Simplifiying U.S. Proposals to Resolve the World Conflagrations

Dan Lieberman

From Pyongyang to Kabul, Damascus, Sana’a, on to Tripoli and in scattered parts of Asia and Africa, the United States’ policies for containing violence and achieving peace have been mostly counterproductive and intensified conflicts. The complex mixture of wars, threats, regime change, sanctions, posturing, demonizing, and vituperation have evidently been ineffective in resolving the world’s endless conflagrations. Has something been overlooked, or is it possible that U.S. participation in the solutions has made them more difficult? Instead of instituting repetitive challenges that make others roar, can a soothing and comforting tone subdue the most recalcitrant? Are the solutions to world conflagrations complex or do they need simple analysis and simplified applications?

Vietnam

Today’s Vietnam answers the latter question. The 1954 Geneva Conference Final Declaration provided for a general election in all of Vietnam. Scheduled for July 1956, it had as its purpose the creation of a unified Vietnamese state. Because they suspected a supposed antagonistic North Vietnamese would win, U.S. and South Vietnamese administrations prevented the election. Result of the U.S. complex adjustment to the ballot box was 15 years of a civil war in Vietnam with deep U.S. involvement, casualties in the millions, destruction throughout Vietnam and a North Vietnamese victory. If the U.S. had applied a basic and simple solution to the Vietnamese conflict, which allowed and supported the agreed upon voting by the competing Vietnamese, the outcome would have been the same, except for the savings of American and Vietnamese lives, and no need for 5 years of ruthless war. A short civil war might have happened; however, if the South could not win with U.S. support, how much war could it wage by itself?

Simplified Proposals to Resolve the World Conflagrations

Having observed the twisted logic by which past U.S. administrations approached the conflict in the Vietnam peninsula, is it possible that similar shallow thinking, which led to inept policies, has impeded resolution of similar conflicts? Because violence and military challenges are being used to resolve the escalating conflicts throughout the globe, should not more simplified and less aggressive approaches be surveyed and determined if they can serve to resolve the world conflagrations. Features of that determination modify current U.S. thinking:

(1) Rather than concluding nations want to confront U.S. military power, realize nations fear military power and desire peaceful relations with the powerful United States.

(2) Rather than attempting to steer adversaries to a lose position, steer them to a beneficial position.

(3) Rather than denying nations the basic requirements for survival, assist their populations in times of need.

(4) Rather than provoking nations to military buildup and action, assuage them into feeling comfortable and unthreatened.

(5) Rather than challenging by military threat, show willingness to negotiate to a mutually agreed solution.

(6) Rather than interfering in domestic disputes, recognize the sovereign rights of all nations to solve their own problems.

(7) Rather than relying on incomplete information, purposeful myths, and misinterpretations, learn to understand the vagaries and seemingly irrational attitudes of sovereign nations whose cultures produce different mindsets.

This complete report, dispatched in separate articles, will examine simplified proposals to resolve conflicts in the following nations:

Democratic Republic of North Korea (DPRK)

Syria

Afghanistan

Iraq

Yemen

Libya

Iran

Russia

The reports start with an article on North Korea.

Note: Incorporates information from previous AIternative Insight articles.

Democratic Republic of North Korea (DPRK)

During the 60+ years that the U.S. has engaged North Korea, Uncle Sam has pushed the little impoverished state to become a military superpower, with ballistic missiles, nuclear weapons and a developing capability to strike U.S. shores. By signing the 1994 Agreed Framework, the United States agreed to “provide formal assurances to the DPRK against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the U.S.” Reneging, in a tit-for tat manner, on agreements to supply the Hermit Kingdom with two nuclear reactors, temporary fuel, and food in trade for the North halting its nuclear program, the U.S. provoked North Korea into become a nuclear armed nation. From the north’s perspective, the hostile nature of Uncle Sam’s rhetoric did not “provide formal assurances to the DPRK against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the U.S.”

Evidently, the United States had suspicions that the North did not intend to halt its nuclear activities after receiving the agreed food and fuel. Evidently, North Korea concluded the United States was stalling in its promise to supplying fuel and food as its part of the bargain and decided to go ahead until the U.S. fulfilled its commitments. Faulty behavior from the two nations provoked their eventual confrontation.

Did it matter if the deprived DPRK population received needed food and fuel, even if their country’s leaders violated the agreements? Testing the leadership’s veracity would have settled the issue. If the North Koreans received the goods and continued in their nuclear preparations, then the U.S. could act upon a moral high ground, with definite evidence of North Korea’s duplicity, and be more able to conduct a retaliatory policy. However, the U.S. continually antagonized the Kims, promoted regime collapse, and forced them to pursue the nuclear option. The dispatching to oblivion of two dictators who had retreated from developing nuclear weapons – Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gaddafi – sent a clear indication to Kim Jong-un that if he halted his nuclear developments he would assuredly suffer a similar ignominious fate.

Can a revised and basic plan reverse the course of North Korea’s belligerent attitude?

Definitely. Why would a resource-limited nation want to waste resources for military developments? What does North Korea gain by challenging the United States, except committing itself to be demolished one day? The obvious explanation for North Korea’s excessive attention to military prowess is its potential as a deterrent against attack. Having military maneuvers by foreign powers off your coasts, and having troops from an antagonistic nation stationed close to your borders generates fear. What would any country do that has been characterized by the world’s major military power as part of an ‘axis of evil?’ It would develop deterrents to protect itself against threats. It would ensure energy reserves and create a military force that counters nuclear powers. It would develop nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction. Political strategists recite a “nuclear bee-sting” alternative, in which smaller states obtain a nuclear weapon to deter major military action against them. North Korean leaders are demonstrating that the “nuclear bee-sting” proposition fits their strategy of preventing a U.S. military confrontation on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea is not threatening the U.S; it is challenging the U.S. to leave it alone in its arrangements, which the U.S. rebuts as derangements and misery. Why insult their leaders when they are not demanding that the U.S. reduce its addictive drugs, crime, and the hundreds of ghettos across its wealthy continent. If the United States and South Korea halt their threatening military maneuvers, and the U.S. moves its troops out of South Korea will the North react positively? Of course. Get rid of the sanctions, help North Korea with its energy and food problems, leave them alone to resolve their own domestic problems and the world will witness a different North Korea; not a model democracy or one that respects individual rights, more similar to China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Venezuela and a host of other nations that bother the United States and do not invite military confrontation. One important feature of the new DPRK will be that it will not pose a threat to the U.S.

Repression of political views and suppression of human rights occur in the DPRK, but are they as described by its antagonists?

A previous article, Comprehending North Korea, at http://www.alternativeinsight.com/Comprehending_North_Korea.html, showed that labor camps might exist but their descriptions are speculative and inaccurate; examination of supposed photos by the Free Korea Movement indicated guard posts were only shadows, fenced walls did not cover the entire areas, and dissidents were often escaped common criminals. A well-known South Korean, who had often visited the North told the writer that the camps were labor camps, but not horrific concentration camps – the government sends dissident officials to populate guarded towns and live and work at specific activities outside of the general public environment. Frightful labor camps might exist, but we need reliable evidence of their nature and extent.

For sure, North Korea is distinct from other nations. Despite its offensive and dictatorial regime, the DPRK has some meritorious qualities.

1) Unlike its southern brother, the DPRK uses little of the world’s resources, maybe not entirely by design. It might be naive thinking, but North Korea gives an impression that even if it were a prosperous nation, it would be a nation of conservation, and living without excessive material means.

2) Despite its seemingly oppressive operations, it is a united nation, whose population considers attachment to a singular effort. If this is due to a conditioning, that is not unique. Aren’t Americans conditioned? If not, why do they send their children to kill, be killed, or maimed in senseless wars?

3) Its sports regimens have created world-class gymnasts, engaged the entire nation in athletic games, and provided the most beautiful cheerleaders in the world. The latter have been sensations at World Soccer cup and other international games. See them at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfKiLVzVzoU

4) Its juche political philosophy of self-reliance deserves attention. It is explained by Grace Lee, in Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs, Volume 3 | Number 1 | Spring 2003, P.105 as,

…being the master of revolution and reconstruction in one’s own country. This means holding fast to an independent position, rejecting dependence on others, using one’s own brains, believing in one’s own strength, displaying the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance, and thus solving one’s own problems for oneself on one’s own responsibility under all circumstances,

There is one major problem in the Korean peninsula and it does not involve the United States.

North and South Korea have a local problem of how to unify, which only they can work out. Due to South Korea’s preference to having a relatively weak military, the U.S. has been willing to supply the added muscle, which has internationalized the problem and pushed North Korea toward military confrontation. Does the U.S. care about South Korea’s sovereignty or does it want South Korea as an Asian land base for its military, and is it troubled that a united North and South Korea might be an economic powerhouse that threatens U.S. interests?

North Korea might go down in history as the nation that awakened the world to the consequences of global saber rattling. It has shown that the nuclear world can become one big poker game, in which a challenge to a bluff can be an ‘all win’ and ‘all lose’ proposition. Which New York gambler is willing to play that game when an ‘all win’ doesn’t add much more to what he already has, and an ‘all lose’ means leaving him with nothing. The odds greatly favor America, but the wager return is not worth taking the bet, despite the odds.

Keep it sweet and simple and let the Koreans settle their own problems.

Are Attacks On Israeli Police In East Jerusalem Terrorism?

Rima Najjar

East Jerusalem is occupied by Israel. It is also illegally annexed. It is also illegally separated from the rest of the West Bank by an illegal wall. In Jerusalem, Israel boasts of 220,000 illegal Jewish settlers settled on land confiscated from 300,000 Palestinian residents who are now landless. It boasts of 50,000 illegally displaced Palestinian Arabs and 685 illegally demolished Palestinian homes that have rendered 2,500 Palestinian Arabs homeless [see sources for this this information here]. All of this is legalized through Israel’s jurisprudence, but never legitimized as its fundamental human rights violations are enshrined in military occupation law.

Although the US and Israel both reject the concept of state terrorism (i.e. acts of violence practiced by official state agencies), the above description of Israel’s policies and actions in East Jerusalem should be regarded as terrorist activities. Israel’s violent activities are premeditated, political in nature, and aimed at civilians – i.e., all the factors generally accepted to constitute elements of terrorism.

The nature of Israel’s violence in Jerusalem (as well as in the other occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) is highlighted by the extrajudicial and brutal erasure of Palestinians who exercise their internationally recognized right to resist as described by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/33/24 of 29 November 1978:

2. Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, particularly armed struggle;

Israel has a long history of extrajudicial killing of Palestinians in and outside Palestine and also a history of trying to prevent reporters from exposing its policy of extra-judicial killing. As Palestinian resistance increases, so does the proliferation of Israel’s extrajudicial killings:

Human Rights Watch has documented numerous statements since October 2015, by senior Israeli politicians, including the police minister and defense minister, calling on police and soldiers to shoot to kill suspected attackers, irrespective of whether lethal force is actually strictly necessary to protect life. (Israel/Palestine: Some Officials Backing ‘Shoot-to-Kill’)

So, what to make of the incidents that took place on June 16, 2017, in which three Palestinian young men reportedly conducted two attacks on Israeli police in Jerusalem?

two Palestinians were shot dead after opening fire at and trying to stab a group of Israeli police officers on Friday night, police said. At the other, a Palestinian fatally stabbed a border policewoman before being shot dead by police…. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the stabbing but the militant Palestinian organisation Hamas and the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said the three attackers and were their own members…. Palestinian media named the attackers as Adel Ankush, 18, from a village near Ramallah, Bra’a Salah, 18, from the same village, and Amar Bedui, 31 from Hebron.

Since September 2015, Palestinian assailants have killed 42 Israelis, two visiting Americans and a British student, mainly in stabbing, shooting and vehicular attacks. In that time, about 250 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire. Israel identified most of them as attackers.

Israel blames the violence on incitement by Palestinian political and religious leaders compounded by social media sites that glorify violence and encourage attacks.

Palestinians say it stems from anger over decades of Israeli rule in territory they claim for their state. (Israeli police officer stabbed to death in Jerusalem attack)

The excerpt from The Guardian above lays out all the dimensions of the tragedy, but in the wrong order. The reference to the Islamic State is in the subheading of the article, “Three Palestinians armed with knives and a home-made gun launched two attacks and were shot dead in attack claimed by Islamic State”, but the refutation of it is buried inside the story. The Israeli side of the report is up front, the Palestinian side is literally in the last line of the report. The three young men involved are said to have “entered Jerusalem from the West Bank,” as if occupied and illegally annexed East Jerusalem is not part of the West Bank and as if the village of these young men, Deir Abu Mash’al (Dayr Abu-Mashal/Meshal), northwest of Ramallah does not share the same confiscation of land by Israel and Jewish settlement ringing it as does East Jerusalem.

Here is a little bit of information from the village profile online that will connect the dots for you:

The Israeli government confiscated hundreds of dunums of lands in Deir Abu Mash‟al to open Israeli bypass road no. 465. This road is constructed and open to connect the Israeli settlements surrounding the village with each other. The real threat of bypass roads lies in the buffer zone formed by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) along these roads, extending to approximately 75 m on the roads‟ sides.” (Deir Abu Mash’al (Dayr Abu-Mashal/Meshal), Ramallah gov.)

In all justice, we should be condemning the instigators of the violence in Jerusalem, the brutal oppression and erasure of Palestinians meant to ensure the “Jewish character”, i.e., the “right” of Israel to exist as a Jewish state on stolen land. We should do what the United Nations General Assembly has already done (Resolution A/RES/33/24):

7. Strongly condemns all Governments which do not recognize the right to self-determination and independence of peoples under colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation, notably the peoples of Africa and the Palestinian people.

Mahatma Gandhi, We Need Your Voice Today!

John Avery

If humans are ever to achieve a stable global society in the future, they will have to become much more modest in their economic behavior and much more peaceful in their politics. For both modesty and peace, Gandhi is a useful source of ideas. The problems with which he struggled during his lifetime are extremely relevant to us in the 21st Century, when both nuclear and ecological catastrophes threaten the world.

Avoiding escalation of conflicts

Today we read almost every day of killings that are part of escalating cycles of revenge and counter-revenge, for example in the Middle East. Gandhi’s experiences both in South Africa and in India convinced him that such cycles could only be ended by unilateral acts of kindness and understanding from one of the parties in a conflict. He said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”.

Ends and means

To the insidious argument that “the end justifies the means”, Gandhi answered firmly: ”They say that ‘means are after all means’. I would say that ‘means are after all everything’. As the means, so the end. Indeed, the Creator has given us limited power over means, none over end… The means may be likened to a seed, and the end to a tree; and there is the same inviolable connection between the means and the end as there is between the seed and the tree. Means and end are convertable terms in my philosophy of life.”

Steps towards a nonviolent world

Gandhi’s advocacy of non-violence is closely connected to his attitude towards ends and means. He believed that violent methods for achieving a desired social result would inevitably result in an escalation of violence. The end achieved would always be contaminated by the methods used. He was influenced by Leo Tolstoy with whom he exchanged many letters, and he in turn influenced Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.

The power of truth

Gandhi was trained as a lawyer, and when he began to practice in South Africa, in his first case, he was able to solve a conflict by proposing a compromise that satisfied both parties. Of this result he said, “My joy was boundless. I had learnt the true practice of law. I had learnt to find out the better side of human nature and to enter men’s hearts. I realized that the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder.” When Gandhi became involved with the struggle for civil rights of the Indian minority in South Africa, his background as a lawyer once more helped him. This time his jury was public opinion in England. When Gandhi lead the struggle for reform, he insisted that the means of protest used by his followers should be non-violent, even though violence was frequently used against them. In this way they won their case in the court of public opinion. Gandhi called this method of protest “satyagraha”, a Sanscrit word meaning “the power of truth”. In today’s struggles for justice and peace, the moral force of truth and nonviolence can win victories in the court of world public opinion.

Harmony between religious groups

Gandhi believed that at their core, all religions are based on the concepts of truth, love, compassion, nonviolence and the Golden Rule. When asked whether he was a Hindu, Gandhi answered, “Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew.” When praying at his ashram, Gandhi made a point of including prayers from many religions. One of the most serious problems that he had to face in his efforts to free India from British rule was disunity and distrust, even hate, between the Hindu and Muslim communities. Each community felt that with the British gone, they might face violence and repression from the other. Gandhi made every effort to bridge the differences and to create unity and harmony. His struggles with this problem are highly relevant to us today, when the world is split by religious and ethnic differences.

Solidarity with the poor

Today’s world is characterized by intolerable economic inequalities, both between nations and within nations. 18 million of our fellow humans die each year from poverty-related causes. 1.1 billion people live on less than $1 a day, 2.7 billion live on less than $2. Gandhi’s concern for the poor can serve as an example to us today, as we work to achieve a more equal world. He said, “There is enough for every man’s need, but not for every man’s greed.”

Voluntary reduction of consumption

After Gandhi’s death, someone took a photograph of all his worldly possessions. It was a tiny heap, consisting of his glasses, a pair of sandals, a homespun cloth (his only garment) and a watch. That was all. By reducing his own needs and possessions to an absolute minimum, Gandhi had tried to demonstrate that the commonly assumed connection between wealth and merit is false. This is relevant today, in a world where we face a crisis of diminishing resources. Not only fossil fuels, but also metals and arable land per capita will become scarce in the future. This will force a change in lifestyle, particularly in the industrialized countries, away from consumerism and towards simplicity. Gandhi’s example can teach us that we must cease to use wealth and “conspicuous consumption” as a measure of merit.

Gandhian economics

In his autobiography, Mahatma Gandhi says: “Three moderns have left a deep impression on my life and captivated me: Raychandbhai (the Indian philosopher and poet) by his living contact; Tolstoy by his book ‘The Kingdom of God is Within You’; and Ruskin by his book ‘Unto This Last’.” Ruskin’s book, “Unto This Last”, which Gandhi read in 1904, is a criticism of modern industrial society. Ruskin believed that friendships and warm interpersonal relationships are a form of wealth that economists

have failed to consider. He felt that warm human contacts are most easily achieved in small agricultural communities, and that therefore the modern tendency towards centralization and industrialization may be a step backward in terms of human happiness. While still in South Africa, Gandhi founded two religious Utopian communities based on the ideas of Tolstoy and Ruskin, Phoenix Farm (1904) and Tolstoy Farm (1910).

Because of his growing fame as the leader of the Indian civil rights movement in South Africa, Gandhi was persuaded to return to India in 1914 and to take up the cause of Indian home rule. In order to reacquaint himself with conditions in India, he travelled tirelessly, now always going third class as a matter of principle.

During the next few years, Gandhi worked to reshape the Congress Party into an organization which represented not only India’s Anglicized upper middle class but also the millions of uneducated villagers who were suffering under an almost intolerable burden of poverty and disease. In order to identify himself with the poorest of India’s people, Gandhi began to wear only a white loincloth made of rough homespun cotton. He traveled to the remotest villages, recruiting new members for the Congress Party, preaching non-violence and “firmness in the truth”, and becoming known for his voluntary poverty and humility. The villagers who flocked to see  him began to call him “Mahatma” (Great Soul).

Disturbed by the spectacle of unemployment and poverty in the villages, Gandhi urged the people of India to stop buying imported goods, especially cloth, and to make their own. He advocated the reintroduction of the spinning wheel into village life, and he often spent some hours spinning himself. The spinning wheel became a symbol of the Indian independence movement, and was later incorporated into the Indian flag.

The movement for boycotting British goods was called the “Swadeshi movement”. The word Swadeshi derives from two Sanskrit roots: Swa, meaning self, and Desh, meaning country. Gandhi described Swadeshi as “a call to the consumer to be aware of the violence he is causing by supporting those industries that result in poverty, harm to the workers and to humans or other creatures.”

Gandhi tried to reconstruct the crafts and self-reliance of village life that he felt had been destroyed by the colonial system. “I would say that if the village perishes, India will perish too”, he wrote, “India will be no more India. Her own mission in the world will get lost. The revival of the village is only possible when it is no more exploited. Industrialization on a mass scale will necessarily lead to passive or active exploitation of the villagers as problems of competition and marketing come in. Therefore we have to concentrate on the village being self-contained, manufacturing mainly for use. Provided this character of the village industry is maintained, there would be no objection to villagers using even the modern machines that they can make and can afford to use. Only they should not be used as a means of exploitation by others.”

“You cannot build nonviolence on a factory civilization, but it can be built on self-contained villages… Rural economy as I have conceived it, eschews exploitation altogether, and exploitation is the essence of violence… We have to make a choice between India of the villages that are as ancient as herself and India of the cities which are a creation of foreign domination…”

“Machinery has its place; it has come to stay. But it must not be allowed to displace necessary human labour. An improved plow is a good thing. But if by some chances, one man could plow up, by some mechanical invention of his, the whole of the land of India, and control all the agricultural produce, and if the millions had no other occupation, they would starve, and being idle, they would become dunces, as many have already become. There is hourly danger of many being reduced to that unenviable state.”

In these passages we see Gandhi not merely as a pioneer of nonviolence; we see him also as an economist. Faced with misery and unemployment produced by machines, Gandhi tells us that social goals must take precedence over blind market mechanisms. If machines are causing unemployment, we can, if we wish, and use labor-intensive methods instead. With Gandhi, the free market is not sacred; we can do as we wish, and maximize human happiness, rather than maximizing production and profits.

Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist on January 30, 1948. After his death, someone collected and photographed all his worldly goods. These consisted of a pair of glasses, a pair of sandals, a pocket watch and a white homespun loincloth. Here, as in the Swadeshi movement, we see Gandhi as a pioneer of economics. He deliberately reduced his possessions to an absolute minimum in order to demonstrate that there is no connection between personal merit and material goods. Like Veblen, Mahatma Gandhi told us that we must stop using material goods as a means of social competition. We must start to judge people not by what they have, but by what they are.

Mahatma Gandhi, Great Soul Gandhi, we need your voice today!

Labour’s share of Australian GDP falls to record low

Oscar Grenfell

A report released this week by the Australia Institute found that labour’s share of national gross domestic product (GDP) in the March quarter was the lowest since records began in 1959.

The findings are based on the latest GDP figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). They underscore the dire social consequences of the offensive carried out by the corporate elite, successive governments, and the trade unions against the jobs, wages and conditions of the working class over the past three and a half decades.

The report’s conclusions tally with other ABS statistics which have shown that wage growth remained at record lows in the first three months of 2017—just 1.9 percent across the private sector. This is a product of widespread wage-cutting in manufacturing, retail and other sectors, and the continued expansion of low-paid contract and casual employment.

The report notes that based on the March figures, labour compensation accounted for 46.2 percent of total gross domestic product. That figure, however, includes all salaries along with superannuation payments, meaning that the data likely understates “the true erosion of the share of national income going to employees other than top-tier executives and managers.”

According to the report, “the link between GDP expansion and workers’ incomes has never been weaker.” In the quarter to March, total nominal GDP grew by $31 billion. However, only $3.1 billion of that, or less than 10 percent, went to incomes.

Similar results were registered in the previous quarter, leading to a 2.78 percent fall in labour’s share of GDP across the 12-month period. That was “the second-largest one-year drop in the labour share in the history of ABS quarterly data.”

The report points to the ever-widening divergence between stagnant or declining real wages and productivity growth.

For instance, it states that the average “value-added” by each hour of work across the economy is $90, reflecting a 20 percent growth in labour productivity over the past two decades. Over the same period, however, real wages have grown by only around 6 percent. As a result, real labour unit costs reached their lowest level since 1985, in the last March quarter.

Other modelling of the same ABS figures indicates that household wealth as a proportion of GDP is also nearing a 50-year low. Millions of working people confront a mounting social crisis, with average household debt estimated at 187 percent of income. Mortgage arrears and defaults are rising as a result of the ongoing property boom centred on the east coast, while poverty and joblessness are growing.

Commenting on the figures, Paul Dales, a macroeconomics researcher with Capital Economics, told the Guardian that households had not received “one cent” from the recent spike in commodity prices, which have “all gone into the pockets of big business.”

Dales noted that “as a share of GDP, the compensation of Australian employees lies towards the bottom of the international ladder.” He said that “the downward trend in labour’s share of GDP over the past 40 years has been more marked in Australia than” in other advanced economies, including Britain, France and the United States.

The Australia Institute report stated that labour as a share of GDP reached its peak in 1975, at close to 57 percent. This occurred amid a spike in working class struggles, many of which centered on the demand for improved wages. Employers and governments made limited concessions to this movement as the post-war boom of world capitalism was ending.

From the late 1970s, however, the report explains, labour’s share of GDP fell dramatically over a 15-year period “as anti-inflation laws were consolidated and labour laws were transformed.” This was followed by “a more gradual decline in the labour share … beginning in the late 1990s.”

The federal Labor governments of prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating from 1983 to 1996, spearheaded the offensive against the working class.

In the 1980s, the Labor government struck a series of Accords with the Australian Council of Trade Unions and big business that provided for the deregulation of large sections of the economy, the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs across manufacturing and the erosion of wages and conditions. This also set in motion the destruction of full-time jobs, leading to a situation today where between 40 and 50 percent of workers are in casual or contract employment.

The onslaught in Australia was part of a worldwide attack on the social position of the working class, spurred by the globalisation of production. The internationally-mobile character of capital undercut the basis for economic regulation and limited social reforms within the national arena. Instead, capital began scouring the globe for the lowest wages and highest rates of return for corporate shareholders.

Labor and the unions, taking their nationalist and pro-capitalist program to its logical conclusion, responded by dispensing with any progressive social reform. They became the chief proponents of ensuring that Australian businesses were “internationally competitive” through the drastic reduction of wages and erosion of working conditions.

In the 1990s, the Keating Labor government instituted enterprise bargaining that laid the basis for an unending onslaught on jobs, wages and conditions through company-union agreements. The report points out that between 1985 and 2015, the minimum wage fell from 65 percent of median wages to 53 percent.

The report concludes: “The erosion of the labour share since the peak represents the redirection of about $200 billion of annual output from workers to other economic stakeholders.” The “major beneficiary” was the financial elite, with the corporate share of GDP increasing by 10 percent over the four-decade period. It now stands at 24 percent.

Across manufacturing, retail, mining and virtually every sector of the economy, the corporate elite, state and federal governments and the unions are imposing deeper cuts to wages. A sharp expression is the drive by major companies, abetted by the unions, to force skilled workers, such as power station employees, onto base rates of pay—an effective wage cut of up to 65 percent.

The social reversal enforced by Labor and the unions underscores that as workers enter into struggles to defend their jobs, wages and social rights, they will confront these big business organisations as their most determined antagonists.

Indonesian president supports military role in new “anti-terror” law

John Roberts

At a cabinet meeting in late May, Indonesian President Joko Widodo endorsed calls by his security ministers for the country’s armed forces, the TNI, to have a legal role in domestic counter-terrorism operations.

Amendments to beef up the Eradication of Terrorism law are currently under discussion in the national parliament’s lower house, the DPR. If passed, the legislation would significantly reverse the legal changes made following the fall of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998 to limit the military’s role in internal security matters.

Widodo expressed support for the military’s domestic role just days after the suicide bombings at Kampung Melayu transport station in East Jakarta.

Political tensions have been high in Jakarta following the right-wing Islamist campaign against Widodo’s protégé, Basuki Thahaja Purnama. Basuki was ousted during the hotly contested election for the governorship of Jakarta and jailed on May 9 for two years on concocted “blasphemy” charges.

A “terrorism” scare campaign is being fed by allegations that Islamist militants fighting in the Middle East will return to Indonesia. According to the Diplomat, security regional officials estimate that 1,200–1,800 South East Asians have been fighting with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The Straits Times puts the number of Indonesians at 392.

Before the cabinet meeting, State Intelligence Agency (BIN) chairman Budi Gunawan called for “extraordinary measures” to clamp down on “radicalism” and “terrorism.” He linked concerns over the emergence of Islamist groups, and their intervention in the Jakarta gubernatorial race, with “terrorism.”

The military is clearly exploiting fears over “terrorism” to enhance its powers. The TNI was notorious under the Suharto dictatorship for its brutal suppression of any political opposition. After Suharto’s fall, the army was compelled to take a step back but retained considerable political power and influence, including via the ex-generals that held important government positions.

The National Police were removed from military control and given prime responsibility for all internal criminal matters. Under the 2004 Indonesian Military Law, TNI personnel are limited to assisting the National Police in counter-terrorism operations, and only under the direction of the president.

At the cabinet meeting, Widodo ordered his security ministers to pressure the DPR to expand the military’s role. Widodo told his ministers the change “is urgently needed to ensure that our law enforcers have the legal umbrella to carry out their jobs in the field. The [military] should have a role in the law.”

The police handling of alleged terrorist cases has been just as ruthless as the previous military methods. The police counter-terrorist unit, Densus 88, built up with assistance from the US and Australia, had been responsible for the deaths of at least 121 terror suspects in custody, according to Indonesia’s National Commission on Human Rights.

As well as boosting the army’s internal role, the draft legislation before the DPR seeks to further increase police powers put in place after the 2002 Bali terror bombings.

The proposed changes include the revocation of the citizenship of alleged terrorists; the further extension of the period of arrest and detention without charge; and a provision to allow the arrest and detention of suspected “terrorists” without trial for six months to undergo “deradicalisation.”

Widodo has made clear that the repressive measures are not just directed at so-called terror cells but at radical Islamist organisations that challenge the formally secular character of the Indonesian state and constitution.

More broadly the legislation is aimed against the working class and urban and rural poor amid growing opposition to pro-market restructuring and rising social inequality. The Islamist groups that mounted the anti-Basuki campaign could exploit the widespread hostility against the Jakarta governor’s urban development projects that involved forced evictions.

Widodo’s ruling coalition has been associated with the same pro-market agenda that Basuki pushed in Jakarta. Workers and the poor have seen one national administration after another pursue “growth” polices that have benefited only the rich. One percent of the population controls 49.3 percent of national wealth.

Meeting this week with media editors, Widodo reaffirmed his determination to clobber ( gebuk in Indonesian)—a word used by Suharto—those who challenged the official state doctrine of Pancasila, the secular 1945 Constitution and “national unity.” He said gebuk was the right word as “we cannot negotiate with people attempting to mess with our nation’s fundamentals and ideology.”

Pancasila enshrines belief in a divinity but does not prescribe a particular state religion and therefore stands in opposition to Islamist organisations that want to establish an Islamic state. Widodo confirmed that the Security Affairs ministry was looking to ban two Islamist groups, the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia.

The Islamist campaign against Basuki—an ethnic Chinese Christian—also had a strong anti-Chinese strand, which cuts across Widodo’s efforts to secure up Chinese investment for his planned $US450 billion in infrastructure projects.

Bachtiar Nasir, head of the GNPF-MUI Islamist umbrella group, told Reuters last month: “Our next job is economic sovereignty, economic equality. The state should ensure that it does not sell Indonesia to foreigners, especially China.”

Significantly, Widodo’s calls for the rapid passage of the new anti-terrorism measures have been endorsed by the Gerindra Party, which is led by Suharto-era general Prabowo Subianto. Prabowo was Widodo’s main rival in the 2014 presidential election and wants to replace him in 2019. The party’s candidate won Jakarta governorship with the support of Islamist organisations, including the FPI.

Despite its collaboration with the Islamist campaign against Basuki, Gerindra is just as concerned as the government about mounting social tensions and the potential for mass political protests. Gerindra deputy chairman Ferry Juliantono endorsed the TNI’s new role, declaring that in emergency conditions the new laws would “put state sovereignty above anything else.”

Trump’s visit to Poland: A return to the pre-war Intermarium strategy

Clara Weiss 

The White House confirmed Friday that President Donald Trump will visit Poland on July 6 before the G20 summit in Hamburg.

In Poland, he not only wants to meet with his Polish counterpart President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw, but also in Breslau with the heads of the so-called “Three Seas Initiative,” which follows in the tradition of the “Intermarium” alliance of the 1920s. This is a clear signal from Washington that the US is increasingly relying on an alliance with Poland and other Eastern European countries, in face of mounting tensions with Germany and France.

The announcement of the Poland visit took place immediately after Trump had met with Romanian President Klaus Johannis in the White House, and following former FBI chief James Comey accusing Trump of close ties with the Kremlin.

At the subsequent press conference, Trump said his government was committed to Article 5 of the NATO Treaty: “We are there to protect. I absolutely agree with Article 5.” At the last NATO summit in Brussels, he had refused to give such a commitment to Article 5, which the Eastern European states were calling for against Russia.

The Polish government has welcomed the news of Trump’s visit to Poland, the exact date of which was unclear for months. According to the Polish government, preparations for the talks are ongoing.

The Three Seas Initiative, a loose alliance including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, was established in summer 2016. It includes all the important countries bordering the Adriatic, the Baltic and the Black Sea.

The initiative is linked to the so-called Intermarium alliance of the 1920s. At that time, nationalist and fascist forces had taken part in the alliance with the US against the Soviet Union. At the same time, this alliance was always directed against German hegemony in Europe.

In September 2016, the Three Seas Initiative published a manifesto, describing itself as an “informal platform” for the organization and political support of transnational and regional projects of “strategic importance” for the states concerned. These include the energy, transport and digital sectors and the economy as a whole in Eastern and Central Europe.

The meeting in Breslau in June will be the first official conference of the initiative. It takes place under the presidency of Poland, which, a hundred years ago, was the central power of the Intermarium alliance in Eastern and Central Europe, and which tried to secure its regional supremacy in this way.

Influential analysts such as George Friedman and Robert D. Kaplan, who are close to the CIA and the US military, have argued for years that the US should once again look to an Intermarium alliance to deal with Russia and Germany. In this, Poland and Romania, which have the largest armies in the region, are seen as key partners of the US.

Trump’s meeting with the leaders of this alliance is a clear signal that the White House is reintroducing the Intermarium strategy, which will exacerbate conflicts with Germany.

At the same time, Trump is reacting to growing domestic pressure, especially on the part of the Democrats, who want to force his government to take a tougher course against Russia. Trump had previously left his attitude to NATO, and thus to the alliance with the Eastern European states, in the dark for months. Now, he is shifting in face of a profound change in the German-American relationship.

The announcement of Chancellor Angela Merkel following the NATO and G7 summits, that Europe must take its fate into its own hands and could no longer rely on the USA, marked a turning point. The German government is returning to an independent great power policy, regardless of the United States and, if necessary, against it as well.

Polish Defence Minister Wytold Waszyczykowski has condemned Merkel’s statement as “exaggerated and unnecessary.” The Law and Justice Party (PiS) government continues to work closely with the US, even though the foreign policy orientation of the Trump government was long unclear.

This was mainly due to fear of German hegemony in Europe and a renewed Franco-German alliance. The German government is exploiting the crisis of the EU and US to implement its plans for a military union under German domination. The Polish government, on the other hand, is vehemently opposed to a European Army, which Germany is seeking as a counterbalance to a US-dominated NATO.

In view of Brexit, which would see one of Poland’s closest allies leave the EU, and the election victory of Emmanuel Macron in France, the fears of the Polish bourgeoisie of German domination in Europe and of Poland’s isolation have intensified. The PiS government fears a rapprochement between France and Russia. In the election, Macron had criticized the PiS and threatened it with EU sanctions.

The Trump administration is now trying to exploit Poland’s political isolation and the tensions with Germany and France to bolster US interests. In this, it is resting on the PiS government, which has been trying to revive the Intermarium strategy for years, something that has unleashed much unease in Germany. Following the PiS election victory in autumn 2015, the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung had already warned of the revival of the Intermarium, “as a counterweight to Russia—and to Germany, the new hegemon in Europe.”

In an unusually sharp editorial under the headline, “Trump plays with Europe,” the Tagespiegel accused Trump of “instrumentalizing Europe’s internal tensions and rifts.” The editorial sees Trump’s visit to Warsaw as a “reorientation towards Poland,” which pursues “other foreign policy alliances and projects” outside the EU framework.

The Polish bourgeoisie itself is divided over foreign policy. The liberal opposition, led by the Citizens Platform (PO) and the Nowoczesna (Modern) party, in contrast to PiS, advocates closer links with Germany and Brussels. They regard Donald Trump’s election as a catastrophe for Polish interests.

Liberal commentators such as Tomasz Lis have denounced a revival of the “Intermarium,” which the PiS has long sought, as completely unrealistic. At the same time, this section of the Polish bourgeoisie cannot and will not give up the alliance with the US, Poland’s closest foreign policy partner since 1989.

These foreign policy conflicts played a central role in the struggle between the liberal opposition and the government, which culminated in a blockade and occupation of parliament by the opposition in December 2016. Trump’s visit will further intensify these foreign policy conflicts.

Deaths from drug overdoses rise rapidly in Canada

Riksen Stewart & Roger Jordan 

Shocking figures published at the end of May revealed that so far in 2017 deaths from drug overdoses in Vancouver are occurring at a rate of more than one per day. This is only the latest expression of a rapidly expanding opioid crisis across Canada, which has been exacerbated by worsening social conditions, widening social inequality, and rising unemployment.

The Vancouver Sun reported in early June that at the current pace the city would reach more than 400 deaths from opioid overdoses by year’s end. Mayor Gregor Robertson described the crisis, chiefly being caused by the synthetic opioid fentanyl, as a “bloodbath” that had no end in sight. In the first week of May alone, emergency responders answered 168 calls related to overdoses in Vancouver.

In 2016, almost 2,500 deaths occurred as a result of opioid overdoses across Canada. The two most affected provinces, British Columbia and Alberta, have declared a public health emergency. Across western Canada, in BC, Alberta, Yukon and Northwest Territories, the death rate from opioids was more than 10 for every 100,000 people.

These grim figures are set to be surpassed in 2017. With 120 overdose deaths during March in Vancouver alone, the rate was up by 50 percent from the same month in 2016. During the first four months of the year, 488 overdose deaths were recorded across BC, putting the province on course to register over 1,400 deaths in 2017. This compares to 935 deaths in 2016, which was a record high at the time.

These statistics conceal stories of miserable conditions of life and abject poverty. An investigation by CTV of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, which has a large homeless population and is within walking distance of the city’s banks, upmarket coffee shops and restaurants, reported finding numerous drug users slumped over dumpsters in the district’s alleys. Jonathan McArthur, a drug addict who spoke to CTV in hospital, estimated he had overdosed 25 times in the past year. He explained that he began using heroin several decades ago for back pain, but now no longer knows if it is laced with cheaper, and potentially lethal, synthetics.

More than half of the unintentional deaths recorded in BC and Alberta during the first 10 months of 2016 were linked to fentanyl. Fentanyl is an extremely lethal drug, with less than half a teaspoon capable of killing 10 people. It is estimated to be between 50 and 100 times stronger than morphine. Carfentanil and W-18, two even more potent synthetics, have begun appearing on the streets.

The threat posed by fentanyl is being compounded by its increased use in combination with other drugs. Health Canada recently reported that it has been found in samples of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

The scale of the crisis is further illustrated by reports that frontline health care workers are struggling to cope mentally. Growing numbers require assistance to process what they are dealing with.

The BC and Alberta provincial governments are doing nothing to combat the underlying causes of the epidemic of drug deaths. The Alberta New Democrats (NDP), in power since 2015, have limited themselves to creating a few supervised injection sites, effectively facilitating those addicted to lethal drugs to, as one user described it, play “Russian roulette” with their lives. They are also introducing a program under which more than 400 naloxone kits are to be distributed to drug users so that they can inject others in order to reverse opioid overdoses.

The NDP has enforced austerity budgets for much needed public services over the past two years, while continuing to guarantee a low-tax environment for Alberta’s big oil corporations. Under conditions where tens of thousands have been thrown out of work due to the collapse in oil prices beginning in 2014, the government has left workers to fend for themselves.

Unemployment has doubled in Alberta from 4 percent in 2014 to 8 percent in 2017. The province has also seen a 53 percent increase in emergency room visits for opioid poisoning from 2014-15 to 2017, with 27 cases per 100,000 people (three people per day). In comparison, Ontario has 17 cases per 100,000.

Official unemployment in BC is somewhat lower, at 5.8 percent, but the income disparity is among the highest in the country, with a poverty rate of over 13 percent. Among young people aged 15-25, the unemployment rate is 13 percent.

The recently concluded agreement between the BC NDP and Greens to form a minority government does nothing to overturn any of the devastating cuts to social services imposed during 16 years of Liberal Party rule. A few token promises, such as creating a mental health ministry and pilot projects to treat overdoses, will not even begin to alter the disastrous social conditions confronted by people in some of the worst affected areas.

At the federal level, successive governments have enforced austerity budgets and adopted tax cuts for the super-rich, resulting in the starvation of funds for social services. Liberal and Conservative governments have implemented cuts or below-inflation increases to provincial health care transfers. While Stephen Harper’s Conservatives increased health transfers by 6 percent annually, which still amounted to a cut given the spiralling cost of health care, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are imposing annual “increases” of a mere 3-4 percent.

The drug use epidemic has mushroomed under conditions of social inequality, poverty, unemployment and a general feeling of hopelessness that afflicts broad sections of the population, combined with an economic and political system that is impervious to the needs of those most severely impacted by the social crisis.

Drug abuse is a problem confronting all types of people, regardless of skin colour, gender, nationality or even income. However, the most devastating consequences of addiction are felt by the working class and poor. In western Canada, this includes a disproportionately high percentage of First Nations people, who either live on impoverished reserves or have been forced into the major urban centres in search of better prospects. It also includes a disproportionately high number of people suffering from mental health problems, who lack the support services they require.

Canada’s universal health care system does not cover the cost of prescription drugs or drug rehabilitation programs. Workers who are injured or have a medical condition requiring pain-killing medications over an extended period of time frequently cannot afford the standard prescribed medications and instead turn to much cheaper, but highly addictive street drugs.

People addicted to drugs can check themselves into a hospital or detox centre to remove the drugs from their system, but without rehabilitation they will most likely be back on the drugs again as soon as they are checked out of the hospital.

The Alberta government has been closing beds in the public mental health facilities that treat drug addictions. In March, a group of psychiatrists sent an open letter to the government describing the move as disastrous.

The Alberta government is also refusing to utilize an estimated 35,167 square meters (the size of 22 NHL-sized hockey rinks) of empty space sitting in Calgary’s major hospitals for use as detox and drug rehabilitation centres. The bed closures will most likely be picked up by the private sector.

Private sector drug rehabilitation centres are a big profit making business, where the wealthy can spend tens of thousands of dollars on drug rehabilitation programs. An article in the Financial Post in 2014 noted that Rob Ford, the former right-wing, populist Toronto city mayor, spent $100,000 on a drug rehabilitation program. Although this amount is high, the average treatment fees for a 30-day stay at a drug rehabilitation centre in Canada are approximately $14,000. When the cost for lost wages is added in, and travel costs to get to the centre, this figure rises even further. These costs are far out of the reach of working class families.

US Special Forces will wage war in Africa “for at least a generation”

Thomas Gaist & Eddie Haywood

The number of American commandos fighting in Africa grew by 600 percent between 2006 and 2010, and by another 1000 percent between 2010 and 2016, according to documents authored by General Donald Bolduc, head of the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command-Africa (SOCAFRICA).

US Special Forces soldiers are waging over 100 missions in Africa at any given time, according to the leaked documents. AFRICOM headquarters in Stuttgart-Mohringen, Germany manages a growing empire of Special Forces bases and infrastructure, the documents show, including commands focused on the Horn of Africa, Uganda, West Africa, Trans-Sahara, as well as a “Naval Special Warfare Unit 10” and a “Joint Special Operations Air Component Africa.”

In an article published in the Small Wars Journal concurrent with the leaks, “The Gray Zone in Africa,” General Bolduc called for “at least a generation” of irregular warfare on the continent, and warned that threats to the United States from Africa may soon “surpass those from the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.” Bluntly stating the real geopolitical considerations driving Washington’s intervention, Bolduc described SOCAFRICA’s mission as “adversarial competition short of armed conflict, but with a military dimension.”

“Competition for strategic influence and relationships is complicated by the political, economic, military, and informational interests of China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran Everything we do for our partners in Africa today must prepare them for tomorrow’s threats and support strong political and military relationships,” he wrote.

A panoply of different types of US special forces are active in Africa under SOCAFRICA’s “mission command construct,” include “Regional SOCFWDs (integrators),” “SOF teams (executors),” “Special Operations Forces Liaison Elements (synchronizers),” “logistics teams,” and “Joint Special Operations Air Component (JSOAC) groups,” according to PowerPoint slides presented by the US general.

Bolduc called on the “African partners” of SOCAFRICA’s commando network to implement “integrated campaigning and coordination of their military operations in support of a broader political strategy.” The elaborate strategy concepts advanced by the SOCAFRICA chief—“comprehensive population-centric approach that blends both kinetic and non-kinetic tactics, while operating among the populace,” “nested key leader engagements at all levels,” “regional comprehensive approach”—are merely new jargon for the same aims pursued by American imperialism and the European former colonial powers during the past 150 years.

The Pentagon is planning a further escalation of US power projection and war-making throughout African society. The exact scale of US activities on the continent remains shrouded from public view. AFRICOM is running “expansive and undocumented operations in at least 49 countries in Africa,” according to the Brown Political Review. In a letter to Congress published June 6, the Trump administration acknowledged deployments of at least 1,000 soldiers throughout the Lake Chad Basin countries of Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad, along with another 400 troops divided between the Congo, Uganda, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

On June 2, American military forces concluded joint war drills with 20 different national militaries at the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Center in Ghana. Participants in the drills, codenamed United Accord 2017, included African units from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chad, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo, as well as Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Britain. The exercises served as “an opportunity for regional African partners to develop relationships, enhance interoperability and hone mission command skills required to conduct peacekeeping operations in the region,” according to the Pentagon. Last month, the 101st Airborne Division deployed to Somalia in support of operations to build the new Somali National Army (SNA), whose formation was agreed at the London Conference on Somalia last month.

Every day, dozens of war planes and unmanned drones fly missions out of the American base at Camp Lemonnier, in Djibouti, according to witnesses cited by African media. Throughout Africa, there are at least seven known US drone bases, in as many countries. Many of these facilities are administered by private contractors, with some operated out of secluded hangars located in African military or civil airports. At the Arba Minch airport in Ethiopia, the US Air Force spent several million dollars developing a facility hosting MQ-9 Reaper drones which carry out operations across Somalia. From an aircraft facility adjacent to Entebbe International Airport in Uganda, the US military conducts covert surveillance flights over Central Africa and beyond.

Washington and its regional partners are mobilizing for war and mass repression against an African population beset by the worst social catastrophe since the World War II. As of May, Oxfam International reported that 4.9 million people are dangerously hungry in South Sudan, 7 million in Yemen, 3.2 million people in Somalia, and 4.7 million in Nigeria. Among four countries alone, this represents some 20 million people threatened with death by starvation in 2017. Millions more are classified as in crisis, emergency and famine conditions in Niger, Chad and Mali. In Somalia, tens of thousands have been stricken with curable diseases such as cholera and measles during the beginning months of the year.

GM announces 1,000 layoffs in Kansas amid warnings of a “swift and material downturn”

Shannon Jones

General Motors said Friday that it will eliminate a shift beginning in late September at its Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas City, Kansas due to declining sales of passenger cars.

The facility currently employs more than 3,000, and the announced layoffs are expected to impact about 1,000. The plant builds the Chevrolet Malibu. GM blamed the job cuts on a switch in customer tastes from smaller vehicles to larger trucks and SUVs. However, overall vehicle sales for all the major auto manufacturers have been decreasing in 2017.

The announcement of impending layoffs at the Fairfax plant follows the report by GM that it is extending the summer shutdown at its Fairfax and Lordstown, Ohio Assembly plants from the normal two weeks to five weeks to reduce inventories.

Meanwhile, Bank of America Merrill Lynch issued a warning Friday of a “swift and material downturn” in US auto sales, sending stocks of GM and other US-based carmakers into a tailspin. The bank projected that auto sales would tank to around 13 million per year by 2021 as a “tsunami” of off-lease cars hit the market and raw materials prices increase.

The sales decline is tied to several factors, including increased numbers of used cars on the market, tightened lending standards by banks concerned over increasing numbers of delinquent auto loans, the introduction of new technologies such as driverless vehicles and the spread of ridesharing.

There is concern that the downturn in sales could reflect a broader worsening of consumer sentiment and cause a fall off throughout the economy. Auto manufacturing still represents a considerable section of the US economy, and a downturn in the auto sector could have a much wider impact.

Last week an analyst for Morgan Stanley cut his 2017 sales estimate to 17.3 million from 18.3 million. He expects annual sales to fall to 15 million by 2019, about the 2013 level. Earlier estimates had sales reaching 19.2 million.

The most recent job cut announcement at General Motors follows a series of indications that the seven-year long auto sales boom is unwinding. GM’s sales are down 1 percent for the year, and its market share is near an historical low.

In April GM said it would shutter some US plants for as long as 10 weeks over the summer. At the end of May, it had an inventory of 963,448 vehicles, or a 101-day supply. That compares to a 57-day supply at the end of May 2016.

May sales figures showed the fifth straight month of decreases. The seasonally adjusted annualized sales rate fell to 16.7 million vehicles, down from 17.2 million in May 2016. Total sales for 2016 came in at 17.54 million, a record. Sales for the Malibu were down 30 percent from a year earlier.

Two weeks ago, GM said it would eliminate a full shift, 300 jobs, at its Warren, Michigan transmission plant outside Detroit. The facility builds transmissions for 11 different GM models. The company said that the cuts were in response to slowing sales and reduced demand for passenger cars.

Earlier this year GM eliminated a full shift, impacting some 1,300 workers, at its Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant. It had previously cut shifts at Lordstown and at its Lansing Grand River facility.

In response, the United Auto Workers (UAW) defended the layoffs as dictated by “market conditions.” Vicky Hale, president of UAW Local 31, told the Kansas City Star, “The market is for trucks, crossovers and SUVs, but we build mid-sized Malibus. It’s not a good place for us to be to have just the one product. Most plants have two or three products.”

GM is not the only automaker impacted by the drop off in sales. In May, Ford said it would reduce its salaried and white-collar workforce by 10 percent in North America and the Asia-Pacific.

Ford previously announced 130 layoffs at its Avon Lake, Ohio plant that builds the F-650 and F-750 pickup truck due to lower demand for the previously hot selling cargo vehicle.

The company has already carried out periodic short-term layoffs at plants building the F-150 pickup truck in a move to trim demand.

All the US-based car companies face enormous pressure from Wall Street to drive up profits and cut costs. This will translate into attacks on jobs as the auto sales boon ebbs.

The UAW has played an indispensable role in facilitating layoffs. The 2015 sellout contract agreement sanctioned the increased use of temporary and part-time workers in the auto factories. These workers, who are not eligible for supplemental unemployment benefits (SUB), are in effect a disposable workforce that the company can hire and discharge with minimal cost.

In addition, the 2015 agreement removed the cap on lower-paid, tier-two workers whose SUB benefits are capped at 26 weeks and only provides 74 percent of their pay. The contract also sanctioned additional overtime, allowing management to use existing workers to take up production shortfalls without re-hiring workers.

Trump administration withdraws Obama order protecting immigrant parents of US children

Josh Varlin 

John Kelly, the Trump administration’s secretary of homeland security, issued a memorandum on Thursday ending the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program. The DAPA program, which was blocked in the courts and never implemented, would have protected the undocumented immigrant parents of US citizens and legal permanent residents from deportation, provided they had been in the country since 2010 and had no criminal record.

The memo also quietly mentioned that “[t]he June 15, 2012 memorandum that created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program will remain in effect.” In other words, on the fifth anniversary of the DACA program, which protects undocumented immigrants brought to the US as young children from deportation, the Trump administration announced that it will not end the program—for now.

The DAPA program, announced in a 2014 Obama administration memo, would have granted work permits and reprieves from deportation to some 4 million adults. The New York Times noted at the time that “more than 10 million people live in households with at least one potentially DAPA-eligible adult,” with “two-thirds of these adults [having] lived in the United States for at least 10 years.”

Deporting all of the 4 million people eligible for the now-canceled program would be an immense and horrific undertaking, requiring a vast expansion of the Gestapo-like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. Some 10 million people would lose a father, mother, grandparent or other close family member—most of whom would be sent to a country they have not lived in for over a decade, possibly with the threat of imminent death.

Recent immigration raids on Iraqi nationals from minority groups—mostly Kurds and Chaldean Catholics—indicate that the Trump administration is engaged in deporting hundreds of persecuted minorities to active war zones.

Shortly after the 2014 memo announcing the DAPA program, 27 states, led by Texas, sued the Obama administration seeking to block it. United States District Judge Andrew S. Hanen, a right-wing, anti-immigrant judge appointed by President George W. Bush, issued a preliminary injunction against DAPA while the case wound its way through the courts.

The case, United States v. Texas, eventually was heard by the Supreme Court, which, in the absence of deceased Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, was split 4-4. This divided ruling upheld a lower court’s injunction against DAPA.

Kelly’s memo withdrawing DAPA referenced the program’s tortured legal history, claiming that the Department of Homeland Security was “rescinding the November 20, 2014 memorandum that created the program [DAPA] … because there is no credible path forward to litigate the currently enjoined policy.”

When he was campaigning for the presidency, Donald Trump promised to “immediately terminate” DAPA and DACA, which he described as “President Obama’s two illegal executive amnesties.” In part of keeping up the myth that his xenophobic crackdown is directed at “criminal aliens,” however, Trump has occasionally expressed sympathy for those covered by DACA, referred to as “DREAMers.”

In February, Trump said: “DACA is a very, very difficult subject for me. You have these incredible kids, in many cases not in all cases. In some of the cases they’re having DACA and they’re gang members and they’re drug dealers too. But you have some absolutely incredible kids … they were brought here in such a way, it’s a very, very tough subject.”

Because DACA and DAPA were implemented by executive memoranda and not legislation, it would have been possible for Trump to unilaterally end the programs “on day one.” The anti-immigrant NumbersUSA group has denounced the failure of the administration to axe DACA immediately as something of a betrayal. NumbersUSA President Roy Beck said, “We regard this as being a really clearly broken promise. … this was an executive order, so he can stop it.”

Nevertheless, the end of DAPA was the occasion for the fascistic ultra-right to crow that so-called “anchor babies”—American-born children of undocumented immigrant parents—could not stop their fathers and mothers from being torn away and deported.

Kelly’s memo in many ways maintains the immigration status quo, at least as far as DACA and DAPA are concerned. It ended the DAPA program that had not been put into effect and left in place DACA, under which hundreds of thousands of youth have registered and sought the right to work and go to school. In part this speaks to the fact that the anti-immigrant infrastructure is likely already operating at full capacity, and that it will take some time to expand the number of ICE agents and immigration camps to the point where a crackdown on DACA enrollees can commence.

However, the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda is so deeply unpopular that there is likely concern that revoking DACA now would provoke an explosion. The deportation of Juan Manuel Montes, a 23-year-old Mexican national who was brought to the US when he was only nine and was a DACA enrollee, was highly controversial.

If Trump decides to follow through with his barbaric promise to end DACA, he will find that the federal government has the fingerprints and addresses of 750,000 enrollees to facilitate in their deportation, as Obama refused to shield them from later deportation if DACA is revoked, either by issuing an across-the-board presidential pardon or instructing ICE to erase its database of DACA enrollees.

Lorella Praeli, director of immigration policy and campaigns at the American Civil Liberties Union, said of the memo, “The only certainty in Trump’s America is uncertainty—and no memorandum changes that. They’re trying to distract us with their back-and-forth on DACA as their mass deportation machine proceeds full speed ahead.”