Pennsylvania: Wealthy pay less in taxes, but receive more money for education

Douglas Lyons

Two recent reports reveal that the wealthy in Pennsylvania pay less in taxes while receiving more in per-pupil education spending compared to working class school districts.

The first report, “Inequitable Tax Code Costs Pennsylvania up to $6.9 billion” by the Keystone Research Center, shows that the wealthy in the state pay a lesser share of their income toward state and local taxation than working class residents.

Pennsylvania falls into the category of the “Terrible Ten,” according to The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, because the overwhelming taxation burden falls on the shoulders of the working class. The top 1 percent of Pennsylvania residents pay a measly 4.2 percent of their income in taxes. The middle fifth pay 10.3 percent, while the lowest income families pay the most: 12 percent.

Pennsylvania has a flat income tax, so a worker making $40,000 yearly is taxed at the same rate—3.07 percent—as someone earning $140,000 a year. In the corporate arena, the tax code has many loopholes enabling businesses and corporations to pay an extremely low tax rate or no taxes at all. Rich families also benefit from this, as they may own stock and accrue dividends, capital gains and profits throughout the year.

The working class is also nailed with excessively high local taxes and sales taxes, which directly impact low-income workers more than the rich, effectively increasing the overall percentage of taxation for the working class.

To add to this burgeoning inequality, the report notes that the wealthiest are becoming richer. The top 1 percent of taxpayers, people who earned an income of about $1.07 million in 2012, obtained 20 percent, or a fifth, of all the state’s income. In the 1970s, however, the same top 1 percent of taxpayers received less than 10 percent of all the state’s income. This extreme shift in money to the richest equates to about $73 billion a year going to the pockets of the top 1 percent of earners. This number is about 47 times the annual cost of paying down pension debt, and it is more than double the Pennsylvania state budget.

Across the US, the same phenomenon is occurring. US income inequality in the first three years of the Obama administration grew four times faster than under the Bush administration. Likewise, 95 percent of income gains went to the richest 1 percent during 2009-2012.

How do Governor Tom Wolf’s new budget and tax proposals address this inequitable distribution of taxes? It wittingly produces more inequality without relieving the tax burden on the working class. As the WSWS has noted, “Tax increases for the working class underwrite much of what is new in the budget.” For wealthy individuals and corporations, the budget proposals will cut taxes.

Another report by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) shows that almost half of all states in the US spend less money per pupil on high poverty school districts compared to more affluent school districts. The report is based on federal data from fiscal year 2012.

Pennsylvania has the largest funding disparity, spending 33 percent less in poorer school districts than in wealthy ones. The report also analyzed the same funding for minority enrollment: Pennsylvania spends about 7 percent less on minority schools than on non-minority schools.

Republican Governor Tom Corbett, in office in 2011-2015, drastically slashed education spending during his tenure. The current governor, Democrat Tom Wolf, declined to comment on the NCES report as his budget does not resolve the inequitable distribution.

The next two states with unequal funding levels, Vermont and Missouri, spend 18 percent and 17 percent less in high poverty school districts, respectively.

Across the US, average spending on poverty-stricken school districts per pupil is 15 percent less than spending in rich school districts, about $9,270 compared to $10,721 per child.

In response to the report, an ongoing court case in Pennsylvania pits the state and Governor Wolf against parents from five school districts, six other school districts, the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools, and the NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference. The plaintiffs in the case are arguing that Wolf and the state legislature have to guarantee the constitutional right of every student to a “thorough and efficient” education.

Michael Churchill, an attorney from the Public Interest Law Center representing the plaintiffs, said: “At this stage, [we want] a declaration that the current system does not meet constitutional standards. We would expect the court to ask the legislature and the executive [Wolf] to submit a plan saying what they would do in response.”

Wolf and his attorneys, however, are in fact trying to speedily obtain a dismissal for the court case, demonstrating once again that Wolf is not a friend of the working class nor an advocate for fair, equitable education for all.

US-backed assault creating humanitarian disaster in Yemen

Niles Williamson

The United Nations warned on Monday that ongoing fighting in Yemen combined with the Saudi-led campaign of airstrikes backed by Washington is taking an “intolerable toll” on children in the deeply impoverished Middle Eastern country.

UNICEF has confirmed that at least 74 children have been killed and another 44 maimed since Saudi-led airstrikes began nearly two weeks ago. The real death toll for children is likely much higher and is expected to rise as airstrikes continue to hit civilian targets in urban areas throughout the country.

“Children are paying an intolerable price for this conflict,” UNICEF Yemen Representative Julien Harneis said in a statement Monday. “They are being killed, maimed and forced to flee their homes, their health threatened and their education interrupted.”

Grant Pritchard, Oxfam’s director in Yemen, cautioned that without a ceasefire there could be “a humanitarian disaster on our hands in the coming weeks and months.” Even before the outbreak of fighting, 16 million Yemenis relied on humanitarian aid and 53 percent of the country’s population, approximately 13 million people, lacked access to clean water.

Airstrikes began on March 26 after Houthi rebels, who had captured the capital city of Sanaa in January, advanced on the compound of President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi in the southern port city of Aden.

Since then, the bombardment, as well as fighting on the ground between the Houthi militia and military elements loyal to Hadi and hostile tribal forces, has resulted in hundreds of casualties.

Hadi was installed as president in 2012 by the Sunni monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council in a bid to quell the mass uprising against the Saleh government. Lacking any real base of support, Hadi fled the country for Saudi Arabia in the face of a Houthi assault on Aden, which has continued despite the widespread campaign of bombardment.

The Saudi regime has charged that Iran is attempting to expand its influence in the region by backing the Houthis. In reality, the Houthi rebellion was sparked in large measure by Saudi Arabia’s own repressive influence over Yemen and its sectarian campaign against the Zaidi Shia Yemenis, who make up one-third of the country’s population and are the majority in the north. While they have received some aid from Iran, they are neither controlled by nor a proxy of Tehran. In the ongoing fighting, they have also enjoyed backing from sections of the military still loyal to Saleh.

In less than two weeks of Saudi-led aerial bombardments and fighting on the ground more than 100,000 people have been displaced from their homes. Many people have fled to rural villages in hopes of avoiding the airstrikes which have pounded urban areas throughout the country, including Sanaa, the Houthi stronghold of Sadaa, the western port city of Hodeida and Aden.

Airstrikes have been launched by forces from a coalition of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt and Sudan. Though they have not been involved directly in the bombing, the campaign has been given support by the governments of Turkey and Pakistan.

This bloody campaign has been facilitated by the US government, which has provided the Saudi-led coalition with intelligence and logistical support. Stepping up its direct involvement, the Pentagon announced this week that it would begin refueling jet fighters taking part in airstrikes.

Army Colonel Steve Warren told reporters in Washington on Monday that the Pentagon had authorized tankers to refuel Saudi and other coalition aircraft outside Yemeni airspace. “It’s been authorized, assets are in place. The Saudis have not requested it. Any refueling will not take place over Yemen. Any refueling will take place over Saudi Arabia or other places,” he stated.

Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on a diplomatic visit to the Saudi capital of Riyadh, told reporters that the Obama administration was expanding its support for the assault by accelerating the delivery of weapons to Saudi Arabia and other countries in the coalition.

“As part of that effort, we have expedited weapons deliveries, we have increased our intelligence sharing, and we have established a joint coordination planning cell in the Saudi operation center,” Blinken told reporters.

The “intelligence sharing” referred to by Blinken involves providing Saudis with intelligence from US surveillance flights over Yemen to determine what targets to strike, making Washington fully complicit in the ongoing slaughter of civilians on the ground.

The US-backed assault, approaching its third week, is severely worsening conditions in a country where food insecurity and malnutrition were already widespread amongst the most vulnerable segments of the population. According to the World Bank, more than half of Yemen’s population lived in poverty in 2012, and 45 percent were food insecure.

Airstrikes as well as fighting on the ground has knocked out electrical infrastructure, cutting off power in many urban areas and stopping the operation of crucial pumps that supply Yemen’s cities with drinking water. “We’re worried that this system will break down shortly; Aden is a dry, hot place, and without water people will really suffer,” UNICEF representative Harneis told reporters.

Aid workers have been unable to access many areas where fighting has taken place; hospitals are overflowing with casualties, while bodies have been left to fester in the streets. Hospitals and aid workers have also come under repeated assault; at least three health workers have been killed in separate attacks.

“Conditions are very dangerous right now,” Doctor Gamila Hibatullah, a UNICEF volunteer stationed in Aden said Monday. “Hospitals are overflowing, and even ambulances have been hijacked.”

Adding to the death toll on Tuesday, Yemeni officials reported that three students were killed in a Saudi airstrike that hit the Al Bastain School in Maitam, 100 miles south of Sanaa. The airstrikes were reportedly intended for the Al Hamza military base, a third of a mile from the school, which has been taken over by members of the Houthi militia. No casualties were reported at the base.

The International Committee of the Red Cross announced Tuesday that it had finally reached an agreement with Saudi Arabia to airlift 16 tons of medical supplies from Amman, Jordan into Sanaa by Wednesday morning, and a further 32 tons of supplies by Thursday afternoon. The no-fly zone and blockade enforced by Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners has effectively blocked the delivery of medical aid and supplies for the last two weeks, exacerbating the developing crisis.

Eight dead in Maryland following utility shutoff

Jerry White

A father and his seven children were found dead in their Princess Anne, Maryland home Monday, the apparent victims of carbon monoxide poisoning from a gas-powered generator used after the local utility company shut off power to the financially struggling family.

A coworker had come to search for 36-year-old Rodney Todd, a utility worker at nearby University of Maryland Eastern Shore, after he failed to show up for work for more than a week. After getting no response at the home, she called the police who entered and discovered the lifeless bodies of Todd and his two sons and five daughters, aged six to 15.

“He was a good person,” Stephanie Wells, who worked with Todd, told the AP. “He took care of seven kids.”

Princess Anne Police Chief Scott Keller told the AP that a gas-powered generator with an empty fuel tank was found in the kitchen attached to wires running throughout the house. He confirmed that there was no electricity in the home and said that officers were looking into when it was shut off.

A spokesman for Delmarva Power would not acknowledge that the company cut off power for unpaid bills, saying only that the matter was under investigation.

Shocked and grieving family and friends gathered Monday afternoon around the one-story wood frame house as the eight bodies were removed. Princess Anne is located 135 miles southeast of the nation’s capital in Washington, DC. The per capita income in the small town of 4,000 residents was $10,944 in 2010, with 40 percent of the population and 54 percent of those under 18 living below the poverty line.

Relatives identified the children as boys Cameron, 13, and Zycheim, 7; and girls Tynijuiza, 15; Tykira, 12; Tybree, 10; Tyania, 9; and Tybria, 6.

Sarah Hardy, a close friend of Todd’s, exclaimed to the AP, “How can a man survive off of basically minimum wage with seven kids, and you can’t help him with a utility bill? This man was working. And Delmarva Power cuts the lights off?”

The AP reporter also spoke with Bonnie and Lloyd Edwards, Todd’s mother and stepfather. Lloyd said, “It’s so hard. How can you understand something like this? He was an outstanding dad. To keep his seven children warm, he bought a generator, and the carbon monoxide consumed them.”

“I feel empty,” Bonnie added mournfully. “I’m used to coming up here and seeing my grandkids running up and down the steps.”

The horrible tragedy is only the latest caused by the cruel policy of electricity, water and other utility shutoffs that targets working-class and poor households throughout the United States. The death toll generally increases in the spring after the expiration of temporary winter delays that many utility companies and state regulators observe largely as a public relations matter.

Maryland law, for example, bars the termination of electric service for nonpayment of bills from November 1 through March 31 without an affidavit filed to the Public Service Commission.

Far from holding the giant utility companies and their executives accountable, federal, state and local authorities, along with the news media, steadfastly defend the financial prerogatives of the utilities and their wealthy investors who profit from the purging of “delinquent customers.”

Indeed, the Baltimore Sun ran an editorial Tuesday, which instead of condemning the inhuman and murderous practice of utility shutoffs, suggested that the dead father was at fault for making the “disastrous choice” of “bringing a generator indoors or positioning it in such a way that the exhaust might seep into the home.” A new law mandating that residents buy carbon monoxide detectors is necessary, the newspaper intoned, to “protect children from such bad choices.”

Such reactionary invocations of “personal responsibility” come amidst growing outrage throughout the country over the denial of the most basic necessities of life.

In Baltimore itself, protests have erupted against plans by the city to shut off 25,000 households from water by mid-April. Paris-based Veolia, one of the largest privately owned water companies in the world, has been contracted to “reduce costs and enhance operational efficiencies” in the water department, a code word for layoffs and higher rates.

In Detroit, America’s poorest city, authorities are planning on sending water shutoff notices to an estimated 28,000 households. Last year, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) shut off service to as many as 900 households a day as part of efforts to squeeze payments from impoverished residents or drive them out of neighborhoods deemed too commercially unviable for investment. The shutoffs were also part of plans to privatize the water system, which has been municipally owned for more than a century.

According to testimony by financial officers at DWSD during the city’s bankruptcy proceedings last summer, the mass water shutoffs were demanded by Wall Street credit agencies Fitch, Moody’s and S&P in order to clear the water department’s “bad debt” and qualify for better terms on the municipal bond market.

While upholding the “rights” of the financial aristocracy,” federal bankruptcy judge Steven Rhodes infamously declared, “There is no fundamental enforceable right to free or affordable water. Just as there is no such affordable right to other necessities of life such as shelter, food and medical care.”

While telling working-class and poor residents that there is no money, let alone any right, to essential services like electricity and water, the Obama administration and both big-business parties are pouring endless amounts of money into the financial markets to further enrich the top one-tenth of one percent of society.

Meanwhile, after decades of falling wages, tens of millions of low-paid workers like Rodney Todd are unable to meet the rising cost of food, housing, health care and other essential services.

The deliberate and criminal policies pursued by both corporate-controlled parties, including the sanctioning of utility shutoffs, have had the effect of shortening the lives of large sections of the population and returning them to the brutish conditions that prevailed in the 19th century America or England.

In that regard it is worth citing Frederick Engel’s 1845 masterwork, The Condition of the Working Class in England. Noting, “we call it murder” when an individual knowingly inflicts a fatal injury on another, the future collaborator of Karl Marx wrote:

“When a society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live—forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence—knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual.”

The deaths of Rodney Todd and his children are the latest case in which the American ruling class has merited the charge of deliberate and knowing “social murder.”

Syriza discusses the need for state repression

Chris Marsden

Demands for police repression of protests by Greece’s alternate minister for public order have elicited a pledge from Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras that the Syriza government will do what is required to maintain “law and order.”

In a front-page article in To Vima last Friday, Yiannis Panousis attributed occupations of universities, Syriza’s headquarters and the grounds of parliament by anarchist groups to the actions of “pure-blooded leftists.”

Denouncing those who believe that a “left government means an unprotected country and city (without personal, social, national security, without an army and without policing and perhaps without judges or prisons),” Panousis wrote, “The hour of the Left in Greece is not the hour of the dead-end ideologies and superficial slogans, but the time of institutional consolidation, political legitimacy and social cohesion.”

Panousis’s statements represent the public floating of a hitherto internal discussion on government policy.

A criminologist and former member of the Democratic Left (a right-wing splinter from Syriza that helped impose austerity measures as part of a coalition government from 2012), his appointment as public order minister was made precisely to reassure the ruling elite in Greece and internationally of the Syriza-led government’s determination to preserve “law and order.”

The decision mirrored Syriza’s alliance with the xenophobic Independent Greeks and the more high-profile appointment of party leader Panos Kammenos as defence minister in charge of the armed forces.

It was Panousis who declared after the January 25 election that “The police will have weapons at protests,” repudiating Syriza’s previous commitment to abolish the riot police.

In recent weeks, he has called for the restoration of the municipal police, abolished by the previous Greek government, suggesting it be renamed the Community Mediation Agency. He addressed the Regional Police Directorate in Peloponnese, telling his fascist-minded audience, “We are trying to explain to everyone the new identity of the Greek police. We are asking for consensus not only in tackling crime, but also in the police’s new social and preventive role.”

“Greece can’t cope with any more migrants,” he stressed.

Panousis’ To Vima article was supported by leading figures such as Education Minister Aristides Baltas and Minister of Justice Nikos Paraskevopoulos, who described Panousis’s views as “self-evident” truths. Tsipras’s office was anxious only to make clear that Panousis was not criticising “the government’s policy nor cabinet ministers, nor the political forces that support [the government],” and that Syriza “remained steadily committed to defending the nation of laws, rights and law and order.”

This open defence of police repression within the highest echelons of Syriza must serve as a grave warning.

Prior to Syriza’s victory in January’s general election, opposition to the austerity agenda dictated by the troika—the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund—led to more than 30 general strikes against governments led by the conservative New Democracy, including the coalition formed in 2012 with the social democrats of PASOK.

Time and again protests were met with brutal repression by a riot police force with extensive links to the fascist Golden Dawn. An official investigation into such links led to the arrest in December 2013 of 50 people, including 10 police officers. This did nothing to halt police violence. Amnesty International issued a report noting a “long-standing culture of impunity, entrenched racism and endemic violence, including the excessive use of force against protesters and ill treatment of migrants and refugees.”

Anti-austerity protests in Athens were repeatedly banned throughout 2013 and 2014, and protesters and journalists badly beaten.

With social tensions at the breaking point, Syriza was built up by the Greek media as a political alternative that supposedly could oppose austerity measures while maintaining Greece’s membership in the European Union and doing nothing to impinge on the rule of Greek capital.

A key role in reinforcing such claims was played by the pseudo-left groups, including the New Anti-capitalist Party in France, Britain’s Socialist Workers Party and the International Socialist Organization in the US. They all hailed Syriza as their new model—proof that the fight against austerity did not require a revolutionary struggle against capitalism in Greece as part of a unified offensive of the European working class for a socialist Europe.

Their endless denunciations of the “sectarian” critics of Syriza were directed first and foremost against the World Socialist Web Site and the International Committee of the Fourth International, which analysed and exposed the bourgeois class character and right-wing politics of Syriza. They all apologised for Syriza’s alliance with the Independent Greeks, declaring it to be a necessary application of “realpolitik.”

Syriza has to date been able to exploit the good will of Greek workers and the ongoing negotiations with Greece’s creditors to strike something of an oppositional pose—even as it pledged to implement the vast bulk of the troika’s austerity measures and repay all loans, raided pension funds, and reinstated the privatisation programme. But that period is coming to an end.

Syriza has a deadline of just two weeks to submit a list of cuts that will satisfy Greece’s creditors. Whether it succeeds and Greece remains within the euro zone, or fails and there is a Greek exit, there will be further savage attacks on millions of working people who are already barely able to survive.

Behind the smokescreen provided its apologists, Syriza is making its preparations for the time when rhetoric will no longer suffice to cover for its imposition of austerity.

In June 2012, Tsipras held talks with the Greek Defence Ministry and army high command to make clear his readiness to defend “the country’s territorial integrity and national independence.” In October 2014, he met with the Defence Ministry to discuss Greece’s geostrategic goals, praising the “selfless stance” of military personnel. Prior to taking power after the January election, he reassured the chief of the general staff of the Greek Army and the leader of the Greek police that there would be no “power vacuum.”

Syriza has already become a byword for duplicity and treachery—acting always as a loyal defender of the Greek bourgeoisie and a political vehicle for a privileged petty-bourgeois layer epitomised by former academics such as Panousis, Paraskevopoulos and Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. Prompted by Panousis, it has now made clear that it will be more than ready to use state violence to crush social opposition from the working class.

Should this happen, Syriza’s defenders on the pseudo-left will have blood on their hands. With many having their own factions within Syriza, they have played a direct role in politically disarming the working class and allowing the ruling class to prepare the repressive apparatus of the state for counterrevolution.

Beyond the Fairy Tales of India

Braj Ranjan Mani

There is little awareness about a more or less institutionalised arrangement of normalising, if not glorifying, the oppressive past from which the privileged continue to derive profit and pleasure.Invented histories, myth-making, and armoury of stereotypes merge to create convenient narratives and myths which masquerade as the history of India. The suppressed stories fester the lies and keep the people away from the oppressive reality.That is why, history and culture should be debrahmanised—reconstructed—by the subjugated majority, with the understanding that ‘the master's tools will not bring down the master's house'.

It is no secret that there are intellectual weapons in the arsenal of the oppressors of the world—in theology, in philosophy, in social sciences. Their function is to conceal systemic violence or injustice in order to maintain the established power and cultural equilibrium. Even fair-minded intellectuals who come from the top of the social pyramid (in which the many are miserable at the bottom) take safety in academic subterfuge. A social psychology made worse by inherited traditions of classicism, cultural conservatism, and obfuscatory religiosity does not allow the pandits to see the obvious. For example, even a cursory familiarity with the ancient brahmanic texts leaves little doubt that the Itihasa–Purana and Dharmashastras were written by the enemies of dalit-bahujans who were stigmatised as shudras and atishudras. The shudra (the debased caste of servants) was so constructed by the historical power of brahmanism.But the scholars who spend a life-time in researching the past remain forever blind to this reality, and the historical truth of upper-caste violence, both social and ideological. Their scholarship somehow never comes to grasp the point that brahmanical forms of knowledge were critical in the establishment and maintenance of caste. The pattern does not change when we move forward to the history of modern India. A benign amnesia shrouds the conservative and anti-dalit-bahujan strands of Indian nationalism, which permits academic and popular projections of the essentially upper-caste leaders such as Gandhi, Nehru and Tilak-Savarkaras non-partisan leaders.

Nothing can be more hypocritical than the claims of academic neutrality and objectivity (with the tantalising premise of not ‘stating' anything) that is often invoked by ‘disinterested' social science. There is a writer behind every writing, and it matters from where one writes, to whom one writes, and with what objective and perspective. As I have argued elsewhere, being neutral in an unjust society is to actively support injustice. The ‘neutral narratives', their plurality and intellectual splendour notwithstanding, provide the mental furniture, even the life-blood, of reproduction of caste–class inequalities (Mani 2014). In India, this problem is particularly pernicious due to the longstanding brahmanic control over knowledge, despite some challenging attempts from below in recent times. That the higher echelons of academia and knowledge-construction have been monopolised by vested interests is a fact—and this fact is the problem.

This applies to the whole intellectual grove that reproduces India's history and culture in the brahmanic mould in a variety of ways. It explains the absence of any fundamental questioning of traditional structures, normalisation of caste and brahmanism, the identification of the privileged-caste culture with Indian culture, institutionalised exaltation of the Mahatma and the Pandit, and new fabrications to legitimise the dominant (‘Indian') ideology. If you are critical of caste and brahmanism, you are Euro-centric and guilty of denigration of the civilisational ethos of India. Any suggestion that caste and race, brahmanism and colonialism are beastly kith and kin is still heresy. Wonderful theories, rich with erudition and documentation—such as caste is a colonial construction: almost a fabrication of the Population Surveys and Census Reports (Roland Inden 1990; Nicholas Dirks 2002); communalism is an ‘Orientalist term', produced as ‘a form of colonialist knowledge' (GyanPandey 1990); secularism constitutes an ‘alien cultural ideology', ‘a gift of Christianity', and ‘there are no fundamentalists or revivalists in traditional society' (T. N. Madan 1987)—are being invented under the banner of postcoloniality of the ‘indigenous' to ‘justify and defend the innocence which confronted modern Western colonialism' (AshisNandy 1983). The ‘innocence' here involves a complete elision of centuries of violence of caste, class, and patriarchy. In other words, the colonial tragedy returning now as the postcolonial farce (to paraphrase Marx) allows the brahmanic elite to mystify the caste–class exploitation and masquerade as the oppressed rather than the oppressors.

One can well imagine how comforting such ‘primal innocence' can be to the custodians of ‘community' and ‘culture' because colonial crimes pale in comparison with the crimes of caste and brahmanism which have victimised, stigmatised and inferiorised the dalit-bahujans (who constitute more than 80 per cent of Indian people) for almost three thousand years. In other words, a deeply devious, neo-brahmanic impression is being created (by the resource-rich academics, many of whom are, ironically, ensconced in the Euro-American universities) that all the problems of contemporary India emanated from the Western colonialism. As Aijaz Ahmad (1992) articulated it memorably, ‘Colonialism is now held responsible not only for its own cruelties but, conveniently enough, for ours too.'

The influence which entrenched interests still exert over all channels of communication—from the elite academia to the mass media—ensures a perpetual ambience of brain-washing. The opinion business, the persuasion industry range from sophisticated academic treaties to the stereotyped crudities of the infotainment industry. Invented histories, myth-making, and armoury of stereotypes merge seamlessly to create convenient narratives and myths which masquerade as history of India.

If any historical discourse is badly in need of deconstruction, an unravelling of its social and ideological roots, it is the established history of caste and brahmanism. Its roots may be traced to entrenched interests who benefited most from the brahmanical social order, but the ideology they projected with cunning and persistence have taken in a surprisingly wide variety of people ranging from the very victims of the caste–class nexus to foreign academics who accept the views projected in brahmanic narratives, both ancient and modern, at their face value. The seduction and insidious nature of the brahmanic indoctrination is truly amazing. Swami Vivekananda, who, like many of his castemen, was humiliated for his ‘shudra' identity, remained convinced—fanatically—about the superiority of the brahmanic religion and classical caste system.  Arnold Toynbee, a British historian, who was certainly not an Orientalist propagandist like Max Müller, ignored social structures and cultural reality, and put on record his sublime belief that Hinduism and the Hindu worldview ‘is at once more natural, more human, and more scientific' than all other religions. One finds the same superlative statements from many famous and not-so-famous figures about the Vedic–brahmanic achievements of India surpassing the West in the fields of naturalism, humanism, and scientific rationalism.

As the myths about India penetrated beyond the borders of India in modern times, the idle and empty cant of brahmanism (that hides now behind the hydra-headed facade of Hinduism or Indian culture) persists in multifarious forms. The obscurantist notions about India—such as Hinduism is 5,000 years old; Vedanta contains the ultimate truth, and has the answer to the most complex challenges of humanity; Hindu culture is inherently tolerant and peaceful, it is more emotionally alert to fellow beings, and cares more for women and family; Hinduism alone is capable of producing an ‘apostle of truth and non-violence' like Gandhi (see Attenborough's Gandhi and the usual hagiographical portrayals in the global Gandhi industry), and, is, thus, the culmination of the cultural evolution of mankind—are taken seriously not only by an army of illiterates but also the august gatherings of academics.

It seems there is an intrinsic connection between the political Hinduism (of the semi-literate, vulgar fanatics who demand that the past, present and future of India be constituted around a notion of Hinduness or Hindutva) and the brahmanic Hinduism of academic study that we find in the writings of highly learned scholars who are in command of the pure epistemology and classical Sanskrit tradition. Where there is any cognizance of caste, class and patriarchal oppressions, they are finely wrapped in explanations produced by masters in the art of explaining away.Even those who accept the injustices of caste and brahmanism in the past, hasten to add the pointlessness of raking them up,as if those things and their consequences have become history. There is little awareness about a more or less institutionalised arrangement of normalising, if not glorifying, the oppressive past from which the privileged continue to derive profit and pleasure.

The suppressed story mothers the lies. That is why the stories of Ekalavya, Shambuka, and Sita should not be forgotten. (Symbolic characters like them are few in the epics, but there must have been millions in the real life. Above all, their descendants have barely risen above the struggle for survival and they constitute a significant part of India's billion-plus population.) That is why the distorted history should be countered wherever one encounters it.Above all, history and culture should be reconstructed by the dispossessed, with the understanding that ‘the master's tools will not bring down the master's house'.

The child who reads in her history book of Dronacharya's brilliance as a teacher and Kautilya's wonderful statecraft should also be told that those men were crooks by any definition. The representation of Hindu dharma as a uniquely indigenous way of dispensing ‘righteousness', ‘justice' and ‘equality of all' should not conceal the fact of its exclusionary norms of caste and patriarchy that glorified the suppression of dalit-bahujans and women. Hagiographical accounts of Gandhi's life should not omit his support for caste and brahmanism, and his charming suggestion that ‘a shudra who serves the higher castes as a matter of religious duty and who will never own any property is worthy of the world's homage. . . .The gods will shower their choicest blessings on him' (Gandhi [1934] 1993).

Our history is replete with spectacular frauds of ‘the good and the great'. Perhaps it would do the resilient ‘Indian psyche' no damage if the false gods are a little mocked, if the great foundation of lies and ignorance on which our civilisation rests are a little unsettled, if the continuing glorification of Veda-Upanishad is at least a little counterbalanced by some knowledge of how brahmanism was constituted and institutionalised, and how there has been a long contestation against it from the days of the Buddha to the present. The dominant narrative of a spiritual culture, communicated for centuries through brahmanic discourse, has apparently succeeded in its effort to brush under the carpet the red tooth and claws of brahmanism. But hiding the hideousness of caste and brahmanism serves only the hideous purpose: the subject needs to be opened, debated and discussed. Not just because they are responsible for so many of continuing inequalities, divisions and brutalities, but mainly to inoculate, unite and emancipate the oppressed because that past is not yet past.

Countering The Lies Of The Mainstream Media

Colin Todhunter

The site you are reading this article on is part of the ‘alternative' or ‘independent' media. Many of these sites do not take advertising and are run on the basis of donations from readers. Many of the authors whose articles appear on these sites write for no or little financial remuneration. 

Contrast this situation with the so-called ‘mainstream' print and TV media.

The corporate mainstream media with its well-paid journalists and increasing concentration of ownership bows to the concerns of advertisers. It tends to be privately owned and its owners have a vested interest in maintaining an economic system based on private ownership and in manufacturing consent for it. Moreover, such outlets these days are increasingly part of major conglomerates, which may include armaments manufacturers, banking or industrial concerns, and will not therefore adopt stances or report on stories that are harmful to the interests of the wider organisation. 

The public is thus given access to a world view that is distorted in favour of state-corporate interests. Such interests have succeeded in getting across the message that, for example, the ‘free market' is the best way to deliver goods and services to people, state provided welfare is bad and ‘individual responsibility' is good, ‘austerity' is necessary, privatisation increases efficiency, an endless ‘war on terror' must be waged on designated enemies, well-being is measured in terms of a never-ending quest for GDP growth, the US and NATO are the 'world's policemen', giant agribusiness must displace peasant farmers to secure food security and gross inequalities and unregulated corporate power are both necessary and legitimate.

Over the past 15 years, numerous 'alternative' news websites have sprung up that challenge these assumptions and the belief that ordinary citizens should be passive consumers of a predetermined news agenda. There are now dozens of popular news sites that inform people of issues the mainstream media has deliberately failed to tell people the truth about. There are also many more sites with global reach that exist to scrutinise specific sectors, hold practices to account and counter corporate propaganda (for example, GMWatch, Corporate Europe Observatory, Food & Water Watch, Campaign Against the Arms Trade, etc.).

The existence of ‘alternative' independent sites has led the European Union to express concerns about the ‘damaging' effects of people having access to these sources of information. The EU argues that societal consensus is being eroded as people are being ‘led astray' by dissenting voices on the internet. In the report ‘A free and pluralistic media to sustain European democracy', the EU feels there is a danger that people are being misguidedly radicalised. It advocates EU funding for ‘responsible' journalism, getting the EU's viewpoint across regularly and prominently in the media and placing controls on the net. The EU perceives this to be ‘pluralism'. 

What is ‘responsible journalism'?

An article by Annie Day indicates that as a result of its destabilisations, coups, mass bombings and death squads, the US military and the CIA have been responsible for a figure of an estimated ten million deaths since 1945. Yet the corporate media never describes any of this as constituting a form of mass terror. Through the cynical hijacking of the concept of ‘terror', the US now attempts to justify its ongoing tyranny through a ‘war on terror', which goes unquestioned on a daily basis by the mainstream media.

Ukraine is the latest example of a US-backed terror campaign, which the corporate media has consistently failed to question. As the world edges ever closer to nuclear war, the mainstream media merely parrots the official lie coming from Washington that the situation is all due to ‘Russian aggression'.

You can also add to that ten million, countless others whose lives have been sacrificed on the altar of corporate profit, which did not rely on the military to bomb peoples and countries into submission but on the IMF, World Bank and WTO. It begs the question how many lives have been cut short across the world because of the inherent structural violence or silent killing of the everyday functioning of predatory capitalism? 

The appropriation of wealth through a system that funnels it from bottom to top via a process of accumulation by dispossession is celebrated by the corporate media as growth, prosperity, and freedom of choice, despite evidence that, from Greece to Spain and beyond, the reality for the majority has been falling wages, increasing poverty, the stripping away of choice and misery. 

So where is the ‘responsible journalism' that the EU calls for?

Does it lie with those journalists in the corporate media whose claim to respectability is their rigid professionalism, their accountability, their objectivity?

If you can call professionalism, accountability and objectivity being in the pay of and not wishing to offend advertising interests, officialdom and powerful corporate interests then they are paragons of absolute responsibility.

Peddling their high salaried deceptions, they have failed and continue to fail the public and genuinely hold power to account. By shining their ‘investigative' light on ‘parliamentary procedures', personalities, the rubber stamping of policies and the inane machinations of party politics, they merely serve to maintain and perpetuate the status quo and keep the public in the dark as to the unaccountable self-serving nature of power broking and the unity ofinterests that enable Big Oil, Big Finance, Big Pharma, Big Agra and the rest of them via their secretive think tanks and policy initiatives to keep bleeding us all dry. 

But that's the role of the media: to help reinforce and reproduce the material conditions of a divisive social system on a daily basis. It's called having a compliant, toothless media. It's what the corporate media itself calls part of ‘liberal democracy'. And in this type of 'liberal democracy', it is people like Edward Snowden or Julian Assange who expose the wrongdoings of the political-corporate elites that are hounded. 

It was George Orwell who said that journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed and everything else is public relations. Orwell was correct. Former CIA boss General Petraeus stated in 2006 that his strategy was to wage a war of perceptions conducted continuously through the news media, while John Pilger observes that the role of respectable journalism in western state crimes - from Iraq to Iran, Afghanistan to Libya - remains taboo. Its role has been to serve as first-choice cheerleader for illegal wars.

Intelligence agencies secure media compliance

There are of course some good journalists working in the corporate mainstream media. But if you think this article mounts to little more than a one-sided attack on the ‘mainstream' media, you may need to think again.

Many readers will be aware of a recent story about the former editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany's largest newspapers, who claimed that he accepted news stories written and given to him by the CIA and published them under his own name. 

This revelation came as a shock to many. But it should not have because  in the UK, for example, the British intelligence agencies along with the CIA has for decades strived to ensure that the mainstream press and TV complied with the interests of the Establishment. In addition to making sure that the British left was subverted, infiltrated and made toothless, the mainstream media was molded by the intelligence agencies to parrot the Establishment's viewpoints and aims.

How this was achieved is described in the article ‘The Psyops War: British Intelligence and the Covert Propaganda Front and the CIA's Interference in British Politics.'  

The article reveals the tight-knit relationship between senior journalists and MI5:

 MI5 targeted labour correspondents in both newspapers and broadcasting right up to the 80s; they were recruited in droves for their contacts with a wide range of trade union officials and with each other. According to Peter Wright, MI5 always had about twenty senior journalists working for it in the national press. “They were not employed directly by us, but we regarded them as agents because they were happy to be associated with us.”

As the national public service broadcaster funded by the state, special attention was paid to the BBC:

 At the BBC, Brigadier Ronald Stonham liaised with MI5 and Special Branch and advised the corporation on whether or not to employ people. Names of applicants for editorial posts in the BBC were similarly ‘vetted' by MI5.

From the article, it becomes clear were the elite thinks journalism's loyalty should ultimately lie:

 “There should be times when the journalist, when he's examined all the facts and tested all his sources, should come down on the side of the government of the day, the established order and the Establishment as a whole.” - Chairman of the Radio Authority 

And the working class in particular should certainly know its place (Toxteth is an urban district and is used here to signify the social unrest that gripped a number of British cities in the early eighties):

 “We are in a period of considerable social change. There may be social unrest, but we can cope with the Toxteths… but if we have a highly-educated and idle population, we may possibly anticipate more serious conflict. People must be educated to once more know their place.” – from a secret Department of Education Report.

The article makes clear who the British Establishment regards as the ‘enemy within' and what it perceives the role of the much-heralded ‘free press' (much heralded by people belonging to this ‘free press') to be.

With massive decreases in readership, however, the print media seems to be in terminal decline. The Establishment's grip on the control of information has been in danger of slipping as the internet has become a major vehicle for the dissemination of information.

The state-corporate-financial elite has presided over a bought and paid for mainstream media for some time. Now it is engaged in an ongoing strategy of global mass surveillance and a clamp down on internet freedom. The goal is to eventually have a fully controlled internet that mirrors the shackled ‘free press' that the Establishment has for so long cherished. 

Saving Passengers Of The Good Ship 'Titan… Earth'

Robert J. Burrowes

On 15 April 1912, the 'Titanic', the largest ship afloat at the time it entered service, sank in the North Atlantic Ocean after hitting an iceberg on its maiden voyage. The large and unnecessary death toll – more than 1,500 passengers and crew – was the result of many factors. 

Understanding the psychology that underpins these factors teaches us why so many people died in the 'Titanic' disaster. This, in turn, gives us insight into how we might be able to improve our chances of averting the sinking of the Good Ship 'Earth' and losing most of its passengers in the years now immediately ahead. 

Two key factors in the sinking of the 'Titanic' were the ship's design, including the limited number of watertight compartments in the hull, and the ship's speed at the time of the incident despite the risk of hitting an iceberg (which could only be detected visually, rather than technologically, in 1912). 

Separately from this, other factors in the huge death toll were the inadequate number of lifeboats and the failures in telegraph communications – see 'The ITU and the Internet's "Titanic" Moment'http://journals.law.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/stanford-technology-law-review-stlr/online/ryan-theituandtheinternetstitanicmoment.pdf – which meant that the 'Californian', just five to ten miles away, did not respond to the distress signals, although the 'Carpathia' travelled considerably further to arrive less than two hours after the 'Titanic' foundered, thus saving over 700 lives. 

Moreover, the decisions to prioritise the access of wealthy passengers to the lifeboats (by locking many 'lower deck' passengers below), the decisions to launch many lifeboats before they were full, and the decisions by virtually all lifeboat occupants to not row the lifeboats the short distance back to rescue passengers stranded in the water after the ship had sunk also significantly contributed to the unnecessarily high death toll. 

So what can we learn from the sinking of the 'Titanic' and its huge death toll that can help us to avert sinking the Good Ship 'Earth' and killing off most, if not all, humans and many other species besides? Let me consider each item above in turn. 

From a design perspective, the Earth is without peer in the known Universe if life support is the primary consideration. The Earth took more than four billion years to evolve into the state it had reached by 1790. It was perfectly functional as a life-support system for billions of species interacting in a phenomenal web of life that nurtured not only species but each individual as well. 

But then the industrial revolution, fuelled by coal, oil and gas, starting adversely impacting on that life-support system, although it wasn't until the twentieth century that scientists worked this out. Fortunately, we know now – see 'Game Over for the Climate' http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/opinion/game-over-for-the-climate.html – and there is still a little time left to take the profound action necessary to halt and, in some key ways, reverse the design alterations to the Earth that we have been making for the past 200 years. But will we act? 

Many people won't act, particularly those people whose fear works in the same way as most of those involved in the 'Titanic' disaster. 'Fear?' you say. Yes, fear. Or, more accurately, unconscious terror. 

Why weren't there more watertight compartments in the hull of the 'Titanic'? Fear (of the cost). Why weren't there more lifeboats? Fear (again, of the cost). Many business decisions are based on fear although businesspeople have developed a substantial language to obscure this fact (mainly from themselves): emphasising the importance of 'maximising short-term shareholder profits' (at the expense of socially or environmentally desirable outcomes) is an obvious example. 

Why was the 'Titanic' travelling at high speed? Fear. In the conditions, the speed was clearly foolish but the owner couldn't feel this because it was overshadowed by his focus on 'showing off' the ship's speed and the ship's captain was too frightened to refuse the owner's request for greater speed even though he was well aware of the danger of hitting an iceberg. 

What caused the failure in telegraph communications? Fear (of losing their jobs). The Telefunken-employed radio operators on the 'Californian', which was just a few miles away, were not allowed to communicate with the Marconi-employed radio operators on the 'Titanic'. 

Why did officers prioritise the access of wealthy passengers to the lifeboats (by locking many 'lower deck' passengers below deck)? Fear (of disobeying orders and overloading lifeboats). 

Why were many lifeboats launched before they were full? Fear (on the part of passengers already in lifeboats who wanted to get away from the sinking ship quickly). 

Why did virtually all lifeboat occupants not row back the short distance necessary to rescue passengers stranded in the water after the ship had sunk? Fear (of being swamped and ending in the water themselves, although this could be easily avoided). 

Of course, most of the time when people seek to explain dysfunctional human behaviour, they come up with an explanation that is more palatable. But when I observe dysfunctional human behaviour, I always see the fear, irrespective of other superficial justifications that are offered. 

And that is what I see when I observe elite and most other responses to our current epidemic of violence whether in the form of war, exploitation of countries in the global 'South', environmental destruction, domestic violence or otherwise. I see their (unconscious) fear lead them away from insightful analyses and visionary solutions because they are compelled by their fear to live in delusion (which requires no action). See 'Why Violence?'http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence and 'Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice' http://anitamckone.wordpress.com/articles-2/fearless-and-fearful-psychology/ 

So if you are like those people on the one lifeboat on the 'Titanic' who returned to rescue passengers after the ship had submerged and you reckon your fear hasn't gotten the better of you, then I invite you to consider participating in the fifteen-year strategy outlined in 'The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth' http://tinyurl.com/flametree and to consider joining those people in 81 countries who have signed the online pledge of 'The People's Charter to Create a Nonviolent World' http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com 

There is still just enough time to save most of the passengers on the Good Ship 'Earth' but we must be courageous and resolute. If we let the cowardice and delusion of elites and their agents guide us, we will join the dead passengers of the 'Titanic'. 

Eurasian Emporium or Nuclear War?

Pepe Escobar

A high-level European diplomatic source has confirmed to Asia Times that German chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has vigorously approached Beijing in an effort to disrupt its multi-front strategic partnership with Russia.

Beijing won’t necessarily listen to this political gesture from Berlin, as China is tuning the strings on its pan-Eurasian New Silk Road project, which implies close trade/commerce/business ties with both Germany and Russia.

The German gambit reveals yet more pressure by hawkish sectors of the U.S. government who are intent on targeting and encircling Russia. For all the talk about Merkel’s outrage over the U.S. National Security Agency’s tapping shenanigans, the chancellor walks Washington’s walk.  Real “outrage” means nothing unless she unilaterally ends sanctions on Russia. In the absence of such a response by Merkel, we’re in the realm of good guy-bad guy negotiating tactics.

The bottom line is that Washington cannot possibly tolerate a close Germany-Russia trade/political relationship, as it directly threatens its hegemony in the Empire of Chaos.

Thus, the whole Ukraine tragedy has absolutely nothing to do with human rights or the sanctity of borders. NATO ripped Kosovo away from Yugoslavia-Serbia without even bothering to hold a vote, such as the one that took place in Crimea.

Watch those S-500s

In parallel, another fascinating gambit is developing. Some sectors of U.S. Think Tankland – with their cozy CIA ties – are now hedging their bets about Cold War 2.0, out of fear that they have misjudged what really happens on the geopolitical chessboard.

I’ve just returned from Moscow, and there’s a feeling the Federal Security Bureau and Russian military intelligence are increasingly fed up with the endless stream of Washington/NATO provocations – from the Baltics to Central Asia, from Poland to Romania, from Azerbaijan to Turkey.

This is an extensive but still only partial summary of what’s seen all across Russia as an existential threat: Washington/NATO’s intent to block Russia’s Eurasian trade and development; destroy its defense perimeter; and entice it into a shooting war.

A shooting war is not exactly a brilliant idea. Russia’s S-500 anti-missile missiles and anti-aircraft missiles can intercept any existing ICBM, cruise missile or aircraft. S-500s travel at 15,480 miles an hour; reach an altitude of 115 miles; travel horizontally 2,174 miles; and can intercept up to ten incoming missiles. They simply cannot be stopped by any American anti-missile system.

Some on the U.S. side say  the  S-500 system is being rolled out in a crash program, as an American intel source told Asia Times. There’s been no Russian confirmation. Officially, Moscow says the system is slated to be rolled out in 2017. End result, now or later: it will seal Russian airspace. It’s easy to draw the necessary conclusions.

That makes the Obama administration’s “policy” of promoting war hysteria, coupled with unleashing a sanction, ruble and oil war against Russia, the work of a bunch of sub-zoology specimens.

Some adults in the EU have already seen the writing on the (nuclear) wall. NATO’s conventional defenses are a joke. Any military buildup – as it’s happening now – is also a joke, as it could be demolished by the 5,000 tactical nuclear weapons Moscow would be able to use.

When in doubt, bully

Of course it takes time to turn the current Cold War 2.0 mindset around, but there are indications the Masters of the Universe are listening – as this essay shows. Call it the first (public) break in the ice.

Let’s assume Russia decided to mobilize five million troops, and switch to military production. The “West” would back down to an entente cordiale in a flash. And let’s assume Moscow decided to confiscate what remains of dodgy oligarch wealth. Vladimir Putin’s approval rate – which is not exactly shabby as it stands – would soar to at least 98%. Putin has been quite restrained so far. And still his childishly hysterical demonization persists.

It’s a non-stop escalation scenario. Color revolutions. The Maidan coup. Sanctions; “evil” Hitler/Putin; Ukraine to enter NATO; NATO bases all over. And yet reality – as in the Crimean counter coup, and the battlefield victories by the armies of the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk – has derailed the most elaborate U.S. State Department/NATO plans. On top of it Merkel and France’s Francois Hollande were forced into an entente cordiale with Russia – on Minsk 2 – because they knew that would be the only way to stop Washington from further weaponizing Kiev.

Putin is essentially committed to a very complex preservation/flowering process of Russia’s history and culture, with overtones of pan-Slavism and Eurasianism. Comparing him to Hitler does not even qualify as a kindergarten prank.

Yet don’t expect Washington neo-cons to understand Russian history or culture. Most of them would not even survive a Q&A on their beloved heroes Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt. Moreover, their anti-intellectualism and exceptionalist arrogance creates only a privileged space for undiluted bullying.

A U.S. academic, one of my sources, sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi copied to a notorious neo-con, the husband of Victoria, the Queen of Nulandistan. Here’s the neo-con’s response, via his Brookings Institution email: “Why don’t you go (expletive deleted)  yourself?” Yet another graphic case of husband and wife deserving each other.

At least there seem to be sound IQs in the Beltway driven to combat the neo-con cell inside the State Department, the neo-con infested editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, an array of think tanks, and of course NATO, whose current military leader, Gen. Breedlove/Breedhate, is working hard on his post-mod impersonation of Dr. Strangelove.

Russian “aggression” is a myth. Moscow’s strategy, so far, has been pure self-defense. Moscow in a flash will strongly advance a strategic cooperation with the West if the West understands Russia’s security interests. If those are violated – as in provoking the bear – the bear will respond. A minimum understanding of history reveals that the bear knows one or two things about enduring suffering. It simply won’t collapse – or melt away.

Meanwhile, another myth has also been debunked: That sanctions would badly hurt Russia’s exports and trade surpluses. Of course there was hurt, but bearable. Russia enjoys a wealth of raw materials and massive internal production capability – enough to meet the bulk of internal demand.

So we’re back to the EU, Russia and China, and everyone in between, all joining the greatest trade emporium in history across the whole of Eurasia. That’s what Putin proposed in Germany a few years ago, and that’s what the Chinese are already doing. And what do the neo-cons propose? A nuclear war on European soil.