The Failure Of Democracy – American And Other

David Anderson

This essay challenges the founding principle of the American constitutional form of government; expressed in the sanctity of human liberty and freedom. It makes the case that “liberty and freedom” as it is so defined in the American constitution and its amendments has now in this Anthropocene period become an intractable obstacle working against the survival of our species on this planet. It states the reason. It is a form of government that allows expression and gives power to the worst of the psychotic self.

We are now witnessing this in America with the unbridled use of the resources of the planet to the public’s psychotic satisfaction without reference to ecological reality. Recognition of our species’ interdependency with the forces of Nature is ignored. Self-interest prevails and becomes the standard ethic. Citizens turn their eyes away from what they prefer not to see and toward what they desire. It has left not just all Americans, but our species throughout the globe facing the possibility of non survival on the planet.

In recent years the question of human survival has begun to move to the forefront of humanity’s thought process. Serious debate is taking place in many sectors of world society - including in America. Governments however are unable to take sufficient corrective action. A deficiency within the democratic process arises from the fact that each thought group finds itself looking for solutions based its own narrow range of understanding, as well as bias. Also as noted above, psychotic self-interest among the masses prevails. As a result, corrective thought and action is unable to overcome the wholeness of the problem. This was noticeably evident in Pope Francis’ 2015 LAUDATO SI which was religiously purposeful, yet vague in many important areas such as that of exponential population growth. At the same time, the concrete economic measures he proposed faded into the background.

It is self-evident that the planet’s democratically constituted forms of government are constitutionally ill equipped to handle a problem of such depth and magnitude. The worst impulses of a self-centered and ignorant secular society have unyielding power. This is now illustrated by the inability of governments to face the need for review of what is quickly becoming an overwhelming planetary destructive force; a capital market system gone awry. The architecture that grew out of the industrial revolution, on which capital markets today justify their operation, is in need of repair. The cold hard fact is that this architecture, like an insidious disease, is working against human survival.

Capital markets have grown to a size where they are energizing ecologically and socially destructive forces of a magnitude that has never before been seen in the history of the planet. Resource allocation is being misguided and misappropriated on a massive scale. Irreparable planetary damage is being done.

Negative external costs and positive incentives are not being built into investment decisions. These costs and incentives should be applied to every human economic activity from the mine to the chemistry lab to the assembly line to the opera house to the athletic field to the hospital. Economic outcomes with negative social and/or ecological value should be recognized. Negative externalities should to be measured and priced in up front so as to discourage, temper, or at the extreme eliminate investment. None of this is happening.

Recognition of the need for changes in capital markets as well as changes in other areas of human activity has been only taking place globally among isolated pockets of population. The 2015 agreement reached at the COP21 meeting in Paris should be noted here. 196 nations agreed to the seriousness of the problem and pledged to take action. But will all of this be enough? The answer had been a resounding “No.”

In America large segments of the population refuse to recognize oncoming ecological reality. Life is too good for them. They rest their case on the sanctity of a Jeffersonian/Hamiltonian democratic mindset and therefore belief in what is commonly described as “neo-conservatism.” This in turn is supported by belief in the “God-Like” benefit of free and fluid “Capital Markets.” They rest their case on an extremely conservative Adam Smith “hidden hand” bias, flatly refusing to acknowledge its inherent dangers. Market-based mechanisms and technology become a solution to all problems.

Where does this leave human civilization? The warning referenced below by Robert Hansen is real. A breakdown is approaching. It will be global. It will be far reaching. The forces of nature on the planet will be turning against our species. Temperatures will be rising. Oceans will be rising. Billions of people will be starving. Religious sectarian violence will be spreading. We may even see atomic weapons being used. Nations will be in political in disarray.

As this is occurring, humanity will be searching for a way it can continue to live on this planet in some form of planetary harmony. Many will be asking the question: Is some form of beneficent authoritarian government capable of designing measures that will allow human life to overcome the enfolding deterioration of the biosphere? Is it even possible?

Such a form of world government would call for a very large number of enlightened individuals to have the authority – and ability - to bring about change. Clearly, as a template, the American constitutional system would not suffice. Nor would other democratic forms as now seen throughout the world. In fact, freedom as understood in the present democratic sense will come to be seen as a primary cause of the ecological forces being set in motion.

It will not be a smooth ride. Unrestrained psychopathic impulses built on the fear instinct and supported by a concomitant need for self-preservation will be playing a role. As ecological problems build, in many nations corrupt and self-centered authoritarian rule will take over.

One question we should now be considering is this: Can there emerge a higher level of human consciousness with voices saying that we are not separate from the cosmic realm but are a part of a rhythm that is in a sense “the mind” of the cosmic realm, voices redefining the cosmic and planetary purpose of the human species by way of new forms of thought?

Another question relates to the efficacy of transformational counter measures, given the enormity of the difficulties that will have arisen from cascading ecological developments and their seeming irreversibility. Will change be possible? There is cause for doubt as to whether political, economic, and social change could take place fast enough to reverse the disintegrative momentum. We have no historical precedent to go by. Human evolutionary change has always taken very long periods of time. Adaption has been gradual. This one calls for immediate response.

We can, however, also observe that there has been an acceleration of human response in recent history. Humanity would appear to be benefiting from a growing capacity for flexibility.

As the ecological breakdown continues to unfold, the future of Homo sapiens will lie at a critical fork on its evolutionary road; one leading to its painful end, the other to its long term survival on this planet and in the cosmos of which it is a part.

How much time do we have? Some highly accredited scientists say our present trajectory will present very serious planetary problems within the next fifty to one hundred years, and some even point to the end of our species after three hundred.

Reference:

The scientist who first warned of climate change says it’s much worse than we thought

Amelia Urry, 22 Mar 2016

http://grist.org/science/the-scientist-who-first-warned-of-climate-change-says-its-much-worse-than-we-thought/

Russian Documentary Shows ISIS Documents Of Turkey’s Assistance

Eric Zuesse

Russian Television is starting a series of documentaries showing captured ISIS documents, and Turkish-border-stamped passports of ISIS fighters. The initial news-report also refers to a ‘fatwa’ that allegedly allows infidels to be killed to supply fresh organs for transplantation into severely injured ISIS fighters.

Invoices are shown for records of Syrian oil trucked into Turkey for sale, which indicate "the name of the driver, the vehicle type driven, and the weight of the truck, both full and empty, as well as the agreed upon price and invoice number. One of the discovered invoices dated 11 January, 2016, says that IS had extracted some 1,925 barrels of oil from Kabibah oil field and sold it for $38,342.” Turkey then sells it for far more — the current market-price.

Also shown is "Islamist propaganda printed in Istanbul.”

The U.S. supplies ISIS through Turkey. Furthermore, Turkey is now a dictatorship, and its dictator, the fundamentalist-Sunni Tayyip Erdogan, is passionate to overthrow Syria’s leader, the secular Shiite Bashar al-Assad. ISIS is the main fighting force he works with to do that.

Allied with Turkey in this effort are: U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Kuwait.

Turkey and the U.S. are in NATO; the others are in the Saudi group, the Gulf Cooperation Council. (Turkey isn’t, because it’s not on the Persian Gulf. Turkey is instead the GCC’s representative in, or main link to, NATO. Turkey also is their link to the EU, but hasn’t yet entirely won membership in the EU.)

The royal Sauds are the main funders of Al Qaeda, known as Al Nusra in Syria; and, according to a cable from former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the entire Gulf Cooperation Council are heavy financial backers of not only Al Qaeda but other jihadist groups.

Earlier I headlined: "Western Reporter in Syria Finds U.S.-Backed Fighters Are Jihadists.”

The foreign backers of the jihadist groups who have flocked into Syria to overthrow Assad are U.S., Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Kuwait, and that includes the nations whose leadership back jihadists, even while they need to make propagandistic statements and occasionally actions that kill some jihadists.

The central targets of that alliance are Russia and Iran. Assad, of course, is allied to both Russia and Iran.

Rare or Routine? Video Captures 'Cold-Blooded Execution' By Israeli Soldier

Jon Queally

The release of video footage showing the extrajudicial killing of a wounded Palestinian man on Thursday has led to the arrest of the Israeli Defense Force soldier who pulled the trigger, but rights groups say the documented incident only confirms their warnings regarding how the Israeli military routinely behaves in the Occupied Palestinian Territories when cameras are not rolling.

The Palestinian man who was shot and killed, identified as Abed al-Fatah al-Sharif, was one of two Palestinians reported as being involved in the stabbing of an Israeli soldier, who was slightly wounded in an attack.

In the video, released by the Israeli human rights groups B'Tselem, al-Sharif is seen wounded and unconscious in the middle of the street in the city of Hebron. While al-Sharif lies nearly motionless—though clearly still alive—numerous soldiers, police officers and medical personnel make no effort to administer aid, and largely ignore he's there at all. At 1.51 minutes of the video a soldier is seen stepping forward, aiming his weapon at a-Sharif and shooting Al-Sharif in the head from close range, killing him. "Although this occurs in the plain view of other soldiers and officers," B'Tselem noted, "they do not seem to take any notice."

As the footage continues, blood can be seen pouring from al-Sharif's head and flowing in streams down the street.

The footage released by B'Tselem follows [Warning: very graphic]:

As journalist Robert Mackey of The Intercept reports, "Several Palestinian and Israeli observers were struck by the fact that no one around the soldier who fired the shot seemed to treat the incident as unusual — suggesting that such extrajudicial killings of suspected attackers have now become 'routine,' as critics have charged."

Speaking with the Guardian, B’Tselem spokesperson Sarit Michaeli said, "In this case it seems crystal clear a soldier executed a wounded Palestinian assailant while he was on the ground. You can see he is alive [but] injured. It is also clear from the video that an Israeli soldier has been injured. But this kind of conduct is shocking, especially considering the blasé response of the other soldiers and security forces who are also seen. It raises quite serious questions about why these appear so unsurprising to these other soldiers and that needs to be seriously investigated."

UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov condemned the apparent "extrajudicial execution" of al-Sharif. "This was a gruesome, immoral, and unjust act that can only fuel more violence and escalate an already volatile situation," Mladenov said, according to the Ma-an News Agency.

B'Tselem called the incident beyond troubling. "The law is clear," the group said in a statement: "Shooting to kill is only permitted when the person is endangering the lives of others. Once the danger is over, he or she must not be harmed."

Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International, agreed. "The shooting of a wounded and incapacitated person, even if they have been involved in an attack, has absolutely no justification and must be prosecuted as a potential war crime," Luther said.

According to Haaretz, a lawyer representing the soldier says he readily admits to killing the already wounded and motionless man, but defended his actions "because he felt that his life was in danger."

But Amos Harel, who covers the media and military matters for Haaretz, described the killing as nothing less than a 'cold-blooded execution'—one, however, that will surprise very few people who understand how the Occupation works. "The public atmosphere in Israel being what it is, a cold-blooded execution should come as no surprise," Harel wrote on Friday. "Politicians and rabbis are repeatedly calling on soldiers to kill terrorists without thinking too much about it."

Though the IDF soldier was detained and faces possible criminal charges, Luther said the implications of this case go far beyond the fate of one individual, citing how groups including Amnesty and B'Tselem have documented similar incidents since the uptick of Israeli-Palestinian violence in recent months.

Earlier this month, though the video evidence was less clear, groups charged that another Palestinian man accused of being involved in a knife attack was shot in the head and killed by an Israeli police officer as he lay on the ground wounded.

"Israeli forces have a long history of carrying out unlawful killings – including extrajudicial executions – in the Occupied Palestinian Territories with impunity," Luther said. "While it is encouraging that the soldier in the video has reportedly been suspended and placed under investigation, previous Israeli investigations have failed to hold members of the Israeli forces accountable even when there has been clear evidence of criminal wrongdoing. The Israeli authorities must use this opportunity to end the culture of impunity that has made such killings increasingly commonplace."

Chinese government’s phony anti-poverty plan

John Ward

At this month’s National People’s Congress (NPC), Chinese Premier Le Keqiang boasted that the central government would increase its poverty alleviation budget by 43.4 percent this year and lift at least 10 million people out of poverty by year’s end and another 55 million by 2020.

While the percentage was widely reported in the Chinese media, the actual monetary increase will be only 20.1 billion yuan ($US3 billion) out of total budget of 2.7 trillion yuan. Moreover, even if the programs are successful, it will raise the income of those affected above the austere official poverty line of 2,300 yuan per year or about one US dollar per day.

Poverty alleviation is formally part of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) grand vision of “building a moderately prosperous society” by 2020. In reality, it reflect fears within the Beijing regime that the accelerated pro-market economic restructuring announced at the NPC will lead to rising unemployment, a deepening divide between rich and poor and provoke resistance by workers and the rural poor.

The pittance spent on poverty alleviation is in marked contrast to the money allocated in the national budget for “public security expenses” was 158.4 billion yuan, up 7 percent. The CCP is determined to ensure that its extensive police-state apparatus has the means to suppress social unrest.

An estimated 70 million Chinese live below the official poverty line of 2,300 yuan per year (at 2010 prices). By comparison, the legal minimum wage is 2,310 yuan a month in Guangdong, one of the country richer provinces, and falls to 1,210 yuan a month in smaller towns and more impoverished areas.

Beijing claims to have largely eradicated urban poverty in large part because of a government subsidy paid to urban dwellers to lift incomes to a minimum level of 4,476 yuan per year. A survey of 140,000 households by the China Household Income Project found that only 1.4 percent of the urban population was below the minimum level.

The benchmark poverty level is set at just $US2 a day compared to the official minimum wage levels on which workers struggle to survive. In many cases, workers are paid below the minimum or paid only after lengthy delays or not at all.

Hundreds of millions of people live on very low incomes. According to the World Bank, the number of people in China living on $1.90 per day or less has decreased from 194.1 million in 2008 to 149.6 million in 2010. Those surviving on $3.10 per day or less decreased from 436.6 million in 2008 to 364.4 million in 2010. China’s total population is nearing 1.4 billion.

Social inequality is increasing at a far greater pace. China now has one of the most unequal wealth distributions of any large economy on the planet. The latest World Bank figures rate China at 60th out of 157 countries, ranked from most unequal to least. On this ranking, China is more unequal than the United States (63), Japan (122) and Germany (135).

China has a Gini coefficient of 42.1—a coefficient of 0 signifies complete equality while 100 indicates complete inequality. Other research by Chinese academics published in 2014 puts China’s coefficient as high as 58.8. In the mid-1970s, China ranked as one of the most equal countries in the world with a Gini score below 30.

World Bank figures from 2010 show that 30 percent of income goes to the top 10 percent of the population while 47.1 percent goes to the top 20 percent. The bottom 20 percent received 4.7 percent of national income while the bottom 10 percent only received 1.7 percent.

According to the latest 2016 Hurun Global Rich List, released in February, mainland China now has 470 US dollar billionaires. It also has four of the top ten cities by “billionaire residents” with Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hangzhou and Beijing now having more billionaires than New York City. The number of Chinese billionaires has grown by 80 percent since 2013 even as economic growth slowed markedly.

This super-rich layer is integrated with the top levels of the state apparatus. According to the 2015 Hurun Rich List, 211 Chinese billionaires were given political appointments: 114 as delegates to this year’s National People’s Congress, 79 as members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee (CPPCC), nine to the standing committee of the CPPCC and nine became members of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce.

China’s four richest people on the Hurun Rich List are Wang Jianlin and family $26 billion, Li Ka-shing $25 billion, Lee Shau Kee $24 billion, Jack Ma Yun and family $21 billion. Their combined wealth outstrips the total amount that the government plans to spend on poverty alleviation for tens of millions of people.

The NPC announced plans to put greater reliance on private charity. NPC Standing Committee vice chairman Li Jianguo declared that charitable programs will be “indispensable” in the future fight against poverty. A new Charity Bill was proposed to provide tax breaks to wealthy donors and to regulate the sector. According to the China Daily, “philanthropy has rapidly gained momentum in the nation over the past decade, growing from 10 billion yuan (about $1.5 billion) in 2006 to 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) in 2014.”

These so-called poverty alleviation plans come as preparations are being made for a massive assault on the working class. Up to six million jobs are slated to be destroyed over the next six years as Beijing eliminates huge overcapacities in basic industries, such as coal, steel, cement and plate glass causing severe social dislocation. Far from eliminating poverty, the Chinese regime is creating an immense social gulf between the ultra-rich oligarchy whose interests it represents and the vast majority of the population.

Corporate elites maintain pressure on Australian prime minister

Nick Beams

Less than a week after the media hailed as a masterstroke Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s move to create the conditions for a “double dissolution” election for the House of Representatives and the full Senate, the underlying economic pressures that led to his decision are resurfacing once again.

Turnbull organised the proroguing of parliament and the convening of a special three week-session starting on April 18 in response to mounting criticism from corporate and financial circles that his government had not yet begun to implement their dictates for spending cuts and austerity measures.

In a major interview on the ABC’s “7.30 Report” on Monday, in the wake of his decision, Turnbull emphasised that “the key agenda here is how do we successfully continue to manage our transition from an economy that was fuelled by a mining construction boom to a new and more diverse one?”

Virtually alone among all major economies, Australia has not experienced a recession in the past 25 years. Notwithstanding the fact that its financial system was severely shaken by the global financial crisis of 2008—the banks would have been unable to roll over their international borrowings without a guarantee from the Rudd Labor government—it did not fall into negative growth.

The main factor was the investment and construction boom in China. Fuelled by Chinese government stimulus measures and a massive expansion of credit, the boom led to increased demand for Australian mineral exports, especially coal and iron ore. From a level of around 10 percent in 2004-5, the proportion of Australian merchandise exports going to China had risen to 32 percent by 2014-15.

But with the recent slowdown in Chinese economic growth, from more than 10 percent to the official estimate of “around 6.5 percent”—or closer to 4 percent according to some calculations—the mining investment boom has come to a shuddering halt. This is the context of the so-called “transition” touted by Turnbull as the central economic agenda of his government, under conditions where the Australian economy stands directly exposed to the deepening recessionary trends in the global economy as a whole.

In a comment published on Thursday, Business Spectator columnist Alan Kohler noted that, “to help the transition from the mining boom into new export industries, Australia needs either a currency devaluation or a big fall in its domestic cost structure.”

Kohler went on to point out that a big currency devaluation, which would lower living standards, was not feasible, despite the efforts of the Reserve Bank to engineer one, because the US dollar was falling rather than rising.

“In the absence of an external devaluation,” he continued, “a high-cost country must undergo an internal devaluation in order to succeed in a world of free(ish) trade and globalisation.”

In other words, at the centre of the “transition” agenda is a massive reduction in wages and living standards, going far beyond the stagnation of wages and cuts in social spending over the past four years.

Such an “internal devaluation,” however, has major implications for the stability of the banks and the financial system. Over the past decade, the chief source of revenue and profits for the country’s four major banks has become home mortgages. Money made available at relatively low interest rates to fuel speculative investments has seen the escalation of house prices to historically unprecedented levels, with the median price for a home in Sydney, the nation’s largest city, around $1 million dollars. In the outer suburban areas, working class families are under continuous and intense pressure to pay off loans as high as half a million dollars and more, and face economic disaster in the event of a recession.

Household debt as a percentage of gross domestic product has risen to around 140 percent compared to a global average of nearly 80 percent. Last month, an investigation by UK-based economist Johnathan Tepper concluded that Australia was in “one of the biggest housing bubbles in history.”

Over the past four years, he noted, more than 40 percent of all new mortgages had been interest-only; in other words, the house was purchased solely as an investment, to be resold when the price rose. This system of “Ponzi financing” was, Tepper said, a “disaster waiting to happen.”

In the lead up to the election, which could come as early as July 2 if a double dissolution takes place, the government is seeking to keep its real agenda hidden, instead creating a set of economic fictions about a new boost to prosperity.

Delivering a major lecture to the Lowy Institute on Wednesday, Turnbull presented a rosy scenario for Australia’s economic prospects, claiming the expansion of the Chinese middle class, the economic rise of India and the transformation of economies such as Indonesia’s offered “enormous opportunities” for Australian businesses. In reality, economies across the region are being directly impacted by the slowdown in China, amid warnings that the rapid rise of indebtedness in “emerging markets” has the potential to set off a major financial crisis.

The business and corporate elites, however, are demanding that the time for further windy rhetoric has passed and that their long-demanded assault on wages and social conditions be initiated.

Their views were echoed in an editorial in the Australian Financial Review on Thursday. Pointing to conflicts with his predecessor Tony Abbott, whom Turnbull ousted in a coup last September, and his Treasurer Scott Morrison, who was kept out of the loop on the decision to prorogue parliament, the editorial declared that these irritations “speak to a harder-to-reach itch on the prime ministerial body: a lack of a credible policy agenda to secure and advance Australian prosperity.”

It concluded that while Turnbull had been right to “embrace a framework of innovation and disruption,” because this was the “hallmark of today’s global economy,” his agenda had to be “hitched to hard policy decisions.”

Those decisions are not expected to be contained in the budget to be brought down on May 3. Instead, the budget will be pitched towards the forthcoming election. While its centrepiece, at this stage, appears to be cuts in the corporate tax rate, it is likely to fall short of the demands of the ruling elites.

Their agenda is, nevertheless, being prepared behind the scenes. It is significant that if Turnbull’s double dissolution move is successful, the trigger will be the Senate’s rejection of legislation to re-establish the Howard-era Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), a draconian industrial police force that will preside over the building and construction industry, with sweeping powers to initiate criminal charges against any workers involved in industrial action.

While the ABCC is being revived under the banner of stamping out corruption in the trade unions, its real purpose is to establish mechanisms for forcibly suppressing the opposition that will develop throughout the working class to the impact of the “internal devaluation” of the economy—i.e., to the imposition of austerity.

Fundraising for US presidential campaign surpasses $1 billion

Joseph Kishore

Financial contributions for Democratic and Republican candidates running in the US presidential elections surged past $1 billion by the end of last month, shattering comparable figures for previous elections. A huge proportion of this money has come from a handful of super-wealthy donors who have taken advantage of the elimination of restraints on donations to “Super PACs” associated with individual campaigns.

According to data compiled by the Campaign Finance Institute and reported yesterday by USA Today, the sums of money raised so far are more than twice the $402.7 million raised during the last presidential election in 2012, through the end of February. In 2008, the last year when both parties had contested primaries, election spending was at $812 million through the same period.

Super PACs, which are free to raise unlimited funds following the 2010 Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court, account for nearly 40 percent of fundraising, up from 22 percent in 2012.

According to USA Today, 108 individuals, companies and groups have contributed at least $1 million to super PACs, for a combined total of $232 million. That is, just over 100 individuals have contributed more than half of all donations to Super PACs and nearly a quarter of financing for the election as a whole.

Separate data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics shows that Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has raised the most of any candidate through the first week of March, at $222.6 million. Of this, $62.7 million has gone to outside organizations associated with her campaign, primarily her Super PAC Priorities USA Action, which has pulled in the most of any outside group.

Top donors for Clinton and her Super PAC include Soros Fund Management run by billionaire investor George Soros ($7 million), Euclidean Capital ($3.5 million), Pritzker Group ($2.8 million) and Saban Capital Group ($2.5 million).

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has raised nearly $140 million, much of it in the form of individual contributions to his campaign, with half the total coming from donations of less than $200. When individual contributors are grouped by the institution where they work, the largest (at $132,000) is Google, followed by the University of California, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon. The presence of other tech companies and universities on the list is an indication of Sanders’ support among students and professional workers.

On the Republican side, Texas Senator Ted Cruz has raised $119.2 million, with 44 percent of this going to his Super PACs. Cruz’s Keep the Promise I, II and III Super PACs have each raised more than $10 million.

Donald Trump has raised $36.8 million, the bulk of which has come in the form of loans from the candidate himself to his own campaign, which he expects to be able to pay back. The billionaire real estate developer has pledged to spend unlimited funds to secure the presidency.

The Center for Responsive Politics also breaks down campaign donations by sector. Individuals associated with finance/industry/real estate have contributed $192.3 million to candidates and outside groups so far, with $67.1 million going to Republican candidate Jeb Bush (who has now dropped out), $40.1 million to Cruz and $29.1 million to Clinton. Lawyers and lobbyists have contributed $26.2 million, with half of this going to Clinton.

Next month Clinton is hosting a fundraiser in San Francisco, California with seats at the head table (which will include actor George Clooney and his wife, Amal) going to individuals who raise or donate $353,400 for the Hillary Victory Fund (which includes Clinton’s own campaign as well as the Democratic National Committee and 32 state party committees).

According to a report in Politico, the event will be hosted by Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of DreamWorks and a major backer of both Clinton and, before her, Barack Obama.

Overall, the 2016 election—which is still more than 7 months away—is expected to be the most expensive on record by far. Candidates and outside groups are predicted to spend up to $10 billion on the presidential, congressional and other candidates, 40 percent more than was spent in 2012.

A separate analysis published by the New York Times last week estimated the monetary value of free media coverage for the different candidates, based on the equivalent advertising rates. Trump received by far the largest amount of media coverage, the equivalent of $1.9 billion. Clinton’s media coverage was estimated at $746 million and Sanders’ at only $321 million.

Sanders has posed a significant challenge to Clinton in the Democratic Party race despite his relative lack of media coverage and access to large donors. While Clinton is widely expected to win the delegate race easily, a recent poll conducted by Bloomberg gave Sanders a slight lead nationally, with 49 percent to Clinton’s 48 percent. Other polls have put Clinton ahead by significant margins.

Sanders’ poll numbers and his financial contributions are reflections of the fact that he has gained support particularly from younger and less wealthy Democratic Party primary supporters. It is also an expression of his assigned role: to use “socialist” rhetoric and anti-big business rhetoric to channel disaffection back into the Democratic Party, the party of the status quo.

The Belgium bombing: Why the dots are not connected

Alex Lantier & Andre Damon

This week’s terrorist attacks in Belgium, which have left 31 dead and 300 wounded, are the latest in a series of similar high-profile attacks in the 15 years since the beginning of the “war on terror.”

In each of these incidents, the script follows similar lines: the attackers were known to intelligence agencies and were either active or prospective fighters in Western-backed destabilization and regime-change operations in the Middle East and throughout Eurasia. After each attack, the failure to act on information already in the possession of the intelligence agencies is explained away by the supposed “failure to connect the dots.” Finally, despite monumental breakdowns in basic security protocols, no officials are fired or otherwise disciplined.

In previous incidents, such as the September 11 hijackings, the Boston Marathon bombings, the Charlie Hebdo shooting and the November 2015 Paris attacks, the extent of state intelligence foreknowledge has come out only in the subsequent months and years, allowing these facts to be carefully hidden away from the media and relegated to the realm of “conspiracy theories.”

But what is unprecedented about Tuesday’s events in Brussels is the rapidity with which the extent of state foreknowledge of the attacks has been revealed.

On Wednesday, Israeli daily Ha’aretz revealed that Belgian intelligence had precise information on when the attacks would occur and what their targets would be.

The next day, Turkish President Recep Erdogan said that one of the attackers involved in the airport bombing, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, had been twice deported from Turkey to the Netherlands after trying to enter Syria, and that Belgian authorities had been told of his affiliation with Islamist militias. Ibrahim’s brother, Khalid, who participated in the attack on the Maelbeek metro station, was known to have been involved in November’s Paris attacks and had an international arrest warrant issued against him.

These revelations have triggered a crisis in the Belgian government, with Interior Minister Jan Jambon and Justice Minister Koen Geens offering their resignations, which were rejected by Prime Minister Charles Michel.

What can explain why these attacks are not prevented?

The basic reality is that all of these attackers are drawn from a broad pool of active fighters in the wars in Iraq, Syria and other countries, and who have been financed with the support of NATO and intelligence agencies in both Europe and the United States.

The New York Times, in an article posted yesterday, acknowledged that the “Franco-Belgian network is part of the wider trend of European fighters in Syria and Iraq, estimated by security services to number 4,000 to 6,000.” The newspaper added that it is “not clear how many have returned to Europe; while some officials estimate 10 percent, others have disputed that as exaggerated.”

Whatever the precise number, it is clear that the individuals who carried out the March 22 bombings and the November 13 and Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris are part of a broader group of people who have been allowed to freely travel to and from the Middle East. The only conclusion that can be drawn from the ease with which these forces permeate national borders and conduct operations is that there are protocols in place to ease their passage and lower any red flags. They operate under a veil of official protection.

Attacks such as those in Brussels are not intelligence “lapses,” but rather the inevitable product of the deep integration and institutional connections between terrorist networks and the intelligence agencies of Europe and the United States.

To stop their movements across borders, to subject them to standard security protocols, would have negative consequences for the wars these forces are waging across the Middle East. This would greatly endanger the entire strategy pursued by the Obama administration and its European allies—the use of Islamist proxy forces, often linked to Al Qaeda or its offshoot ISIS, in place of “boots on the ground.”

The attacks such as those in Brussels take place either as “blowback” operations by Al Qaeda or Islamic State forces, embittered by the failure of the US and European governments to carry out their promised overthrow of the Assad regime, or they are facilitated by sections of the state for whom terrorist acts in Western countries serve the purpose of shifting foreign and domestic policy—or some combination of the two.

It is notable that the attacks in Brussels come less than a week after the Atlantic published an extensive interview with US President Barack Obama in which he defended his decision not to commit the resources in toppling the Assad government that many had demanded. Leading figures in the US media, including the New York Times columnists Thomas Friedman and Roger Cohen, have already seized on the events in Brussels to call for a more aggressive US intervention in Syria.

Whatever the specific circumstances and motivations, the Brussels attack—like the Paris attacks last year and others before them—flows from the military operations of the imperialist powers in Libya and Syria and their drive to destabilize and dominate the Middle East.

These wars, steeped in recklessness and criminality, which have led to countless thousands of deaths and the displacement of millions, are now having deadly consequences for the population of Europe. Horrific acts such as those that have taken place in Belgium can be stopped only if the wars are stopped.

Escalating crisis hits New Zealand dairy industry

John Braddock

New Zealand’s major dairy exporter, Fonterra, announced this month that the forecast milk price paid to farmers this season will be reduced to $NZ3.90 ($US2.60) per kilogram. The latest cut of 25 cents brings the payout to less than half the $8.40 farmers were earning two years ago. The break-even price is about $5.40, meaning the vast majority of the country’s farmers are losing money.

The continuing slump is causing alarm in wider banking and financial circles. Economist Shamubeel Eaqub told the NZ Shareholders’ Association annual conference last September that the impact of the steep dairy payout decline was the worst in real terms since 1912.

Dairy is the country’s principal export industry. Fonterra initially announced a brutal cut in its payout last August, down to $3.85 per kilogram from a forecast $5.70 just three months earlier. While prices recovered to $4.60 later in the year, dairy-related income slumped by $4.9 billion to $13.2 billion for the 2014–15 season.

The downturn is a sign of ongoing deeply-rooted problems in the wider economy. On March 10, the Reserve Bank announced a surprise cut of 25 basis points to the official cash rate to a record low 2.25 percent. It also lowered the forecast track to the 90-day bank bill rate by half a percentage point over the next two years, indicating another interest rate reduction is still to come. The bank’s governor Graeme Wheeler cited low inflation resulting from cheap fuel and other imports, but the dairy crisis was a major factor in the decision.

In January, international credit rating agency Fitch downgraded its outlook for New Zealand’s economy, saying it expected slower GDP growth due to falling dairy prices. It reaffirmed the country’s AA credit rating but downgraded the outlook from “positive” to “stable.” Fitch gave a “negative” rating to the banking sector due to the “softening” economic environment, predicting that a prolonged period of low dairy prices could lead to farmers not being able to pay off loans.

DairyNZ calculates that the average dairy farmer will be in the red by $210,000 at the season’s end in May. Fonterra expects total production to fall by up to 6 percent this year. Prime Minister John Key told Radio NZ this month that up to 10 percent of the country’s 14,000 owner-operators and share-milkers were at risk of “going under” and he expected banks would be “working closely” with farmers to “keep them on their land.”

However, on March 17, the Reserve Bank released details of its “stress tests” for the main rural lenders. The dairy industry is carrying almost $40 billion in debt. If Fonterra’s payout remains below $5 per kilo until the 2018–19 season, land prices are forecast to drop by 40 percent and $4 billion would have to be written off in loans. By comparison, total bank profits, in today’s terms, are $5 billion a year.

Rabobank, which services 15 percent of the dairy farming market, warned that it would not support all at-risk farmers. General manager Hayley Moynihan told Radio NZ the “severity and prolonged nature” of the downturn meant “not all farmers will survive in terms of their businesses being resilient enough to cope with what will effectively be three years of very low milk prices.” Moynihan bluntly declared it was not “in the bank’s interest to fund losses where the losses can’t be repaid even when markets improve.”

The crisis in New Zealand dairy is being fuelled by the collapse in global commodity prices. There is an oversupply of dairy products internationally. In Europe farmers are also struggling due to a Russian ban on imports in retaliation for EU sanctions. The much-predicted endless demand for NZ milk powder from China’s “rising middle class” is beginning to dry up due to that country’s economic slowdown.

A recent survey has shown a fifth of New Zealand’s small businesses are already being hit by the fall in the dairy price. Accounting software company MYOB, which carried out the survey, said about 100,000 small businesses across the country have been affected by falling revenues. MYOB general manager James Scollay said the downturn was “filtering through to the cities and other industries.”

Fonterra has exacerbated the problem by notifying its 4,000 suppliers and contractors that it wants a 10 percent price cut and intends to pay its accounts on a 90-day cycle, instead of each month. Hard-pressed provincial businesses protested that such a procedure was untenable, forcing them to carry the company’s debts and effectively act as its “banker.” Fonterra confirmed this month the permanent closure of its Kaikoura cheese factory, with the loss of 30 jobs in the small seaside town where it was one of the main employers.

Devon Funds Management chairman Paul Glass cast doubt over the viability of Fonterra, pointing out that it has almost $7 billion worth of debt but less than $1 billion in equities. “That is an incredible position to be in. Most banks will only lend you about three to four times your earnings, so Fonterra are very, very heavily indebted,” Glass said.

Under these circumstances, Fonterra’s farmer-shareholders are expressing growing outrage at the gold-plated financial packages commanded by management. Chief executive Theo Spierings’ total earnings last year were $4.93 million, making him the highest-earning executive in the country. The chairman of the board, John Wilson earns more than $400,000.

Waikato-based veterinarian and consultant Alison Dewes told Fairfax Media that Fonterra and the government were to blame for encouraging unsustainable intensification in the industry. “It’s not surprising farmers have been side-swiped by this crash… growth can’t be limitless because at some point we will flood the world with milk. This is exactly [what] has happened and the price has crashed,” he said. In 2014, 60 percent of the dairy expansion was based on conversions from other, even less profitable, types of farming, and just 40 percent on increased productivity.

A DairyNZ and AgFirst report in April is expected to show a looming exodus of farmers from the industry. Greg Yuretich, a Northland dairy farmer for three decades, told Fairfax Media he had experienced the “highs and lows of the industry.” The tough times, however, were becoming more frequent and “with this milk price you do ask yourself ‘Why am I getting up in the morning?’”

The National government has refused to provide any assistance to farmers. Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy this month flatly denied that the dairy industry is in a crisis. Despite farmers enduring “tough” times, Guy declared, “it’s my belief we are not at a crisis level. What we are experiencing is a period of volatility.”

Large protests in East Timor over ongoing Australian oil theft

Patrick Kelly

An estimated 10,000 East Timorese rallied in the country’s capital, Dili, last Wednesday against the Australian government’s continued refusal to negotiate permanent maritime boundaries between the two states.

The demonstration involved a significant proportion of Dili’s 200,000 residents, and was among the largest public mobilisations in East Timor since the former Portuguese colony and Indonesian territory received formal independence in 2002. This reflects mounting anger among ordinary Timorese over Canberra’s theft of oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea. Banners and signs read: “We don’t need your aid—we need our oil back!” “Hands off Timor’s Oil” and “Permanent, fair maritime boundaries.”

Australian imperialism’s record in the Timor Sea is one of unrestrained criminality.

After the Indonesian invasion of Timor in 1975, which was backed by the Whitlam Labor government, the Hawke Labor government signed a deal with the Suharto junta securing Australian oil and gas companies’ access to lucrative energy reserves, including in the massive Greater Sunrise underwater field. Australian policy shifted gears after Suharto’s downfall in 1998—it backed a referendum on independence in 1999 and launched a military intervention on bogus “humanitarian” grounds—as a means of protecting its oil and gas interests.

In 2002 and in 2006, Canberra organised a series of dirty tricks and provocations during maritime boundary negotiations, ensuring that Timorese officials agreed to leave the boundary an unresolved matter while dividing the energy revenues generated in the Timor Sea. A second military intervention in 2006 sought to fashion a regime in Dili more amenable to Australian interests.

Canberra also withdrew its recognition of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), preventing Timor from having an international court arbitrate a permanent border. With staggering hypocrisy, current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is now demanding that China respect a “rules based” order in the South China Sea and respect UNCLOS as part of his government’s support for the aggressive US-led drive to contain Beijing’s influence in the Asia-Pacific. The contradiction between Canberra’s positions on the South China Sea and the Timor Sea is another example of how the imperialist powers either promote or dismiss international law depending on which stance advances their predatory interests.

The Timorese ruling elite has revived the issue of the maritime border with Australia amid a mounting crisis wracking the so-called independent state.

East Timor is the most oil-dependent state in the world, with more than 90 percent of public revenue generated from the Bayu-Undan field in the Timor Sea. Reserves are running out, however, and while estimates vary, it is widely expected that there will be no more extractable oil or gas within a decade. Plunging oil and gas prices on the world market are exacerbating the crisis. Timor’s $16 billion sovereign wealth Petroleum Fund last year saw a slight decline in its value—the first time since the fund’s creation that it failed to increase its holdings.

The government is spending significant funds on infrastructure projects geared towards attracting international investors. It has also expanded certain welfare and subsidy programs, which, though still meagre, have helped to contain social unrest in the impoverished country.

All of this, however, is now in question. Unless the enormous Greater Sunrise field is brought online, the Timorese state faces bankruptcy and collapse.

Under the current bilateral treaty, Australia and Timor are to share 50-50 any oil and gas revenues generated from Greater Sunrise, despite approximately 80 percent of the area belonging to Timor under the internationally-recognised principle of establishing maritime borders halfway between the land masses of neighbouring countries.

The Australian government and Australia’s Woodside Petroleum, which has the rights over the field, have both refused Timorese demands for the construction of a pipeline from Sunrise to Timor, and the construction of oil and gas processing facilities in the small country. The Bayu-Undan reserves are piped to and processed in the northern Australian city of Darwin. Amid widespread youth unemployment, the Dili government is desperate for the employment and other downstream benefits from processing the Sunrise reserves in Timor.

The Dili demonstration last Wednesday was backed by the government as part of its strategy to pressure the Australian government for concessions.

The rally was widely advertised on state television, and through large billboards featuring former Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão, who now serves as the government’s minister for planning and investment and is also the “chief negotiator for maritime boundaries.” Representatives of parties in the so-called national unity government spoke at the rally, including from Fretilin (Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor) and Gusmão’s CNRT (National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction). The Timorese diaspora also helped organise smaller rallies outside Australian embassy offices in South East Asia and in several European countries. The campaign has involved social media, with the #MedianLineNow hashtag demanding an equidistant border between Australia and Timor, as consistent with international law.

East Timorese Prime Minister Rui Araujo wrote to Turnbull on February 1, formally requesting the reopening of maritime border negotiations. Turnbull dismissed this, with the Australian Associated Press reporting that the Australian prime minister had said that “he was open to general talks on bilateral issues and trade but not on the border issue” and that “existing resource-sharing arrangements met international obligations.”

Australian imperialism’s intransigent stance triggered ructions in Dili within the country’s tiny well-off elite.

Timorese President Taur Matan Ruak is in conflict with the “national unity” government. Last December he unsuccessfully attempted to veto the government’s budget, on the grounds that spending was too high. Ruak has also blocked the reappointment of Major-General Lere Anan Timur as head of the Defence Force. Last month, Gusmão convened a meeting of CNRT, Fretilin, and other government parliamentarians, reportedly to discuss impeaching Ruak for what they allege is unconstitutional interference in the defence force.

Ruak responded with a speech in parliament, warning that the government could be overthrown amid growing anger among ordinary Timorese. He declared that he had received numerous complaints “concerning privileges granted to our brothers’, Xanana [Gusmão] and Mari [Alkatiri, Fretilin leader], family members and friends regarding contracts signed with the state… There is widespread discontent over the granting of privileges. Suharto was overthrown by his family. Too many privileges!”

Researchers and scientists subpoenaed in anti-abortion witch-hunt

Gabriel Black

A special congressional committee investigating fetal tissue research will soon issue 17 subpoenas on medical researchers and supply companies throughout the United States, the New York Times reported Thursday. The subpoenas will force major universities and medical suppliers to release the names of people involved in fetal tissue research, including researchers, students, laboratory technicians and administrative personnel.

The subpoena is a direct threat to the lives of these researchers and workers, who are conducting their work in a manufactured climate of fear, misinformation and hysteria.

Last November, Robert Dear Jr. shot and killed three people and wounded nine at a Planned Parenthood Clinic in Colorado. Dear claimed to see himself as a “warrior for the babies” and demanded, “No more baby parts.”

Dear had been heavily influenced by the release, earlier last year, of undercover videos that anti-abortion activists falsely claimed showed representatives of Planned Parenthood selling aborted fetal tissue for profit. The anti-abortion group used fake California driver’s licenses and a fake company to shoot footage secretly at several Planned Parenthoods.

Planned Parenthood has consistently maintained that it has broken no laws, that the videos in question were deliberately edited to be misleading and that the health group’s clinics legally received money to cover the cost of procuring, storing and transporting fetal tissue for medical research and made no profit. In October of last year, the group said that it would stop accepting such reimbursements.

In Texas, this January, a grand jury investigating this alleged misconduct cleared Planned Parenthood of all wrongdoing and instead indicted two operatives of the anti-abortion group. Overall, 20 states have cleared Planned Parenthood of all wrongdoing or have not decided not to investigate it.

After the shooting in November, Vicki Cowart, president of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, released a statement denouncing the environment of fear promoted by anti-abortion activists. She stated, “We’ve seen an alarming increase in hateful rhetoric and smear campaigns against abortion providers and patients over the last few months. That environment breeds acts of violence.”

This promotion of hate and hysteria is personified by Representative Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn, chairman of the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives. In her opening statement at a hearing earlier this month on Bioethics and Fetal Tissue, she placed the question of fetal tissue research in the context of the Nuremburg Code, adopted after the Nazi atrocities of World War II. She was slanderously comparing the efforts of researchers seeking cures for cancer, Parkinson’s and other deadly diseases with the prison doctors in Nazi death camps. Likewise, she suggested fetal research compared to forced organ transplants in China and forced sterilization programs throughout the world.

Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights group, stated Thursday, “If heaven forbid an act of violence does occur as a result of this list being compiled, the chair of this committee and her G.O.P. colleagues will be complicit in that violence.”

After the failure of the state-led witch-hunts of Planned Parenthood, the congressional committee formed in the aftermath of the videos is continuing the effort to criminalize fetal cell research.

The vaccines for rabies, polio, shingles, chicken pox, rubella and hepatitis A were all developed using fetal tissue. In the 1950s, for example, the polio vaccine was developed by injecting the virus into fetal kidney cells. Research has been conducted on fetal tissue since the 1930s.

David Moore, a senior director of government relations at the Association of American Medical Colleges, told the New York Times, “We’ve been trying to educate policy makers about why this research is needed and why it can’t be replicated in other ways.”

Fetal tissues are sought in a multitude of research areas because fetal cells grow quickly and are more likely to be accepted by the immune system of the recipient. In a letter to the congressional committee, Bernard Dreyer, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, stated, “Fetal tissue can help researchers replicate human systems that cannot otherwise be replicated. This type of research has helped improve our understanding of numerous health issues including early brain development, neurocognitive disorders, congenital heart defects, Down syndrome and other infectious disease such as HIV/AIDS and influenza.”

Several medical research teams have reportedly had to stop their medical research work in the past six months that involved fetal tissue because of the pressure from the congressional investigation—even though it has no legal power to enforce any restriction. A director at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine in La Jolla, California told Congress at the beginning of this month that a project they have to cure multiple sclerosis halted. He stated that the research group had “basically seen the supply of fetal material dry up completely.”

Vast majority of Yemen population without reliable food, water and sanitation

Thomas Gaist

More than 80 percent of the Yemeni population is confronting a desperate humanitarian catastrophe as the US-backed Saudi war against Yemen, launched in March 2015 as “Operation Decisive Storm,” enters its second year.

Half of Yemen’s 22 provincial divisions face famine conditions. Some 20 million Yemenis are without reliable access to the most basic goods and services, including food, water and sanitation. More than 2.5 million have been displaced, 6,400 killed, and 30,000 wounded during the Saudi-led campaign, according to the latest UN statistics.

Humanitarian groups reduced food rations by 75 percent as a result of a massive shortfall in funds. The “international community” has provided only 12 percent of the $1.8 billion in aid requested by the UN.

The year-long Saudi war has targeted Yemen’s population and social infrastructure as a whole, producing a sociocide easily comparable to those perpetrated against Iraq and Libya by the US and European powers. The US-backed Saudi forces routinely have targeted civilian areas throughout the war. A January UN report found that bombing of civilian targets has been “widespread and systematic.”

Saudi planes have carried out at least 119 bombing missions against civilian targets that constituted violations of international law, according to the UN panel. Saudi strikes killed more than 150 civilians in the past few weeks alone, according to UN Human Rights Chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein. Human Rights Watch and the UN have separately documented multiple cases of illegal cluster bombs usage by Saudi forces against civilian areas.

As a result of this bloody onslaught nearly 2 million Yemeni children have lost access to education and more than 600 medical facilities have ceased operations.

For all the bloodshed and destruction, the US-backed Saudi coalition has failed to achieve its utterly reactionary objective of restoring the government of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. Hadi, a US-Saudi puppet imposed through a stage-managed “democratic transition,” was himself brought to power in an effort to stabilize the country amid the mass struggles that rocked the Middle East and North Africa in 2011.

The ferocity of the violence against Yemen is an expression of the country’s immense geopolitical significance. Hadi’s overthrow by the sectarian Houthi militia movement threatened to break the US-Saudi grip over a country which, despite its poverty, is essential to the world strategy of US imperialism.

Yemen’s coastline overlooks the Bab el-Mandeb straits, which enable passage of 3.2 million barrels of oil per day between the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. The straits are among the most crucial commercial chokepoints globally, and are central to Washington’s plans for war against China, which include plans to blockade and strangle the Chinese economy.

China’s Maritime Silk Road commercial corridor relies on the straits as its only seaborne access to European markets, a fact which explains the positioning of Beijing’s first naval base in Djibouti, directly across the critical waterway. The Chinese leadership signed a deal with Djibouti in January aimed at making the country a hub for Chinese companies.

In early April 2015, just days after the start of the Saudi war, China deployed its first naval patrol to Yemen. In May 2015, a Chinese squadron including 800 soldiers deployed to the neighboring Gulf of Aden.

The Saudi-led war has pushed the entire region closer to the brink of a general war. Riyadh used the war to rally the core of its new anti-Iranian military alliance, and to prepare expanded operations in Syria, Iraq, and ultimately against Iran itself.

Last month, the regime launched its largest ever war drills, codenamed “Operation Northern Thunder,” which included hundreds of thousands of troops from the militaries of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Jordan, Senegal, Sudan, Maldives, Morocco, Pakistan, Chad, Tunisia, Comoro Islands, Djibouti, Malaysia, Egypt, Mauritania and Mauritius, and a panoply of advanced weapons systems purchased from US arms suppliers.

US imperialism bears ultimate responsibility for the destruction of Yemen. From the first days of the war US aircraft have been providing mid-air refueling in support of the Saudi coalition bombing runs, and US military and intelligence officers advised Saudi counterparts on target selection and strategy from a joint planning center in the Saudi capital. The ongoing slaughter in Yemen illustrates quite starkly that there are no limits to the barbarism which the US ruling class is prepared to employ in its efforts to control the entire planet.

Indian auto workers fight to defend wages and conditions

Arun Kumar

Auto workers at Maruti Suzuki, Honda and Tata and auto-parts manufacturers, Bosch, Rico and Pricol, have been involved in a series of bitter strikes across the industry to demand higher pay, permanency for contract workers and decent working conditions.

Thousands of mainly young auto workers have walked out on strike, occupied plants and held protest rallies and marches in defiance of corporate efforts, back by India’s state and central governments, to slash jobs, wages and conditions in order to attract global investors.

India’s auto manufacturing industry directly employs 7.6 million people with another 12 million in the auto distribution, retail and service sectors. Most of the country’s auto manufacturing is located in three regions—the southernmost and largest near Chennai in Tamil Nadu, a northern cluster near New Delhi and the Gurgaon-Manesar industrial belt in Haryana, and a newly-emerging industrial area in Gujarat.

The overwhelming majority of Indian auto workers are employed on short-term, poverty-level wage contracts, labouring in harsh and highly-exploitative conditions where serious work accidents are commonplace. About 80 percent of Maruti Suzuki employees are on short-term contracts, 75 percent at Ford India and 82 percent at Hyundai.

India’s national and state governments have responded to auto workers’ industrial action by deepening their collaboration with corporate management and mobilising police to crush the workers’ determination to overcome low wages, sweatshop conditions and the systematic victimisation of militant workers.

On Monday this week Hero MotoCorp auto workers in Gurgaon, Haryana held a sit-in protest in the factory’s canteen to demand settlement of a three-year work agreement and wage rise outstanding since last August.

Three-year wage agreements have been finalised at almost all of Hero MotoCorp’s plants. The workers were demanding wage parity with Honda Motor Company employees—the two companies were previously one entity, Hero Honda. Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India recently agreed to a 23,300-rupee ($US348) pay increase over the next three years. Hero MotoCorp management responded to the protest by calling police and breaking up the occupation.

On March 23, over 400 Tata Motors workers from the company’s Sanand plant in Gujarat state ended a month-long strike to demand reinstatement of 28 victimised employees. While the strikers defied a joint vendetta by the company and the Hindu-supremacist Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP)-led state government, they were forced to end the walk-out after being isolated by the major union federations, in particular those led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPM and the Communist Party of India (CPI).

When Tata Motors workers struck on February 22, the company claimed their action was “illegal.” One week later, the Gujarat state government followed suit and mobilised scores of police to intimidate and arrest hundreds of strikers and force them back to work. The company moved 250 workers from its Pune plant to maintain production and break the strike.

A week earlier on February 16, hundreds of police and company thugs were used to smash an occupation of workers at the Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) plant in Tapukara in the northwestern Indian state of Rajasthan. The occupation involved about 1,700 workers, who were fighting for their right to establish a union and improve their working conditions at the plant. The company responded to the auto workers’ demands with a provocation—an HMSI paint-shop supervisor verbally abused and then physically assaulted an exhausted worker for refusing to do overtime.

The industrial action at Hero MotoCorp, Tata Motors and HMSI is part of a series of increasingly bitter struggles waged over the past six years by Indian workers against the auto companies, whose attacks on workers are being aided and abetted by the Indian state and central governments.

In 2010, police brutally smashed a two-day militant occupation of the Korean-based Hyundai car assembly plant in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu. Over 280 workers were arrested and jailed. The protesting workers were demanding reinstatement of 67 sacked employees over their role in a strike for recognition of their union, the Hyundai Motor India Employees Union, the previous year.

In July 2012, thugs organised by Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) management staged a provocation against workers attempting to form a union at the joint venture’s Manesar plant in Haryana. Awanish Dev, a plant manager who sympathised with the workers, was killed in the resulting altercation.

The company responded by sacking about 2,000 contract workers and over 540 permanent employees. Hundreds of workers were arrested and framed up for “murdering” Awanish Dev. Determined to assure big business investors that their profits were safe, the Haryana state government—then under Congress Party control and currently led by the BJP—mobilised its police to assist the management witch-hunt and crush workers’ opposition.

Almost 147 Maruti-Suzuki auto workers were arrested and held without bail for almost three years. With no evidence of any crime involving workers being established, 112 workers were finally granted bail early last year. Thirty-five workers, including the entire leadership of the then Maruti Suzuki Workers Union, remain incarcerated in jail.

In October 2014, auto-parts workers at Bosch’s Adugodi plant in Bangalore held a five-week strike for a 20 percent pay rise, a refund of wage cuts imposed following previous strikes, reinstatement of victimised workers and permanency for contract employees. The Karnataka state government declared the strike at the German-owned auto-parts maker illegal.

Cheap labour and generous tax concessions for international investors have made India a major hub for global carmakers. According to India’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, the industry attracted $US14.32 billion foreign direct investment (FDI) between April 2000 and December 2015. Suzuki, Toyota, Honda, General Motors, Ford, BMW and Mercedes Benz and Hyundai all have manufacturing facilities in India.

The auto industry currently accounts for 7.1 percent of India’s Gross Domestic Product with ambitious government plans to encourage more foreign investment. The current international economic downturn, however, has impacted on local auto manufacturing and seen production targets decline in the past 12 months.

A recent study by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) revealed that vehicle production had fallen 1.34 percent in the past year, down to 1.95 million vehicles. SIAM told the media that the auto industry might not be able to meet the Indian government’s expected target of a $US145 billion turnover by 2016, and that it may now require a decade to accomplish that figure.

Indian auto workers have consistently demonstrated their determination to fight low wages, and harsh and highly exploitative conditions, including the widespread use of contract labour and speed ups. When workers have taken action to fight these conditions, India’s state governments, who are in competition with each other to attract foreign investment, have deepened their collaboration with the auto company managements and mobilised police to repress the struggling workers.

The chief political problem confronting auto workers and the Indian working class as a whole are the main union federations, the Stalinist CPM-affiliated Center of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and the CPI-affiliated All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) in particular. These organisations have worked systematically to isolate the auto workers and divert them into dead-end legal action and appeals to state governments to intervene on their behalf. In other words, their pleas are directed to the very bodies that have illegalised the strikes and sent police to intimidate and suppress the workers’ industrial action.

The demagogic speeches and hollow statements of solidarity from the AITUC, CITU and other key union federations are aimed at covering up for the reactionary political role played by these organisations. This flows inexorably from the pro-capitalist politics of the CPI and CPM, which have collaborated with the class strategy of India’s ruling elite to make the country a cheap labour centre and a magnet for foreign capital.

In addition to providing parliamentary backing to all the non-BJP central governments, which have carried out such pro-investor economic reforms and attacks on the working class since 1991, the CPM-led governments in the Indian states of West Bengal and Kerala, in which the CPI has been a coalition partner, have enthusiastically pursued the same big-business economic policies.