Thousands lose their homes in Alberta wildfire

Roger Jordan

In the wake of the first tour by media representatives through Fort McMurray Monday, it is clear that many thousands of residents have been left homeless by the catastrophic wildfire which forced close to 90,000 to evacuate the city May 3.

The Alberta government confirmed that 2,400 structures, between 10 and 15 percent of the city, were destroyed outright by the fire, close to five times more than the 2011 blaze in Slave Lake, Alberta, Canada’s worst wildfire disaster prior to this month. An additional 12 homes were burned down in the small community of Anzac, south of Fort McMurray.

This only gives an indication of the worst of the damage, since many of the buildings left standing will have suffered partial fire damage, and/or severe water and smoke damage. Officials confirmed that large areas of the city are without water, gas and power.

Reports suggest that at least 12 of the houses that burned to the ground belonged to firefighters involved in fighting the blaze. Around 700 firefighters from across the country continue to work on containing the fire.

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley has said that it will be two weeks before an announcement is made on when residents can return to Fort McMurray. It is likely to be many months, if ever, before the thousands whose homes have been destroyed have a place to return to in the city.

The fire has grown to over 230,000 hectares in size, but is now largely removed from residential areas. It did not reach the Saskatchewan border, 90 kilometers (56 miles) to Fort McMurray’s east, as earlier expected.

Insurers estimate that total damage caused by the fire could top $9 billion, making it the most expensive disaster in Canadian history. Indications are that insurers will respond by increasing premiums for homeowners in areas close to forests or at high risk of wildfires. “It’s quite possible we could see some rate increases, possibly regionally,” Jason Mercer of Moody’s Canada said Wednesday.

As well as residential properties, many businesses were destroyed in the flames, leaving hundreds, and possibly thousands, of workers without jobs. Economist Herb Emery told the Globe and Mail that the fire would likely cause the provincial jobless rate to spike in the short term from 7.2 to 10 percent.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau plans to visit the region tomorrow. He has explicitly refused linking the wildfire to climate change or any other “political” explanation, describing such approaches as “not helpful.” The Trudeau government is anxious to push ahead with its support for further expansion of Alberta tar-sands oil production, above all through the construction of pipelines to transport oil to tidal water.

Notley met with oil executives in Edmonton Tuesday to discuss restarting production at facilities around the devastated city. Some operations have already started pumping oil at lower than normal rates, and Suncor Chief Executive Steve Williams confirmed that others could be ready to operate at full capacity within 24 to 48 hours of a decision to resume production. Others located south of the city could take a week or two to restart.

Oil facilities have suffered only minor damage, including to some electrical infrastructure. But Williams maintained, “We don’t believe at the moment that the electrical infrastructure issues are going to be big enough to stop the industry ramping up.”

This underlines the basic fact that the wildfire that destroyed much of Fort McMurray was no natural disaster, but the product of the capitalist system’s reckless drive for profit at all costs. Fort McMurray was expanded exponentially over recent decades to serve the needs of the oil giants exploiting the Alberta tar sands, but unlike the large fire breaks and specially trained fire crews in place to guard oil production facilities, few precautionary measures were taken to protect the people of Fort McMurray and their homes. Only one road out of the city existed for a population that surpassed 100,000 at the peak of the oil price boom, and fire breaks to deprive flames of fuel close to residential areas were lacking.

The official indifference to the fate of the population is made even more outrageous by the repeated warnings issued by scientists about the increased risks of wildfires in Canada’s boreal forest. Experts have long warned that the combination of climate change, a larger human presence in the boreal forests due to the oil, mining and logging industries, and a lack of precautionary measures were creating the conditions for a disaster on an unprecedented scale. Over two decades ago, scientists predicted the lengthening of the fire season, and more recent studies estimated the area burned in Canada by fires will continue to increase in coming decades.

Just months prior to last week’s fire, the incoming federal Liberal Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr was warned in his briefing papers that governments at all levels have insufficiently funded programs to combat wildfires. In 2005, the provincial, territorial and federal governments agreed on a Canadian Wildlands Fire Strategy urging the improvement of community resilience, better fire management and the implementation of modern business practices. “Governments remain supportive of the strategy,” said Carr’s briefing notes, “but progress towards implementation over the past decade has been limited, primarily due to fiscal constraints.”

Even as signs grew of the mounting threat, with 2015 witnessing a record fire season, successive provincial governments in Alberta cut the firefighting budget. The result of the latest cuts imposed by Notley’s NDP government is that the province will be without air tankers to fight blazes from mid-August, even though the fire season, which began a month early this year due to warmer temperatures, runs through October.

Those displaced by the fire have largely relied on the generosity of the local population for support, with many residing with friends and family. The Red Cross has received at least $67 million in donations from across the country and is preparing to disperse $50 million of this to the evacuees, $600 for every adult and $300 for dependents.

The Alberta government began handing out financial assistance to evacuees yesterday in the form of pre-loaded debit cards, with $1,250 for every adult and $500 per dependent.

Thousands lined up for hours at four distribution sites in Edmonton. Residents at the Northlands evacuee camp started lining up at 6 a.m., eight hours before the card distribution was slated to begin, only to be told they were in the wrong place. Due to the length of the lines, some ultimately left empty-handed.

The evacuation centres where several thousand are being housed are showing signs of strain. At least 50 people were taken sick at Northlands in Edmonton Monday and had to be segregated from the rest of the camp’s residents.

The camps are dependent on volunteers, but this is proving insufficient. “We need more volunteers to help, we need every hand,” Dalia Abdellatif of Edmonton Emergency Relief Services told CBC. “Without volunteers, we would not be able to run this place.” She added that a centre set up at a former Target store in the city required more resources.

Distress Centre Calgary, which provides support to people with trauma and other mental health problems, reported that it received over 180 calls to its emergency line related to the wildfire between May 4 and 8. Many of those evacuating the city were already suffering the effects of the economic downturn, which by April had driven the official unemployment rate in Fort McMurray to almost 10 percent.

On top of this, Fort McMurray was home to refugees from around the world, including Syrians who recently fled the civil war. “To me when I do go back I will probably have to go see a counsellor, because … just seeing all those homes burn down brings back a lot of my past,” Godelive Ohelo, who fled the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo after losing relatives, told CBC.

Growing bankruptcy crisis in global oil and gas industry

Gabriel Black

Lower oil prices have bankrupted dozens of major oil and gas companies since 2015. Moreover, a sharp increase in bankruptcies in the month of April suggests that the worse is yet to come.

A total of 69 major oil and gas companies, with $34.3 billion in debts, have gone bankrupt since 2015, according to a report released earlier this month by Haynes and Boone law firm. In April 2016 alone, 11 significant companies went under. These companies cumulatively held $14.9 billion worth of debt, making April 2016 account for 43 percent of the total bankruptcy debt since the beginning of 2015.

Charles Gibbs, a company-restructuring lawyer, told Reuters that the second quarter of 2016 would have even more bankruptcies than the first. The global consulting and professional service firm Deloitte, meanwhile, predicts that a third of global oil and gas companies, 175 corporations, are at risk of bankruptcy.

Forbes cites a Bernstein Research prediction that before 2019 there will be $70 billion in defaults in the global gas and oil industry and $400 billion worth of risky debt. So far, there has been $34.3 billion in defaults, much of that centered in “unconventional” oil and gas producers. For example, the largest failure so far has been the Canadian-listed company Pacific Exploration and Production, which mines Venezuela’s Orinoco bitumen, also known as tar or oil sands. The company had $5.3 billion in debt.

“Unconventional” fields, such as shale formations, which require hydraulic fracturing, tar sands, and deep-sea offshore reserves, have costs of production far higher than “conventional” oil. While Ghawar, the largest Saudi Arabian field, has a cost of production close to $1 a barrel, an average shale well in the Bakken field in North Dakota only begins to break even at $69 a barrel, according to a recent Scotia Bank estimate.

In 2014, Brent Crude Oil (the international standard for oil price), was a little over $110 per barrel. Since then its price has declined rapidly, descending to nearly $35 per barrel at the start of this year. The rout has devalued US energy company stocks by more than $1 trillion . The spot price, which has risen to about $47.50 at the time of writing, remains highly volatile.

At the beginning of December 2015, the downturn had already led to 250,000 workers being laid off around the world. Tens of thousands more workers have been laid off this year, with more to come.

The crisis in the oil industry is of immense significance and could spark a broader meltdown of the fragile global financial system.

Reuters writes, “U.S. oil and gas companies sold about $350.7 billion in debt between 2010 and 2014, the peak years of the oil-and-gas boom, with junk bonds making up more than 50 percent of all issuance.” By comparison, $177.1 billion in US telecommunication bonds were sold between 1998 and 2002 before the implosion of that industry. However, only 10 percent of those were junk bonds.

A larger sell-off of these bonds could cause a larger panic in US financial markets, where many institutions rely on unprecedented low interest rates to remain afloat.

The downturn in oil prices has also been accompanied by a general downturn in commodity prices, particularly for iron ore. This downturn has hurt many resource-extracting or primary manufacturing countries, such as Brazil, Australia and China, which rely on exporting natural resources and producing steel and other foundational industrial goods. This has exacerbated concerns that there could be an exodus of investment from developing countries, ultimately causing an economic crisis. In China alone, there are expected to be more than 1 million layoffs of steel and coal workers in the next two years.

The past nine years have been a state of near-permanent volatility in the oil market. Between 2004 and 2007, Brent Crude went from $20 a barrel to $147 a barrel. With the financial crisis, it then dropped to around $30 in 2009 before going back up again to about $114 in the summer of 2014 and then plummeting again to $30 in less than a year. This year, the International Energy Association is predicting the price will rise again.

The massive and historically unprecedented volatility in the oil market is an expression of the irrationality of the capitalist economic system. During times of rising oil prices, hundreds of billions of dollars are invested into new, expensive, unconventional oil techniques, such as fracking. But whenever there is a downturn in the price, this unconventional section of the oil market becomes unprofitable and investment leaves.

Rather than create a supply-demand equilibrium as neoclassical economics would predict, there is in fact a chronic imbalance between the two. One day, producers struggle to come up with new oil for an ever-expanding market, and the next day, there is too much of it and pressure is exerted to rein in production. This boom-bust cycle makes any rational planning for a sustainable energy future impossible, so long as the oil industry and the world economy as a whole run on a capitalist basis.

Australian state government imposes draconian “public safety” laws

Mike Head

For the second time in two months, extraordinary laws that can be used to shut down political protests and punish dissent have been pushed through the parliament of Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales (NSW), giving the police far-reaching repressive powers.

Brought forward amid a deteriorating economic situation, along with political instability caused by rising social discontent, the legislation can only be described as police-state in character. The two latest bills allow police officers to issue sweeping “crime prevention” and “public safety” orders—including forms of house arrest for up to five years—without a charge, trial, or conviction.

Last week, the Serious Crime Prevention Orders Bill and the Organised Crime and Public Safety Bill were simultaneously rammed through both houses of parliament by the state’s Liberal-National government in just 24 hours. The laws override fundamental legal and democratic rights, going beyond the anti-protest legislation adopted in March.

The law enacted in March imposes extraordinary punishments—such as jail terms of up to seven years for hindering a mining project—that can be used to suppress opposition, including industrial action by workers, to the deepening assault on jobs, living standards and social conditions. But those punishments still require convictions recorded by courts. Last week’s bills give police officers themselves virtually unchallengeable powers to impose orders that can strip individuals of their freedom of movement, employment and right to communicate.

Such laws are only possible because the Australian constitution contains no bill of rights or any other guarantee of basic democratic rights—not even a mention of the word “democracy.” Moreover, the High Court, Australia’s supreme court, has in recent years eviscerated the limited so-called freedom of political communication that its judges previously found to be implied by the 1901 colonial-era constitution.

In France, where President François Hollande’s Socialist Party administration used last November’s terror attacks in Paris as a pretext to hand open-ended powers to the police, the parliament endorsed a three-month state of emergency under the country’s constitution. There is no such requirement in Australia.

Politically, such laws could only be enacted due to the complicity of the entire political establishment, and the virtual silence of the mass media. Unprecedented measures, adopted by Liberal-National and Labor governments alike in the “war on terrorism,” such as detention without trial, are being extended throughout the legal system as a whole. Although the Labor Party and the Greens formally voted against the two latest bills—warning their government colleagues that the provisions were so extreme they could fuel political disenchantment—they have issued no public statements in opposition to the legislation or warned the population about its significance.

Under the guise of combatting “organised crime,” police officers can now “make public safety orders” where a person, or class of person, at a public event or in any other area, “might” pose a serious risk to “public safety or security.” Such orders can essentially abolish the freedom of assembly, association, expression and movement, all on the assessment of a senior police officer or, where the orders are supposedly required “urgently,” any police officer, even a probationary constable. The penalty for disobeying an order is up to five years’ imprisonment.

There is no right of appeal, unless the order extends beyond 72 hours. Then an appeal can be made to the state’s Supreme Court, but the police do not have to disclose any “criminal intelligence evidence.” The hearing is conducted without the presence of either applicants or their lawyers.

Alternatively, the police, or the NSW Crime Commission or the Director of Public Prosecutions, can apply to a court for “serious crime prevention orders,” lasting up to five years. These can effectively punish people for alleged involvement in, or “facilitation” of, offences, even those for which they were acquitted in a criminal trial.

Orders may restrict a person’s movements, activities, employment, residence, expression, assembly, association or anything else “if there are reasonable grounds to believe that the making of the order would protect the public.” An order “may contain such prohibitions, restrictions, requirements and other provisions as the court considers appropriate.”

A serious crime is defined as one punishable by imprisonment for five years, which includes most offences in the state’s Crimes Act, and could extend from “seditious conspiracy” (anti-government activity) to possession of a cannabis plant. In crime prevention order hearings, the normal rules of evidence do not apply. Hearsay is admissible, the standard of proof is “the balance of probabilities,” not the criminal law standard of “beyond reasonable doubt,” and police can provide untested criminal intelligence.

Conditions may be imposed on any reporting of the existence of the order. Because of the broad discretions given to the police, court appeals are unlikely to succeed. Breaches of orders can also result in imprisonment for five years.

The bills were rushed through despite condemnations by civil liberties groups and the legal profession. In its submission to parliament, the NSW Bar Association declared: “The bill effectively sets up a rival to the criminal trial system and interferes unacceptably in the fundamental human rights and freedoms of citizens of NSW.” The legislation was “contradictory to long-settled principles concerning the adjudication of criminal guilt by a fair trial.”

In parliament’s upper house, Labor and the Greens combined to propose a series of amendments that would have referred the bills to a parliamentary committee inquiry or put a cosmetic gloss on the police powers, such as by requiring more senior police officers, or courts, to issue the “prevention” or “safety” orders.

Greens MP David Shoebridge said the amendments were proposed in “good faith” because they “simply civilise what we say is fundamentally inappropriate and liberty-thieving legislation.”

Labor’s Adam Searle said his party had done its best to improve the legislation, “to make it properly fit for purpose and to render it in a form where everyone in the community can have confidence in the probity and the integrity of the regime of orders to be created.”

Another Labor MP, Ernest Wong, said he was offended by government suggestions that his party did not support the police. He insisted: “It was the Labor Party that, for 16 years, oversaw the building of the most professional, best funded, best equipped and most contemporary police force in the nation.”

No reliance can be placed on any of the establishment parties, the courts or the media, which has barely reported the passage of the bills, to defend essential democratic rights.

With Labor’s support, Premier Mike Baird’s state government is about to unveil another package of “anti-terrorism” laws, which will provide a model for matching legislation by all states and territories. These measures, agreed upon at a summit of federal and state leaders, both Labor and Liberal-National, last month, will feature detaining and interrogating suspects, as young as 14, for up to 14 days without charge.

These developments highlight an escalating pattern. As the WSWS has repeatedly warned, the ever-expanding terrorism legislation introduced since 2001 is being used to establish an authoritarian framework, aimed at targeting not just a relative handful of alleged Islamic extremists, but at suppressing the inevitable social struggles that will emerge against the drive to war and austerity.

Protests erupt in France against regressive labor law

Alex Lantier

After the Socialist Party (PS) government of Prime Minister Manuel Valls announced Tuesday that he would impose the unpopular labour law reform without a vote in the National Assembly, protests and riots erupted in cities across France against the PS’s blatantly anti-democratic procedure.

Valls and President François Hollande invoked article 49-3 of the French constitution, which allows them to impose a law if the Assembly does not vote to censure the government, forcing new elections, in 48 hours—that is, by the end of today. Three-quarters of the population opposes the draft law, which lengthens working times, undermines job security and allows bosses and unions to negotiate contracts violating the Labour Code.

Hundreds of protesters gathered Tuesday night in Paris in front of the National Assembly, whose staff barricaded the shutters, fearing a riot. Protesters denounced Valls’ decision as an “insult to the people,” shouting slogans such as, “Real democracy is here” and “National Assembly, assembly of capital.”

One thousand people marched across Toulouse shouting, “Toulouse, rise up,” and, “We don't want this society,” but were blocked by a police cordon before they could arrive at the departmental PS headquarters. Protests of several hundred people also took place in Lille, Tours, Marseille, Grenoble and Nantes, where protesters clashed violently with police.

In Lyon, protesters shouted slogans against the PS in front of city hall, and later attacked a police station and ransacked a PS local section building. Another PS headquarters was violently ransacked by a few dozen protesters in Caen.

The PS government and the French bourgeoisie are hoping, however, that while these protests reflect anger felt by tens of millions of workers, they will not immediately provoke the eruption of a general strike by the working class, as in 1936 or 1968.

The daily newspaper Le Monde wrote, “Even though using article 49-3 immediately provoked a protest before the National Assembly, the government is betting that its parliamentary coup will not inflame the social climate. ‘The social movement and protests exist, but they are not currently growing,’ commented an associate of the head of state.’”

The events in France starkly highlight the significance of the deep crisis of political leadership in the working class. Workers and youth mounted mass protests against the law for over two months, it is overwhelmingly opposed by the population, and the general mood among workers in France and internationally is moving to the left, amid rising social anger with the entire political establishment. Yet a desperately weak and unpopular PS government, which is widely seen as a factotum for the banks, is on the verge of imposing a widely hated law by legislative fiat.

Central responsibility for this lies with the union bureaucracy and the pseudo-left parties close to the PS, like the New Anticapitalist Party, that mounted the #UpAllNight movement, which directed youth away from struggle against the PS and towards impotent meetings on various city squares. This demobilised the protests, blocked a campaign to mobilise broader layers of the working class against the Valls government, and handed the initiative for a time back to the PS. The PS then wasted no time in moving to ram the bill through the Assembly.

There will be powerful anger and opposition in the working class to attempts to use the labour law to undermine its wages and conditions, particularly given the antidemocratic methods the PS used to impose the law. The struggle of the working class against the PS and against similar governments across Europe is only beginning.

Yet it must be stated clearly that the PS is on the verge of succeeding in forcing the bill through the parliament. Unlike the #UpAllNight movement—whose media figurehead, nationalist economist Frédéric Lordon, has insisted that it does not matter whether or not the labour reform passes—the WSWS frankly warns that the labour law would be used to mount bitter attacks on working people.

Its passage would mark a significant setback for the workers and youth who have been fighting the bill, and constitute irrefutable proof of the necessity of a break with the existing organisations, which are tied to the PS and have proven completely bankrupt.

This includes the attempts by sections of the trade union bureaucracy and of the Left Front of Jean-Luc Mélenchon to promote illusions in impotent appeals to deputies of the National Assembly to halt or partially rewrite the labour reform.

Thus Mélenchon posted a Tweet on the labour law apparently calling for joint protests with right-wing forces and a motion of censure to bring down the PS government. He wrote, “To stop it, vote to censure. No reticence on disgusting measures faced with disgusting people. Yes, we need protests by a common front of those who refuse the bill. And now.”

A motion of censure presented by the Left Front and its allies failed last night, receiving less than 60 votes. Today, a motion of censure is being prepared by the right-wing opposition The Republicans (LR) party, though it appears unlikely to carry under conditions where fewer than 60 deputies from the Left Front and PS were willing to vote to censure the government.

Every indication is that the so-called rebel factions of the PS that have voiced mild and hypocritical objections to the labour reform are preparing to fall in line with the law and will not vote to censure the PS government.

Benoît Hamon, one of the leaders of the faction, said yesterday, “The right-wing censure motion, well, you have to understand that you may be in disagreement with Manuel Valls, but preferring [right-wing former President] Nicolas Sarkozy to Manuel Valls ... it's a bit hard to prefer that type of politics to the current government.”

The Valls government is reportedly threatening any PS deputy who votes the LR censure motion in the Assembly with expulsion from the PS.

Brazil Senate vote ousts Workers Party President Dilma Rousseff

Bill Van Auken

After a twenty-hour debate that ended only at 5:45 AM in Brasilia, the Brazilian Senate voted to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff, suspending her from office. While only a simple majority was needed to start a trial of the Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores--PT) president, her opponents mustered 55 votes in favor, one more than a two-thirds majroity, with only 22 against.

The move effectively ends more than 13 years of Workers Party rule in Brazil and ushers in an extremely right-wing government that will redouble the attacks on the living standards and basic rights of Brazilian workers that had already begun under the Rousseff administration.

Scattered demonstrations broke out both for and against impeachment in Brasilia and across the country as the Senate debate unfolded.

In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest affirmed the Obama administration’s “confidence in the mature, durable, democratic institutions in Brazil to withstand the challenge.”

In legal terms, the Senate vote only initiates a trial process that must conclude within 180 days with a decision on whether or not to impeach Rousseff, removing her permanently from office, which requires a two-thirds majority. Her suspension in the meantime, however, has cleared the way for her successor, Vice President Michel Temer, to carry out a wholesale purge of government officials.

A last-ditch attempt Tuesday by the country’s attorney general to win a Supreme Court order halting the impeachment proceedings was rebuffed. Another appeal on Wednesday for the court to bar Temer from sacking government ministers and naming his own cabinet was also rejected by the court.

While the entire political establishment in Brazil, along with some of the country’s wealthiest businessmen, are implicated in a massive bribes and kickbacks scandal involving contracts with the state-run energy giant Petrobras, Rousseff is to be tried on charges of improperly transferring funds from public banks to sustain government programs and, allegedly, to conceal fiscal realities in during her 2014 reelection bid. The president and her supporters point out that such budgetary practices were nothing new, having been employed by each of her recent predecessors.

Sixty percent of the members of the Senate that voted for an impeachment trial are themselves facing charges of one character or another, the great majority involving money laundering and corruption. Thirteen are facing trial before the Supreme Court in connection with the Petrobras scandal, while others are implicated in charges ranging from murder to rape and even the exploitation of slave labor.

While both Rousseff—who chaired the Petrobras board when the kickback scheme siphoned off some $2 billion in assets—and her predecessor as president, Workers Party founder Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, are also facing investigations, there has been no evidence directly linking her to criminal activity.

Rather, the impeachment process is being carried out on the basis of a transparent pretext with the objective of effecting a radical change in government policy demanded by the financial markets.

Brazil faces its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, with the economy expected to contract for the second year in a row by at least 4 percent. Layoffs have taken place at the rate of 100,000 a month, while inflation has eaten into the living standards of the population.

The Workers Party government had already begun implementing harsh austerity measures. Rousseff and other PT leaders had argued that they alone could claim “legitimacy” in carrying through such attacks, while counting on the collaboration of the CUT union federation. Decisive sections of the Brazilian ruling class as well as foreign investors, however, made it clear that they wanted regime change.

During the protracted Senate debate, some of those backing impeachment made it clear that this was the real reason for ousting Rousseff, not alleged fiscal misdeeds. Senator Raimundo Lira of the PMDB, who led the special commission on impeachment, told the body, “We are living through a moment of crisis that will only begin to be resolved” with Rousseff’s ouster.

While Rousseff and her supporters have denounced her impeachment as a “coup,” the inconvenient truth is that the collection of right-wing parties and corrupt politicians who have pushed her out of the presidency are in most cases the erstwhile running mates, allies and partners of the PT and its government.

The 13 years of Workers Party rule served to further the growth of the right wing, which was awarded with government positions and payoffs for political support. Meanwhile, the corruption and pro-capitalist policies of the PT in power served to erode whatever base the party once had in the Brazilian working class.

Vice President Temer is to assume his new position as provisional president at 11 a.m. on Thursday. Folha de S.Paulo reported Wednesday that he had already prepared a speech in which he will tell the Brazilian people that the country’s economic situation is critical and that the population must unite in support of sweeping emergency measures.

Temer’s party, the PMDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party), has cast the program of the incoming administration as a “bridge to the future.” In reality, it is a bridge to the past, an attempt to wipe out social rights that were written into the 1988 constitution adopted three years after the end of Brazil’s more than 20-year-long military dictatorship.

Temer is to announce a new cabinet which will also be sworn in Thursday, making virtually a clean sweep of the ministers who had served under Rousseff. Most of their replacements have already been named. A PMDB legislator explained that it was necessary to avoid a “vacuum of power.”

Among the most significant appointments involve economic portfolios. Named as the new head of the Central Bank is Ilan Goldfajn, chief economist and partner at Itaú Unibanco, Brazil’s largest private bank. Goldfajn, who served in the same post under the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2003), has called for the scrapping of Brazil’s constitutional requirements to fund health care, retirement programs and aid to the poor, suggested that wages are too high and that the growth of unemployment is required to bring down inflation. Former Bank of Boston CEO and central bank President Henrique Meirelles has been tapped as minister of economy, entrusted with defending the interest of Brazilian and international capital.

To head the Ministry of Defense, Temer has apparently chosen Newton Cardoso, Jr., a 36-year-old PMDB deputy from the state of Minas Gerais. According to Folha, the choice has prompted protests within the military’s uniformed command, which sees him as too young and politically inexperienced to oversee the armed forces under conditions of intense political crisis. Not helping matters, he and his father, the former governor of Minas Gerais, were named in the Panama Papers as having opened an offshore account to purchase a $1.9 million helicopter and a flat in London valued at 1.2 million pounds.

And as justice minister, Temer has named Alexandre de Moraes, the right-wing Sao Paulo public safety secretary, who has presided over a Military Police force that kills more people each year than all of the US police departments combined.

While recent polls have put Rousseff’s approval rating at roughly 10 percent and indicated 60 percent support for impeachment, Temer’s popularity is if anything lower and a similar majority has called for his removal.

The assumption of power by Temer, who himself faces potential impeachment as well an investigation in connection with the Petrobras scandal, will hardly stem the political crisis. Rather, it signals a sharp intensification of the class struggle in Brazil under the rule of an illegitimate government.

Ugly London: The Mayoral Race

Binoy Kampmark

What a disaster for the conservatives, though hardly a glory for British Labour either. Sadiq Khan, a Labour technocrat rinsed in the chummy spinelessness of the Blairite spin machine, won the London Mayoral election after a campaign that could only be described as vicious. The Tories had hoped to sink Khan over alleged extremist tendencies; Labour, in turn had to show that the Tories had their own problem with conservative religious practices.

The Tories were also hoping that disagreement within Labour’s ranks over what Prime Minister David Cameron has termed Labour’s “problem with anti-Semitism” would somehow render it unelectable in various constituencies. London was to be the prize, having been held by conservative, mostly clownish Boris Johnson for two terms.

The Achilles heel of anti-Semitism was given a rub by former Mayor Ken Livingstone, who opened his sizeably confident mouth again, coming to the defence of Naz Shah, an MP from Bradford West. Shah was suspended over designated anti-Semitic postings via social media.

On BBC Television’s Daily Politics program, Livingstone contended as a “historical fact” that, “Hitler’s policy when he first came to power was to move Germany’s Jews to Israel.” At stages, history does have a habit of discolouring under the Livingstone gaze.

The Labour Party’s response was swift: “Ken Livingstone has been suspended by the Labour Party, pending an investigation, for bringing the party into disrepute.” John Mann, another Labour MP, also attacked Livingstone with apoplectic determination, calling him a “Nazi apologist”.

The conservative campaign, fronted by Zac Goldsmith, attempted to capitalise. Goldsmith’s accusation – one can hardly call it an argument – was that Khan had given “platform, oxygen, and cover” to a host of political and religious extremists. Specific reference was made to the political flirting Khan had with south London cleric Suliman Gani.

The honours list of defences and associations also comprised such figures as Dr. Yusuf al-Qadarawi, a Muslim scholar accused of intellectualising the moral cause of suicide bombings, and Sajeed Abu Ibrahim, who operated a Pakistan camp that trained London 7/7 bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan.

Such behaviour on Khan’s part would confuse unadulterated opportunism with genuine association, a point made by his attendance of an event hosted by the defunct Stop Political Terror in August 2004. For those interested in political trivia, the group did count among its supporters Anwar al-Awlaki of al-Qaeda.

Through his time, Khan has done what he is most characterised by: associate, garner, and cultivate votes, many from the conservative Muslim quarter. It was precisely this point that got some conservative commentators worked up, with The Economist recapitulating on Labour’s “ingrained problems of anti-Semitism” and its tolerance of “gender-segregated civic events”.

A campaign so filled with muck it was keeling over saw a range of attacks mounted against Khan on various grounds, though many conservatives were far from thrilled by this approach. Conservative London Assembly member Andrew Boff, for one, found it “outrageous” that Goldsmith had effectively argued that “people of conservative religious views are not be trusted, and you shouldn’t share a platform with them”.

Toby Young, writing in The Spectator, saw no reason for Goldsmith to apologise. Young found it regrettable that Labour’s spin on the campaign being a “dog-whistle” one in nature proved digestible even to Tories.

Did it have any effect on Khan’s chances of re-claiming the city for Labour? “Any Conservative candidate faced an uphill struggle getting elected in London, one of the only areas in the country where Labour did better in 2015 than in 2010.”

Goldsmith’s campaign was itself marred by ambiguities, despite having a potentially strong case in such areas as the environment. (He had formerly edited the Ecologist Magazine.) Rather than taking the road of painting Khan as an unreliable extremist that would mar his mayoral credentials while offering a slew of ameliorative policies for London’s escalating house prices, he resorted to some ducking, weaving and prevaricating.

While the Goldsmith manifesto did reflect on how there were “too many young adults still living in their childhood bedrooms trapped by London’s escalating house price,” the overall message fell away. A rather unimaginative campaign began casting light on Khan’s Muslim background in general, a point that was never going to sell well.

The other feature at play with Khan’s victory is how his cool relationship with British Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn will develop – or atrophy, as the more likely case is. Corbyn had maintained is distance from the political knife of Khan’s ambitions, preferring to spend time with Bristol’s newly elected mayor Marvin Rees instead of going to the London swearing-in ceremony.

Khan, who was never a fan of the Corbyn dynamo in Labour politics, could not have been expecting any favours from a man he ignored, only to then nominate as an outside contender for leader.

Not even waiting for the dust to settle, the newly elected leader trained his guns on Corbyn, thereby doing the conservative’s work for them. On the Andrew Marr Show, he claimed that, “we’ve got to stop talking about ourselves and start talking to citizens about issues that matter to them.” The Tories may not have reason to be disappointed for too long – the spin doctors getting ready to return.

Understanding Emerging Fascism In India

K.P. Sasi

In recent times, there has been so much of discussions against the agenda of the communal fascists on many recent events like the developments in FTII, twisted nationalism, increasing fabricated cases, human rights violations using draconian laws, developments in Chennai (IIT) against Dalits, beef debate, attacks on writers, moral policing, attacks on human rights activists, Rohit Vemula’s suicide and the subsequent Dalit students movement in Hyderbad University, the repressive policies of the Government on the students in JNU, growing attacks on writers, secular intellectuals, women, Dalits and Adivasis all over India, violations on freedom of expression and other such grave areas. All these incidents and many other incidents have brought in many private and public discussions and protests against the growing fascist forces in India. At the same time, there are also concerns on the limitations in identifying the meaning, character and agenda of fascism in many of these discourses.

During the Babari Masjid demolition and the following communal violence that happened in different parts of the country, some of my left friends had put forward that `class’ was the problem and these discussions often tried to reduce communalism on class terms. Much later, some of my Dalit friends had shared their analysis with me saying that `caste’ was the problem and some of them tried to reduce communalism to caste issue. There has been many efforts to view communalism from the perspective of women also. And now, my own friends in Kerala are arguing with me today that `religion’ is the main problem and a terminology called `religious fascism’ is being used more often in discourses. Though I have tried to grapple critically with the limitations of all these frameworks, I have always maintained my partial acceptance to all such analysis. Apart from such analysis, the term fascism was also used actively by many progressive people in India to describe the period of Emergency in India imposed between 1975 and 1977 in India. A section of activists in Kerala also try to view the violence used by political parties as fascism. Still another section would like to look at religious fundamentalism in any religion as fascism. Some of my own secular friends would like to see all religions as communal in an equal manner and it is being felt that an anti-communal or anti- fascist struggle should not associate with religious sections. All these descriptions of fascism have diverse meanings and connotations. Therefore, it is too important for any activist to understand the term fascism with much more clarity before it is being confronted.

There was a transition of Indian State from the pretensions of democracy into an `authoritarian’ State during Emergency. However, it was highly inappropriate to classify the State under Emergency as fascist, because the transition of the State was `purely from above’. The state of Emergency in India during the 70s was `imposed’ on the people, while fascism is evolved as mass movement, capturing the institutions of State power. Certainly, dictatorship is one important characteristic of fascism, but not the only one. Fascism brings changes in the character of State from `below’. If you analyse the immense mass support for Hitler during the emergence of fascism in Germany, this point can be easily understood. The repressive character of the State is definitely one of the characteristics of fascism, but not the only one. In any case, the repressive character of Emergency and the repressive character a fascist German State had major differences in terms of its intensity of horror on the nature of violence.

Those who analyse the political violence exhibited by any particular political party as fascism, must come to terms with the fact that though violence is certainly one of the important ingredients of fascism, fascism can not be analysed by expressions of violence alone. A political force India can be addressed as fascist if it expresses its fascist ideology and a process of fascist actions with the mass support they enjoy. In India, the violence exhibited by the Sangh Parivar on thousands of Muslims during the communal genocide in Gujarat or against the Dalit Christians and Adivasi Christians in Kandhamal can qualify such a classification. During the rule of Narendra Modi, we must remember the fact that there has been over 200 incidents of communal violence. Understanding the sheer difference between the character of political murders in Kerala and the character of a mass frenzy with a participation of hundreds of people in the communal violence initiated by Sangh Parivar is important in any analysis of fascism in India. It was with an open participation of hundreds of people running wild to execute the crimes of murder, rape and violence on thousands of innocent Muslims in Gujarat and Mumbai riots or the openly frenzied participation of 100s of people in the destruction of over 350 churches, 6500 homes in addition to murder, rape and loot on the population of Adivasi Christians and Dalit Christians in Kandhamal that such mass frenzy against a particular community is being classified as `fascist.’

As an atheist, I find it too simplistic when many secular friends view the growth of fascism in India as a response of religious conflicts. Many of them in Kerala still tend to confuse fascism with religious fundamentalism. It has to be understood that fundamentalism is there in all identities in India and not just among the religious identities. And certainly religious fundamentalism in any religion should not be encouraged, especially in the current historical context.
Fundamentalism is a principle of exclusion and exclusion creates disharmony in the diversity of cultures and therefore it must be resisted strongly. However, instead of trying to understand religious fundamentalism as the main pillar of fascism, I would request my secular friends to look at religious fundamentalism only as a facilitating agency for the development of fascism. More important is to understand the power hierarchies between the dominant religion and other religions and spiritualities and analyse how the Hindutva forces have been succeeding in suppressing marginalised religions, faiths and spiritualities in this sub-continent. The apparent potential conflict between Hindu and Hindutva vanishes from such a simplistic analysis of equating fascism with religious fundamentalism. Such an analysis can have dangerous repercussions in future.

Gujarat and Kandhamal were not religious conflicts or a war. In a religious conflict or a war, there is a pre-condition of two religious forces fighting with each other. But the Sangh Parivar is not a religious network. It is a political network using a majoritarian religious identity generating consistent hate campaigns against minority religions, building up a climate of violence, so that when mass violence is initiated on the religious minorities, it would be viewed as a `natural outcome’ of what the religious minorities in India really `deserved’ so far based on their own actions. Needless to say, the aggression and violence on the religious minorities in both Gujarat and Kandhamal was entirely one sided and such violence can not be described as a `religious conflict’. In both Gujarat and Kandhamal, many Hindus supported the victims and survivors instead of joining the violent mob unleashed by the fascist forces. Hence, it is too important under the present political context, to separate Hindu religion and Hindutva political force.

Some of these problems of correlating religion and fascism spring from a one dimensional perception of religion. No religion is one dimensional. They have many streams, often contradicting each other, sometimes a politically conscious section in one religion questioning the conservative fundamentalists within the same religion. Religions may also have a liberative potential within themselves, which need to be addressed actively during the struggle against fascism. The liberation theology in Christianity inspiring many Christian believers to devote their time and energy for their struggles of the marginalised in Kerala as well as in many parts in India during the 70s and eighties must not be forgotten in this context. The Islamic theologians of Malappuram and the regions of northern Kerala who inspired the Muslims to put up the first resistance in India against the colonial forces during the Portuguese invasion should also not be forgotten. These segments in the history of religion and politics may not be as powerful today as they were, but they still generate inspiration for a segment of imagination for the youth within religions in Kerala. The struggles of women within religions against the conservative patriarchal structure in their own religion in different parts of the country need more attention and support. The struggles of Dalits, Adivasis, Women and even Sexualy minorities within religions against the conservative, patriarchal and casteist structures of their own religions in different parts in India deserve more attention and support in the present historical context of attacks on the religious minorities by the fascist forces. It is too important to strengthen such forces during the struggle against fascism, instead of treating religion as per se as politically untouchable which unfortunately has become a trend in Kerala during the public conventions against fascism initiated by the secular forces.

From the writings of the early spiritual gurus of the Hindutva forces, it is very much clear that they were inspired by the notion of Aryan supremacy of Hitler and the Nazis in Germany. Where did Hitler get the notion of Aryan supremacy? Was it just a figment of his imagination or did it have any historical roots? In the Indian context, the term `Aryan’ has always been used to describe the Brahmins and not the Adivasis, Dalits or OBCs. Even today, the Aryan restaurant means a Brahmin restaurant. If this is the case, the next obvious question is: How did the superiority of the Aryan/Brahminical world get established over the indigenous communities, Dalits, Adivasis and Dravidians?’ Is this assertion of superiority of power just a figment of imagination of the Dalit intellectuals in India? Here we find a definite correlation between fascism in Germany and India in their deep conviction on Aryan supremacy. The racial element within the ideology of fascism can not be ignored.

Yet the emerging fascism in India can be different from the development of fascism in Germany or Italy. But we can not deny the similarities. The Nazi hatred on religious as well as sexual minorities, extreme patriarchal consciousness, militarisation of mass organisations, suppression of dissent, creation para military organisation, hatred on communists, anti-intellectualism, rejection and reduction of spaces for democratic thinking, redefining morals and values, rejection of diversities, national expansionism and national chauvinism and redefining history from the perspective of the above notions have its parallels among the emerging Sangh Parivar in India. The fascist forces in India deciding what should be spoken and what should be not, what should be written and what should be not, what should be performed and what should be not, what should be painted and what should be not, what should be eaten and what should be not and what should be screened as films and what should be not, also had their counter parts in Nazi Germany. Both the Nazis and the Sangh Parivar systematically manipulated the unconscious, inverting truth, morals, history and a potentially explosive sexually repressed sub conscious mind.

A clear understanding of fascism requires a recognition that there is a growing phenomenon in India using the superiority of the mainstream identities of caste, class, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality, language, region, race etc along with a might of mass physical power, mainstream media, and all the institutions of State. The obvious victims are Muslims, Christians, Dalits, Adivasis, women, children, sexuality minorities, marginalised nationalities and marginalised languages . The emerging strength of Indian capital at a global level is the key to facilitate the growth of such fascism. To that extent, globalisation and the emerging fascism function as two sides of the same coin. The frenzy in which Narendra Modi is travelling all over the world is ultimately to facilitate such a process. The attacks on the working class will emerge as a major phenomenon, the moment the working class organisations become a real threat to this agenda of the fascist forces. Till then, the organisations of the marginalised identities and the left, secular and democratic forces will be on the forefront.

The organised mass as well as State terrorism is already taking a new shape in the present history. Any attempt of activism against fascism without encompassing and involving the grave reality of marginalisation diverse sections by the above forces, could become counter productive. Those who are involved in the anti-fascist struggle will have to ask themselves, who are the immediate victims of fascism and what is the relationship of themselves with the existing as well as potential future victims and survivors during such a political struggle. Such questions among ourselves may indicate an answer to fascism in the long run, upholding the values of democracy, justice, peace and harmony.

Hundreds die in Indian heat wave

Kanda Gabriel

Record-high temperatures across India have killed more than 300 people in recent weeks, almost all of them agricultural laborers and other poor people. The most affected states are Telangana (249 dead) and Andhra Pradesh (45 dead).

Many of the victims died because they had no choice but to work outside in blistering conditions, with temperatures routinely well over 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). One 12-year-old girl in the drought-stricken western state of Maharashtra died from the heat while fetching water.

Broad masses of industrial and construction workers and farm laborers suffering from the heat are faced with an impossible choice: they cannot stay inside, because their families depend on their daily wages; however, if they go to work they have no protection from the heat and are rapidly faced with heatstroke.

There has been scant news coverage of this disaster, in part because few news organizations are ready to dispatch their journalists to the remote rural villages where the majority of the deaths are occurring.

A major problem is the shortage of water. Ten of India’s 29 states have declared a state of drought, following two years of below-average monsoon rains.

“We are getting water supply once in 20 days and taking a bath even once a week is a luxury,” said Manik Kadam, a farm activist from Madhya Pradesh. He told reporters that police are taking charge of filling pots to avoid water wars; villagers get water for only 20 minutes per day.

Soaring temperatures have compounded ongoing drought conditions, with water shortages threatening to affect as many as 330 million people across the country. That is a quarter of India’s population. There are 42,829 affected villages in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, 29,077 villages in the eastern state of Orissa and 22,759 in Karnataka in the south.

The heat wave is harming crops, which will drive up crop prices, imposing even greater misery on the population. Heat wave conditions now prevail across northwest India, affecting cereals, horticulture, and livestock. In Maharashtra, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, in western and southern India, the delay in the monsoon has prevented farmers from planting paddy, cotton, pulses, and millet.

Tens of thousands of farm animals have died, depriving their owners of resources that are critical to survive—a situation that often provokes farmers to commit suicide. According to a report from Al-Jazeera, in the Deccan Plain, eastern Maharashtran region of Marathwada, more than 1,100 farmers committed suicide last year, and a further 216 took their lives in the first three months of this year

The Indian authorities, both the national government led by Narendra Modi and his Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party and the various state governments, have responded to the heat wave and drought in the Indian ruling class’s customary desultory fashion.

According to the media, authorities in some Indian states have belatedly issued warnings for people to stay indoors, banned construction during the hottest times of the day and ordered some schools to extend their summer holidays so that children are not exposed to the heat. However, these public health warnings do not reach broad sections of the population in more remote areas. Moreover, no compensation is offered to workers for whom the loss of a day’s pay may well mean that they and their families have to go hungry.

Last year, a heat wave claimed 2,422 lives in India, the highest heat-related death toll in more than two decades. The Indian national and state governments expressed perfunctory concerns, but the death toll was forgotten once the heat wave faded away. Ignoring this and previous such disasters, the authorities failed to anticipate and prepare for the consequences of this year’s intense and prolonged heat.

Once again, people are being left to fend for themselves. The business oligarchs and affluent sections of the middle class live in spacious homes with air conditioning. Industrial workers and the urban poor, on the other hand, must endure the heat in cramped quarters. Due to the high cost of air conditioners, even among middle-class households, only half had air conditioning as of 2013.

As for the drought, its impact is greatly magnified by the failure to develop modern irrigation. Of an estimated 142 million hectares of land cultivated annually, less than half, some 64 million hectares, have assured access to irrigation. Many irrigation projects have languished for decades as successive Indian governments have prioritized the infrastructure projects favored by domestic and international capital.

While the western media celebrates the purported rise of India, the stark truth is Indian capitalism is utterly incapable of meeting the basic social needs of the country’s largely impoverished population of 1.2 billion people.

In the nearly 70 years since India became independent from Britain, the Indian capitalist class has failed to develop decent health care and public infrastructure for the broad masses of the working class and rural people.

Sixty-nine percent of the Indian population lacks access to adequate sanitation facilities. The Indian state, all levels combined, spends less than 6 percent of GDP on health care and education.

Only 0.5 hospital beds exist per 1,000 population, as compared to 9.1 in Russia and 3 per 1,000 in China. Only 0.21 percent of total infrastructure investments in India are in the health sector, according to an analysis of government data by IndiaSpend.

Though Indian Finance Minister Jaitley announced a 700-billion-rupee ($11.3 billion) hike in Indian government spending on infrastructure in the 2015-16 fiscal year, the Indian government is slashing social spending in many areas. The allocation for health care including health research and AIDS control is to be cut by 15 percent to just Rs. 331.5 billion ($5.4 billion) and for education by 16 percent.

Highest-earning US hedge fund managers raked in $13 billion last year

Niles Niemuth

The top 25 US hedge fund managers received nearly $13 billion in earnings last year, according to an annual survey released Tuesday by Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine.

Even though 2015 was a year of low or negative returns for many hedge funds, fund managers’ earnings were up 10 percent over 2014, when the top 25 hedge fund managers pulled in a measly $11.6 billion, their worst earnings since the 2008 housing crisis.

The lowest earner on this year’s list took in $135 million, while the average income was $517.6 million, up from the previous year, but down 40 percent from 846 million in 2013.

The incomes of the top 25 hedge fund managers place them all comfortably in the top 0.1 percent of society, who live in a world of private jets, luxury hotels, and multiple homes and penthouses scattered around the planet. It means little to these modern plutocrats to toss around tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars in order to purchase art, luxury yachts, and the services of both the Republican and the Democratic parties.

Citadel’s Kenneth Griffin and Renaissance Technologies’ James Simons topped this year’s list, both pulling in $1.7 billion. Following close behind were Raymond Dalio of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world with more than $160 billion in assets under management, and Appaloosa Management’s David Tepper who both brought home $1.4 billion. The top five was rounded out by Millennium Management’s Israel (Izzy) Englander who earned a slim $1.15 billion.

Griffin, who has a net worth of $7.3 billion, has been in the top 25 for the last 14 years. He is a noted art collector and supporter of right-wing, Republican politicians. Earlier this year Griffin purchased Willem De Kooning’s 1955 painting Interchanged for $300 million and Jackson Pollock’s Number 17A for $200 million from the private collection of fellow billionaire David Geffen.

A self-styled Reagan Republican, Griffin backed the 2012 presidential campaign of multi-millionaire Mitt Romney. He endorsed Senator Marco Rubio in his failed run for the 2016 Republican nomination and gave $100,000 to a pro-Rubio super PAC. He also gave $100,000 each to Super PAC funds supporting the presidential campaigns of Jeb Bush and Scott Walker.

Meanwhile Simons, with a net worth of $15.5 billion, has made the list for the last 15 years, earning a total of $23.46 billion over the last decade and a half. Simons used a small sliver of this wealth in 2008 to purchase the Archimedes, a 222-foot super yacht valued at $100 million, which can accommodate 8 guests and 10 crew members.

Through his firm, Renaissance Technologies and Euclidean Capital, Simons has donated generously to both the Democratic and Republican campaigns. According to public filings, Renaissance provided more than $13 million to support the failed presidential bid of Republican Senator Ted Cruz, while Euclidean has given more than $7 million to support the presidential bid of Democrat Hillary Clinton. Simons was one of the largest individual donors in the 2012 campaign, giving more than $9 million to pro-Democrat and pro-Obama super PACs.

To give a sense of what the income of the top hedge fund managers in 2015 represents, consider:

* The West African country of Togo, with a population of 7.5 million people, has a GDP less than $12 billion.

* The top 25 hedge fund managers’ incomes could pay for a majority of the federally-funded National School Lunch Program which provided low-cost or free lunches to more than 31 million school aged children in the US at a cost of $20 billion in 2015.

* The combined income of Griffin and Simons is nearly enough to pay for the $3.5 billion annual budget of K-12 public education in the state of Mississippi. Their income could cover the education costs for approximately 500,000 students, including the salaries of more than 32,000 teachers in more than 1,000 schools.

* $6.1 billion would cover the entire 2015-2016 budget of the University of Wisconsin, which includes the operation of the UW system’s 13 universities and 13 two-year colleges, and cover the education costs for more than 182,000 students. The public university system recently had its state funding slashed by $300 million, plunging the institution into a crisis.

* $1.5 billion would be enough to pay for the replacement of all lead pipes in Flint, Michigan and fix the city’s poisoned public water system.

* Chicago State University, which recently laid off 300 employees due to a shortage of state funds, has an annual operating budget of approximately $6 million. This sum could be paid for more than 2,100 times over by the income of the highest earning hedge fund managers.

A substantial share, if not the majority, of the wealth appropriated by these billionaires is derived from criminal operations. A case in point is SAC Capital Advisors, one of the most profitable hedge funds in history, which pled guilty to security and wire fraud charges in 2013. The entire operation was revealed to have been based on an illegal insider trading operation “on a scale without known precedent.” The firm was required to pay a relatively small $1.8 billion settlement.

Despite being implicated in one of the largest insider trading cases in US history, SAC’s owner and manager, Steven A. Cohen, escaped any criminal charges and remains one of the richest individuals in the world. His current net worth is somewhere around $12 billion.

Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that fewer than two months after a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission banned him from serving as a hedge fund executive, he now owns a hedge fund called Stamford Harbor Capital across the street from his old fund SAC Capital, and the two share many of the same executives. The fund claims that while Cohen is the owner, he does not play a “supervisory role.”

The story of SAC capital, while particularly egregious, exemplifies the relationship between the criminal financial oligarchy that dominates society and the government bodies that nominally supervise them. The Federal Reserve, Securities Exchange Commission, Congress, and the judiciary serve not to restrain the criminality of the financial elite, but to facilitate it and hide it from the public.

This basic state of social relations is on full display in the 2016 presidential elections, in which the Republican Party has put forward Donald Trump, a semi-fascistic billionaire, as their candidate, while the Democratic Party has settled upon Hillary Clinton, a lifelong defender of Wall Street who sees nothing wrong with receiving a six-figure “speaking fee” for a single appearance.