 +0000

BERLIN - In Elmau, top leaders of seven top nations at the G7 Summit discuss "the global economy as well as... foreign, security and development policy."

That doesn't sound exciting. And since the big shots are sorting it all out in a five-star "luxury spa, retreat and cultural hideaway" a thousand meters high in the Alps, as far from the real world as possible, it could remain quite cool. To guarantee this, one possibly caustic trouble-maker, Russia's President Vladimir Putin, was shown a cold shoulder. Down-graded areas in controversial latitudes and longitudes like China, India, all Africa and Latin America were not even considered. If they wish to, let them have G20 meetings - or whatever - the seven seemed to think. "We know who really counts in this world!"

But counting, like chickens before they hatch, is a dubious exercise. A big crowd wants to intrude on their Alpine solitude - as loudly as possible. Recalling the excited G8 Heiligendamm summit of 2007 at the Baltic Sea, much closer to urban civilization and constantly bothered by angry citizens, Angela Merkel has seen to it that 17,000 police guard a wide security zone around the Elmau "retreat" and all routes leading to it. They have a close-knit video net, a fleet of helicopters and drones, "confinement" containers and quick-sentencing, rapid-fire judges at the ready. All hotel and pension rooms in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the nearest town, were blocked well in advance and everything else done to frighten local farmers from renting free camping space for tents, trailers, meetings and facilities like the well-ordered tent colony in Heiligendamm. When one courageous property owner offered the protest campers a large meadow the agreement was first barred by the town because of possible "flood waters." Another court decision reversed this, however, and the colony has been set up, though over fifteen miles from the summit palace.

Protesting G7

The first rally on June 4, almost a hundred miles away in Munich, the nearest city of any size, surprised everyone with up to 40,000 determined, non-violent demonstrators. They came from a wide range of groups like the teachers' union (GEW), the LINKE (Left) party, Oxfam, the Green Youth, the Green Party of Bavaria, the anti-speculation organization attac (Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions and Citizen's Action) and the left-leaning Nature Friends. They sent many demands up to the lofty mountainside: drop the "Austerity" policy so enduringly espoused by Angela Merkel, move convincingly against climate warming and ecological disaster, keep anti-biotic meat and gene-altered attacks on agriculture by firms like Monsanto out of Europe, and above all, cancel plans for US-European (TTIP) and Canadian-European trade agreements (CETA), companion pieces to Obama's US-Pacific treaty (TPP), which would endanger ecological efforts, labor standards, cultural independence in films and books and hand key decisions to special courts and big business who could over-rule any progressive gains in the separate countries.

Since the demise of the USSR and its bloc twenty-five years ago the mighty companies and the governments they so strongly influence have used technological progress and global possibilities to push down standards of living in the poorest countries of the south and, aided by the resulting pressure, of working people in their richer countries as well, whose union movements and political Left almost everywhere have been weakened or de-clawed. Wage levels, job security, retirement age, women's rights, public schools and higher education have all been under pressure.

The current demonstrations are another sign that people are fighting back. Rallies and marches are planned for each day, moving as close to Elmau as permitted, maybe even somewhat closer. The "black bloc" groups who like to burn cars or garbage cans and break windows have not been invited this time but, unlike Putin, they could show up uninvited, and many non-violent protesters are also in a defiant mood. As ever, the media predators will hunt big bold scare headlines.

What worries the G7?

The G7 men and two women (hostess Angela Merkel and World Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde) will rely on the armed, uniformed, visored men in surrounding woods and meadows to keep the crowds unseen and unheard. But two burning themes can hardly be avoided. Present or menacing war, from Donetsk or Odessa to Ramadi and Palmyra is of bloody importance. Nor can they ignore their real worry; not only do protest rallies seem to be growing, but undesirable election results look like troublesome, rebellious omens, most recently in Spain, far more urgently in Greece. Such uppity presumption will surely be discussed as much up in Elmau as down below in the crowds.

Indeed, some may already be thinking up new slogans; on June 20^ththe World Social Forum will mark a week of solidarity for Greece. In its bitter tug of war against the Syriza government elected on January 25^th the rulers of the European Union, headed by Germany and its tight-lipped, tight-fisted, tightwad Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, see it and movements like Podemos rather like Liberia saw Ebola or South Korea sees the new MERS epidemic. It must not spread! Syriza must be stopped, yes, wrecked! The rallies planned for Berlin, Rome, London, Brussels and elsewhere hope to prevent this; the victories in Greece and Spain, signs of a new spring of resistance, demand strong support. The slogan will be "Remake Europe - democratic, borderless, in solidarity".

This development is more than embarrassing to the Social Democrats and their leader Sigmar Gabriel. To retain any claim to a leftward inclination and maintain vital ties with the labor movement, his party should be joining such protests and rallies. But Vice-Chancellor Gabriel is part of the government, and Merkel is hostess in Elmau. He has joined Schäuble in badgering poverty-stricken Greece to pay up all its debts to its wealthy debtors and has been a main supporter of TTIP. Due to growing opposition, even from fellow Democrats, to his friend Obama's Asian treaty, but mostly due to general German rejection of signing away the country's birthright for a Biblical mess of potage, consumed by big biz, Gabriel is making all kinds of claims as to the treaty's basic innocence if not its outright blessings. Sadly for him, the U.S. negotiators are not backing him up in his assurances and his party is increasingly divided.

Greens, Social Democrats, DIE LINKE, AfD

The Greens are also showing signs of what, among amoebae, is called mitosis; when cells, or their nuclei, begin to divide. While left-leaning Greens - there are still some - are taking part in some of the protests, others, like co-chair Cem Özdemir, is so far to the right on some issues that he once joined the likes of Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz in an open letter violently attacking Russia. He speaks with deep respect for Angela Merkel and President Gauck and might perhaps be open to a coalition with their Christian Democratic Party. Or, to be fair, to any coalition, even with the Social Democrats and LEFT if it would get him a government cabinet seat. He currently hopes to end the double-chair rule in his party, with one man, one woman, and thus rule the roost alone.

This would be opposed but hardly lead to full mitosis, in contrast with the young Alternative for Germany (AfD), which now does seem to be splitting apart, with its present head, who is far to the right, opposed by the two vice-chairs, who are even further to the right. But then this is surely related less to amoebae than to the sphere of the e-coli.

The Left may also face a hot time on this hot weekend, hopefully no mitosis. At its party congress in West German Bielefeld the delegates will be debating desirable or undesirable coalitions with Greens and Social Democrats, their foreign non-intervention policy in the face of pressures from those other two parties, but hopefully also its new program of fighting hard on key issues affecting so many, here too: jobs, rent increases, pensions, environment. Perhaps this would help sooth inner wounds as well as possible and break the 8-10 percent status quo in the polls whose corset has confined its ribs for so long.

Photo: In Munich, Germany, June 4, demonstrators demand to stop the TTIP negotiations during a protest against the G-7 the summit. | Matthias Schrader/AP

Enforcement not the answer to Europe’s immigration problems

Tue, 09 Jun 2015 13:10:00 +0000

Every day people launch themselves in rickety boats into the Mediterranean, hoping to navigate the perilous passage to Europe - hundreds drowning in the attempt. In the last weekend of May alone, European naval and merchant ships rescued more than 5,000 migrants after boats issued a distress call, according the European Union border control agency, Frontex. The death toll is on the rise. At least 1, 770 people have died so far this year. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) warns that the migrant death toll could reach 30,000 in 2015.

Others die in the sea off Southeast Asia, hoping to get to Australia, or any country other than the one they left. Meanwhile, hundreds die every year crossing the desert through northern Mexico into the United States. Some perish from thirst and exposure, some fall from railroad cars heading for the border, while dozens more are murdered simply because they're vulnerable migrants.

Over the last two months, the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean has captured the global spotlight. But so far the EU response has focused on enforcement and a crackdown on traffickers. Recently some European political leaders proposed using their navies to stop boats carrying migrants, returning the refuge-seekers to their points of origin, mostly in Libya, and then sinking the craft. This enforcement-based approach not only ignores the primary drives of migration but also jeopardizes millions of people who are seeking refuge from repressive regimes.

The governments of wealthy countries all use heavy enforcement against migrants as a supposed deterrent to migration. Australia's navy seizes boats on the high seas, and tows them to the isolated island nation of Nauru. There it pays a private contractor $1.2 billion to keep migrants in a detention center. The U.S. continues building privately-run detention centers. The latest, the South Texas Detention Center, already holds 2400 mothers and children from Central America.

International law guarantees the right to seek asylum. Seizing boats and mass detentions are violations of this basic right, and endanger migrants themselves. EU rules and standards require identifying migrants and hosting them in adequate conditions. Asylum seekers' cases must be assessed on an individual basis in the first country in which they arrive. They must be allowed to reunite with family members who are already living in EU countries.

A week ago the EU called on member states to absorb 40,000 Syrian and Eritrean migrants over the next two years. That figure grossly underestimates the number of asylum-seekers and limits who can apply for asylum. More than 600,000 migrants arrived in the EU last year. At least 80,000 have applied for asylum in Europe since January.

Asylum is given to people fleeing persecution, while people fleeing poverty are considered economic migrants. Yet people often are fleeing both simultaneously, and the causes of war, repression and poverty are intertwined. European and U.S. political leaders, however, point their fingers at traffickers, holding them responsible for the wave of death. French President Francois Hollande urged a "tougher fight against traffickers," while Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called them "the slave drivers of the 21st century."  President Obama castigated smugglers who, he said, encourage mothers to send their children from Central America.

This focus on traffickers helps political leaders avoid shouldering responsibility for the conditions that drive migrants from their homes and make migration a necessity for survival. Further, demonizing traffickers has become a tool of foreign policy. The U.S. rates countries on their efforts to stop trafficking, and allies like the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany and the Netherlands score at the top, despite widespread economic exploitation and attacks on immigrants. U.S. enemies, from Iran to North Korea, with relatively smaller roles in world migration, conveniently rate at the bottom.

In reality, modern migration is blowback from centuries of colonialism, followed by a deepening gulf between the rich and poor countries of the world. Sergio Sosa, a Guatemalan immigrant living in Nebraska, says, "People from Europe and the U.S. crossed borders to come to us, and took over our land and economy. Now it's our turn to cross borders. Migration is a form of fighting back. People have to resist -- to keep their communities and identities alive. We are demonstrating that we are human beings too."

European colonies in Africa, the Mideast and Asia transferred enormous wealth to Europe. They created a huge economic divide that formal independence for the colonies never overcame. The oil of Nigeria still goes to Europe, pumped by European corporations, while Nigerian migrants sell knockoff purses on the sidewalks in Rome and London. The mines of Zambia are owned by foreign corporations, to whom their revenues flow. Large EU and US investment groups buy tracts of land in Africa for industrial export agriculture, displacing the communities living there.

Former colonies go into debt to finance development, start paying interest to foreign banks, and then must implement austerity policies at the demand of institutions like the International Monetary Fund that lower the local standard of living. Military aid agreements buttress governments that protect these investments, which can lead to repression and direct intervention.

While the EU countries contribute money towards development projects, they are oriented towards creation of infrastructure for Europeans corporations. Developing countries must open their markets to European imports, destroying local industry and agriculture that cannot compete. Even Kenya, a generally pro-EU country, in 2014 refused to sign the Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and east African states, and was then punished by the imposition of high tariffs on its exports to Europe. Eventually its government surrendered and signed. This agreement includes some of the countries sending migrants to Europe, such as Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi.

According to Andrew Mold, the UN's economic analyst for east Africa, "The African countries cannot compete with an economy like Germany's. As a result, free trade and EU imports endanger existing industries, and future industries do not even materialize because they are exposed to competition from the EU."

According to Tefere Gebre, an Ethiopian immigrant now executive vice-president of the AFL-CIO, the cause of the migration of mothers and children from Honduras is "the intersection of our corporate-dominated trade policies with our broken immigration system."  A long history of U.S. military intervention in Central America, he says, produced the violence people are now fleeing.

Our supposedly post-colonial world has been unable to erase the gross inequality of nations that was colonialism's product. Most of the wars of our era, each with its specific cause, have roots in this history, as people try to achieve a more just social order, only to see their efforts met with violence and repression. Poverty, and the wars that result from it, are the forces that displace people, making migration their only option. And the imposition of austerity programs and corporate-dominated trade pacts only increases economic polarization, bringing with them even more displacement.

There is no military way to stop this migration. Sinking boats from North Africa will no more halt the flow of people than building detention centers or walls on the Mexico/U.S. border. European bombing and military intervention in Libya, aided by the U.S., actually produced the social chaos in which the people-smugglers now prosper.

Instead of using navies to stop and sink the boats, Laura Boldrini, president of Italy's Chamber of Deputies, and former spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, suggests that the UNHCR could set up offices in North Africa where people can apply for asylum. At the same time, she says, the flow of people can be organized and asylum seekers distributed more fairly among European countries. In 2013 Germany processed 200,000 claims and Italy 64,000, while Finland processed 3,600 and the Czech Republic 1,000.   'The European Union is founded on solidarity among member states," Boldrini emphasizes, "and distributing asylum seekers more fairly is a principle which should be upheld - provided that all countries comply with EU rules and standards."

The disparity between the number of people arriving and the number given asylum basically means that huge numbers of migrants have no legal status at all. That, in turn, is used to justify laws that treat the lack of legal immigration status as a criminal offense. Undocumented status became a crime in Italy in 2002 under its Bossi-Fini law, and other Europeans countries have passed similar legislation.

Since the fall of the Berlusconi government and the conservative Northern League, leftwing Italian political parties have called for the law's repeal. Migration is not a criminal act and shouldn't be punished in Europe or on the high seas as though it was. In the U.S., while lack of legal status is still theoretically a minor infraction, over 440,000 people spent some time in an immigration detention center in 2013, and some migrants have been imprisoned for years.

In Europe and the U.S. the call for more enforcement and more exclusion finds support among some voters who fear losing jobs and income because of the impact of austerity policies. Voices on the left, therefore, link decriminalizing migration to overturning those policies and reversing economic polarization.

Boldrini argues against increasing the enforcement regime in the Mediterranean. "I believe it is both difficult to implement and very risky," she explains, "because military interventions can cause additional problems rather then solving them." Boldrini does urge action against smugglers, such as tracing their revenues and cutting them off. But since people are crossing in small fishing boats and other craft, "how can you tell whether a boat could potentially be used to smuggle people across the Mediterranean?" she asks. "And where will the rescued migrants be taken? The EU is bound by international refugee law and cannot return potential refugees to North African countries, where they could face persecution or be sent back to their countries of origin."

Ending forced migration requires changing the way EU countries deal with their former colonies and other developing nations. Europe can take basic steps to give people a future in their home countries. This includes ending military intervention, overturning austerity policies and ending trade and investment pacts that lead to economic polarization. These measures could help people to achieve the right to stay home, to make migration a voluntary choice, rather than an act forced by the need to survive.

Boldrini also advocates interim steps that can help save the lives of migrants in the short term, and guarantee their right to seek refuge from a world in which the right to stay home is still a dream. Her proposal to prescreen migrants before they leave the coast of North Africa by itself could save thousands of lives. Ensuring that EU countries share more equitably the people seeking asylum will reduce the hostility migrants face in their host countries, a benefit both to them and to their surrounding communities.

"We should intervene on the causes of migration if we want to stop people from leaving," Boldrini says. "At the same time, we need to respect the human rights of migrants." Ultimately, she argues, "smuggling is a consequence and not the cause of migration flows from and through the Middle East and North Africa. There will be no end to the sea crossings until people are not forced to flee."

The same connection is made by Gaspar Rivera Salgado, former coordinator of the Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations, a network of indigenous migrants in Mexico and the U.S. "We need development [in Mexico] that makes migration a choice rather than a necessity -- the right to stay home. That means schools, health care, jobs, good prices for corn and agricultural products," he says. "At the same time, we want immigration amnesty and legalization for undocumented migrants [in the U.S.] - the right to work, but with labor rights and benefits, not slavery."

An immigration policy that protects migrants from drowning or dying in the desert must link these two basic rights - to stay home, and to equality and dignity when people leave and migrate.

Photo: A Nigerian migrant sells purses on a street in Naples. | David Bacon

Massive anti-austerity march as Portugal prepares for national elections

Mon, 08 Jun 2015 12:43:00 +0000

The red hammer-and-sickle banners of the Portuguese Communist Party and the green flags of the country's Green Ecological Party filled the streets of Lisbon on June 6 as an estimated 100,000 Portuguese workers, pensioners and young people marched in protest against the harsh austerity program imposed on Portugal by the European "Troika" and the conservative government of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho.

The Portuguese Communists and Greens have a long running joint electoral effort called the United Democratic Coalition (CDU) which will again run a united effort in national elections scheduled for Sept. 20 and Oct. 11 of this year. Voters will elect all 230 members of the unicameral Portuguese parliament and the new government will be formed by the party or coalition of parties that wins the majority of seats.

In the last elections, in 2011, voters severely chastised the centrist Socialist Party (Partido Socialista) government of Prime Minister Jose Socrates for having signed on to the austerity program imposed on Portugal by the "Troika" of European financial authorities, consisting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank and the European Union executive, called the European Commission. That election brought to power a right wing government of the People's Party (PP) and the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the latter being a right wing party in spite of its name.

The new prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho of the PSD, promptly signed Portugal onto the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union, or Fiscal Compact. This agreement is called the "Pact of Death" by Portuguese Communist Party Secretary General Jeronimo de Sousa because it forces Portugal and the other poorer countries in the European Union and the Euro currency area to balance their budgets by following the neoliberal program of drastic austerity and privatization of national resources. The effects of the Fiscal Compact policies were soon evident in a slashed social safety net, skyrocketing unemployment and a widening of the gap between the increasingly impoverished workers and small farmers, and the economic elites.

When faced with the problem of massive unemployment among young adults, even those with university educations, Prime Minister Passos Coelho could think of no better idea for dealing with this than urging young Portuguese citizens to emigrate to the former Portuguese colonies of Brazil and Angola. This annoyed these other countries, as he had not thought to inform them that he planned to ship them his country's unemployed.

So the conservative government is being hammered from all sides by labor unions, retirees, youth, and every other major sector of Portuguese society. An interesting question is whether the Socialist Party will be able to gain votes because of this.

Jose Socrates, the prime minister the last time the PS was in power, has since gotten into deep legal trouble because of credible accusations of corruption, and in fact was arrested last November. The news in Portugal this past week included stories about Socrates refusing to wear an ankle bracelet under home arrest.

The new leader of the Socialist Party, Antonio Costa, has been making radical populist noises, but it is almost certain that the CDU alliance of communists and greens, and perhaps independent left candidates, will make inroads. The CDU's strength has up to now been in the South of the country and in Lisbon, so it also remains to be seen if it will a advance in other areas.

At Saturday's rally, the Ecological Greens Party's main speaker, Heloisa Apolonia, called for a complete reversal of existing policies and the adoption of "a policy of dignity, in favor of the people". She accused the governing PSD-PP coalition and the formerly governing PS of having placed Portugal at the mercy of the Troika and big finance capital.

She listed many of the disasters that have befallen the Portuguese people under the neo-liberal regime, including cuts in pensions, privatization of water, 300,000 emigrants to other countries, two million living in poverty (in a country of 10.5 million people), increasing disparities of wealth, overwhelmed health services, environmental degradation. "We are sick," she said, "of these lying parties which have served up the people of Portugal on a platter to serve the large economic and financial interests. We demand dignity, development, progress!"

De Sousa of the Communist Party called for a patriotic and leftist policy, which "defends the social functions of the state" (i.e. against privatization and budget cuts to social services) and rejects debt demands which "subordinate our country to the interests of big capital".

The mass march in Portugal coincides with dramatic events in Greece, where the left wing government is in cliff-edge confrontation with the Troika over the issue of Greek debt, and Spain, where there is also a general election in the Autumn and where candidates of the left just won the mayoralties of two of the most important cities, Madrid and Barcelona. It will soon be seen whether this presages a general cross-border movement against neo-liberal austerity programs.

Photo: Portuguese Communist Party

Venezuela: two in custody in murder of Bolivarian legislator

Fri, 05 Jun 2015 10:26:00 +0000

Two people are now in custody in Venezuela in last October's savage murder of an outstanding young member of the Venezuelan Congress, Roberto Serra, and his companion. Venezuelan authorities say that the murder is linked to right wing paramilitary circles close to former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

On October 1 last year, Robert Serra was murdered in his apartment in Caracas, along with Maria Herrera, his companion and political helper. Video surveillance cameras showed a group of eight people gaining access to his apartment, where they first overcame and killed Herrera and then Serra. The murders were acts of unbelievable sadism. Such brutality does not occur in the vast majority of murders in Venezuela or anywhere; it is generally the mark of a special act of hatred. Venezuelan authorities immediately suspected that the crime was politically motivated.

At just 27 years of age, Serra, a protégé of former President Hugo Chavez and a rising star in his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), had been in charge of a legislative committee investigating the activities of right wing paramilitary groups on the Colombian side of the Venezuela-Colombia border for possible anti-Venezuela actions. Specifically, he had focused on Lorent Saleh, a Venezuelan linked to last year's violent disturbances in Caracas and other Venezuelan cities. Salah is now in custody in Venezuela, accused of terroristic plotting, after having been extradited to Venezuela by Colombia.

The arrest in Venezuela on June 3 of Julio Cesar Velez Gonzalez, announced by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, actually is on the basis of an Interpol warrant requested by the Colombian government, and is for the murder of Velez's wife in 2010. But the Venezuelan authorities wanted Velez for other reasons. They accuse him of financing the Velez-Hernandez murder.

Until he went on the lam because of the murder of his wife, Velez Gonzalez had been a businessman and city councilor in the town of Cucuta, Colombia. In politics, he was a close ally of Uribe. His business activities had included running a chain of exchange houses which Venezuela claims were used for money laundering activities that have seriously damaged the Venezuelan economy.

Venezuela has been suffering from inflation and scarcities, which the government attributes in part to smuggling activities over the Colombian border, with government subsidized foodstuffs being bought at low prices in Venezuela, moved across the border illegally and then sold at high rates of profit in Colombia. Cucuta is right on the border with Venezuela's wealthy and conservative Tachira state which, with its capital city, San Cristobal, has been a hotbed of violent protests against the left-wing government of President Maduro in Caracas. Conservative students in San Cristobal have been particularly active in guarimbas, violent riots in which a considerable amount of government property has been destroyed. Venezuela claims that ultra-right paramilitaries in Colombia have been supporting these acts of violence, and that in fact some of the paramilitaries are operating on the Venezuelan side of the border.

When he was murdered Robert Serra was investigating this kind of activity.

A week before, Venezuelan prosecutors had announced the extradition from Colombia to Venezuela of the person they claim is the main individual involved in the actual killing. This is a Colombian and Venezuelan citizen, Leiva Padilla Mendoza, known as "El Colombia." Padilla was arrested in Colombia back in November, and held in that country until last week when Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos approved the extradition. According to Venezuela, Padilla was the head of an eight-person hit squad who bribed one of Serra's bodyguards to get access to Serra's home so as to carry out the murder. Venezuelan prosecutors claim that Velez Gonzalez had paid Padilla Mendoza to carry out the "hit".

It is notable the degree to which the left-wing government of Venezuela and the right wing government of Colombia are cooperating in these security matters. Former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez played a major role in making possible the current peace talks, going on in Havana, Cuba, between the Colombian government, and the left-wing guerrillas of the Armed Forces of the Colombian Revolution.

In Colombia, the talks are sharply denounced by the former president, Alvaro Uribe, whose government had particularly strong ties to the paramilitaries whose activities, along with those of the Colombian military, have created a huge internal refugee problem as well as costing the lives of countless thousands of innocent workers, farmers, trade unionists and others in a decades long rampage.

Santos, though considered a U.S. ally, (Colombia is involved in the Transpacific Partnership and receives huge amounts of U.S. military support through "Plan Colombia") has been acting more and more independently, for example by ending aerial spraying of suspected coca fields.

In his cooperation with Venezuela, Santos appears unfazed by dubious claims, which surfaced in the right-wing Spanish daily newspaper ABC and since have been retailed by the Wall Street Journal, that a key Maduro ally, Venezuelan parliament president Diosdado Cabello, is being investigated by U.S. prosecutors for drug trafficking.

Photo: Roberto Serra (correodelorinoco)

TPP’s evil twin advances in European Parliament

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 14:50:00 +0000

On May 28, the International Trade Committee of the European Parliament (the legislative arm of the European Union) approved, by a vote of 28 to 13, a position statement backing, with modifications, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) which is currently being negotiated between the United States and the European Union.

The TTIP is a companion deal for the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) which is the focus of such controversy in the United States right now. The "fast track" authorization for the TPP, passed by the U.S. Senate last week and is now headed for consideration in the House of Representatives, covers the process for approving the TTIP as well. The two trade pacts together would bring most international trade under their auspices, especially since the United States is already linked to many other countries by other, similar pacts.

As labor, environmental and other people's organizations in the United States have raised extremely serious concerns about the TPP, many in Europe have also done so about the TTIP. High on the list of worries for European labor and the left is the Investor State Dispute Settlement mechanism.

As originally proposed for both the TPP and the TTIP, foreign corporations who felt that national or even local laws were inhibiting the maximization of their profits would be able to sue the governments concerned, and the dispute would not be decided in local or national courts by regularly appointed judges, but by special tribunals dominated by transnational corporations.

The political left, labor unions and others in Europe who are already at a high level of mobilization against austerity programs being imposed against the working class by national governments and by the "troika" of the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank, are strongly opposed to many aspects of the TTIP, and some are against the pact entirely.

There are other serious worries. There are complaints that U.S.-based transnationals are exerting pressure to eliminate many hard-won safeguards for the population of the European countries, and will be able to do this even more effectively under the terms of the TTIP, which, like the TPP, is being negotiated in secret.

In the United Kingdom there is a specific worry that transnational corporations will use the mechanisms of the TTIP to take over and privatize the British National Health Service.

Another issue is very intricate European Union rules on product naming: As it stands, for example, nothing can be sold in Europe as "mozzarella cheese" unless it is certified that the milk from which it is made came from genuine water buffalos and not any old cow. Multinational corporations could use the TTIP to trash these standards.

While the debate about the TPP in the United States includes worry about other countries' in the pact pulling U.S. labor, environmental and product safety standards down, in Europe there is worry that their own labor, environmental and product safety standards will be pulled down by lower U.S. standards. For example, there is fear that efforts to exclude genetically modified crops in Europe will be knocked down by pressure from U.S. corporations.

The measure in the European parliament committee was passed on a motion by Bernd Lange of the German Social Democratic Party, with the support of the bloc of social democratic and liberal centrist parties. They achieved the insertion of language that would change the nature of the Investor State Dispute Settlement mechanism.

It would be taken away from the corporate-dominated "tribunals" and given to national tribunals appointed by the governments. However, the language of this compromise solution is exceedingly vague, and when the whole European Parliament votes on this as early as June 10, the International Trade Committee's recommendation could be simply tossed aside.

There is also language in the measure as passed that would exclude services such as schools, health care, postal services and other things from the TTIP.

In contrast to the social democratic, centrist and right wing parties, the bloc in the European Parliament of communist and other left-wing parties strongly opposed the approval vote, and denounces the TTIP in its entirety. An essay in the British communist newspaper Morning Star put the case succinctly: "MEP's [members of the European Parliament] should be told by individuals and representative bodies that they have no mandate for this treacherous act."

But although the left bloc in the European parliament (the European United Left-Nordic Green Left, or GUE/NGL) picked up seats in last year's elections, and is buoyed by advances of the left in the recent elections in Spain, it does not have the votes to defeat the TTIP right now. Its current membership includes MEPs from the Communist parties of Cyprus, the Czech Republic, France and Portugal, the Refounded Communist Party of Italy and the United Left in Spain which includes the Spanish Communist Party, as well as left-socialists such as SYRIZA in Greece, PODEMOS in Spain, die Linke in Germany and a number of others, for a total of 52 of the 751 members of the European Parliament.

To block the TTIP will require a massive, working-class led mobilization of opposition at the grassroots. The same is the case for our struggle against the TPP in the United States. And they are essentially the same struggle, with the same enemy, the international corporate behemoths.

Photo: AP

Today in history: Good sex with Dr. Ruth

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 11:26:00 +0000

Today is the birthday of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, born (as Karola Ruth Siegel) in 1928 in Wiesenfeld, Germany. She became one of the most recognizable commentators on TV and radio talking about good sex.

At the age of 10, she was sent to Switzerland as protection from the Nazis; her parents were killed in the Holocaust, possibly at Auschwitz. After the war Westheimer decided to emigrate to Palestine, where, at 17, she "first had sexual intercourse on a starry night, in a haystack without contraception." She later told the New York Times, "I am not happy about that, but I know much better now and so does everyone who listens to my radio program."

Although only 4'7" in stature, Westheimer joined the Haganah during the Israeli War of Independence in 1948, was wounded in action, and it was several months before she was able to walk again.

In 1950, she moved to France, where she studied and then taught psychology at the University of Paris. In 1956, she immigrated to the United States, settling in Washington Heights, Manhattan, where she still lives.

Westheimer earned a master's degree in sociology from The New Schooland an Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University. She completed post-doctoral work in human sexuality. Her books on human sexuality, include Dr. Ruth's Encyclopedia of Sex and Sex for Dummies.

In 1980, WYNY-FM, NBC Radio's New York City owned-and-operated station, started featuring "Dr. Ruth" on Sexually Speaking, her own 15-minute talk show at midnight on Sunday nights. People would mail in their questions and Dr. Ruth would begin her response saying, "I have a letter from a listener who asks...," in a voice that sounded like a "cross between Henry Kissinger and Minnie Mouse," as The Wall Street Journal would describe her.

After two months the show expanded to an hour and went live, with Westheimer taking phone calls with a 7-second digital delay. Within a year Westheimer had a larger audience on Sunday night at midnight on this struggling station than many New York stations had in morning drive-time. She became known for being candid and funny, but respectful, and for her tag phrase, "Get some."

In less than two years, Dr. Ruth became a household name and was being heard on radio stations across the country. Her pioneering TV show, also called Sexually Speaking, first aired in 1982, and has been nationally syndicated, as has her radio show. She also appeared on many talk shows such as David Letterman.

Westheimer's popularity expanded into PBS Television children's shows and an episode of the TV show Quantum Leap. Knowing that "sex sells," marketers have used her in commercials: For the Honda Prelude, she appeared in 1993, ending with "My advice to you is, 'Get a Prelude.'"

The January 2009 55th anniversary issue of Playboy features Westheimer as #13 in the list of the 55 most important people in sex from the past 55 years. In October 2013, the biographical play Becoming Dr. Ruth opened off Broadway, starring Debra Jo Rupp. It has since been staged in other theaters.

America is still in many ways captive to attitudes of embarrassment and shame, and crippling ignorance, about sexuality. Statistics on teenage pregnancy, incidence of sexually transmitted disease, and knowledge of the reproductive system, for example, all compare unfavorably with other advanced countries. Anyone tuning in on congressional debate about abortion and reproduction can appreciate how manipulative and uninformed so many politicians can be when passing the laws that will affect not only millions of Americans, but populations around the world impacted by backward U.S. policies on birth control and sexual education.

Dr. Ruth Westheimer does not shy away from controversy or difficult subjects. "There will never be a day," she has said, "when there is no such thing as prostitution. Quote me: I would like to see prostitution legalized." She has made a career out of demystifying sex with both rationality and humor, opening her audience's minds to nonjudgmental enjoyment, with responsibility and equality.

Happy birthday, Dr. Ruth!

Adapted from Wikipedia and other sources.

Photo: Dr. Westheimer | Wikipedia (CC)