The US “pivot to Asia” and the Australian leadership crisis

Peter Symonds

A fortnight after Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott survived a Liberal Party backbench revolt, the leadership issue is clearly unresolved. Increasingly Abbott, his gaffes and unilateral decisions, or “captain’s calls,” have become objects of ridicule in the establishment media. Speculation remains rife that Abbott has just months to improve the party’s fortunes or face a leadership challenge.

Underlying the political crisis are deep frustrations in the corporate elite over the Abbott government’s failure to drive through their demands for far-reaching pro-market reforms and austerity measures. Key policies from last May’s budget, including lifting the pension age to 70, cuts to welfare benefits and a co-payment for doctors’ visits, remain blocked in the Senate by Labor, the Greens and minor parties, who fear a backlash from working class voters. Abbott sparked fresh concerns in business circles when he suggested that the government would back off harsh measures in this year’s budget.

No one has declared a formal challenge to Abbott’s leadership, but the most likely challenger is obvious—Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, a merchant banker, former Liberal Party leader and one of the wealthiest individuals in the Australian parliament. Turnbull appeared on last week’s edition of the ABC’s “Q&A” panel show, where the issue of the Liberal Party leadership was so much in the air that an audience member asked whether Abbott would last and was the next prime minister present in the room. Slick, urbane and smug, Turnbull passed over the question.

Turnbull did exploit the show to lay out his strategy for pushing through unpopular budget measures. Well aware that the Labor Party’s opposition to austerity is empty posturing, he declared that both sides of politics agreed on the need to “sort out the budget mess.” He called on Labor for a collaborative approach to implementing the austerity agenda demanded by big business. Sections of the media have been calling for months for such bipartisanship in order to overcome the parliamentary logjam and have backed Turnbull as the only figure capable of achieving it.

However, a major obstacle to Turnbull’s leadership ambitions lies in Washington. In the midst of rising geo-political tensions, a key test of any Australian prime minister is the degree to which he or she is willing to unconditionally align with US intrigues, interventions and wars, especially the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” and its military build-up throughout the Indo-Pacific region against China.

The ousting of Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in June 2010 by a handful of Labor and union powerbrokers with close links to the US embassy marked a key turning point in Australian foreign policy. Rudd was not opposed to the US-Australian alliance, or the necessity for preparing for war against China. However, his proposal for an Asia Pacific Community and suggestion that the US reach a modus vivendi with China cut directly across the Obama administration’s determination to confront Beijing and maintain America’s untrammelled hegemony throughout Asia.

Every subsequent government has lined up fully with Washington. Since winning office in September 2013, Abbott has functioned as a reliable attack-dog for the United States: confronting Putin over Ukraine, committing Australian military forces to the new US-led war in the Middle East, and further opening up Australian bases for the Pentagon’s “rebalance” to Asia, aimed at encircling China.

Questions continue to hang over Turnbull in Washington, however. Like Rudd, Turnbull has in the past suggested that Australian interests would be best served by encouraging a balance between the US and China, now the world’s second largest economy. Obama’s confrontational stance toward China has heightened the dilemma facing Australian imperialism, which depends heavily on China as its top trading partner but remains reliant strategically on its post-World War II alliance with the United States.

The views expressed by Rudd and Turnbull reflect those of layers of the Australian corporate and financial elite who are deeply concerned that rising tensions between the US and China are impacting on their economic interests. They are fearful of the growing danger of conflict, as well as the opposition that the US war drive could provoke among workers and youth. Since Rudd’s 2010 ouster, however, critics of the US “pivot” have been increasingly marginalised.

In a significant speech entitled “Asia’s Rise: A View From Australia” at the London School of Economics in October 2011, Turnbull, mesmerised by the statistics of China’s economic growth, foreshadowed “a massive realignment of economic and, in due course, political and strategic power at a speed and on a scale the world has not seen before.” He suggested that “within a few decades the IMF’s head office may be in Beijing rather than Washington.”

Turnbull’s superficial assessment that China would soon eclipse US imperialism ignores the contradictory character of China’s economic rise. Its expansion has at every stage depended on investment, technology and markets that remain dominated by the major global corporations and investment banks, which take the lion’s share of the profits. Militarily, despite its heavy defence spending, China lags well behind the United States, which has a global network of alliances and bases that are being “rebalanced” for a potential war against Beijing.

Turnbull’s conclusion was likewise based on the same false premise. Arguing against a policy of containing China, he declared: “The best and most realistic strategic outcome for East Asia must be one in which the powers are in balance, with each side effectively able to deny the domination of the other.” US imperialism, however, has no intention of allowing China, or any other power, to undermine its dominance in Asia or globally. As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bluntly declared, “the United States is not ceding the Pacific to anyone.”

In November 2011, Obama used the Australian parliament to formally announce his “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia and signed an agreement with Rudd’s replacement, a fawning Julia Gillard, to base US Marines in the northern city of Darwin. The “pivot” not only involves a US military build-up throughout Asia, but also an aggressive diplomatic offensive to undermine Chinese influence and an economic component—the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)—aimed at compelling countries throughout the region, particularly China, to accept Washington’s far-reaching demands to fully open up to US trade and investment.

In a speech just days later, Turnbull pointedly warned: “An Australian government needs to be careful not to allow a doe-eyed fascination with the leader of the free world to distract from the reality that our national interest requires us truly (and not just rhetorically) to maintain both an ally in Washington and a good friend in Beijing.”

Turnbull cautioned against “the misapprehension” that “even though China is about to become the world’s largest economy and is actually in the centre of East Asia, nonetheless the United States will remain the dominant power in the region.” To assume that the US would retain its hegemony, he concluded, was “not a sound basis on which to build Australia’s foreign policy.”

Following Obama’s speech, the dominant sections of the Australian political and military establishment concluded that their interests were best served by lining up with Washington and its reckless efforts via the “pivot” to secure US dominance over China, even if that precipitates war. Significantly, Turnbull’s remarks came under a blistering attack from Greg Sheridan, foreign editor of Murdoch’s Australian newspaper, one of Washington’s staunchest advocates. Turnbull’s “two important speeches on China,” Sheridan declared, “help explain why he was such a disastrous Liberal leader and why he should never be considered for the leadership again.”

More than three years after Obama’s speech in Canberra, global geo-political tensions have continued to rise dramatically, fuelled by the ongoing breakdown of world capitalism. Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, encouraged by Washington, have aggressively pursued their territorial disputes with China, greatly inflaming tensions in the East China and South China Seas. The US has forcefully intervened in Asia Pacific forums to undermine Chinese influence, resulting in a reorientation by the Burmese junta, long considered firmly in China’s camp, toward Washington. Just last month, a US-sponsored regime-change operation in Sri Lanka saw the removal of President Mahinda Rajapakse, who was considered too closely tied to Beijing.

The US military build-up has continued apace to meet Obama’s target of basing 60 percent of naval and air assets in the Asia Pacific by 2020. Australia, along with Japan, is central to the Pentagon’s war planning. Since 2011, the Australian military has been integrated more and more closely with its US counterparts. US basing arrangements in Darwin and other areas in the north and west of Australia are being expanded. US spy facilities at Pine Gap and North West Cape have been enhanced to expand their ability to provide phone, electronic and satellite data from across Asia and the Middle East. So essential are these bases that Australia would be automatically involved in any war with China.

Australian critics of the “pivot” continue to express their misgivings and concerns, which are rooted in the objective dilemmas confronting Australian imperialism and the rising dangers of war. They have, however, been compelled to adapt to the changed facts on the ground. Rudd served as foreign minister in the Gillard cabinet and fell into line with Washington’s foreign policy, as did his replacement Bob Carr, who had criticised the 2011 decision to base US Marines in Darwin.

Similarly, while his underlying concerns remain, Turnbull has modified his public stance. Although it is not his brief as communications minister in the Abbott government, he has continued to speak occasionally on foreign policy. Last June, the Australian pointed approvingly to his remarks to a security conference at the Australian National University, describing them as “one of the bluntest assessments yet from Canberra of Chinese territorial claims in the East and South China Sea.” Turnbull blamed China for the rising tensions, declaring that its determination “to muscle up to one or other of its neighbours, or all of its neighbours at different times” was “counterproductive” and “singularly unhelpful” to regional security.

Turnbull’s public silence on the controversy last November over the Chinese-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is also noteworthy. After Abbott’s cabinet initially approved Australian involvement in the bank, that decision was abruptly reversed after an extraordinary intervention by Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, on the grounds that Chinese investment would serve Beijing’s military aims. In 2012, by contrast, Turnbull had not been reticent in airing his opposition to the Labor government’s decision to ban Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei on security grounds from any involvement in the Australian national broadband network.

Most significant, however, was Turnbull’s speech to the US/Australia Dialogue in Los Angeles on January 30—that is, on the eve of the challenge to Abbott’s leadership. In many ways, it sounded like to job application to Washington, even though elements of the speech would still have jarred with the Obama administration.

Turnbull laid out his credentials as a proponent of pro-market restructuring and austerity to ensure that high-wage countries like Australia are “internationally competitive.” He singled out the US-backed TPP as the “broad-based and enduring regional agreement” needed to open up Asian economies, and called for China’s inclusion in the TPP on that basis.

Turnbull returned to his concerns that “the speed of Asia’s rise ... could exacerbate the likelihood of conflict. This transition in global power will be a very different hand-off than from Britain to the US a century or so earlier.” As noted earlier, the US has no intention of “handing off” to China or any other power.

Nevertheless, Turnbull made clear where he stood amid the rising tensions, once again blaming China for exacerbating maritime disputes in the East and South China Seas. Moreover, in concluding his speech, he expressed his full support for “strong and continued American engagement in the region.”

While pointing to diplomatic engagement, rather than “military might or dollars,” Turnbull declared: “The Obama administration’s pivot to Asia is a vitally important stabilising, reassuring factor in the peaceful development of our region.” After referring to American wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, he continued: “But the main game, the highest stakes, the most to win or lose is in the Asia Pacific. That is the new centre of the global economy and America, a Pacific nation, has as much skin in this game as any of us in Australia.”

Turnbull was well aware of what he was doing. In making his pitch to Washington, he was pictured alongside Jeffrey Bleich—Obama confidante, point man for the “pivot” and the US ambassador to Canberra during the 2010 coup against Rudd. It remains to be seen, however, whether Turnbull has modified his message enough to satisfy the White House.

One significant indication that Turnbull is at least being seriously considered in Washington was the appearance of Greg Sheridan in last week’s “Q&A” program and his answer to the question as to whether the next prime minister was seated in the room. Sheridan could have repeated his unequivocal statement of 2011 that Turnbull should never be considered for the top post, but did not. Instead, he declared: “It’s quite clear the leadership is in play. I think Tony [Abbott] has a 50-50 chance of staying as leader. I think if he were to lose support definitively, it’s very likely the party would ask Malcolm Turnbull to take the leadership.”

Whatever the outcome of the Liberal Party leadership crisis, the continuing and sharpening geo-political undercurrents are another warning that, behind the backs of the working class, all factions of the ruling classes, whatever their tactical differences, are preparing for conflict and war.

Conflict over DHS funding masks bipartisan attack on immigrants in US

Patrick Martin

Political proceedings in Washington over US immigration policy are running on two parallel tracks. One is the highly orchestrated and largely phony conflict between the Republican Congress and the Obama administration that is the focus of US media attention. The other is the vicious US government persecution of immigrants, the real day-to-day substance of immigration policy, on which both the Democrats and Republicans agree.

The battle between Obama and the Republicans has been in what might be called the dress rehearsal stage for a month, with the first full performance Monday night, when Senate Democrats, for the fourth time this year, blocked legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security past midnight Thursday night.

Senate Republicans were meeting behind closed doors Tuesday, and House Republicans were set to conference Wednesday, in efforts to reach an agreement on legislation that could win enough Democratic support to overcome the Senate filibuster before the February 27 deadline.

The DHS funding bill includes a provision rescinding Obama’s executive order on immigration, issued last November, to allow about four million undocumented workers to receive work permits without threat of deportation for a three-year period. Senate Democrats have successfully filibustered the House-passed bill, which Obama would veto anyway if it should somehow pass, with no prospect of a veto override in either house.

The outcome of this political furor is entirely predictable: there will not be the slightest disruption in the core functions of the DHS, one of the central elements in the emerging American police-state. The Secret Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, TSA, FEMA and a dozen other agencies will continue running, although paychecks will be delayed.

There will be much finger-pointing, political posturing and media bombast. Both parties will make right-wing appeals. The Democrats will lambaste the Republicans for undermining the nation’s security in the face of terrorist threats by disrupting operations of the DHS. The Republicans will denounce Obama for exceeding his authority with his executive order on immigration, and failing to secure the southern border with Mexico.

A likely outcome is that sometime before the February 27 deadline a bipartisan deal will be reached in which Obama’s immigration policy will continue, since it has the support of most of corporate America, and DHS funding will be restored, since both corporate-controlled parties support the ongoing buildup of state repression.

A major purpose of this degrading spectacle is to give the Obama administration and the Democratic Party the opportunity to pretend to sympathize with the plight of undocumented workers (a deliberate lie), while they portray their Republican colleagues as hard-hearted and racist (as of course they are).

The real attitude of the White House to undocumented immigrants is indicated in a parallel proceeding in a Washington, DC courtroom, where federal district judge James Boasberg issued an injunction Friday to bar Immigration and Customs Enforcement from holding women and children seeking asylum in detention centers pending much-delayed hearings.

After tens of thousands of immigrants, mainly women and children fleeing violence in Central America, crossed the US border last summer, most of them turning themselves in to the ICE and seeking asylum, the Obama administration reversed its policy of releasing such refugees into the community pending administrative action, and began locking them up, first in a detention camp in Artesia, New Mexico, then in two new camps opened in Texas. Thousands passed through these camps on their way to deportation back to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

More than one thousand mothers and children are currently imprisoned in these camps, even though immigration hearings have found most had a “credible fear” of persecution if returned to their countries of origin. A recentNew York Times Magazine cover story, “ The Shame of America’s Family Detention Camps ”, examined both the nightmarish conditions in the camps and the Orwellian legal procedures used by the Obama administration to keep asylum-seekers, including mothers with their children, locked up indefinitely.

Under the 1997 settlement of a federal court case, Flores vs. Meese, the US government agreed not to lock up unaccompanied children simply because of their immigration status, but to place them in the community with relatives or others willing to take them in. This policy was generally applied to children accompanying their parents as well.

The Bush administration abandoned this policy in 2005 and began locking up women and children at the Hutto Detention Center in Austin, Texas, but the Obama administration reversed course and emptied Hutto after it took office in 2009. Last summer the Obama administration resumed jailing mothers and children and built several new prisons for that purpose.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations filed suit on behalf of the detainees, and Judge Boasberg’s ruling granted a preliminary injunction in their favor, ordering the ICE to stop jailing women and children seeking asylum.

Boasberg cited comments by Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, to the effect that the ICE was sending a message to prospective immigrants from Central America by detaining indefinitely those who succeeded in reaching US soil. The “current policy of considering deterrence is likely unlawful,” the judge wrote, and “causes irreparable harm to mothers and children seeking asylum.”

A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that the agency was “considering” whether to appeal the ruling, claiming, “ICE’s family residential centers are used as an effective and humane alternative to maintain family unity as families go through immigration proceedings or return to their home countries.”

Reports from immigration lawyers suggest that the immigration judges are beginning to release detained families on bond of as little as $1,500 per family, raised by relatives and supporters in the immigrant communities where those detained will be released.

The savage treatment of innocent women and children at US detention facilities in Texas should be kept in mind throughout the upcoming media blitz about Obama’s executive order, the congressional deadlock over funding the DHS, and the threatened partial shutdown of the agency.

Insofar as there are policy differences between Democrats and Republicans, these concern the best combination of exploitation and repression in dealing with immigrant workers. Both parties do the bidding of those sections of big business—agriculture, construction, clothing sweatshops—dependent on undocumented, super-exploited workers to maximize their profits.

In leaked recording, Egyptian minister calls for machine-gunning protesters

Thomas Gaist

Egyptian Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim personally called for the use of automatic weapons against protestors, according to recordings obtained byAl Jazeera this week. He made these comments in a November 2014 meeting of the leadership of the Central Security Forces (CSF), the riot police of the US-backed Egyptian military junta.

“Use all that is permitted by the law. I think you all understand,” Ibrahim said. “Whatever is permitted by the law, use it without hesitation, any slight hesitation, from water to the machine gun.”

“I hope for decisiveness in confrontation. I hope you do not give them the chance to rally in the first place, even if you have to deal with them at the mosque. This is a national security issue,” he said.

“Do not wait for 100 to swell into 1,000 or 2,000 or 3,000, then we are all helpless before them,” he said. He also advised the CSF on how to murder protesters without turning them into martyrs.

Ibrahim spoke as the Sisi regime prepared to employ mass repression and violence against youth and workers in Cairo and other cities protesting police detention and torture of thousands of Egyptians last fall.

Minister Ibrahim's warning points to the main concern of the thugs and murderers who control the US-backed Egyptian dictatorship. The Egyptian junta is deathly afraid that mass protests could again escalate beyond the capacity of the security forces to drown them in blood, as they did during the revolutionary uprising of 2011 that toppled US-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak.

In the recording, Interior Ministry officials also discussed the government’s decision to reinstate a security officer who sought to blind demonstrators by targeting their eyes with birdshot-style shotgun ammunition, according to Al Jazeera.

This open discussion of mass murder and terror tactics against protesters is an indictment not only of the Sisi junta, but of the imperialist regimes in the United States and the major European powers that have backed it. The Sisi regime has continued to receive billions of dollars of US government support since taking power in a bloody coup d'état in July 2013. This money is going to fund and arm a regime that has murdered thousands of people in the streets of Egypt's major cities, and that is preparing for new bloodbaths in the future.

US support for the Sisi junta also exposes the hypocrisy of Washington’s humanitarian pretexts for its wars in Libya and Syria, after the working class toppled Mubarak in 2011. US officials, the corporate media, and pro-imperialist intellectuals insisted that the wars were launched because they could not tolerate the thought that the Libyan and Syrian regimes might use violence against protesters.

In fact, Washington and its European imperialist allies happily endorse and support regimes that deliberately resort to the mass murder of peaceful protesters to keep power. Their hypocritical denunciations of Libya and Syria were pretexts for long-prepared wars for regime change against regimes Washington did not support, as part of a neo-colonial restructuring of the Middle East and Africa in the interests of the banks and the NATO imperialist powers. These wars led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and turned millions into refugees.

In Egypt, the imperialist powers are backing the authoritarian policies of the Sisi junta. In the audio recording, Ibrahim instructs his subordinates to conduct mass arrests against attendees of any gathering of more than 100 people.

Since taking power, the junta has banned any criticism of the executive leadership and judiciary, and used police violence to enforce sweeping bans of the right of assembly. On Monday, the junta ordered the dissolution of some 170 non-governmental organizations.

The ferocious repression meted out by the Egyptian junta aims above all to crush working class opposition to its free market policies, drawn up in consultation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the imperialist powers.

The Egyptian government is predicting that foreign direct investment (FDI) will reach $8 billion in FY 2014-15, according to a report published Tuesday by FTSE Global Markets, “Egypt at tipping point for growth in foreign investment inflows.”

During a recent press conference addressing Egypt’s “road map to improve the business climate,” acting Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb proclaimed that “Egypt hopes to attract billions in foreign investment over the next four years.”

“The economic DNA of the country is a free-market yet disciplined economy. This is a good time for the government to put the country’s DNA in front of the international investment community. The government has been doing all the right things with the reform program,” the top officer of Egypt’s largest private bank noted in similar remarks.

“People think that there is proper leadership in Egypt and that will make it attractive to foreign investors,” he said.

The ongoing devaluation of the Egyptian pound, overseen by the Egyptian Central Bank with support from the military junta, is being “welcomed by the business community,” he said.

While devaluation erodes the value of the national currency held by most Egyptians, who live in conditions of desperate poverty, it simultaneously creates more favorable conditions for foreign investors. Devaluation “boosts the competitiveness of Egyptian exports in both goods and services (tourism in particular) and encourages investors and international financial institutions to consider increasing their investments in Egypt,” the financial officer said.

United Steelworkers reaffirm support for big business Parti Quebecois

Laurent Lafrance

The United Steelworkers, whose members in the United States are locked in a bitter struggle with the oil companies over pay and conditions, has found yet another way to attempt to politically shackle workers in Quebec. The union has publicly endorsed one of the candidates for the leadership of the Parti Québécois (PQ) and, in so doing, has reaffirmed its staunch support for a big business party that over the past three decades has repeatedly come into headlong conflict with the working class, imposing sweeping social spending cuts and outlawing strikes.

In a letter published in the Montreal daily Le Devoir last month, the Steelworkers’ leadership announced that it supports “unreservedly” Martine Ouellet’s campaign to become PQ leader. The Member of the Quebec National Assembly (MNA) for the Montreal South Shore riding of Vachon, Ouellet was the Minister for Natural Resources in Pauline Marois’ PQ government.

The Steelworkers’ endorsement is part of a campaign being mounted by the Quebec union bureaucracy to “save” the PQ, whose popular support has reached an historic low. Since the end of the 1990s, the PQ and the PQ-led movement for Quebec’s secession from the Canadian federal state have experienced one debacle after another because of their right-wing politics. The unpopularity of the PQ deepened further during the Marois government, which held power for 18 months, from September 2012 to last April.

The letter, signed by Daniel Roy, the leader of the Métallos (the Steelworkers’ Quebec branch), argued that in a situation where “the link between this party and the workers is now more tenuous,” it is fundamental to “rebuild the bridges” with the PQ. Roy, who is also the vice president of the Quebec Federation of Labor, added that “despite its faults and its recent backsliding,” this party “remains the best political vehicle for taking power and putting forward the interests of the middle class.”

In reality the PQ is an enemy of working people and, along with the pro-federalist Liberals, has served for the past forty years as one of the Quebec elite’s two parties of government. It won the elections called in the summer 2012 in order to put an end to the six-month-long province-wide student strike that had erupted against the university tuition increases of the Liberal government of Jean Charest. Its ability to do so was bound up with the support it received from the student associations and from the unions, which had intervened to isolate the strike and prevent it from spreading to the working class under the slogan, “After the streets, to the ballot box.”

The unions’ claim that the PQ was the “lesser evil” to Charest’s “neoliberals” was endorsed by the pseudo-left, pro-Quebec independence Québec Solidaire. It appealed to the PQ for an electoral alliance, then on the eve of the election announced that in the event the QS held the balance of power in a minority parliament it would sustain the PQ in power for at least a year.

Once in power, the PQ rapidly imposed huge budget cuts and permanent annual tuition fee increases. The PQ government also upheld Montreal’s P-6 regulation and similar municipal bylaws that duplicated the draconian restrictions on the right to demonstrate that the Charest government had imposed in its notorious anti-student-strike law, Bill 78. P-6 continues to be regularly invoked by the police to declare demonstrations illegal and violently disperse them.

While maintaining record low taxes on big business and the rich, the PQ government in which Ouellet was a minister slashed social assistance and enacted an emergency law to criminalize a strike by 75,000 construction workers. And with its “Quebec Charter of Values,” the PQ fomented animosity against religious minorities and immigrants, especially Muslims, with the aim of diverting attention away from its austerity measures and splitting the working class on ethnic and cultural lines.

When new elections were called in spring 2014, the billionaire press magnate and arch-right winger Pierre-Karl Péladeau announced he would run as a candidate for the PQ, further underlining its character as a party of and forbig business. The Liberals ended up winning the elections, while the PQ, with only 25.4 percent of the popular vote, recorded its worst result since 1970, the first election in which it participated.

In his letter, Roy—whose 60,000-members Métallos are the province’s largest industrial union—calls on the union bureaucracy and the so-called “left” to close ranks behind the PQ. He exhorts “progressives, unionists, environmentalists, whether they belong to the PQ or not, members of [Québec Solidaire] or non-affiliated” to “become paid-up members of the PQ.”

This line dovetails with the campaign being mounted by the QFL and other major unions and by the SPQ-Libre (a political group inside the PQ that speaks for the union bureaucracy) to get workers to join the PQ so as block Pierre-Karl Péladeau from winning the PQ leadership.

No matter which party has been in power, the pro-capitalist unions have for decades faithfully collaborated with the employers and the government to impose job- and wage-cuts and other concessions on workers.

However, the union bureaucracy cemented a political alliance with the PQ soon after it emerged in 1968 as the result of a split from the Quebec Liberal Party. The turn of the pro-capitalist union bureaucracy to the PQ and Quebec nationalism was a means of politically harnessing the massive offensive of the Quebec working class that convulsed Canada’s only majority French-speaking province in the early 1970s to the drive of a section of the Quebec bourgeoisie to expand its wealth and power. It also served to quarantine the Quebec workers’ struggles from those of their class brothers and sisters in the rest of North America.

Elected to power for the first time in 1976, the PQ rapidly abandoned its façade as a party “favorable to workers.” In 1982-83 the PQ government of René Lévesque slashed public sector workers’ pay by as much as 20 percent and when teachers rebelled threatened them with mass firings. In the name of achieving a “zero deficit” the PQ government of Lucien Bouchard eliminated more than 40,000 jobs in health care and education between 1996 and 1998, then broke a strike of nurses with a savage back-to-work law.

The Steelworkers’ leader gives his “unreserved” support to Martine Ouellet (a member of the administrative committee of SPQ-Libre from 2004 to 2007) precisely because she, more than any other candidate, wants to continue close collaboration with the unions in order to stifle the class struggle.

The bureaucracy has feathered it nest through the corporatist government-employer-union collaboration long promoted by both of Quebec’s major parties, but especially the PQ. Roy is himself a member of the Board of Directors of the QFL’s Solidarity Fund, a $9 billion investment fund that provides capital to Quebec businesses.

According to Roy’s endorsement, Martine Ouellet is “firmly progressive,” and the candidate who will provide the best “left” cover for the PQ’s reactionary project for an independent capitalist Quebec.

An engineer, Ouellet built her political career during the 1990s when the PQ was carrying out a marked turn to the right. As natural resources minister she worked closely with the big mining companies, putting in place policies favorable to them, including the maintenance of low levels of taxation.

Perceived as a “left” candidate because of her connections with the unions, Ouellet herself insists that this “label” is not appropriate and that she is “very pragmatic” regarding the economy. She is also promoting herself as the candidate most determined to make Quebec a country, a claim also made by the very right-wing Péladeau.

No matter who wins the leadership of the PQ, the party will remain as determined as the Liberals to impose the dictates of big business and international finance.

Under conditions where the working class in on a collision course with the current Liberal government, which is seeking to implement massive social cuts, workers must take the unions’ embrace of the pro-austerity PQ as a serious warning. As they did during 1980s and 1990s, and more recently during the student strike in 2012, the unions are seeking to smother opposition to capitalist austerity and isolate the Quebec workers from the Canadian and North American working class by channeling them behind the PQ and promoting Quebec nationalism.

Rightist mayor faces coup charges as Venezuela’s crisis deepens

Bill Van Auken

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has faced widespread international condemnation, but only scattered and minor right-wing protests in the country itself, over the arrest last week of Antonio Ledezma, the mayor of metropolitan Caracas, on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the government.

Joining the usual denunciations from the State Department in Washington or the right-wing governments of President Juan Manuel Santos in neighboring Colombia and President Mariano Rajoy in Spain, was, for example, the leader of the Spanish petty-bourgeois pseudo-left Podemos party, Pablo Iglesias.

The Obama administration has signaled its intentions to ratchet up pressure on the Maduro government. Last Friday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest, asked whether Washington was contemplating new sanctions against Venezuela, responded: “The Treasury Department and the State Department are closely monitoring the situation and are considering tools that may be available that can better steer the Venezuelan government in the direction that they believe they should be headed.”

On Tuesday, the New York Times published an editorial that largely echoed the assertions the day before by the State Department spokesperson that the charges that Ledezma was involved in a US-backed coup conspiracy were “ludicrous.”

The Times called the accusations a “fabricated pretext” and “outlandish,” dismissing talk of a coup as “Mr. Maduro’s conspiracy theories.”

One would hardly guess that the US backed an abortive coup by sections of Venezuela’s capitalist ruling establishment and the military against Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, as recently as 2002, or that the Timesitself enthusiastically supported the overthrow of the country’s elected president. It noted approvingly at the time that “the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader.” Within less than 48 hours, massive popular demonstrations sent the business leader, Pedro Carmona, packing and put Chavez back into the presidential palace.

Ledezma, one of the “dinosaurs” of the Venezuelan right, was an active supporter of the coup 13 years ago. He was also one of the principal figures of the country’s “hard right” who organized the so-called “ salida ” (exit) campaign last year aimed at bringing down Maduro—who won the election as president in April 2013—by means of street violence. These clashes claimed the lives of 43 people.

The corporate media is portraying Ledezma’s arrest on conspiracy charges as merely a response to his decision to sign an open letter calling for a “national agreement for a transition,” which advocates a renewed campaign for the extra-constitutional ouster of Maduro.

In fact, the Venezuelan government claims evidence identifying Ledezma as a key backer of fascist youth leader Lorent Saleh, who was extradited to Venezuela from Colombia to face charges of working with ultra-rightist Colombian mercenaries to organize terrorist attacks and assassinations in Venezuela. Saleh’s group, Operation Liberty, is funded through an NGO that, in turn, receives funding from the US Agency for International Development.

Also linked to plots to overthrow the government are several Venezuelan military officers, including three senior members of the air force arrested last year.

Maduro and his supporters in the ruling PUSV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) have made defiant statements countering international criticism and vowing to employ an “iron hand” against coup plotters.

This rhetoric, however, is belied by other actions and gestures that make clear the Maduro government is attempting to accommodate itself to the main forces that pose the threat of a coup—the Venezuelan financial elite, US imperialism and the military—while attempting to shift the burden of the country’s deepening economic crisis onto the backs of the working class.

Among the more extraordinary examples of this duplicity came in a speech delivered by Maduro Monday, in which he called upon Barack Obama to “rectify” his administration’s policy toward Venezuela and said the problem was that the US president had been misled “by evil and deceitful advisors.”

Meanwhile, the government has strengthened the powers of the military, which constitutes a central pillar of the so-called Bolivarian Revolution. Fully 11 out of 32 governorships and eight federal ministries are headed by active or retired military officers. Reports of defections and dissension within the top ranks of the armed forces pose the greatest threat of a coup, but these forces already control much of the state apparatus. To the extent that Maduro is seen as no longer effective in defending their interests and containing popular unrest, the military command could move against him.

Then there is the commanding strata of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie. Recently released figures indicate that these layers are continuing to enrich themselves under conditions in which the vast majority of the population confronts declining living standards and mounting layoffs.

Venezuela’s national financial system recorded profits amounting to $1.3 billion in January of this year, a 55.23 percent increase over the same period a year ago, maintaining the country’s status as one of the most profitable for the global banks.

Venezuela’s real economy, however, is in sharp decline, driven by the halving of the price of oil, which accounts for 96 percent of the country’s exports. The country’s reserves for imports have been slashed to $29 billion this year, one third of what they were two years ago.

Financial analysts estimate that the government is confronting a $14 billion budget gap that could nearly double if oil prices remain at their current levels for the rest of this year. There is growing speculation that the government could be forced into a default on its debt obligations if these conditions persist.

With inflation approaching 70 percent, the government has eased currency controls and allowed price increases on basic necessities, including beef and chicken. Shortages and lines of those seeking basic commodities remain ubiquitous. A rise in gasoline prices, which are heavily subsidized, is expected imminently. It was such an increase in fuel costs that triggered the eruption of the Caraczo, the 1989 mass rebellion that led to the deaths of as many as 3,000 people.

The Venezuelan right, representing sections of the ruling capitalists who see their interests better served through a closer semi-colonial relation with US capital and a brutal crackdown on the working class, is seeking to exploit the economic crisis to further its drive to oust the Maduro government. For its part, the Maduro government, which represents a layer of wealthy state officials, the military command and the so-called boliburguesia, which has enriched itself off of oil revenues and financial speculation, is exploiting these reactionary maneuvers to divert attention from its own turn toward austerity policies aimed against the working class and to seek to rally support on the basis of nationalism.

This has gone hand-in-hand with the suppression of independent struggles of the Venezuelan workers, including the jailing of workers who have organized strikes, protests and worker assemblies independent of the unions affiliated to the ruling party.

Venezuelan workers cannot advance their interests or defend themselves against the very real threat of a militarized crackdown by lining up behind either of these feuding factions of the ruling establishment. The working class can find a progressive way out of the present crisis only by establishing its political independence from the government and the ruling PSUV and fighting for a workers’ government and a genuine socialist transformation of Venezuelan society as part of a unified struggle of the working class throughout the Americas.

Greece’s Syriza government proposes list of social cuts to European Union

Johannes Stern

Just days after capitulating to European Union (EU) demands for austerity, Greece’s Syriza-led government matched its words with deeds. Early Tuesday morning, it presented a promised list of “reforms,” that is, attacks on the working class, as demanded by the EU in Brussels.

In response, the euro group of euro zone finance ministers agreed to extend credit to Greece under the so-called “aid program” until the end of June. Their speedy agreement yesterday afternoon shows that the Greek government's proposed cuts broadly met the requirements of Brussels and Berlin.

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis’ seven-page document could have been written by conservative German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble. In it, the Syriza government confirms not only its complete submission to the hated diktat of the EU, it announces social cuts going well beyond those implemented by previous conservative and social-democratic governments.

In his letter to the euro group’s president, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Varoufakis wrote pompously, “In addition to codifying its reform agenda, in accordance with PM [Alexis] Tsipras’ programmatic statement to Greece’s parliament, the Greek government also committed to working in close agreement with European partners and institutions, as well as with the International Monetary Fund, and take actions that strengthen fiscal sustainability, guarantee financial stability, and promote economic recovery.”

The “Greek savings list,” as the German media dubbed it, contains one proposal for cuts after another.

The “Public expenditure” section states: “The Greek authorities will review and control spending in every area of government spending (e.g., education, defence, transport, local government, social benefits).” They will also “Identify cost-saving measures through a thorough review of spending by every ministry.”

In the section on “Reform of social security systems”, Syriza pledges “to continue modernising the pension system.” The authorities will “eliminate loopholes and incentives that give rise to an excessive rate of early retirements... [and] Consolidate pension funds to achieve savings.”

In the section on “Privatization and management of public assets,” Syriza pledges “not to roll back privatisations that have been completed.” Moreover, “where the tender process has been launched, the government will respect the process, according to the law.”

This is intended to “attract investment in key sectors and utilise the state's assets efficiently” and does not rule out further privatizations. Privatizations that have not yet been completed should be reworked so as “to achieve better conditions and revenue” and “to promote competitiveness.”

The document states that “labour market reforms” are intended to create a “better business environment.” To this end, the government effectively abandons calls for an increase in the minimum wage, one of its main election promises. “The scope and timing of changes to the minimum wage will be made in consultation with social partners and the European and international institutions.” In other words, the banks will decide whether or not to raise wages in Greece, after they have reduced wages for many workers by as much as 50 percent!

Other topics in the paper are the “Fight against corruption”, tax policy, and the health of the Greek and European banks.

Varoufakis’ paper comes as no surprise to those who have followed the politics of Syriza. It originates from a man and a government that from the beginning saw their task as saving the EU and European capitalism. Like its predecessors, the Syriza government has submitted to the dictates of the EU and the financial markets, who even after five years of brutal austerity, demand ever more sacrifices from the Greek population.

According to calculations by the Bank of Greece published in the newspaperKathimerini, Greece needs another ten billion euros in March, most of which will go directly into the pockets of the banks and international financial institutions. On March 6, government bonds amounting to €1.4 billion fall due; on March 20, a further €1.6 billion must be repaid. In addition, €1.6 billion in loan repayments are due to the IMF.

Only recently, Greek economics blog Macropolis calculated that only eleven percent of the second so-called “aid package” for Greece went to the Greek government. The rest of the bailout was used for loan financing, i.e., it flowed directly to the banks.

Athens’ new list of social cuts carries forward the EU debt Memorandum, continuing to bleed the Greek population on behalf of finance capital. In the coming weeks, further concrete proposals for budget cuts are expected from Athens.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde confirmed on Tuesday that Athens’ plans were sufficient to continue the aid programme. However, she criticized Syriza’s proposals as being not very specific. In many areas, “including perhaps the most important,” the IMF head complained that there were no “clear assurances that the government intends to implement the envisaged reforms.”

Dijsselbloem said that the proposals submitted by Athens were only “a first list” and an “indication” of the cuts the Tsipras government will implement. He believed, however, that the new Greek government was “very serious” about carrying out the cuts.

As Syriza moves to continue the austerity policies of previous Greek governments, Dijsselbloem said that it nevertheless has “quite a different political vision” from its predecessors.

The recent agreement between Brussels and Athens underscores the fact that Syriza's “political vision”, i.e., pro-EU and pro-capitalist policies dressed up in pseudo-left phrases, is seen by growing sections of the European ruling elite as a strategy to continue with austerity in Greece.

Leading economists are therefore calling for at least some verbal concessions to Syriza, so that the pseudo-left party does not discredit itself too quickly while moving ahead with its reactionary agenda.

In a comment for Die Welt, the director of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Marcel Fratzscher, warns, “Greece will only emerge from the crisis when the country takes ownership of the reforms. This can only be achieved if the government in Greece can emerge from the negotiations as a winner as well.”

“Rarely in the past 30 years, has support for a government in the country been so great,” said Fratzscher. “Europe should seize this opportunity and help the Greek government to convert its popularity into a constructive reform programme, by allowing the government to implement at least some of its campaign promises.”

The US oil strike and the international struggles of the working class

Jerry White

The strike by US oil refinery workers, now its fourth week, is an expression of the growing readiness of workers to fight in defense of jobs, wages, safety and working conditions. The walkout, involving 6,500 workers, is the biggest strike in the American oil industry since 1980. It is part of a broader effort by workers—dockworkers, teachers, postal workers, auto workers and others—to reverse decades of declining living standards.

The United Steelworkers union (USW) is seeking to limit the strike, calling out only a fifth of its 30,000-strong membership in the industry and picketing only 11 of 63 refineries. The USW is closely aligned with the Obama administration and is working to prevent the walkout from developing into a political confrontation with the White House, which just last weekend intervened to block a strike by 20,000 dockworkers on the West Coast.

Facing only a minimal curtailment of production, Shell, ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and other oil giants have refused to back down on demands for a derisory wage increase, dangerously long work schedules, and the replacement of more full-time workers with temporary contract workers.

It is necessary to take the strike forward and break out of the confines imposed by the USW. As a first step, the work stoppage should be extended to refineries across the country. An appeal should be issued to every section of the working class to defend the oil workers against any strike-breaking intervention by the Obama administration or the courts.

This, however, is only the beginning. Oil workers and the working class as a whole must develop a broader political strategy.

The problems confronting US oil workers are part of a national, and, in fact, international crisis. In every country, workers are under attack from giant multinational corporations and banks, which are backed by governments of the so-called “left” as well as the right. The current offensive against jobs, wages, pensions and social benefits—whether in Athens or Detroit—follows decades of downsizing and wage-cutting. The US has passed through the longest period of wage stagnation since the Great Depression.

The government-corporate assault was stepped up in the aftermath of the 2008 Wall Street crash, as the ruling elites in the US and around the world implemented policies to make the working class pay for the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of the financial aristocracy.

In country after country, savage austerity programs have been implemented and so-called “structural reforms” imposed to destroy whatever remained of the social gains won by workers over the course of a century of struggle. All restraints on the exploitation of workers and the plundering of society by the banks and corporations are being lifted.

The result is the wholesale impoverishment of working people alongside record corporate profits, soaring stock prices and CEO pay packages in the tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars. Social inequality is back to the levels that prevailed at the turn of the last century. To cite one statistic: 85 billionaires posses more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of humanity—3.5 billion people.

Every attempt by workers to resist, whether in Europe, Asia, South America or North America, has been blocked or sabotaged by the trade unions, which have focused all their efforts on suppressing the class struggle, becoming transformed into appendages of the corporations and the state.

The fall in crude oil prices, itself an expression of the crisis of the profit system, has been seized on to mount a global attack on oil workers. Even as Big Oil hands over tens of billions to wealthy shareholders—in the form of dividends and stock buybacks—it wages a ruthless offensive against workers’ jobs, wages and working conditions.

Oil workers in particular face an industry that is international in character. In the North Sea, some 20,000 construction and oil rig workers are facing wage cuts of up to 15 percent and demands for an additional 28 days of offshore work each year with no increase in pay, while the workforce is cut by a fifth. BP, Marathon, Canadian Natural Resources and other firms want to impose the same grueling work schedule on British workers that US workers already face in the Gulf of Mexico. In response, North Sea workers are balloting for strike action next month.

The resistance of oil workers is one sign of an emerging movement of the working class internationally. Thousands of German train drivers have walked out to oppose job cuts, pay reductions and other attacks. In western Australia, where the collapse of the mineral boom has led to tens of thousands of layoffs, coal train drivers are going out on strike. This follows the walkout by Canadian Pacific rail workers that ended after the strike-breaking intervention of the Harper government.

Workers all over the world confront the failure of an entire economic system—capitalism. They also confront the bankruptcy of the trade unions. These organizations are unalterably tied to capitalism and wedded to its nation-state framework. Aligned with their own national capitalist class, they collaborate in the gutting of jobs and living standards in the name of boosting the “competitiveness” of corporations based in their own country.

The president of the USW, Leo Gerard, is a specialist in the vilest forms of American nationalism, denouncing “currency manipulation” by China and “dumping” by Korean steelmakers and calling for protectionist measures to boost “national security” and military preparedness. On the basis of economic nationalism, the USW has collaborated with the steel bosses to destroy the jobs and pensions of hundreds of thousands of workers.

These betrayals are not simply the product of personal cowardice or corruption. The failure of the unions in the US and around the world is rooted in their incapacity to provide an international strategy to oppose the capitalist system.

Oil workers in the US and Europe, train drivers in Germany and Australia, and every other section of workers entering into struggle require a perspective and strategy that take into account the broader historical, economic and political processes that underlie the present crisis and the immediate attacks they face.

Only on the basis of an international policy directed against the capitalist system is it possible to effectively oppose transnational corporations that operate on the world scale. Moreover, such an international policy is a prerequisite for uniting the workers within any country and overcoming the ceaseless efforts of the ruling class to sow divisions based on race, religion, language, etc.

Workers in the US and around the world must answer the globally coordinated assault on their jobs and living standards with a strategy to unite the international working class against the capitalist system. This requires the building of new organizations of struggle, independent of the nationalist and pro-capitalist trade unions, to reach out to the broadest sections of the working class nationally and internationally.

A new leadership must be built to unite the working class internationally and imbue its struggles with an independent political strategy to take power and reorganize economic life on the basis of human need, not private profit. This is the perspective of socialist internationalism fought for by the Socialist Equality Party in the US and our sister parties in the International Committee of the Fourth International.

87th Academy Awards: A more intriguing event than in recent years

David Walsh

The Academy Awards ceremony Sunday night turned out to be one of the more intriguing ones in recent years. In a comment posted February 21, I observed that “Occurring at a time of unprecedented global tension and volatility, virtually no hint of the external world will be permitted entry into the self-absorbed proceedings.” This turned out to be an overly pessimistic prediction, although social realities inevitably found expression on Sunday in a manner that accords with the film world’s peculiarities and contradictions.

Citizen Four

Mexican director Alejandro Iñárritu’s darkly comic Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), about a once prominent actor attempting to get his life, family relations and career together, won the best picture, director, original screenplay and cinematography awards. Birdman has its moments (and Michael Keaton is a thoroughly engaging actor), but eitherBoyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel or Selma would have been a worthier choice.

Eddie Redmayne took the best actor award for The Theory of Everything, the dramatization of cosmologist Stephen Hawking’s life, while Julianne Moore, as expected, won best actress for her role in Still Alice, about an Alzheimer’s victim. Veteran J.K. Simmons and Patricia Arquette received the supporting performer awards, for Whiplash and Boyhood, respectively.

Wes Anderson’s imaginative The Grand Budapest Hotel, which treats events in the fictional Central European Republic of Zubrowka between the world wars, also gained four awards, although in relatively minor categories.Whiplash, about the relationship between a fierce music instructor-conductor and his jazz drummer student, took three awards, including Simmons’.

Academy voters selected Ida, by Pawel Pawlikowski, an intense film about the fate of the Polish Jews under Nazi occupation, as the best foreign language film. (Pawlikowski is developing an interesting body of work, which also includes Last Resort, My Summer of Love and The Woman in the Fifth). Graham Moore received the best adapted screenplay award for The Imitation Game, loosely based on the life and career of mathematician Alan Turing.

There was some significance as well in the fact that Marion Cotillard was nominated for her role in Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Two Days, One Night, about a factory worker determined to save her job. Abderrahmane Sissoko’s Timbuktu and Wim Wenders’ Salt of the Earth also received nominations. Shamefully, Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner, the best film of the year, failed to win any of the three awards for which it was nominated.

The victory of Citizenfour, Laura Poitras’ chilling documentary about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, in the best documentary category, was certainly a high point of the awards program and a slap in the face for the Obama administration and the American establishment. Poitras, who has not traveled to the US in recent years for fear of prosecution, accepted the award alongside journalist Glenn Greenwald and Snowden’s girlfriend Lindsay Mills, as well as editor Mathilde Bonnefoy and producer Dirk Wilutzky.

In her acceptance speech, Poitras said: “The disclosures that Edward Snowden reveals don’t only expose a threat to our privacy but to our democracy itself. When the most important decisions being made affecting all of us are made in secret, we lose our ability to check the powers that control. Thank you to Edward Snowden for his courage and for the many other whistleblowers. And I share this with Glenn Greenwald and other journalists who are exposing truth.”

In response to the award, Snowden released a statement through the American Civil Liberties Union: “When Laura Poitras asked me if she could film our encounters, I was extremely reluctant. I’m grateful that I allowed her to persuade me. The result is a brave and brilliant film that deserves the honor and recognition it has received. My hope is that this award will encourage more people to see the film and be inspired by its message that ordinary citizens, working together, can change the world.”

The award and Poitras’ comments were very warmly received by the audience at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. Following the award, host Neil Patrick Harris attempted to undermine that mood of support by quipping that Snowden “couldn’t be here for some treason .” Greenwald later told BuzzFeed News he thought Harris’ joke was “pretty pitiful … to just casually spew that sort of accusation against someone who’s not even charged with it, let alone convicted of it, I think is, you know, stupid and irresponsible.”

On the whole, Harris, a talented comic actor, was not especially impressive. The opening monologue, which was once the occasion for the host to offersome commentary on current events (as recently as the 2012 ceremony hosted by Billy Crystal), was dropped this year in favor of a bland tribute to motion pictures.

Indicating the organizers are themselves at least partially aware of the gap between the industry’s self-congratulatory attitude and the general, more critical view of its activities, actor Jack Black pretended to interrupt the opening number, mock-angrily denouncing the paean to the movies as “all a big crock.” He went on, “Now it’s market trends and fickle friends and Hollywood baloney. … This industry’s in flux, it’s run by mucky-mucks pitching tents for tentpoles and chasing Chinese bucks. Opening with lots of zeroes, all we get are superheroes: Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, Jedi Man, Sequel Man, Prequel Man, formulaic scripts!”

Harris did joke at one point, “This year the nominated actors will receive gift bags containing $160,000 worth of merchandise, including two vacations, makeup, clothes, shoes and an armored-car ride to safety when the revolution comes.”

The evening as a whole had this somewhat schizophrenic character, with the series of insipid and complacent presentations interrupted occasionally by glimpses of reality. At any event, the absolute prohibition on commentary by award winners, which has been enforced by the Academy (or adhered to by recipients) since Michael Moore’s 2003 acceptance speech in which he indicted George W. Bush as a “fictitious president” and criticized the invasion of Iraq, has been broken through.

Receiving her award, one of the first major ones of the evening, Arquette commented with some feeling, “It’s time for us to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women.” Its limitations notwithstanding, the remarks seemed to burst a certain dam, followed as they were not too much later by the award for Citizenfour and Poitras’ comments.

The performance of Glory, a song from Selma, the film about the civil rights struggle, contributed something as well. The number, presented by its composers, singer-songwriter John Legend (John Roger Stephens) and rapper Common (Lonnie Lynn), as well as paying tribute to the battles of the 1960s, made reference to police violence in Ferguson, Missouri. In his eventual acceptance speech, Legend observed, “We live in the most incarcerated country in the world.”

Graham Moore, in his comments, made oblique reference to Alan Turing’s tragic fate, persecuted by the British authorities for homosexuality and driven to take his own life. Iñárritu, in the closing moments of the ceremony, dedicated his award to “my fellow Mexicans,” and went on, “I pray that we can find and build a government that we deserve, and the ones that live in this country, who are a part of the latest generation of immigrants in this country, I just pray that they can be treated with the same dignity and respect as the ones who came before and built this incredible immigrant nation.”

None of this is earth-shattering, especially when one compares the comments to the severity of the social situation for vast numbers of people, and the various interventions remained within the general framework of identity (gender and racial) politics. But it would be equally mistaken to block one’s ears. The various performers spoke with some sincerity, and they should not simply be identified with the African American, feminist and gay politicians or activists who are in the profession of promoting the selfish interests of one or another section of the well-heeled middle class.

Of course, it occurred to no one in the auditorium Sunday night to address directly the vast mass of the American or global population and the great issues it faces—unemployment, poverty, declining living standards, the lack of decent health care, the destruction of public education and the never-ending military operations. The question of questions, the burning need to organize against the capitalist economic order, which offers nothing but new and far more catastrophic wars, social misery and dictatorship, is not something on the minds of many in the American film industry, or if it is, they remain silent about it.

The official atmosphere remains conventional and patriotic. Clint Eastwood’sAmerican Sniper, a filthy film that lies about the reality of the Iraq war, was treated with thorough-going respect, although, fortunately, it was snubbed in all the categories in which it received nominations, except a minor one.

Right-wing circles are already mouthing off about how Hollywood’s “elite” is “out of touch” with Americans because Eastwood’s film did not win recognition. This is self-serving, reactionary nonsense. The mandate of the Academy voters is to select, to the best of their collective ability, the “best” picture, not the most popular one. None of the top-grossing films, includingAmerican Sniper, received a major award, nor did any deserve one.

Given the current state of affairs in the US, where the population is both widely denied access to education and culture and comes under the immense pressure of a vast media-entertainment marketing machine (and, in the case of American Sniper, a semi-officially sponsored publicity campaign), there is no reason to accept box office success or failure as the last court of judgment. As though broad layers of the population truly had a choice, in any meaningful sense, about which films to see … !

The Academy Awards broadcast brought something else home: how much of a waste of time it is blaming individual performers, directors and even studio executives—despite their undoubted and considerable limitations—for the present generally deplorable state of American filmmaking. For film writers and directors to engage more insightfully with the current state of life, they need to understand far more about the most profound experiences of the 20th century, above all, the fate of the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union and the significance of Trotsky’s struggle against Stalinism. Aconsciously socialist trend has to emerge among filmmakers and performers with its eye on big questions and big lessons of history.

Bound up with that problem, there is the matter of the impossible character of the film-for-profit system and the celebrity culture that accompanies it in the US. One feels at almost every moment during an event such as the Academy Awards the crushing weight of the entertainment and media industry, which strictly polices mediocrity, conformity and triviality with the aim of offending (or enlightening) no one and protecting the interests of giant corporate entities. Not a single soul involved in the ABC broadcast, commentators, presenters, performers, the host himself, was genuinely allowed to act with any independence. To speak about “freedom of expression” under these conditions is to deceive oneself or others.