Political crisis deepens in Australia’s “double dissolution” election

Mike Head

The past week has seen a sharp turn in the campaign for the July 2 “double dissolution” election in Australia, reflecting fears in the media and corporate establishment that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s decision to call the rare election for all members of both houses of parliament has backfired.

When Turnbull announced the election five weeks ago, it was a bid to break through a political impasse produced by the failure of successive governments, both Liberal-National and Labor, to fully impose an agenda of sweeping cuts to social spending and working conditions amid a deepening economic breakdown in Australia and internationally.

It was not just that key budget cuts had been stalled in the Senate since 2014, due to the election in 2013 of a range of “independent” and “fourth party” candidates who exploited the hostility toward the two major parties by professing to oppose key austerity measures. The underlying political crisis was reflected in the fact that not one prime minister had been able to see out a full term of office since 2007: the eve of the global financial crisis.

Now, however, there is the distinct possibility that the election could produce an even worse outcome for the financial elite. Not only could the government fail to secure control of the Senate but the result could be another “hung parliament” in the lower house, with no party able to obtain a majority, as occurred from 2010 to 2013, when the Greens propped up a minority Labor government.

Five weeks ago, Turnbull’s political gamble was dressed up in rhetoric of promising “exciting times” and “jobs and growth.” Equally cynically, Labor sought to appease the anger and alienation among masses of people over deteriorating living standards and widening social inequality by pledging to deliver “fairness” that would “put people first.”

Two factors have combined to shatter these lies. One is the rapid deterioration in the economic situation confronting Australian capitalism and the other is the growing public disaffection and hostility towards the entire political establishment. Over the past week, the posturing by the two traditional ruling parties has been replaced by de facto bipartisan unity on a program of severe cuts to healthcare, family payments, pensions, education and social infrastructure.

First, in response to incessant demands by big business and the corporate media, Labor leader Bill Shorten began unveiling a series of policy reversals, abandoning Labor’s earlier populist claims to oppose the government’s “billionaires” budget cuts to social spending. By one estimate, Labor has so far adopted $33 billion worth of cutbacks proposed over the next four years, plus the government’s devastating $50 billion cut to hospital funding over the coming decade—all of which Labor had professed to strongly oppose when the election campaign began.

Then, last Sunday, Turnbull declared a so-called “captain’s pick” to direct his Liberal Party to allocate its second-vote preferences to Labor. He insisted this was essential in the “national interest” to avoid a return to “unstable, chaotic minority Labor, Greens, independent government.” Turnbull overruled leading Liberals who urged allocating preferences to the Greens, which were seeking to gain several inner-city seats at Labor’s expense on the back of Liberal preferences.

Clearly, the “national interest,” dictated by the concerns in the corporate elite, required bolstering the position of the Labor Party, in the hope that it could form a majority government in the event of the Coalition losing office.

Some inkling of the anxiety in ruling circles was revealed yesterday when Fairfax Media reported focus group research showing that “voters are disgruntled with their lot, lack confidence in the future, have become increasingly disengaged with politics and lack belief in the political class.” The opinions of both Turnbull and Shorten were negative, but support for Turnbull had “fallen off a cliff” since he deposed Tony Abbott as prime minister last September.

Both major parties are seeking to impose the dictates of the financial markets, which are driven by the slump overtaking global and Australian capitalism. Since the mining boom began to collapse in 2014, tens of thousands of full-time jobs have been destroyed and investment has plummeted, making many more job losses inevitable in the months ahead. With many parts of the country already in recession, a housing bubble in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane shows signs of bursting.

The most common refrain in the corporate media has become that Australia will lose its AAA credit rating, with dire consequences, because of its exposure to China’s slowdown and depressed export prices, unless drastic action is taken to slash the almost $40 billion annual budget deficit.

The Australian Financial Review editorial on Tuesday welcomed the “potentially-sensible political convergence” but made it clear that the next government must impose even more savage measures, regardless of popular opposition. “Whoever wins the July 2 election will need to do much more to both further deflate public expectations of what governments can deliver,” it declared.

The air of economic and political volatility was underscored by feature article in the financial newspaper last weekend, under the headline: “Warning! Danger ahead.” It warned of “an uncertain world out there threatening smug political forecasts and also threatening to burst the current Australian election campaign bubble.”

The article listed shocks that could “ricochet here and erode Australia’s financial security.” They included a “fiscal debt-generated threat to Australia’s AAA credit rating,” “China’s precarious pump-priming balancing act,” instability generated by the Brexit referendum in Britain and the US presidential election, “the spectre of war in Eastern Europe” and “the global refugee crisis.”

The depth of the economic crisis makes clear that the next government, whether led by Liberal or Labor, will be compelled to make far deeper inroads into public spending than are being discussed in the election campaign.

Behind the backs of the population, the Coalition and Labor are also both committed to participating in more disastrous US-led wars, particularly against China. While both parties agree on making the working class pay for the economic breakdown, declaring there is “no money” for essential social programs, they are equally united in allocating almost half a billion dollars over the next decade to the military, including $195 billion for new submarines, ships and war planes.

This military expansion is integral to Washington’s “pivot to Asia” to confront China in order to assert unchallenged hegemony over the Asia-Pacific region. But these preparations are being kept from view, as much as possible, until after the election, for fear of arousing mass public opposition to war.

In response to the intensifying political crisis, the Greens, which currently constitute the “third party” of the political establishment, are seeking to channel the widespread discontent back into the parliamentary framework of capitalist politics by professing to oppose the most egregious cuts to social programs. In reality, they stand ready to again support a Labor-led government, as they did from 2010 to 2013, or to go further by joining a coalition government with Labor that would seek to implement the cuts pledged by Shorten.

While Greens leader Richard Di Natale voiced “strong disappointment” with the cuts embraced by Labor, he reiterated the Greens’ willingness to negotiate with either major party after the election to ensure that a stable government could be formed. Di Natale also accused the two main parties of striking a “nasty deal” on voting preferences to try to retain their political duopoly, but admitted that the Greens had sought similar vote-swapping agreements with the Liberals, as well as Labor.

Given the volatile political situation, further shocks and turns are quite possible before July 2—still more than two weeks away. But it is already clear that whichever parties form the next government, it will confront workers and young people with social devastation, deepening attacks on basic democratic rights and war.

The only party committed to opposing this offensive and speaking for the independent interests of the working people is the Socialist Equality Party. Its candidates are advancing a genuine socialist and internationalist program to unite the working class in Australia, across the Asia-Pacific region and globally, against the source of war, social inequality and dictatorship—the capitalist profit system itself.

Fed holds interest rates amid mounting global turmoil

Nick Beams

The decision by the US Federal Reserve to keep its base interest rate on hold is a measure of the worsening outlook for the global economy and financial markets. The overall situation is marked by growing concern over the US economy and a flight to “safe havens,” in the form of purchases of government bonds by international investors.

The two immediate factors in the Fed’s decision, announced at the conclusion of a two-day meeting on Wednesday, appear to have been the worsening jobs and economic outlook in the US and growing uncertainties surrounding the June 23 referendum in the UK on whether to quit the European Union, and the possible impact of a “yes” vote on equity and bond markets.

The statement issued by the US central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee noted that the pace of improvement in the labour market had slowed, with diminishing job gains, and that fixed business investment was “soft.” The Fed revised downward its estimate for economic growth in the coming year from the 2.2 percent forecast in March to 2 percent. Growth in 2017 was also revised downward from 2.1 percent to 2 percent.

As the Wall Street Journal noted, the decision suggested that Fed officials were coming to the conclusion that the economy could not bear higher interest rates even to achieve “mediocre growth.”

The issue of a possible exit of Britain from the EU (Brexit) was not mentioned in the statement, but Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen commented on it in her press conference. Asked whether the upcoming British vote had been one of the factors in the decision, Yellen said: “It is certainly one of the uncertainties we discussed and factored into today’s decision.” A vote to leave the EU would have consequences for global markets, she added.

When viewed against the backdrop of the last six months, Wednesday’s decision indicates that the Fed is simply reacting to events as they occur, under conditions where its projections and forecasts are almost immediately blown off course amid slowing global growth and the rush by investors to the relative safety of government bonds. These are increasingly trading at zero or below-zero interest rates, and it is estimated that more than $10 trillion worth of bonds are returning negative interest rates.

When the Fed announced a 0.25 percentage point rise in its base rate last December, Yellen said the US economy was on a “path of sustainable improvement” and added that “we are confident in the US economy.”

In the two months that followed, global financial markets experienced considerable turmoil, part of which was attributed to the December Fed action.

The prospect of “sustainable improvement” was dealt a major blow with the release of data for the first quarter of 2016 that showed gross domestic product in the US rising at an annual rate of just 0.8 percent, repeating a pattern of first quarter declines over the last several years. Then the jobs data for May showed that employment had increased by only 38,000 in May, well below forecasts.

The unemployment rate fell, but that was only because the labour force shrank by 485,000 people, as thousands gave up looking for work. Other data shows that the percentage of men aged 25 to 54 who are not working is at an all-time high, and median household income is 1.3 percent below where it was in 2007.

In a speech last week, Yellen continued to maintain what she called “cautious optimism” on the US economy, but did not repeat previous remarks that she expected a further rate rise “in the coming months.”

The so-called “dot plot,” which indicates where members of the Fed believe interest rates will move, showed a lowering of projections in the short-term and stretching out to 2017 and 2018. This indicates that while the Fed would like to lift interest rates in order to have some means of stimulating the economy by lowering them in the event of a recession, it is unable to do so because the present low-rate regime is not bringing about a sufficient increase in growth.

Answering a question at her press conference, Yellen said: “We are quite uncertain about where rates are heading in the longer term.”

In her prepared remarks, she noted that non-energy business investment was “particularly weak” during the winter and appeared to have remained so in the spring. The growth in household spending “slowed noticeably” earlier in the year.

The immediate reaction in financial markets was that any rate rise was off the table for the rest of the summer, with the earliest date for an increase being September, or even December.

The Fed decision came in the wake of a day of turbulence on global financial markets Tuesday when yields on German and Japanese government bonds hit new lows, with the 10-year German Bund entering negative territory for the first time. The increase in bond prices, which have an inverse relationship to yields, was fuelled by opinion polls showing that the Leave option in next week’s Brexit referendum had attained a majority.

In addition to the falls in German and Japanese bonds, the yield on British 10-year bonds fell to a new low and the yield on the 30-year bond dropped to below 2 percent for the first time. The interest rate on US ten-year treasury bonds fell to 1.6 percent, just above its lowest level since 2012.

The British pound fell heavily on currency markets, with the cost of protecting swings in its value against the euro rising to a record high, exceeding levels reached in the global financial crisis of 2008.

While the immediate cause of the turmoil was the Brexit vote, longer term processes are clearly at work. Andrew Milligan, the head of global strategy at the UK insurer and investment group Standard Life, said it was “one of the most peculiar environments for investment I’ve known.”

He continued: “The Bund’s move below zero is symbolic of a trend we have been living with for more than a year, where the actions of central banks and the weight of money looking for positive returns is leading to unprecedented moves in markets.”

The sense of shock at what is taking place was also reflected in remarks by Ralf Preusser, head of European rates research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

“We are seeing the death of quality, positive-yielding assets,” he said. “Global growth is still weak and central banks are still buying bonds, but the real surprise, and the big driver behind this rally [the increase in bond prices, which sends yields lower], is the question of how sustainable the US recovery is.”

In other words, what was once considered the “normal” functioning of the global capitalist economy, where investments were made in the real economy in the search of increased profits leading to higher growth, and investment in government bonds returned a positive rate, securing a long-term source of income for insurance firms and pension funds, has completely broken down.

The various “quantitative easing” measures pursued by the world’s central banks have not only completely failed to increase real growth, they have created a mass of cash surging like a wrecking ball though financial markets as it seeks speculative profits.

NED Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellowship for Developing Countries 2016

Application Deadline: Application opens June 15 and closes October 15, 2016.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Citizens of any country may apply

To be taken at (country): Washington, D.C., USA

Brief description: The Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program offers five-month fellowships to practitioners to focus on strategies and best practices for developing democracy in their country of interest. Projects may address the economic, political, social, legal, or cultural aspects of democratic development and include a range of methodologies and approaches.

Eligible Field of Study: Topics focusing on the political, social, economic, legal, or cultural aspects of democratic development

About the Award: The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a private, nonprofit foundation dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world. Established in 1983 with funding from the U.S. Congress, the Endowment makes hundreds of grants each year to support pro-democracy groups in Africa, Asia, Eurasia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Named in honor of NED’s principal founders, former president Ronald Reagan and the late congressman Dante Fascell (D-Fl.), the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program is a federally funded, international exchange program that offers practitioners, scholars, and journalists from around the world the opportunity to spend five months in residence at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), in Washington, D.C., in order to undertake independent research on democracy in a particular country or region. Located within NED’s International Forum for Democratic Studies, the program provides a rich intellectual setting for educational exchange and professional development. While in residence, fellows reflect on their experiences; engage with counterparts; conduct research and writing; consider best practices and lessons learned; and develop professional relationships within a global network of democracy advocates.

Two different Tracks exist for participants: Practitioner Track and Scholarly Track

Type: Fellowship Programme

Eligibility: Proficiency in the English language. Eligibility differs according to the Track an interested candidate may belong:

Participant Track:

Applicants interested in the practitioner track are expected to have substantial practical experience working to promote democracy or human rights in their country of origin or interest. There are no specific degree requirements for the practitioner track. A Ph.D., for instance, is not required of practitioner applicants. While there are also no age limits, applicants on the practitioner track are typically mid-career professionals with several years of professional experience in the field of democracy and human rights.

Examples of eligible candidates for the practitioner track include human rights advocates, lawyers, journalists, labor leaders, political party activists, diplomats, professional staff of civic or humanitarian organizations, and other civil society professionals from developing and aspiring democracies.

Scholarly Track

Applicants interested in the scholarly track are expected to possess a doctorate (a Ph.D., or academic equivalent) at the time of application, to have a proven record of publications in their field, and to have developed a detailed research outline for their fellowship project.

Examples of eligible candidates for the scholarly track include college and university professors, researchers, journalists, and other writers from developing and aspiring democracies. Distinguished scholars from the United States or other established democracies are also eligible to apply. Occasionally, a professional who is planning to write a book or other scholarly publication may qualify to apply on the scholarly track.

Number of Awardees:

Value of Fellowship: 

• Research
• Capacity Building
• Impact
• Exchange

Duration of Fellowship: Five (5) months

How to Apply: There are five steps to the online application process:

Step 1: Applicant Information
Step 2: Project Proposal for the Practitioner Track or for the Scholarly Track
Step 3: Letters of Recommendation
Step 4: Resume/CV and Biography
Step 5: Certification

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) Foundation

Important Notes: The Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program does not award scholarship funds, loans, or any other type of financial aid to university students, graduate students, or postdoctoral researchers. In addition, our fellowship program is not an educational or training program leading toward an academic degree.

Austria Scholarships for International Students 2016 (Undergraduate, Masters & PhD Research Grant)

Application Deadline: 1 September  2016 | 

Offered annually? Yes

Brief description: Applications are accepted for the Scholarship Foundation of the Republic of Austria for grants and research promotion for Undergraduate, Masters & PhD students. Scholarships are also awarded for research periods at scientific research institutions in Austria (e.g. universities, Austrian Academy of Sciences, National Library, National Archive).

Eligible Field of Study: Natural Sciences, Technical Sciences, Human Medicine, Health Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, Arts

About Scholarship          

Foundation of the Republic of Austria is offering scholarships for international students (except Austrians). Applicants who are descendants of forced laborers (regardless of their country of origin) or people coming from countries that have suffered exceptionally from the Nazi regime, especially from the recruitment of forced laborers. Scholarships are awarded to pursue research on their diploma or master thesis or their dissertation at scientific research institutions in Austria.

Scholarship Offered Since: not specified

Scholarship Type: grants, research promotion for undergraduates, graduates, postgraduates

Eligibility: Eligible for application are

• descendents of forced labourers (regardless of their country of origin)
• or people coming from countries that have suffered exceptionally from the Nazi regime, especially from the recruitment of forced labourers.

Selection Criteria: Students meeting the above mentioned criteria can apply to pursue research

• on their bachelor thesis
• on their diploma or master thesis
• or their dissertation.

No scholarships are awarded for Bachelor, Master or Doctoral/PhD studies pursued in Austria, summer courses, language courses, clinical traineeships or internships. The scholarship grant is for research.

Applicants must not have studied/pursued research/pursued academic work in Austria in the last six months before taking up the grant.

Age limit:

Doctoral students: 40 years (born on or after March 1, 1976)
for other students: 35 years (born on or after March 1, 1981)

Number of Scholarships: not specified

Value of Scholarship:

1. monthly scholarship instalment: 940 EUR
2. Accident and health insurance: if necessary, the OeAD (Austrian Agency for International Cooperation in Education and Research) will effect an accident and health insurance. The costs for the insurance have to be covered from the scholarship.
3. The OeAD provides scholarship holders with accommodation (student dormitory or apartment). Monthly costs: 220 to 470 EUR (depending on the level of comfort requested by the scholarship holder). The scholarship holder has to pay an administrative fee of 18 EUR/month to the OeAD for the provision of accommodation. The costs for the accommodation have to be covered from the scholarship.
4. Applicants from countries which are neither members of the EU nor members of EFTA, EEA or OECD can be granted a travel allowance. The lump sum depends on the country of origin.

Duration of Scholarship: 1 – 4 months

Eligible Countries: all (except Austria)

To be taken at (country): Austria

How to Apply

The following documents have to be uploaded for the Online Application on www.scholarships.at/:

• fully completed Online Application form “Application for a Scholarship of the Scholarship Foundation of the Republic of Austria” including a CV and a project plan, describing the plans and completed preparatory work for the research stay in Austria
• two letters of recommendation from university lecturers. For these letters of recommendation no specific form is required; they have to contain the letterhead, date and signature of the person recommending the applicant and the stamp of the university / department and must be no older than six months at the time of application
• confirmation of supervision by a supervisor at the chosen Austrian university, university of applied sciences or research institution
• scanned passport (showing the name and picture of the applicant)
• university graduation certificate of your diploma, master, PhD or doctoral studies at a university outside Austria resp. proof of enrollment at a study programme at a university outside Austria
• confirmation, that proves your participation in a study programme (Bachelor, Master/Diploma or PhD) at your home university
• for descendants of forced labourers: processing number or photocopy of the letter of information or other relevant proofs

Visit scholarship webpage for details to apply

Sponsors: OeAD-GmbH on behalf of and financed by the Scholarship Foundation of the Republic of Austria

New Zealand: Labour, Greens sign Memorandum of Understanding

Tom Peters

New Zealand’s opposition Labour and Green Parties signed a one-page Memorandum of Understanding on May 31, agreeing to “work co-operatively to change the government” in the 2017 election.

The agreement describes the Labour-Greens alliance as “a stable, credible, and progressive alternative” to the conservative National Party, which has been in power since 2008. Commentators such as the trade union funded Daily Blog and former Greens MP and blogger Keith Locke presented the MoU as a shift to the left by the Labour Party.

In reality, the agreement is an attempt to trap workers and youth, who are moving to the left under the impact of the economic crisis, behind capitalist parties that have no substantial differences with National’s agenda of austerity and militarism.

The 2011 and 2014 elections were marked by record levels of abstention, particularly among young people, reflecting widespread hostility towards the entire political establishment. Labour, which is widely recognised as no alternative to National, received its lowest vote in 80 and 92 years respectively. Over the past eight years the party has languished in the polls with 30 percent support or lower, and has had four different leaders.

Underscoring the collapse in support for the Labour Party, well-informed political blogger Richard Harman recently wrote that its membership might have sunk below 5,000, that is, lower than the Greens’. Tens of thousands of workers left Labour in disgust following the Labour government’s wave of pro-market restructuring, mass sackings and privatisations in the 1980s, which led to soaring social inequality.

The MoU, which aims to prop up this despised party of big business, demonstrates once again the reactionary politics of the Green Party. Like its sister parties in Germany and Australia, the NZ Greens are not a “left” alternative but a party of nationalism, militarism and big business. James Shaw, elected Green Party co-leader last year based on his experience as a business consultant for HSBC bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers, has described himself as “a huge fan of the market” and promoted Margaret Thatcher as a model environmentalist.

The Greens supported the 1999-2008 Labour government, including its decision to send troops to join the US occupation of Afghanistan, and the Australian interventions in East Timor and the Solomon Islands. Now the party has signalled its willingness to formally enter a Labour-led coalition government.

Labour leader Andrew Little addressed the Greens’ annual conference on June 4 to promote the agreement. He declared that a Labour-Green government would “deliver a better, fairer New Zealand” that would “lift people out of homelessness.” He made vague promises to reduce child poverty and increase funding for health and education. Little’s speech was greeted with a standing ovation.

Neither party, however, has announced a policy that would lift the estimated 300,000 children out of poverty. Labour’s housing policy, if implemented, would result in 10,000 new homes per year, to be sold at unaffordable market prices, while the Greens have called for the construction of only a handful more state-owned houses. More than 40,000 people are homeless. In the 2014 election both parties pledged to keep a tight lid on spending and ruled out reversing National’s corporate tax cuts and its increase to the Goods and Services Tax.

In line with its previous tacit support for US-led wars, the Greens made no criticism of Labour’s support for US militarism, including Little’s recent demand for a major escalation of the war in Iraq, Syria, Libya “and other parts of the Middle East.”

Foreign policy was not publicly discussed at the Greens’ conference because the entire political establishment supports the military-intelligence alliance with Washington, in exchange for US backing of New Zealand’s neo-colonial operations in the Pacific. Labour has openly endorsed the aggressive US “pivot” to Asia, a strategy to encircle and prepare for war against China.

Shaw told Newshub on June 8 that the Greens support the government’s plan, outlined in its Defence White Paper, to spend $20 billion over the next 15 years on new military hardware, including frigates, aircraft and drones. Labour’s defence spokesman Phil Goff demanded that the government go even further in recruiting more personnel for the armed forces. The purpose of the increased military spending is to integrate New Zealand into US war preparations against China.

Shaw declared in his conference speech that the Greens and Labour wanted a future where “children of Syrian refugees will play with those of Chinese migrants, Pasifika [Pacific Islanders] and Tangata Whenua [Maori] and seventh generation Pakeha [Europeans].”

In reality, both parties have joined the right-wing, anti-immigrant New Zealand First Party in whipping up anti-Chinese xenophobia. Labour has blamed immigrants, particularly Chinese people, for taking New Zealanders’ jobs and driving up house prices.

The Labour and Green leaders have stressed that their Memorandum is not an “exclusive” deal and have invited NZ First to join them. The three parties contested the 2014 election in a de facto alliance, and last year Labour and the Greens helped NZ First leader Winston Peters win a by-election in the Northland electorate.

The Greens’ embrace of NZ First is a measure of their sharp shift to the right. NZ First was founded in the 1990s on a platform of opposing what it called an “invasion” of Asian immigrants. In June 2005, the Greens’ then-co-leader Rod Donald denounced Winston Peters as “the ugly face of New Zealand politics” and said his proposal for a dedicated squad to snatch and deport “undesirable” immigrants “echoes Hitler’s Germany.”

In May 2013, after Peters’ gave a speech scapegoating Chinese people for gambling, prostitution, crime and social inequality in Auckland, current Greens co-leader Metiria Turei told TV3 that Peters was a “racist,” but did not rule out going into coalition with NZ First.

On June 1, 2016, Turei told Radio NZ: “I have no concerns at all about working with Winston Peters and New Zealand First in future, if that’s what they’re interested in.”

Shaw went further, telling TVNZ on June 5: “Our relationship with New Zealand First has improved markedly over the course of the last few years. Metiria [Turei] has quite a close personal relationship with [Peters].” He pointed out that the Greens’ recently-appointed chief of staff, Deborah Morris-Travers, is a former NZ First member who served as minister for youth affairs in the 1996-1999 National Party-NZ First coalition government.

The Green Party leaders have built their “close personal relationship” with NZ First as the latter has made constant xenophobic attacks on foreign students, Pacific Islanders, Muslims and Chinese immigrants. Like Labour, NZ First supports the military build-up against China. It has called for greater military spending and proposed that unemployed teenagers undergo army training.

The Labour-Greens-NZ First bloc is not a progressive alternative to the National government. If elected next year, it will intensify the assault on the working class at home, attack immigrants, and continue the country’s war preparations against China.

ISIS-linked operative murders police commander and his wife near Paris

Alex Lantier

In a gruesome and horrific crime, a man apparently linked to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) murdered a police commandant and then his wife, an administrative worker in a police office, in the city of Magnanville, 60 km northwest of Paris.

The assailant mortally stabbed Jean-Baptiste Salvaing, identified in press reports as a 42-year-old official in the judicial police of Les Mureaux, outside his house on Monday evening. He then took Salvaing’s 36-year-old wife Jessica Schneider and their three-year-old child hostage in their residence, launching a standoff with the RAID (Research, Assistance, Intervention, Deterrence) police special forces unit.

The assailant then posted on Facebook pictures of his victims and a call to murder policemen, prison wardens, journalists and rappers. He also called for terror attacks on the Euro 2016 football cup, declaring, “The Euro cup will be a graveyard.”

At a briefing later yesterday, Paris prosecutor François Molins said, “During his negotiations with the RAID, the killer said he was a practicing Muslim, adding that he had pledged allegiance three weeks before to the commander of the faithful of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He also said he had responded to a call by this emir to ‘kill unbelievers, at their home with their families’.”

The RAID unit assaulted the house at midnight Tuesday, killing the assailant and discovering Schneider’s lifeless body and the couple’s young child. Schneider’s throat had been slit in front of the child, whom authorities described as “physically unharmed but traumatized.” The young orphan is now receiving psychiatric treatment.

Yesterday morning, French intelligence and police services identified the deceased assailant as Larossi Abballa. As in the Charlie Hebdo and November 13 mass shootings in Paris last year, and the March 22 Brussels bombing last year, Abballa was well-known to the intelligence services. Inexplicably, he was somehow able to develop ties with ISIS and plan his attack with impunity, though he was under intense police surveillance.

A 25-year-old man with a substantial police record of petty crime, he was arrested in 2011 and convicted in 2013 of participating in an Islamist terror network. He had received a three-year sentence, the last six months of which were suspended, for “criminal associations aiming to prepare terrorist acts.” He was apparently involved in Islamist networks running between Pakistan and France, and sentenced along with seven other defendants.

Domestic intelligence agencies opened an “S” file on Abballa, his phone was tapped, and he was being followed by judicial police due to his ties with a man who had traveled to fight in the Syrian war. Abballa “did not seem to pose a sufficient and concrete enough threat” to justify further action, however, according to intelligence officials who spoke to Le Parisien .

ISIS reportedly claimed responsibility for the killing yesterday, identifying Abballa as an ISIS fighter. The US-based SITE intelligence group issued a translation of an article it had found posted to the web site of the ISIS news agency Amaq, declaring: “Islamic State fighter kills deputy chief of the police station in the city of Les Mureaux and his wife with blade weapons.”

At 7 a.m. yesterday, as he went into a crisis meeting at the Elysée palace, President François Hollande promised that “full light will be shed” on “this abominable event.”

Gilbert Collard, a close associate of neo-fascist National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen, denounced the PS government for allowing the attacks to unfold, writing on Twitter that “Islamist terrorism is now into our houses: government of incompetent cowards.”

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve responded shortly afterwards, denouncing the murder as an “abject terrorist act” as he came out of the meeting with Hollande. “The government is totally mobilized,” Cazeneuve insisted, indicating that he would go visit “immediately the policemen who are colleagues of the two police officials who were killed.”

The horrific murder of the two policemen only served to intensify the right-wing atmosphere that prevails in official French circles. Prime Minister Manuel Valls demanded “national unity” behind the police, who are currently engaged in a bitter crackdown against masses of workers who are fighting the government’s unpopular and socially regressive labor law.

Several members of the right-wing Les Republicans (LR) party of former President Nicolas Sarkozy called for imprisoning everyone on whom the intelligence services have opened an “S” file. This would imply the conversion of France into a police state, since intelligence services can open “S” files at will, and this would effectively allow them to imprison anyone arbitrarily simply by opening up an “S” file on them.

The investigation is only beginning, and more important facts about the circumstances in which the attack was planned and then unfolded will doubtless come to light. However, the evidence available so far already makes clear that this crime is deeply rooted in the proxy war for regime change pursued by the NATO powers in Syria from which ISIS emerged.

As in the previous terror attacks in France and Belgium, a major factor in the assailant’s ability to prepare the attack under the noses of the police will likely have been the tacit support that Islamist networks recruiting fighters for the Syrian war receive from European intelligence services.

The most striking example of this was the attack this spring in Brussels, where Belgian intelligence had received detailed warnings as to the identity and targets of the attackers. Nonetheless, the attackers were not arrested, and security at the target locations was not increased in the run-up to the March 22 attacks—a decision that proved to have deadly consequences.

Whatever the personal merits of Salvaing and Schneider—who were widely praised by their colleagues and friends as a dedicated professional and a devoted mother closely involved in the municipal schools, respectively—the attempts by top French officials to exploit the killings to whip up a law-and-order atmosphere reek of hypocrisy.

Through their wars in Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and beyond, France and the other NATO powers bear immense responsibility for creating the conditions in which the attack was carried out. Moreover, the attacks in Paris, Brussels, and now Magnanville—in which ISIS fighters brought to France and Belgium the methods they have used in Syria ever since NATO launched its war in the country in 2011—are themselves reminders of the criminal character of this war.

The shock and horror settling over Magnanville and all of France after Monday’s attack give an idea of the character of the far greater impact of the NATO war upon Syria: hundreds of bombings and raids by NATO-backed Islamist “rebels” triggered a war in which over 250,000 people have lost their lives and over 10 million were forced to flee their homes.

The social roots of the mass shooting in Orlando

Barry Grey

It took barely 48 hours for the initial official narrative about the massacre in Orlando, Florida—that it was an ISIS-directed attack on the US homeland—to unravel. Whatever role Omar Mateen’s sympathies for Islamic terrorism may have played in his decision to carry out a mass killing at the Pulse gay bar with a military-style assault rifle, it is now acknowledged by the government that there is no evidence that his actions were directed by ISIS or any similar organization.

Moreover, it has emerged that Mateen was largely driven by a combination of personal emotional and psychological demons, including a conflicted sexual identity, and backward, reactionary and racist views that have much in common with home-grown right-wing and white supremacist groups.

These revelations have not prevented the president of the United States, the presumptive presidential nominees of both major political parties and the corporate-controlled media from continuing to exploit the deaths of 49 victims, the injuries, some life-threatening, of another 53, and the grieving of thousands of family members and friends to push a preexisting agenda of war abroad and repression within the US.

Without seriously attempting to align their prescriptions with the facts that have thus far emerged about the killer and his crime, they continue to seize on this latest in an endless series of mass shootings in America to push the so-called “war on terror,” which has played such a sinister role in creating the social environment that breeds these types of horrific events.

It is now known that Mateen’s evident homophobia coexisted with frequent visits to the Pulse bar and an active presence on social media used by homosexuals. Former coworkers have come forward to describe the killer’s far-right and racist views. Daniel Gilroy, who worked alongside Mateen between March 2014 and March 2015, can been seen in an interview posted on the New York Times web site describing his encounter with the future mass murderer.

Gilroy stated that he was “not surprised” when he heard that Mateen had carried out the Orlando massacre. “He was very racist, very sexist, anti-Jew, anti-homosexual and he made it known by derogatory statements as much as he could.” Gilroy has added that Mateen often talked about killing blacks. When his employer failed to heed his complaints about Mateen, Gilroy quit the firm.

The homicidal eruption of Omar Mateen, while the worst mass shooting in modern American history, is anything but an aberration. Thus far in June, according to the Gun Violence Archive web site, there have been 18 mass shootings in the US. Gunshot homicides totaled 8,124 in 2014, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Gun homicides in America kill about as many people as car crashes. They occur at an almost exponentially greater rate than in all other advanced industrialized countries. In the US, the death rate from gun homicides is about 31 per million people per year. In Germany, the figure is two per million; in England, only one. In Japan, the likelihood of dying from a gunshot is roughly the same as an American’s chance of being killed by lightning—one in 10 million.

The question that is imperiously raised by such facts is: What is it about American society that so frequently leads mentally unstable individuals to resort to mass murder, often combined with suicide? This is a question that the political and media establishment does not care to—or dare to—address. The reason is that it leads rapidly to an exposure of the malignant state of American capitalist society.

Instead, what is offered is a cynical and dishonest rehash of past cover-ups for the system that generates such levels of social dysfunction and violence. The official response to each new incident of mass killing is a stereotypical combination of war mongering and demands for further surveillance on the population and other police-state measures. From the Democrats, the recipe also includes demands for gun control, as though the prevalence of guns is the cause, rather than a symptom, of the disease.

From the Republicans, and especially their current likely presidential candidate, the fascistic billionaire Donald Trump, the response features new and even more savage attacks on immigrants in general, and Muslims in particular.

This was fully on display Tuesday when President Obama gave a speech following a meeting of his National Security Council. Flanked by his secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the head of the Homeland Security Department, the director of national intelligence and other security officials, Obama declared the central priority arising from the Orlando massacre to be the intensification of the war to “destroy” ISIS.

He touted his recent actions escalating US military violence in both Iraq and Syria, including the deployment of additional Special Forces troops and additional assets such as attack helicopters. He boasted of having “taken out” more than 120 top ISIS leaders, and alluded to plans to escalate the US military intervention in Libya.

He then moved to demands that Congress, meaning the Republicans, pass legislation restricting gun ownership, and concluded with a denunciation of Trump for calling for a ban on Muslim immigration and other discriminatory measures against immigrants, primarily from the standpoint of the exigencies of the “war on terror” and US neocolonial operations in Muslim countries.

Of course, as always, nothing was said about the direct responsibility of his own policies and the wars of the past quarter-century in Central Asia and the Middle East for the rise of ISIS, both in the sense of its roots in the catastrophe unleashed by US mass killing and destruction and Washington’s deliberate stoking of sectarian conflict, and in the more immediate sense of CIA backing for ISIS and its forebears and their arming and financing by Washington’s despotic regional allies.

All of this is an attempt to conceal the real causes of mass violence in America, which lie in the decay and malignant crisis of American capitalism. Obama presides over the latest chapter in 25 years of unceasing war abroad, beginning with the first Persian Gulf War in 1991, and relentless attacks on the social conditions and democratic rights of the working class at home, carried out alike by Democratic and Republican administrations.

Never-ending war has been accompanied by the militarization of social life and politics within the US. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the impact of this daily reality within the borders of the United States, especially on the most unstable social elements. Political reaction, national chauvinism, anti-immigrant racism—the most backward sentiments have been systematically cultivated in order to pursue an agenda of imperialist war and the impoverishment of the working class.

To prepare for the inevitable growth of social resistance, the police have been turned into a militarized occupation force in working-class communities, using terror, brutality and outright murder.

The betrayal and collapse of the unions, their alliance with the ruling elite against the workers and suppression of class struggle, have added to the social malaise.

Now, however, we are seeing both in the US and internationally the beginnings of a new upsurge of class struggle, driven by immense anger over the colossal growth of social inequality and the brazen criminality of the ruling elite. This prefigures the inevitable revival of social revolution.

For the American ruling class—all the more reason to seek to deflect internal social tensions outward by means of nationalism and war.

For the working class—there is only one answer to the sickeningly routine eruption of homicidal violence in America, the path of socialist revolution to put an end to the diseased system that produces such horrors.

Venezuela: Crisis and Propaganda

JOSÉ L. FLORES

The political and economic crisis in Venezuela is showing little signs of easing up. Similarly, the propagandistic reporting of this crisis is showing little signs of easing up. How did Venezuela find itself in this dire situation? The U.S. media maintains that this crisis is a result to Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution and the communist redistribution policies, which are implemented and maintained by President Nicolas Maduro. However, this is a multi-faceted situation with several contributing factors. One cannot blame every woe of Venezuela’s economy on Maduro, nor could one blame every woe on Maduro’s right wing rivals. One thing is for sure Venezuela’s economy is unmixed and is much too dependent on oil revenues. This dependence on oil, along with the U.S. hatred for Venezuela and its people, has made Venezuela’s economy venerable to foreign manipulation.

It is unanimous, between the left and right, that Venezuela’s economy is much too dependent on oil and must be diversified. However, the conclusion of how this economic situation occurred is much more contested. For instance; why doesn’t Venezuela have a vibrant agricultural sector? Venezuela imports most of its food and the industry has been on decline since the 1950s. The importation of food would be a fact with or without the Bolivarian Revolution. This can be concluded by simply following the statistical trends. Venezuela’s traditional home grown foods include corn, rise, coffee, sugarcane, vegetables, beef, pork and fish all of which are the perfect ingredients for a nation to have a thriving agricultural industry. However, Venezuela cannot compete in the international market, or in its own market with respect to agriculture. This is due to the United States’ highly protectionist and highly subsidized agricultural sector, which is solidified by the so called trade deals passed around the globe. While the world must submit to neo-liberal and laissez faire policies, the U.S relies on subsidized market interference. Since Venezuela cannot compete agriculturally, Venezuela imports food and pays for it with its oil. Unfortunately, the government has staked their entire future on oil revenues and the economy is completely subject to how well that commodity does on the market.

The United States has doubled its domestic production of oil in the last decade. Since Russia is in a similar situation as Venezuela, with respect to an oil economy, they are pumping out huge amounts of oil to keep up with the price of their economy. It is also known that Saudi Arabia is pumping its domestic oil at capacity. Supply is up and demand is low, due to alternative energy industries and the popularity of environment friendly cars. Furthermore, low demand has led to a decline in investment. These contributing factors have led to low oil prices and for low revenues for Venezuela. Recently, Iran, Venezuela and Ecuador have all urged the OPEC cartel to cut worldwide oil production in order to bring prices back up. OPEC refused and this decision was mostly supported by Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf allies. It just so happens that the dictators of the Middle East are proxies of the U.S. and Iran, Venezuela and Ecuador are targets of the U.S. economic policies.

Suppose institutions like Wall Street, the Defense Department, the State Department, the Department of Agriculture and Energy were all just watching this turmoil from its periphery. Given the United States involvement in Latin America would not this situation seem remarkable? Consider the past two decades of Venezuelan and United States relations. The U.S. has been exposed for financing and fomenting, through it intelligence apparatus, the massive protests in Venezuela. What would the U.S. government do if Venezuela was proved to be funding and fomenting the Black Lives Matter movement in the Ferguson riots? The U.S. staged a coup d’etat against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, which luckily only lasted a couple of days. Suppose Maduro was working with the Republicans and the U.S. Military in order to oust President Obama; how would we react? Currently, the U.S. and its allies at the Organization of American States are trying to kick Venezuela out of the hemisphere by revoking its membership in the OAS. Suppose Venezuela was working with its allies to kick the U.S. out of the United Nations or the OAS; how would the U.S. government react?

In 2005 Venezuela offered tons of food, billions of dollars in oil, water, medical experts, medical aid and equipment to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.  How is the U.S. returning the favor to the Venezuelan people as medical shortages are costing lives, there is no food to buy in the grocery stores and the government is collapsing? The biggest privately owned food supplier, Empresas Polar SA, is urging for foreign aid. These calls are being ignored even as the managers of Empresas Polar SA are fellow capitalists and allies of the United States. When civil society collapsed in New Orleans and chaos reached Louisiana, Venezuela was trying to help the situation on the gulf by offering aid for the victims. This aid was very much needed as the wealth of the U.S. was dedicated to destroying Iraq and murdering Iraqi citizens. Now that Venezuela needs help, they are offered nothing by the United States.

Maduro is playing with fire by putting his military on high alert and warning of a possible foreign invasion. The United States loves to invade countries and murder people. Maduro should not be provoking the murderous military leaders of the United States. Venezuela desperately needs to diversify its economy by bringing back agriculture, building up their infrastructure and returning to manufacturing. Perhaps Maduro should step down as president and perhaps he should be voted out. However, choosing Henrique Capriles as president, a man who urges the Venezuelan army to dispose of Maduro in an illegal coup and is a United States intelligence figurine, would result in a far worse situation for Venezuela. Venezuela will not fix its economy by simply abandoning the Bolivarian social programs, just like the opposition is calling for. The U.S. did not come out of the Great Depression by eliminating social programs and cutting spending. On the contrary, the United States got out of the Great Depression with extremely high government spending, massive social programs and investments.

Venezuela is going through a rough period and needs the help of the international community and the solidarity of international citizens. Ultimately, Venezuela is going to have to make some difficult decisions but it is not the U.S. responsibility to subvert the economy and the people of Venezuela. The United States should be providing aid and reparations. If the U.S. is using economic warfare to punish Russia, Ecuador and Venezuela it would not be the first time. However, if it is true the United States government should be exposed internationally and everywhere around the globe for the murderous, tyrannical, spying, meddling, torturing, militarist country that it is.

Russia And China Have To Step Up Ideological War

Andre Vltchek

These days you may get hugs from many common people in the Middle East or Latin America when you say that you are Russian, but such emotional outbursts are mainly intuitive. After being bombarded by extremely effective and negative Western propaganda for years and decades, people of the world still know very little, if anything, about two enormous countries that have been proudly resisting the Western imperialism – Russia and China.

I recently spent five weeks in Latin America, where the West openly supports the entire wide spectrum of counter-revolutionary movements, literally overthrowing one progressive government after another. I worked alongside the left-wing intellectuals there, helping to define the way forward, to rescue the Process.

But I was shocked by how little is known there about both Russia and China - for decades two natural allies of the patriotic Latin American Left.

“Are you for Putin or against?” And: “Is China really as capitalist now as we read?”

These were two most commonly asked questions.

Not in Cuba, of course. Cuba, almost free of most of propaganda media outlets of the Empire is actually one of the best-educated and informed societies on Earth. There, people know all about those long decades and centuries of the epic struggle of the Russian people against Western imperialism. There, it is very well known that China is essentially and once again increasingly a Communist (and successful) nation with clear central planning, which uses some controlled capitalist practicesin order tobuilda prosperous society for its people.

But even in such educated countries like Argentina and Chile, even in those centers of progress and revolution like Ecuador and Venezuela, the two world giants are often misunderstood. The majority of people in Latin America may feel sympathy for both Russia and China,but there is no deep knowledge of the realities there.

It is truly discouraging, because the Latin American Left is one of the essential components of the front against Western imperialism, standing shoulder to shoulder with Russia and China, but also South Africa, Iran and other proud nations.

It is easy to understand the reasons behind all this. Even in some of the most revolutionary nations of Latin America, the Western mass media outlets have been managing to retain their presence, often through the right-wing big business cable TV and satellite distributors. Most of the biggest newspapers are still in the hands of local business interests.

And so the negative and misleading messages about Russia and China are spread constantly. People are bombarded with them from the television screens, from the pages of mass-circulation newspapers, and from the imported (Western) films.

Many are resisting. They instinctively want to cling to both Russia and China. But they don’t have enough “ammunition”; not enough positive and inspiring information is available to them. In the meantime the critics are armed tothe teeth with toxic propaganda that is mass-produced in New York, Los Angeles, London and Madrid.

And the situation is much worse in Asia.

There, the Empire has truly and fully mobilized allavailable resources, in order to discredit its two main adversaries.

Speaking to my friends and colleagues in such places like Indonesia and Philippines, I was told that most of the people there know little, even close to nothing about Russia. It is still perceived through the Cold War and post-Cold-War stereotypes. The Western propaganda apparatus has been portraying Russians as cold, aggressive, brainwashed and dangerous.

Great Russian culture, Russian arts and the exceptional warmth of the Russian people, are something almost totally unknown in most of the Asian nations.

Great foreign policy successes of Russia, like those in Syria, are twisted and turned into the crimes, even in Muslim countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, where “people should definitely know better”.

In India, which had been for decades very close to the Soviet Union, the situation is somehow brighter, but only among the extremely small and educated group of its citizens. There, like in many other parts of the world, pro-business and pro-Western mass media is skillfully defending the interests of the West, demonizing all that is standing in the way of the Empire.

China is being targeted with an even greater and more malicious force than Russia. Successful and Communist China is the worst nightmare for the West and for the local, Asian ‘elites’.

The entire propaganda apparatus is now in overdrive, spreading ideological attacks and negative messages. The most peaceful major country on Earth is being portrayed as an aggressor and threat to regional and world peace. In the Philippines and elsewhere, the global Western regime is arousing the cheapest and extremely dangerous bellicose forms of nationalism.

The local Chinese diaspora of Southeast Asia that consists mainly of the anti-Communist elements, descendants of the people who left China after the revolution, are playing an extremely important and destructive role.

Nobody seems to notice that the United States/NATO is encircling both Russia and China with its military bases, while deploying new offensive missile systems. Nobody talks about those tens of millions of people who were massacred during the Western invasions of Asia during the 20th century.

And the situation is not much different in Africa and elsewhere.

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True, both Russia and China have invested some substantial resources in order to counter the Western propaganda. The RT, Sputnik and NEO (New Eastern Outlook), have all become extremely effective global information and intellectual detoxification outlets.

But the West is still investing more. The ideological war is even something that is lately being discussed openly in Washington. The more Russia and China resist andthe more they defend themselves; the more Western propaganda steps up its indoctrination campaigns.

Clearly, both Russia and China have to do more, not only for their own interests, but also for the good of the world.

The great achievements of China and Russia have to be explained in detail. Such information should be spread to all corners of the planet.

In this field, China should learn from Russia, as the Chinese media outlets now available abroad are still too ‘timid’ and too reconciliatory. It requires real strength and determination to counter the mighty and centuries-old Western propaganda and brainwashing schemes.It also requires large financial budgets.

But the intellectual ‘resistance’ and the ideological wars should not be fought only in the fields of the politics, news and analyses. The tremendous cultural and intellectual achievements of both China and Russia should be made available to the populations on all continents. China has done so already a lot, mainly through its Confucius Institutes. It should be doing more, and so should Russia.

Both countries are in possession of marvelous cultural wealth, overflowing with wisdom and arts. Their humanism is much deeper than that of the West -the West that has been mainly building its wealth, for centuries, by plundering thePlanet.

For as long as one can remember, both Europe and North America had been committing genocides, while enslaving entire continents. At the same time, they have been engaging in self-glorification, promoting their political, economic and cultural concepts. They claimed cultural superiority. And they have been doing it with such force, such ruthlessness and in the end with such success, that they have managed to fully indoctrinate most of the world into accepting that there is really no alternative, no other way (except the Western way) forward.

There are naturally other ways, and needless to say, much better ones!

In fact, before European colonialism began ruining and enslaving the planet, almost all parts of the world were living in much more developed and gentler societies than those of the West.

Now very little is known about this fact. Alternatives are not discussed in the mainstream, anymore. The search for a better world, for more humanistic concepts, is almost totally abandoned; at least in the West and in its colonies and ‘client” states.

It as if this horrid nightmare, into which the world had been forcedinto by the global Western dictatorship, is the only imaginable future for our human race.

It is not. And there are two great countries on this planet, Russia and China, which can offer many alternatives. They are strong enough to withstand all the pressure from the West. They have hearts, brains; they have the know-how and resources to offer alternatives and to re-start millennia old, essential discussions about the future of our humanity.

But in order for this to happen, the world has to first know about both Russia and China. It has to understand their cultures.

The war against imperialism should be fought not only on the battlefields; it shouldbe fought on the airwaves, at the printing presses, in the concert halls and theatres. Kindness, humanism, internationalism and knowledge can often serve as weapons much more powerful than missiles, strategic bombers and submarines.