International May Day 2017: Mass marches and police repression

Patrick Martin 

May Day, the day of the international working class, saw mass marches and protests on every continent, as well as scattered strikes, as workers sought to demonstrate their opposition to the policies of right-wing governments and their solidarity with their class brothers and sisters around the world.

In country after country, workers raised the same issues—low wages, the growth of “contingent” labor, the slashing of benefits and pensions—underscoring the common struggles confronting the working class internationally. Governments around the world are imposing ever more vicious austerity measures in response to the global crisis of the capitalist system, while diverting greater and greater resources into military spending and war preparations.

The day’s events demonstrated that the objective conditions produced by the development of global production have created the basis for the unification of the working class as an international class. But workers are held in enforced disunity by the nationally-based trade unions and “labor” parties that serve as the direct instruments of big business in every country.

In several countries, protests on the traditional holiday of the world working class were met with violent provocations on the part of the authorities. In Turkey, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at demonstrators in Istanbul, the country’s largest city, and arrested at least 200 people. Most were arrested during the protests, but some were detained in raids later that night. Political tensions have been rising in the wake of the April 16 referendum, narrowly won by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which gives Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan virtually dictatorial powers.

A portion of the protest in Washington, D.C.

In Germany, some 10,000 people assembled for a May Day street festival in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin. They were met by what even bourgeois press reports described as an “astonishing 5,400 police officers,” deployed on the pretext of preventing violence.

In France, police used tear gas and truncheons, pushing demonstrators against a wall and clubbing them. Socialist Party Interior Minister Matthias Fekl denounced “intolerable violence,” condemning the victims of the police brutality, not the cops who inflicted it.

There were large demonstrations in a number of European cities: 10,000 in Athens, half that number in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, as well as a 24-hour strike called by several unions. Other marches took place in Britain, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Poland and elsewhere across the continent.

In South Africa, President Jacob Zuma was forced to cancel his May Day speech after workers began jeering him and calling for his resignation.

Thousands of garment workers in Bangladesh gathered to demand wage increases as well as better housing and health benefits and provision for the education of their children. Workers in that country are paid wages far lower than in China or Southeast Asia, and many of the leading European and American clothing retailers now source their production through Bangladesh, whose garment workforce has swelled to four million.

In Cambodia, a thousand garment workers defied a government order and delivered a petition demanding a higher minimum wage and broader democratic rights. In Indonesia, some 10,000 workers marched on the presidential palace in Jakarta to demand a rise in the minimum wage, limits on outsourcing and improved health care and working conditions.

Thousands of Taiwanese workers marched in the capital, Taipei, against low wages, poor working conditions and the elimination of basic pension provisions. Korean workers marched in Seoul, focusing their demands on a reduction in the use of temporary workers and “independent contractors” to evade paying legally required wages and benefits.

In the Western Hemisphere, there were rival pro- and anti-government demonstrations in Venezuela, where right-wing US-backed parties are seeking to take control of popular opposition to the bourgeois government of President Nicholas Maduro, who succeeded the late Hugo Chavez.

Puerto Rico was virtually shut down by a May Day strike against austerity measures imposed by the government of Governor Ricardo Rosselló. Demonstrators blocked roads to enforce a general strike while denouncing the US financial control board overseeing the Rosselló administration. Police fired tear gas and smoke bombs and used pepper spray.

In the United States, May Day is not observed as a workers’ holiday. Instead, the first Monday in September was designated as “Labor Day” more than a century ago in order to separate American workers from socialistic movements overseas.

But there were widespread protests nonetheless, with thousands turning out in every major city in demonstrations to defend immigrant workers and oppose the Trump administration’s attacks on Hispanics, Muslims and other immigrants.

By far the largest demonstration took place in Los Angeles, where tens of thousands assembled outside of City Hall. In keeping with the completely conservative character of the official labor movement, the platform at the rally was handed over to capitalist politicians, headed by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Democrat who denounced the anti-immigrant policies of the Trump administration while saying nothing about the reactionary policies of the Obama administration, which deported more undocumented workers than any previous US government.

May Day demonstration in Los Angeles

A handful of right-wing pro-Trump demonstrators faced off across a street corner, chanting “USA! USA!” while Los Angeles police established a line between them and the much larger crowd of pro-immigrant marchers.

Thousands took part in protests in other California cities, including San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland, where the docks were shut down by a longshoremen’s walkout in solidarity with the pro-immigrant demonstrations. There was a very large demonstration in Houston, and marches involving thousands in Chicago, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, New York City, Washington DC and Atlanta. Other cities reporting significant protests included Portland, Seattle, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Miami, Boston and Providence, Rhode Island.

One thousand Philadelphia public school teachers did not report for work, many of them taking personal time to join the immigrant rights march and protest going without a raise or a new contract for nearly five years. Temple University students and professors walked out of many classes at 10 a.m. to demand that the college declare itself a sanctuary campus, barring collaboration with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Most of the US rallies were addressed by Democratic Party politicians and union officials who sought to focus popular anger exclusively on President Donald Trump, while concealing the anti-immigrant record of Obama. One rally in Chicago was typical, with Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the US Senate, hailing as a victory the bipartisan agreement on a bill to fund the federal government through September 30 that does not authorize spending sought by Trump to build a wall along the US-Mexico border.

“Today we are passing a budget bill which says there will be no wall, not one penny for a wall,” Durbin declared. “No expansion for an enforcement force for ICE and others, and no penalties for sanctuary cities. We were able to achieve that in the minority.”

The truth is that the budget bill authorizes $1.52 billion in beefed-up measures against immigrants, including more Border Patrol officers and the use of drone surveillance against refugees seeking to cross the border.

Trump’s North Korea Policy: Regional Implications

Sandip Kumar Mishra

US President Donald Trump has displayed an inconsistent and dangerous approach towards North Korean provocations, prompting even Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to advise restraint. This is because the consequences of a major conflict on the Korean peninsula, which would definitely have nuclear dimensions, are going to be disastrous for the whole region.

The present episode of crisis was caused by the Trump administration’s attempt to move the redline over the North Korean nuclear and missile programmes. Earlier, after North Korean nuclear and missile tests, the US used to bring more stringent economic and diplomatic sanctions on Pyongyang through UNSC resolutions. However, the new US administration is threatening to use ‘preemptive strikes’ on North Korean installations if any tests are conducted. Also, the US has been considering provisions of ‘secondary sanctions' on countries, bodies and individuals that deal with North Korea. If North Korea acknowledges and accepts this new redline, they will be unable to have more nuclear and missile tests. In all probability therefore the Kim Jong-un regime will not accept this proposition, at least not before some diplomatic gains are achieved through dialogue and negotiation. However, the US is not ready to accept any form of dialogue with North Korea, until the latter “refrains from these provocative tests.”

In dealing with the ‘unpredictable’ North Korea, Donald Trump has been trying to convey that he is also equally unpredictable. He also wants to show that his threats are not empty by firing missiles on Syria and detonating the ‘mother of all bombs’ in Afghanistan. The US has also brought back the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to the Korean Peninsula, along with the nuclear-powered submarine USS Michigan. Bilateral and multilateral military exercises between the US, South Korea, Japan, France and Britain are underway around the Korean peninsula. The US has also hastened to install the Terminal High Altitude Arial Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea. All these measures are meant to pressurise North Korea into accepting the new US redline.

Although the US has threatened to ‘go alone’ on the North Korean issue, Washington knows that the role of Beijing is going to be very critical. For the same reason, Donald Trump likely tried to reach some understanding with Chinese President Xi Jinping in dealing with North Korea during their recent summit meet in Florida, and over the phone conversations that followed. The US has been attempting to appease Beijing by promising trade concessions and taking Chinese security interests in the region into consideration.

However, the game that the Trump administration appears to be playing is devoid of any understanding of the complex regional context. Donald Trump needs to understand that ‘blinking first’ is not an option for North Korea’s belligerent regime. The North Korean strategy so far has been to defy any pressure and sanctions, and assert its independent security posture. Any moderation in this strategy in response to pressure would lead to the regime’s total strangulation and is thus not an acceptable proposition. Trump must also understand that North Korea is not Syria, for at least three reasons. First, North Korea possesses nuclear weapons along with their delivery systems. Second, North Korea’s survival is ensured by China. While China is not in favour of North Korean nuclear development or its provocative behaviour, it is definitely committed to the country’s survival. Third, any preemptive strike on North Korea would invite North Korean assured retaliation on Seoul, where one-fourth of the South Korean population resides, in addition to fifteen thousand US soldiers.

The US has also been unable to understand that China is not going to change its approach towards North Korea because of Donald Trump’s cheap inducements. Instead, it seeks bilateral trust based on a long-term common vision for the region. China has consistently been imposing economic sanctions on North Korea aimed at its nuclear and missile programmes, in tandem with the international community’s efforts. However, it also continues to have significant trade linkages with North Korea that help the regime survive. China’s recent ban on North Korean coal imports has more to do with its compliance with UNSC resolution 2321 and less with a bilateral understanding with the US. China’s approach was made clear by Foreign Minister Wang Yi in his speech at the UNSC on 28 April, when he called for dialogue and diplomacy on the North Korean crisis rather than military threats and arms build-ups. Trump’s redlines thus carry with them huge consequences.

The US administration’s approach has also irked South Korea, one of its allies in the region. South Korea feels that although Trump has unilaterally determined his North Korea policy, it will have far-reaching regional consequences. In addition, Trump has asked South Korea for US$1 billion for the deployment of THAAD, and has hastened the process of deployment when there is no elected leader in the country. The South Korean media has in fact emphasised that through his behaviour, Trump has threatened not only North but also South Korea. When the new South Korean leadership takes over in less than two weeks, it is likely that the very alliance with the US will be reviewed.

In this scenario, Trump’s unfolding game in the Korean Peninsula is, at best, not going to work, and at worst, may have devastating consequences for the region. Many in the region are of the opinion that the real danger is not from Kim Jong-un doing something catastrophic but Trump making a foolish move. It is only hoped that good sense prevails and a modus vivendi is evolved to deal with the crisis.

Rumour of Triumph

Bibhu Prasad Routray

It took 25 corpses of security force personnel for the government to accept, albeit reluctantly, that its counter-Maoist strategy needs a review. It took this attack - the worst in seven years - for the government to fill up the top position in the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), over 90 battalions of which are deployed against the left-wing extremists, after three months. Only after the dead were declared as martyrs have top officials accepted the pitiable conditions in which the CRPF and other forces have been operating in the extremist affected areas, which impact their performance and morale. 

In view of all these, it is imperative to wonder if the strategy to get rid of 'the biggest internal security challenge', notwithstanding the premature official declarations of victory, has been anything but sincere.  

On 24 April, the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) carried out its third big strike of 2017 in Sukma district, ambushing a team of the CRPF that was providing protection to a road construction project. Several accounts of how a Maoist group in waiting attacked the CRPF team have emerged. Pending a proposed investigation by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), it appears that there was no violation of the standard operating procedure (SOP) by the forces who walked in two separate lines, were off the road and maintained the required distance from one another. And yet, taking advantage of the terrain and using a team of women cadres who had arrived at the scene in the guise of villagers, the extremists managed to inflict serious losses on the forces and loot a large number of weapons from the dead personnel.

Instrumentalities of war are never in short supply in Bastar. According to official data, over 65 battalions of security force personnel comprising 45,000 central armed police forces and 20,000 state police personnel are posted in Bastar region alone. This is a huge amassment of forces in terms of area and adversaries, albeit still inadequate in terms of counter-insurgency (COIN) necessities. As many as 58 mine-protected vehicles and 42 bullet-proof vehicles are available in Chhattisgarh to the paramilitary forces. 

Where then is the force-centric policy going wrong? Why is such a huge amassment of trained forces with weapons being unable to overcome the insurgency? Is it lack of intelligence? Or is it the lack of popular support? In COIN parlance, both amount to the same. Alternatively, is it a fatigued and disinterested force with which the country is attempting to win the war? These are valid questions. While there could be other reasons, in this commentary, let us briefly examine how two of the important factors - lack of popular support, and commitment of forces - could have affected the goal of making Chhattisgarh in particular free of left-wing extremism.

 

Mission 2016 and its follow up Mission 2017 are unique contraptions of the Chhattisgarh police for making the state Maoist free. Apart from the customary emphasis on development projects such as road construction, the objective relies on a Winning Hearts and Minds (WHAM) strategy of extending state support among the tribal population. While the raising of a Bastariya battalion enlisting tribal youth into the CRPF is one of the easier ways of the state's inroads into the tribal areas, gaining trust of the people has turned out to be a much more difficult exercise. The CPI-Maoist in a statement said that the attack was a revenge for the CRPF's sexual harassment of tribal women. Many would dismiss such claim of the extremist outfit. However, the deep distrust between the police forces and the tribal population, which has been exacerbated by poorly led and often irresponsible personnel indulging in excesses on the tribal population remains a fact of life that translates into poor intelligence gathering. 

 

Post-attack, a former CRPF chief narrated the perils of exposing his personnel by deploying them in routine infrastructure project duties. He expressed his frustrations about how a file containing the CRPF's recommendations regarding laying roads faster is awaiting the Chhattisgarh government's decision for years. A series of allegations regarding lack of cooperation from the police and lack of poor camp conditions have been made by CRPF personnel and officers who also have talked about their frustration regarding implementing unproductive policies made by security advisors in Delhi. It appears that in spite of over a decade-and-a-half of operations against the extremists, strategy, synergy, and commitment continue to be the missing elements among the forces.  

There is, however, little prospect that the reliance on a force-centric policy would be given up. Using the military arm of the state, even with all the persisting weaknesses, is a far easier option for the government to exercise than to evolve a more nuanced approach of reenergising the bureaucracy and involving the tribals in the decision making processes. Unsurprisingly, the new CRPF chief has spoken of a new strategy to dominate the area. The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs apparently has provided the forces with a hit list of senior Maoist leaders. The Chhattisgarh police have offered a reward for punishing the perpetrators of the attack. It is not easy to surmise that such objectives would be achieved without repercussions on the civilian population. Would not that then add to the potency of the CPI-Maoist is a relevant question.

The “New World” is Ancient

Paul C. Bermanzohn

“Western civilization’ is neither.”

– Cedric Robinson

Recent evidence suggests that people have lived on North America for over 130,000 years. This should give us perspective on some of the problems we face and on the absurd claims that things can’t change, even as they have. We need to reconsider what we mean by human nature.

Any effort to change the world, confronts the same argument: Things can’t change because human nature won’t allow it. People, we are told, are innately acquisitive and hierarchical, unable to go beyond these limits. Hope for a decent society is doomed by these limitations. This line of unreason has its roots on these shores.

When Columbus landed in what is now the Caribbean, probably on Haiti, this unimagined place was called the “New World.” Perhaps it’s not surprising. Knowing nothing about the area, Europeans assumed there was nothing to know.

It’s called the “New World,” even today. This latest research shows how wrongheaded a conception this is.

It was not and is not a “new” world. It has ancient roots, which we should learn from and respect.

People here developed ways of living together and of living on Mother Earth that Europeans and their descendants have never achieved. If anything, “Western civilization” has gotten worse since Columbus’s fateful landing.

The Original People of Turtle Island (Turtle Island is the earliest name for what is now called North America) might help save the planet’s “civilizations” from annihilation, if the rest of humanity can learn them in time.

Ancient societies here developed ways of living that European newcomers have only strived for – with little success, so far.

Indigenous people lived in basically classless societies. Property was communally owned. Women had real power. And people were able to make up their own minds. They lived this way for thousands of years – until Columbus.

If people lived this way for thousands of years, the argument that human nature won’t permit it is fatally undermined. The “New World’s” ancient roots attest to the vast possibilities we humans have.

Why There Will be no Russophobia Reset

Pepe Escobar

In the end, there was hardly a reset; rather a sort of tentative pause on Cold War 2.0. Interminable days of sound and fury were trudging along when President Trump finally decided NATO is “no longer obsolete”; still, he wants to “get along” with Russia.

Just ahead of meeting US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin had stressed on Russian TV that trust (between Russia and the US) is “at a workable level, especially in the military dimension, but it hasn’t improved. On the contrary, it has degraded.” Emphasis on a pedestrian “workable,” but most of all “degraded” – as in the National Security Council releasing a report essentially accusing Moscow of spreading fake news.

At the apex of the Russia-gate hysteria, even before the extremely the controversial chemical incident in Syria and the subsequent Tomahawk show – arguably a cinematographic show-off — a Trump-conducted reset on Russia was already D.O.A., tomahawked by the Pentagon, Capitol Hill and media-misguided public opinion.

Yet only armchair Dr. Strangeloves would argue it’s in the US national interest to risk a direct hot war against Russia — and Iran — in Syria. Russia has all but won the war in Syria on its own terms; preventing the emergence of an Emirate of Takfiristan.

The notion that Tillerson would be able to issue an ultimatum to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – you’re either with us or with Damascus and Tehran – is laughable. Moscow simply is not going to yield its hard-earned sphere of influence in Southwest Asia to the Trump administration or the US deep state. What Moscow really wanted to know is who’s making Russia policy in Washington. Now they’ve got their answer.

And then, there’s the Big Picture. The Iran-Russia strategic partnership is one of the three key nodes, along with China, in the big story of the young 21st century; Eurasia integration, with Russia and Iran closing the energy equation and China as the investment locomotive.

That leads us to the real heart of the matter: the War Party’s fear of Eurasia integration, which inevitably manifests itself as acute Russophobia.

Russophobia is not monolithic or monochord though. There’s room for some informed dissidence – and even civilized inflections.

Enter Dr. K

Exhibit A is Henry Kissinger, who as a Lifetime Trustee recently spoke at the annual meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Washington.

The Trilateral Commission, created by the late David Rockefeller in 1974, had its members meticulously selected by Dr. Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski – whose whole career has been a slight variation on the overarching theme that the US should always prevent the emergence of a “peer competitor” in Eurasia – or, worse still, as today, a Eurasian alliance.

Kissinger is the only geopolitical practitioner that manages to get President Trump’s undivided attention. He had been, so far, the top facilitator of a dialogue — and possible reset — between Washington and Moscow. I have argued this is part of his remixed balance of power, Divide and Rule strategy – which consists in prying away Russia from China with the ultimate aim of derailing Eurasia integration.

Exhibit A is Henry Kissinger, who as a Lifetime Trustee recently spoke at the annual meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Washington.

The Trilateral Commission, created by the late David Rockefeller in 1974, had its members meticulously selected by Dr. Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski – whose whole career has been a slight variation on the overarching theme that the US should always prevent the emergence of a “peer competitor” in Eurasia – or, worse still, as today, a Eurasian alliance.

Kissinger is the only geopolitical practitioner that manages to get President Trump’s undivided attention. He had been, so far, the top facilitator of a dialogue — and possible reset — between Washington and Moscow. I have argued this is part of his remixed balance of power, Divide and Rule strategy – which consists in prying away Russia from China with the ultimate aim of derailing Eurasia integration.

Kissinger felt compelled to tell his supposedly well-informed audience that Putin is not a Hitler replica, does not harbor imperial desires, and to describe him as a global super-evil is an “error of perspective and substance.”

So Kissinger favors dialogue – even as he insists Moscow cannot defeat Washington militarily. His conditions: Ukraine must remain independent, without entering NATO; Crimea is negotiable. The key problem is Syria: Kissinger is adamant Russia cannot be allowed to become a major player in the Middle East (yet with Moscow backing up Damascus militarily and conducting the Astana peace negotiations, it already is). Implicit in all that is the difficulty of negotiating an overall “package” for Russia.

Now compare Kissinger with Lavrov who, while quoting Dr. K, recently issued a diagnostic that would make him cringe: “The formation of a polycentric international order is an objective process. It is in our common interest to make it more stable and predictable.” Once again, it’s all about Eurasia integration.

Putin was already outlining it, in detail, five years ago, even before the Chinese fully fleshed out the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) concept in 2013. OBOR can certainly be interpreted as an even more ambitious variation of Putin’s idea: “Russia is an inalienable and organic part of Greater Europe and European civilization… That’s why Russia proposes moving towards the creation of a common economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, a community referred to by Russian experts as ‘the Union of Europe’ which will strengthen Russia’s potential in its economic pivot toward the ‘new Asia.'”

The West – or, to be more precise, NATO – vetoed Russia. And that, in a flash, precipitated the Russia-China strategic partnership and its myriad subsequent declinations. It’s this symbiosis that led the recent report by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission to admit China and Russia are experiencing what is arguably their “highest period of bilateral [military] co-operation.”

The War Party never sleeps

Exhibit B, on a par with Kissinger stressing that Putin is no Hitler, reveals the theoretically preeminent professional journal of American diplomacy compelled to publish a quite remarkable essay by Robert English from the University of Southern California, and a Ph.D. in politics at Princeton.

Under careful examination, the inevitable conclusion is that Prof. English did something very simple, but unheard of: with “careful scholarship,” he challenged “the prevailing groupthink” and “thrashed the positions” of virtually the whole US foreign policy establishment addicted to Russophobia.

The Russia-China strategic partnership – uniting the Pentagon’s avowed top two threats to America — does not come with a formal treaty signed with pomp and circumstance. There’s no way to know the deeper terms Beijing and Moscow have agreed upon behind those innumerable Xi-Putin meetings.

It’s quite possible, as diplomats have let it slip, off the record, there may have been a secret message delivered to NATO to the effect that if one of the strategic members is seriously harassed — be it in Ukraine or in the South China Sea – NATO will have to deal with both. As for the Tomahawk show, it may have been a one-off; the Pentagon did give Moscow a heads up and Tillerson, in Moscow, guaranteed the Trump administration wants to keep all communication channels open.

The War Party though never sleeps. Notoriously disgraced neocons, re-energized by Trump’s Tomahawk-with-chocolates show, are salivating over the “opportunity” of an Iraq Shock and Awe remix on Syria.

The War Party’s cause célèbre is still a war on Iran, and that now conflates with the neoliberalcon’s Russophobia – deployed via the currently “disappeared” but certainly not extinct Russia-gate. Yet Russia-gate’s real dark story, for all the hysterics, is actually about the Orwellian surveillance powers of the US deep state, as stressed by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern and whistleblower Bill Binney.

Whatever the practical outcome, in the long run, of the turbulent, two-hour, trilateral Putin-Lavrov-Tillerson meeting, ultimately Russophobia – and its sidekick, Iranophobia – won’t vanish from the US-NATO geopolitical spectrum. Especially now that Trump may have finally shown his real face, a “housebroken dog to neocon dogma.”

The masks, at least, have fallen — and these relentless intimations of Cold War 2.0 should be seen for what they are: the War Party’s primal fear of Eurasia integration.

Abbas Fears the Prisoners’ Hunger Strike

Jonathan Cook

The Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is due to meet Donald Trump in the White House on Wednesday to discuss reviving the long-cold corpse of the peace process.

Back home, things are heating up. There is anger in the West Bank, both on the streets and within the ranks of Abbas’s Fatah movement. The trigger is a two-week-old hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners.

Last Thursday, Palestinians shuttered their businesses in a show of solidarity, and the next day youths clashed with the Israeli army in a “day of rage”.

About a quarter of the 6,500 political prisoners held by Israel – almost all of them in Israeli territory, in violation of international law – are refusing food in protest at their degrading treatment. They want reforms to Israel’s industrial system of incarceration. Some 800,000 Palestinians – 40 per cent of males – have passed through Israel’s cells since 1967.

Israel hopes to break the prisoners’ spirits. It has locked up the leaders in solitary confinement, denied striking inmates access to a lawyer, taken away radios, and last week began confiscating salt rations – the only sustenance along with water the prisoners are taking.

The strike is led by Marwan Barghouti, the most senior Palestinian leader in jail – and the most popular, according to polls.

Abbas is publicly supportive of the strikers, but in private he is said to want the protest over as quickly as possible. Reports at the weekend revealed that he had urged Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, to intercede with America and Israel to help.

In part, Abbas fears the influence of Barghouti, a man often described as the Palestinian Nelson Mandela and seen as Abbas’s likely successor. Notably, the Palestinian president has repeatedly sidelined him within Fatah.

But Abbas is also concerned that the hunger strike will provoke violent clashes in the West Bank with Israeli security forces, damaging his efforts to persuade Trump to back his diplomatic campaign for Palestinian statehood.

Instead, he wants to prove he can snuff out any signs of what Trump might see as “terrorism”. That requires tight security cooperation with Israel.

The visit to Washington and the hunger strike have brought into sharp relief the biggest fault line in the Palestinian national movement.

Abbas’s strategy is strictly top-down. Its starting point is that western states – those that have consistently betrayed the Palestinian people over many decades – can now be trusted to help them attain a state.

From this dubious assumption, Abbas has sought to suppress anything that plays badly in western capitals. Pressure has only intensified under Trump.

By contrast, the “battle of empty stomachs” is evidence of a burgeoning bottom-up strategy, one of mass non-violent resistance. On this occasion, the demands are limited to prison reform, but the strike’s impact could spread.

Not least, the model of protest, should it succeed, might suggest its relevance to a Palestinian public disillusioned with Abbas’s approach. They too are living in cells of Israel’s devising, even if larger, open-air ones.

The starkly different logic of these two strategies is harder than ever to ignore.

To stand a hope of winning over the Trump administration, Abbas must persuade it that he is the sole voice of the Palestinians.

That means he must keep a lid on the hunger strike, encouraging it to fizzle out before prisoners start dying and Palestinian fury erupts across the occupied territories. His approach is reported to be creating severe tensions within Fatah.

Wishing only to add to those difficulties, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded last week that Abbas halt financial aid to the prisoners’ families, calling it compensation for terrorism.

Abbas also feels compelled to assert himself against his Hamas rivals in Gaza. That is why last week he stopped funding the fuel needed to generate electricity there, having recently cut medical services and salaries to Gaza’s civil servants.

His hope is that, as he turns the screws, Hamas will be toppled or forced to submit to his rule.

But more probably, the fissure with Hamas will deepen, forcing the cornered Islamist movement into another bloody confrontation to break free of Israel’s decade-old blockade. These divisions, most Palestinians increasingly understand, weaken rather than strengthen their cause. Mass non-violent resistance such as the hunger strike, by contrast, has the potential to reunite Fatah and Hamas in struggle, and re-empower a weary Palestinian populace.

Reports have suggested that Barghouti has reached a deal with jailed Hamas leaders committing to just such a struggle in the occupied territories once Abbas has departed.

A popular struggle of non-violence – blocking settlement roads, marching to Jerusalem, tearing down walls – would be hard to characterise as terrorism, even for Trump. It is the Israeli army’s nightmare scenario, because it is the only confrontation for which it has no suitable response.

Such a campaign of civil disobedience, however, stands no chance of success so long as Abbas is there to undermine it – and insists on obediently chasing after illusions in Washington.

Nations That Threatened the World

L. Ali Khan

The weapons of mass destruction (WMD) come in three forms, nuclear weapons, biological weapons including toxins, and chemical weapons. Three global treaties prohibit the development and production of the WMD: Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT, 1970), Biological Weapons Convention (BWC, 1975), and Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC, 1977).  The 1970s was a valuable decade for beginning the process of eliminating the WMD. Over the years, some nations have been reluctant to ratify the WMD treaties.

As of May 1, 2017, out of a total of 195 nation-states in the world, 191 are parties to the NPT, 178 are parties to the BWC, and 192 are parties to the CWC.  The BWC is the least subscribed WMD treaty and efforts are underway to bring more nations into its prohibitive orbit.

Ratification and accession bind a nation-state to the fullest extent under a treaty whereas mere signing a treaty imposes some obligations not to defeat the object and purpose of the treaty. International law does not require the two-step process of signing and ratifying treaties. Nations may directly ratify (called accession) a treaty without first signing it.  For example, China ratified the BWC in 1984 without first signing it.  Here I use the word ratification to include accession as well.

Nations that have not ratified the NPT are India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. Nations that have not ratified the CWC are Egypt, Israel, and North Korea. And nations that have not ratified the BWC include Syria, Israel, and North Korea.

Thus, North Korea and Israel are the only two states that have not ratified any of the three WMD treaties.  North Korea has not signed any of the three treaties whereas Israel has signed the CWC but not ratified it. In the absence of international inspections, the quantity and lethality of the WMD in possession of a non-signatory state is only a matter of conjecture.

Dictatorship Doubts

North Korea is the most outlier nation as it has shown no commitment to reject the weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, the political system of North Korea is highly dictatorial with an irremovable leader at the top. Even highly centralized dictatorships may have internal consultation processes and may even display wisdom in foreign policy. Yet the world feels threatened with dictators commanding the WMD.

In fact, a political dictatorship with an irremovable leader at the top undermines the value of ratification of the WMD treaties. For example, Iran has ratified all the WMD treaties. Yet, many nations and international organizations, including the UN Security Council, have been skeptical about the Iranian commitment to the NPT. Likewise, though Syria signed the CWC in 2013, the accusations that the Syrian government used chemical weapons in April 2017 seem credible because President Bashar Assad is an irremovable ruler.

In 2003, the US invasion of Iraq was defended on the fabricated pretext that Saddam Hussein, a brutal dictator, had been secretly developing nuclear weapons even though Iraq had ratified the NPT in 1969. Moreover, though Iraq had ratified the CWC in 1991, the charges that Iraq used chemical weapons against the Kurds were credible. Saddam’s despotism devalued Iraq’s ratification of the NPT and the CWC. In 2009, three years after the execution of Saddam, Iraq ratified the BWC.

Democratic Forbearance

It appears that the world is willing to tolerate the WMD in the possession of democratic nations. India and Pakistan have not signed or ratified the NPT, even though both are parties to the CWC and BWC.  In 1998, India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in a tit-for-tat pattern. As compared to Pakistan, India’s nuclear program is much more acceptable to the world and many nations are willing to endorse India for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. This is so because India has demonstrated a solid commitment to democracy whereas Pakistan’s democracy has remained unpredictable and prone to military takeovers. General Pervez Musharraf roams freely in the world while Pakistan’s judicial system has been unable to prosecute him for his well-documented crimes against democracy. If Pakistan’s democracy is overthrown again, a case might be made for the de-nuclearization of Pakistan.

Likewise, the world is extremely nervous about North Korea but less so about Israel even though both nations are similar in their non-adherence to the WMD treaties. Israel has been a democracy, though the world is critical of Israel’s occupation of and settlements in the Palestinian territories.

The ideal setup for a peaceful world envisages democratic nations that have ratified all the WMD treaties. Even a better world is conceivable.  Given the historically-evidenced inclinations of the human species toward destruction, a better world without the WMD remains an elusive but a worthwhile ambition.

North Korea’s Military Gambit

Binoy Kampmark

“All options for responding to future provocation must remain on the table.  Diplomatic and financial levers of power will be backed up by a willingness to counteract North Korean aggression if necessary.”

Rex Tillerson, Apr 28, 2017

The theatre unfolding in various international forums regarding North Korea is garnering top prices for front seats.  The press corps await the next announcement by the Trump administration on what it will do to the regime in Pyongyang.  Prompt, merciless incineration?  Tactical strike applied with a surgeon’s precision?  All options, we are told with weekly and increasing urgency, are on the table.

The game being played by the DPRK’s Kim Jong-un is one of luring the unpredictable beast out of his lair, notably given the recent statements by US Vice President Mike Pence that the era of “strategic patience” was over.

The individual who is behaving erratically here is less the cruel plump man in a boiler suit than US President Donald Trump, who is forging a fictional time line of good conduct his North Korean counterpart has no interest in following.  A good argument can be made that the ploy by the DPRK is an effort to bring stability of sorts to the international system, rendering the unpredictable more evenly predictable.

The confusion here has become a constant feature of the Trump administration, and also risks pushing the DPRK into a corner of crumbling desperation. To Reuters, Trump was playing up the delightfully dangerous prospect of war with the regime.  “There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict in North Korea.  Absolutely.”  All prime time television stuff.

On April 28, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged members of the UN Security Council to inflict “painful” measures on Pyongyang.  “Failing to act now on the most pressing security issue in the world may bring catastrophic consequences.”

Tillerson gives the impression that existential annihilation is around the corner if nothing is done, begging the question about who is the agent behind initiating that move.  Given the US record on regime change and regional destabilisation, that question is already well and truly answered, though the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was attempting to pour oil on the waters with suggestions that the crisis was no single entity’s fault.  “The more we bide our time,” warned a sombre Tillerson in tones of biblical concern, “the sooner we will run out of it.”

The smoke signals from the White House remain confused, a mixture of belligerence and doom, coupled with a desire to have talks about the North Korean nuclear program, with Pyongyang, if necessary.  This entire orientation is proving confusing to other members of the UN Security Council trying to pin down the agenda.

To that end, Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, makes an important point: “If Trump and his team insist on a North Korean commitment to ‘de-nuclearization’ before talks can begin, other members of [the] council will see the US call for ‘engagement’ as unserious and will not support new… sanctions.”

Time is going nowhere, nor is Pyongyang’s surge towards security in the face of a country that refuses to reassure it.  As this takes place, countries with nuclear arsenals persist in modernising, rather than eliminating them. Other theatres of potential nuclear conflict – India and Pakistan, for instance – pose potentially a graver threat with the lowering of threshold deployments by the latter.

North Korea, by way of contrast, is treated as a supreme villain with powers of global reach, however contingent these might be.  It is treated, as Robert Wood, US ambassador to the UN Committee on Disarmament does, as the single greatest threat to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, when numerous other candidates might well step up to that plate. Take, for instance, India, Pakistan and Israel, all states with nuclear arsenals, none of whom cared to join the NPT party.

The recent test failings in the ballistic missile program are treated as confirmations that the DPRK is getting closer to its aim.  In the words of US Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris, “Just as Thomas Edison is believed to have failed 1,000 times before successfully inventing the light bulb, so, too, Kim Jong-un will keep trying.” (Bullies always like boosting the fighting credentials of their victims.)

Yet again, the empire warns of dangers unseen, uncalculated, and unknown, hoping that a pretext for attack might be made out. It is the same empire that deploys, along with Russia, more than 1,500 strategic warheads capable of being delivered on bombers and missiles across the globe.

Most of all, the various ballistic missile tests are timed to aggravating perfection, raising The Donald’s hair while driving Tillerson to distraction. But the true, playground bully here remains as it has always been: the United States, self-appointed global policeman and misguided guardian.

The U.S. Political Scene: Whiteness And The Legitimacy Crisis of Global Capitalism

Salvador Rangel & Jeb Sprague-Silgado

The U.S. political scene has been undergoing a facelift in an effort to restore the decreasing legitimacy of the transnationally-oriented capitalist class. This transformation has been characterized by a rightwing that has sought to portray itself as economically nationalistic in an attempt to expand support among the working class (primarily, among working class whites) whose economic stability has dwindled during the neoliberal era.

Why is this the case?

Beginning in the 1970’s, faced with declining rates of profit and accumulation, as well as rising international competition capital needed to break free from the national constraints that had been put on it during the fordist-keynesian “new deal” era. One of those “constraints” had been the responsibility of ensuring the social reproduction of its national labor force. “Going global” has allowed capitalists to do away with this concern, as they now could tap into an ever-growing global pool of marginalized workers.

Rise of Capitalist Globalization

By the late 20th century and into the 21st century new technologies and organizational advancements allowed companies to more easily operate across borders. New transnational networks of production and finance began to form.

Capitalist globalization had a major impact upon workers, not just in the global south, but in the ‘developed world’ as well.  As is often the case, the most marginalized workers feel the effects of anti-worker policies earlier and deeper than those in more stable and better-paid positions. Yet as globalization deepened it also began to undermine many of the once-stable unionized industries.

The neoliberal order resulted in a new reality for many white workers, who previously were guaranteed a set of benefits that they had come to expect (benefits that were both material and ideological). Global capitalism and neoliberal policies resulted for many of them job insecurity and wage stagnation, but also in a reduction in the “wages of whiteness”: the subjective feeling of superiority over negatively racialized groups—one of these has been rage against workers from other parts of the world perceived as the culprits.

The U.S. Political Scene

Within the U.S. political scene into the 1990s conservative and liberal establishments together developed new mechanisms of capital accumulation while chipping away at the power of labor, such as NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement).  On the conservative side: xenophobic candidates like Pat Buchanan and anti-NAFTA business leaders such as Ross Perot were sidelined. On the liberal side the remnants of strong labor voices were silenced. A grand bargain was struck between a conservative militaristic establishment and a liberal establishment espousing a sort of anti-worker multiculturalism (with its growing identitarian acceptance of peoples from different ethnicities and sexual orientations, alongside viewing workers as cogs to be seamlessly integrated into a new globalized economy).  Under these circumstances profits grew tremendously for transnational capital (aided especially by newfangled financial mechanisms).  Meanwhile workers faced stagnation, dispossession, and heightened job insecurity.

In the wake of the biggest financial crisis for generations (2007–2008) and with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan raging on (2001– ), the liberal establishment failed to make any substantial adjustments. Rather than alter the course (or ideology), the response of the liberal establishment has been to engage in an amplified multiculturalism under the umbrella of the system—to call on hope, to engage in some limited reforms (such as the affordable healthcare act, which while a positive first step only went a small part of the way toward the health care access that the population needs). Even these reforms (to partially offset the growing unaffordability of health care for lower income Americans) were fought tooth and nail by conservative forces. On other issues such as foreign policy, the Democrats in power largely locked arms with their Republican counterparts: promoting interventionist policies abroad and the swelling tentacles of a global intelligence apparatus.

This brings us up to the 2016 Hillary Clinton candidacy and her salivating over policies of military interventionism and new supranational treaties (like the TPP, the Trans Pacific Partnership). This essentially set her campaign up as a defender of the status quo, a fact strategically exploited by the xenophobic come-populist rhetoric of the Donald Trump campaign.  While losing the popular vote by close to three million, the electoral arena (the best one that money can buy) played out through the country’s undemocratic Electoral College system (impacted as well by decades of gerrymandering and mass voter suppression), allowing the Republican Party’s astonishing return to power; with the flipping of only a few rust-belt districts tipping the scales in Trump’s favor.

It is important to understand how the forces behind Trump (and their ideological mechanisms) are now operating through the U.S. political scene. It is within this context that we need to make sense of the political reversals that have taken place for the Democratic establishment, and the GOP’s current domination of the country’s federal branches.

We wish to argue that the reason for which Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” and rhetoric resonated with so many white workers and middle strata is because the ideological terrain had in part already been prepared for it.  The field in which Trump planted the seed of xenophobia and hatred among white people had been tilled by neoliberalism and fertilized with money from the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch– and other ruling elites. In fact it has roots also in the nation’s formative history, through the violence against negatively racialized populations, most notably against Native and African Americans. In this sense, Trump’s slogan and campaign promise to “Make America great again” is not new or original at all, but merely the newest iteration of the Tea Party’s plan to “take the country back”, tapping into the same sentiment of aggrieved entitlement.

The Trumpian-right also mixes into this sentiment a rightist populist critique of globalization. Yet, Trump’s election has not come to represent a rupture but rather a continuation of strategies deployed by the transnational capitalist class (TCC), with a different guise.

Beneath the surface of the U.S. political system one can see how power is entrenched. Barack Obama’s inner circle was made up largely by members of the Council on Foreign Relations, while Hillary Clinton’s campaign was backed by “enlightened” finance tycoons and liberal-hawk leaning sectors of the TCC, such as Warren Buffett, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg and others. While the populist rhetoric of Trump’s inner circle may sound more anti-establishment, its members are blatantly ultra-elitist and are thoroughly entwined with global business interests.

With recent U.S. wars unpopular and disastrous, during his election campaign Trump criticized some of the wars and interventions launched under George W. Bush and Obama. He differentiated between what he described as “smart” and “dumb” wars. One brief sliver of hope was the possibility of detente, in which the world’s two major nuclear-armed powers could have begun to roll back tensions. Yet, criticized ceaselessly by his liberal opponents and in the mainstream media as “Putin’s puppet”, by Trump’s third month in office his foreign policy had largely fallen into line with the military-industrial-security-state apparatus.

Trump today boasts of improving the lives of U.S. workers, but there is little indication that he intends to materially improve conditions for anybody other than his ruling elite buddies—just the opposite– as his proposed plans seek to dump billions more into the Pentagon budget, while eliminating state subsidized lunches for impoverished youth, privatizing education, and striping subsidized healthcare from tens of millions of lower income people.

His electoral win in the rust belt states though was an indication of the discontent among many white workers. To hold onto this support he will need to keep them on board. Here he appears to be trying to convince capital not just by his rhetoric but also through various tax breaks and subsidies to engage in some limited labor-capital compromises in the rust belt, in Michigan, Ohio, and even Wisconsin.  Holding these states could help to ensure GOP victories on the national level for many years to come.  A South-Mid-West-Rust-Belt Electoral College strategy clearly appears to be the GOP’s best winning strategy.

Right-populism as a strategy for offsetting legitimacy crisis among aggrieved white workers

The ruling class is engaging in various ideological strategies to renew its legitimacy. Key among these are ideological mechanisms of splitting and disorganizing the working classes, including the old tried-and-true racism, jingoism and xenophobia. And as under Trump a wing of the transnationally oriented elite sings the song of protectionism to confuse and recruit.  With this in mind, his administration is attempting to make inroads with some labor unions especially those present in the rust-belt.

The pressures and structural features of the U.S. political scene bend heavily in favor of capital, and in particular transnational capital.  State leaders need access to capital, and capital is in the hands of transnational business people tied into the global economy.  Politicians must still appeal to their home audiences, through constant declaration of patriotism and other theatrics. This is the constant juggling act of major political actors in the country – attempting to hold legitimacy whilst deepening practices that will allow transnational capital’s continual profitability.

In apparent contradiction, Trump’s strategy of rejecting the TPP, has helped to varnish himself as an “economic nationalist”, a fighter for U.S. workers. This was key for his winning the Rust Belt, where so many manufacturing jobs have been lost over recent decades, many that had been held by white workers.

The TPP symbolized the most unconstrained attempt by transnationally oriented elites to impose policies on an array of countries (including the U.S.) where the major beneficiaries are transnational corporations. Does Trump’s opposing the TPP mean that he opposes transnational capital?  Quite to the contrary, it represents an alternative strategy: while a partial pump on the breaks, he extends at the same time many other factors beneficial to the TCC (lowering taxes, gutting of regulations and environmental protections, expanding military-industrial-prison contracts, while promoting a host of new bilateral agreements that can aid cross-border accumulation). All of this entails reproducing the dominant order, and under a refurbished conservative ideology.

The intensifying crisis of legitimacy has become highlighted by the emergence of various political currents, and not just on the right. Prominent amongst these new entities are the movement that evolved around the presidential candidacy of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (supported by anti-war politicians such as TulsiGabbard), which showed that a social democrat could obtain a large number of votes in the U.S.  The Sanders’ campaign was inspiring in many ways, however, he failed to make a systematic critique of U.S. militarism. Also, while he criticized “crony capitalism”, a deeper structural critique of capitalism was of course absent.
Yet the fate of the 2016 presidential election was rooted partly in the broader crisis of legitimacy of global capitalism. As Clinton and Obama were standard-bearers of the status quo, Trump was able to exploit this through his populist rhetoric and rightist critique of globalism.

In early 2017, following Clinton’s defeat in the Electoral College, Sanders’ emboldened progressive current attempted to wrestle away the party’s leadership. Yet the establishment within the party prevailed – one that can mock Trump, but not provide even a social democratic alternative. The power-brokers within the DNC wager that growing revulsion with Trump, as his fake populism is exposed, will be enough to rejuvenate them and that fear-mongering and guilt-tripping will ward off any challenge from the likes of Sanders.

By no means accidentally, the calls to take the country back (to “make it great again”) come at the expense of already racially oppressed groups, and at the cost of women and children who will be hurt by cuts to social programs. Scapegoating is important in the U.S. political scene, especially as the transnational capitalist class will not easily reverse the policies that benefit them. The Trump-right has sought to make up for the loss in the material wages of white workers through an increase in their “public and psychological wage” (as W.E.B. Du Bois described it) —via the promotion of racism and xenophobia.

As the anti-migrant rhetoric intensifies, such as reflected in the rise of a neo-fascistic “alt-right”, the goal of increasing the value of citizenship and whiteness can be observed when we compare Obama and Trump’s immigration policies. Obama became known as the “Deporter-in-Chief” because he deported so many people. It is possible that Trump may deport more people than Obama did, but, even if not, he will do this in a much more visible and dramatic way – similarly to what he attempted with the Muslim ban. The effects of the policies will have real consequences for migrants, just as Obama’s did, but a large part of the harm will come from a more blatant normalization of bigotry.
In Conclusion
Relying upon recycled mantras of xenophobia and nationalism, the Trumpian right seeks to head off the legitimacy crisis of transnational capital. However rather than propose an alternative to transnational capital, they propose an alternative strategy for reproducing it. Also disconcerting are the growing threats of war, as neo-conservative groups (so heavily involved in the U.S. war crimes of recent decades) appear to have reasserted their influence over the white house.

Progressive, left, and social movement forces in the U.S. need to build on successes of the past as well as move beyond them, taking on, for instance, a more pro-active position against militarism and a deeper critique of capitalism. Reaching out across racial and gender lines to working and lower income people, such a movement cannot allow for itself to fall under the hegemony of corporatist political actors. Rather it must be a project that provides a real fight back to the Trumpian right and the permanent war state it now inhabits.