Who Is My Neighbour?

John Scales Avery

Are we losing the human solidarity that will be needed if our global society is to solve the pressing problems that are facing us today? Among the symptoms of loss of solidarity is the drift towards violence, racism and aggressive foreign policy that can be seen in the United States. Another warning symptom is the inhospitable reception that refugees have received in Europe and elsewhere.

Tribalism

Human emotional nature evolved over the long prehistory of our species, when our remote ancestors lived small tribes, competing for territory on the grasslands of Africa. Since marriage within a tribe was much more frequent than marriage outside it, each tribe was genetically homogeneous, and the tribe itself, rather than the individual, acted as the unit upon which the forces of natural selection acted. Those tribes that exhibited internal solidarity, combined with aggression towards competing tribes, survived best. Over a long period of time, tribalism became a hard-wired part of human nature. We can see tribalism today in the emotions involved in football matches, in nationalism, and in war.

The birth of ethics

When humans began to live in larger and more cosmopolitan groups, it was necessary to overwrite some elements of raw human emotional nature. Tribalism became especially inappropriate, unless the scope of the perceived tribe could be extended to include everyone in the enlarged societies. Thus ethical principles were born. It is not just a coincidence that the greatest ethical teachers of history lived at a time when the size of cooperating human societies was being enlarged.

All of the major religions of humanity contain some form of the Golden Rule. Christianity contains an especially clear statement of this central ethical principle: According to the Gospel of Luke, after being told that he must love his neighbour as much as he loves himself, a man asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?”. Jesus then replies with the Parable of the Good Samaritan, in which we are told that our neighbour need not be a member of our own tribe, but can live far away and can belong to a completely different nation or ethnic group. Nevertheless, that person is still our neighbor, and deserves our love and care.

The central ethical principle which is stated so clearly in the Parable of the Good Samaritan is exactly what we need today to avoid disaster. We must enlarge our loyalties to include the whole of humanity. We must develop a global ethic of comprehensive human solidarity, or else perish from a combination of advanced technology combined with primitive tribalism. Space-age science is exceedingly dangerous when it is combined with stone-age politics.

The need for global solidarity comes from the instantaneous worldwide communication and economic interdependence that has resulted from advanced science and technology. But advanced technology, our almost miraculous ability to communicate through the Internet, Skype and smartphones, could weld the world into a single peaceful and cooperative unit. But we must learn to use global communication as a tool for developing worldwide human solidarity.

Each week, all over the world, congregations assemble and are addressed by their leaders on ethical issues. But all too often there is no mention of the astonishing and shameful contradiction between the institution of war (especially the doctrine of “massive retaliation”), and the principle of universal human brotherhood, loving and forgiving one’s enemies, and returning good for evil.

At a moment of history, when the continued survival of civilization is in doubt because of the incompatibility of war with the existence of thermonuclear weapons, our religious leaders ought to use their enormous influence to help to solve the problem of war, which is after all an ethical problem.

New Arctic Battlelines Drawn As Industry Exploits Fragile Seas

Lauren McCauley

Rapidly melting Arctic ice has opened up enormous swaths of this pristine and ecologically significant landscape to dangerous industrial threats. And as officials meet this week to hammer out new rules that could potentially protect the region, environmental groups are warning that the area known as the "Arctic Galapagos" is already in grave danger.

Scientists have reported that the Arctic is currently warming at nearly double the global average rate, which is one of the key factors driving an unprecedented level of ice sheet loss. In a troubling development, this January saw a record low for sea ice extent.

These newly-open waters have seen a surge in industrial activity, including fishing and shipping, which heretofore have been left largely unregulated, according to green groups.

Greenpeace on Wednesday released an investigation (pdf) which found that industrial fishing fleets are increasingly moving into Arctic waters, particularly the previously ice-covered Barents Sea, off of Norway.

"Sea ice loss in the northern Barents Sea is turning it into a new hunting ground for industrial fishing," Greenpeace states. "Fishing brings with it the threats of habitat degradation and bycatch, potentially wiping out marine life and putting this whole fragile ecosystem at risk."

The northern Barents Sea, known as the "Arctic Galapagos," is home to "a huge diversity of marine life including bowhead whales, walruses and polar bears, along with rare fish and invertebrates," the report states. It is also currently holds the largest cod stock in the world, which international fishing companies are rushing to exploit.

At the same time, environmentalists are raising concern about the uptick in shipping traffic moving through newly-open Arctic channels. Such traffic, warns John Kaltenstein, a marine policy analyst with Friends of the Earth (FOE), invites "the use of heavy fuel oil, harmful air emissions, and invasive species risk."

Less than 1.5 percent of the entire Arctic Ocean has any form of protected status. And while the International Maritime Organization's recently adopted Polar Code aims to establish a standard of safety for ships operating in Arctic waters, Kaltenstein notes that the actual text—expected to enter into force January 1, 2017—"does little to deal with the most urgent and far-reaching problems we face from Arctic shipping."

"Unfortunately, the shipping industry still behaves as if it were in the 1960s or 1970s, and the sad fact is that many countries both domestically and within international venues, such as the U.N.’s International Maritime Organization, coddle it," he states.

"It only takes one big spill to change everything," he continues, "remember Exxon Valdez. Incredibly, environmental policy surrounding Arctic shipping has become the equivalent of 'fingers crossed,' when it comes to grave threats such as heavy fuel oil spills, climate-warming emissions, and invasive species."

The warnings come as delegates from 15 European countries along with the European Union, known as the OSPAR commission, are meeting in Gothenburg, Sweden this week to discuss the formation of an Arctic Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the international waters north of Greenland.

Greenpeace describes the meeting, and the potential agreement, as a "make or break moment for Arctic protection."

"It is crucial that these areas are protected from destructive industrial activities, as they could be devastating for the species dependent on this area for survival," states the group, which notes that the region under consideration for protection "could be a potential habitat for ice dependent species in the future as the ice melts in other places."

Ironically, Greenpeace notes that as international waters, the Arctic is part of the "global commons, belonging to all mankind." However, "there is no protection at all."

Ontario report: Inequality at levels “not seen since the Great Depression”

Dylan Lubao

A report published by the union-backed Ontario Common Front paints a harrowing portrait of the social devastation inflicted on the province’s working class and poor over the course of a single generation. Titled “Falling Behind”, the report documents the impact of years of right-wing government policies that have laid waste to the jobs and living standards of working Ontarians, producing levels of social inequality not seen since the Great Depression.

The report places responsibility for this social disaster on provincial governments both past and present, which have implemented anti-worker policies in the service of big business. Figures included in the report demonstrate that tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy and years of social spending cuts have crippled public services such as health care and education. The resulting crises, such as overcrowded hospitals, sky-high post-secondary tuition fees, the shuttering of community service organizations, and the slashing of social assistance funds, are then blamed on government “waste” and “inefficiency” and used to justify privatization and still greater cuts.

Although the report points to the depth of the social crisis facing millions of Ontario workers, it omits the central role played by the unions and the New Democratic Party (NDP) in facilitating this situation, and thus only tells half the story.

Among some of the starkest findings in the report are the following:

* At 12 percent of its workforce, Ontario has the highest proportion of minimum wage workers (C$11.25 per hour) in the country.

* In 2009, 13.1 percent of Ontarians, or 1,689,000 people, lived under the poverty line, including 14.6 percent of all children.

* Between 1976 and 2004, the bottom 40 percent—600,000 Ontario families—experienced stagnating or declining incomes, while the wealthiest 10 percent saw their incomes rise by an average 41 percent.

* Public spending per capita in Ontario is the lowest in the country, at C$9,000 per person.

* Almost 400,000 Ontarians used food banks in 2011.

* Almost one quarter of unemployed Ontarians are out of work for six months or longer.

* Child care costs and university tuition fees in Ontario are the highest in the country.

The gap between the wealthiest and the poorest in Ontario is now at its greatest since the 1930s. The ruling class of Ontario, like its counterparts at the national and international level, has accomplished this by effecting a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top, using the 2008 financial crisis as a pretext to accelerate its austerity drive.

Between 1976 and 2004, the chasm between the rich and poor grew ever wider. In 1976, the wealthiest 10 percent of Ontarians earned “just” 27 times more than the poorest 10 percent. By 2004, this had exploded to 75 times more. In the span of one generation, the top 10 percent have experienced a 41 percent increase in net wealth, but the poorest 10 percent have suffered a staggering 150 percent decline.

With almost one third of Ontarians earning within C$4 of the miserable C$11.25-per-hour minimum wage and the price of necessities such as housing, food, and utilities steadily rising, workers and their families increasingly find it difficult to meet basic expenses.

The relentless drive of the banks and corporations to increase profits, in addition to the anemic nature of the so-called economic recovery, has led to the shedding of 318,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000. At least 270,000 new jobs would be required to merely return Ontario’s employment numbers to their pre-recession levels. Instead, corporations have done the opposite, with major layoffs taking place on a monthly basis.

Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government and its Conservative and NDP predecessors have delivered decades of austerity.

In 2012, the Liberals, led by then-premier Dalton McGuinty, initiated the greatest spending cuts in the province’s history, dwarfing those made by the hated Harris Conservatives in the late 1990s. When the Liberals took office in 2003, they essentially maintained the massive tax cuts for the rich and super-rich, as well as the savage cuts to welfare rates, which had been implemented by their Conservative predecessors.

As a result of these cuts to public services, which include a three-year public spending freeze that began last year and C$7 billion in cuts over the past five years, the social services on which millions of Ontario workers depend have been gutted to the point of near-collapse.

Ontario’s hospitals are the most underfunded in the country, and Ontarians pay more for health care expenses than residents of any other province. More than 30,000 Ontarians at any given moment are waiting for a hospital bed or long-term care, and hospitals regularly operate at or above full capacity.

Social and community services have been hollowed out as a result of drastic budget cuts. Wages within this sector have fallen precipitously as a result of these cuts, to the point that many workers in this sector are forced to use the same services and resources they administer.

“Falling Behind” repudiates the incessant gloating of government and big business representatives about the merits of the “free market” in creating a “just and equitable society.” The real picture that emerges is that of debilitating poverty and hardship for the vast majority of Ontario’s workers, and a feeding frenzy of unprecedented proportions for the wealthy.

At the same time, the Ontario Common Front, which is comprised of 90 community organizations and led by the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL), maintains an indefensible silence about the role played by the trade unions and the NDP in facilitating this crisis. If “Falling Behind” is a list of crimes perpetrated against the province’s workers and poor, then it is also an implicit indictment of the treachery of the union bureaucracy and the middle class “left.”

The Ontario Common Front was created by the trade union bureaucracy in the wake of the 2011 Occupy protests as a way to corral oppositional and anti-austerity sentiment back behind the pro-capitalist perspective of the union bureaucracy. The participating community groups were solicited so as to give a left-wing gloss to the unions’ thoroughly right-wing nationalist politics.

The unions, while historically tied to the social-democratic NDP, have in one shape or another supported the Liberals’ bids for power since 1998, when many major unions created the Ontario’s Working Families Coalition to muster votes for the Liberals. Driven by fear of the explosive social power of the working class, which threatened to escape their control during the mass anti-Conservative protests between 1995 and 1997, the unions shifted further to the right, playing a critical role in bringing the big business Liberals to power in Queen’s Park.

The stock-in-trade of the union bureaucracy is the promotion of “strategic voting,” urging support for the “lesser evil” Liberals to prevent a hard-right Conservative government. Once in power, the Liberals invariably implement right-wing policies as demanded by the corporations and financial houses that line Bay Street.

Similarly, the NDP and its pseudo-left supporters, while posing as opponents of austerity and allies of the working class, represent the interests of a thin and affluent middle class layer. Dependent on the capitalist system for their privileged social status and hostile to socialism and the interests of the working class, they have rapidly shed their left-wing pretensions in response to the economic crisis and the resurgence of working class opposition to capitalism.

For 18 months between 2012 and 2014, Andrea Horwath’s NDP was in a de facto coalition with the Liberals, enabling the passage of McGuinty’s devastating austerity budget and its use of strikebreaking legislation to impose a cut in teachers’ real wages. Over the opposition of the unions, Horwath only pulled her party’s support in May 2014 in an attempt to salvage what was left of the NDP’s tattered left credentials. This, however, did not prevent the NDP from running its most right-wing campaign ever in the ensuing election.

An exposure of the sordid machinations of the unions and the NDP would completely undermine the Ontario Common Front’s legitimacy, existing as it does as a tool of the union bureaucracy.

Mine disaster in Russia kills 36

David Levine

A series of explosions at the Severnaya coal mine in Vorkuta, Russia, which is about 1800 km northeast of Saint Petersburg and slightly north of the Arctic Circle, caused the deaths of 36 people on February 25 and 28. This included 31 mineworkers and 5 rescue workers, all men between the ages of twenty-four and fifty-five. A three-day official mourning period in Russia’s Komi Republic began Sunday.

A sudden methane discharge and two explosions occurred at the mine on February 25, causing a collapse and fire. At the time, 111 people had been inside the mine, of whom four were killed immediately. Eighty-one were rescued, of whom nine had been injured, while 26 remained “missing,” trapped in mine shafts that had become obstructed in the collapse.

Hundreds of personnel from the Russian Ministry of Emergency Management were deployed for rescue operations at the mine. On Saturday, February 27, some of the rescue workers warned of the danger of further explosions. Later on Sunday, Minister of Emergency Management Vladimir Puchkov told television network Pervyy Kanal, “We are compelled to state that the conditions in [the part of the mine where the miners were trapped] cannot allow a human being to survive. The data show that in the underground area where the 26 miners were located there are high temperatures and no oxygen.” This statement was confirmed by Denis Paykin, Technical Director of mine operator Vorkutaugol.

Komi Republic

As late as the morning of February 28, Vorkutaugol had denied that the trapped mine workers had been given up for dead, claiming that rescue operations were ongoing. However, it emerged later that day that a third explosion in the early morning hours of February 28 had caused the deaths of 5 rescue workers and 1 mineworker, and that an additional 5 people had been injured. After this, rescue operations were halted.

Puchkov, as well as Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich and parent company Severstal President Aleksey Mordashov, had flown out to the mine site. According to Dvorkovich, a preliminary government investigation concluded that the explosions resulted from natural factors. He asserted that officials from the Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and Nuclear Oversight had inspected Severstal just a few days before the disaster; that the issues identified in the inspection were not related to the explosions at Severnaya; and that the methane sensors in the mine had recorded below-critical levels and had not detected any dangers.

On Monday, Dvorkovich explained to a meeting with Vice President Dmitry Medvedev, “It would have been impossible to prevent the explosion at Severnaya. The methane level rose spasmodically. That is, there was a spasmodic discharge. There was no gradual rise in the gas level. The gas sensors didn’t detect anything, and it actually would have been impossible to prevent this particular discharge using safety control measures.”

Nevertheless, the Investigative Committee of Russia has initiated a criminal prosecution over violations of safety regulations. As mine disaster expert Aleksandr Gerusov explained to media agency RBC, “If all safety systems are functioning properly, the likelihood of a methane explosion or rock burst is practically reduced to zero. Statistically, 90 percent of all mine disasters result from the human factor.”

Surviving workers and the families of the killed workers likewise dispute the government’s assessment. Mikhail Momot, a Severnaya mineworker who survived because he was on vacation, told Internet news agency Rus2Web, “Everybody who was working there knew that a large quantity of methane gas had accumulated over recent months. However, the mine’s management for some reason didn’t do anything about it.”

Similarly, Konstantin Pimenov, a miner and Vorkuta City Council member, told Rus2Web, “I had spoken directly with Severnaya miners and technical specialists. They had told me that there was a significant increase of methane emissions going on. All of the officials know this, but they just left it to chance. They hoped that it would pass somehow.”

Darya Tryasukho, daughter of killed miner Vyacheslav Tryasukho, posted on her page on the VKontakte social network website photographs of a portable gas sensor belonging to a Severnaya miner that show a 2.55 percent methane level recorded on February 11, 2016. According to Russian government regulations, the maximum acceptable concentration of methane in a coal mineshaft is 2 percent.

In an interview with news agency LifeNews, Natalia Tryasukho, the widow of Vyacheslav Tryasukho, explained that her late husband had warned of the danger of a disaster in the mine.

“Just a few days before the tragedy, my husband had said that there was the danger of a rock burst. The level of gas in the air was very high, but management had taken all possible measures to keep gas safety sensors from functioning. They covered the sensors up and buried them. They did this because the system is automated, and when the sensors are activated, everything stops. They demanded production, and nothing else. Safety concerned no one,” Natalia Tryasukho explained.

Severnaya miner Sergey Proskuryakov, who survived the disaster because he worked during a different shift, supported the Tryasukhos’ contentions regarding gas sensors. He told Rus2Web that “it’s a well-known fact that they tampered with the sensors that record the methane gas content in the air in the mine. Following management instructions, the sensors were configured so as not to go too high and only to show numbers that fall within the limit. In reality, the methane content in the mine is significantly higher than the safety rules require. Now those who gave the directions to tamper with the sensors should face the relatives of the dead miners.”

Severstal representative Vladimir Zaluzhsky claimed to Business FM that tampering with the gas sensors was unlikely, as they are programmed to detect attempts to modify their functioning and shut off mine operations in case they do detect such activity.

Following a disaster at the Raspadskaya mine in Kemerovo Oblast in 2010, which eventually caused 91 fatalities and 99 injuries, similar assertions had been made that mine workers themselves had been instructed to glue the gas safety sensors so that they could continue production after gas levels in the air reached the critical level.

Vorkuta resident Madlena explained to Business FM, “There were reasons to anticipate a disaster. There had been tremors, and the methane level already exceeded the normal numbers. Everybody knew this. There were warning signs. People came from work just a couple of weeks ago and were vomiting. Some of them had nosebleeds. You understand what it means to work in that kind of atmosphere. Everything was already going in this direction.”

Severnaya coal mine is owned and operated by coal company Vorkutaugol, which itself is a subsidiary of Severstal, which in its turn belongs mostly to Aleksey Mordashov, Russia’s fifth richest person. He owns 79 percent of Severstal and has a net worth of approximately US$11.1 billion. In 2015 Severnaya produced 2.874 million tons of raw coal and 1.5 million tons of coal concentrate, comprising 27 percent of Vorkutaugol’s aggregate production and 15 percent of production in the Komi Republic. 1084 workers were involved in the development of Severnaya, including 668 at the mine itself.

Representatives of Severstal, whose stock fell 3 percent after news of the disaster, have said that they hope to return the mine to operational condition after pumping nitrogen into the disaster area and then evacuating air from it. However, all this will take at least half a year. In the meantime, the surviving workers are to be transferred to nearby mines.

Since it began operation in 1969, there have been three disasters at Severnaya, all within the last 16 years. In 2000, a fire that resulted from safety violations in the conduct of welding operations at the mine administration building led to the deaths of ten people, including an 8-year-old child. A mine collapse in 2004 caused the deaths of five miners. And two miners were killed in another collapse in 2011.

A methane discharge and resulting explosion in 2013 at the nearby Vorkutinskaya mine, also owned by Severstal, caused the deaths of 19 people. Relatives of victims commented that the same person who had been in charge of safety operations at Vorkutinskaya later occupied the same position at Severnaya. Vorkuta resident Madlena, quoted above, confirmed this. “The person responsible for safety at Severnaya had been at the central mine when the explosion occurred at the Vorkutinskaya mine in 2013. They didn’t fire him. They just transferred him to Severnaya.”

Similarly, miner Sergey Proskuryakov commented, “I hope that the commission conducts an objective investigation, so that the guilty parties don’t get away with it, which is what happened three years ago at the Vorkutinskaya mine. That mine’s management was not held accountable. Moreover, after the disaster, the Vorkutinskaya mine administrators were given managing positions at our mine, Severnaya, and continued working there undisturbed.”

Proskuryakov continued, “The mine’s administration is constantly pressuring and intimidating people. ‘If you say too much, you’ll have to leave,’ they say. Company managers behave like slave owners. But everybody keeps quiet and is afraid of getting fired. This is what that silence has led to.”

Vorkuta was the site of Vorkutlag (initially called Ukhtpechlag), one of the Stalinist regime’s largest prison camps, which also had been occupied primarily in the industrial production of coal and at its peak in 1951 held over 70,000 prisoners. A hunger strike initiated by Trotskyists at the camp in autumn 1936 led to an extended conflict that ended in the massacre of 2901 people, including both political prisoners and their family members, in a series of mass executions in spring 1938.

A massive strike that came to be known as the Vorkuta Uprising occurred at the camp in June-August 1953, just a few months after the death of Joseph Stalin on March 5, 1953. The Soviet state’s suppression of that uprising involved the killing of at least 53 strikers.

Chinese slowdown continues amid plans for major job cuts

Nick Beams

Further evidence of the slowdown in the Chinese economy has emerged, with activity in both manufacturing and services falling to their lowest levels since the immediate aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis.

The official purchasing managers’ index in manufacturing dropped to 49 in February from 49.8 the previous month—50 indicates the boundary between expansion and contraction. The PMI for the services sector dropped to 52.7 last month, its lowest level since December 2008.

The official manufacturing PMI has now fallen for seven months in a row and the privately-run Caixin PMI index has also declined. He Fan of the Caixin Insight group said employment numbers had fallen at the sharpest rate since January 2009 as companies looked to downsize in order to cut costs.

Job cuts are set to deepen over the longer term, especially in the state-owned companies at the heart of China’s industrial economy.

Speaking to a press conference on Monday, the minister of human resources, Yin Weimin, said some 1.8 million workers in the steel and coal industries could lose their jobs as a result of government plans to cut overcapacity.

The Chinese steel industry, which accounts for more than half of global output, reduced production last year for the first time since 1981 and the government plans to cut production by 150 million tonnes by 2020, resulting in 500,000 steel job losses, with 1.3 million to go in coal.

According to a report from Reuters, the coal and steel cuts are part of a wider plan to axe between 5 and 6 million jobs over the next two to three years, with the figure likely to go even higher. In addition to steel and coal, the cuts are aimed at key industrial sectors, including cement, glassmaking and shipbuilding. Reuters reported that sources with ties to the government leadership were reluctant to speak openly because of fear of “sparking social unrest.”

In a sign of official concern over the immediate situation and falling growth rates, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) announced on Monday that it was cutting the reserve requirement ratio for banks by 0.5 percentage points to 17 percent. By reducing the amount of cash that commercial banks have to keep in reserve, the central bank hopes they will increase lending and boost economic activity—this is the government’s domestic policy objective.

But the move underscores the thin line financial authorities are treading as they seek to meet international objectives, while keeping control of the economy and financial system. They are trying to prevent a fall in the value of the renminbi, also known as the yuan, amid signs of an increasing capital outflow. Yet the reserve ratio reduction will have the opposite effect: to put downward pressure on the value of the currency.

Pointing to the contradictory forces in economic policy, the Financial Times reported that Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts said the PBoC move on reserves indicated it was “leaning toward the domestic policy objective,” possibly in the belief that foreign exchange measures could control capital flows.

At the same time, Chinese authorities have committed themselves to renminbi stability, lest a sudden plunge add to the turbulence in global financial markets.

Instability was in evidence yesterday when 10-year Japanese government bonds sold at a negative yield for the first time in history. The Financial Times described it as the crossing of a “financial rubicon” and “the latest sign of a worldwide collapse in borrowing costs which has upended assumptions about the workings of financial markets, as policymakers take ever more drastic steps to stimulate economic growth.”

This “upending” follows the decision by the Bank of Japan at the end of January to initiate a policy of negative interest rates on new deposits lodged with it by commercial banks. It is estimated that about one quarter of the global economy is operating under a zero or negative interest rate regime.

On Monday, yields on German bunds, the equivalent of US treasury bonds, dropped to their lowest level in 10 months, drawing closer to the record low set last April.

The market move, the result of investors moving into purchases of government debt, lifting their price and so driving down the yield (the two move in an inverse relationship to each other), came after data showed a return of deflation in the euro zone. Consumer prices dropped by 0.2 percent in February, after a rise of 0.3 percent in January.

HSBC chief European economist Karen Ward said the inflation data “surprised strongly to the downside” and that this added to the call by European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi for it to act decisively.

The ECB governing council meets later this month and may initiate further monetary easing policies. But if such policies are carried out, it seems more likely that, rather than providing a boost, they will just add to the growing turbulence in the way that the Japanese move to negative interest rates has done. Financial markets are becoming increasingly concerned that the business models of the banks and other large institutions, such as pension funds and insurance companies, cannot operate in a world where the return on government debt is zero or even negative.

Fears of where the global economy is heading were the subject of an op-ed piece by former British Labour shadow chancellor Ed Balls in the Financial Times today.

While things had not yet reached a crisis point, he wrote, “economic confidence is clearly draining fast on both sides of the Atlantic.”

“Stagnating growth, fragile investor confidence, fears of competitive devaluation, spreading mistrust, isolationist politicians flourishing in the polls—the echoes of the 1930s should be enough to focus minds on making the case for cooperation, open markets and finding new policies to deliver more inclusive economic growth.”

This is what made the G-20 meeting last weekend all the more worrying, he continued, as finance ministers fell out with each other, “China blaming Japan, America blaming Europe and the Germans blaming everyone but themselves.”

Like all would-be reformers of global capitalism, Balls hopes that a solution to mounting economic problems can be found if only politicians see reason and adopt a different mind-set. The increasingly fractious political and economic relations are not the result of intellectual deficiency. Rather, they are expression of the irresolvable contradiction between the globally-integrated economy and the system of rival capitalist nation-states and great powers—a contradiction which is deepening as recessionary tendencies intensify.

Primary election results highlight US political crisis

Patrick Martin

Billionaire demagogue Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took significant leads in the contests for the Republican and Democratic presidential nominations, based on results of primaries and caucuses held in 12 states on Tuesday.

Trump won seven of the 11 states with Republican contests, including Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia, with Senator Ted Cruz carrying his home state of Texas and neighboring Oklahoma, and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida winning the caucuses in Minnesota. The outcome of the Alaska caucuses was still undetermined as of this writing.

Clinton took seven out of 11 states where Democrats went to the polls, including Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders won his home state as well as Colorado, Minnesota and Oklahoma.

NBC News projected that Clinton would win 525 delegates and Sanders 335, bringing their total of elected delegates to 641 and 401 respectively. Clinton has a huge lead of 425 to 22 among so-called super delegates—members of Congress, state officials and members of the Democratic National Committee—giving her a combined total of 1,066, about half way to the total required for nomination.

The delegate totals in the Republican race showed a less decisive lead for Trump, but over a highly fragmented opposition. The belief is growing that even if Trump fails to win a majority of delegates in the primary contests, no other candidate will, and the nomination will be decided at the Republican National Convention in July.

With the nomination contest in the big business parties now close to the one-third mark, with primaries or caucuses having been held in 15 of the 50 states, the US political system has clearly entered into an historic crisis, marked by unprecedented political polarization.

The Republican Party is revealed as the incubator of a fascistic movement. The Trump campaign represents the union of reactionary, racist and militaristic politics and the gangster economics personified by the real estate speculator-turned politician. More important than any of the specific policies he advocates is his promotion of authoritarianism: Trump as the great man who will call the shots in Washington.

This was symbolized on the night of the March 1 primaries when Trump discarded the usual victory rally, where the candidate thanks his supporters, in favor of a press conference, staged in quasi-presidential style in front of a bank of American flags and held in the ballroom of Trump’s own luxury hotel in Palm Beach, Florida.

He was introduced by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has made the degrading transition from campaign rival to cup bearer and court jester.

Trump was asked about criticisms from Republican congressional leaders of his refusal to promptly disavow the support of Ku Klux Klan figure David Duke. He replied by dismissing the criticism, then warning House Speaker Paul Ryan that if he crossed President Trump, he would “pay a tremendous price.”

As one observer, former House Republican Whip Tom Delay, commented on MSNBC, Trump appeared ignorant of the constitutional separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches, and seemed to be running for king rather than president.

While Trump represents the rise of a personalist, authoritarian movement on the right, broad sections of the population have given their support to the campaign of Bernie Sanders, demonstrating that there are large numbers of people who are moving to the left and inclined towards socialism, but who are trapped in the Democratic Party for lack of a visible alternative.

More than two million votes were cast on March 1 for Sanders, a self-described “democratic socialist.” On top of this, the Sanders campaign reported that in the month of February it raised $42 million, virtually all of it from small donations coming over the Internet. This is more than double the amount raised in January and a record sum for any US presidential campaign.

The United States is becoming politically polarized to an extraordinary degree. The danger is that while the millions backing Sanders are sincerely looking for an alternative to the domination of Wall Street, Sanders is not. He functions as a longtime trusted agent of the Democratic Party, seeking to trap this broad movement to the left and keep it confined within the political straitjacket of the two-party system.

If Clinton and Trump become the nominees of the Democratic and Republican parties, the candidates of both capitalist parties will be deeply unpopular. A CNN/ORC poll published Monday found that Trump was regarded unfavorably by 59 percent of those polled, while 53 percent had a negative view of Clinton. A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found 49 percent “very negative” towards Trump and 39 percent “very negative” towards Clinton—triple the level of such feelings toward the Democratic and Republican candidates in 2008.

Trump makes an appeal, in a very right-wing form, to the tremendous sense of frustration and anger building up among workers and sections of the middle class after years of economic stagnation, financial crisis, the loss of jobs, and the deterioration of social services and infrastructure, through both Republican and Democratic administrations.

At his press conference Tuesday night, he denounced what he called “Third World” conditions in the United States, while indicting Hillary Clinton as sharing the responsibility, as part of the Obama administration, for the deteriorating conditions of life in America.

Sanders offers no alternative because, in the final analysis, he is committed to the Democratic Party and supporting its presidential nominee, whether Clinton or someone else, and its right-wing, pro-Wall Street program. He defends the Obama administration, which has presided over an intensification of social inequality at home while expanding the military operations of American imperialism around the world.

Trump faces many obstacles to his rise to power. The initial success of his campaign has brought the political crisis in the Republican Party to a head, with leading figures denouncing him and declaring they could not support him as the nominee. At the same time, he has received his first top-level endorsements, beginning with Christie and including two governors, a senator and four congressmen, with more likely to come after his Super Tuesday victories.

Whatever the immediate outcome of the Trump campaign, however, it is the inevitable byproduct of the decay of the political culture in America, embracing both capitalist parties and the entire political, media and corporate establishment.

Since the 1960s, when Nixon sought to co-opt the Southern segregationists and the George Wallace movement, the Republican Party has encouraged and drawn sustenance from the most reactionary, racist and chauvinist tendencies in American society.

The growing intimacy between the Republican Party and semi-fascist elements has long been the dirty secret of official American politics. Both the Democratic Party and the corporate-controlled media have sought to cover this up, downplaying periodic eruptions such as the presidential campaigns of Patrick Buchanan, the close ties between Southern Republicans and white supremacist groups, and, more recently, the rise of the Tea Party and the “birthers” (those, Donald Trump most prominent among them, who claimed that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and therefore not eligible to become president).

Imperialism intensifies pressure on Russia and China

Andre Damon

Earlier this month, the International Committee of the Fourth International published a statement, "Socialism and the Fight Against War," which analyzed the economic and political contradictions of world imperialism that underlie the growing danger of a global conflagration.

The International Committee called attention to the mounting threat of a military confrontation between the United States and both Russia and China. It warned: “The American ruling class has drawn the conclusion that the nuclear-armed states in Beijing and Moscow must be brought to heel, sooner rather than later. Washington’s objective is to reduce China and Russia to the status of semi-colonial client states…”

The statement of the International Committee was published on February 18. Exactly one week later, on February 25, General Philip Breedlove, commander of US forces in Europe, released his Command Posture Statement, which came close to an official declaration that war with Russia is now viewed as all but inevitable. He declared, “The Russian problem set is not going away, and presents a new long-term challenge… Russia poses an existential threat to the United States and to the NATO alliances as a whole.”

On February 25, Admiral Harry Harris, who heads the United States Pacific Command, declared that a Chinese declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone in the South China Sea would be ignored by American military forces. As if to underscore the warning to both China and Russia, the US Air Force later that day test-fired a Minuteman 3 nuclear missile from California to a testing range in the Pacific—the second test in a week.

In examining imperialist efforts to weaken Russia and China, the International Committee also called attention to the promotion by imperialism of secessionist movements, based on ethnic-religious and national-linguistic tensions, in both countries. This assessment has been confirmed in an article published in the new March-April issue of Foreign Affairs. In a commentary entitled “Eurasia’s Coming Anarchy,” Robert D. Kaplan—a leading geo-strategist for US imperialism and one of the architects of the invasion of Iraq—argues that the deepening economic crisis in both Russia and China is likely to result in deep internal tensions. These, he writes, will take the form of growing demands for national autonomy by various ethnic, religious and linguistic groups.

Russia, Kaplan states, will be thrust into “turmoil” that “could cause [it] to fragment yet again.” He calls attention to “the heavily Muslim North Caucasus, along with areas of Russia’s Siberian and Far Eastern districts, distant from the center and burdened by bloody politics,” which “may begin loosening their ties to Moscow in the event of instability inside the Kremlin itself.”

As for China, Kaplan stresses “the growing ethnic tensions in this vast country." He continues: "To some degree, the Han-dominated state of China is a prison of various nations, including the Mongols, the Tibetans, and the Uighurs, all of whom have in various degrees resisted central control.” Kaplan concludes, “Today, Uighur militants represent the most immediate separatist threat.”

China’s Uighur minority constitutes only some 10 million of China’s 1.3 billion people. But the Uighurs are the largest ethnic group in China’s relatively sparsely-populated but geopolitically vital Xinjiang province, which spans some 1.6 million square kilometers and borders the strategic countries of Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Kaplan goes on to note that Uighur separatists “have received training in Iraq and Syria, and as they link up with the global jihadist movement, the danger will grow.”

Kaplan is not alone in drawing the connection between the war in Syria and secessionist movements in Russia and China. In an article published in December 2015 in the London Review of Books, journalist Seymour Hersh cited one Washington official as declaring that Turkey, a key US ally in its proxy war in Syria, “has been bringing Uighurs into Syria by special transport while [the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan] has been agitating in favour of their struggle in China.” The US official cited by Hersh said that what he called the “rat line” had led to more than 800 Uighur fighters entering Syria.

Christina Lin, a former Pentagon and State Department official, wrote in September that if the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad were to fall to the Islamist militias, “fighters from Russia’s Chechnya, China’s Xinjiang and India’s Kashmir will then turn their eyes toward the home front to continue jihad, supported by a new and well-sourced Syrian operating base in the heart of the Middle East.”

These comments throw into sharp relief the broader significance of the ongoing conflict in Syria. Just as the United States intelligence forces used their support for the Mujahedeen in the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s to organize, fund and train Islamist forces that would ultimately become Al Qaeda, the war in Syria is being used to organize and train Islamist separatist forces that will ultimately target Russia and China for destabilization.

As Kaplan puts it, “As Moscow loses control, the global jihadist movement could take advantage of the vacuum and come to Russia’s outlying regions and to Central Asia.” He adds that “having received training in Iraq in Syria,” these Islamist secessionist movements may “link up to the global jihadist movement.”

He concludes that the result could be “Yugoslavia lite: violence and separatism that begin in one place and spread elsewhere.” In other words, China and Russia could face a repeat of the tactics used by the United States and Western powers to break up Yugoslavia: the fomenting of national-sectarian divisions, which are then packaged as a casus belli in the media and made a pretense for military intervention.

Beginning with US recognition of the independence of Croatia and Slovenia in 1991 and approval for the secession of Bosnia in 1992, the breakup of Yugoslavia was guaranteed by the political intervention of the major powers, which culminated in the 1999 bombing of Serbia.

The ethnic partition of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, which led to the deaths of over a million people, helped create the conditions for the encirclement of Russia and the continuous eastward expansion of NATO. In 1999, NATO added the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, followed in 2004 by Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, and finally Albania and Croatia in 2009. As a result, the frontier of NATO has been moved eastward by over 600 miles.

In the final analysis, the desperate geo-political situation confronting both China and Russia is the outcome of the restoration of capitalism. The measures employed by the capitalist regimes in both countries to counter the threats from US, Japanese and European imperialism—the incitement of national chauvinism, the intensification of state repression and the massive expenditures on military armaments—provide no way out of the crisis.

The working class of Russia and China must recover its revolutionary socialist heritage. It must once again, as it did in the past century, return to the road of revolutionary struggle and overthrow the existing national capitalist regimes. Only on this basis—allied with the international working class—can the masses of Russia and China prevent both imperialist subjugation and the horrors of nuclear war.

The Scandal Of Voter Supression

William John Cox

Ostensibly, universal voting is the ideal of a free and democratic republic; however, barriers have been placed between many citizens and the ballot box ever since the creation of the United States. Many of these obstacles, such as property ownership and the racially-biased poll tax, have been removed. They are, however, being replaced by voter identification (ID) laws and other voter suppression schemes designed to discourage and prevent many, otherwise eligible voters from participating in elections. Voter suppression takes many forms and—in its aggregate—could allow the election of a president in the November 2016 election who is not the choice of the American People.

Voter Suppression. Approximately one quarter of all qualified voters are not registered, and many state laws and administrative practices are aimed at blocking—rather than encouraging—their enrollment. These include the imposition of arbitrarily short deadlines for the submission of voter registration forms; imposing harsh penalties for administrative errors; and even requiring the forms to be printed on very specific weights of paper. On the other hand, some states such as California, automatically register all eligible voters when they apply for driver's licenses, and a number of states now allow online registration.

Other devices to suppress voting involve the unnecessary purging of registration rolls to remove qualified people; the deliberate misallocation of election resources resulting in long lines in low-income and college precincts; misleading voters regarding procedures and locations for voting; and "caging," which involves sending certified letters to voters and striking registrations for those whose letters are returned as undeliverable. Scandalous as these plots may be, they verge on criminal conspiracies when they are directed by politically partisan secretaries of state and other officials who have the responsibility to ensure elections are fair and unbiased.

Although some suppression dirty tricks are bipartisan—four Kerry supporters were convicted of vandalism for slashing the tires of vans intended to transport Republican voters to the polls in 2004—it is primarily Republicans and other conservatives who engage in voter suppression. Many of these individuals and groups consider voting to be a privilege, instead of a right, and they are untroubled by efforts to reduce the voting participation by certain groups, such as racial minorities, students, and the poor, who traditionally vote for Democratic candidates.

The most successful electoral subversion results from voter ID laws passed in many states in the past 15 years. These laws have been enacted—purportedly— to prevent voter fraud, in which an ineligible voter impersonates an eligible voter. Typically, these laws require the presentation of photographic identification, such as a driver's license or passport in order to vote. In truth, these laws are a blatant stratagem to prevent the political opposition from voting.

As the less popular party, many Republicans unabashedly admit the purpose and consequence of these laws. One Republican legislator in Michigan warned, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election;" Another legislator believed the Pennsylvania voter ID law would "allow Governor Romney to win the state," while another bragged that the Pennsylvania laws "cut Obama by five percent" and that "voter ID helped a bit in that." The former head of the Florida Republican Party acknowledged that "We've got to cut down on early voting because early voting is not good for us." Presidential candidate Governor John Kasich agreed: "I guess I really actually feel we shouldn't contort the voting process to accommodate the urban—read African-American—voter-turnout machine." Prior to dropping out of the presidential race, Governor Chris Christie said that Republicans need to win gubernatorial races so they can control the "voting mechanism" in the presidential election.

There are millions of otherwise eligible voters in the United States (as many as ten percent) who do not possess acceptable photographic identification. If the reason is a lack of money to pay the licensing fee, voter ID laws have the same effect as the Jim Crow poll tax did in the South. The laws disproportionately affect the young, disabled, seniors, minorities, and the poor and disadvantaged of every race. One rigorous academic study conducted at UC San Diego concluded, "We find that strict voter identification laws do, in fact, substantially alter the makeup of who votes and ultimately do skew democracy in favor of whites and those on the political right."

The reality is that voter fraud is very rare, and when it does occur, it would not be prevented by voter ID laws. An in-depth study by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University involved travel to 40 cities, 21 states, interviews of more than 1,000 people, and reviews of nearly 5,000 public documents. The effort identified only 10 cases of voter impersonation in more than a decade. There were more cases of absentee ballot fraud and registration fraud, which would not have been prevented by the voter ID laws.

The conservative political bias of suppression laws is indicated by the fact that more than half of all state photo ID legislation resulted from the efforts of the conservative, corporate-sponsored, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Sixty-two bills based on the model ALEC Voter ID Act have been introduced in state legislatures. Of the 22 states in which new voting restrictions have been passed, 18 have Republican-controlled legislatures.

The underlying racial basis of these laws was revealed by the Brennan Center for Justice which determined that of the 11 states with the highest numbers of African American voters in 2008, seven have since passed voter suppression laws. Of the 12 states with rapidly growing Hispanic populations, nine have enacted new restrictions. Finally, nine of the states formerly supervised by the Voting Rights Acts because of past racial discrimination have passed new voter suppression laws.

With Congress and the state legislatures and judiciaries increasingly controlled by corporations and the financial elite, there is little hope for legislative action or judicial relief to reduce the scandal of voter suppression. In 2008, a conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court approved an Indiana voter ID law—even though it had a partisan basis—because it was not "excessively burdensome" to most voters. The decision followed an earlier one in 2000 in which the Court affirmed that the Constitution "does not protect the right of all citizens to vote, but rather the right of all qualified citizens to vote." Amazingly, the Court shortly thereafter admitted in Bush v. Gore that "the individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote."

A Voters' Bill of Rights. The only way to assure the voting power of the American People and to ensure the United States continues as a representative democracy is to amend the constitution to include a Voters' Bill of Rights. The United States Voters' Rights Amendment (USVRA) not only specifically guarantees a right to cast effective votes in all elections, but it also includes specific provisions regarding voter participation and suppression.

Any lingering doubt about the necessity of a constitutional amendment was quashed by another opinion of the Supreme Court rendered immediately prior to the 2014 midterm elections. The decision reversed a Federal District Court in Texas, which had ruled that the state's voter ID law unconstitutionally prevented more than 600,000 registered Texans from voting. The lower court had found the law was adopted "with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose" and that it placed "an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote." The conservative majority of the Supreme Court disagreed—directly cutting off the access of more than a half million Texans to the polls and challenging the votes of millions of other Americans subject to similar laws in other states.

Previously, the Texas voter ID law had been blocked by the Voting Rights Act, which required jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to obtain permission before changing voting procedures. That provision of the Act was earlier struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013, and Texas officials announced they would begin enforcing the state's new voter ID law.

In her dissent to the 2014 decision, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, "A sharply disproportionate percentage of those voters are African American or Hispanic." She added that "racial discrimination in elections in Texas is no mere historical artifact."

Whether affected by strict photo ID rules or other forms of voter suppression, the turnout for the 2014 midterm elections was the lowest since 1942. The effect was shown by the difference between Texas—with the most restrictive rules and a 33.6 percent turnout—and Colorado, Washington and Oregon, which permit everyone to vote by mail, and their participation rates of 53, 54, and 69 percent, respectively.

The United States Voters' Rights Amendment is a broad-spectrum treatment regimen specifically formulated to cure a variety of illnesses currently infecting representative democracy in America. Voter encouragement and suppression is covered by Section Three:

The States shall ensure that all citizens who are eligible to vote are registered to vote.

In balancing the public benefit of maximum voter participation with the prevention of voting fraud, Congress and the States shall not impose any unjustifiable restriction on registration or voting by citizens.

The intentional suppression of voting is hereby prohibited and, in addition to any other penalty imposed by law, any person convicted of the intentional suppression of voting shall be ineligible for any public office for a period of five years following such conviction.

Universal voting is also encouraged by Section Eleven, which requires that "Federal elections conducted every second year shall be held on a national voters' holiday, with full pay for all citizens who cast ballots."

Voting Fuels the Flame of Freedom. The scandal of voter suppression corrupts the core of representative democracy, and the quality and effectiveness of political representation is directly related to the percentage of voter participation. Unless representatives are selected by the greatest number and broadest range of voters possible, the processes of government will not reflect the true will of the People. Indeed, if the current trend continues, the United States government will become an irrevocable plutocracy instead of a democracy; government of, by, and for the People will cease to exist; and the flame of freedom—no longer fueled by effective voting—will be extinguished.

New Zealand: Five years after the Christchurch earthquake

Tom Peters & Matthew Carrington

February 22 marked five years since a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the city of Christchurch and the surrounding Canterbury area in New Zealand’s South Island. The earthquake killed 185 people, destroyed tens of thousands of homes and buildings and caused widespread damage to roads and sewerage systems. It followed a large and damaging quake in September 2010.

Five years on, entire suburbs have been abandoned and large areas of the central city remain rubble-strewn. Since 2011, there have been thousands of aftershocks, compounding the damage. Most recently a quake on February 14 produced further destruction, resulting in more than 2,000 new insurance claims. Overwhelmingly, however, the ruin of the lives of tens of thousands of residents has been caused by the government and corporate response, not the earthquakes themselves.

At the official commemorations in Christchurch’s Botanic Gardens, Governor-General Jerry Mateparae was forced to admit that since the quakes “there has been financial hardship, agonising stress, and years of frustration.” He added: “My hope is that the end of this period is fast approaching, and that these people will be able to carry on with their lives with renewed optimism and energy.” Mayor Lianne Dalziel similarly said “our experience has been traumatic for everyone and for many it will take a lot more time to heal.”

The speakers treated this “traumatic” experience as the inevitable outcome of a natural disaster. In reality, working class people have been abandoned by the National Party government, which has protected the interests of big business, including the insurance industry, and provided grossly inadequate assistance to people whose homes have been damaged or destroyed.

Speaking to Radio NZ, Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee declared that “a huge amount of rebuild work has been done, and a huge amount of residential work also completed, with people getting back to rebuilding their lives.”

For thousands of residents, this is a fraud. The day before the anniversary almost 1,000 people protested in the city centre, demanding an external review of the handling of insurance claims by the government’s Earthquake Commission (EQC). The protesters also called for an official deadline by which insurance companies would have to settle claims.

One protester, Miranda Rout, told Radio NZ she had moved house four times since the quake and “we still don’t know when we’re going to have a home again.” She denounced her insurance company IAG as “a huge multi-billion dollar private entity who have made money off our backs and are still trying to wear everybody down.”

Approximately 5,000 home owners are still waiting for insurers to settle their claims. Many people have been living in overcrowded, badly damaged or makeshift housing for half a decade, leading to health problems from dampness and mould. Due to substandard workmanship, EQC has been forced to re-examine at least 5,500 of its repair jobs.

There have been endless disputes over settlement offers. According to the Insurance Council, 89 percent of property claims have been settled. These settlements, however, are frequently the result of coercion and fall short of what is required to repair, rebuild or buy another house. House prices and rents have both risen by approximately 50 percent since the earthquakes.

A former contract worker who did repair work for EQC and IAG told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Lateline” program on February 16 that people had been bullied into accepting repairs that left them “worse off than what they were in the beginning.” She said home owners were told: “‘Sign it or we don’t do it.’ It’s as simple as that. So if you are at the end of your tether and you’ve been dealing with it for three, four years—two years, even—or you’re elderly or you’re unwell ... people just took it.”

New Zealand’s Reserve Bank reported in January that insurance claims for Christchurch’s earthquakes have, on average, taken longer to settle than similar earthquakes in Chile and Japan that occurred around the same time. The report predicts that the overall rebuild of the city—including infrastructure and commercial buildings—will only pass the halfway mark later this year.

Speaking on behalf of the government, Brownlee dismissed criticism of insurance companies, including the EQC and the government-owned company Southern Response, saying they had “been extremely successful and very, very helpful in the overall rebuild.”

There is widespread and palpable hostility to the government over the endless delays. Halfway through Brownlee’s Radio NZ interview on the streets of Christchurch, which was televised online, a passing driver shouted: “Gerry Brownlee you suck! You’ve done a bad job!”

During official commemorations later in the day, John Howland, whose 14-year-old son Jayden died in the 2011 earthquake, hurled a mixture of flour and chocolate at Brownlee’s face. Howland, who was arrested and charged with assault, told media that the government was “heartless ... They’re not taking care of all the [quake] families—like us, and everybody else. There needs to be more support, more communication, and just compassion really.”

Speaking to TVNZ, Labour Party leader Andrew Little closed ranks with Brownlee, denouncing Howland as a “scumbag” and his protest as “despicable.”

The lack of support has left many residents psychologically distressed. Christchurch doctor Jeremy Baker told Radio NZ: “Suicide rates are rising, depression and anxiety are in no way being covered, I think, by present services.” Since 2011, the number of suicide-related emergency callouts in the region has risen by 55 percent.

A study of 320 children aged five to seven by the University of Canterbury found that 64 percent showed one or more symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder at the end of 2015. One in five showed six or more symptoms, but fewer than one in ten had access to counselling.

As part of its spending cuts to welfare and health services throughout the country, the government has drastically reduced funding for psychological services provided by community groups in Canterbury from $1.6 million a year ago to just $200,000. The District Health Board is under pressure to make further cutbacks.

The opposition Labour Party has criticised the cuts and recently called on the government to take over any unresolved insurance claims at the end of the year. However, the party has no fundamental differences with the government’s austerity agenda or the subordination of people’s lives and livelihoods to the profit calculations of the financial and corporate elite.

Mayor Dalziel, a former Labour government minister, has worked closely with the National government to protect big business and impose the cost of the rebuild on the working class. The city council has cut staff, increased rates and begun to sell off assets to help fund its share of the rebuild. Reports commissioned by the council have identified a funding gap of $883 million.

More cuts are inevitable. On February 24, the council received a $603 million insurance payout covering more than 1,600 claims for quake damage to its above-ground assets. The deal, reached after more than a year of negotiations with insurance companies AIG, Axis and R+V, falls well short of the $920 million that the council initially sought.

Five years after the earthquake, the rebuild debacle—in which thousands of lives have been wrecked by the government and big business—stands as an indictment of the rapacious system of private profit that is defended by the entire political establishment.