Our Plastic Oceans

Yves Engler

For 21st century capitalism the more disposable the better. Ocean life and human health be damned.

According to a recent Ellen MacArthur Foundation study, the world’s oceans are set to have more plastic than fish by 2050. At the current rate of production and disposal the net weight of plastic in the oceans will be greater than that of fish in a little over three decades.

There are currently 150 million tonnes of plastic debris floating in the world’s oceans. Most of it takes centuries to break down. Thousands of large animals – such as turtles and birds – die every year from indigestible plastic debris in the ocean. Millions of other sea creatures suffer when they consume plastic.

The Canada-US Great Lakes – the largest freshwater ecosystem in the world – have also accumulated large amounts of plastic. A study released in December concluded that almost 22 million pounds of plastic debris are dumped into the Great Lakes annually. Microplastics in the lakes “act like sponges for certain pollutants and are easily ingested by aquatic organisms, including fish and shellfish, which may ultimately end up on our plates.”

During the second half of the 20th century plastic production rose 20 fold and it’s on pace to double over the next two decades. More plastic was produced during the first decade of the 21st century than in all of the 20th.

Approximately half of plastic is for single use. Some 70 billion plastic bottles and 1 trillion plastic bags are produced every year globally. The first disposable plastic pop bottle was produced in 1975 and the first plastic grocery bag was introduced a few years earlier.

Before wreaking havoc on ocean fauna, plastics also harm human health. In 2014 Mother Jones published an expose titled “Are any plastics safe?” It noted, “almost all commercially available plastics that were tested leached synthetic estrogens—even when they weren’t exposed to conditions known to unlock potentially harmful chemicals, such as the heat of a microwave, the steam of a dishwasher, or the sun’s ultraviolet rays.” The Mother Jones story draws a parallel between the plastic and tobacco industries.

The Canadian Environmental Protection Act provides the federal government with a tool to restrict toxic substances while Environment Canada operates a scientific review to test for possible harm. Yet few plastic products have been outlawed.

Controversy over the use of BPA (bisphenol A) in baby bottles and some toys prompted the federal government to ban use of this chemical in baby bottles but BPA is still used in other plastics. Similarly, in 2010 the government announced it was banning Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) flame retardants, which have been linked to cancer and other health ailments, but it didn’t outlaw the toxins from new plastic consumer items such as TVs until December and continues to allow PBDEs to be used in manufacturing items.

The toxins in plastics should be better regulated. Plastics can also be made less damaging by producing them from waste products and improving their decomposition. Additionally, measures to promote recycling are necessary. But, as Ian Angus points out, recycling is often a way for the industry to divert “attention away from the production of throwaway plastics to individual consumer behavior—the ‘solutions’ they promote involve cleaning up or recycling products that never should have been made in the first place.”

To that end activists have pressed universities to stop selling plastic bottles and for cities to restrict free plastic bags. While helpful, these efforts are overwhelmed by an economic system enthralled to wasteful consumption.

Based on externalizing costs and privatizing profits, 21st-century capitalism is turning our seas into a plastic blob.

Looting Iraq’s Oil

Edward Hunt

The leaders of the United States have provided many reasons for their numerous interventions in Iraq. President Donald Trump has focused on one thing: the United States should take the country’s oil.

During late 2015, when he first began campaigning to become the Republican nominee for president, Trump made his point when he described his plans for the Islamic State (ISIS or IS). “I would knock out the source of their wealth, the primary sources of their wealth, which is oil,” Trump told MSNBC in August 2015. After that, “I’d take the oil for our country,” he added.

In November 2015, Trump made a similar point in a campaign speech, saying that he would “bomb the shit” out of IS refineries and then have U.S. oil companies reconstruct them for the United States. The oil companies will “rebuild that sucker brand new,” Trump said. “It will be beautiful, and I’ll take the oil. And I said I’ll take the oil.”

Of course, Trump’s predecessors in the Bush and Obama administrations shared similar objectives. Although they did not speak about their goals in the same terms, officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations made great efforts to gain control of Iraq’s oil industry.

When the Bush administration was preparing in early 2003 to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power, planners at the State Department placed oil at the center of the mission, calling for “a radical restructuring” of the Iraqi oil industry. A primary goal of the war, they advised, must be to open the country’s oil industry to international oil companies.

In fact, State Department officials came close to achieving their goal in mid-2008 when they helped to negotiate a series of deals to bring some of the most powerful oil companies into Iraq. The deals with the Iraqi government “will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations,” The New York Times reported.

Soon thereafter, Iraqi officials backed away from the deals, primarily because they created so much controversy, but officials in Washington didn’t abandon their efforts. After the Obama administration entered office in January 2009, U.S. officials continued pursuing deals that would open the country’s oil industry to U.S. oil companies.

U.S. diplomats in Iraq, who participated in the efforts, were quite optimistic about the possibilities. In June 2009, when the Iraqi government began a new bidding process for international oil companies to gain access to the country’s oil industry, U.S. diplomats could barely contain their excitement. “First Oil Bid Round: The Greatest Show On Earth,” the diplomats titled one of their internal reports to the State Department.

In the following months, the diplomats grew more excited. As the Iraqi government began making a series of deals with international oil companies, allowing them to begin operating in the country, the diplomats reported that a “black gold-rush” had begun. “The bidding started as a rush and quickly became a stampede as a broad range of international oil companies bid unheard of low prices for seven of the ten oil fields (or oil field groups) being offered,” the diplomats reported.

In the process, a number of the most powerful U.S.-based oil companies acquired contracts with the Iraqi government. As the diplomats noted in another report, “ExxonMobil and Occidental will participate in the development of approximately one-third of Iraq’s new, future oil production.” This is “a significant win for the U.S. economy,” they added.

Much has changed since U.S. officials began making their first real progress in opening the country’s oil industry. The rise of IS, and its rapid capture of large parts of Iraq and Syria, has made it far more difficult for oil companies to operate in various parts of the country.

At the same time, Trump’s plans to intervene in Iraq and take the oil should be recognized as just another variant of longstanding U.S. policy. In keeping with his “America First” motto, he has abandoned all pretense of ensuring multilateral access to the oil in favor of U.S. corporations alone. He may often frame his plan as a way of weakening IS, but he has made it clear that he has long felt that the United States should take the oil. Even before the rise of IS, “I always used to say, keep the oil,” Trump acknowledged in his post-inaugural speech at C.I.A. Headquarters. And “I said it for economic reasons,” he noted.

Indeed, Trump shares the same basic ambitions as his predecessors. By saying that he wants to take the oil, he is revealing what U.S. officials have been trying to do for years. They want to take Iraq’s oil, use it for the benefit of the United States, and let nothing stand in the way.

“So we should have kept the oil,” Trump insisted once again in his speech to his audience at the C.I.A. “Maybe you’ll have another chance,” he added.

Human Extinction 2026

Robert Hunziker

Human Extinction by 2026, a controversial/questionable idea, is examined in some detail on the web site: arctic-news.blogspot.com. Within the posted article, a bright red box highlights the hypothesis: “Will Humans Be Extinct By 2026?” Of course, simply posing the question is tantamount to endorsing the conclusion in the affirmative.

Also of recent, but not directly related to the extinction article, scientists moved the infamous Doomsday Clock ahead by 30 seconds closer to midnight because of rising global nationalism and failure to confront both nuclear weapons and climate change, coincidentally as Trump takes over control of the big red button, which is mythological.

By definition, an article dealing with human extinction is highly provocative and touchy and generally dismissed as balderdash. After all, it sounds kinda crazy. Still, the named article: “Will Humans Be Extinct By 2026?” warrants serious consideration. Here’s why: The Arctic News blog is an amalgam of serious research by topnotch scientists that “speak to truth.” They endorse the distinct possibility of an extinction event that will catch humanity flat-footed. They really believe it is a serious risk. These scientists go against the grain, telling it as they see it, not pulling any punches.

Conversely, it is well known that many climate scientists have been fudging their work; edits make bad seem less bad. Otherwise, those scientists stand to lose grants and funding. This is a fact confirmed by one of the world’s leading climate scientist (mentioned in prior articles). Ipso facto, fudging data is one of the bugaboos about accurate climate science, as scientists intentionally lowball.

Assuredly, submitting the interrogatory “Will Humans Be Extinct By 2026?” suggests the existence of solid evidence. But, in general, people do not, and will not, believe it. After all, how could it be true? Therein lies the major impediment to taking steps to prevent the problems of climate change. In point of fact, there are several good ideas to ameliorate climate change, if pursued in earnest.

For example, a recent NY Times headline: China Aims to Spend at Least $360 Billion on Renewable Energy by 2020 (New York Times, Jan. 5, 2017). All of which brings to mind: What if the United States spent $360 billion on renewables? That would be hugely helpful in worldwide efforts to combat climate change.

But, since the U.S. is diametrically headed the other direction, meaning a pinpoint sharp focus on fossil fuel exploration and production, which emits the CO2 that blankets the atmosphere and brings on severe global warming, what then are the facts behind the purported rendezvous with death by the year 2026?

Is the death threat by 2026 credible?

And, what is the probability it happens?

The probability of a human extinction event within 10 years is 50/50, a guess! But still, it is based upon extremely severe levels of planetary stress/damage that are not widely recognized as a threat to society, i.e., global warming (off the charts, and accelerating, especially in the ocean) and massive destruction of the ecosystem, e.g., acidification of the ocean, which, over time, kills off the base of the marine food chain.

Significantly, the scientific model that leads to a conclusion that human extinction happens by 2026 is based upon facts, not fiction. Scientists simply extrapolate current data about the rate of climate change into the future. Voila, extinction is right around the corner. Ten years comes fast. Thus, the scientific modeling is credible, but the 50/50 probability is guesswork.

The following quote from the Arctic News/blog article brings this bleak issue into focus: “The situation is dire. Little or no action is taken on climate change. Earth faces a potential temperature rise of more than 10°C or 18°F by 2026.”

Without a doubt, worldwide temp increases by 18°F essentially wipes-out global agriculture.

However, it’s worth noting that no universal consensus of opinion by scientists comes close to this prediction, not close at all. The scientific community at large believes temps will gradually rise, slowly, and manageably with human life continuing throughout the century, not by 18°F. Obviously, the Paris Agreement calls for holding temps to 2°C above pre-industrial. Thus, 195 countries are not looking for anything above 2°C. Otherwise, why select the 2°C upper limit?

Accordingly, a temperature rise of 10°C or 18°F within a decade is lights out for the human species. That’s bad news, leaving the planet to cockroaches.

The supporting facts behind the extinction thesis start with the Paris Agreement of December 12th, 2015 when 195 worldwide governments agreed to hold temps below 2°C above pre-industrial levels but doggedly pursue a lower limit of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.

Here’s the problem with the Paris Agreement: Land+Ocean temps, according to the Arctic News/blog article, for most of the year 2016 have been above the 1.5°C guardrail, in fact it’s been above that level for ten of the months from October 2015 to November 2016. Therefore, in part, the Paris Agreement is already passé; it’s too late!

Going forward, the extinction cadre scientists foresee a series of feedbacks that cascade one upon another, in turn, cranking up temps to 10°C or 18°F by 2026. It all starts with the Arctic where temps are running 2-3 times significantly ahead of the planet, shaking lose millennia-old methane buried within ice for eons that is fast melting away. Methane, in turn, is a rip-snorting tiger at heating up the atmosphere, nothing compares, as it hits full stride, commencing runaway global warming.

Alarmingly, some scientists also believe a burp of 50 gigatons of methane (CH4) could happen within the extremely shallow waters of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf at any time without notice because of the striking loss of ice cover in the Arctic. Earth’s atmosphere currently contains 5 gigatons of CH4. If the big 50-gt burp hits, it’d be a powerful shot of testosterone for the runaway global warming monster.

In turn, and aggravating matters ever more, water vapor, a very potent greenhouse gas as every 1°C warming increase equals 7% more water vapor, is goosed up, accelerating temps even more. The warmer the atmosphere becomes, the more water vapor it holds, in turn, turbo-charging global warming into a frenzy, blanketing the atmosphere and retaining heat, like an oven with the thermostat stuck wide open, hotter and hotter it goes without doing anything new.

In all, there are several feedback loops that reinforce one another, each one influencing another such that, like a whirling merry-go-round of horse carvings that spins out of control to hyper speed, features of individual horses become a whirling blur. That’s runaway global warming! Morosely, the paleoclimate record has an example of temps cranking up rapidly within only 13 years.

Fifty-five (55) million years ago, global temps increased by 5° C within 13 years; CO2 in the atmosphere was 1,000 ppm, and there was no ice on the planet (today ice is melting like crazy, irreversibly in certain areas of Antarctica, which is extremely problematic). That’s remarkable, as it should take hundreds of years, or more, for global temps to increase by 5° C, not a measly 13 years. This fact alone, as discovered by scientists studying timeless ice core and sediment, unfortunately reinforces the “Human Extinction by 2026” thesis, somewhat. But, if 5° C within 13 years is considered warp speed in paleoclimate history, and it is, then the projection of 10°C or 18°F by 2026 seems awfully aggressive. On the other hand, because of human fossil fuel activity and the massive accumulation of warming yet in the pipeline (the latency effect), it’s within the range of possibility.

Furthermore, “no ice on the planet” (55 million years ago), equates to the imagery portrayed by the film Waterworld (Universal Pictures, 1995), post-apocalyptic science fiction when polar ice caps melted. One mythological storyline in the film claims dry land exists somewhere in the world. They search for it.

If the Doomsday Clock included everything that is wrong with Gaia, like the ocean absorbing up to 90% of planetary heat, which helps considerably to hold down land temps (tricking humans into thinking global warming is not as bad as it really is), but which also has a nasty habit of reversing the heat as a reverse feedback loop into nasty ole runaway global warming, then the Doomsday Clock is only a few seconds from midnight. That’s how dangerously close some scientists believe humanity is to extinction. Hopefully, they are dead wrong.

Alternatively, a counter-balancing course of action, the United States leads the world in renewables, but alas, Donald Trump is president and Scott Pruitt is Trump’s lead man for EPA (The Twilight Zone redux).

“Since President Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970, no prospective administrator has ever fundamentally questioned science or showed broad disdain for the work of the agency. That is until Scott Pruitt’s nomination” (Trump’s EPA Pick Scott Pruitt Won’t Stand up for Science. He Never Has, The Hill, 01/31/17).

Eris, the Greek goddess of chaos, strife, and discord, has flown by, dropping her Golden Apple of Discord, aka Scott Pruitt, into the lap of the U.S. Senate.

Former Sri Lanka president intensifies efforts to resume power

K. Ratnayake

Former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has urged his supporters to help him topple the government. Addressing a January 27 rally of tens of thousands in the Colombo suburb of Nugegoda, Rajapakse denounced the government as “corrupt” and declared he was “ready to lead the force” to bring it down.

Promoted as “The beginning of the struggle,” the event was part of intensifying efforts by Rajapakse, a group of sitting parliamentarians, known as the Joint Opposition (JO), and their supporters to return him to power.

The escalating conflict between the Rajapakse-led JO and the administration of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is an expression of deepening political instability within the ruling elite. Colombo faces escalating balance of trade and foreign debt problems and growing struggles of workers and the poor against its social austerity measures.

Currently 45 members of parliament, including Rajapakse, back the former president, and sit on the opposition benches. The group includes a faction of Sirisena’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the SLFP-led United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA). Sirisena has the support of just 50 MPs. Wickremesinghe heads the United National Party (UNP).

Rajapakse told last week’s rally his faction would oppose the government’s “fraudulent new constitution,” which he claimed would “break up the country.” “The motive of the new constitution,” he declared, “is to appease the Tamil minority in their quest for political independence.”

Referring to the military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) under his government in 2009, Rajapakse said, “we have to safeguard our victory” and prevent Sri Lanka’s breakup. Fighting against the division of the country is a slogan used by Sinhala chauvinist groups and the ruling class parties, including the SLFP and the UNP, to divide Sinhala and Tamil workers and the poor along ethnic lines.

The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government, in fact, has not presented any new constitution.

The government previously indicated it was considering a new constitution for “reconciliation” with the Tamil parties. It would provide the provincial councils with limited capacities, mainly involving land and police powers, but they would still be under the dominance of the central government. The proposal was shelved in response to increasing agitation from the Rajapakse group and various Sinhala- and Buddhist-chauvinist organisations supporting him.

Rajapakse attempted to posture as an anti-imperialist at the rally, declaring, without specifically mentioning the US, that some countries wanted him removed from power “because we were not kneeling before imperialism.” These claims are utterly hypocritical.

Just after last year’s US presidential election results were announced, Rajapakse sent a message to president-elect Donald Trump praising his victory. He said Washington, under Republican President George W. Bush, had good relations with Rajapakse’s government and supported its war.

Rajapakse also appealed to Trump to not support war crime charges against Sri Lanka for abuses committed during the military offensive against the LTTE. When Trump was sworn in on January 20, Rajapakse tweeted, congratulating him and welcoming his “non-interventionist foreign policy.”

Sirisena and Wickremesinghe also sent congratulations to Trump, further indicating the subservience of every faction of the ruling elite to US imperialism.

Rajapakse denounced the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government for the high cost of living, burdening the country with huge debts and selling state properties to foreigners. He accused it of rampant corruption, as well as destroying the “independence” of the judiciary and jailing its political opponents.

Rajapakse appears to think the population is suffering from amnesia. The conditions he blames on the current government also existed under his rule. Rajapakse, for example, sacked the chief justice because she nullified a bill designed to take back some powers of the provincial councils.

Rajapakse’s speech to the rally cautiously avoided any criticism of the government for implementing the International Monetary Fund’s austerity measures. His regime slavishly imposed previous IMF demands.

Rajapakse’s opposition group has no sympathy for the democratic rights or living standards of workers and the poor. His government used its war against the separatist LTTE to suppress the basic rights of workers and unleashed ruthless attacks on their living standards and social conditions.

The former president is now attempting to exploit the growing popular anger by whipping up communalism. His real target, however, is not the government but the working class and the poor.

Sections of the media—the Daily Mirror, Lankadeepa and Hiru TV—that supported Sirisena during the US-backed 2015–16 regime-change operation that installed him, are now providing propaganda support to Rajapakse’s campaign.

While Rajapakse declares that he wants to change the government, no presidential election is due until 2019, followed by a general election in 2020. Rajapakse and his group are directing their attacks against the UNP and putting pressure on Sirisena’s supporters in the SLFP to break from the government.

Last week, provincial council chief ministers loyal to Sirisena met with Rajapakse, urging him to unite the SLFP and contest the local government elections, which are supposed to be held in the coming months. These elections were due a year ago, but Sirisena and Wickremesinghe keep postponing them, fearing electoral defeat. Sensing the government’s weakness, Rajapakse refused the request and demanded that the SLFP defect from the government.

Rajapakse was ousted in the presidential election in January 2015 amid mass opposition to his government. Sirisena, who was a senior minster in Rajapakse’s regime, was installed via a US-backed operation orchestrated with the assistance of Wickremesinghe and former President Chandrika Kumaratunga.

Those backing Sirisena insisted that his administration would improve the living conditions of the masses, defend their democratic rights and end government corruption. A host of middle-class groupings, including the pseudo-left, promoted these bogus claims and worked to cover-up the fact that Rajapakse was removed because of his close political and economic relations with China, and in order to advance Washington’s geo-strategic interests in the Asia-Pacific region.

Over the past two years, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government’s promises have been exposed as lies. Colombo is implementing all the IMF’s demands, ruthlessly increasing taxes, slashing expenditure on health, education and vital subsidies to farmers, and privatising state-owned enterprises.

Further, it is handing out huge concessions to big business and foreign capital to attract investment. Government ministers have also been discredited by corruption allegations.

The explosive social conditions that existed before Rajapakse’s ouster have reemerged. Not a single day passes without reports of protests by workers, students or the rural poor. Telecom and electricity board temporary workers recently demonstrated and took strike action for several days until a court order banned their protests. Hundreds of students marched in Colombo early this week—the third time in the past two weeks—against the privatisation of education.

While the government is increasingly using the courts, police and military to suppress these actions, the capitalist elite is becoming nervous about the explosive situation. The crucial question is the development of an independent movement of the working class, hostile to all factions of the ruling elite and fighting on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program to end the capitalist profit system.

Indian budget tabled amid demonetisation shock, mounting economic uncertainty

Kranti Kumara

Arun Jaitley, the finance minister in India’s Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, presented Wednesday the budget for the fiscal 2017-18 year, which begins April 1.

In its fourth budget since assuming the reins of power in May 2014, the BJP attempted to balance the competing demands of different sections of Indian and international capital for economic stimulus measures and continuing “fiscal consolidation” (austerity).

A further major concern was mitigating the fallout from the government’s shock November announcement that more than 85 percent of the currency in circulation could no longer be used for economic transactions. Demonetisation caused large sections of the Indian economy to immediately seize-up, resulting in millions of workers losing their jobs. Rural India has been especially hard hit, with farmers forced to sell their produce at fire-sale prices and unable to hire or at least pay their labourers.

In his budget speech, Jaitley made only passing reference to the massive uncertainty facing the world economy, especially since the coming to power of a new US administration, under Donald Trump, committed to an aggressive America First policy—protectionist measures, increased pressure for countries like India to remove all barriers to US investment, and geo-political confrontation.

Instead, Jaitley repeated the BJP’s mantra that India is the world’s great “growth” story. No matter industrial production is stagnant, exports are down sharply since 2014, and foreign investors have pulled more than $10 billion out of India’s economy since November.

“Amidst all these [negative world] developments,” declared Jaitley, “India stands out as a bright spot in the world economic landscape. India’s macro-economic stability continues to be the foundation of economic success.”

Much of Indian big business had eagerly anticipated the budget in the expectation the government would strive to counteract the fall in domestic and international demand through “state-led” investment—i.e., the use of taxpayers’ funds to pay for transport and other “business-friendly” infrastructure projects.

Other sections of capital, especially overseas, urged the BJP government, which had imposed major cuts in social spending in its first two years in office, not to abandon the “gains” of “fiscal consolidation.” The western credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s, for example, called on the government to stick to the plan announced in previous budgets to limit the fiscal deficit for 2017-18 to no more than 3 percent of India’s GDP. (In 2015-16, India’s GDP was just $2.3 trillion, while that of the US, which has about one-quarter of India’s population, was $18 trillion.)

In the end, Jaitley and Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to “pause” the staggered reduction of India’s deficit to GDP ratio, so as to free up funds for targeted stimulus measures. The budget commits the government to holding the deficit in the coming fiscal year to 3.2 percent of GDP, the same level as in 2016-17.

“My approach,” claimed Jaitley, “… is to spend more on rural areas, infrastructure, and poverty alleviation with fiscal prudence.”

In fact, the biggest increases in real terms are in infrastructure and military spending.

Despite the havoc caused by demonetisation and the mass poverty and lack of social infrastructure that blight all but a few privileged enclaves in urban India, the BJP government is increasing, in real terms, the budgets of only a select number of social programs and then only modestly.

Total projected expenditure is Rs. 21.47 trillion ($315.7 billion), which is only a slight increase from the actual expenditure—as opposed to the original budget estimates—of Rs. 20.14 trillion in 2016-17.

To kick-start domestic demand, Jaitley has set aside close to Rs. 4 trillion ($58 billion) for infrastructure spending with the railways alone allocated Rs. 1.3 trillion.

The government is also cutting taxes for small businesses and reducing the income tax rate on the first Rs. 250,000 (about $3,700) of income from 10 to 5 percent.

The budget sets military expenditure in 2017-18 at Rs. 3.6 trillion or about $53 billion.

In the current fiscal year actual military expenditure is expected to be Rs. 3.45 trillion, after the government injected additional funds due to last fall’s war crisis with Pakistan.

India’s military expenditure has risen dramatically since the turn of this century as the Indian elite pursues its great-power ambitions. Under Modi, India has cemented a “global strategic alliance” with the US and effectively transformed India into a “frontline” state in Washington’s military-strategic offensive against China.

Over 800 million people in India live on less than $2 dollars a day, yet military spending accounts for close to 17 percent of India’s budget.

India also has the dubious distinction of being the world’s largest weapons importer, consuming 14 percent of world arms sales.

Jaitley made much of an increase in spending under the MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act), which guarantees 100 days of menial, minimum-wage work per year to one member of any rural household that requests it.

Jaitley projected a budget of Rs. 480 billion for the MNREGA in the coming year, a 100 billion rupee increase from the projected expenditure in the budget he presented in February 2016.

However, due to the chronic jobs crisis that stalks rural India and the demonetisation disaster, spending on the MNREGA in the current year, according to government figures, has already swelled to close to Rs. 480 billion.

Apart from the phony MNREGA increase and the business-tailored infrastructure spending, Jaitley had effectively nothing to offer the jobless, whose numbers have increased astronomically over the past decade.

According to the government’s own figures, last year only 150,000 new jobs were created in the formal or organized sector of India’s economy. Yet there are a million new entrants to the labour force every month.

The Labour Ministry’s 2015 “Employment-Unemployment Survey” shows slightly more than 67 percent of Indian households earn less than Rs.10,000 ($147) per month and over 77 percent of Indian households do not have even a single person employed with a regular salary.

With Wednesday’s budget the government reiterated its intention to step up its disinvestment/privatization drive. Jaitley set a target of raising Rs. 725 billion ($11 billion) through disinvestment, well over double the amount realized this year, with the main target several Public Sector Units linked to the massive and highly accident-prone Indian railways.

Reaction to the budget within the ruling elite has generally been favourable. Editorials in many of the leading dailies, including the rightwing Indian Express and the liberal Chennai-based Hindu, praised the government for eschewing “populist” spending, i.e. increasing social expenditure.

The Indian Express declared the “best takeaway from the budget” that the government had resisted “playing to the gallery” although “crucial state assembly elections” are “just days away” and “an already investment-starved economy” is being buffeted “by headwinds both domestic (from demonetisation) and global (‘Buy American, Hire American’ policy of the new Donald Trump administration, hardening crude prices, rising interest rates).”

On budget day, India’s main stock index rose to a three-month high. A major factor in this rise was the government’s decision not to proceed as rumoured with an increase in the capital gains tax.

Big business, however, was disappointed with the government’s failure to implement, or even announce a timeline for enacting, its pledge to cut corporate taxes from 30 to 25 percent.

A JP Morgan analyst quoted by the Financial Times noted the strikingly complacent outlook exhibited by Jaitley despite the ominous economic storms gathering globally that could severely impact the Indian economy.

“There is almost no sense from the authorities that they have discussed or analysed the dimension of the possible global shock ... and how things might change for India,” said the analyst.

The Economic Survey issued by the Finance Ministry the day before the budget painted a bleak picture of the Indian economy and especially of the balance sheets of India’s state-owned banks and highly indebted domestic corporations.

According to the Survey 57 of the top 100 corporate debtors would need debt reductions of more than 75 percent and these debtors threaten to overwhelm the banking system. The Survey found 13 public sector banks are in severe economic distress and suggested that a government-led bailout—in which the burden of the debts would fall on taxpayers, i.e. working people—will probably be needed.

On the capital investment front, the statistics are positively disastrous. While growth in private investment was 5 percent in the 2010-11 fiscal year, by 2015-16 it had turned negative. In the current financial year, business investment has fallen by 7 percent.

Divisions widen in Spanish ruling class over relations with US

Alejandro López

The coming to power in the US of an aggressively nationalist, protectionist and anti-European Union administration under Donald Trump is opening up significant divisions in the Spanish ruling class over how best to preserve and advance national interests.

In the aftermath of the fall of the fascist Franco regime in the mid-1970s, Spain was brought into both the European Economic Community and the US-led NATO military alliance. Because of US support for European integration, there was no apparent conflict between an economic orientation to Europe and the US acting as the main guarantor of Spain’s national interests. For its part, the US saw Spain, located at the entrance of the Mediterranean, as a vital geo-strategic asset in the Cold War and as a NATO member.

The new Trump administration, however, is repudiating its previous role as the overseer of European integration. Trump is openly forging ties with Europe’s neo-fascists who are hostile to the European Union (EU). He has described it as a German instrument and extolled the UK’s decision to leave the EU as the model for other European countries.

The question posed for the ruling elite in Spain and elsewhere in Europe is how to defend their economic and military positions vis-a-vis actual and potential competitors in the new situation.

The official position of the Spanish Popular Party (PP) government was set out by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy who stated that Spain will maintain “the best possible relations” with the new US president, insisting both countries are “strategic partners and solid allies.”

Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis declared, “We enjoy a relationship that, regardless of the White House tenant, is based on constant elements,” including a shared history and language as well as Spain’s influence in Europe, South America, the Mediterranean and the Middle East. He added there was also “a very close cooperation in defense and security, which was deepened during the term of the previous administration.”

Such a position is based on wishful thinking that relations will continue as before and a cautious wait and see attitude with respect to the reaction of other major European powers. This complacent position came under attack by El País, the voice of liberal Spanish imperialism. Traditionally a pro-US newspaper, it has dedicated more than a dozen editorial articles criticising Trump since his inauguration in November—a sign of deep crisis in Spanish foreign policy and a shift to more pro-EU, pro-German positions.

In an editorial, “Too prudent: Appeasement policies will not work with Donald Trump,” El País warns that the Trump administration, “isolationist in defense and very aggressive and protectionist in trade,” can seriously damage the interests of Spain. The government had “to face this circumstance and show the necessary firmness.”

It called on EU leaders, particularly German Chancellor Angela Merkel, “to defend the values and interests that are at odds with those held by Trump,” and which “have cemented the transatlantic alliance for decades.”

In another piece, “Trump against Europe,” El País says Trump “sympathizes with Europhobes, wants to encourage divisions and is ramping up tension across the Atlantic” and therefore, “Europe can no longer ignore the evidence or hope simply that all of this comes to nothing.”

On January 21, “A Sad Confirmation,” the newspaper warns that Europe should “clearly state the red lines they will not allow Trump to cross.”

On January 27, “In Defence of Mexico,” El País exclaimed on the need to defend Spain’s interests in its former colony, stating, “Mexico cannot defend itself alone from the aggressions...This is why a clear and a loud voice is necessary for Mexico’s defence, both from Europe and, above all, from the Ibero-American countries.”

Similar sentiments are expressed in the publications of the prestigious state-funded Elcano Royal Institute think tank. One example is the January 19 article, “Welcome Mr. Marshall,” by senior analyst Félix Artega, one of Spain’s foremost strategists who has close links to the country’s military and intelligence services and a history of support for US-led wars and Spain’s involvement in them. In it he warns that the “views expressed by Donald Trump on NATO, the EU and Europeans, both during the campaign and on the eve of his inauguration…do not allow hope that anything good can come from the new administration on the other side of the Atlantic.”

Elsewhere, Arteaga has called for the EU to consider increasing its “strategic autonomy” and reinforcing its “collective defence.”

There is also a position in ruling circles, which states that the coming to power of the Trump administration should be viewed as an opportunity for Spanish imperialism. Carlos Malamud, another senior analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute, says it could open more doors for Spain in South America. “Spain must strengthen its presence in Latin America...If the projections for an increase in protectionism in the US are met, there will not only be opportunities for China in Latin America, but also for Spain and the EU. In the increasingly uncertain world we live...Latin America should be important for Europeans.”

For others, Spain should align its destiny even more firmly with the US. PP Deputy Secretary of Communication, Pablo Casado, states that Spain can replace the UK as the new “priority partner” of the US in the EU following Brexit, when the UK officially leaves. In other words, Madrid should play a pivotal role as a bridge between the US and Europe.

Even more explicit is Luís Simón, director of the Elcano Royal Institute. In his piece, “Trump, Rajoy II and the future strategic relation between the US and Spain,” Simón declares that the moment has come to turn the page on the pessimism over Trump’s victory and to realize it “opens up a series of opportunities to relaunch the bilateral relationship between Madrid and Washington.”

Spain, Simón continues, should have a “pro-active attitude” meaning that the old conception of it merely being an “operational base” for the US army is transformed into one based on “Spain as a strategic actor and privileged partner.”

This would be achieved by first exploiting those geostrategic attributes of Spain identified as a priority by the US, including “the missile defence, amphibious and special operations areas.” And second, developing other dimensions of the Spain-US alliance that could be of specific interest to Spanish imperialism, such as “the exploration of the extra-European potential (Atlantic and Indo-Pacific) of the alliance.”

In other words, Spain becomes a massive US military platform from which Washington will launch its military operations in exchange for its support for Spain’s interests elsewhere.

Whatever happens, the author says, a massive increase in Spanish military expenditure is required and “a greater effort” made “to promote Spain’s culture of defence.”

The “culture of defense,” a truly Orwellian term for militarism, is a reference to the call which all geopolitical analysts make, irrespective of their position on the US, to overcome the Spanish population’s traditional hostility towards the military. Beset by unemployment of 22 percent (53 percent among youth) and poverty levels affecting a quarter of the population, the political establishment has no progressive answer. Whichever faction prevails in the fight over Spain’s future political alignments, the response, as it is across the globe, to the collapse of the US-led post-war capitalist world order is militarism, austerity, and the suppression of social and political opposition at home.

German Green Party leader demands Europe “grow up in terms of power politics”

Peter Schwarz

Former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has added his voice to those demanding a massive rearmament of Germany and Europe in response to the nationalist policies of US President Donald Trump. “The right response to Trump,” the Green Party politician writes in a guest contribution for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, is for Europeans to “grow up and reinforce their geopolitical power and position” and for Germany to “resolutely invest in the EU and NATO.”

Fischer leaves no doubt that what he has in mind is a massive increase in military spending. “Germany’s strength is based on its financial and economic might, and it will now have to leverage that strength on the EU’s and NATO’s behalf,” he writes.

Germany’s strength lies “in its financial and economic capacity” and this strength “will now have to be deployed to an extent” unprecedented for the EU and NATO. “Thrift is undoubtedly a virtue; but other considerations should take priority when one’s house is on fire and about to collapse.”

Like the new Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel (Social Democratic Party, SPD), Fischer regards Trump’s presidency not merely as a risk and challenge. “[T]he new US administration has furnished Europeans with a chance finally to close ranks, grow up, and reinforce their geopolitical power and position.”

Trump’s “motto, ‘America first,’ signals the renunciation, and possible destruction, of the US-led world order,” he writes. “The alliances, multilateral institutions, security guarantees, international agreements, and shared values underlying the current global order might soon be called into question, or rejected altogether. If that happens, the old Pax Americana will have been needlessly destroyed by America itself,” he writes.

“America’s two former enemies, Germany and Japan, will be among the biggest losers” of this change. “Both countries experienced total defeat in 1945, and ever since they have rejected all forms of the Machtstaat, or ‘power state.’ With their security guaranteed by the US, they transformed themselves into trading countries.” Now “these two major economic powers will have a serious security problem on their hands.”

Fischer wants to solve this “serious security problem” by means of the European Union. If Germany would go it alone, if it would “re-nationalize its defense capacities,” it would, in Fischer’s opinion, “tear apart the continent. Lest we forget, the post-war global and regional order’s purpose was to integrate the former enemy powers so that they posed no danger to one another.”

For this reason, he is relying on the EU to revive Germany’s great power politics—or, as he puts it, “grow up and reinforce its geopolitical power.” “Owing to its geopolitical weight, Germany’s perspective is now synonymous with that of the European Union,” Fischer writes.

He stresses that “the EU’s outlook is not that of a hegemon; rather, it is concerned with the rule of law, integration, and peaceful reconciliation of member states’ interests.” However, this is just window dressing—great power politics and rearmament are incompatible with the “peaceful reconciliation of interests.” When one considers the enormous economic and social imbalances within Europe, the brutality with which austerity is imposed on weaker states, or the blunt way in which Berlin speaks about Germany’s role as the “task master” of Europe, it is quite clear what Fischer really intends.

The German Empire (Kaiserreich) already tried to “organize” Europe, i.e., to unite the continent economically under its leadership. The result was the First World War. Hitler’s attempt to forcibly achieve the same aim led to the Second World War. It was only under the conditions of the Cold War and US predominance that the ruling elites of Western Europe felt compelled to place their opposing interests on the back burner and work together.

This set of conditions disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet Union 25 years ago, the global financial crisis of 2008, and the transition of the US to a nationalist foreign policy. The notion of a united capitalist Europe is exposed once again as an illusion. The only way that Europe can be “united” on a capitalist basis is by the strongest country (or group of countries) imposing its will on the others.

Fischer is a pioneer of this policy. He had already set the course for the revival of German militarism as foreign minister in the Social Democratic-Green coalition government headed by Gerhard Schröder (SPD). In 1998 the Greens campaigned for the federal election on the basis of a pacifist program, but as soon as they were in power they sent the German army to its first ever post-war military engagement in Yugoslavia. Fischer now regards the crisis, triggered by Trump’s aggressive policy towards Europe, as an opportunity to line up other states behind Germany and develop the EU into a military power capable of carrying out war against Russia and, if necessary, the US.

Trump dresses down Australian prime minister

Mike Head

In what appears to have been a calculated leak from the highest echelons of the White House, US President Donald Trump reportedly “blasted” Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during a phone call last weekend and then abruptly cut off the call.

According to the details first published by the Washington Post yesterday, Trump fumed at Turnbull for asking him to honour an Obama administration refugee-swapping deal with Australia. In line with his demonisation of refugees, Trump labelled it “the worst deal ever” and accused Turnbull of trying to export the “next Boston bombers” to the US.

Trump went further, however, telling Turnbull that their conversation was the “worst by far” of the five phone calls he had that day with world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin. After 25 minutes, Trump suddenly ended the scheduled one-hour call “making it far shorter than his conversations with Shinzo Abe of Japan, Angela Merkel of Germany, François Hollande of France or Putin,” the newspaper reported.

The leaked content of the conversation exposed Turnbull’s insistence that it “ended cordially” and the fraud of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s earlier claims that the call was “very warm” and “very engaging.” Turnbull yesterday said he was “very disappointed” that details of the call were leaked.

Clearly, however, this was not merely a personal slight to Turnbull. It was a deliberate warning shot to his government and the entire Australian political establishment about the future of its post-World War II military alliance with the US. Sitting in the Oval Office monitoring Trump’s call was his chief strategist, the fascistic Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s militarist national security adviser Michael Flynn and White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

Yesterday, Trump reiterated the wider bellicose “America First” message, to US allies and rivals alike. In a speech, he told a Washington audience that the world was in a mess, but he was “going to straighten it out.” He declared: “When you hear about the tough phone calls I’m having, don’t worry about it… We have to be tough. It’s time we have to be a little tough, folks. We are taken advantage of by every nation in the world virtually. It’s not going to happen anymore.”

Earlier in the day, gangster-like, Trump said he “loved Australia as a country” but had “a problem” with the refugee deal. His spokesman Spicer reiterated that Trump was “unbelievably disappointed” about the “horrible deal” and refugees would be allowed in the US only if they passed “extreme vetting.”

In reality, this draconian screening was already central to the agreement stuck with the Obama administration last year, which was designed to reinforce the reactionary anti-refugee policies on both sides of the Pacific. Not one of the more than 2,000 refugees incarcerated indefinitely by Australia on Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island is guaranteed entry into the US.

Trump’s bullying treatment of Turnbull has thrown the Australian government and the media and political elite into turmoil because it makes brutally clear that the new administration’s belligerence has ominous implications. This is not least because Washington is reportedly pressing for a far greater military commitment from Canberra, particularly in the Middle East and the South China Sea.

In return for US military and strategic protection, Australian governments have sent troops to kill and die in every major US-instigated war for the past six decades—from Korea and Vietnam to Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. But much more is now being required as the Trump White House seeks to “make America Great again” against its rivals, including China and Germany.

Largely buried in the Australian media is what the White House has demanded of Turnbull’s government, or is soon likely to, in return for the refugee-swap arrangement. In today’s Australian, editor-at-large Paul Kelly noted: “If the deal proceeds Trump, as a transactional president, will seek a quid pro quo at some point on some issue. And Turnbull, aware he has used up his political capital, will agree.”

On Wednesday, citing unnamed “senior US sources,” the Australian reported that the Trump administration had agreed, after lobbying from Canberra, to amend its sweeping anti-immigrant executive order to allow for the “pre-existing” refugee-swap agreement.

But the White House was “not happy” and “made no secret that Australia would ultimately be expected to reciprocate.” One source said: “The favour won’t be called in straight away … but some sort of reciprocity will come eventually. And that is likely to come in the form of freedom-of-navigation exercises [in the South China Sea] or the deployment of special forces to Iraq.”

Under Turnbull’s ousted predecessor, Tony Abbott, the Liberal-National government sent war planes and other military forces to join the renewed US war in Iraq, under the guise of combatting the Islamic State. Dispatch of special forces to join US ground forces would signal a marked escalation of the ongoing US drive for hegemony over the resource-rich Middle East.

Until now, the Turnbull government, while carefully toeing Washington’s line, has not followed the US in sending warships or planes into the territorial zones around islets under China’s control in the South China Sea, under the bogus pretext of defending “freedom of navigation.” The Obama administration conducted three such provocative operations, which heightened tensions with Beijing and intensified the danger of a war between the US and China, two nuclear powers.

Trump and his newly-confirmed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have threatened to block China’s access to the islets, which would be an act of war. Such a conflict could have disastrous consequences for the Australian capitalist class, which relies heavily on China as its largest export market.

Trump is now taking to a new level pressure on Canberra that was initiated under Obama, as part of the US military and strategic “pivot to Asia” to combat and prepare for war against China. In mid-2010, when then Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd proposed that the US make some accommodation to China’s economic growth and rising influence, he was deposed in a backroom Labor Party coup orchestrated by elements close to the US embassy, including current Labor leader Bill Shorten.

Barack Obama himself sent blunt warnings to Turnbull, who was initially somewhat critical of the “pivot” when Obama announced it on the floor of the Australian parliament in 2011. Last September, the Australian Financial Review (AFR) reported that Turnbull, because of his past business interests in China, was “not trusted” by Australian intelligence agencies. Two months later, media leaks revealed that during a one-on-one meeting in Manila, Obama had rebuked Turnbull for failing to consult Washington before a Chinese corporation was awarded a 99-year lease to operate Darwin’s commercial port.

Today, the Australian media is full of alarm and foreboding about the implications of Trump’s dressing down of Turnbull, including the impact it will have on the already falling public support for the US alliance.

AFR chief political correspondent Phillip Coorey wrote: “If Trump continues treating Australia like dirt, public support for doing anything to help the Americans, including letting them keep their troops based in Darwin, let alone following them on any frolic in the South China Sea, will quickly wane.”

Professor James Curran of the US Studies Centre at Sydney University—a centre dedicated to overcoming public hostility to the US after the 2003 Iraq invasion—voiced concerns of what lies ahead. “If you have this sort of tension this early in the life of the administration over relatively small beer, what will happen in the event of a major crisis?”

Others within the media and political establishment, while not calling for a break from the US alliance, are casting doubt on its reliability. Fairfax Media political editor Peter Hartcher today declared it was time to “wake up, Australia!” The “moment of alliance shock” could “jolt Australia into doing more for itself” and “the country might mature from a state of adolescent dependency on America into a more adult state.”

Such statements are part of efforts in the ruling elite to divert public opposition to the Trump administration in a reactionary nationalist direction by advocating a more “independent” foreign policy to assert the interests of the Australian ruling class.