People Before Profit blog

LGBTQ equality movement Pink Dot navigates conservatism in Singapore

Mon, 06 Jun 2016 15:35:00 +0000

Now in its eighth year, the LGBTQ equality organization Pink Dot brought together thousands of Singaporeans this past weekend to "celebrate the freedom to love." Meeting in Hong Lim Park in downtown Singapore (the only spot where public demonstrations are allowed in the country), participants challenged the people of the socially-conservative city-state to move toward greater acceptance of diversity.

An alternative to the gay liberation protests or Pride parades which have characterized the LGBTQ movement in North America and Europe for decades, Pink Dot is instead structured around a non-confrontational strategy centered on family and social acceptance of differences in sexual orientation. A play on tiny Singapore's nickname as "the little red dot," Pink Dot rallies its pink-clad supporters annually to form a huge pink circle in a symbolic call on the country to embrace all its members. Eschewing the rainbow banners more commonly associated with LGBTQ events internationally, Pink Dot blends the red and white colors of Singapore's national flag.

In an authoritarian society where courting foreign investment is the state's paramount goal and political dissent is channeled into controlled outlets, the activists behind Pink Dot have walked a fine line since 2009 as they have organized some of the largest non-government political events to be seen in Singapore in decades. Support from a number of global corporations has also brought a certain level of legitimacy and cover in an atmosphere where free trade and foreign direct investment are necessary parts of national economic survival.

Pink Dot's strategy is an expression of what Singapore scholar Lynette Chua, in her book Mobilizing Gay Singapore, has called "pragmatic resistance" to the array of legal barriers standing in the way of collective mobilization in the country. In contrast to the liberal democracies of the West, an "unusual politics of gay rights" has emerged in Singapore, where LGBTQ activists are engaged in a struggle not just to define equality, but also to set the boundaries of civil and political liberties in general.

It is a strategy also tailor-made for a country where racial, religious, and linguistic harmony are highly-prized and state-sanctioned, especially since the Race Riots of 1964. Instead of focusing on critique and protest, Pink Dot pushes Singapore society to live up to its own ideals of diversity, unity, and solidarity. With promotional materials and videos in each of the island nation's official languages - English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil - Pink Dot has masterfully capitalized on the official ideology of multiracialism and diversity.

Even with its success - growing from 2,500 participants in 2009 to nearly 30,000 last year - Pink Dot continues to operate in a challenging political and legal environment. Same-sex relations between men remain officially proscribed (women go unmentioned) under Section 377A of the penal code Singapore inherited from its days as a British colony.

Though rarely enforced, the fact that it remains on the books and that prosecutions under it are not unheard of, 377A keeps a legal cloud hanging over any possible moves toward LGBTQ equality. Challenged in the country's Supreme Court in 2014, the law was upheld. The ruling came as no surprise, for as the Economist wryly noted at the time, "Singapore's government tends to do well before Singaporean courts."

The ruling People's Action Party, in power since 1959, continues to stand firm in its position that Singapore is a socially-conservative society and that no drastic action on 377A will be taken. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last year declared, "There is space for the gay community but they should not push the agenda too hard because if they push the agenda too hard, there will be a very strong pushback."

Beyond the government's reminders not to push too fast, a number of religious groups in the country have also mobilized in reaction to Pink Dot's advances. Muslim and Christian groups threw together "Wear White" campaigns in opposition to Pink Dot participants' attire. Though it made headlines in 2014 and 2015, this reactionary move seems to have faded this year.

The resistance to advancing LGBTQ equality in Singapore, which is Southeast Asia's most economically advanced country, threatens to leave it behind some neighbors, like Vietnam, who are signaling openness to measures up to and including marriage equality.

Though born in one of the world's smallest nations, Pink Dot's strategic focus on celebrating love has rapidly become a model for LGBTQ freedom struggles in other socially-conservative or authoritarian settings. Singaporeans and others of Asian heritage in different countries have also embraced Pink Dot as a model suited to their communities. Since 2011, Pink Dot events have popped up in Taiwan; Salt Lake City, Utah; Anchorage, Alaska; Toronto and Montreal, Canada; London, U.K.; Okinawa; New York City; and Malaysia.

"As we move into our eighth year, we felt it was timely to emphasize that Pink Dot is an annual rally to speak up and stand strongly against discrimination, and champion the importance of inclusivity and diversity in Singapore," Paerin Choa, Pink Dot spokesperson, said.

"We are looking forward to the day when everyone in Singapore understands and celebrates the fact that the Freedom to Love is a fundamental human right that should not be denied to anyone."

Photo: Pink Dot Singapore attendees turn Hong Lim Park pink with flashlights in 2013.

Arrests in murder of Berta Caceres, but the struggle is not over

Fri, 03 Jun 2016 14:50:00 +0000

On May 6, five men were arrested for the March 3 murder of Honduran indigenous leader and environmentalist Berta Caceres. Although Caceres' family and supporters do not see the arrests as bringing closure to the issue, they do reveal a very troubling pattern of multinational corporations, local economic elites and security forces ramping up repression in this impoverished Central American country.

The people arrested include a U.S.-trained, active duty army major, Mariano Díaz Chávez, and a former officer, Edison Duarte Meza. Also accused are Sergio Rodriguez, a community relations official of Desarrollos Energéticos, SA (DESA), the corporation responsible for the Agua Zarca dam project, and Geovanny Bustillo, DESA's former chief of security. Allegedly Rodriguez and Bustillo may have been the ringleaders of the murder plot. DESA, owned by the Atala family, one of the top clans of the Honduran economic and political elite, has been building the Agua Zarca dam on the Gualcarque River, a project against which Caceres and her organization, COPINH (The Council of indigenous and People's Organizations of Honduras), had been organizing protests. So both DESA and the Honduran government are directly implicated at the local level. How high in the government the responsibility goes is still not clear. The role of Honduran elites, however, is clear. This is why COPINH and its allies are still calling for an independent international commission to investigate the murder. The arrests came only after an international pressure campaign that caused Dutch, Finnish, Chinese and World Bank funders to back away from financing the dam project.

Shocking, also, is the apparent link of one of the accused, DESA's Sergio Rodriguez, identified also as an "environmental engineer" to a USAID subcontractor, Fintrac. The Washington D.C. based Fintrac had signed a contract with DESA to channel USAID money to the company in order to carry out minor social aid projects in the area that would be affected by the Agua Zarca dam, such as giving backpacks to local schoolchildren. Caceres and COPINH had complained that this was just a public relations gimmick to make DESA look like a friend of the people, while its dam project was destroying their livelihood and wrecking the physical environment.

The death of Caceres and of another COPINH member, Nelson Noé Garcia, on March 15, as well as many other attacks and threats, has been denounced as part of a return by the Honduran government to the days of the military dictatorship in the 1980s, when a special C.I.A. trained military unit, Battalion 316, caused the death or disappearance of hundreds of Honduran dissidents. The Honduran Human Rights organization CODAFEH, headed by the long time human rights campaigner Bertha Oliva, sees the current wave of repression in Honduras as the continuation of the old Battalion 316's reign of terror.

Among the demands of COPINH and Berta Caceres' family has been an end to U.S funding to Honduran security forces, because those forces, including many people trained by the United States, are so heavy involved in the violence against dissidents. In this demand, they are joined by a great number of individuals and organizations around the world, including, in the United States, the AFL-CIO and many members of the U.S. Congress. Many have pointed out that the actions of the U.S. State Department, then headed by Hillary Clinton, after the June 2009 military coup, which overthrew legally elected President Manuel Zelaya, consolidated a coup regime that proved to be both repressive and corrupt, set the stage for the present human rights crisis, and sullied the reputation of the United States in Latin America. Aid to Honduras under present conditions may be a violation of the Leahy Law, which forbids U.S. assistance to foreign security forces which engage in violation of human rights.

However, so far the Obama administration has continued to promote its "Alliance for Prosperity" plan for the "Northern Triangle" of Central American countries, which includes Honduras, El Salvador and
Guatemala. The focus of this plan is to stop the migration from these countries of children and families fleeing desperate situations of poverty and violence and trying to get to family members in the United States. This plan involves continued funding of regional security forces to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in spite of the revelations of their complicity in the murder of Caceres and many other acts of brutal violence.

On Friday May 19, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson met with Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez to discuss the prevention of undocumented migration of Hondurans to the United States. It appears, though, that Johnson's visit was entirely focused on preventing migration and human trafficking.

Photo: Berta Caceres. | AP

French Communists convene international peace conference in Paris

Fri, 03 Jun 2016 14:27:00 +0000

PARIS, France - More than a hundred delegates from organizations around the globe gathered here June 1 for the International Conference for World Peace and Progress convened by the Communist Party of France (PCF). "We have to build new forms of collective security and progress. We must stand together today and draw on our collective experiences," Lydia Samarbakhsh, international affairs coordinator for the PCF, said as she welcomed the assembled guests. "This is a starting point," she stated, "the beginning of a common construction of our shared struggle."

The 120,000-member strong PCF organized the meeting, which brought together over 125 international participants from 88 organizations and 56 countries, as well as hundreds of PCF leaders and French peace activists.

Samarbakhsh said the PCF called the conference due to the "deteriorating situation in international relations and the negative role of the French government" and the "over-bearing weight of financial inequality here and around the world." Inequality, she argued, was an essential part of the international peace agenda due to its potential to provoke violent conflict.

The conference's first panel discussion was chaired by Tobias Pfluger, a Member of European Parliament from 2004-09 and vice president of Germany's Die Linke, or Left Party (formerly the East German Socialist Unity Party).

Speaking of the ongoing refugee crisis in southern Europe, he stated critically that the "right to asylum is defacto no longer recognized" by many European states. "Tragically," he said, "military means are being used and deployed against refugees forced to leave their country as a direct consequence of European Union policy decisions."

Hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war-torn Syria and other locales have been flooding into Europe seeking asylum. Already more than 2,500 have died this year in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea in failed attempts to reach Europe's shores.

In addition to the logistical challenges of dealing with such a high number of asylum-seekers, there are credible arguments being made that racism has also played a large role in policy decisions that have exacerbated the refugee crisis.

Michel Billout, a PCF leader and member of France's Senate, highlighted the "new tools of economic war" designed to facilitate the "unbridled concentration of wealth" into fewer and fewer hands. He emphasized the ways that economic policy decisions can have a dramatic impact on living standards, wages, and benefits. In effect, he argued, they can amount to a war against workers.

"It's not only bullets that can kill," he added, urging conference participants to "imagine new types of internationalism based on cooperation and solidarity."

The fear of emerging right-wing extremism was also a major focus of the conference. Some participants expressed deep worries about the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency in the United States due to his chauvinist and militarist rhetoric, his encouragement of violence against protesters, and his complete lack of international political experience. A number even expressed fear of fascism.

"Israel is in the midst of a fascist transformation that is quite obvious," Adel Amer, secretary general of the Communist Party of Israel, said. The Israeli government, he told the conference, "practices the harshest kind of oppression and colonialism" against the Palestinian people. He went so far as to suggest it was a special type of "apartheid against non-Jews."

Amer was optimistic, though, and added that his party was "establishing a large Jewish-Arab Front to fight fascism and occupation, which go hand in hand." However, he was adamant that the conference "needs commitments, not just declarations."

Juan Carlos Marsan Aguilera, Cuban Ambassador to Austria, argued for efforts to protect and expand the achievements of the Cuban socialist revolution. He said peace activists need to "continue to defend independent, sovereign socialism in Cuba" and its contributions to world peace, education, and health. He told the conference that there are currently Cuban doctors in twenty-nine African nations providing free medical care and 30,000 African students are being educated and trained in Cuba, mostly as doctors.

Sexism and sexist oppression were also discussed as a form of economic and physical war against women. "Patriarchal domination prevents half of humankind from developing freely," Pierre Laurant, a French Senator and national secretary of the PCF, told participants.

He urged a "reinvented internationalism, an internationalism that can take stock of the diversity of our forces and make them converge. Different political currents need to work together."

"We have to place solidarity at the center of our political fights," he concluded, "especially the fight for peace."

Marriane Simon-Ekane, from the African Movement for New Independence and Democracy in Cameroon, expressed the sentiment of the conference when she said, "we must challenge a system that pushes the world to the brink of destruction."

Photo: Tony Pecinovsky/PW

The Bolivarian crisis: Is Latin America’s “pink tide” receding?

Fri, 03 Jun 2016 11:01:00 +0000

First it was Manuel Zelaya, the Honduran president overthrown in a coup in 2009. Then, three years later, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, the victim of parliamentary maneuvering, found himself out of office. Next to drop was the Guyanese left, which lost at the polls in that country in May 2015. Meanwhile in Buenos Aires in November, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was succeeded by a hard-right regime. Only a few weeks ago, it was Brazil's Dilma Rousseff, ushered out of office in a coup that is still unfolding. And in Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro is struggling to preserve the legacy built by his predecessor, Hugo Chávez. Everywhere, it appears that the left-wing leaders of Latin America and the governments they head are under threat.

The program of the left in Latin America, riding high since Chávez's election to the Venezuelan presidency in 1998, is currently in the midst of a multi-faceted crisis. A glut in global commodities and a resurgent right-wing counteroffensive have come together to create an ominous situation. It is one which now threatens to force the recession of the nearly two-decade-old "pink tide" of left advance in the region.

The collapse in commodity prices has severely impacted many of these countries whose development model has, perforce, depended on selling oil, natural gas, or mining and agricultural products on the world market. Across the region, those left governments which have not already been forced from office find themselves in dire straits. In Venezuela, the heartland of the Bolivarian Revolution, drought and other serious conditions are exacerbating the economic problems already crippling government finances. There, the government has implemented two-day work weeks for public employees just to save electricity and hydropower capacity. Hospitals are short on supplies. Consumers go to the supermarkets only to find bare shelves.

The challenges brought on by the global commodity glut have served to put new wind in the sails of the right wing locally and internationally. They have taken advantage of the resulting difficulties to undermine confidence in the "Bolivarian" or "pink tide" governments of the left across Latin America.

Right-wing political groups have already succeeded in ousting progressive administrations in Argentina and Brazil in recent months and they now have Venezuela's Maduro in their sights. Street violence is rising, with shocking scenes of right-wing rioters attacking police and government supporters. On March 29, two police officers were killed when rioters hijacked a bus and ran over them at high speed. On May 19, there were more attacks on police by right-wing demonstrators. Meanwhile, the right-wing majority in the National Assembly is working on a recall referendum to remove Maduro from office. Their initial effort to collect signatures for this move was only stalled after it was discovered that a large number of the people who supposedly signed are in fact deceased or otherwise unqualified. Don't expect the right to give up, though.

At the international level, there are troubling signs of a possible outside intervention. The former president of neighboring Colombia, Álvaro Uribe, an ultra-right winger, has called for foreign intervention in Venezuela. The Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, appears to be ready to call for Venezuela's rights in that body to be suspended. The new right-wing president of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, has jumped on the anti-Venezuela bandwagon, as has Michel Temer, the acting president of Brazil installed in the midst of the impeachment proceedings against Rousseff.

There are reports of comments from U.S. intelligence sources expressing concern that violence may spin out of control in Venezuela, with a "violent military coup" a possibility. Such veiled signals have raised fears in Caracas that a foreign military intervention may be in the offing, and President Maduro has put his military on alert, while protesting against incursions by U.S. military aircraft into Venezuelan airspace.

Clear across the Atlantic, Spain's right-wing caretaker Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, facing elections on June 26 as well as a slumping economy and credible corruption allegations, is joining in the anti-Venezuela chorus. His purpose is obviously to distract the attention of Spanish voters and create fear about what would happen if the left were to take power in Madrid.

The right regionally is pushing maximalist anti-worker demands. The strategy of Macri and Temer is to "solve" their countries' economic problems by returning to the neoliberal policies of the 1980s and 1990s. There is no reason to believe that if the right takes power in Venezuela, it will not follow the same course. Throughout the Chávez and Maduro presidencies, the right has accused the government of wasting oil wealth by using it to finance improvements in the lives of the poor, and by generous deals to help poorer countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa.

The original neoliberal offensive

But the right, recently restored to power in Argentina and Brazil, is showing on a daily basis that it has absolutely nothing to offer to the mass of the people but a return to the failed policies that caused great suffering to workers, small farmers, and the poor across Latin America and the Caribbean during the last two decades of the twentieth century.

The gains of these neoliberal policies, carried out by dictatorships and right-wing elected regimes all over Latin America (with the exception of Cuba) - at the insistence of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the United States, and with the enthusiastic cooperation of the Latin American ruling classes - were few and far between. The negative impacts, however, were much easier to come by.

There were the much-vaunted free trade pacts, starting with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) among Mexico, the United States, and Canada, which came into force in 1994. Such deals greatly favored international monopoly capital and its local associates while worsening the living standards of millions.

Privatization of national resources and government enterprises and agencies, often snapped up at bargain basement prices by a combination of local and transnational corporations, were another key aspect of the agenda during those years. Mexican businessman Carlos Slim Helú, for example, was able to become the richest man in the world overnight by acquiring huge chunks of the Mexican telecom system. The Bechtel Corporation, meanwhile, tried to privatize the water supply in much of Bolivia while jacking up the rates of users.

In almost every case, austerity was employed as a primary focus in the "reforms" forced on desperate publics. Drastic cuts in the "social wage" and sharp declines in the living standards of workers, peasants (small farmers), the retired, and unemployed people were par for the course. This was coupled with extensive programs of deregulation. There were widespread reductions of the restrictions placed on corporations concerning treatment of the working class and the natural environment. Mind-boggling levels of corruption flourished in the wake of such efforts.

The real kicker is that not only did these policies cause a decline in living standards of the masses, they also failed in everything they were supposedly meant to achieve. According to the propaganda of their right-wing backers, these kinds of policies were supposed to jumpstart the economies of the region by attracting more foreign investment. Instead, they led to massive debt crises. The situation became so bad that this period is now known as "the lost decade," a time of stalled growth and stagnation.

Bolivarianism born out of resistance

Latin American workers and small farmers, joined by indigenous people, Afro-descendants, youth and students, women's groups, and others rebelled against these measures. The first rebellion, against President Carlos Andrés Pérez of Venezuela in 1989, led to a bloodbath at the hands of security personnel. In Mexico, on the same day that NAFTA came into force - January 1, 1994 - armed indigenous farmers marched into the small city of San Cristóbal de las Casas in the southernmost Mexican state of Chiapas, played the left-wing anthem "The Internationale" over the town loudspeakers, and announced a "Zapatista" rebellion against NAFTA and the Mexican government of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

There were rebellions against the privatization of the water supply in Bolivia, especially in the important city of Cochabamba. These "water wars," which forced the reversal of privatization, led eventually to the election of leftist indigenous leader Evo Morales as president in 2006.

Subsequently, the rebellion against neoliberal "structural adjustment" or "Washington Consensus" policies spread to the entire Latin American region. Left-wing governments were elected to power in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. The Organization of American States, seen by the Latin American left as an instrument of U.S. imperialism, was radically weakened. The U.S. government's dream of a "Free Trade Area of the Americas" (FTAA) was destroyed, a fact that has never been forgiven by international monopoly capital or by many U.S. political leaders, who hope now to revive it in an even more glorious form as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Instead of the vertically-organized integration of the Western Hemisphere under U.S. and monopoly capitalist domination, new bodies of democratic collective cooperation, trade, and defense were developed. The pink tide developed its own institutional alternatives, including the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), created as a counterweight to U.S. regional domination via the Organization of American States.

The Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our America (ALBA) grouped together the states with the most left-wing governments: Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, along with a number of small English-speaking Caribbean countries. The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) were integrated into a process of horizontal solidarity, in which trade and financing was made available to the poorer countries - not on the basis of neo-liberalism or structural adjustment, but rather on the principle of solidarity.

PETROCARIBE used the oil resources of Venezuela to help the poorer countries in the region to develop their economies with discounted oil sales on easy terms, while plans were set in motion to create BANCOSUR, the Bank of the South, which would help with development projects and serve as a counterweight to the baneful influence of Washington D.C., Wall Street, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. The SUCRE was proposed as an alternative development currency for the area so as to counterbalance the overwhelming dominance of the U.S. dollar in international trade.

There have been great advances in employment, income, social welfare, labor, and people's rights in all the countries that have taken part in this "Bolivarian dynamic." In contrast, those major countries which have not been part of the "pink tide" of left-wing state power - Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Guatemala, Honduras, and others - have done less well, at least from the point of view of workers, the poor, women, and minorities.

In all of those countries, inequality has been increasing, as have threats to personal security from crime, drug dealing, and out-of-control repressive behavior by security forces (though the left-wing governments of Cuba and Venezuela have played a major role in peacemaking in Colombia). The Bolivarian advance, of course, has not ended all international frictions in the area. There are still border disputes between Bolivia and Chile and between Venezuela and Guyana, for example, but these have been kept within peaceful bounds by the Bolivarian mechanisms of integration.

On the international front, the Bolivarian dynamic was a key factor in persuading the United States to restore diplomatic relations with socialist Cuba. Due to the solidarity of Venezuela and other states not dominated by the United States, Cuba has been able to advance in spite of everything thrown at it. And even U.S. allies in the region, such as Colombia, made it clear that if the United States did not change its Cuba policy, there would be negative consequences for some U.S. objectives in the region.

Brazil, meanwhile, has been a key player in the creation of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) group of emerging economic powerhouses, which are seen as a threat to the domination of world trade by the United States, the European Union, and their allies.

But now it appears the period of forward march may be coming to an end.

The pink tide recedes

Three countries originally part of the "pink tide" have been dragged back into the old hegemonic system. In June of 2009, a military coup supported, at least post-facto, by the United States ousted the left-wing government of Zelaya in Honduras and succeeded in pulling that country out of ALBA. In June of 2012, the left-leaning government of Lugo in Paraguay was ousted by the right by means of parliamentary trickery. In May of 2015, the long-governing left narrowly lost an election in Guyana and was replaced by a right-wing regime which has re-aligned the country with the United States and transnational oil monopolies, exacerbating a century-old existing dispute with neighboring Venezuela.

In none of these ex-pink tide countries has the triumph of the right improved the situation of the great mass of the people. In Honduras and Paraguay, especially, the advances of the working class, poor, ethnic minorities, women, youth, and LGBT people have been radically set back. But these are relatively small countries in terms of population and economy. With the recent sharp drop in world commodity prices though, the process has now also stalled in the most important nations of the pink tide alternative.

The new government of President Mauricio Macri in Argentina can only be described as hard right. Its economic approach consists of suppressing the Argentine working class and reversing the progress made during the administrations of Presidents Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Having won the November 22, 2015 presidential election by a narrow margin, and in spite of not having a parliamentary majority, Macri appointed a cabinet consisting of people intimately connected with international monopoly capital and proceeded to impose neoliberal free trade, austerity, and privatization measures which have caused great suffering to millions of Argentines. The price of electrical service has jumped more than 300 percent, while the cost of living has been severely impacted by a devaluation of the currency.

Since Macri took power, over 154,000 workers have been laid off or dismissed. He vetoed a bill passed by the Argentine Congress to stem the layoff extravaganza. On social policy, meanwhile, he has been weakening the previous government's mechanisms for bringing those responsible for mass murders, torture, and "disappearances" during the military dictatorship of 1976 to 1983 to justice. The Macri government does not shrink, also, from the threat and actual use of repression to deal with protests against its economic and social policies. In response to this, organized labor in Argentina has reached an unprecedented level of unity and determination to fight the neoliberal polies at every turn.

While the Macri government in Argentina is reactionary, the new regime of Interim President Michel Temer in Brazil goes beyond that to be positively grotesque. Temer's cabinet choices, all white males, range from the troubling to the bizarre. There was the initial appointment of a Minister of Science, Technology, and Communications who is an Evangelical Christian who does not believe in evolution; a Minister of Justice known for violent repression of protest when he was head of security for São Paulo; and numerous people who are under investigation for corruption and other crimes.

Temer has abolished the Ministries of Minority Affairs and Women's Affairs, and many on his team are known for their medieval attitudes on the rights of women and LGBT Brazilians. Now there are even moves to weaken Brazil's anti-slavery laws. In all but name, slavery is still practiced by big landowners in some rural areas. The previous government had been trying to crack down. Temer's crew, however, are backing away from such efforts.

As in Argentina, the desire of the population to see economic improvements and their worries about corruption are being used by the right wing in power to roll back all the positive achievements of Presidents Lula da Silva and Rousseff. And also as in Argentina, Brazilian organized labor is mobilizing to block Temer's right-wing onslaught. Afro-Brazilian, indigenous, women's, youth, LGBT organizations, and the left are in full mobilization mode, but Temer plows on with his reactionary program.

This is what workers in Venezuela can expect if the right-wing forces that now have a majority in the National Assembly manage to oust President Maduro from power. They are not shy about their wish to erase the memory of Hugo Chávez and the programs of his government. The right-wing speaker of the National Assembly, Henry Ramos Allup, ordered the removal of all portraits of Chávez from their building, saying that the veneration of the late president was a kind of "witchcraft." This is not a person who is going to seek diplomatic agreements to move forward.

Why now?

Dissatisfaction with the left-wing and left-center governments in Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela did not arise because the right wing is admired by the public, but rather because the improvements begun under the left have stalled.

The problems are most severe in Venezuela, where the drop in world oil prices has led to extreme inflation and scarcity of supplies in many sectors of the economy. It is important to understand that, largely, the problems have not arisen in the socialist part of the economies of these countries, but in sectors that are still under the control of private enterprise. In Venezuela, more than 70 percent of economic activity is still private. Food distribution, which is central to the problems of scarcity and inflation, is virtually monopolized by a small number of private companies that have ties to the right-wing opposition, especially the Polar company that controls 40 percent of the market. As one example of economic sabotage, it was discovered earlier this week that up to three million eggs may have been allowed to rot in the warehouse by one company, Ovomar, in an effort to avoid price controls.

Will entrusting power to the right solve this? On the contrary, many on the left in Venezuela and neighboring countries believe a solution is to be found through deepening the revolutionary changes already achieved by further empowering workers in the workplaces and communities, and by fighting against speculation, corruption, and other ills. The Communist Party of Venezuela, strongly allied with Maduro's government, has called for a people's takeover of the system of food distribution as a way of fighting against hoarding, scarcity, and price gouging.

On May 13, President Maduro announced a series of drastic emergency measures, and called for factories that have ceased production to be seized by the government and handed over to the workers so that production can be restarted.

Back to the "lost decade"?

The neoliberals who have already taken over the governments of Honduras, Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil, and who are now working hard to overthrow the Bolivarian government of Venezuela, do not have any solutions to offer except those that were tried, and failed, during the "lost decade" of the 1990s.

But do these right-wing politicians, and the class forces - nationally and internationally - that they represent even care about that? Of course not. Their project is not aimed at solving the problems of their respective homelands, but at protecting their own class interests by suppressing working class aspirations and struggles.

That the right wing in Latin America may revert to the days of the bloody dictatorships such as those of Pinochet in Chile, Videla and his ilk in Argentina, and Banzer in Bolivia should not be seen as an impossibility. There are plenty of politically-motivated murders going on already in Honduras, Guatemala, Colombia and even Mexico. While the left has been strong in the region, there is also a powerful and arrogant right, which includes extreme elements that can only be called fascist.

What will be the attitude of the U.S. government and, even more importantly, the people of the United States as this situation develops? It is no secret that our government and political leaders do not like the "Bolivarian dynamic." Our government continues to use taxpayer money to fund some of the right-wing opposition parties, especially in Venezuela. The agenda of transnational monopoly capital collides with Bolivarianism over issues such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is seen as a negative development by unions and other grassroots organizations throughout Central and South America. Corporate-controlled media conglomerates are in full cry for regime change in Venezuela and beyond. The Washington Post rails against Venezuela on an almost daily basis, with clear calls for outside intervention to accomplish regime change.

It behooves working and progressive people in the United States to greatly increase pressure on our political leaders and institutions to demand an end to hostile policies toward pro-people governments in our hemisphere and beyond.

U.S. workers are not made richer or happier when workers abroad are forced into deeper poverty and suffering. If the pink tide falters in Latin America, there is every reason to believe that right-wing reaction will feel emboldened to push its agenda internationally. How long before we too will feel its effects?

Photo: "Tres Amigos," by alittlefishy. Mural depicting Evo Morales, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chavez.

Cyprus legislative elections bring challenges for the left and unification

Tue, 31 May 2016 17:07:00 +0000

Legislative elections have just concluded in Cyprus after a campaign dominated by the perennial issue of reunification between the island's Greek and Turkish communities and the ongoing fallout of the financial crisis. The country has been hit particularly hard in recent years by a banking crisis and a prolonged recession in the wake of Greece's economic collapse.

Although the left-wing AKEL (Progressive Party of Working People) still remains, by far, the main opposition force, its total vote declined since the last election, and it will likely lose 3 of its 19 seats in the Cypriot House of Representatives.

The Constitution of Cyprus decrees an 80-seat house, with 24 seats reserved for Turkish Cypriots. These seats have remained vacant since a 1974 coup divided the island, however, effectively leaving a 56-member chamber. The vote total of the ruling conservative DISY (Democratic Rally) party also decreased but it will still hold more seats than AKEL.

Cyprus's presidential form of government, however, means that the legislative election will not result in any change in the executive, currently held by President Nicos Anastasiades. He is engaged in UN-backed negotiations over reunification with Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci.

Although AKEL's vote total was down overall, some political forces had predicted that they would do even worse. But the highest vote total for any candidate was garnered by Irene Charalampidou, a political journalist running on the AKEL / New Forces slate, perhaps due to her sharp criticisms of the banking sector. The General Secretary of the Central Committee of AKEL, Andros Kyprianou, was also elected to the House by virtue of his being the head of the AKEL / New Forces slate.

Low turnout hampers the left

In the case of the overall vote, an analysis of results has revealed that rather than AKEL voters switching to other parties, they just didn't vote. This non-voting, or what the Cypriots refer to as abstention, was about 33 percent in this election, which is particularly troubling because it represents an increase of some 12 percent from the last election.

This election had the lowest turnout in Cypriot history and while abstention rates are still not at U.S. levels, they are clearly trending that way. In an official statement released after the election, AKEL leader Kyprianou decried the fact that so many people, including many of his own party's voters, just didn't bother to go to the polls.

In Cyprus, unlike the U.S., there are many political parties. Seats in the House are allocated according to a proportional representation system, with a vote total of at least 3.6 percent required for a party to gain any seats. In this election, several new parties met that threshold and will enter the House, bringing the total number of parties represented to eight.

Right-wing sees gains

One negative development is that the vote total for the extreme right-wing nationalist ELAM party, although very small, increased to just above the 3.6 percent threshold. For the first time, it will hold 2 seats in the new House. ELAM is widely seen as a neo-Nazi organization and is closely affiliated with the Greek extreme right criminal organization, Golden Dawn. Four other parties stood in the elections, but their vote total did not reach the threshold and thus they earned no seats.

One of the newer parties is KA, or the Solidarity Movement. It is a right-wing split from the ruling DISY party and is hostile to a federal solution of the "Cyprus Problem" - the de-facto division of the country into Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot zones since the 1974 coup, backed by the Greek military junta, provoked an invasion by Turkey's armed forces.

Although the current balance of political forces favors a solution to the Cyprus Problem, there has been an increase in elements which do not. In Cyprus, it is not up to the House to shape the official policy on the Cyprus Problem but rather it is up to a counsel of former Presidents. Thus, people did not necessarily vote based on a particular party's stand on the Cyprus Problem.

The election results, then, could be a setback for the headway made in recent reunification talks. DISY and AKEL have been, at least to some extent, collaborating on finding a solution based on a bizonal-bicommunal federation. Also, the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot negotiators had recently returned to the convergences reached between 2008-10 by former Cyprus president and AKEL leader Demetris Christofias and former Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat.

Economy also a top concern for voters

In addition to the "Cyprus Problem," in which the House really does not play much of a role, other debates in the campaign centered around the banking crisis and the recession that hit Cyprus in the wake of the Greek financial crisis.

While the right and center forces in general, (the DISY party, often in concert with the much smaller DIKO party), tried to demagogically blame AKEL for the crisis, the AKEL / New Forces slate put the blame on the banking sector itself and its enablers on the right. The left alliance also attacked the so called "hair-cut" on deposits, (a direct confiscation of people's bank deposits), agreed to by the DISY government and the "Troika" of the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the IMF, in 2013.

In addition, the broad left in general focused on the negative social effects of the crisis, such as the spate of foreclosures on residences and small businesses. On the part of some (mainly DISY in parliamentary alliance with DIKO), there has been, in the wake of the crisis, a drive to implement the typical neoliberal agenda: privatization, increases in working hours, attacks on labor rights, and so on.

This drive has been blunted, primarily by AKEL / New Forces, but also by the broad left in general. AKEL / New Forces pledged to continue to work in coalition with some of the smaller parties around such issues.

Finally, there was a concern among the electorate around corruption and the transparency of government, and, of course, there was a great deal of finger-pointing from all sectors around these questions.

Meetings throughout the AKEL party will be held to discuss the results of the election and General Secretary Kyprianou has assured voters that his party would remain on the frontlines of struggle to defend the Cypriot people.

Photo: AKEL supporters rally in Cyprus.

Cuba applies a fix to its food markets

Tue, 31 May 2016 16:39:00 +0000

Agricultural production and food distribution have long been problematic in Cuba as indicated by the continuing necessity to import over 70 percent of food that Cubans consume and by some 2.5 million acres of tillable land still lying idle. Reforms so far have included land being made freely available to new and old farmers and relaxation of state controls on farming. Now new challenges are requiring attention.

Consumers have been complaining of skyrocketing prices and periodic shortages. Farmers point to retail food prices that are 500 or more percent higher than payments they receive from intermediaries. Additionally, food price hikes bring special pain to Cubans whose salaries are very low - as discussed by President Raul Castro in his report to the Seventh Communist Party Congress in April.

In that speech Castro cited "the behavior of prices for agricultural products [as] contrary to the spirit of measures adopted" for economic reform. That's true too with "the reappearance of the phenomena of speculation and hoarding for the benefit of a few and the detriment of the many." The "introduction of rules for supply and demand is not at war with the principle of a planned economy," he declared.

The government announced such rules on April 22 and they went into effect on May 3. They had been discussed previously in the National Assembly and in sessions arranged by the Agriculture Ministry and finance officials for farmers and distributors.

The Ministry of Finances and Prices announced new retail prices for 28 kinds of food products with reductions of approximately 20 percent for lower quality and out-of-season goods. There are also new requirements that all other food can be sold at a retail markup of no more than 40 percent of the amount paid to the producer.

Various reports cited goals of "protecting the consumer and agricultural producers," and of "gradually increasing the purchasing capacity of the Cuban peso."

The pricing regulations apply to "all types of agricultural markets except those of supply and demand" and licensed self-employed food purveyors who rent space or sell from hand carts. Food producers' direct sales to tourist enterprises, permitted under earlier reforms, are also exempt. Retail markets subject to the new rules include those operated by state agencies and markets set up by agricultural cooperatives and small independent farmers. Previous reforms had given each of these the right to sell food directly to consumers.

With its 12 separate enterprises and 188 business organizations "at the base," the Agriculture Ministry's National Union for Collection and Marketing ("Unión Nacional de Acopio") is responsible for distributing food from producers to retailers, and it operates some retail food outlets. A Havana city agriculture official indicated that "734 markets and points of sale accounting for 70 percent of food products sold in Havana" will be subject to the new regulations. Yet that estimate doesn't square with a report from a reporter for trabajadores.cu, a state-published newspaper, claiming that most food - 78 percent in one Havana municipality - currently "flies away" and never reaches state-authorized retailers.

Speaking on national television, government officials administering the regulations emphasized that efforts are underway to stimulate increased food production. For example, the National Union "has contracted for 49 percent of declared production by farmers [which represents] an increase of 20 percent for the first months of 2015." That agency is working to increase the number and efficiency of food retailing facilities in Havana, Artemisa, and Mayabeque provinces.

Reformers recently closed down El Trigal in Havana, a large wholesale food market viewed as innovative at the time of its establishment in 2013. By way of explanation, the report mentioned "corruption and other illegalities" such as diversion of food products to the black market. Authorities dissolved the cooperative managing the market.

Thus corruption enters into the story of food marketing reform in Cuba. As noted by journalist Iroel Sánchez, "Cuba not only has to mobilize its reserves of economic efficiency but also those of social efficiency. These measures accomplish that by demonstrating the necessity to distribute and organize better and also the necessity to produce more."

For him, social efficacy involves "preventing resources that ought to benefit everybody from being filtered through the sewers of disorder, corruption, and laziness. Investment in agriculture results from the effort of the country, from its doctors, its scientists, and from workers who've generated exports and thereby have restored financial confidence in the nation-and from teachers too who with their work still poorly remunerated, guarantee social stability and the educational level that makes the country attractive for foreign investment."

This article is taken with permission from www.letcubalive.org

Photo: Abel Rojas | radiorebelde.cu

Workers bring France's transport and energy systems to near-standstill over new labor law

Tue, 31 May 2016 14:49:00 +0000

PARIS, France - Hundreds of thousands of union members, workers and students have taken to the streets here over the past week. Additional protests and strikes are planned for the coming days, as air traffic controllers, railway, port and other transport workers plan ongoing work stoppages.

It is possible that parts of France, including Paris, will come to a screeching halt in the days to come.

Only two of France's eight oil refineries are fully operational, as plant workers have also gone on strike, causing the French government to dip into emergency oil reserves. Gas stations and fuel depots have been barricaded, too, causing gas shortages and travel delays.

Additionally, local transport strikes have been called in ten different cities and towns scheduled to host the Euro 2016 Football Championships, which starts on June 10. 2.5 million fans are expected to attend the tournament.

At issue is a May 17 presidential decree, a so-called labor law reform that would make it easier for employers to hire and fire employees and negotiate individual labor contracts outside of industry-wide accords, particularly in the transportation industry.

The decree is largely seen as an abuse of executive power, as it bypasses the French legislative process, precisely because it is disliked by an overwhelming majority of French citizens. According to a recent poll, only thirteen percent of French citizens support the decree in its current form.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls, nominally a member of the Socialist Party, and Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, the Socialist Party's secretary general, have both lashed out at the striking unions.

Union members and ordinary workers say they feel betrayed by both the Valls administration and the Socialist Party.

The French National Front, a far right-wing party, is blaming Syrian and Iraqi refugees and immigrants, as well as the Roma people, also known as Gypsies, for high unemployment - which Valls claims justifies his decree. He claims he is trying to create a more welcoming business climate in the hopes of lowering unemployment.

The CGT (General Confederation of Labor), France's biggest and oldest union federation, plans ongoing strike actions and work stoppages until the reform law is withdrawn.

Additionally, many workers see Philippe Martinez, the new CGT leader, as a dynamic personality with the support to dramatically reshape and rebuild a labor movement that had been declining in influence and power.

Only about eight percent of French workers actually belong to unions. Agreements negotiated by unions apply to all employees regardless of membership, thereby giving the unions a much larger social-economic impact than their dues-paying numbers would suggest.

Additionally, many French workers follow the unions politically, and support strikes and demonstrations.

Consequently, French workers have a thirty-five-hour work week, another example of the benefits enjoyed by most citizens regardless of union membership. The CGT - and some other federations - are known for their militancy, standing-up for the rights of all workers, not just those in specific jurisdictions, industries, trades or job classifications.

Lydia Samarbakhsh, international affairs coordinator for the French Communist Party (PCF), told the People's World, "the trade unions, especially the CGT, is trying to block the Prime Minister's actions every step of the way, including by calling a general strike."

Additionally, she continued, "the PCF is involved in the mobilizations against the decree and working to unite left forces opposed to the rightist policies led by Valls. For the first time since 2012, the anger within the left has led to mass mobilizations and demonstrations."

As the strikes intensify over the coming days, the PCF will be holding its National Congress and discussing the challenges facing the French working class.

"The political landscape, the building of a common political platform to defeat right and far-right parties" in the 2017 presidential and general elections is a priority, Samarbakhsh emphasized.

Arguably, popular anger over the labor reform law could increase in coming months and signal a political sea change prior to the 2017 elections.

Further, France's working class is quite possibly acting as a bulwark against the further erosion of workers' rights throughout all of Europe. Stopping austerity is a fundamental and urgent question for the French working class, and all workers.

While the ultimate result of the on-going strikes is yet to be determined - neither Valls nor the CGT have any plans to back down - one thing is certain: business as usual has come to a stop in France.

Video: 1,2 million de personnes dans les rues contre le projet de loi El Khomri, l'Humanité

Photo: Union activists block the entrance of the industrial area in Boucau, southwestern France, on a day of nationwide strikes and protests over a labor reform, May 26. Bob Edme | AP

Ex-dictator, others sentenced in Argentina for "Operation Condor" crimes

Tue, 31 May 2016 10:58:00 +0000

On May 27, an Argentine court in Buenos Aires convicted 14 military officers of conspiring to commit, and of committing crimes against humanity during the country's "Dirty War" of 1976 to 1983. This was a long trial, and a number of aging defendants died before its conclusion. There have been other trials and convictions before, but this one included high ranking officers - 13 Argentines and an Uruguayan-whose victims were not just Argentine citizens, but those of other countries targeted under a regionally coordinated plan called "Operation Condor."

The United States is also implicated in this bloodthirsty program, in which hundreds of dissidents may have been murdered. Overall, perhaps 60,000 people were murdered by right-wing governments in South American countries during this period.

The star defendant in the trial was General Reynaldo Bignone, who was the last president of Argentina under the dictatorship which took power in 1976 in a coup against President Isabel Perón, and called itself the "Process of National Reorganization." Bignone was already serving time for crimes against humanity when convicted in this current trial.

Another defendant was Major General Santiago Omar Riveros, who was especially involved in stealing the babies of captives who were about to be killed and distributing them to pro-government military officers. In 2009, General Riveros had been convicted of the murder of a 15-year-old member of Argentina's Communist Youth League. The rest of the convicted persons were all military officers. Two other persons were found not guilty. Bignone and Riveros were sentenced to 20 and 25 years, respectively.

A coordinated campaign of state terror

Operation Condor was a coordinated plan of right-wing Latin American military and civilian-military dictatorships which was conceptualized in the late 1960s and given a more specific form in 1975, but it really took off after the Argentine coup of 1976. Earlier, political dissidents, leftists, trade unionists, and other people from Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia had fled to Argentina to seek safety from the official and unofficial death squads in their own countries, so Argentina was a key player in tracking down, "disappearing," and killing people of several nationalities.

Some were assassinated on the streets of Buenos Aires, while others were tracked down and killed in places as far away as Italy and the United States. In many cases, the victims of this repression were kidnapped, taken to military installations where they were subjected to barbaric torture, then placed in military aircraft and flown out over the estuary of the Río de la Plata and dropped into the sea from a great height. That something like this was going on became known when dead bodies with hands and feet tied began to wash up on Argentina's beaches.

The Argentine military collaborated with a right-wing death squad, the AAA or Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, as well as with European, especially Italian fascists. There are indications that Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, the "butcher of Lyon", helped the government of Bolivian dictator Hugo Banzer to develop torture techniques.

Well-known pubic figures who were murdered by Operation Condor include former Bolivian President Juan José Torres, who had instituted leftist policies in his country; former Chilean army commander General Carlos Prats (and his wife) who had refused to back General Pinochet's coup in Chile in 1973; former Brazilian President João Goulart, overthrown by the military in 1964; two Cuban diplomats; and a number of others.

One person whose murder caused some headaches to the Chilean dictatorship was Orlando Letelier, a former member of the cabinet of Chile's socialist president, Salvador Allende, and former Chilean ambassador to the United States. Letelier and a U.S. assistant, Ronni Moffitt, were killed by a car bomb on September 21, 1976. The incident happened right on Sheridan Circle in Washington D.C. in the middle of "Embassy Row." The negative reaction to this incident in the United States led to worry among the dictators that they would lose U.S. support, but during the Reagan administration similar things were done with the United States' blessing in Central America.

After General Bignone was forced out of power amid a collapsing economy in 1983, the democratically-elected president who succeeded him, Raúl Alfonsín, was successfully pressured by the military to declare an amnesty for people accused of human rights violations. But in 2005, left-wing President Nestor Kirchner succeeded in getting the Argentine Supreme Court to rule that this amnesty was unconstitutional, and the trials began anew.

U.S. complicity for Condor crimes

To what extent were U.S. officials, and the U.S. government, complicit in some of these acts of terrorism? The worst actions happened during the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford; the pace picked up again during the Reagan administration.

A number of people involved in the Operation Condor atrocities had been on the Central Intelligence Agency payroll at one time or another. Others had received training at the U.S. Army School of the Americas. Some of this training included "counterinsurgency techniques," which included how to use torture in interrogations. Relatively early in the cycle of mayhem, Uruguayan revolutionaries had captured and subsequently executed a U.S. agent, Dan Mitrione, who had been sent down to give torture courses first to the Brazilian and then to the Uruguayan security forces.

Much of the information that was used by Argentine prosecutors came from a stash of documents found in Paraguay, and yet more from the work of the National Security Archive, a non-profit research facility based at George Washington University in Washington D.C. Last year, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry handed over some incriminating U.S. files dealing with the Letelier-Moffitt murder to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. President Obama has promised to declassify more such files in the future.

From all of this mountain of information, investigators-academic, journalistic, and others-are trying to find out how far up in the U.S. government knowledge and complicity in the Operation Condor murders and other crimes went.

Questions are being asked about the role of Henry Kissinger, who was secretary of state under Nixon and Ford, when some of the worst incidents occurred, including the Letelier-Moffitt assassination. It seems clear that Kissinger had knowledge of some of the violence and indicated to the Argentine dictatorship that the United States would not interfere to stop it. "If there are things to be done, you should do them quickly. But you must get back quickly to normal procedures," Kissinger is quoted saying in a June 1976 conversation with Argentine Foreign Minister Admiral César Guzzetti. This caused consternation at the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires, but the State Department made light of the matter.

Kissinger is wanted for questioning on these matters in a number of countries, but has not cooperated with any investigation. He has to be careful about traveling abroad lest he be detained.

Another figure involved in some of the Operation Condor atrocities is Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles, a former C.I.A. asset who may have been present for the planning of the Letelier-Moffitt murder, was involved in the bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner in 1976, and now is living out his life in Miami where he is lionized by right-wing politicians.

Argentina now has a new right-wing government, headed by President Mauricio Macri. He has reversed many progressive policies of his predecessors, and voices are being heard on the right calling for an end to the prosecutions of the perpetrators of the "Dirty War." How Macri will react remains to be seen.

The watchword should be "never again."

Photo: In this July 9, 1982 file photo, Argentina's ex-dictator, General Reynaldo Bignone, arrives for a religious ceremony at the Cathedral in Buenos Aires. AP file

As "Brexit" from the EU approaches, Europe's left is divided

Tue, 24 May 2016 15:23:00 +0000

"Larger now than the Roman Empire of two thousand years ago, more opaque than the Byzantine, the European Union continues to baffle observers and participants alike." - Perry Anderson, British historian

The European Union is one of the premier trade organizations on the planet, with a collective GDP that matches the world's largest economies. But it is far more than just a trade group. It is also a banker, a judicial system, a watchdog, a military alliance, and, increasingly, an enforcer of economic rules among its 28 members.

On the one hand, it functions like a super state. On the other, like a collection of squabbling competitors, with deep divisions between north and south. On June 23, the two-decade-old organization will be put to the test when Great Britain - its second-largest economy - votes on whether to stay in the EU or bail out.

The awkwardly named "Brexit" has stirred up a witches' brew of xenophobia, racism, and nationalism, but it has also served to sharpen a longstanding debate among the European left over the nature of the organization, and whether it serves to unite a continent shattered by two world wars or functions as little more than a vehicle to spread a particular species of capitalism that has impoverished more people than it has lifted up.

Origins of the European project

The EU was originally sold as an effective way to compete with U.S. and Japanese commercial power (and later China) by integrating the economies of Western Europe into a common market. The 1957 Treaty of Rome established the European Economic Community (EEC), but that organization was plagued by currency instability.

Currency manipulation is a standard economic strategy - one the U.S. Treasury follows to this day. The idea is to boost exports by deflating one's currency, thus making one's products cheaper. In an organization like the EEC, however, where currencies were traded back and forth, that strategy caused chaos, particularly after the Americans decoupled the dollar from gold in 1971. The U.S. immediately began aggressively devaluing its currency and undercutting Germany.

To make a long history brief, Germany and France began pushing for a common currency, though for different reasons. For Germany, fluctuating currency rates cut into that country's export engine. For France, a common currency would give Paris some say over the EEC's economic policies through the creation of a European Central Bank, policies that at the time were largely determined by Germany's powerful economy.

Although Britain opted out of adopting the Euro, London rapidly became the financial center of the continent. In the end, 19 countries would adopt the Euro, creating the Eurozone. Eight others, including Denmark, Sweden, and Poland kept their own currencies.

The common currency - established by the 1991 Maastricht Treaty and launched in 1999 - effectively put the German Bundesbank in charge. Bonn agreed to the common currency, but only on the condition that everyone kept their budget deficits to 3 percent of national income and held their government debt level at 60 percent of GDP. Those figures matched Germany's economy, but very few of the other states in the EU. The Maastricht Treaty also transformed the EEC into the EU in 1993.

Exporting the German austerity model

Deflating one's currency as a tactic to increase exports and stimulate growth during a downturn was no longer an option, and the debt ratio was set so low that few economies could keep to its strictures. When the bottom fell out during the 2008 economic meltdown, EU states found out just what they had signed on for: draconian austerity measures, the widespread privatization of state owned enterprises - from water and electrical systems to airports and harbors - and emigration. Millions of mainly young Portuguese, Irish, Greeks, and Spaniards fled abroad.

The European Central Bank - with its cohorts, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission, the so-called Troika - straitjacketed economies throughout the continent, turning countries like Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland into basket cases, forcing them to borrow money to keep their banks afloat while instituting austerity regimes that led to massive unemployment, huge service cutbacks, and rising poverty rates.

The Troika had a neat trick: it shifted the debts incurred by private speculators onto the public, while the Germans spun up a fairy tale to explain the counter-example: the frugal frau.

"The Swabian housewife," lectured German Chancellor Angela Merkel, "would have told us her worldly wisdom: In the long run you cannot live beyond your means."

Except that the debts were not due to the Greeks, Irish, Spaniards, and Portuguese "living beyond their means." They were just picking up the tab run up by the speculators. The vast majority of "bailouts" that followed the crash went directly into the vaults of French, British, German, and Austrian banks. On the day the Greek "bailout" was announced, French bank shares rose by up to 24 percent.

The Postmodern Empire

In many ways, the EU resembles a military alliance on the march. Jan Zielonka, a professor of European politics at Oxford, calls the EU a "postmodern empire," filling the vacuum created by the fall of the Soviet Union, using "checkbooks rather than swords as leverage." During the Clinton Administration, the EU - along with NATO - pushed eastward, creating what Zbigniew Brzezinski called "the Eurasian bridgehead for American power and the potential springboard for the democratic system's expansion into Eurasia."

The Obama Administration strongly supports the UK remaining in the EU.

But the EU has very little to do with "democracy," as the recent Greek crisis demonstrated. In a confrontation between the then newly-elected Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, the latter refused to negotiate over the austerity program that had cratered Greece's economy. "I'm not discussing the program," said Schauble, "This was accepted by the previous [Greek] government and we can't possibly let an election change anything."

In short, the Troika - an unelected body - makes all economic decisions and is unwilling to consider any other approach but that of the mythical Swabian housewife. It isn't democracy moving east, but rather the Bundesbank, and a species of capitalism that is unmoved by unemployment, poverty, and widespread misery.

Is exit the democratic alternative?

So is the Brexit a challenge to the growing might of capital and an implicit critique of the EU's dearth of democracy? Nothing's that simple.

First, the loudest critics of the EU are people one needs a very long spoon to sup with: Marine Le Pen's racist National Front, Britain's xenophobic United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip), Hungary's thuggish Jobbik, Greece's openly neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, and Italy's odious Northern League. Hatred of immigrants and Islamophobia are the glue that binds these parties, which are active and growing throughout the EU.

Indeed, some on the British left have suggested voting against a Brexit precisely because the most vocal opposition to the EU comes from the most reactionary elements in the UK. The British Conservative Party is deeply split on the issue, with its most right-wing and anti-immigrant members favoring getting out.

The left is also filled with crosscurrents. While some argue for getting out because they see the EU as an undemocratic vehicle for the expansion of international capital, others are critical, but advocate staying in. British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn - hardly a friend to international capital - opposes the Brexit.

While Corbyn is deeply critical of the EU's lack of "democratic accountability," and its push to "privatize public services," he argues that there is a "strong socialist case" for staying in. Corbyn says the EU plays a positive role on climate change, and that exiting the EU would initiate a race to the bottom on issues like equal pay, work hours, vacations, and maternity leave.

The Scottish National Party, which is to the left of the Labour Party, also opposes a Brexit, and threatens to call for another independence referendum if it passes.

Left parties in Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland are critical of the EU, but most do not advocate withdrawing. What they are demanding is a say over their economic decisions and relief from the rigid rules that favor economies like Germany, and bar many others from ever becoming debt free.

It is ironic that Germany - the country that refuses to even consider retiring some of the overwhelming debts that enchain countries like Greece - owes its current wealth to the 1951 London Conference that cut post-war Germany's debt in half, lowered interest rates, and stretched out debt payments. The result was the "Wirtschaftwunder" [economic miracle] and the creation of an industrial juggernaut. Greece's Syriza Party has long called for such a conference to deal with the EU countries mired in debt.

There is no secret why Germany, France, and the European Banks oppose debt reduction, or "haircuts": Between the three of them, they hold billions in Greek debt.

Polls show the British electorate could go either way on Brexit. What happens if they do leave is hardly clear, because it would be a first. The predictions range from doom and gloom to sunny days and everything in between, although it is doubtful the EU would severely punish Europe's second largest economy.

Look to Lisbon

One model the left needs to look at in this battle is Portugal, where three left parties, who have long fought with each other, found common ground around reversing the austerity policies that have racked the country's economy for four years. Portugal just recently received a barely favorable bond rating that gives the coalition government some breathing room. The economy is growing and unemployment is down, but at 129 percent of GDP, Portugal's debt burden is still the third highest in Europe.

Alone, Portugal is no match for power of the Troika, but Lisbon has allies in Spain, Greece, Ireland, and increasingly, Italy. Support for the EU in Italy has gone from 73 percent in 2010 to 40 percent today. "Europe has taken the wrong road," says Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. "Austerity alone is not enough."

Given the absence of a strong, continent-wide left, however, reversing the current economic rules of the EU may be a country-by-country battle.

It is already underway, and for all of the economic power of the EU, the organization is vulnerable to charges that Brussels has sidelined democracy.

If Brussels (read Germany) can be persuaded or forced to agree to debt reductions, to loosen the spending restrictions, and start pump priming, Europe can do something about its horrendous unemployment rate and underperforming economies. If not, whether the British leave or not may be irrelevant: a house divided cannot stand for long.

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

Photo April 14: Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's Labour Party, delivers a speech outlining Labour's position on the European referendum in London. Kirsty Wigglesworth | AP

Brazil coup a plot to cover up corruption among the plotters?

Tue, 24 May 2016 14:59:00 +0000

A new scandal has erupted strongly suggesting that the impeachment and temporary removal from office of President Dilma Rousseff on May 12 was part of a conspiracy to cover up corruption among the very people who engineered her ouster.

The mass circulation daily newspaper Folha de São Paulo revealed on Monday that the person that acting president Michel Temer had named as Planning Minister, Romero Jucá, was recorded speaking with a businessman about the need to remove Rousseff from power so as to protect themselves and others from investigations in the "Lava Jato" matter, a kickback scheme whereby construction companies arranged corrupt deals to get contracts with the huge national petroleum company, Petrobras. The businessman, former oil executive Sergio Machado, may have made the recording in order to help him get a plea bargain in the Petrobras case. An English language summary of the new development was published online on "The Intercept".

Jucá, who is from the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) to which Temer also belongs, had been named to the planning post with the assignment of imposing neo-liberal economic policies that would very likely arouse the enmity of the large sectors of the Brazilian population who have seen their living conditions improve dramatically under the two presidents from the Workers' Party (PT), Dilma Rousseff and her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, before the recent sharp economic downturn. Jucá is also considered to be particularly close to Temer, an important advisor.

In the telephone conversation, Machado is heard warning Jucá that prosecutors investigating the Lava Jato matter are hot on the scent and that not only Jucá but a large number of other political figures are in imminent danger of investigation and indictment. Both agree that this is an "emergency" situation which requires drastic and immediate action to "stop the bleeding."

They see Dilma Rousseff, the president, as an obstacle to the action that they want to take to put a stop to the corruption investigations, so she has to be replaced by a "national pact" government that would get everybody off the hook. Temer would naturally head that government, as he was the vice president of Brazil, but of course his relationship with Jucá would make it easier for the corruption charges to be quashed.

At the time of this conversation, Rousseff was trying to appoint ex-President Lula da Silva as a government advisor with ministerial rank. The right at the time claimed that Rousseff was doing to protect him from his own corruption investigation, but the conversation between Jucá and Machado suggests another reason: If Lula, as da Silva is called, got into the cabinet he would voice the views of the labor unions and the Landless People's Movement (MST) which are both seen as obstacles to the economic policies of the right.

Machado reveals in the tape that he has been talking to Supreme Tribunal (Supreme Court) judges to get them to support the idea of removing Rousseff and creating a national unity government that would quash the Lava Jato investigations. However, he suggests, he has not been able to get through to the main judge supervising the investigations, Teori Zavascki.

One of the most shocking things in the recording is that Machado says he has been talking to the military-to the generals-and they are "Ok" with the plan and will guarantee it This will surely raise memories of the military dictatorship which started with a coup against left wing President Jão Goulart in 1965.

That military coup, which received clandestine U.S. support, installed a military government that was repressive, reactionary and incompetent, and was finally replaced by a restored civil government in 1985. When young, Dilma Rousseff was involved in guerilla warfare against the military government and was captured and tortured by them.

In the recent demonstrations demanding her removal as president, signs have appeared calling for a new military coup, so this is not a matter of ancient history. When the Chamber of Deputies voted to approve Rousseff's impeachment, one of the right wing members, Jair Bolsonaro, dedicated his "yes" vote to the memory of Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, the military officer who had supervised the torture of Rousseff.

By Tuesday, Jucá was talking about going on leave because of the scandal. Temer did not immediately commit to firing him, however. In a meeting in neighboring Argentina, Temer's foreign minister, José Serra, defended Jucá and expressed hope that the would remain in the cabinet.

The reason given for impeaching Rousseff was that she had manipulated budgetary reports in 2014 and 2015 so as to conceal the scale of a deficit. Rousseff denies this and says that the accounting measures in dispute were legitimate.

It now is evident that the reason Rousseff is being impeached is so that corrupt politicians and their cronies can suppress prosecutors' investigations of their corruption. Another reason is so the ruling class, the right wing and their friends in transnational monopoly capital can impose a neo liberal program that will erase the progress that Brazilian workers and poor people have made under the presidencies of Lula and Dilma.

That is, in fact, a coup.

Photo: A demonstrator holds a sign that reads "Coup" during a protest against the impeachment of Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, May 10. Rousseff supporters held rallies in cities in more than a dozen states. Silvia Izquierdo | AP

UPDATE: Shortly after this story was filed, it was announced that Romero Jucá, the minister implicated in the leaked tapes, is stepping down from his post. Check back with People's World for continuing coverage of the coup situation in Brazil.

Philippines elects “Trump of the East” as new president

Fri, 13 May 2016 12:46:00 +0000

The Philippines has just elected the tough-talking mayor of Davao, Rodrigo Duterte, to be its next president. Labeled the "Trump of the East" by many, Duterte said just days before the vote that once in office he would execute 100,000 criminals and dump their bodies into Manila Bay.

Such comments are the typical rhetoric of this politician, who goes by many other nicknames, including "The Punisher" and "Duterte Harry," a play on the ruthless police inspector played by Clint Eastwood. He claims to be a "socialist" while threatening to kill trade unionists and courting big investors at the expense of the poor in his home city.

Duterte, aged 71, captured nearly 39 percent of the vote in a six-candidate race, carrying the Philippine Democratic Party-People's Power (PDP) to victory over both Manuel Roxas from the centrist Liberal Party of outgoing president Benigno Aquino III and independent candidate Grace Poe.

A local strongman goes national

Like Trump, the U.S. Republican Party nominee to whom he has been compared, Duterte adopts such a variety of positions on public policy issues that it is difficult to categorize him using the traditional ideological or political labels of Filipino politics.

He rails against corruption and criminality, exhibits caution when it comes to free trade deals like the TPP, opens new public chemotherapy centers for cancer patients, and supports LGBT equality in this mostly Catholic nation.

In a country where more than a quarter of the population still lives below the poverty line and crime and crooked politicians are a part of everyday life, Duterte's promise to go after gangsters and clean up society have found support among segments of a weary public. Inequality in the Philippines remains among the worst in Asia, with the 40 richest families accounting for 76 percent of GDP growth as of 2011. Many of the top family names are the same ones that have dominated the economy since the days of Spanish colonialism.

This is part of the reason why so many Filipinos are poor and why many of those who are able to choose to emigrate. The country is being strangled and held hostage by the elite; Duterte's lack of connections to them probably explains at least a part of his mass appeal. His reliance on folksy humor and "plain talk" have endeared him to many people who have grown tired of the political and economic establishment.

Proposing to beef up the security apparatus, he says he will not allow bureaucracy, rule of law, or due process to get in the way of making the Philippines a safer and more orderly place.

"Forget the laws on human rights," he proclaimed recently, "If I make it to the presidential palace, I will do just what I did as mayor. You drug-pushers, hold-up men, and do-nothings, you better go out. Because I'd kill you." With Amnesty International estimating that up to 700 extrajudicial killings have taken place during his time as Davao mayor, many people take his promises seriously. (For what it's worth, it should be noted that Duterte corrected Amnesty International, saying the number of extrajudicial executions is closer to 1,700, not 700; he didn't want to lose credit for his accomplishment.)

Pledges to do away with Congress if it blocks his plans have prompted many to draw parallels with Ferdinand Marcos, the dictator who ruled the Philippines from 1965-86 after also coming to power in a democratic election. "Duterte's also got blood on his hands," Dan Pineda, a Filipino-born Canadian living in Toronto told People's World. "I worry that if he has to be removed, he won't go without bloodshed. His administration could be responsible for lots of people dying and disappearing."

On the gender equality front, Duterte brandishes his record of instituting a protective code for women and sex workers in Davao as well as his ban on swimsuit competitions. Yet simultaneously, he angered Filipino women's rights groups over his comments about the 1989 gang rape of an Australian woman during a prison hostage situation. Duterte said that he was angry the woman was raped, but that she was so beautiful that, as mayor, he should have had the chance to be first in line.

Populism conceals anti-labor agenda

Also like Trump, Duterte rose to prominence largely on his own, without assistance or support from much of the political establishment. He also took over a party, the PDP, in which he had not previously been considered a leading figure.

On top of his brash showmanship, this lack of a clear political orientation has been very effective at creating an image of Duterte as someone who will upset the status quo. Duterte, for instance, courts the trade unions with promises to do away with "contractualization," or hiring workers for only six-month contracts so as to avoid the job security and benefits requirements of the labor code.

Furthermore, he attempts to prove his credentials as a leftist by hinting at a final peace agreement and future cooperation with Maoist rebels. His strategy paid off; he has received the backing of the Marcos-linked Trade Union Congress of the Philippines and the blessing of the Maoists.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Duterte was in the late 1960s a philosophy student under the Maoists' leader, Jose Maria Sison, who has lived in exile in the Netherlands since 1987. Sison believes that there will be space for negotiation between his "New People's Army" and a Duterte Administration.

The non-establishment and non-sectarian segments of the Filipino workers' movement are warning, however, that despite his supposed reservations on issues like the TPP, Duterte's program for the economy is actually quite clear. For although the international media sensationalizes Duterte's promise to throw 100,000 criminals into Manila Bay, little attention has been paid to his pledge to do the same to activist trade unions.

He has ordered struggling unions in the special export zones to take a 10-year break from activism or else he will kill all their members. Julius Cainglet, vice president of the Federation of Free Workers, told the press, "All unions and workers should be outraged by Duterte's threat to kill unionists." Filipinos may have been amused "when he declared war on drug lords and vowed to kill them," Cainglet said, "but to threaten to kill workers...is just a direct attack on workers' and human rights."

At an Asia CEO Forum last summer, Duterte pledged to business executives that he would guarantee a stable investment atmosphere, keep the elected legislature from interfering with economic priorities, and declared that "good governance is good business."

Trans-Pacific authoritarianism

With Duterte in the presidential palace in Manila, Narendra Modi in power in India, and the threat of a Trump victory in the U.S., there now arises the possibility of a new axis of right-wing authoritarianism spanning the Pacific and beyond.

Such a development would represent a significant expansion of the right-wing populist phenomenon that has been spreading globally over the last few years. In country after country, the authoritarian right has seen its social base expand, its organizational strength increase, and its ideas spread into the mainstream. Though they rely on the economic insecurities of globalization's losers and show off their supposed blue collar credentials, in almost every case, the right-wing populists have pursued a reactionary anti-labor agenda once in office.

Earlier this week, representatives from trade unions in the U.S. and Europe met in Washington to begin discussions on strategizing against the right populist danger. While this is a positive first step, democratic forces must step up the pace if they are going to keep up. In addition to Europe and the Americas, it is now clear that the Asia-Pacific region must be part of the discussion.

With implementation and oversight of the Trans-Pacific Partnership on the line, as well as the continuing push for a U.S.-India Free Trade Agreement, the danger of right-wing populism at home and abroad should be even clearer.

Photo: Presidential candidate Mayor Rodrigo Duterte holds a Philippines flag as his campaign motorcade makes its way through the streets of Malabon, Philippines. | AP

Brazil: President Rousseff ousted by Senate, Temer names right wing Cabinet

Fri, 13 May 2016 10:58:00 +0000

In a late-night session May 11, the Brazilian Senate voted 55 to 22 to impeach President Dilma Rousseff. This was well above the simple majority the pro-impeachment forces needed. The lower house of Congress, the Chamber of Deputies, had voted to propose impeachment on April 17, by a similar lopsided majority.

The accusation was that Rousseff's government had filled budget shortfalls in 2014 and 2015 by shifting money from the central bank to cover social welfare programs' needs. Advocates of impeachment claimed that this was a "crime of responsibility" carried out to conceal the size of the budget deficit, but Rousseff's supporters saw it as an effort to defend the social gains of the poor and working class that were threatened by a severe economic turndown.

The impeachment takes place in the context of both the economic troubles and a huge corruption scandal which has enmeshed a large proportion of the Brazilian political elite. Rousseff, however, is not accused of anything related to the corruption scandal.

Yet some of the politicians who have been most gung-ho about impeaching the president are accused, some formally, of serious corruption charges. Eduardo Cunha, the former president of the Chamber of Deputies, was removed from office on May 5 by the Supreme Federal Tribunal, Brazil's Supreme Court, for his alleged part in the "Lava Jato" ("Jet Car Wash") scandal, in which politicians got bribes from construction companies for steering business their way from the huge state oil company, Petrobras. Ironically, Cunha was the main leader of the impeachment efforts in the Senate, and many suspect his motive in promoting impeachment was to protect himself from eventual prosecution.

Rousseff is now suspended from the presidency for 180 days while the Senate carries out a trial. If she is found guilty by a two-thirds vote in the Senate, she will be removed from the presidency permanently. If she is found innocent, she will serve out the term to which she was elected in 2014; that is, until the next elections in 2018.

As of today, Vice President Michel Temer, of the right wing PMDB (Democratic Movement Party of Brazil), the same party to which Cunha belongs, is the acting president of Brazil, and he has moved fast to name his cabinet. His choices reflect a definite turn away from the moderately left wing policies of Rousseff and her immediate predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, both of the Workers' Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores). In addition, at least seven of Temer's appointees have been named as possibly implicated in the Lava Jato affair or have other serious legal baggage.

The new minister of justice, Alexandre de Moraes, of the right wing Brazilian Social Democratic Party comes to the job with a history of repressive policies in his former job as Director of Public Security for the City of São Paulo, a right wing bastion. Besides repressing demonstrators with what was widely regfarded as excessive force, police on his watch were accused of many violent crimes.

Temer's finance minister, Henrique Meirelles, has links to transnational and especially U.S. high finance, and will be in charge of launching an attack on pensions, wages, social welfare and labor rights, in the name of balancing the budget and pleasing potential investors. Though he also served as head of Brazil's Central Bank under President Lula da Silva, Meirelles will now be in charge of dismantling much of what the Lula-Rousseff presidencies accomplished to benefit poor and working-class Brazilians.

Several of the new ministers in Temer's cabinet have had serious scrapes with the law, but it will be difficult to prosecute them once they hold ministerial portfolios. The new minister of planning, Romero Jucá, of Temer's PMDB, is seriously implicated in the Lava Jato corruption scandal. And the new minister of Development, Industry and Commerce, Marcos Pereira, a pastor in one of Brazil's many right wing Evangelical churches, was jailed for sexual molestation of a parishioner and money laundering, though he was subsequently released on a habeas corpus court order.

Will Temer's government present a clean new face to the world? The new foreign minister, José Serra (of the Social Democratic Party of Brazil) is suspected, on the basis of Wikileaks revelations, of having unsavory dealings with the U.S. oil company Chevron to give them a leg up over the national oil company, Petrobras, in access to the exploitation of vast offshore oil deposits, called Pre Sal, resources which have figured mightily in the Lava Jato scandal.

Internally, the removal of Rousseff is a blow to the poor, to workers, to Afro-Brazilians and other minorities and to women, all of whom benefited from the policies of Lula da Silva and Rousseff. These advances caused great resentment on the part of the racist and sexist upper classes of the country, and on the part of right wing elements in the Roman Catholic and Evangelical Protestant churches. Affirmative action, gay rights and abortion rights will now be under fierce assault.

José Reinaldo de Carvalho, the International Relations Secretary of the Communist Party of Brazil, pointed out that the illegal takeover by the right and the removal of Rousseff as president will have strong negative international implications. Brazil, under Temer and his ilk, will no longer play a constructive role in the BRICS group, in aid to Africa and in the horizontal integration of the Latin American region. Now Brazil's foreign policy, as well as its economic interests, will be subordinated to those of the United States instead of being independent and progressive.

Though Rousseff has left the presidency temporarily, she swore on Thursday to continue the fight to restore democracy and the sovereignty of the Brazilian voters, so criminally violated by the organizers of the impeachment vote.

The Workers' Party put out a strong statement against the legislative coup, calling for a united front of urban and rural workers, youth, women and all who reject the reactionary politics that the Temer government is proposing.

The allied Communist Party of Brazil (Partido Comunista do Brasil) also swore to fight in the courts and on the streets to overturn the impeachment coup. Luciana Santos, who is a federal deputy as well as the chair of the Communist Party, said that a new phase of democratic and people's resistance has now begun. "The country will go through a period of great uncertainty and experience a tense, unprecedented situation." Santos raised the possibility of a plebiscite to authorize new direct elections for the presidency," before the scheduled elections in 2018. The idea is that Temer is extremely unpopular as are the policies he is likely to promote, and that he is himself threatened with impeachment and corruption investigations. The Brazilian people should be allowed to decide directly if they really want that kind of leadership with that kind of policy.

Photo: A demonstrator holds a Brazilian flag with stickers in support of the president in Sao Paulo. | Andre Penner/AP

European activists move in for deathblow on TTIP trade deal after leak

Fri, 13 May 2016 10:48:00 +0000

On May 2, the environmental organization Greenpeace leaked the 12th draft of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a trade deal between the U.S. and the E.U. which is ostensibly meant to lower barriers to international trade but which calls into question issues of nation-state sovereignty and corporate supremacy on the world stage. The document has been in negotiations since 2013 and resistance to it has been fierce, primarily in the E.U. With the leak, anti-TTIP organizations are newly invigorated while those in favor of the deal may be beginning to crack under pressure.

The 248-page document breaks down into 16 chapters covering topics such as agriculture, electronic communications, and sanitary and phytosanitary measures. While U.S. and E.U. officials are negotiating the document, over 90% of their advisors represent corporate interests. Critics say the document has confirmed the suspicions of environmental watchdogs, labor unions, and progressive political parties in Europe: that the TTIP constitutes little more than a corporate power grab similar to the one embedded in the agreement being negotiated between the U.S. and Pacific rim countries, called the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Like with the TPP, the TTIP has faced harsh criticism from left and right wing groups in the affected countries. On the right, the deal is seen primarily as selling out national sovereignty and giving jobs that belong to fellow countrymen to foreigners. For the left, it's about the declining labor standards and threat to public services that often come along with liberalization.

A corporate power grab

The critics from right and left have at least one concrete shared concern. The "investor-state provisions" which allow corporations to sue nation states because of perceived lost profits remains a major structural problem for both. According to the watchdog group, U.S. taxpayers have already been forced to pay more than $440 million to multi-national corporations because of similar provisions in previous trade agreements (with $34 billion in pending corporate claims).

One example of such a case unfolded in 1997. Canada's parliament banned the import of a gasoline additive called MMT due to the public health risks and was subsequently sued by the additive's manufacturer, Ethyl Corporation citing NAFTA. Ethyl Corporation called it "expropriation" and claimed damages of over $200 million. The parties settled for $15 million in damages and the repeal of the law that banned MMT.

This is just one case in dozens of these supra-national corporate courts disciplining the decisions of democratically elected governments in the name of profit.

Race to the bottom

Greenpeace released its analysis of the leaks along with the raw documents. It highlighted some of the implications for the struggle for environmental preservation.

For example, in the agriculture chapter [Office1] "the E.U. wants agreement to state that nothing will restrain the Parties from taking measures necessary to achieve... protection of public health, safety, environment, public morals and even cultural diversity." However, the U.S. calls such requests "trade distorting" and have set a goal of undermining the E.U. GMO regulatory process.

Public Citizen released a document calling TTIP "Monsanto's Plan B," naming and shaming many U.S. corporations want "to force the E.U. to roll back its precautionary stance toward GMO approvals" and undermine the member-state's right to ban GMOs altogether (which 9 E.U. countries have).

Even more vexing is the lack of consideration given to climate protections. Despite the COP 21 climate conference in Paris last year, a read-through of the documents revealed no reference to the historic meeting of nations. With corporations like Chevron heavily lobbying the negotiators, this could be a troubling signal that the TTIP's authors are getting ready to attempt an end-run around agreed-upon standards for keeping global warming under 2 degrees Celsius.

Growing opposition

It's not just activists who are concerned about the TTIP any more. The conflict between the TTIP's two sides on the issues of climate and environment has driven the already skeptical French President Francois Hollande to the breaking point. Shortly after the leak of the TTIP documents, President Hollande said that France "will never accept questioning essential principles for our agriculture" and that, at this stage of negotiation, he would reject the deal. Without France, a U.S.-E.U deal is unlikely to succeed.

Popular resistance to the TTIP continues to grow in countries where elected officials remain in favor of a deal. Polling taken after the leak by Infratest Dimap, a research firm in Germany, shows that "70 percent of Germans said the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership deal would bring 'mostly disadvantages,' up from 55 percent in a similar poll in June 2014." The German people are not limiting their expression of disapproval to negative responses to polling questions. In April, 90,000 of them turned out in protest the week of a visit from President Barack Obama to city of Hanover.

Even though German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she remains determined to do "everything to conclude the negotiations," her government's frustration with U.S. negotiators is growing. Christian Schmidt, Germany's Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture told The Independent that the U.S. has "hardly made any serious concessions."

"We won't sacrifice our high food safety standards in a barter trade for approval of European car blinkers," Schmidt said.

For British Prime Minister David Cameron, the days since the leaks have been spent attempting to put out fires of worry among his constituents about possible threats to the National Health Service, their national healthcare program. The worry comes after it was shown that Britain did not include explicit guarantees safeguarding the public nature of the NHS, while countries like Austria, Germany, and Italy did include such guarantees for their healthcare systems.

Cameron dismissed such concerns during questions from the Parliament, calling them "the reddest of red herrings," adding his opinion that "there are plenty of reasons that people don't want to see trade expanded, I think we should be honest... rather than using the red herring of the NHS to distract from a trade deal that could add tens of billions to our economy and generate jobs."

The Independent spoke to Mark Dearn from the anti-poverty organization War on Want who told them, "the only slippery fish here is the prime minister, whose rhetoric flies in the face of two sets of legal opinion stating that the NHS is in danger. As well as this, the E.U.'s published TTIP offer clearly shows the NHS is up for grabs."

In the U.S., protests against the TTIP have been few in number compared to the all-out offensive against the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The largest labor federation in the United States, the AFL-CIO has the fight against "fast track" trade authority which would mandate, pending completion, both TTP and TTIP to receive an up-or-down vote in Congress without the possibility of amendment while Some of its leaders have gone as far to vow to block PAC funds to Democratic candidates for office who support secretive trade deals.

Despite their efforts, the Congress passed fast track in June of 2015.

No fans of secret trade deals in general, officials at the AFL-CIO have said that they are "trying to influence what is in" the TTIP but no official communiqués have been released in light of the leaks.

Despite the fast track set back, things look good for the anti-free trade forces in the U.S. on either side of the electoral coin.

Despite initial support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Bill Clinton-signed North American Free Trade Agreement, pressure from Vermont Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has pushed Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton to come out against both.

Meanwhile, Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump has vanquished his 16 other competitors for the nod partly by campaigning hard in the Rust Belt against the havoc NAFTA has wreaked in working class communities.

Continued vigilance will likely be needed to safeguard the working families of the world from more corporate power grabs such as the TTIP.

Photo: TTIP protest in London. | Popular Resistance

Who is to blame for Europe’s refugee “problem”?

Thu, 12 May 2016 13:53:00 +0000

BERLIN -- Back in 1963, Bob Dylan (soon to be 75) wrote a bitter song; Pete Seeger also sang it often. It asks, after the death of a young boxer: "Who killed Davey Moore? Why an' what's the reason for?" Then came the alibis of all those responsible, from the manager and media to the boxing crowds: "Not I... Don't point your finger at me." Europe today, though not dead, is in deep disarray, heart-rendingly for very many and menacingly for the world. Here, too, one might inquire: How come? Who is to blame?

Many countries caused the tragic exodus from Afghanistan - over 2 million refugees - but for fifteen years the U.S. government has been the alpha-wolf. Iraq, well before the bombing and invasion of 2003, faced almost the same pack with the same alpha leader, and still suffers this never-ending fate, with over four million refugees, half within, half outside the country. Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen followed; for most of these on-going explosions the lit fuses pointed again to the lands of the wealthy.

Who is to blame for the hundreds of thousands of distraught fellow human beings from Syria who risk drowning to flee to Europe, for all those, from infants to grandmothers, still in a survival struggle on rocky Aegean islands or in Greek mud, facing Macedonian barbed wire and tear gas? Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey play a part in the misery, buying oil and ancient relics or selling - and often firing - modern new weapons. But the major mover is typically a tight, mighty band of heartless neo-cons and obscenely wealthy weapons-makers and profiteers with its center near the Potomac. Joining in were their blood- brothers on the Thames, the Seine, the Bosporus while those from Rhine, Spree or Elbe, with their long traditions, were key junior partners to those from the U.S., but in Europe were again the most powerful, with tentacles stretching ever further outward.

Despite its role, the alpha-wolf rejected any share in facing the consequences, and the earnest results of these wars hit their neighbors hard - but also Europe, especially junior partner Germany. Angela Merkel's welcome call to all those seeking asylum, whatever its motivation, was followed by countless Germans working heroically to make life easier for refugees crammed for months into school gyms, airport hangars and empty buildings. But much of the media switched all too soon from seeming empathy into growing collusion with foreigner-haters who use every discomfort for local residents, every misdemeanor, true or false, of the frequently traumatized, jobless immigrants, often separated from their families, to reinforce existing prejudices against all people of different color, language or religion and to expand their own bigoted strength.

The ultra right Alternative for Germany (AfD)

The PEGIDA-groups still march in Dresden on Mondays against "Islamization" but are overshadowed nationally by a party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), not so openly thuggish as other far-right groups, but all the more dangerous. At their recent conference their demands in "fighting Islam" aimed at easy targets like the face-covering burka and niqab - hardly ever seen in Germany - and against muezzins, minarets and new mosques. Their slogans and demands recalled those heard during the GOP presidential primary campaign in the U.S.; much like Donald Trump, they seek support among people whose livelihoods are insecure, whose jobs are precarious, whose future is uncertain and who blame this on all established parties but also on victims suffering more than they. Far less emphasized, hardly even mentioned by the AfD are its demands for a return to the military draft, a build-up of German armed forces, lower taxes for the wealthy (no inheritance taxes), an increase in police snooping, a tougher penal system, making twelve-year-olds as accountable as adults, with "no pampering" of those in prison, no special treatment for addicts or "psychiatric felons," no improvement in gay rights but opposition to abortion. Women would do best to stay at home and care for bigger families so as to achieve an increase in the "German" population.

As with Trump, this program is also combined confusingly with some acceptable social demands, a call for a better relationship with Russia; also a rejection of both the European Union and the Euro, for all the worst, nationalist reasons. Yet the main trend of the AfD is more than clear and its menace all too reminiscent of Germany 85 years ago.

Xenophobic traditions are truly long-lasting in some minds. Today Muslimophobia is far more useful than anti-Semitism, in older or newer forms, if only for a lack of numbers to victimize. And with next year's elections approaching, all other parties are hunting for lost voters, frightened by the strength of the AfD in state elections in March, with 12 percent and 15 percent in two West German states and a startling 24 percent in the East German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The changing polls now give the AfD overall 14 percent, in third place and ahead of Die LINKE (Left) and the Greens.

The worrisome results recall the tea party in Alice's Wonderland, where everyone kept moving one seat further along - and only the first in line got a clean tea set. In today's German version, fear of the AfD led to each party moving a seat to the right. The Christian Social Union (CSU), the reactionary Bavarian sister of Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the only such special state affiliate, distanced itself sharply from the plight of the refugees and came close to a split with its "Christian" partner, calling Merkel, from the very first words of her welcome, far too soft.

She, on the other hand, fearing threatening stabs in the back and losing popularity almost for the first time, modified her friendly stance, agreed to toughen conditions for the refugees, and met with Turkish president Erdogan to have him stop the refugee flight to the nearby Greek islands in return for greater acceptance into the "European community", especially his main goal, visa-free travel. He was clearly using the refugee issue as blackmail; his formidable army and navy can undoubtedly permit or prevent the departure of the tiny, dangerous coastal boats at will to suit political policy.

But eager as Merkel was to dam up the stream, a rapid increase in repression in Turkey made her bargaining more difficult. Erdogan was jailing all journalists who criticized him, left-wing delegates were forced by physical attacks to leave the Parliament and whole Kurdish-majority cities were put under murderous sieges. A critical satire on German TV caused dissonances; it was followed by a jolly poem, somehow squeezed onto state TV, which insulted Erdogan in a jolly but intensely obscene manner, accusing him of pedophilia and sodomy with goats. Poor Merkel was caught in the middle (of the TV controversy); she shoved all decisions about the TV comedian and freedom of speech to the German courts and carried on with European Union negotiations with Erdogan (who fired his own prime minister for bargaining too leniently). They are still unresolved.

Making clear that she is as tough as ever, Merkel's government, especially its evil genius, Finance Minister Schäuble, has refused to weaken pressure on poor Greece, which is not only burdened by many of the refugees but is still forced to push its population further into poverty and misery in order to pay off German and French banks for dubious past loans. Thus far the once-left Syriza Party has gone along, but anger - and perhaps desperation - are mounting.

Where the other German political parties stand

As for the German Social Democrats, these junior partners in the government have weakened their high-minded defense of refugee rights to a whimper, while their top man Sigmar Gabriel has thus far gone along with the tougher restrictions, the policy on Greece and support for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the European equivalent of the Asian-American TTP. His party's move to the right - though no very big change - has meant a sharp decrease in their polling figures and election results, but a left-wing opposition in their party has gained little traction thus far.

As for the Greens, they avidly oppose compromises with Erdogan's Turkey, but are divided on issues like immigration. The popular Winfried Kretschmann, first and only Green state government head, has formed a new government in Baden-Wurttemberg with the Christian-Democrats as junior partners, the first such alliance - and seems to be taking the Greens one more chair to the right.

None of these parties have rejected demands by "Defense Minister" Ursula von der Leyen to nearly double previous plans and spend $142 billion in the next 15 years on increasing the army size and buying ever more murderous weapons. Nor have they cried out against sending German military units, including planes which can carry atomic missiles, to join other NATO forces in maneuvers along the Estonian-Russian borders within a stone's throw of St. Petersburg, despite fearful memories of June 22 1941 and the mass murder that followed. After a number of recent incidents near Russia, and knowing that some neo-coms and brass still dream of repeating Kiev's Maidan Square in Moscow's Red Square, all this has blood-chilling character.

Against all this, in the Bundestag at least, the little LINKE (Left Party) has almost always been alone. Yet recent election results were very disappointing and its poll figures remain stagnant at 8-9 percent. Part of this is because of its courageous but risky support of the immigrants and their rights, but some trace this to a lack of bold, visible grass roots activity - "on the street" - which could convince confused, unhappy voters, especially in the working class, that the LINKE is not just another establishment party but the main fighter for their rights!

In recent years differences within the party have been moderated by a balanced leadership. The coming congress in Magdeburg on May 28-29th, which elects or re-elects party leaders and decides on directions in the German elections season, will determine how and how well the party can react to the constant danger of military conflict, to the question of refugees, to the economic troubles of so very many with bad jobs - or no jobs - and to the quasi-fascist menace of the AfD and its strong allies in Hungary, Poland, the Baltic countries and even France and Scandinavia. How well can they forge alliances and succeed, despite all the obstacles, in gaining strength and pointing a convincing finger at those forces, inside and outside Germany, which deserve the basic blame for all of these worries, tragedies and potentially deathly dangers?

Photo: Refugees welcome. Die LINKE

"There is hope": Asamblea Morena reaffirms its social movement roots

Wed, 11 May 2016 16:27:00 +0000

SEATTLE - Representatives of Morena En el Exterior (members of Morena living outside of Mexico) came together May 7-8 in Seattle to create a plan for uniting the various Morena committees throughout the U.S. and Canada. This unification plan will support the political party in Mexico as well as social justice movements in Mexico. Further, it will have an impact on social justice movements affecting the Mexican community outside of the Mexico.

Morena (National Regeneration Movement) is a new broad left party that is one of 10 political parties, came in fourth with 8.37 percent of the national vote, winning in 14 electoral districts (giving it 35 congressional seats). This was the best showing ever for a first year party. As part of Morena's constitution, all elected officials agree to donate 50 percent of their wages towards a program that provides a university education free of charge to underprivileged youth.

Participants agreed that Morena is not just a political party, but also a social movement; this requires a plan that both supports the electoral process in Mexico and addresses issues that affect the Mexican community outside of Mexico.

A particular highlight of this assembly was the high level of unity in evidence, along with the participation of current social movement organizations in the Seattle area. Participants were treated to a workshop where they learned about the local immigrants' struggle and the effective actions used in the defense of those in detention centers.

The assembly was preceded by a panel discussion which brought together four public figures: Nestora Salgado, a political prisoner recently released from a Mexican jail following intense international pressure; Professors John M. Ackerman and Irma Erendira Sandoval, who are progressive intellectuals from the National Autonomous University of Mexico; and current socialist Seattle city councilwoman Kshama Sawant.

Referring to the challenge of ending corruption in Mexico, Professor Sandoval said: "Corruption is not just a question of low levels filling their pockets. It is an institutional structure that requires institutional change. The real challenge is at the top, not at the bottom. The tentacles [of the effort] to privatize adds to this institutional corruption."

"People of Mexico are very much aware of the fact that 150,000 people have been lost to drug lords and 25,000 have been disappeared, but the U.S. refuses to acknowledge it. The U.S. blames the human rights problems on corrupt local governments and Narco culture. But they, along with the elite in Mexico, are creating the conditions of chaos-[allowing officials] to be able to continue Plan Merida, the selling and sending of arms to Mexico. They also want to separate Mexico from the leftist trend that has swept the rest of Latin America." said Ackerman. "But there is hope: the recent uprisings in the disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students, and the release of Nestora largely due to organized pressure by the Mexican community living inside as well as outside of Mexico, are indications that the people will no longer tolerate it."

The two-day assembly discussion centered on developing an organic and flexible structure. Participants discussed a plan for mobilizing and building support for Morena, both in Mexico and abroad. In addition, they committed themselves to addressing the challenges and the problems facing the Mexican community abroad, and to giving the struggle for gender equality a higher priority. Finally, they decided to develop an effective approach towards recruitment, growth and integration of new members.

"I believe we are in a construction period. It is a movement that is, as of yet, not well defined. We are all of the left and are challenged to adapt to new situations without renouncing our principles," said Roberto Ferreyra of Morena Illinois.

"What we learned was that in order to win a just immigration law, the immigrant movement needs to unite with other social movements," said Rafael Muñoz, Comite Fuerza y Unidad, Los Angeles. "As Mexicans living abroad we realize that we are a political and economic force for Mexico. And we want to build an organization strong enough to counter the injustices our people face daily. That organization, we believe, is Morena."

Photo: Rossana Cambron | PW

UK: Corbyn’s Labour Party wilts in local races; London elects first Muslim mayor

Mon, 09 May 2016 13:50:00 +0000

The last 12 months of UK politics has been mind-numbing. Elections one year ago saw the Conservative Party, led by PM David Cameron, take a surprise majority government. The election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, meanwhile, has been roundly and perniciously attacked by the liberal establishment and the punchline of endless right-wing jokes.

The man who took up the reigns of a party riven by infighting, but without an ideology to show for it, took his leadership to its first big test on Thursday.

Status quo prevails in England

England went to the polls to elect local council members with little prospect of significant upset in any direction. Unperturbed by the banality that confronted them, news editors across the nation painted the situation as a do-or-die moment for the novice leader, with even the possibility of a coup-attempt to bolster sales. Labour's grassroots, still mostly enamored of Corbyn, pitted against their ivory tower MP (Member of Parliament) overlords in a desperate struggle for power.

None of it came to pass. Labour held some councils, others they'll have to govern with coalition partners. Shortly after polls closed, the idea of a coup attempt died when prominent Labour parliamentarians and malcontents went on TV to announce laconically that, at least tonight, it just wouldn't happen.

Labour fades further in Scotland

At least they still have jobs. In Scotland, the red rosette badge of the Labour Party has been firmly relegated to vintage status in activist wardrobes over the past decade. That trend continued Thursday, when the pro-independence Scottish National Party's (SNP) hegemonic grasp on every level of Scottish political life was usurped, unexpectedly, by the Scottish Conservatives.

A common joke in recent years has been that Edinburgh Zoo has more Pandas (2) than Scotland had Conservative MPs (1). Friday morning saw Conservatives wake up to find they had surged to their highest showing since 1992, eclipsing Labour as the party of opposition at the Scottish Parliament. Zoologists, at least, will be pleased to have their funding proposals given added weight.

Voters in Scotland and Wales elect candidates at constituency and regional levels, to allow smaller parties better representation. The Scottish Green Party had a strong night, returning 6 MSPs (Members of Scottish Parliament), up from 2, but expressed disappointment at not winning their first ever constituency seat (it went to the SNP).

Socialist groups, including RISE (Respect - Independence - Socialism - Environmentalism) - an alliance born out of the highly-effective Radical Independence Campaign, failed to win any seats. By the next election, Scotland will have amassed 18 years without leftist representation in Edinburgh, beyond even the SNP's wildest dreams.

Labour sank to third place behind the Conservatives, and their fourth leader in five years - Kezia Dugdale - has announced she intends to stay on despite murmurs of a leadership challenge. The party, widely seen as intellectually moribund, could do worse than to give its newest leader at least another three months - if only to celebrate the anniversary of her election.

Welsh Labour cedes ground to the right

Carwyn Jones, as leader of Welsh Labour, represents the essential conundrum of the neoliberal, progressive party post-Blair. How long can a person go on, ruthlessly selling out not just their own principles but those of swathes of their constituents, with only coloniality to support them? At least five more years, it seems. Leanne Wood, the energetic force behind the resurgent separatist Plaid Cymru, was never expected to oust Jones' zombie Labour Party. Even still, she secured a constituency seat in the colonist's back yard - the industrial region of the Rhondda.

Labour's real losses in Wales were to right-wing parties like UKIP (UK Independence Party) and the Conservatives, which makes sense. Prospering under New Labour turns you into a Conservative, it doesn't keep you a liberal. Blair's darlings now have political representation elsewhere - they'll never be killed.

British hegemony runs deep in Wales but it's also more obvious compared to Scotland. Pockets of resistance under Plaid Cymru are more vibrant than anything in Scotland, but also further from a political breakthrough. Wales' economy has moved from being heavily industrial, with steel mills around the Rhondda and the Valleys region, to being overly dependent on the public sector, whose institutions could be moved if ever the UK Government were to be threatened. Even if Labour were motivated to stand up for workers, and perhaps more importantly for people for whom work simply isn't an option anymore, they couldn't without threatening the hand that feeds.

Son of Pakistani immigrant elected London mayor

In London, that's less of a concern, which is precisely why the Conservatives tried to make it one. Zac Goldsmith, a candidate with all the fluidity and charm of a thunderbirds puppet, waged a predictable PR offensive against Sadiq Khan.

Khan was Labour's man designated to retake the capital city mayoralty after eight years of inertia (and an Olympics) under the Conservative Boris Johnson - whose tenure has seen his meteoric rise from national embarrassment to the international stage.

Sadiq Khan is, in addition to being the son of a bus driver who emigrated from Pakistan and an esteemed human rights lawyer, a Muslim. Zac Goldsmith's line of attack, backed fully by the Conservative leadership, was entirely foreseeable. Khan was variously insinuated to have "dangerous," even "radical," associations - a crazed choice compared to the "safe" Goldsmith.

The nauseatingly obvious line of attack failed to gain traction in one of the world's most diverse cities. A voting population larger than Scotland's decided, 57 percent to 43 percent, that Khan was their man. Power to him - he inherits a city with an inequality crisis that would have Margaret Thatcher wondering "What is to be done?" and a financial services economic heart that might be ripped out by a vote to leave the EU within two months of his election.

Photo: London mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan arrives with his wife Saadiya to cast their votes at a polling station in Streatham, south west London. | AP

More than tacos and tequila: The anti-imperialist history of Cinco de Mayo

Thu, 05 May 2016 11:04:00 +0000

Given the recent mobilization against undocumented individuals and the massive following of Trump supporters that have endorsed his plans to "put up a wall," it may come as a surprise that America's love of Mexican culture lives on through the annually-celebrated Cinco de Mayo holiday.

Cinco de Mayo has always held problematic implications of cultural appropriation, from the "Border Patrol"-themed Mexican parties thrown across college campuses, to the public's general infatuation with donning fake mustaches and sombreros - you won't find a more complicated relationship than the one between the American people and Mexican traditions.

The widely-celebrated holiday is comprised of a lot more than just tacos and tequila, however. It commemorates the Mexican army's 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla. It is frequently confused with Mexican Independence Day by non-traditional celebrators, even though this event occurred about 50 years before the Franco-Mexican War. The history of Cinco de Mayo is nothing short of an underdog story. During the time leading up to the battle, Mexico struggled with the heavily-accumulated debts of several nations, including Spain, England, and France. Mexican President, Benito Juarez, publically declared financial insufficiency, and stopped repaying the debts owed to foreign nations.

France saw Mexico's fiscal instability as an opportunity to expand its territorial control, and used the debt crisis as an excuse to move forward with an invasion. When the Mexican militia confronted the French troops in Puebla, they discovered that they were outnumbered by a margin of almost 2 to 1. Against all odds, the Mexicans prevailed, relying on the aid of indigenous locals to help defeat the battalions of French troops. The momentum from their victory was often credited as the inspiration to the Union's struggle during the Civil War in the United States.

With these deep roots of Mexican culture overlapping into American history, it is no wonder that people continue to participate in the commemorative gestures of a celebration barely acknowledged in its country of origin. Irony, however, does lie in the fact that what was once a historically-symbolic reminder of Mexican resistance to imperialism, is now a colonized cultural byproduct of American capitalism.

The United States is no stranger to the disenfranchisement of Latinx communities, and particularly the criminalization of undocumented individuals. Regardless of how crucial undocumented labor is to the U.S. food and farming infrastructure, immigrants continue to lack basic human rights and attainable pathways to secure citizenship.

Instead, there is an increasing number of alarming, anti-immigrant laws that are being pushed by right-leaning legislators and their political mouthpieces. With rhetoric that unabashedly describes undocumented individuals as "rapists" and "drug dealers," politicians continue to indoctrinate false narratives of "illegals" amongst conservative voters nationwide.

For a majority of Mexicans, the appropriation of their culture and traditions is secondary to the blatant discrimination and human rights abuses they face in their day-to-day lives. The mainstream obsession with Mexican cuisine and festiveness is, more or less, a figurative slap in the face when it comes to the reality of Latinx marginalization.

In the U.S., the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has continued to administer a nationwide campaign to deport undocumented citizens, thanks to the enactment of the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) implemented by the Obama administration.

Once arrested, detainees are sent to immigrant detention centers that have been known to be overcrowded and under-resourced. In September of 2015, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released a 130-page report detailing the conditions of detention facilities around the country. The reports indicated that individuals were frequently denied the right to legal counsel, ignored during medical emergencies, and sometimes sexually assaulted in the facilities. It was also not uncommon to have unaccompanied minors at the centers, as about 100,000 children have sought refuge in the United States since 2014.

Though many undocumented folks face numerous barriers in their path to obtain citizenship, they continue to sustain their home communities and contribute to the economic growth of the nation. The parameters of the current legal system make it nearly impossible to become a U.S. resident without having a family member already in the United States. Even so, the waiting period for legal citizenship leaves undocumented individuals in vulnerable and unsafe positions - often leading to deportation for miniscule crimes, such as driving without a license.

With seemingly infinite obstacles in their path, undocumented students around the country have now started defying the standards of prejudice that kept many of their parents in fear. Youth across the nation have emerged from the 'shadows' and voiced their outrage at the systems currently in place. This mobilization is just the beginning in a long fight ahead, but it allows at least a glimpse at the tenacity and strength of Mexican communities in the U.S.

Whether they are overthrowing French battalions, or challenging xenophobic politics, the spirit of La Puebla lives on.

Happy Cinco de Mayo.

Photo: A painting of Benito Juarez and the Battle of Puebla. | A Celebration of Women

From the 1945 People’s World archives: Remembering the Holocaust

Thu, 05 May 2016 10:37:00 +0000

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah יום השואה, in Hebrew), dedicated to the memory of those who were killed by Hitler and the Nazis in the death camps of World War II.

In 1945, Milton Howard, a correspondent for the Daily Worker (a People's World predecessor publication), was serving in the U.S. Army in Europe. While there, he saw the fascist camp at Dachau, encountered some of those who managed to survive Hitler's death machine, and also got the chance to interview German military prisoners. What he learned from those conversations frightened him. Getting inside the minds of the German soldiers, Howard struggled with the question of how such an educated and cultured people had allowed themselves to follow down the path of Hitler's anti-Semitic and racist ideology - an ideology which ultimately led to mass human extermination and the destruction of an entire continent.

For Holocaust Remembrance Day, People's World presents this story from our archives, which originally appeared in the December 23, 1945 edition (as well as in a 1949 collection of Daily Worker articles issued by New Century Publishers titled Fighting Words). We publish it as a memorial to those who died, and also as a reminder to those living today to never let our national soul be stolen by demagogues who use race, religion, or ethnicity to sow division and hatred.

"How fascism steals into a nation's soul"

Daily Worker, December 23, 1945

She saw me in my U.S. Army uniform and stopped me in one of the streets of Munich. She said, "You are a Jew, no? Look here at my arm."

She rolled up her sleeve. Seven numbers were burned into her flesh, branded like an animal. The SS had done it at Dachau where her husband and two children were flung into furnaces.

We saw those scientifically-built ovens, with special rollers for sliding in the human fuel. Above, on the wall, there is a warning to the killers, "Wash Your Hands Before You Go Home." That's hygiene.

This woman, calm with the numbness of one who has passed through infernos and purgatories but who will never reach any heaven of serenity again, told us:

"At night, they would awaken the older people. They promised them that the one who first reached the wires where they had hung lots of tools, hammers, and such things, would get extra food. You should have seen the old women, half naked in the cold winds, too terrified to weep, almost turned into animals by despair. At a signal, the line broke and the old men and women stumbled and ran for the wire. The first one who reached it seized the hanging hammer, and fell dead instantly."

"You see," she explained, as if she were talking to a child, "there was electricity in the wires."

"The Germans laughed," she said, "when this used to happen. They did it often."

Many hundreds of German prisoners worked for us. I was able to talk to them. I was obsessed by a desire to penetrate into the consciousness of these Hitlermen.

They lied to us. They said they did not know. But even when they did know, they showed no horror. There was one who wanted to know if we could get him a copy of Goethe's Faust. "The poetry in it is wonderful," he explained.

I said to myself, "Here is one who will show me that he did not let Hitler debase him completely."

I said to him, "Tell me how a people capable of such achievements could let themselves be used as murderers on such a scale."

"It is a lie," he said. "We are innocent. We never committed these crimes."

I showed him (this was before the Nuremberg trials) the Stars and Stripes story on the plan to exterminate the Jews - men, women, and children.

"Oh," he said, in a tone of relief. "I thought you were talking about atrocities. The Jews - well, naturally, that is different."

This cultured man who read Goethe had trained himself to feel no emotion at the murder of Jewish women and children.

That is what terrified us about Germany. Mostly Germany, but I heard it from Hungarians and Austrians too. They said they had not realized what Hitler was up to. They said, "He did not hurt us. It was always the others, someone else."

There were millions of people in Europe who, as Iago said, "meant no harm." They accepted the steady advance of the stormtroopers out of the calculation that they could "outlive the storm" in comfort, at least in safety.

We saw such people everywhere. They had good homes. Good books. Libraries. Music. Records, phonographs, radios.

They had learned to live with blood and not mind it.

They had accustomed themselves to hearing the screams of tortured children and not noticing them. If some lingering conscience upset their little nest of quiet, they turned up the radio volume on the Wagner they were listening to.

The cries of the Walküren drowned the screams of the children whose veins were being drained for the Wehrmacht. The orchestration of Siegfried's forest chant covered up the shriek of the women flung into the dog kennels (I saw these at Dachau, still stained with blood and excrement).

We saw how fascism comes to a nation, stealthily, not with one vulture swoop, but with an unending series of compromises with evil.

It comes with the cowardice of those who delude themselves: "It is only the Jews they are beating." Or, "It is only those Communists they are hounding."

It comes with the awakened greed of those who say, "Perhaps it will not be so bad to have the factories whirring with war contracts. What will be later we shall see. It cannot be so bad."

When we talked to those people, so talented, capable of such diligence, but now so depraved that they had lost even a sense of depravity and had to be resurrected by mankind to the family of nations again - when we talked to these people, we thought of their counterparts in our own country.

I could just see them - the genteel people who are afraid to fight, the aloof ones who say, "It is not meant for me." The cowardly ones who say, "Why should I risk my neck, it will blow over later." And all the others who share the guilt.

This is what we will never forget about what we saw in Europe. It is the vital lesson, so simple, so banal even, and yet so vital for mankind's future, that as William Blake sang:

"In every cry, in every fear,

"The mind-forged manacles I hear."

Once we start to retreat before any single manifestation of this rottenness, we are lost. We win only as we never cease to combat it every inch of the way.

Photo: From the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This photograph was taken at the Dachau concentration camp, which Milton Howard visited just after its liberation.

Vietnam navigates global competition, free trade in quest for development

Wed, 04 May 2016 16:15:00 +0000

HO CHI MINH CITY - Vietnam is a beehive of activity. To a visitor, this nation seems to be bursting with energy and hurtling from underdeveloped status to modernization overnight. The country is now 30 years into a program of massive economic and political changes called "renewal", (or Doi Moi) launched in 1986. Renewal overlapped the last 20 years with restored diplomatic and economic relations with the U.S., now the country's leading trade partner.

The renewal reforms scrapped the Soviet-style economic model of centralization and collectivized agriculture in favor of what is referred to as a socialist-oriented market economy. Integration into the global economy has accompanied the changes.

What Vietnam has achieved since then is nothing short of astounding. Economic growth over the last ten years has averaged 6.7 percent annually while poverty has been reduced from 58 percent to 7 percent.

These achievements have been won against great odds. Vietnam endured 1,000 years of domination by the Chinese, 100 years of anti-colonial struggle against France and Japan, plus the brutal 20-year war against U.S. aggression that left 3 million dead and the country in ruins. Next came a postwar economic boycott, a war with Cambodia on its southwest border in 1978, and a military conflict with China in defense of its northern border in 1979. And if that wasn't enough, it survived the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

The legacy costs of the American war remain daunting. Allocations to war victims, veterans, and environmental restoration make up 25 percent of the national budget. On top of this, Vietnam must also address the growing needs of its population, which has doubled since 1970. It must keep up with the galloping scientific and technological revolution and respond to grave threats from climate change.

Things had to change

The Vietnamese adopted the Soviet-style socialist model of central planning and total public ownership in the 1950s. It served them well during the "American War" of aggression, helping to mobilize the nation's scant resources for victory.

But life was extremely tough and often desperate. Throughout the period stretching from the 1950s to the 1980s, they relied heavily on Soviet aid. The wartime 1960s and 70s were periods of constant food shortages. A popular joke at the time went like this: Vietnamese government cables Moscow: "severe shortages, send food." Moscow responds: "tighten belt." Hanoi responds: "send belts."

But once the war for independence ended and the country turned to rebuilding, the centralized economy became a hindrance. By the mid-1980s Vietnam was in deep crisis, with hyperinflation and scarcity of staples and consumer goods. The situation was made worse by the U.S. trade embargo.

It was clear the centralized, state-dominated model had no connection to the economic and social reality of the country. The lack of material incentives removed the motivation for development. Things had to change.

After deep reflection and a nationwide discussion led by the governing Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), the National Assembly adopted a new approach - building a socialist-oriented market economy.

The new model combines two aspects:

First, a regulated market economy subject to supply and demand - including a private sector, investment opportunities, and wage and profit incentives.

And secondly, developed socialism (while clearly not yet achieved) remains the long-term goal.

This is being ensured by tying economic development to social justice and equality and steadily improving the lives of the people. It is being accomplished through directed social investment, developing human resources, and continued dominance of the state sector. It includes public ownership of the nation's resources and all land (including the land sitting underneath privately-owned homes and buildings).

The CPV remains the leading political party and social force. Management of the economy and society is carried out through the democratically-elected National Assembly (which recently elected its first woman chair, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan), governmental institutions, and a vast network of economic units and civic organizations.

Despite many ongoing difficulties and daunting challenges, life has proven that the renewal policy was the right course. The economy is growing at a 6.2% clip and expected to rise to 6.7% next year, although economists are divided on how long this growth rate will last.

Vietnam has moved from the ranks of "lower" developing countries to "middle" developing countries according to UN Millennium Development Goals. Poverty has been reduced from 63 percent in 1993 to 7 percent in 2015, and poor households to 4 percent. Unemployment and inflation is at 4 percent.

The bottom 40 percent of Vietnamese workers have experienced 9 percent annual raises in income over the 20 years between 1988 - 2008. The minimum wage was raised 12.4 percent as of January 1. The raise applied to all companies, state, joint and private.

Per capita income, while still extremely low compared to developed country standards, has increased to $2100/ per capita in U.S dollars and is projected to rise to $3,500/ per capita in the next five years.

Vietnam was importing two to three million tons of food per year prior to renewal. Now, it exports six to seven million tons of rice annually and is the world's second largest rice producer and second largest coffee exporter.

No one this visitor spoke with denied the inevitable dangers accompanying a market economy: unequal distribution of wealth, the reemergence of classes (including millionaires), the growth of corruption, capitalist ideological influences, and threats to national sovereignty.

However, Vietnamese political leaders insist the country will not deviate from its goal of building socialism. They view this stage as necessary for the long-term transition to socialism. There is no "wishful thinking," only a sober assessment of current levels of economic and social development and what's absolutely necessary to move the country forward.

A multi-sector economy

The transition to a socialist-oriented market economy includes the legal recognition of multiple forms of property: state, domestic Vietnamese capital, foreign capital, joint, small business, and cooperatives.

State-operated enterprises still dominate all the key sectors and industries. They account for 35 percent of GDP, while the private sector accounts for the remaining 65 percent.

The process known as "equitization" is turning many state enterprises into joint-stock companies with shares owned by workers or sold to private capital on newly-created stock exchanges.

Reforms of the banking system also began with the 1986 renewal. The changes opened the door to private investment and wholly foreign-owned banks doing business in Vietnam. The banking reform allowed the country to begin integrating into the global economy, and the banking sector has expanded substantially since.

"Vietnam's banking sector comprises four major and one minor state-owned commercial banks (SOCBs), thirty-seven joint stock banks (JSBs), thirty-seven foreign bank branches, six joint venture banks, and two development and policy banks," reported Asia Focus. The foreign ownership share in the joint venture banks, however, is limited to 49 percent.

The importance of foreign direct investment

Another striking feature of Vietnam today is modernization of the nation's infrastructure. Electrification has now been extended to 98 percent of the country. Everywhere, construction projects are underway.

They include 600 kilometers of new highway (we traveled on a brand new toll road from Hanoi to Haiphong Harbor) and railroads. Modern mass transit systems are being constructed in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and Hanoi. Modern airports have been built in HCMC, Da Nang, and Hanoi.

The Cai Mep International Terminal, a deep-water port completed in 2011, is capable of handling the world's largest container ships. Meanwhile, plans are underway to move HCMC's Saigon River Port to the seacoast.

Access to the internet for the Vietnamese people is growing rapidly and now includes 95 percent of 15-24 year olds. Service is nearly universal in the urban areas, especially through mobile devices, and Wi-Fi access is free in many urban spaces. Use of Facebook is surging.

But such infrastructure projects require immense amounts of capital that Vietnam simply doesn't have. An estimated $160 billion in infrastructure investments are needed by 2020, including in water/waste treatment facilities and public transit systems, just to keep up with swelling urban populations.

It's a Catch-22 situation. A modern infrastructure is key for global integration and attracting more foreign direct investment (FDI). Vietnam must turn to this same FDI to modernize its infrastructure. The government, then, is tasked with directing and prioritizing projects, often jointly-built with foreign capital. For example, the HCMC mass transit system is being co-built with Japanese capital.

According to Diplomat, "Foreign direct investment in Vietnam reached record levels in 2015, rising more than 40 percent in the first three quarters of the year compared to the previous year."

Individual investors and multi-national corporations come to Vietnam from 100 countries. In addition to joining the World Trade Organization in 2007, Vietnam has trade agreements with the European Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as many bi-lateral free trade agreements.

While the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact is controversial in the U.S. and opposed by the labor movement, it is seen as necessary in Vietnam in order to grow foreign trade and investment. The National Assembly adopted the TPP on February 4.

Of course, there are real concerns. The CPV and government went into global trade agreements with open eyes. "This game is not of equals," said Bui The Giang, former UN Ambassador and currently Director General for the Western Europe and North America Affairs Department for the Commission of External Relations of the CPV. "The global economy is like a raging river. Those who can't swim (small developing nations entering the global trade system), swim together. But everyone must jump in."

"Equitizing" state properties

About 400 state enterprises have been turned into joint-stock companies and joint ventures over the past two years.

We visited one such enterprise, the Rang Dong Light Source Company in Hanoi, established as a state enterprise in 1958. Today, it employs 2500 workers and staff, including 500 scientists and researchers. Since 2004, it has been a joint-stock company. Fifty percent of shares are owned by Rang Dong workers and the rest by private investors, with the company's stock listed on Vietnam's stock exchange.

Growth took off after "equitization" and Vietnam's entry into the WTO. Profits and income have increased yearly. Rang Dong workers are now among the highest-paid in Hanoi, and 35 percent of dividends go to workers.

But director general Ngo Ngoc Thanh says he often doesn't sleep at night because he worries about whether the company can survive global competition and the TPP.

The nine million-member Vietnam General Confederation of Labor covers 120,000 workplaces, including Rang Dong, and operates under a labor code adopted in 2012. Confederation president Dang Ngoc Tung told us he believes TPP stipulations can be met and workers' rights defended. The Confederation is building cooperation with the AFL-CIO, getting training in collective bargaining, grievance procedures, gender equality, and health and safety issues.

Vietnam experienced 303 strikes in 2014 and sees nearly 1,000 wildcat strikes per year. Sixty-eight percent of these target foreign corporations.

Vietnam also abides by the International Labor Organization standards covering rights at work and has adopted five out of its eight conventions. The U.S., by contrast, hasn't adopted any.

To be sure, the country faces huge challenges on every front. But the Vietnamese people are tough, resourceful, and, above all, determined. It's hard to see how they can't but succeed.

Photo: Hai Phong Port, northern Vietnam's largest seaport. | Hai Phong Government Tourism Bureau

May Day 2016 around the world

Wed, 04 May 2016 13:20:00 +0000

This year's celebration of May Day around the world saw an unprecedented level of unity against serious threats by the capitalist class to take away what workers have won in over a century. Attacks on fundamental labor rights, on the survival of unions and on the wages and living and working standards of workers and their families are going on in multiple countries, but everywhere workers are fighting back hard.

Opposition to the monster "free trade" pacts now being negotiated, the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, was evident in many countries, providing future points of unity for organized labor across borders. For example, Maria Calderoni, writing on the website of "Rifondazione Comunista" describes the TTIP as the "enemy at the gates" ("Il nemico alle porte") and a "Galactic Monster", a danger not just to Italy and Europe, but to the world. On Monday May 2, Greenpeace Netherlands released damning leaked documents on the negotiation of the treaty, showing that fears about the TTIP have not been exaggerated.

A sampling of May Day activities:

France: Some of the most dramatic May Day protests took place on the streets of a number of French cities, including Paris, Nantes, Lyons, Marseilles and Toulouse. For nearly two months, both workers and students in France have been protesting a proposed employers' flexibility law, introduced by the nominally socialist government of President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls. Billed as a remedy for France's high (10 percent) unemployment rate, the law would make it easier for employers to fire workers and would make other changes in French labor law, including making it harder for unions to negotiate contracts at the national level, as well as relaxing rules on hours and other things. On Thursday April 28, a reported 170,000 protesters hit the streets, with more on Sunday May 1 and yet more scheduled in the future as the law is debated in the National Assembly. In some of the protests, violence broke out between fringe groups of protesters and the police, but most of the May Day protests went off peacefully.

Last year, Argentine voters elected a right wing president, Mauricio Macri. Macri has been a bundle of energy in imposing on the country a neo-liberal program of free trade and austerity, and has packed his cabinet with figures from international monopoly capital. The finance minister, Alfonso Prat-Gay, is a former Morgan Stanley executive, the energy and mining minister is a former Shell executive, and so forth. The result of their involvement in governance has been a sharp drop in living standards with almost 130,000 workers laid off in just four months, and sharp rises in the cost of everyday living expenses for ordinary people, especially electricity rates. Macri also handed over millions to predatory "vulture funds," a move that had been resisted up to now by the administration of former President Cristina Kirchner. Macri is also seriously implicated in the "Panama Papers" scandal. So on Friday April 29, all five major Argentine labor federations coordinated mass protests against the full range of the government's economic policies, but especially those which have so tangibly, and in such a short space of time, undermined the survival needs of Argentine workers. Argentine workers have been demonstrating against Macri for months, but on Friday the numbers, estimated at 350,000 demonstrators in Buenos Aires alone, were at record levels. Part of the extra anger is due to Macri's threat to veto legislation passed by the Congress to put the brakes on the avalanche of layoffs.

In Brazil, there is an ever-clearer understanding among the working class that the current political crisis, in which President Dilma Rousseff is being threatened with impeachment, also entails an all out attack on advances that Brazilian workers, racial minorities, women and others have made under the governments of Rousseff and her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The current effort to impeach Rousseff and replace her with Vice President Michel Temer is clearly a stalking horse for right wing politicians, big business interests and transnational corporations who have an agenda of rolling back the gains of the Brazilian people. Temer has put together a list of possible cabinet members to appoint if Rousseff is forced to step down temporarily or is ousted permanently, and he becomes president. As in Argentina, this list is packed with people who are connected to international monopoly capital. For example one person allegedly being considered for a high economics position is Paulo Leme, head of Goldman Sachs in Brazil. Changes in labor law being contemplated by Temer and his allies include a halt to indexing of wages to the cost of living, increases in possibilities of contingent and part time jobs, advancing the retirement age to 67, and the removal of some workers' rights from the law books. So, as in Argentina, workers and unions have not waited until May Day to hit the streets, but were out in force in many cities for weeks. In São Paulo on May 1, marchers were addressed by President Rousseff who announced increases in the social welfare programs that people like Temer would cut or eliminated if they take power.

Incidentally the surname "Temer" means "to fear" in Portuguese, and surveys now show that most Brazilians fear what Temer would bring and would rather have new elections than let Mr. Temer slip into power by crafty maneuvering.

Workers in Venezuela hit the streets on May Day in the middle of the worst crisis the country has seen since Hugo Chavez was elected president in 1998 and embarked on the Bolivarian socialist experiment. Chavez' successor, President Nicolas Maduro, is embattled, and the crisis has both economic and political dimensions. The right wing, which now controls a supermajority in Congress, has collected enough signatures on a petition to proceed with an effort to remove Maduro from power. But Venezuelan workers on Sunday did not forget that progressive labor laws enacted under the two Bolivarian presidents would be in serious danger if the right wing took power. These endangered laws include the Organic Law on Work and Workers (Ley Organica del Trabajo, los Trabajadores y las Trabajadoras), or LOTTT. Venezuelan labor law is extremely advanced in a part of the world where workers' rights are often violated or ignored, as in next door Colombia where large numbers of labor union activists have been murdered in recent years. LOTTT guarantees the rights of workers with respect to union membership, collective bargaining rights, wages and hours, child labor (prohibited) and government guaranteed grievance procedures. Such strong labor legislation flies in the face of the worldwide push by monopoly capital to break unions and push down wages. Although many things have gone wrong in Venezuela recently, marchers on May 1 were also aware of the danger that their hard won labor rights could be taken away if the right wing gets into power.

In Cuba, May Day celebrations were immense and joyous, in Havana and all over the island, in the context of the commitment of the Cuban Communist Party to the defense of the gains of the revolution and the renovation of the model of socialist development. In Santiago, Cuba's second largest city, the May Day march took nearly two hours to pass by the reviewing stand. President of the People's Power Assembly (Cuba's national legislature) Esteban Lazo presided and praised the marchers as part of "a people ready to defend their revolutionary conquests".

Cubans did not forget the challenges and threats that other left-leaning governments in Latin America are facing, as well as those that Cuba still faces. Speaking at the main rally in Havana, Ulisis Guilarte, the General Secretary of the Cuban Workers Federation (CTC), pointed out that the 55 year unilateral U.S. economic blockade of the island is still in force and that the U.S. controlled naval base at Guantanamo Bay has not been restored to Cuban sovereignty, things which impede full normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations.

Photo: Workers and students demonstrate for May Day in Marseille, France. | Claude Paris/AP