America's Laughable ‘News' Media

Eric Zuesse

As of Friday March 4th, democracy ended in Turkey, but you'd hardly have known it by reading the international ‘news' at the major (and at most of the minor) U.S.-based ‘news' sites, as of around 4PM Eastern time in the U.S., nearly a day after the event. Nor has it been announced even now, ten days after that historic event occurred.

Here was the ‘news' coverage the next day, March 5th, 24 hours after the event:

The New York Times World News section online buried nearly a third of the way down the main page, "Turkey Seizes Newspaper, Zaman, as Press Crackdown Continues,” immediately below “Gunmen Kill 16 at Nursing Home in Yemen.” The news report didn't even mention that the government-seizure of Turkey's largest newspaper and its associated equivalent of America's AP news-service constitutes the signal event in Turkish President Erdogan's ending of his country's democracy. It's like: when did the NYT ever report that George W. Bush had lied about the evidence he had regarding “Saddam's WMD”? Never.

Nonetheless, that page's box which was headlined “Most Emailed” showed: “1. Turkey Seizes Newspaper Zaman, as Press Crackdown Continues.” No matter how much the Times's management wanted to downplay the event and its significance, readers still were emailing it more than any other story in the entire section. Apparently, reader-interest is one thing, but what the management want the readers to be informed about is something quite different (and that's not even talking about accuracy, but deception is rampant in America's mainstream and almost all of its non-mainstream ‘news' reporting). Perhaps the corporation makes up for it in advertising-income from their major advertisers, who don't want the public to have their eyes focused on certain things (such as that NATO, and Turkey's being in  NATO, aren't about ‘American values' nor ‘U.S. national security', but about ultimately conquering Russia). And people still subscribe to it? Yes, they do; they pay their good money for that bad ‘journalism'; after all, that's ‘journalism' which wins lots of U.S. national awards (not that that's any authentic indication of the newspaper's quality — it's not).

By contrast: Britain's Independent  came closer to the mark of reality, placing the story front and large on its homepage as the top news-story of all, which it actually is: “Seizure of Newspaper Could Cost Turkey Its Place in Europe, Warns EU Official.” (But, maybe not its place in the American-run NATO — after all, the U.S. aristocracy needs Turkey for things like shooting down Russian bombers that are killing jihadists who want to replace Russia's ally Bashar al-Assad's secular, non-sectarian, government, which the U.S. has long been trying to overthrow.)

The Huffington Post's homepage had as its lead headline, “155 Delegates at Stake,” and 20% down the page headlined “Turkish Police Fire Tear Gas At Newspaper As EU Officials Lament Press Record”. That news-report was from Reuters, not HuffPo, and the headline was rather ho-hum and certainly ignored the real story here, but having to go 20% down the homepage to find it isn't quite so terrible, even if that's not where it belongs — it belongs at the very top of the homepage (and with a headline like “Democracy Ends in Turkey,” which fairly represents both the event and its significance).

Meanwhile, HuffPo's World post section itself also  didn't lead with this story, but instead with, “A Dangerous Country for Women: The Shocking Reality Of The Sexual Violence In Papua New Guinea” — a tragic cultural reality there, but no actual news-story, much less a news-story that will possibly affect the future history of the entire world. Then, was shown as only an AP headline, down below all of the featured stories (the ones that had pictures there), down in the lower portion of Huffpost's Worldpost section, was this: "Protestors Met With Tear Gas After Turkey Seizes Control Of Newspaper.” That's even worse than the NYT. However, unlike the NYT, a reader's access to all of HP is free; so, readers' pocketbooks aren't being charged to read whatever it is.

And then, on March 9th, if one googled the phrase “Democracy Ended in Turkey”, what did one find? 

The first listing was “The End of Turkey's Experiment With Democracy”; that's dated 16 November 2015, and it's a professor's allegation that Turkey's parliamentary elections on November 1st shouldn't be called “free and fair.” Perhaps not, but sometimes even Presidential elections in our own country are similarly challenged, without alleging “The End of America's Experiment With Democracy.” 

Another leading listing there was “Turkish Democracy Is Being Quietly Stolen”; that's dated 4 August 2015, and it's a Bloomberg columnist's argument that Erdogan's policies were set on a path to “revive the ethnic hatreds that mired Turkey in a 30-year war starting in the mid-1980s, costing an estimated 40,000 lives and untold economic opportunity.”

Googling “Democracy Ends in Turkey” produced only one article, my own on March 4th.

Even as of now, there is nowhere the headline “Democracy Ended in Turkey,” despite the fact that it did happen, ten days ago on March 4th, when the Erdogan government took over the nation's largest newspaper and replaced the personnel. Do American ‘news' media not think that, if, say, the U.S. government took over and replaced the personnel at The New York Times, we'd have any excuse whatsoever for still calling the U.S. a “democracy”? Maybe they think that freedom of the press to criticize the government isn't really necessary  in a ‘democracy'. That appears to be the virtually universal opinion in our press.

What does this say about whether the United States is  a democracy?

Not only did just a few small websites run my news-report, which I had submitted (free-of-charge) to all U.S. ‘news' media; but, even five days later, none of the ones that didn't run it had yet reported that democracy had ended in Turkey. Though it's major news, only few and small news-media in the U.S. have reported it, even now, ten days after it happened. Will they ever  report it? Each day that they don't, makes it even more embarrassing for them that they didn't. Thus, the best business-decision in such a case is: don't report it at all. So: maybe they won't. Ever (except in history-books, perhaps). It's similar to the situation: there has been no headline “George W. Bush Lied About WMD.” But he did; it merely wasn't reported, not even after the fact (until I wrote about it in a 2004 book, which few people bought). (When I told major ‘news' reporters, at the time of the evidence, in September 2002, none were interested; none reported on it, when it was  news.)

Why one would pay for any ‘news' medium, in the U.S., is a problematic question, given the almost uniformly low quality of the news-service they're all providing to their readers.

Has the U.S. aristocracy's manipulation of its ‘news' ‘reporting' ever been more blatant than is the case today? Not only does the ‘news' lack the important relevant historical, cultural, and political, context, in order for it to be able to be at all accurately interpreted and understood by readers, but the news-placement  is obviously driven by other considerations than to serve the readers' needs — such as the readers' needs for the most-significant stories to be in the most-prominent positions. 

Ulterior motives obviously drive America's ‘news' media. To call that a ‘free' press is to beg the question: Who owns the press, and whose interests are the employees of ‘news' organizations (the reporters and the editors) actually being hired to serve? The advertisers'? The owners'? Surely not  the subscribers.

If America's ‘news' media aren't trusted, there's very sound reason for that: they shouldn't  be; and that's because there's no intelligent reason for the public to trust them. None.

The History Of Hollywood: Propaganda For White Supremacy At Home And US Militarism Abroad

Garikai Chengu

For centuries American film has been one of the most important apparatus used for perpetuating American white supremacy and justifying American military adventures.

Racism in film and white supremacy are so intricately interwoven into the fabric of America that they have become virtually undetectable, much like carbon monoxide, until the deadly damage has occurred. Film is a reflection of society and society in turn is influenced by film.

Ever since the Lumiere brothers first developed film in 1896, it has been an astoundingly effective racial propaganda tool. As the first universal mass medium it efficiently utilized high drama through the fixation of emotional sequences. Put simply, effective propaganda starts precisely where critical thinking ends.

To create drama, particularly in action and war movies, Hollywood needs bad guys, and through the consistent use of racial stereotypes these enemies have included the Vietnamese during the Vietnam war, the Russians throughout the Cold War, Muslims during the ongoing War on Terror and the Japanese after Pearl Harbor.

In American film and media, during the Yellow peril the widespread image of the Japanese as sub-human created an emotional context which formed a justification for the nuclear bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that instantly slaughtered 140,000 innocent people, as well as the establishment of concentration camps for Japanese-Americans on US soil.

The first group in Hollywood history to have been depicted as dangerous savages is Native Americans.

The gross misrepresentation of Native Americans has been a longstanding problem for American film makers ever since the rise of 19th-century Western frontier literature, which portrayed pioneers as struggling with restless natives, without acknowledging the genocide committed by white men.

Despite vast evidence of Native American technological advances and complex civilization, Hollywood films depict native culture as a "blanket ethnicity," thereby pigeonholing the various groups and cultures into one group defined by stereotypical tropes.

To this day white actors portray Native Americans using "Redface", which is the practice of wearing feathers, war paint, etc. by non-natives, which propagate American Indian stereotypes. Johnny Depp recently wore Redface in the movie the Lone Ranger. Disturbingly, but hardly surprisingly, the movie won an Oscar nomination for "Best Makeup and Hair Styling".

According to a recent YouGov survey, "make believe" childhood games like Cowboys and Indians are more popular amongst children than video games from the $60 billion gaming industry. One may ask oneself if the popular American childhood game of Cowboys and Indians is essentially the cultural equivalent of Germans playing a game with the same rules that might be called Nazis and Jews? Why then should we tolerate one and not the other, if not for a deep seeded racism towards Native Americans that we too are unwilling to acknowledge?

Most Hollywood financiers, directors and Oscar voters are rich, old white men. As in pretty much all facets of American capitalism, minorities are underrepresented in every stage of film and television production; from writing to directing to acting to producing.

Racism towards Blacks in American mass entertainment spans centuries.

This discrimination began during the minstrel era of 1830 to 1890. Minstrel shows were comprised of various skits, music and comedy that revolved around the ugliest stereotypes of Blacks. The stereotypical Black characters of the minstrel shows have played a large part in spreading racist images and perceptions across the world.

For half a decade, minstrel shows were the most popular form of entertainment in the United States.

The term Jim Crow is named after a popular 19th-century minstrel song that caricatured African Americans. "Jim Crow" eventually came to represent the brutal system of state-sanctioned apartheid and racial oppression in America.

The American minstrel show was effectively dead by WW1, and it was replaced by Hollywood's Blackface later in vaudeville, Broadway, silent movies, and eventually talking pictures and film.

Historian Ken Paget notes that one of the first Blacks to perform in Blackface for white audiences was the man who invented tap dancing, William Henry Lane, aka Master Juba. Lane's talent and skill were extraordinary and ultimately he became famous enough that he was able to perform in his own skin.

Early film rose with the dissemination of racial stereotypes to large audiences across the world. Early silent movies such as The Wooing and Wedding of a Coon in 1904, The Slave in 1905, The Sambo Series 1909-1911 and The Nigger in 1915 perpetuated negative depictions of Blacks through an exciting new mass medium.

Throughout Hollywood's history Black entertainers and directors have always been ghettoised and segregated from mainstream film. Northern Blacks resorted to making silent movies of their own known as "Race movies" that were highly critical of American racism. To this day, Black narratives are ghettoised within a separated Black films industry. In America, Black is not merely a skin color it is also a movie genre, for films made by Blacks for Blacks because the understanding is that whites could not possibly be interested in movies with Black characters.

Mr. Paget illustrates how between 1930 and 1950, animators at Warner Brothers, Walt Disney, MGM, Looney Tunes, and many other independent studios, produced thousands of cartoons that unashamedly perpetuated the same old racist stereotypes. This period is now known as the golden age of animation, and right up until the mid 1960s, cartoons were screened before all feature films.

Up to the mid twentieth century in Hollywood, Blackface was used in well over 90 instances. There eventually was a transition from Blackface to whitewashing, which marked the simultaneous, and intertwined persistence of white supremacy and so-called present day post-racialism. Whitewashing, whereby white actors depict characters of color without the use of Blackface is the poster-child of post-racialism: the idea that America is devoid of racial preference, discrimination, and prejudice. On the contrary, post-racialism is in fact the new racism. Post-racialism pretends that there is equal opportunity while ignoring the institutional and economic racism that infects inner cities and fills prisons.

The majority of people in America are minorities and yet this year every single Oscar nominee was white and ninety five percent of Oscar voters where white. It is hard for Black actors and actresses to gain prominence when white people are playing their roles.

For instance, the past year alone has seen the Scotsman Gerard Butler play the Egyptian God, Set, in Gods of Egypt, Emma Stone played an Asian American woman in Aloha, and Ridley Scott cast white actors in Exodus: Gods and Kings, the movie based on Moses.

Director Ridley Scott explained why Hollywood engages in the practice of whitewashing: “I can’t mount a film of this budget, where I have to rely on tax rebates in Spain, and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such. I’m just not going to get it financed. So the question doesn’t even come up”.

Perhaps, nothing shows Hollywood's racial insensitivity quite like the recent casting of actress Zoe Saldana in Blackface as Nina Simone in the upcoming biopic Nina. Nina Simone was one of the Black is beautiful movement's most powerful historical figures.

The light skinned Saldana appears in Blackface. Ms. Saldana's skin has been darkened, her hair has been made to look more ethnic, and prosthetics have been used to widen out her nose, alter her features and give her buck teeth.

Nina Simone made it very clear that her "job as a singer is to tell Blacks that Blackness, Black power and Black culture are from civilizations of unmatched beauty but we just don't know it, and I will educate Blacks by whatever means necessary".

The very darkness of Simone’s skin and her distinctly African features defined both her music and her politics. Therefore, to portray her in this way is nothing short of criminal, it is a tone-deaf gross whitewashing of unapologetic Blackness.

Nina Simone is part of a small group of women who came from being considered the least valuable human beings in all of the United States, a dark-skinned Black woman from Jim Crow South, and who became a music icon whose insistent Blackness has inspired generations.

Today's generation of Muslims depicted in cinema are virtually limited to terrorists and national security threats, which serves to justify a dangerously oversized military abroad and unprecedented surveillance and erosion of civil liberties at home.

For many millennial Americans, the first exposure to Muslim "others" was the 1992 Disney classic Aladdin, in which most good characters were Westerners and the savages where invariably dark skinned. The children's movies song lyric is instructive:

I come from a land, from a faraway place where the caravan camels roam / Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face / It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.

Ever since Aladdin, there have been a litany of propaganda films that lionize American military aggression across the Middle East. Hollywood's Islamophobia operates in the service of American militarism and American militarism in turn operates in service of Hollywood. The U.S. military has had a dominant presence in Hollywood since the early 1900s through the Pentagon's Film Liaison Office. The Liaison Office's propaganda mission is clear: review American war movie scripts and decide whether to offer them support depending on if they conform with the interests of the country's military leaders. In short, the Pentagon only supports Hollywood's pro-war propaganda films.

America's war on terror has cost Americans trillions of dollars and Arabs millions of lives and Hollywood has pumped billions of dollars into creating movies that endorse America's disastrous foreign policy. In a single year at the Golden Globes, there were awards for Argo, where a bearded CIA hero saves American hostages from Iranian hordes; and Zero Dark Thirty, depicting the heroic hunt for Bin Laden; and President Obama's favorite TV show Homeland, showing courageous Americans battling endless Muslim jihadis at home and abroad.

Then of course there is American Sniper, the highest grossing war film in US history. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee reported a spike in Islamophobia and hate crimes after the release of American Sniper which culminating in the recent slaying of three young Muslims in North Carolina who were shot in the head sniper execution style.

Despite the fact that the FBI confirms that white supremacists commit far more acts of domestic terrorism than their Muslim counterparts, Hollywood's penchant for white supremacy continues to depict Muslims as sinister and exotic brutes incompatible with American civility, rather than portraying the full spectrum of human density of their lives.

White terrorism founded America, built the nation through slavery, and continues to be the nation's largest domestic terrorist threat. From Redface, to Blackface, to Yellowface, to Brownface, Hollywood's long and torrid history of white supremacy through their depiction of other races as dangerous or inferior has been a pillar of American racism at home and an integral weapon for American militarism abroad.

The Climate Emergency: Time To Switch To Panic Mode?

Ugo Bardi

The latest temperature data have broken all records (image from "think progress"). At best, this is an especially large oscillation and the climate system will be soon back on track; following the predictions of the models - maybe to be retouched to take into account faster climbing temperatures. A worst, it is an indication that the system is going out of control and moving to a new climate state faster than anyone could have imagined.

James Schlesinger once uttered one of those profound truths that explain a lot of what we see around us: it was: "people have only two modes of operation: complacency and panic."

So far, we have been in the "complacency" mode of operation in regard to climate change: it doesn't exist, if exist it is not a problem, if it is a problem, it is not our fault, and anyway doing something about it would be too expensive to be worth doing. But the latest temperature data are nothing but spine-chilling. What are we seeing? Is this just a sort of a rebound from the so-called "pause"? Or something much more worrisome? We may be seeing something that portends a major switch in the climate system; an unexpected acceleration of the rate of change. There are reasons to be worried, very worried: the CO2 emissions seem to have peaked, but that didn't generate a slowdown of the rate of increase of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. If nothing else, it is growing faster than ever. And then there is the ongoing methane spike and, as you know, methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.

What's happening? Nobody can say for sure, but these are not good symptoms; not at all. And that may be a good reason to switch to panic mode.

The problem is that societies; specifically in the form called "states" do not normally show much intelligence in their behavior, especially when they are in a state of panic. One of the reasons is that states are normally ruled by psychopaths whose attitude is based on a set of simple rules, mainly involving intimidation or violence, or both. But it is not just a question of psychopaths in power; the whole society reacts to threats like a psychopath: with the emphasis on doing "something", without much concern about whether it is the right thing to do and what would the consequences could be. So, if climate starts to be perceived as a real and immediate threat, we may expect a reaction endowed with all the strategic finesse of a street brawl: "you hit me - I hit you."

A possible, counterintuitive, panic reaction might be of "doubling down" in the denial of the threat. That could lead to actions such as actively suppressing the diffusion of data and studies about climate; de-funding climate research, closing down climate research centers, marginalizing those who believe that climate is a problem; for instance classifying them among "terrorists." All that is already happening in some degree and it may well become the next craze, in particular if the coming US elections will handle the presidency to an active climate denier. That would mean hard times for at least a few years for everyone who is trying to do something against climate change. And, perhaps, it would mean the total ruin of the Earth's ecosystem.

The other possibility is to switch all the way to the other extreme and fight climate change with the same methods used to fight terrorism; that is, bombing it into submission. Of course, you cannot bomb the earth's climate into submission, but the idea of forcing the ecosystem to behave the way we want is the basic concept of "geoengineering".

In the world of environmentalism, geoengineering enjoys more or less the same reputation that Saddam Hussein enjoyed in the Western press in the 1990s. That's for good reasons: geoengineering is often a set of ideas that go from the dangerous to the impossible, all ringing of desperation. For a good idea of how exactly desperate these ideas can be, just take a look at the results of a recent study on the idea of pumping huge amounts of seawater on top of the Antarctic ice sheet in order to prevent sea level rise. If it were a science fiction novel, you'd say it is too silly to be worth reading.

However, it may be appropriate to start familiarizing with the idea that geoengineering might be the next world craze. And, perhaps, it is better to take the risk of doing something that could go wrong than to do nothing, considering that we have been doing nothing so far. Don't forget that there are also good forms of geoengineering, for instance the form called "biosphere regeneration." It is based on reforestation, fighting desertification, regenerative agriculture and the like. Removing some CO2 from the atmosphere by transforming it into plants can't do too much damage, although it cannot be enough to solve the problem. But it may stimulate also other fields of action against climate change; from adaptation to switching to reneable energy. Maybe there is still hope..... maybe.

What is the Efficacy of Sanctions on North Korea?

Sandip Kumar Mishra


The United Nations Security Council decided to impose more sanctions on North Korea on 2 March 2016. This time, it took around two months for the UN to agree on ‘tougher sanctions’ on North Korea after Pyongyang conducted its fourth nuclear test on 6 January. While the international community was deliberating the nature of the sanctions, North Korea conducted a satellite launch that was alleged to be long-range missile, and fired short several short-range missiles. Even after the sanctions, North Korea does not look ready to change its behaviour. In fact, there are reports that North Korea may mount a nuclear attack without warning and that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered more nuclear tests in the near future.

The North Korean nuclear conundrum has become South Korea and the US' Achilles Heel. The leaders of both the countries have no clue how to deal with the situation except their blindfolded belief that a tit for tat action is the right choice. Every incident of provocative behaviour is seen as a product of North Korean desperation, and more sanctions are considered the right choice in being able to force the North Korean regime to either change its behaviour or for it to collapse.

It seems that both South Korea and the US are still not ready to review their North Korea policy. Even after the recent episode, they were adamant to impose more sanctions and pressure on North Korea. When the UNSC took longer to deliberate the issue because of certain Chinese and Russian reservations, both Seoul and Washington went ahead with their bilateral sanctions. On 18 February, US President Barack Obama signed new sanctions on North Korea into law for its nuclear and missile tests and also because of suspected cyber attack incidents. Similarly, South Korea declared the closure of the Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC) in February, and on March 8, blacklisted dozens of North Korea entities and people for the first time, along with banning ships that have visited North Korean ports. 

In addition to sanctions, South Korea and the US have been more direct in criticising China for its failure to contain North Korean provocative behaviour, indicating the frustration in Seoul and Washington. However, in China’s perspective, South Korea and the US obdurate stands is also to be blamed for North Korea’s behaviour. Furthermore, it may be said that these antics are not because of China but rather in spite of it. In fact, both the US and South Korea accepted that China cooperated with the international community in putting sanctions on North Korea in an unprecedented manner after the third North Korean nuclear test in February 2013. China has nothing to gain from aggressive North Korean nuclear and missile programmes.

North Korean provocation, on the other hand, would only help the US make its presence in the region more elaborate and stronger. For example, South Korea’s desire to join the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) system and the increasingly significant annual joint military exercise between the US and South Korea are against the national interests of China. Open criticism of China after the North Korean nuclear test was therefore premature and could have been avoided. China may think that it has not been appreciated for what it has done, and instead been blamed for not doing enough. Such an approach runs the risk of pushing China closer to North Korea, and the delay in the passing of the UN resolution on the North Korean test could be attributed to China’s reluctance to cooperate. In the case of Chinese and Russian reluctance to implement sanctions on North Korea, there may be doubt about the success and effectiveness of the policy.

It is time to re-think the efficacy of sanctions: despite increasing the quantum of sanctions with every instance of provocation, why has the international community  not been able to achieve satisfactory results? The answer to this question is that sanctions hurt a country if and to the extent it is connected and interdependent with other countries. North Korea has less than US$8 billion external trade and around of half of it is with China. Since the North Korean economy has negligible connections with the outside world, putting more sanctions may not be as effective as they are considered in other cases. Even if sanctions have some small impact on North Korea, it would be felt more by the common people and not by the ruling elite.

Thus, a regime of more strict sanctions on North Korea, which has been sought by the US and South Korea, does not have potential to change North Korea's behaviour. Rather, it may lead to a more hostile North Korea and any miscalculation or accident would lead to disastrous consequences for the Korean peninsula.

Sri Lankan government refuses to release Tamil political prisoners

Subash Somachandran & S. Jayanth

Fourteen Sri Lankan Tamil political prisoners ended a hunger strike of nearly three weeks last Friday at Welikada prison in Colombo after Prison Reforms and Rehabilitation Minister D.M. Swaminathan claimed he would expedite their cases. The government, however, refused the hunger strikers’ demand for the unconditional release of all Tamil political detainees.

The continued incarceration without trial of hundreds of Tamils not only exposes the ongoing repression and discrimination against the country’s Tamil minority. It is part of an escalating attack on the democratic rights of all sections of the Sri Lankan working class.

On February 29, 75 detainees at the Welikada prison held a one-day hunger strike in support of the 14 Tamil hunger strikers. Relatives and supporters of the protesting Tamil prisoners also held pickets and sit-down demonstrations in Jaffna, Vavuniya and Mannar in the north of the island over the past two weeks. Last Friday, Jaffna University students demonstrated to demand the release of the Tamil detainees.

There are still over 160 Tamil political prisoners being held without trial in Sri Lankan jails. Some were arrested during the nearly 30-year communal war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Others were taken into custody after the military defeat of the LTTE in May 2009.

All are held under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act, which allows the police to use so-called confessions to charge and detain people for more than 18 months. The police force and its intelligence wing are notorious for extracting false confessions by torture.

The latest hunger strike was the fourth such prison protest in the last six months. In October 2015, over 220 detainees in 14 jails began an indefinite hunger strike over their ongoing imprisonment. The protests ended after the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a coalition of the Tamil bourgeois parties, convinced the hunger strikers to end their action, claiming the government was ready to release them.

President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have repeatedly insisted there are no political prisoners and that those in custody are being held on criminal charges. Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardena reiterated this claim, telling the media last Wednesday that “legal action will be taken against those whose crimes are proved.”

In the face of widespread popular opposition, the government in recent months has released over 60 detainees but under stringent bail conditions. It has also established several special courts to try some detainees.

The flimsy character of the cases against the Tamil prisoners was again exposed when a special high court in Vavuniya released Murugaiah Komahan and Ganesaratnam Santhadevan on February 29. Imprisoned for seven years, they were released 15 months after a previous high court hearing rejected police charges based on supposed confessions of the detainees.

As it did last October, the TNA pressured the latest group of hunger strikers to halt their protests. On February 28, TNA parliamentarians Sivasakthi Ananthan and Selvan Adikalanathan visited Anuradhapura jail to try to persuade two of the protesters to end their strike.

A week later in Colombo, the TNA leaders again appealed to the detainees to end their fast, promising to take action to release them. While the hungers strikers rejected the empty promises from the TNA leadership, they could see no way forward and reluctantly decided to abandon the protest.

The TNA, led by parliamentarian R. Sambandan, has close relations with the pro-US Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government. During last year’s presidential election campaign, the TNA backed Sirisena. Like other political groups supporting Sirisena, the TNA highlighted the previous government’s war crimes and attacks on democratic rights, insisting that a new president would release the Tamil prisoners.

The TNA acted in line with advice from the US and India, which wanted former President Mahinda Rajapakse ousted. Washington’s efforts were aimed at scuttling Rajapakse’s close relations with Beijing and lining up Sri Lanka as part of the US war preparations against China.

The TNA wants to cut a deal with Colombo for the administration of the North and East of Sri Lanka. In line with this strategy, it opposes any struggle that might destabilise the present administration and backs its attacks on the working class.

The Socialist Equality Party and International Youth and Students for Social Equality are holding a public meeting in Jaffna on March 20 to expose the pro-imperialist stance of the various Tamil nationalist parties and explain the socialist perspective needed to fight the growing danger of war.

World Socialist Web Site reporters recently spoke to the families of several Tamil political prisoners.

Nadesan Tharmarajah, who has been detained at Magazine prison since September 2013, was involved in the latest hunger strike. He has been arrested, detained and tortured three times since the end of the war in 2009. His wife Naagalojini, 37, and a mother of five, is living with a relative in a small house at Achchuveli in Jaffna.

Naagalojini said: “We were previously living in the refugee camp at Vavuniya. My husband was arrested by police and tortured at a military camp in September 2009. He was released but arrested again in November of the same year and detained for three years.

“We feel sad about the prisoners’ fasting campaign. Our children are very worried about their father and don’t like even to play with other children. Our eldest son is 20 years old. He has abandoned his studies and is now working as a day labourer.

“Many times we were starving because we didn’t have a proper income. My husband lost his leg in a military shell attack as we were fleeing the fighting during the war. We visited the prison several months back and were only able to speak to him for a few minutes. We’ve not been able to see him since because we can’t afford to travel to the prison.

“Every two weeks they take my husband to the court and then send him back to the jail. He hasn’t committed any crime. The politicians claim that Sirisena’s ‘good governance’ is better than Rajapakse’s but if that’s the case why they don’t release the detainees?”

Ganeshan Darshan, 26, was arrested at Nawalapitiya in Sri Lanka’s central hill district, his father’s birthplace. He was detained by the Terrorist Investigation Department in 2009 and held at Anuradhapura jail. His mother Chithra Ganeshan said he had been involved in several hunger strikes and, although the government and TNA parliamentarians promised to secure the release of the Tamil detainees, nothing had happened.

“When my son and his fellow prisoner Mathiyarasan Sealskin started fasting on February 25, the TNA parliamentarians visited the prison asked them to stop the hunger strike. They promised to take action to produce them in court soon. They stopped fasting but since then we’ve been unable to contact the MPs.

“I’m sick because I’m always thinking about him. He was shot in his knee during the war and finds it difficult to walk. We can’t afford the fees for lawyers and to visit the courts in the North. He has been jailed for six years but the government cannot produce any charge sheets against him because they have no evidence. My son is a talented artist and has won several prison competition awards. His life is being unnecessarily wasted in the prison.”

Sri Lankan workers—Sinhala and Tamil alike—must take a warning from the ongoing frame-up and incarceration of Tamil political prisoners. These methods will be used against all sections of the working class and the poor as they oppose the government’s attacks on social conditions and democratic rights.

The fight for the unconditional release of political prisoners and the ending of the military occupation of the North and East is part of the struggle to unite Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim workers in defence of jobs, living standards and fundamental democratic rights. This is an integral part of the fight for Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and Eelam and socialism throughout South Asia and internationally.

Study: Worsening conditions for young people throughout the developed world

Nick Barrickman

Incomes for young people born between 1980 and 1994 have hit unprecedented low levels in the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse, according to a recent investigative series conducted by the UK’s Guardian publication titled “Millenials: The Trials of Generation Y.” The study draws on income statistics from eight of the world’s 15 most advanced economies, including the US, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, France, Italy, Spain and Germany to paint a picture of dimming social prospects for young people throughout the developed world.

The Guardian cites as contributing factors “a combination of debt, joblessness, globalization, demographics and rising house prices” which “have grave implications for everything from social cohesion to family formation.” Whereas during the 1970s and 1980s people in their 20s averaged more than the national income, the study found that young couples and families in five of the eight countries listed made 20 percent less than the rest of the population today.

“It is likely to be the first time in industrialized history, save for periods of war or natural disaster, that the incomes of young adults have fallen so far when compared with the rest of society,” the British newspaper states.

In the US and Italy, incomes were lower in actual figures than they were a generation ago, with Americans averaging a yearly salary of $27,757 in 2010 compared to $29,638 in 1979. The study notes that young US workers currently make less than those in retirement. In France, households headed by individuals under the age of 50 made less disposable income than recent retirees. In Italy, an 80-year-old pensioner possesses more income than someone under the age of 35.

In many cases, the 2008 financial collapse simply accelerated trends that were already underway. Housing prices in Great Britain and Australia are among the most expensive in the developed world. The average price for a home in Sydney, Australia, is $1 million in Australian dollars, more than 12 times the median household income in the city. The average home loan for first-time buyers in New South Wales is A$424,000. This figure has increased by 43 percent in the past four years alone.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, housing prices have increased more sharply and for a longer period in the past 20 years than at any time since 1880. The Guardian notes that housing costs in the UK and Australia have been increasing at a “neck and neck” pace ahead of the average household income. “We’re heading for a world where rates of home ownership among young people are below 50 percent for the first time,” states Alan Milburn of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, adding that the UK is heading toward becoming “a society that is permanently divided.” Income for those in their late 20s in the UK remain below levels seen in 2004-2005.

A recent survey by British polling firm Ipsos Mori found that 54 percent of those questioned thought the next generation was or would be worse off than the previous. “It’s the highest we’ve measured—it’s completely flipped around from April 2003,” stated Bobby Duffy, managing director of Ipsos Mori’s Social Research Institute of the findings.

In addition, more than a quarter of individuals in this age group live with their parents. An average woman in this age group today waits 7.1 years longer to become married than in 1981; and the average age of childbirth for young families is nearly four years later than those in 1974.

“My greatest worry is working all my life, constantly chasing debt and never being to own a house or have children,” writes a millennial named “Gemma” in a section of the series entitled “#Itsnotjustyou: Millenials share their secret fears.” Continuing, she states: “The cost of renting privately is rising, the cost of travelling is rising, the cost of living is rising and yet the salaries don’t reflect this rise. … I am worried that capitalism is pushing this and creating a greater wealth inequality gap. It seems unsustainable and to be driving people apart—a recent example is the demonization of our own NHS service and the junior doctors.” Many others share similar nightmares.

The study comes amid other findings revealing similar declines in living standards for youth in the developed world. A 2013 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report found nearly 30 million youth in the developed capitalist countries without a job or an education, the basic requirements for functioning in society.

The circumstances faced by young people throughout the world speak to a systemic breakdown of the social order in both the so-called developing and advanced countries, which has been compounded by war and militarism, consecutive attacks on living standards and cuts to social programs, which invariably hit the youngest and most vulnerable the hardest. Though not covered by the study, European nations such as Greece have been reduced to conditions unseen in the developed world, with youth unemployment at over 60 percent due to attacks on living standards demanded by the European Union and enforced by consecutive governments, both right and “left,” under Syriza.

The authors of the Guardian investigation, in an effort to divert rising anger away from the social system responsible for the poverty, destruction of living standards and attendant social misery, single out the relatively-better off living conditions of retirees in order to make a case for attacking pensions and other benefits accruing to the older generation. The publication quotes a recently published interview with Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank (ECB), who states “in many countries the labor market is set up to protect older ‘insiders’—people with permanent, high-paid contracts and shielded by strong labor laws. … The side-effect is that young people are stuck with lower-paid, temporary contracts and get fired first in crisis times.”

Rather than receiving expanded employment, pay and access to better living conditions, it is proposed that the young and the old fight over the rapidly diminishing resources made available by bourgeois public officials and the wealthy. While Draghi advocates attacking the pay and benefits of older workers, the ECB head has funneled billions into the hands of European banking institutions; recently upping the monthly total of cash infusions to €80 billion from €60 billion previously and adding to the wealth of the financial elite.

The fate of retirement benefits and wages under the profit-system is pointed to when the newspaper notes “pensioners’ incomes are likely to rise for at least the next decade, after which future generations will be unlikely to benefit [due to] a drop in home ownership, weaker private sector pension schemes and the expectation that state pensions will be less generous in the future.”

Slumping car sales lead to extended layoff of Fiat Chrysler Sterling Heights workers

Shannon Jones

Workers at the Fiat Chrysler Sterling Heights Assembly Plant are continuing on layoff due to slumping sales of the Chrysler 200 and Dodge Dart.

Last week Fiat Chrysler announced that what had originally been scheduled as a six-week layoff would be extended for another three weeks. Workers are now not set to return until April 4. During the layoff period workers get a percentage of their regular earnings through a combination of state unemployment benefits and supplemental pay from the company.

The layoffs affect some 2,600 hourly workers at Sterling Heights Assembly and another 150 workers at the nearby Sterling Stamping plant. Some 400 skilled trades and maintenance workers are not affected at Sterling Heights Assembly.

The layoffs follow the announcement by Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne that the company will stop production of the Chrysler 200 and the Dodge Dart in the coming period. The company is reportedly in discussion with outside parties to continue small car production in order to concentrate on larger, higher profit margin vehicles like the Dodge Ram truck and its line of Jeep products.

Sales of the Chrysler 200 were down 61 percent compared to the same period one year ago, to fewer than 12,000 vehicles. The sales decline follows the decision by Fiat Chrysler management to pull back on dealer incentives last November.

According to Ward’s Automotive, FCA had 147 days of inventory in stock of the Chrysler 200, far more than the 60 to 65 days supply considered normal.

Sales of the Dodge Dart have fallen 26 percent so far this year. There has been no announcement of layoffs yet at FCA’s Belvidere, Illinois assembly plant where the Dart is made.

At one time FCA considered the Chrysler 200 a means to secure a position in the US passenger car market. The company spent $1 billion retooling the Sterling Heights facility, which had originally been scheduled to close permanently, to build the 200.

The only official reaction to the layoff extension came from United Auto Workers Local 1700 President Charles Bell, who told the Detroit Free Press, “We are confident we will go back to work in April.”

In fact, the national UAW-Fiat Chrysler contract agreement signed last fall opened the way for the current round of layoffs, containing no provisions to halt the contracting out of production.

Sterling Heights Assembly workers contacted by the WSWS said that the plant is scheduled to be shut down again later this spring for retooling. Fiat Chrysler is reportedly planning to shift production of the Dodge Ram truck from the Warren Truck plant to Sterling Heights over the next eight to 10 months.

Stacy, a veteran Sterling Heights worker, told the WSWS, “All I know is that the truck is coming, but there is no definite information about what is happening. Corporate keeps that hush-hush.

“We went through this before during the bankruptcy. It is coming full circle.”

Workers at the Warren Truck plant face an uncertain future. There are reports that FCA plans to move the Jeep Grand Wagoneer to the plant to replace the Ram. However, the Wagoneer is a slow selling vehicle and it is unlikely that FCA will need to retain its entire current workforce at the facility.

A tier-two worker at Warren Truck told the WSWS, “The union hasn’t said anything to us. All I know is what was rolled out to us prior to the [2015] contract vote – that a new vehicle is coming, but no one specifically said what it is. At this point it looks like some of us will stay here and some will go over to Sterling Heights when the change occurs.”

There are signs that the auto sales boom of the past several years may be winding down. A report Sunday in the Wall Street Journal notes that delinquency rates for so called subprime auto loans have risen. Subprime loans account for about 20 percent of the $1 trillion in auto loans made last year. Nine out of 10 new cars and more than one-half of used cars are financed.

While a majority of subprime loans are for used car purchases, the rising delinquency rates are a sign of weakness in the overall car market.

The Journal asserts that the automakers have boosted sales by extending credit to those with low credit scores. It cites one recent bond made up of subprime loans where, through February, 12 percent of the underlying loans were at least 30 days past due and one-third were 60 days past due.

The Journal writes, “The 60-plus day delinquency rate among subprime car loans that have been packaged into bonds over the past five years climbed to 5.16% in February, according to Fitch Ratings, the highest level in nearly two decades. The rate of missed payments is higher for loans made in more recent years, a reflection of more liberal credit standards and the larger number of deals from lender serving less creditworthy customers, according to Standard & Poor’s Rating Services.”

It goes on to cite a hedge fund manager who declares, “What’s driving record auto sales is not the economy, but record auto lending.” He said that lenders have systematically loosened loan-underwriting standards.

The UAW has no answer to the mounting threat to jobs except the promotion of rabid American nationalism, blaming workers in Mexico, China and other countries for stealing jobs in the US. In fact layoffs are a product of the developing global economic slump, a consequence of the anarchy of capitalist production.

South Korea imposes extra sanctions on North Korea

Ben McGrath

South Korea’s imposition of unilateral sanctions on North Korea on March 8 has further heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula following new UN Security Council sanctions adopted on March 2, under duress from the US.

Washington and Seoul have exploited Pyongyang’s fourth nuclear test in January and a rocket launch last month to impose penalties that are intended to cripple North Korea’s economy, accentuate the political crisis in Pyongyang and, in doing so, intensify the pressure on China and Russia.

While the new UN sanctions barred the export of materials such as gold, titanium ore and rare earth metals from North Korea, as well as the import of all weapons and aviation fuel, they allow trade in coal, iron ore and oil so long as it is for “livelihood purposes.”

China pressed for this last condition, fearing that the North Korean regime would be pushed to the brink of collapse if it were starved of oil and unable to earn income from its mineral exports. While Beijing opposed the North Korean nuclear tests, it is deeply concerned that a political implosion in Pyongyang could result in the unification of the Korean peninsula under a government aligned with Washington.

Lee Seok-jun, minister of the government policy coordination office, justified the unilateral South Korean sanctions by declaring: “The government will continue to sanction and press the North in close cooperation with the international community so as to create conditions where there is nothing for it but to change.” In reality, South Korea, in league with the US, is pushing for regime-change in Pyongyang.

The new South Korean sanctions go further than the UN Security Council resolution in choking the North Korean economy. Foreign ships that have visited North Korea in the previous 180 days will be banned from entering South Korean waters. Seoul hopes it will prevent third countries from doing business with Pyongyang. Last year, 66 ships that had been to North Korea made 104 stops in South Korea as well, according to the government, which also stated these vessels were loaded with steel and general merchandise. Japan imposed similar sanctions last month.

The South Korean government also intends to draw up a list of items that other countries will be required to ban if the goods are made in, or with materials originating in, North Korea.

By these measures, countries that wish to trade with South Korea will be forced to limit economic ties with Pyongyang. This is particularly aimed at China, which is North Korea’s only major trading partner. In addition, some 40 individuals and 30 business entities in North Korea have been blacklisted.

Seoul has also suspended a trilateral trade cooperation agreement with North Korea and Russia known as the Khasan-Rajin project. This deal included the construction of a railway line between the Russian border town of Khasan and the North Korean port town of Rajin. Siberian coal was to be transported to the port then loaded onto ships for delivery to South Korea. In 2014-2015, three trial runs took place with Chinese ships.

The project’s suspension is noteworthy as Russia had threatened to veto the UN sanctions resolution if the project was to be banned. Before the South Korean sanctions were formally announced, Je Seong-hun, a professor at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, commented: “Dropping the project will inflict a major blow on Russia’s East Asia policy. The backlash from Russia will be considerable.”

Seoul is also capitalising on the heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula to pass so-called anti-terrorism legislation under the pretext of countering the North Korean “threat.” Its spy agency, the National Intelligence Service (NIS), claimed on March 8 that North Korea had hacked into the cell phones of high-ranking government officials at the end of February and beginning of March.

None of the NIS allegations should be accepted at face value. The spy agency is notorious for fabricating pretexts for ramping up pressure on North Korea. In February, Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo claimed North Korea had used 70 percent of the funds earned at the now-shuttered joint Kaesong complex to fund its weapon programs. The next day, Hong was forced to admit he had no evidence to substantiate the allegation, but the government has nevertheless continued to circulate it.

The hacking allegation came at an opportune time for Seoul. In February, the NIS, again without specific evidence, claimed North Korea was preparing cyber-attacks and demanded the passage of a cyber security bill along the lines of that currently being considered by the National Assembly. If passed, the legislation will allow the monitoring of online communication and create a new body under the NIS to direct this operation.

A separate “anti-terrorism” bill was passed last week following a nine-day filibuster by the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK), the latest incarnation of the Democrats. The new law allows the NIS to tap telephone calls and access bank records, enabling the government to collect a broad range of information on South Korean citizens. The bill also establishes an office under the prime minister to ostensibly oversee the NIS. South Korea’s prime minister directly serves under the president.

The MPK is not opposed to the attack on democratic rights. Its filibuster is nothing more than a political stunt to give the impression that the party defends democracy in the lead-up to next month’s general election. In fact, the MPK previously suggested similar measures, as long as they were implemented by a separate government body.

The tensions with North Korea come as the US and South Korea conduct the largest-ever war games on the Korean peninsula. The Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises began on March 7 and will run through to March 18 and April 30 respectively. While these drills in the past have focused on supposedly defensive scenarios, this year the two militaries are simulating offensive maneuvers under the new Operational Plan 5015 that includes pre-emptive attacks on North Korean installations and the assassination of key North Korean officials.

In short, Seoul is preparing for war alongside the US, directed not only against North Korea, but also China. Washington is exploiting the tense situation on the Korean peninsula to justify its military build-up in North East Asia as part of its broader “pivot to Asia” and military encirclement of China. Well aware that the war drive will provoke popular opposition, the South Korean government is preparing police-state measures to suppress it.

Central banks confront unintended consequences

Nick Beams

Three of the world’s major central banks are to meet this week in the wake of last week’s decision by the European Central Bank to push the interest rate it charges on deposits further into negative territory and expand its supply of ultra-cheap money to banks and financial institutions from €60 billion to €80 billion a month.

The Bank of Japan (BoJ) meets today, followed by the US Federal Reserve on Wednesday and the Bank of England on Thursday. No major policy decision is expected to result from any of the discussions. But financial authorities will have plenty on their agenda amid growing concerns that the entire financial system is moving out of their control.

Since the Japanese bank’s decision to introduce negative rates on new deposits from February 16, central banks have been confronted with a series of problems and unforeseen consequences.

When BoJ governor Haruhiko Kuroda announced the new interest rate regime, it was intended to put downward pressure on the Japanese yen and boost the stock market. A lower yen would improve the competitive position of Japanese companies in global markets and lift their bottom line.

Moreover, Kuroda’s announcement was an admission that the policy of massive purchases of Japanese government bonds, initiated in 2013, had failed to lift the rate of inflation. The stated objective was to reach an inflation rate of 2 percent in two years. Three years on, inflation is still close to zero and the target date has been shifted to the middle of next year. No one seriously believes it will be met.

The policy has also failed to promote growth. In the fourth quarter of 2015, the Japanese economy contracted at an annual rate of 1.1 percent and further negative growth is expected in the first quarter of this year. This would mark the third technical recession—defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth—in four years.

In a 5-4 vote on the BoJ’s governing council, Kuroda and his supporters decided to introduce negative rates with the stated purpose of lifting prices and boosting the economy and the unstated objective of lowering the value of the yen.

Given public pronouncements from the G-20 that there should be no resort to 1930s-style beggar-thy-neighbour policies, no central banker will admit to targeting the exchange rate, lest they be accused of engaging in currency wars. But the various forms of monetary easing are all carried out with that aim.

The move to negative interest rates has backfired badly, however. Instead of falling, the yen has actually risen in recent weeks, while the stock market has declined. This is because the BoJ decision had unintended consequences. First, it was seen as making less likely a decision by the US Fed to further increase interest rates, following the 0.25 percentage point increase in December. This had the effect of slowing the appreciation of the dollar relative to the yen and other currencies.

Second, the Japanese decision added to the growing perception in financial markets and more broadly that the world’s central bankers have no clear idea of where their policies are heading. Instead, they seem to be stumbling in the dark and reacting in an ad hoc manner to each development.

The increase in uncertainty, combined with fear that negative rates would have an adverse impact on the business models and profits of banks, made investors more wary and resulted in a shift to so-called safe havens. As Japan is regarded one as of these, the yen rose, rather than declined as might otherwise have been expected.

The introduction of negative rates also has had significant consequences internally in Japan. One of the aims of so-called Abenomics is to increase consumer confidence and spending in order to counter deflation. The new interest rate regime has had the opposite effect. Consumers have rightly concluded that if the BoJ has to introduce negative rates then the economic situation must be worsening, rather than improving, and so have cut back on spending.

A source cited by the Wall Street Journal as “close” to the BoJ commented: “There is a perception that we are set to further lower the negative rates, and it seems to be stoking a sense of uneasiness among the public.” The article noted that opinion polls regarded the negative rate policy as ineffective and consumer sentiment last month fell at its sharpest rate for two years.

The European Central Bank (ECB) program, based on the pledge by its president Mario Draghi in 2012 to do “whatever it takes,” has proven no more successful than that of its Japanese counterpart. The measures the ECB introduced last Thursday had an air of desperation. Draghi warned of “disastrous deflation” had nothing been done over the past four years.

However, as with the BoJ decision, the latest ECB measures seemed to have the opposite effect from what was intended. The further lowering of interest rates into negative territory could have been expected to lower the value of the euro. After an initial fall, the euro rose, swinging through a range of 4 percent in a single day, because Draghi appeared to indicate that interest rates would not be reduced further.

Two reasons have been suggested for Draghi’s comments: open opposition to further rate cuts from Germany, where the Bundesbank has expressed hostility to the entire easy money policy; and concerns that the negative interest rate regime was calling into question the business models of the major banks.

The US Federal Reserve meeting on Wednesday is not a policy event. However the comments of chairwoman Janet Yellen will be followed closely as to what they indicate about the possibility of a further interest rate increase when the Fed meets in June

When the Fed increased its base rate by 0.25 percentage points in December, the general consensus was the first rate increase in a decade had proceeded smoothly. But the apparent calm was short-lived. Since the start of the year, markets have experienced a series of gyrations, to which the central banks are responding with ever-more desperate measures, giving rise to unanticipated consequences that are contributing to further instability.

Millions join protests in Brazil demanding ouster of Workers Party government

Bill Van Auken

Crowds estimated in the millions demonstrated in cities across Brazil Sunday demanding the ouster of the Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores-PT) government and the country’s President Dilma Rousseff.

The largest of the rallies took place in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s financial and industrial capital, where the city’s security office put the number of demonstrators, who filled the entire length of the central Avenida Paulista, at 1.4 million. Instituto DataFolha, a prominent polling institution, put them at 450,000, while organizers claimed an improbable 3 million.

Fueling these rallies, which were substantially larger than similar demonstrations held a year ago, was anger over the ever-widening political bribes and kickbacks scandal that has siphoned billions of dollars from the state-run energy conglomerate Petrobras, as well as growing frustration over the precipitous decline of Brazil’s economy into its worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

They were further driven by the demand of state prosecutors in Sao Paulo to place Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the former president and founder of the PT, in “preventive custody” in connection with their charges that he concealed ownership of a seafront apartment built for him by a construction firm that was a major contractor with Petrobras.

Demonstrators chanted, “Down with the PT,” “Dilma out” and “Stop the corruption.” A significant minority within the rallies raised banners and signs calling for the Brazilian military to intervene, reprising the right-wing 1964 coup that plunged Latin America’s largest nation into 21 years of brutal military dictatorship.

Unlike the rallies held a year ago, Sunday’s demonstrations enjoyed the open support of the right-wing bourgeois parties opposed to Rousseff and the PT, as well as that of the leading employers and business associations such as FIESP (Federation of Industries of the State of Sao Paulo). Free metro transit fares were offered in Sao Paulo to boost participation.

Surveys indicated that, while larger than last year, the rallies were once again dominated by sections of the middle class. A survey done by a leading polling company found that 63 percent of the protesters had incomes equal to at least five times Brazil’s minimum wage.

While the predominant political orientation of the protests was right-wing, attempts by the PT’s right-wing political opponents to capitalize on them were met with angry hostility toward all politicians and parties.

Sao Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckmin and Senator Aécio Neves, who was narrowly defeated by Rousseff in the 2014 election, both of the right-wing PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party), were quickly escorted out of the Sao Paulo protest by their security guards after crowds surrounded them chanting, “You’re next,” and denouncing them as “opportunists” and “crooks.” In other cities attempts to address the crowds by right-wing politicians were drowned out by boos and chants of “no parties.”

The leadership of the Workers Party called off rallies in support of Lula and Rousseff that had been called for the same day, citing fears of violent confrontation. It is also undoubtedly the case that the those who would come into the street in defense of the PT would be heavily outnumbered by the party’s opponents.

PT President Rui Falcão used his Facebook page Monday to call for rallies on Friday March 18 “in defense of democracy and presidents Lula and Dilma, against the coup and for changes in the economy.”

This last slogan is meant to cast the PT as being an opponent from the “left” of the very policies that are being pursued by the PT government itself. Rousseff has responded to Brazil’s deepening economic crisis with the attempt to push through a “fiscal adjustment” program aimed at slashing pensions, wages and workers’ benefits, while assuring that fully 20 percent of the federal budget goes to service Brazil’s debt to Wall Street and the international banks.

These economic austerity measures serve to exacerbate the crisis of Brazilian workers under conditions in which layoffs have reached 100,000 a month and the inflation rate has topped 10 percent.

In a further sign that the economic crisis is only deepening, Brazil’s Central Bank reported Monday that economic activity had fallen by another 0.6 percent in January, confounding economists’ predictions of a very slight increase for the month.

Despite the indices of economic decline, the value of Brazil’s currency has risen by 10.8 percent over the past month, while its stock and bond markets have also risen substantially over the past week. As the Financial Time snoted, the impetus to the market rally has “come from the political sphere.”

“The detention of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and its implications for his protégé and current leader, Dilma Rousseff, have raised hopes among investors that the barriers to political change may be overcome sooner than expected,” the newspaper reported.

Jefferson Luiz Rugik, who heads the Correparti brokerage in Sao Paulo, told the paper, “Everything that is against the current government and President Dilma is favourable for the real . . . it raises the possibility that we would have another government with more credibility.”

For more than a dozen years, the PT has served as the principal party of the Brazilian bourgeoisie, serving its interests, while promoting limited social welfare programs aimed at dampening the class struggle, even as social polarization between a narrow financial elite and masses of workers and poor continued to deepen.

Now, dominant layers within the Brazilian ruling class have decided they need a new kind of government, of an openly right-wing and potentially dictatorial character, to carry out drastic attacks on the living standards of the working class. This is the driving force behind the campaign to impeach Rousseff.

The betrayals carried out by the PT, and particularly by an array of pseudo-left groups that promoted it as a substitute for the building of a revolutionary party of the working class, are responsible for the present political situation, which confronts Brazilian workers with grave dangers.

The president of the House of Deputies in the Brazilian Congress, Eduardo Cunha, of the PMDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party), an erstwhile ally of the Rousseff government, has called for members of the body to remain in Brasilia through Friday in anticipation of the country’s Supreme Federal Tribunal responding to questions on the rules governing impeachment, allowing the process to begin.

Cunha, a right-wing Christian fundamentalist, is charged by federal prosecutors with receiving as much as $40 million in Petrobras-linked bribes for himself and his political allies, using an evangelical mega-church to launder the money. He is accused of personally socking away $5 million in bribe money in secret Swiss bank accounts.