First Two Months in Power: Hitler vs. Trump

Stansfield Smith

With the hullabaloo about Trump and fascism, it is useful to review Hitler’s first months in power, to get a sense of a real fascist regime.

Hitler came to power January 30, 1933, Trump on January 20, making easy a chronological comparison of their lead ups to power and their first months in power. The comparison shows how silly and hysterical it is to claim Trump represents fascism.

Hitler did not take power by entering into the primaries of a German version of the Republican Party. In complete contrast to Trump, he built, controlled, and ran under the banner of his own fascist party. Hitler also created an armed thug operation, the Brownshirts, to bully progressive organizations. The Brownshirts numbered 500,000 organized men by late 1932, five times the size of the German army.

Four parties contended in the German elections in the summer of 1932: the Nazis, the National Party, the Social Democrats and the Communists all of which won millions of votes.

During this election, “In Prussia alone between June 1 and 20 there were 461 pitched battles in the streets which cost 82 lives and seriously wounded 400 men.”  “In July, 38 Nazis and 30 Communists were among the 86 dead.” On  July 10, 18 were killed, and on July 17, “when the Nazis, under police escort, staged a march through Altona, a working class suburb of Hamburg, 19 persons were shot dead and 285 wounded.”

A world of violence and murder between fascists and anti-fascists, just in the space of six weeks, bearing no similarity to the few fistfights and the shutting down of a Trump rally in Chicago during the more than yearlong US electoral season.

On January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor. Right after, in Prussia, with two-thirds of the German population, the police force was purged and Nazis replaced police chiefs. The police were then ordered not to interfere with the work of the Brownshirts. The February 17, 1933 Nazi police order stated:

“The activities of subversive organizations are … to be combatted with the most drastic methods. Communist terrorist acts are to be proceeded against with all severity, and weapons must be used ruthlessly when necessary. Police officers who in the execution of their duties use their firearms will be supported by us without regard for the effect of their shots….”

Little over two weeks in power, the Brownshirts had been handed the license to bully, beat, even kill leftists and Jews. In contrast, the two week old Trump presidency found its first anti-Muslim executive order blocked by a judge.

Three weeks in power, 50,000 Brownshirts were made part of the police. They began unauthorized arrests, broke into public building and homes and made nightly raids to seize anti-Hitler opponents. Those seized were typically put in newly set up “camps.”

On February 24 the Nazis took over the Communist Party headquarters. Communist meetings were banned, their press shut down, and their Reichstag (the German version of the US Congress) deputies arrested. Thus, less than a month in power, the Nazis had beheaded the militant left.

Here, hundreds of thousands had mobilized around the country to protest Trump’s actions, unchallenged by any sort of Trump thugs.

February 27, not a month in power, the Reichstag was torched, which the Nazis blamed on the Communists. A vast national witch-hunt ensued. The Nazi’s Emergency Degree declared:

“Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.”

Leaving aside that under Obama and before, the NSA already had eliminated our right to privacy, in US terms this decree would mean Trump had abolished the Bill of Rights and instituted imprisonment without trial before he had even been president for a month.

By the middle of March, Nazi thugs had rounded up tens of thousands of political opponents, liberals, Communists and Social Democrats, put them in camps, tortured them, and in many cases killed them. This even included outspoken religious leaders. In Prussia alone, 25,000 Communist, Social Democrat and liberal leaders were arrested and sent to Nazi camps.

Brownshirt thugs took over town halls, government offices, newspapers, trade union offices, businesses, department stores, banks, and courts, removing “unreliable” officials.

Here in the US, during the same time period, another judge blocked Trump’s revised anti-Muslim travel ban.

On March 21, Hitler was given a decree to arrest anyone criticizing the Nazi party, to be tried in military style courts with no jury and often with no right to defense.

On March 23, still before two months in power — as long as Trump has been President — the German Parliament approved the Enabling Act, allowing Hitler to enact laws by decree.

On April 7 all Jews were dismissed from civil service jobs.

On May 2, after the Nazis had cynically declared May Day a national holiday, all the trade union offices were occupied, with their property and funds confiscated, and trade union leaders arrested and beaten.

By June 1933, there were 2 million Brownshirts, twenty times the size of the German army, and these “brown-shirted gangs roamed the streets, arresting and beating up and sometimes murdering whomever they pleased while the police looked on without lifting a nightstick…. Judges were intimidated; they were afraid for their lives if they convicted and sentenced a storm-trooper even for cold-blooded murder.” 

July 14 all other political parties were prohibited, and the fascists could confiscate the property of any organization it considered anti-Nazi and could summarily revoke anyone’s citizenship.

That was fascism. Here, a great number of liberal-leftists call Trump a new Hitler, some even claiming that we live under a fascist regime.  Yet Trump does not possess his own party, nor an armed fascist militia obedient to him, let alone one of hundreds of thousands. Trump has not thrown out the Bill of Rights, wiped out the AFL-CIO, sent his political opponents to concentration camps. He can’t even shut down Saturday Night Live.  Trump is a billionaire racist, sexist war-monger out to salvage the US corporate empire, nothing more, nothing less.

What lies behind this hysteria about Trump fascism?

In almost every presidential election going back generations, liberal-left Democratic Party supporters label the Republican candidate with the political swearword “fascist.” Now it is more shrill. As the Democratic presidential candidates become more and more openly corporate stooges these liberal-left “lesser evil” voters must resort to painting the Republican in extreme terms to win support for their own candidate. We should just be very scared, vote Democrat, or we are doomed.

Leftists recognize corporate America owns the two parties, yet many still vote Democrat. Every four years, we must first defeat the so-called fascist, then build our movement. So is the story we are told. This strategy traps us in the Democratic Party. It has worked effectively for generations. Not only does it reinforce our domination by corporate America, but it seriously miseducates people about fascism.

Needless to say, so long as corporate America has the liberal-left tied to their two party system, they have no need for fascism. They need fascism only when their customary method of rule breaks down, and they face a very direct threat of losing control to revolutionary forces. The historic function of fascism is to smash the radicalized working class and its allies, destroy their organizations, and shut down political liberties when the corporate rulers find themselves unable to govern through their charade of democracy.  No such problem here.

We do need to fight Trump, just as we would have with Clinton, and should have with Obama. But it miseducates people to paint Trump as qualitatively different. They all rule for corporate America, all have more or less the same program of controlling the 99% and making us pay for the decline of their system.

Norwegians Are the Happiest People on Earth

David Macaray

With apparently nothing more challenging to do with its time, the UN, since 2012, has been publishing an annual list of the happiest countries in the world. The document is cheerfully titled, “The World’s Happiness Report.” Not surprisingly, its 2017 findings place Norway at the head of the pack, followed closely by last year’s winner, Denmark.

Although such lists are always going to be accused of being grossly subjective or unfairly skewed, the six broad categories in which citizens of 154 countries were asked to assess themselves are: caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, income, and good governance.

The 2017 top ten countries, all bunched closely together, are: Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Finland, Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, and (tied) Australia and Sweden. The U.S. is ranked #14, which, given that Donald Trump is president, and Betty DeVos is Secretary of Education, seems outlandishly high.

When the first list appeared, in 2012 (with the Top Ten being uncomfortably similar to the 2017 list) some social critics voiced their objections. They claimed that the list was not only fundamentally flawed, but “classist.” Other observers, struck by the fact that these countries were inhabited overwhelmingly by white people, accused it of being blatantly “racist.” (“Yea! Let’s hear it for White People!”)

While the case can be made that societies which are demographically homogeneous are going to have certain, undeniable advantages over ones that are wildly heterogeneous (i.e. with less conflict, less confusion, less oppression, fewer resentments, etc.), the key characteristic reflected in this UN list is neither ethnicity nor class. It ain’t race and it ain’t elitism.

The one feature these countries all have in common—indeed, the feature that, arguably, contributes most to defining and explaining them—is their embrace of a quasi-socialist approach to life. [Fun fact: They also aren’t plagued by the world’s most extravagantly inflated military budget.]

Difficult as it may be for Free Market fundamentalists and Ayn Rand worshippers to admit, these “successful” countries are the product of a profound sense of collectivism. The simple-minded notion of “Every man for himself” is alien to them. In truth, various levels of high taxes, national health care, universal education (including college), and free services have all combined to make them “happy.” What’s not to like?

Take the notion of a free college education, for example. Instead of seeing college attendance as a “privilege,” Scandinavia tends to view government subsidization not as a “burden” but as an “investment.” After all, which scenario, in principle, makes more sense in a democracy: one where the voting public is educated, or one where it isn’t?

If we all lived in a monarchy, no one would care. An educated electorate wouldn’t matter. We might still gather at the donuts shop and complain about potholes in the street, and the high cost of cable TV, but our opinions would be irrelevant.

These opinions wouldn’t even count as “background noise” because ultimately it would be the King or Queen who decides everything. But because in our political system opinions do matter, voters need to be educated. Accordingly, an enlightened government is going to acknowledge that, and act upon it.

Some Christians like to say that if Jesus Christ were to return, he would be a Socialist. They insist there is no way he would tolerate a “winner take all” format, where some people live in mansions, and others eat out of dumpsters. They’re probably right. But the “non-religious” among don’t have to turn to Jesus. All we need do is look at Norway.

Yemen: Workers And Their Families Left To Starve By Multi-Billionaire Companies

Cedric Gerome

It is in the nature of capitalism to turn every human disaster into an opportunity to make profit. The war in Yemen has not only destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians; it has also created a landscape whereby multinational corporations can more easily behave like outright gangsters in robbing their workers.

The French energy giant multinational TOTAL has been active in Yemen for more than 25 years. The protection of its facilities and installations has been carried out by workers employed as security guards via a subcontract with the British company G4S.

G4S is the largest security firm in the world, and of notorious reputation. It was named a “serial abuser of human rights” by the British trade union UNITE for its involvement in countless scandals and human rights abuses around the world, ranging from the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo bay to its complicity with the Israeli State forces’ occupation of Palestinian territories.

At TOTAL facilities in Yemen, exploitative working conditions were the norm. Guards were often on 12-hour or even 24-hour shifts, despite the Yemen labour code requiring working days not to exceed 8 hours.

 “I learned on TV that TOTAL had left Yemen”

After having made huge profits through the exploitation of Yemeni workers for years in peacetime conditions, the two companies have used the circumstances of the war for a “hit-and-run” wage robbery. They assumed they could get away with it thanks to the international media blackout on Yemen and to the dysfunctional and collapsing state infrastructure in the country.

TOTAL and G4S halted most of their activities in Yemen in 2015, but did so with utter disregard for the prevailing labour legislation. Under Yemeni labour law, the employer is required to give workers at least 30 days of advance notice of dismissal, and to pay severance pay for damages sustained as a result of the contract termination. TOTAL and G4S left without giving any compensation, nor even any notice to the 208 security guards who were working under their authority.

Rabbi Atiah, who worked as security agent for eleven years, explains: “I did not know that the two companies had left Yemen. No notice from any competent authority or the government reached me to inform me that the company was about to leave. I was surprised that TOTAL and G4S had left Yemen without any knowledge or notice”.

Some local workers employed by TOTAL, such as the drivers hired via a local group called Almaz, were notified of their redundancy via text message. The G4S guards were not notified at all. “In the end of December 2015 I learned watching TV that TOTAL had left Yemen”, argues Mohsin Omar Almashdali, also a longstanding TOTAL/G4S security worker.

Following a judicial procedure in December 2015 before the Labour Arbitration Commission of Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, the premises of TOTAL were seized. The two companies were ordered to pay the workers’ wages and other rights until the termination of their contracts, and the guards were ordered to continue protecting TOTAL buildings until this materialises. But the court decision was wilfully ignored by both companies. Local authorities have done nothing to enforce these decisions, and workers have tirelessly fought ever since to demand their rights.

Some workers, under duress and in a desperate situation, have accepted money to stop the struggle. However, 115 of them have continued to work, unpaid, until this very day, and to fight for the wages and other rights they are entitled to. They have stood firm in their heroic struggle, for example by holding several street protests in Sana’a, despite the ban on demonstrations imposed by the Houthi rebels who took power in the capital at the end of 2014.

They have also courageously resisted the mafia-like intimidation methods used to silence them, which has included death threats and kidnappings by armed gangs directly connected to the management of these companies.

 Terror used against workers

We asked Sabri Al-Obaiy, who has worked as security guard for TOTAL since 2000, if he had received any threats because of his involvement in this struggle. “Yes, an armed gang tried to kill me”, he answered. “Yes, many times,” his colleague, Abdulalim Hamoud Mohammed, who has been a security guards’ supervisor for this company for eight years, echoed. In fact, none of the workers we have spoken to seem to have escaped these pressures. One of them was even abducted and tortured in an unknown place for two days.

Last December, Mohammad Alzubide, Ali Al Sanhani and Abdurhaman Kieran, three security guards in their twenties, were shot dead by an armed gang as they were working on court-mandated duty protecting a TOTAL compound involving 50 electricity generators in Sana’a. In possession of a ruling impounding the company’s assets to protect their rights and salaries, the six workers present on the site refused to let the armed crew take the place over; and half of them were gunned down as a result.

Not the slightest doubt surfaces when the workers are asked who ordered the killing of their colleagues. Sabri says “I am sure that TOTAL and G4S are responsible because they are thieves, they robbed the people’s rights and the resources of my country. The killers have not been arrested because they follow individuals with a strong influence.”

Abdulalim seconds this: “Those responsible are TOTAL and G4S, because they wouldn’t want to pay the wages and respect labour rights. The killers are running free because TOTAL and G4S are paying a lot of money to hide the crime; they are also exploiting the war.”

According to the guards who were eye-witnesses to the December shooting and barely escaped death themselves, the leader of the armed gang is a man named Abou Mustafaa Mohammed Jameel, who happens to be the current vice-general manager of G4S Yemen. With him was allegedly another man called Mohammed Kilah, a relative of Faris Sanabani, the de facto current owner of G4S Yemen. Sanabani is a rich magnate with a British passport, media holder and former press secretary of the ex-Yemeni President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who helped the latter’s clan to stash its money abroad.

G4S denies any links with the entity presently operating under its name and logo in Yemen, arguing that it stopped all operations in the country in June 2015. Sanabani, one of the shareholders, appointed a new management team after that date to carry on the business, apparently without G4S’s consent. Contacted to clarify, Caroline Skinner, the Regional General Counsel of G4S Middle East & India, explained in an email that “The entity trading in Yemen is not a G4S Company. The company is trading under Yemen management using the G4S name unlawfully and in breach of demands requiring them to cease.”

This might well be true, but does not exonerate the original company from its responsibilities in having rode roughshod over the rights of its local workforce – nor does it explain why, to the best of our knowledge, G4S has not sued the fraudulent company.

Could this be related to the fact that the mercenary job conducted by the “fake” G4S is suitably serving the interests of the original company, in silencing the voices of workers who have grievances towards that very company? In any case, indications of a direct involvement of these firms in using violence against the workers abound.

The local deputy General manager of TOTAL in Yemen, Mohammed Ajeenah, is mentioned in a police record dated from February 2016 for having used “weapons and threats of assassination” on previous occasions against security workers, via a Houthi armed militia directed by Ajeenah’s brother, Abu Al-Ezz. Then, the workers were forced out of a villa under their guard which was part of the property of TOTAL, seized by order of the court – despite Ajeenah’s claim to the contrary. Ajeenah tried to get rid of the workers from what he considered to be his personal property.

A genuine, independent investigation involving workers’ representatives is necessary to formally connect the dots, and in order to apprehend and prosecute the individuals guilty of having stolen the three young workers’ lives. Incidentally, since the blood of Mohammad, Ali and Abdurhaman has been spilled, threats to the other workers have not stopped. For example, on January 13, 2017 at 9 pm, two armed men riding a motorcycle tried to assassinate the worker Ahmed Baha in front of his house, but missed their target.

These companies’ powerful networks of influence have provided them with a license to kill, facilitated by the climate of lawlessness in crisis-ridden Yemen, where greasing the palms of police or judicial officers in charge is child’s play.

International campaign

Sadly, the official trade unions have not been immunised from these corrupt practices. The union leaders’ dereliction of duty is one of the main factors which pushed the workers to reach out to the CWI for support in their dispute.

-“What has been the reaction of the trade unions in Yemen?”, we asked Sabri.

-“They didn’t care”.

In a situation where many Yemeni workers, in both the public and private sectors, are struggling with issues of unpaid wages, this is nothing short of scandalous. Yet there is growing outcry about the TOTAL/G4S case, spearheaded by the CWI’s involvement in an international campaign of protests, combined with a mounting anger among many employees of state-run institutions who have not been paid their salaries for months. This has forced even leading officials of the General Federation of Trade Unions of Yemen to get involved – rhetorically, of course. Practically, they have shied away from doing anything of substance to help the workers.

A member of Yemen’s Shura Council, Saleh Jolaidan, has agreed to represent and support the fighting workers from the start. “Saleh Jolaidan defended us, although at a great cost in terms of his personal interests”, Abdulalim explains. “The CWI transported our voice onto the international field”, Rabbi adds.

A united front of struggle involving all Yemeni workers fighting for wage arrears, echoed by an escalating campaign of international dimensions by the workers’ and trade union movement, would help break the wall of silence that the corporations and authorities alike have tried to keep until now about this infamy. This would bring the employees of TOTAL and G4S closer to the full satisfaction of their demands: the arrest of the killers and the immediate payment of all the workers’ wages and rights.

The CWI, for its part, will not stop pressuring and exposing these companies until they pay out the last penny due to the workers concerned.

In a country hit by an economic embargo and an explosion of food prices, where half of the population is on the verge of famine, this has become a life-and-death issue. The workers who are victims of TOTAL and G4S’ criminal practices, along with their families who depend on their income, are facing a particularly dire situation. Some of them have seen family members, including children, starve to death; others, are incapable of paying their mortgages and have lost their homes. Some have sold their furniture to survive. “We are scared of hunger. Ramadan is coming. TOTAL should pay now”, Abdulalim says.

Factoring in social and health insurances, risk bonuses, and annual holidays which were not paid before 2015, the two companies owe today the equivalent of about $27,000 to every worker. This is less than 1% of the annual wage of the “King of cost cuts”, Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of TOTAL, who is nicknamed this way for his ruthless approach in cutting production costs in the company’s units. These two contrasting figures are not unrelated: it is to further enrich this big business elite that workers have been robbed and left to starve in one of the poorest countries on earth.

Until today and since their employers halted their operations, the workers have received no communication whatsoever from the two companies concerned. TOTAL has not even bothered to respond to our multiple attempts, since last December, to contact them in regard to this case.

Both corporations have hidden behind a case of “force majeure” to justify the suspension of their activities in Yemen. Yet, as revealed lately in press leaks, the same “force majeure” does not seem to apply to TOTAL when it comes to extracting oil in South Yemen in collaboration with the Saudi regime – a central player in the war ravaging the country. In other words, TOTAL claims to have discontinued most of its operations due to the war, but works with Saudi forces to steal oil in the south – while at the same time, working with their enemies, the Houthis in Sana’a, in order to put down unpaid workers!

What is happening to the TOTAL/G4S workers in Yemen does not result from a few rotten apples breaching business ethics, but is inherent to a system where labour is exploited to inflate the wealth of a few private corporations.

In fact, the local staff from other foreign companies previously operating in Yemen, such as the workers of the Norwegian oil company DNO, have faced very similar scenarios of unlawful lay-offs and wage theft. The sense of impunity of such companies has to be stopped, in Yemen and anywhere else. That is why it is in the interest of workers around the world to stand in solidarity with the courageous struggle of the TOTAL/G4S workers.

Americans Support Increasing Budget of Most Wasteful Federal Department

Eric Zuesse

There is only one Cabinet-level federal Department that is so wasteful — so corrupt (&/or incompetent) — that its financial records can’t even be audited, meaning that no auditors can be found who will certify its books: the Defense Department, otherwise called “the Pentagon” — it’s 54% of the Fiscal Year 2016 federal budget for all Departments of discretionary (i.e., legally non-obligatory) federal spending, as shown here:

A Politico and Morning Consult poll, a scientific sampling of 1,992 registered American voters, which was first published on March 8th, asked “Here is a list of federal departments and agencies. For each of the following, please indicate if you think the department or agency should have its annual budget increased, decreased, or kept about the same.” Here is what it found:

In other words: as compared to cutting the incredibly wasteful $625 billion Aggression Department (euphemistically called the ‘Defense Department’), Americans are more favorable toward cutting almost all of  the constructive Departments: cutting the State Department (not shown in the pie-chart except as ‘International Affairs’, but it was actually allocated in FY 2017 $37.9 billion), cutting the $41.6 billion that’s shared between the Energy Department and the EPA, and cutting the Interior Department (which expenditures are generally not shown online, such as in the pie-chart above, or here), or Commerce Department (also generally not shown), or HUD (which was allocated $37.5 billion in FY 2017), or Justice (which was allocated $28.7 billion in FY 2017) or Labor (which also is generally not shown), or Agriculture (which also is generally not shown, but might be the $13.3 billion shown on the pie-chart above for “Food & Agriculture”), or Transportation ($27.4 billion on that pie-chart, but generally not shown), or Education ($74.1 billion on that pie-chart, and $68.3 billion allocated for FY 2017). Furthermore, the $625 billion for ‘Defense’ excludes such things as the CIA, whose costs the federal government does its best to hide from the public, but without the CIA, America’s coups overthrowing foreign governments (such as here), wouldn’t even be possible, notwithstanding that they actually are part of America’s ‘Defense’ expenditures, though not at the Pentagon — so, the $625 billion ‘Defense’ figure is clearly an understatement of the reality (even if those expenditures actually helped produce the 9/11 attacks and overall reduce the safety of Americans — but that’s another question entirely).

As is clear from the above, the U.S. federal government does its best to make inscrutable its financial records, and so even organizations that try to inform the public about federal expenditures in ways that the public can easily make sense of, have enormous difficulty doing it, and really cannot do it for all federal Departments; but, by far the most untrustworthy numbers of all are those that are given for ‘Defense’, even though that’s so gigantic that even our federal officials haven’t yet found a way to make ‘Defense’ seem to be less than half of all federal discretionary spending. Americans live (though never informed of this) in a war-state, today’s Sparta, a nation at perpetual war, in order to overthrow (either by the Pentagon or by the CIA) governments around the world that the actual powers-that-be in this country do not like.

The Morning Consult & Politico poll also found that when asked “As you may know, a special prosecutor is generally a lawyer from outside the government who is appointed by the Attorney General or Congress to investigate a government official for misconduct while in office. Do you support or oppose appointing a special prosecutor to investigate alleged ties between Donald Trumps campaign staff and Russian government officials?”

37% “Strongly support” and 17% “Strongly oppose,” while 20% “Somewhat support” and 14% “Somewhat oppose.” Given figures like that, the pressure on Congress to pressure the White House on this will be very “Strong.” For the Administration to continue to resist would only weaken the Administration. Of course, the lowest support for this came from Republicans (39% “Support” versus 50% “Oppose) and the highest support came from Democrats (75% “Support” versus 16% “Oppose”), but if Trump continues to oppose it, his re-election chances will be greatly damaged because the issue will look worse for him as time goes by and as he continues to resist. 82% of the respondents who said that they had voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 were in “Support” of “appointing a special prosecutor,” and the 2016 Presidential election was close; so, if Trump continues to oppose on this, he’ll almost certainly be a one-term President — if even that (Democrats could get their wish and overthrow Trump and install Pence instead, though they would actually like President Pence even less, except that his thirst for war against Russia is even greater than what Trump now is showing in order to satisfy Democrats plus John McCain and Lindsey Graham).

There is so much that is essential for the American public to know and to understand, that they are instead confused and misinformed about; but the powers-that-be benefit greatly by the public’s misinformation and confusion, and so it will certainly continue; but is this democracy, or is it dictatorship — and, if the latter, then whom is it actually serving? Who is Big Brother? Actually?

Towards A Rational World Of Peace And Humanity: America, Europe And Russia

Mahboob A. Khawaja

Leaders in Global Lens

The 21st century global politics is fraught with conflicts, deaths and destruction of human lives, indifference to the vital problem of global warming and climate change and leadership failure to resolve the issues via peaceful dialogue. Those claiming to be the leaders of the elected masses, discard people’s voices of reason and accountability. Most leaders act in disconnect to the Nature of Things in which we breath and enjoin life – all fragmented by design or by the emerging crises,the so called leaders have failed to bridge the gaps of moral and intellectual decadence and human predictability. The reason being that global politics is not about the humanity’s mirror of the Nature reflecting ethical or spiritual bonds which are common across the global mankind, and therefore, humanity views the deliberate division as formidable blocks stalling its ideas and ideals for global change, progress and unity of the mankind. One of the major deficient appears to be the missing Reality of global consciousness as seen and observed by the citizenry of the humanity. The global affairs are led by mediocre leaders lacking rational vision and thinking for the unity of mankind but focused on egoistic ambitions of power and politics to dominate societies and people of the globe by means of lies, deceptions, militarization and political hegemonic control over others.

How to find a rational culture of holistic thinking encompassing peaceful dialogue and co-existence in global affairs? The response to this vital question has great deal to do with the thinking, role and policy behaviors of the contemporary political leaders holding positions of power and influence in making the global politics. In this evolutionary conjecture, individualistic thinking and animosity play significant part to determine the leadership attributes and competitive role-play. There are no visible characteristics of moral and intellectual traits which govern the global political affairs. Do most of the powerful leaders possess formidable mental microscope to scan the experiential observations for making favorable policies and practices in international affairs?  Leadership effectiveness must embody ethical values and learning aptitude to relate to the voices of the people. At times, you may find many morally and intellectually abhorrent people assuming leadership role to invite hollow laughters frompolitical opponents.  This is the forbidden reality of the 21st century political world in which we try to cherish civic values, honesty and moral accountability from elected leaders. Today, in a Washington congressional hearing,the FBI Director and the NSA Chief denied President Trump’s claim that President Obama wiretapped his movements during the elections. But Mr. Trump and his press secretary continues to insist that it did happen. Could President Trump be using a strategy of distraction to divert attention from other critical issues facing his hurriedly done executive orders?  The critical lens has another angle that many European, Russian and others are concerned about what unscheduled political developments are taking shape and form in America with immense implications for global economic and political affairs. Comparatively, American politics is geared towards blame game on Russia for alleged election interference – the issue is disputed and still under scrutiny by the US agencies.  Often, it is convenient to blame others for your own errors of thinking, intellectual weaknesses and vocal judgment when facts fail to support the end-game.  The US political media accuses Russia of cyber incursion and interference in the presidential election system. This is a challenging new scenario in US-Russia relations. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and President Putin denied Moscow’s alleged meddling in the US election. Under Obama , all the IMF financial commitments to Russian projects were stopped.The wishful political metaphor is not the outcome of the history, ideology, knowledge or mythology but specific ideas aimed at degeneration of the civilized world. The masked agenda unfolds motives, phobias, fears and prejudices towards each other political culture and human values. Most often such framework ushers dereliction, unknown fear, and transfers chaos and uncertainty as new normal in global relations. You will imagine that all elected politicians are mature and accountable in their thoughts and behaviors. Not so, as you could analyze the recent war torn stories of George W. Bush, Tony Blair and many others, how they victimized the mankind.

The West and Russia on a Collision Course

Formal foreign policies and practices are not abrupt but highly thoughtful course of actions often with available alternatives and deliberate pauses for reactionary behavior. The Russian stance on Ukraine and its overwhelming powerful cultural-political relations with the eastern broken parts of Ukraine are point of great anxiety and political reaction across the Western hemisphere. NATO is search of new animosities has worsened the geo-politics of the region. Russia is under economic embargo by the EU and America. Who suffered most, not Russia but the farmers and agricultural exports of Italy, Spain, Portugal and perhaps Greece? The EU-US economic embargo against Russia did not seem to work to change the status-quo of problematic situations in eastern Ukraine to anybody’s favor. What if all the leaders were at one table and some intellectual like Immanuel Kant would have told them that all of you are immature and emotionally unbalanced to use economic embargo as a reactionary remedy when it really hurts the common masses, not the political elite making the decisions on vital issues. What if you will prefer a leadership dialogue on equal terms while sitting face to face – without agreeing or disagreeing, just listening to each other’s contentious claims? Listen fellows, your claims and counter-claims do not open-up the wonderlands of any plausible futuristic probabilities of peace and human understanding. There is tension between your ego and authority to face the facts of human life. You desperately need an intellectual and leadership advisory from an impartial scholar of global affairs. You are engaged in penalizing the humanity in a useless game, wasting time and opportunities for change and new thinking to cope with wrongful human policies and practices. All of you appear to be on a wrong path of moral and intellectual pursuits. Your individuality and sense of belligerency is the cause of troubles that you seem to cherish the form and forgot the essence of collegiality and human excellence in bridging the invisible gaps by human communication.None of you will ever win-win but lose-lose in all humanitarian corridors of accountability. Likewise, none of the superpowers havecapacity to strike peace or resolve political issues at a global scale. It is clearly demonstrable from their behaviors at the UN Security Council. What did Europeans achieve in the scourge of the Two World Wars except killings several millions of innocent people on all the fronts. The Earth and environmental devastations have not fully recovered from the wrongful human belligerency of the Two WW.  Are you forging a Third World War as another option against the humanity? If so, it will leave nothing in tact except inhumanity of the human follies. There are inborn illusions and intellectual contrasts still governing the world politics. Sochi Winter Olympics had not started yet, but the Western political media campaigns were in progress to zero-in on insults against President Putin and mental reservation against the functionality of successful Sochi games. None of the prominent Western leaders went to see the Sochi games. Then Russian engagements in Ukraine were the center piece of political rebuttal. What if all these issues were part of an agenda for face to face continuous dialogue for political resolution in Ukraine and the Middle East? In all earnest, many such problems could have been resolved without much bloodshed, be it Ukraine, Syria, Iraq and /or NATO military exercises or Russian inroads into Ukraine.

Late Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr- Nobel Address, December 11, 1964   (“The Quest for Peace and Justice”) tried to put the same essence of his message into a rational context:

Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. …. This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem confronting modern man. If we are to survive today, our moral and spiritual “lag” must be eliminated. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul. When the “without” of man’s nature subjugates the “within”, dark storm clouds begin to form in the world.

Global Leaders to Rethink about a Navigational Change

America and its politics envisage a global outlook and influential power.  Its leadership is in desperate need of change and realignment to the global perspectives of Human Reality for a sustainable future.  The 9/11 attacks on America have transformed the country into a disjointed incrementalism, not knowing how to cope with challenges of the future. John W. Whitehead (“The Tyranny of 9/11-The Building Blocks of the American Police State from A-Z” www. Rutherford.com: 9/06/2016), is an American Attorney in Constitutional Law and Human rights and President of Rutherford Institute. He points out that “These past 15 years have indeed been an unbearable, choking hell…..The citizenry’s unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security has resulted in a society where the nation is being locked down into a militarized, mechanized, hypersensitive, legalistic, self-righteous, goose-stepping antithesis of every principle upon which this nation was founded.This is not freedom. This is a jail cell….Since the towers fell on 9/11, the American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process….In allowing ourselves to be distracted by terror drills, foreign wars, color-coded warnings, underwear bombers and other carefully constructed exercises in propaganda, sleight of hand, and obfuscation, we failed to recognize that the true enemy to freedom was lurking among us all the while.

If time and history are a reference point, we the global humanity stand at a critical juncture of our own complicity to have allowed ignorance, hatred, fear, failure and animosity to destroy our life, culture and existence. How should we think of making a navigational change?  The informed global humanity no longer believes in the usefulness of international institutions, classic leadership of the few, economic advancement for the 99% of the masses in democracies or in the sufficiency of redistributive social programs, equality, law and justice? How can global institutions, people-oriented and accountable system of governance, responsible leadership and result-oriented policies and practices be reconstructed to suit the progressive goals of the 21st century mankind?  Global humanity looks for rational attitudes and realistic rethinking to deal with sensitive issues of humanitarian concerns. While Europeans and the US have imposed economic embargo and cultural boycott of Russia, it has no meaningful impact except evolution of more discards and animosity when human communication is deliberately neglected. The similar problems of imbued animosity and hatred persist across the Middle East.  Foreign interventions and killing machines are destroying the ancient lands of human culture and civilizations. To destroy the Arab people, they are collaborating in military interventions. Wars suck out positive human thinking and creative energies to articulate a sustainable human future. Arab leaders are entangled willfully in catastrophic and bloody sectarian warfare. They have consciously put on hold the focal issue of the Middle East -that is, Palestine and normalization of relations with the State of Israel. They appear to have lost the sense of strategic and moral direction to restore normalcy in thinking and policy behavior. Leaders of America, Europe and Russia need to rethink, how they could facilitate a peaceful ending of the sectarian cruelty rather than taking sides and bombing the innocent civilians and causing destruction of the human habitats.  How should the global humanity view the contemporary Arab societies, their war-torn bloody cultures operated by foreign mercenaries and few egoistic authoritarian leaders?  Every day is a killing day in Syria, Iraq, Egypt,Yemen, Libya and elsewhere. What kind of message of civility, moral and intellectual values do they convey to the watchful eyes of the global observers?  Leadership is an art, it can be improved if leaders are open to listening, flexible and adaptable to the challenging facts of human affairs and have passion for facts, not fantasy. The informed and spirited global humanity could help the entrenched leaders to make a navigational change for global peace and One Humanity.

Reality And The U.S.-Made Famine In Yemen

Kathy Kelly

This week at the Voices for Creative Nonviolence office in Chicago, my colleague Sabia Rigby prepared a presentation for a local high school. She’ll team up with a young friend of ours, himself a refugee from Iraq, to talk about refugee crises driven by war. Sabia recently returned from Kabul where she helped document the young Afghan Peace Volunteers’ efforts to help bring warmth, food and education to internally displaced families living in makeshift camps, having fled the Afghan War when it raged near their former homes.

Last year Sabia had been visiting with refugees in “the Calais Jungle,” who were fleeing the Middle East and several African countries for Britain. Thwarted from crossing the English Channel, a large mass of people were stopped in this refugee camp in Calais, France, from which French authorities eventually evacuated them, defying their careful solidarity and burning their camp to the ground.

As part of her high school talk, Sabia prepared a handout to show where refugees are the most welcomed. One detail astonished her.

In FY 2016, the U.S. admitted 84,995 refugees, but Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world took in 117,000 new refugees and migrants in 2016, and hosts more than 255,000 refugees from Somalia. Yemen is now beginning to host the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. What’s more, the country is regularly targeted by Saudi and U.S. airstrikes.

Since we are also planning a week of fast and action related to the tragic circumstances Yemen faces, we were astounded when we realized Yemen is a path of escape for Somalis fleeing the Horn of Africa, refugees of one conflict, stranded in their flight, and trapped in a country where deadly conflict is precipitating into deadlier famine.

After years of U.S. support for dictator Ali Adullah Saleh, civil war has wracked Yemen since 2014. Its neighbor Saudi Arabia, itself among the region’s cruelest dictatorships and a staunch U.S. ally, became nervous in 2015 about the outcome and, with support from nine regional allies, began subjecting the country to a punishing barrage of airstrikes, and also imposed a blockade that ended the inflow of food and supplies to Yemen through a major port. This was accomplished with massive, ongoing weapons shipments from the U.S., which has also waged independent airstrikes that have killed dozens of civilians, including women and children.

Pummeled by airstrikes and fighting, facing economic collapse and on the brink of famine, how could this tiny, impoverished country absorb thousands upon thousands of desperate migrants?

Yemen imports 90% of its food. Because of the blockade, food and fuel prices are rising and scarcity is at crisis levels.

UNICEF estimates that more than 460,000 children in Yemen face severe malnutrition, and 3.3 million children and pregnant or lactating women suffer acute malnutrition. More than 10,000 people have been killed, including 1,564 children, and millions have been displaced from their homes, but worse is the groundwork laid for the far greater devastation of famine. Iona Craig, in the IRIN publication, recently wrote:

In the middle of a vast expanse of grey scrubland, a rapidly growing population of more than 120 families huddle under parched trees. Escaping the latest wave of conflict on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, they walked two days to get to this camp southwest of Taiz city.

But on arrival, the scores of women and children found nothing. No support from aid agencies. No food. No water. No shelter. The elderly talk of eating the trees to survive, while children beg for water from local farmers. A mother cradles her clearly malnourished baby in her arms.

Now comes word that on March 16th, forty-two Somali people were killed in sustained gunfire from the air as they set forth in a boat attempting to flee Yemen.

“I took cover in the belly of the ship,” said Ibrahim Ali Zeyad, a Somali who survived the attack. “People were falling left and right. Everyone kept screaming, ‘We are Somali! We are Somali!’”

But the shooting continued for what felt like half an hour.

The attack on Yemen traps both Yemenis and fleeing Somalis in the worst of four developing crises which collectively amount, one U.N. official warns, to the worst humanitarian crisis in the history of the U.N. As of this writing, no one has taken responsibility for the strike, but survivors say they were attacked by a helicopter gunship. The boat was carrying 140 people as it headed north off the coast of Yemen.

Meanwhile, US weapons makers, including General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin, profit massively from weapon sales to Saudi Arabia. In December, 2017, Medea Benjamin wrote: “Despite the repressive nature of the Saudi regime, U.S. governments have not only supported the Saudis on the diplomatic front, but militarily. Under the Obama administration, this has translated into massive weapons sales of $115 billion.”

At this critical juncture, all member states of the UN must call for an end to the blockade and airstrikes, a silencing of all guns, and a negotiated settlement to the war in Yemen. The worst malefactors, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, must abandon cynical maneuvering against rivals like Iran, in the face of such an unspeakable human cost as Yemen is being made to pay.

U.S. people bear responsibility to demand a radical departure from U.S. policy which exacerbates the deadly tragedy faced by people living in Yemen.

Choosing a path of clear opposition to U.S. policies toward Yemen, U.S. citizens should demand elected representatives stop all drone attacks and military “special operations” within Yemen, end all U.S. weapon sales and military aid to Saudi Arabia, and provide compensation to those who suffered losses caused by U.S. attacks.

Our group of activists long functioned under the name “Voices in the Wilderness,” a campaign to defy U.S. economic warfare against Iraq, a form of war through imposition of economic sanctions which directly contributed to the deaths of over 500,000 children. Lost in a culture of hostile unreality and unbearable silence concerning economic warfare, we were evoking, perhaps unconsciously, the plight of refugees seeking survival. We didn’t succeed in lifting the brutal economic sanctions against Iraq, but we surely learned harsh realities about how callous and reckless U.S. policy makers could be.

We must ground ourselves in reality and in solidarity with the greater part of the world’s people. As our neighbors around the world flee in desperation across borders or within the confines of their own countries, we must continually educate ourselves about the reality of what our nation’s actions mean to the world’s poor. Building toward a time when our voices may unite and be heard, we must raise them now in crying out for the people of Yemen.

EU-Turkey Rift Widens

Abdus Sattar Ghazali

The rift between the European Union and Turkey is escalating as President Erdogan has accused the EU countries of persecuting Muslims like Jews were during World War II while the spirit of fascism was running wild on the streets of Europe.

The EU-Turkey rift was sparked on March 11when Turkish foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, was barred from landing in the Netherlands to attend a rally of Turkish immigrants. About 400,000 people with ties to Turkey live in the Netherlands.

Not surprisingly, Dutch far-right anti-Muslim leader Geert Wilders waded into the debate. “We are in Holland here, not in Turkey, and a Turkish minister has no room here to lobby for somebody like Erdogan, who is a mere dictator,” Wilders said.

Addressing a political rally in Istanbul on March 18, President Erdogan launched a scathing attack on European leaders. He was quoted by media as saying: “If they weren’t ashamed, they would revive the gas chambers.”

About Germany, Erdogan said: “When we call them Nazis they [European politicians] get uncomfortable. They rally together in solidarity. Especially Merkel.” “Merkel. She backs [the Netherlands] too. You too are practicing Nazi practices. To whom? To my Turkish brothers and sisters in Germany,” the Turkish leader said.

He has also quoted as saying: “They [European states] do not have the urge to hide their intentions and cannot hide the discomfort they feel from Turkey, which is growing stronger.”

Earlier President Erdogan has hit out at the Netherlands, by holding them responsible for Europe’s worst mass killing since World War II.

Referring to a Dutch battalion of United Nations peacekeepers who failed to halt the slaughter by Bosnian Serb forces of thousands of Muslim men and boys in eastern Bosnia in 1995, Erdogan said: “We know the Netherlands and the Dutch from the Srebrenica massacre. We know how rotten their character is from their massacre of 8,000 Bosnians there.”

Turkey orders sanctions against Netherlands

On March 13, Turkey announced a series of political sanctions against the Netherlands over its refusal to allow two Turkish ministers to campaign there. The sanctions include halting high-level political discussions between the two countries and closing Turkish air space to Dutch diplomats.

Deputy prime minister Numan Kurtulmus said the sanctions would apply until the Netherlands takes steps “to redress” the actions Ankara sees as a grave insult. “There is a crisis and a very deep one. We didn’t create this crisis or bring it to this stage,” he said.

Other sanctions bar the Dutch ambassador entry back into Turkey and advise parliament to withdraw from a Dutch-Turkish friendship group. The announcement came hours after Turkey’s foreign ministry formally protested over the treatment of the minister who was not allowed to land in the Netherland.

France and Germany have supported the Netherlands in its dispute with Turkey. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called Erdogan’s statements about Nazism and fascism “unacceptable” and called on Turkey to abide to the European Conventions on Human Rights.

German Chanc Merkel pledged her “full support and solidarity” to the Dutch, saying the Nazi gibes were “completely unacceptable”.

President Erdogan responded angrily. “Shame on you!” he exclaimed during an interview with A Haber television. He renewed accusations that Germany supported “terrorists” battling Turkey and that it backed the “no” campaign in the Turkish referendum, arguing that Berlin did not want to see a strong Turkey.

“Some of the European Union countries – let’s not put all of them in the same sack – unfortunately cannot stomach Turkey’s rise,” he said. “Sadly, Germany tops the list. Germany supports terror in a cruel way.”He advised Turks living in Europe not to vote for parties that he described as “enemies of Turkey”.

Germany not ‘convinced’ Gulen behind failed Turkey coup

Tellingly, a German intelligence report has added fuel to the fire. On March 18, Germany’s intelligence chief said that US-based Fethullah Gulen was not the mastermind behind a failed July 15 coup aimed at ousting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkish authorities have blamed the attempted putsch that left 248 people dead on a rogue military group led by Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999.

Turkish authorities have arrested more than 41,000 pro-Gulen people, and fired or suspended 100,000, since the attempted coup.

Last month, authorities ordered the dismissal of nearly 4,500 civil servants, including 2,585 employees of the education ministry, 893 members of the gendarmerie and 88 workers at the public television channel TRT.

Turkish Referendum

The EU –Turkey feud stems from efforts by Erdoğan’s government to build support among Turks living abroad for the package of constitutional changes through referendum scheduled for April 16. In Germany alone, there are 1.5 million people with Turkish citizenship.

In early March, Turkey’s Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag pulled out of a scheduled visit to Germany, after a small town in German south-western region of Baden-Wurttemberg denied him the chance to address his countrymen. The city of Cologne canceled a similar event, where Turkish economy minister Nihat Zeybekci was due to speak.

Pro-referendum rallies were also canceled in Austria and Switzerland.

Refugee deal at risk

Turkey has threatened to cancel the refugee deal struck between Turkey and the European Union one year ago, which has helped in keeping the number of migrants arriving in Germany and elsewhere in Europe at bay.

Erdogan warned on March 16, that a key refugee deal with Europe could be at risk. Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said 15,000 refugees a month should be sent to Europe as a shock therapy.

Analyst Kamran Matin of the University of Sussex was quoted by the Voice of America as saying:

“The refugee deal they have with the EU, and especially with respect to Germany, is crucial leverage they have over Germany,” he said. “And the flow of refugees would have immediate impact in German domestic politics. Turkey is such a geopolitically important state and actor for not only European countries, but the entire Western bloc, especially facing the resurgence of Russia.”

Australia’s energy crisis exposes market failure

Mike Head

Both Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill made desperate announcements last week, claiming to resolve the worsening electricity crisis that has caused serious blackouts in recent months and sent household prices soaring over the past decade.

The failure of the national energy market was highlighted last September, when the entire state of South Australia lost power, plunging homes, hospitals and industrial plants into darkness for many hours. After storms knocked down transmission towers, supplies were shut off, supposedly to protect the national grid from instability. In February, under life-threatening heatwave conditions, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) cut off supplies to various areas.

Vague promises were made were made last week. Turnbull said his federal Liberal-National Coalition government would initiate a feasibility study into expanding the Snowy Mountains hydro-electricity system. He claimed that a $2 billion project to supply emergency back-up supplies could be completed in five years.

According to the prime minister, this would increase the scheme’s generation capacity by 50 percent to 2,000 megawatts, reputedly enough to power 500,000 homes. This “electricity game-changer” would also “ultimately mean cheaper power prices.”

After meeting gas company chiefs, Turnbull further insisted he had “guarantees” from them to divert supplies from lucrative liquefied natural gas (LNG) export markets to the domestic electricity grid during peak demand periods, even though they would receive far lower prices by doing so. But he gave no details of how much gas would be supplied or when it would be available. Two LNG companies had agreed to increase their domestic supplies, he claimed, while a third would “take it on notice.”

Weatherill said his state Labor government would commission a new $360 million 250 megawatt gas-fired power plant and call tenders for the installation of a 100 megawatt battery storage plant, to provide his state with its own back-up power. It was a “dramatic intervention” to address the “failure” of the national market, he said, but could not say where or when the plants would be built.

Several industry experts pointed out that these plans, even taken together, were insufficient to ensure adequate supplies and would come too late to solve the immediate problems of power outages. Moreover, the Snowy plan, which involves pumping diverted river water back up into dams, would have reduced capacity during periods of drought.

More fundamentally, however, all the announcements were based on the proposition that the privatised electricity market—dominated by profiteering power generation, distribution and retailing companies—can rectify the economic and social disaster it has itself produced.

During the September and February breakdowns, spare generating capacity was actually available but the owners of key plants kept their facilities offline as part of a systemic practice of driving up “spot” prices during peak demand periods.

Several studies in recent years have documented this practice, which has generated huge spikes in short-term wholesale electricity prices, sometimes rising to $14,000 per megawatt hour from the usual figure below $100.

A Melbourne Energy Institute study found 41 occasions in 2015 when the Snowy Hydro’s Angaston diesel generator in South Australia withdrew supply, pushing up spot prices. Combined, those 41 occasions delivered an additional $30.3 million in profit.

This price manipulation is perfectly legal because the electricity market is designed to allow power-generating companies to decide whether or not to sell their electricity, depending on price. As a result, the adequacy of the electricity supply—an essential ingredient of modern life, especially during extreme weather—is determined by corporate profit, not social need.

Last week, a report by the Grattan Institute, a business-funded think tank, provided further insight into the operations of the profit-driven system. It showed that retail electricity prices in four major cities—Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide—have almost doubled since 2005, when the deregulated “retail contestable” pricing system began to take effect.

Over that decade, distribution costs have increased by only about 10 percent, and wholesale electricity costs have fallen by about one-third, allowing the retail suppliers to make what the Grattan report described as “excessive” profits.

In other words, while working class households have been suffering ever-greater difficulties in paying electricity bills, on top of other sky-rocketing utility and housing costs, the three companies dominating the retail market—AGL, Energy Australia and Origin—have reaped a windfall.

Rampant profiteering has taken hold since the 1990s, when the Keating Labor government initiated the process of privatising the government-owned businesses that were responsible for the generation, transmission, distribution and retailing of electricity in each state and territory. Labor said a “national competition policy” would deliver significant benefits to consumers by providing incentives to producers to be efficient, innovate and lower their prices.

Implemented from 1995 onward, the resulting selloff of electricity corporations led directly to the opposite—inflated prices, inadequate investment in generating and transmission facilities, and unreliable services. The only consumers to benefit were businesses. Between 1990-91 and 2003-04, according to the Grattan report, their bills fell on average by 27 percent in real terms, while residential bills began to rise.

In addition, thousands of electricity industry and other public sector jobs were destroyed. Between the mid-1990s and 2003, employment in the sector fell from 83,000 to 33,000.

This drive deepened under the Labor government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Its 2012 Energy White Paper demanded that state governments privatise the remaining electricity assets, then estimated to be worth more than $100 billion, delivering bonanzas to the financial markets and associated business interests.

Both Turnbull and Weatherill declared their readiness to use all the powers available to their governments to fix the energy crisis. Turnbull said he could revoke gas export licences and Weatherill threatened to instruct power-generating companies to supply electricity during critical periods. In reality, their proposals leave intact the corporate stranglehold over the electricity grid.

As result, the energy crisis will only worsen. At the end of this month, French energy giant ENGIE is due to close a 1,600 megawatt coal-fired power station at Hazelwood, axing more than 750 jobs and taking out about 25 percent of the base load electricity capacity in the state of Victoria. Already, energy traders are cashing in on the expected shortages. On the futures market last Wednesday, the June contract for electricity in Victoria hit $147.50 per megawatt hour, compared to a price for the March contract of $80.

The debacle produced by Australia’s corporate electricity market is reminiscent of the Enron crisis in the US. The energy conglomerate created artificial power shortages to allow traders to sell power at much higher prices, but ultimately imploded in 2001 in what was then the largest corporate bankruptcy in American history.

Similar practices led this month to more than a million homes, schools and businesses in Detroit and across Michigan enduring disastrous power outages. Rather than investing in serious infrastructure upgrades, the electricity companies responsible are involved in speculative Enron-style energy trading, as well as far more profitable natural gas projects.

These are not aberrations. They epitomise the increasingly decayed and parasitic character of the capitalist profit system. Essential utilities, such as electricity, gas, phone and Internet connections, which should be available to everyone as a basic social right, are being subordinated to the relentless demands of the financial elite for ever-higher investor returns.

Union sells out striking Kenyan doctors

Eddie Haywood 

On March 14, the Kenyan Medical Professionals, Pharmacists, and Dentists Union (KMPDU) representing government-employed doctors and other health care professionals reached an agreement with the government to end a strike that began in December 2016 and lasted 100 days. The strike was the most protracted such dispute for doctors and medical workers in Kenya’s history.

Very little information has been released about what the new agreement, which is only a draft proposal, actually stipulates. The KMPDU and the Ministry of Health have signed a “Return To Work Formula” (RTWF) with only a promise to continue negotiations within 60 days. The new settlement appears to have fallen far short of the original 2013 collective bargaining agreement, which the government had refused to implement, leading the doctors to strike. The union and the government agreed to sign a formal contract within 60 days.

The general secretary of the KMPDU, Ouma Oluga, said the agreement was a “win-win for everybody” and told the media, “We wish that this country shall never experience this again.”

Minister of Health Cleopa Mailu cynically told reporters, “Kenyans have suffered, and I am quite sure we cannot in any way begin to fathom the extent of the pain which the ordinary Kenyans felt during those 100 days.”

The strike coincided with mounting popular outrage with President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is seeking reelection in August. His government is widely perceived as corrupt.

While the government claims it does not have the funds to implement the demands of the doctors, the Ministry of Health is currently embroiled in an investigation that alleges that ministry officials looted $20 million from its coffers, representing 21 percent of its 2016 budget.

The leading officials of the KMPDU, which represents about 5,000 government-employed doctors and medical workers across Kenya, were arrested and detained briefly in February for refusing to end the strike. Originally sentenced to 30 days in jail, this anti-democratic attempt by the government to intimidate striking doctors provoked such popular outrage that the sentence was reversed a week later, with the union officials’ release.

Underscoring the tenuousness of the RTWF agreement, KMPDU General Secretary Oluga told reporters, “We are happy that the doctors union have finally put an end to the strike. ... While the strike is over, the dispute may not be, because we need to restore industrial harmony between ourselves and our employers. ... We know that the return-to-work agreement is simply an agreement and there is a lot of follow-up that will be done.”

There is nothing in the RTWF agreement that is binding, and the KMPDU’s promises to medical workers for the pay increases are most likely to prove a mere “castle in the sand.”

Illustrating the government’s contempt for the doctors and medical workers and its lack of sincerity to follow through with any agreement is the government’s hiring of 500 doctors from Tanzania only days after signing the RTWF. The Tanzanian doctors will be paid at rates far below their Kenyan counterparts, a clear indication of how the government views the RTWF agreement and the plight of medical workers.

In addition to being underpaid, the Tanzanian doctors will be restricted in terms of where they can work (only the public sector), for how long, and under what conditions (restricted from buying a home or owning property) and essentially stripped of their democratic rights. Further, management plans on implementing a two-tiered workforce that can be used to undercut any future disputes or strikes.

Additionally, state hospitals are carrying out retaliatory firings of doctors and medical workers who participated in the strike. Just the week before the RTWF was signed, President Uhuru Kenyatta threatened to fire the striking doctors and medical workers if they did not return to work.

The real fear of the KMPDU—that the union would be “killed” by the government, thus eliminating their source of dues income—was the true catalyst for the KMPDU calling the strike in December. This fact was expressed by KMPDU’s negotiating committee chairman Dr. Alex Muturi to the Kenyan Star last January: “Any union stands on two things: the membership and the CBA [Collective Bargaining Agreement]. The CBA is the only reference any union has with the employer.” The same week he stated before a crowd of striking doctors that “the government’s unwillingness to implement the agreement is a plan to kill their union.”

The KMPDU only agreed to end the strike after the government agreed to officially recognize the union. Like their counterparts worldwide, the KMPDU leadership is looking out for its own interests: that is, collecting union dues paid by thousands of public health care workers.

Before the ink had dried on the RTWF agreement, a segment of the striking doctors and medical workers refused to accept it and continued to strike. As an expression of the KMPDU’s contempt for these recalcitrant workers, the union has accepted the contingent of lower-paid doctors from Tanzania, saying they wish to “incorporate them into the union.”

Notably during the strike, there was no attempt by the KMPDU to connect the issues plaguing medical workers with similar issues afflicting the broader working masses in Kenya, who in many cases subsist on less than $2 a day. Instead, the union has limited its demands and subordinated medical workers in appeals to the state.

The Kenyan doctors strike again demonstrates that the unions are hostile to the interests of workers and incapable of defending, let alone improving, their conditions. The betrayal of the medical workers by the KMPDU makes clear the necessity for the political mobilization of the entire working class against the international banks and their domestic servants in defiance of the trade unions and the big business political parties.