Zionism: The Ideological Cover-Up To Jewish Supremacy

Rima Najjar

The benign-sounding term “settler” or “settlement” is used so often in the news without reference to Jewish colonization of Palestine that the world often loses sight of the immoral nature of the Zionist project in Palestine. The term is used to describe Jews moving illegally to the West Bank, and commandeering land that belongs to Palestinians. Waves of Jews moving to Israel are no longer called colonists or even settlers in the news media, but rather immigrants.
Palestine is the only and last active act of settler colonialism. Since the creation of the UN, “more than 80 former colonies [including several in the Arab world] comprising some 750 million people have gained independence since the creation of the United Nations.”

Why the exception in the case of Palestine? Because the ideological driving force behind the process, Zionism, is the most virulently and insidiously powerful force on the planet. Over the course of the past one hundred years — i.e., since the Balfour Declaration, Zionism has successfully manipulated imperial powers, first Britain and now the United States, and also instrumentalized Christianity, as well as Judiasm, to serve its political purpose.

As John Berger put it: “Certain voices across the world are raised in protest [against the Jewish state]. But the governments of the rich, with their world media and their proud possession of nuclear weapons, reassure Israel that a blind eye will be cast on what its soldiers are perpetrating.”

Colonialism justifiably has a bad name. When Third World Quarterly published an article titled “The Case for Colonialism”, voices rose sharply demanding “retraction, to fire the journal editors, even to fire author and to revoke his PhD.” In that piece, Bruce Gilley argues controversially that Western colonialism was, “as a general rule, both objectively beneficial and subjectively legitimate in most of the places where it was found.”

Because of the moral questions raised by Western colonialism, the truth about the colonial nature of the Zionist project in Palestine has long been suppressed — consider, for example, the repulsion generated when a course was proposed at UC Berkeley titled “Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis”.

But despite the strong veil of Zionist hasbara that shielded the moral degeneracy of Zionism from view, the paradigm of Israel as a settler-colonial project did gain traction. When that happened, the attitude among pro-Israel and Zionist voices took on the same point of view as that expressed in the Third World Quarterly article.

“Settler colonialism conveys an unarguable sense of delegitimization, racial exclusion and financial exploitation”, wrote ArnonDegani in a Sep 2016 Haaretz opinion piece, titled: “Israel Is a Settler Colonial State — and That’s OK.”

…arguing for the comparability of Israeli history to that of the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, pulls the rug from under the agenda of singling out Zionism and its deeds as particularly evil… Israel, though, is probably heading more towards an arrangement similar to that of South African settler colonialism: a consolidation into a democratic republic in which the Whites are recognized as sons of the land and yet still enjoy many of the privileges they accumulated during Apartheid. In Israel, from the left (Haaretz’s own Gideon Levy and RogelAlpher) and right (President Reuven Rubi Rivilin, MK Yehuda Glick), there is growing sentiment in favor of pursuing this particular one state settler colonial road.

The case being made here by Degani and his ilk is that Israeli Jews will still come out on top if Israel pursues the “one state settler colonial road”. They will be recognized as “sons of the land”, just as white settlers are in the U.S. or Canada, etc. have been, and “yet still enjoy many of the privileges they accumulated during Apartheid.” Clearly, this is a contention filtered through a Jewish supremacist ideology that is dismissive of the human rights of non-Jews.

BDS, on the other hand, is aimed at ending the three-tiered regime of injustice that has ruined Palestinian society since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948: 1) the military occupation and colonization of the Palestinian — and other Arab — territory occupied by Israel in 1967; 2) the system of institutionalized and legalized racism within Israel against non-Jews, and 3) the persistent denial of the internationally-sanctioned rights of the Palestine refugees, especially their right to return to their homes of origin and to reparations.

As Omar Barghouti observes, “Moral reconciliation between conflicting communities is impossible if the essence of the oppressive relationship between them is sustained.” And, in the case of Palestine, not even recognized.

And as long as the fundamental racism and moral blindness of Zionism continues to be obscured – as in negative references to “right-wing Zionism” rather than to plain Zionism or Jewish supremacy – the monumental ideological cover-up to Israel’s crimes against Palestinians will endure.

A Cuban Mystery: The US Embassy in Havana

Binoy Kampmark 

Cuba has, for decades, been a form of political pathology for US political consciousness. Fidel Castro loomed in his indestructible guise, tormenting a succession of American presidents with his seeming indestructibility. Efforts at deposing and assassination had conspicuously failed.  It was left, then, to Washington to insulate, seal off and keep Cuba as an infectious patient of international relations, fearing its global reach and influence.

With the softening of this manic stance under the Obama administration, Cuba ceased being the incurable. It even had promise. US business officials were smacking their lips and rubbing hands.  The new Cuba might well return to the Cuba of old, one more open to reverie, smut and cash.  The diplomats would return; the US embassy would reopen in Havana.

Then, Donald Trump happened.  A new administration, the government of 140 character messages, roars and expectoration.  The cool seemed likely to return in the heat of intolerance and misguided encounters.  In June, Trump announced that limitations on trade and tourism with Havana would be imposed.  It was a corrective of sorts to yet another “one-sided deal” and halted people-to-people exchanges.

Since the fall of 2016, staff at the US embassy have been troubled.  Up to 21 diplomats have been affected by what is now being considered an attack.  (These had been previously deemed, in State Department speak, “incidents”.)  American media outlets, from the Old Grey Lady onwards are unanimous.  “It started as a medical mystery,” went the New York Times.  “It then was determined to have been the result of a mysterious attack.”

The symptoms cover a considerable range: nausea, dizziness, tinnitus, difficulty with sleeping, deafness, even mild brain trauma.  That these might have arisen from a sonic attack has been suggested.  But speculation is rife as the coterie of experts in the field of bio-electromagnetics are entertained. What sort of weapons might have been behind this?

One such figure is Denis Bedat, who made his splash for the AFP new agency.  “Ultrasonic waves, beyond the acoustic capacity of humans, can be broadcast with an amplifier, and the device does not need to be large, or used inside or outside the house.” Weapons such as the anti-riot gun in the employ of the US police forces, otherwise known as the Active Denial System (ADS), are exponents of such waves.

The Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson has been cautious in according blame, despite also pouring over a proposed plan to close the embassy in Havana.  “We have it under evaluation.  It’s a very serious issue with respect to the harm that certain individuals have suffered.  We’ve brought some of those people home. It’s under review.”

Havana, in turn, has urged caution and restraint, expressing official bafflement at the cases.  “Cuba has told us it will continue to investigate these attacks, and we will continue to cooperate with them in this effort.”  This policy of cooperation is typically troubled, an appellation of suspicion and masochism.

Given that two Cuban diplomats have suffered expulsion as a result, the finger pointing is being presumed, even if those fingers are slightly askew.  Punish, but not abolish; tell those in Havana that this is not the sort of thing the US will tolerate, but still keep doors open, if only slightly ajar and barely operating.

On Friday, the State Department did announce a suspension of routine visa operations, giving no clue when they would resume, while limiting official travel to Cuba by US officials, excepting those connected with the investigation or those in need of travelling to the country.

The sting in the tail, however, was a travel warning for Americans in general, suggesting danger to visitors from the US.  As “our personnel’s safety is at risk, and we are unable to identify the source of the attacks, we believe US citizens may also be at risk and warn them not to travel to Cuba.”

Tillerson is exercising caution, and the theory that a third party may well be up to mischief is being floated.  Officials have spoken about taking measures of protection in the name of prudence.  Ambassador Barbara Stephenson, president of the American Foreign Service Association, has expressed concern that the US is prizing itself out of the diplomatic game in taking them.

“We’ve got a mission to do,” she explained to The Atlantic.  “We operate all over the world, in places with serious health risks… The answer can’t be we just pull the flag down and move American presence from the field.”

Havana has expressed consternation at the moves by the Trump administration, but is still hopeful in cooperation.  But all this signals, yet again, the odd mix of machismo mixed with caution; bluster with a U-turn and summersault in Trump’s version of foreign policy.

Australian job figures cloak reality

Terry Cook

Figures released by the Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) for August show that the official unemployment rate remained at 5.6 percent, in line with the previous two months. According to the agency, 40,100 full-time jobs were added last month, along with 14,100 part-time positions. 

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash claim the result highlighted “the success of the Turnbull government’s comprehensive economic plan.”

For tens of thousands of ordinary people forced to eke out an existence in precarious part-time and casual employment, however, there is little to celebrate.

The ABS figures always cloak the real level of unemployment by counting anyone who has worked for as little as one hour a week as employed. Even by that measure, around 730,000 people are without work of any kind. This level has persisted on average since the Liberal-National Coalition government took office in 2013.

A more accurate assessment is provided by the Roy Morgan survey, which shows that unemployment in August stood at 10.2 percent, meaning 1.324 million people were jobless. Underemployment—those wanting or looking for more work—stood at 9.5 percent, or 1.241 million people.

The Morgan survey reveals that the trend to ever-greater casualisation has persisted. The small increase in employment over the past year was driven by a large jump in part-time employment, which rose 535,000 to 4,247,000, offsetting a decrease in full-time employment, which fell 373,000 to 7,438,000.

Roy Morgan chairman Gary Morgan noted: “The Australian economy has generated new jobs over the past year with a net 162,000 new jobs created since August 2016—however the large increase in part-time jobs (up 535,000 or about 45,000 per month) obscures the loss of full-time jobs (down 373,000, just over 30,000 per month).”

Stephen Koukoulas, a research fellow at the Per Capita think tank, dismissed the government’s claims that over 700,000 jobs have been created since it took office in 2013 as a “statistical fraud.”

“While the number of people in employment in Australia has increased by 701,100 since the 2013 election, the number of people unemployed has also risen, by 38,900,” Koukoulas said.

Persistent high unemployment is leading to stagnant or falling real wages, as workers are forced into lower-paid and insecure work. Moreover, employers, with the assistance of the unions, are using the situation to impose below-inflation pay increases, wage freezes or direct pay cuts.

Another recent ABS report revealed that wages for all categories of workers grew by a record low of just 1.9 percent in the past year, just level with inflation. Wages in the private sector grew by only 1.8 percent.

In the June quarter, private sector wages grew by just 0.4 percent, the 10th consecutive quarter of pay growth below 0.5 percent. This result has been recorded only once before, during the September quarter of 2009 following the global financial crisis.

Coming weeks will see one of Australia’s largest-ever waves of job destruction, produced by the final closure of the entire car-making industry.

The GM Holden car factory at Elizabeth in Adelaide’s north will close by October 20, destroying the remaining 1,000 jobs. Toyota will also cease manufacturing at its Altona car plant in Victoria in October at the cost of 2,500 jobs. Ford Australia ended all production last October, axing the remaining 600 jobs at its Geelong and Broadmeadow plants.

As a result, thousands of jobs are being destroyed across the auto-component and vehicle manufacturing sector.

Car components manufacturer Tenneco Australia revealed it will cut 70 jobs at its Monroe shock absorbers plant at Clovelly Park in Adelaide’s south. Just weeks before, the company announced it would shut its Walker exhaust plant at O’Sullivan Beach, South Australia, costing another 128 jobs.

During August and September other employers have continued to slash jobs and shutter plants to further cut costs and boost profits.

Churchill Abattoir will close its plant in the Queensland city of Ipswich by the end of September, destroying 500 jobs. Also in Ipswich, Baiada Poultry will shutter its Steggles Wulkuraka chicken plant by January at the cost of 400 jobs.

JBS Australia, the country’s largest meat processor, will cut a total of 190 at its plants in Cobram in northern Victoria and Longford in Tasmania.

Nannup Timber Processing in Western Australia shut its green timber processing mill in early September, axing 30 jobs or around half its workforce. Bendigo Woollen Mills announced it will close the Australian Country Spinners (ACS) plant in the rural city of Wangaratta in northeast Victoria in October, destroying 80 jobs. Fuel retailer Caltex Australia will cut 120 jobs as part of a restructure to deliver initial cost savings of around $60 million.

Confectionary manufacturer Cadbury will axe 50 jobs from its 450-strong workforce at its Hobart plant in Tasmania by the end of this year. One of Australia’s largest wine companies, Accolade, released plans to cut 35 jobs at its Berri Estates operation in South Australia’s Riverland.

Major bank Westpac will close another nine branches in its retail network nationally, a move that will eliminate 39 positions. Law firm Slater & Gordon announced plans to sack around 85 of its 1,210 staff as part of a cost-cutting plan in which a consortium of hedge funds will take control of the company.

The government scientific research agency CSIRO plans to cut a further 60 jobs from its mineral research unit and Sydney laboratory. More than one in every five CSIRO jobs has been axed since 2013.

Bailed out in 2008 crash, AIG now out of government oversight

Nick Beams

The insurance giant American International Group (AIG), which was at the centre of the financial meltdown of September 2008, has been taken off the “too big to fail” list. This is another move by the Trump administration to cut back even the limited regulation introduced in the wake of the crisis.

The collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers is the event most closely associated with the meltdown. However, it was the subsequent impending demise of AIG which led to the direct intervention by the Fed and the US government to bail out the banks and finance houses.

Such were its connections with the entire financial system, mainly through the use of derivatives, that there were fears that had AIG gone down it would have taken the global financial system down with it. This was summed up in President Bush’s remark, “this sucker’s going down.”

On Friday, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the body that decides which non-bank financial companies are “systemically important,” decided to remove AIG from its list. The vote, carried by six votes to three, came after what the Financial Times were bitter divisions on the council.

AIG, which was bailed to the tune of $185 billion in the financial crisis, came under the jurisdiction of the council in 2013 as part of the limited regulations introduced by the Obama administration. Trump appointees to the committee, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, were supportive of AIG’s submissions that it be taken off the list. They also received backing from Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen who was involved in the supervision of the bank following her appointment by Obama in 2014.

The decision is a significant one, not only for AIG, but for the administration of the financial system as a whole. It follows Trump’s order last April for a review of the FSOC’s powers.

The Financial Times commented: “The decision makes the insurer arguably the biggest winner to date in the Trump administration’s drive to deregulate the US economy, liberating the group from proposed capital surcharges and other restrictions on its business.”

The decision came after intense lobbying by the so-called “activist investor” Carl Icahn, who had been pushing for the removal of the “systemically important” designation since he acquired a significant stake in the company two years ago. Icahn is now its fourth-largest shareholder, according to calculations by Bloomberg, with almost 5 percent of the stock.

Previously, Icahn had sought to have the company broken up in order to have the designation removed. But he backed off those demands earlier this year, coinciding with the coming to power of the Trump administration, as AIG became more confident that restrictions would be removed. At one point Icahn was a special adviser to Trump on regulations, only quitting the post in August as a result of questions about potential conflicts of interest.

The position of Icahn was only one expression of the incestuous relationships which characterise the administration of the financial system. A meeting of the FSOC last week broke down without agreement because of a dispute over how to deal with the non-vote by the Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Jay Clayton.

Clayton was recused because he had previously worked for a law firm that has ties to AIG. The dispute centred on the stipulation that decisions by the FSOC require a two-thirds majority—that is a vote of seven out of a membership of ten. However, the treasury argued that with Clayton’s recusal there were now only nine votes, thereby reducing the threshold for the removal of the designation to six.

The argument advanced by treasury officials was that AIG was a very different company from that which required the bailout in 2008. While it has been forced to divest itself of some of its asset holdings, AIG has the immediate goal of getting bigger now that the FSOC restrictions on its activities have been lifted.

Up to now, AIG had been pursuing share buybacks to maintain its market value but the new CEO Brian Duperreault, who took office in May, has made it clear he wants to pursue mergers and acquisitions. Last month in a conference call, he said AIG had “lots of potential” for growth through deals or organic expansion.

The decision to remove the “too big to fail tag” from AIG brought a protest from Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren who likes to pose as an opponent of Wall Street.

Warren said the decision showed once again “that the Trump administration cares more about rewarding Wall Street executives that protecting Americans from another financial crisis. AIG got a $180 billion taxpayer bailout less than a decade ago and, without proper oversight it still remains a huge and interconnected company that could bring down the financial system again.”

These protests are aimed at trying to create the illusion that legislation and regulations implemented under the Obama administration have somehow lessened the risk of another financial meltdown. In fact, the changes have proved at most a minor inconvenience, as evidenced by the nearly 300 percent rise in the stock market since its low point in March 2009, most of which took place under Obama.

Warren’s specific warnings about AIG are beside the point. It is highly unlikely that a new financial crisis will take the same form as in 2008. But all the objective conditions which led to that crisis are developing within the present situation—most sharply expressed in the rise and rise of the stock market and its ever-widening divergence from the state of the real economy.

Notwithstanding Warren’s “protests,” the AIG decision, which gives it the green light to resume the kind of speculative activities that led to the 2008 meltdown, is yet another expression of how the US financial system functions by and for the ruling financial elites, administered by the two parties of Wall Street.

UK public sector employment at record low

Margot Miller

The loss of a million public sector jobs since 2010 has reduced the public sector share of total employment to just 16.9 percent. This figure, published by the GMB trade union, was down from 17.1 percent in 2016, 22 percent in 2009 and an all-time high of 30.6 percent in 1977. The estimate is derived from a report compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS)—Public Sector Employment June 2017.

Seven years ago there were 6.4 million employed in the public sector. Today the figure is down to 5.33 million. Most jobs lost are from local government, which provides essential services including education, transport, planning, fire and public safety, social care, libraries, waste management and trading standards.

According to the ONS, local government jobs fell to 2.115 million, the lowest figure since records began in 1999. The national civil service had 423,000 employees as of June 2017, which the GMB calculated as an 18.2 percent drop from 517,000 in 2010.

The scale of austerity imposed in the last decade is evident in the fact that even under the Conservative Thatcher government of the 1980s—which privatized swathes of industry including the major utilities, car production, shipbuilding and steel—the share of the public sector was never lower than 20 percent.

The ruling elite are seeking to return social conditions to the Victorian era, pre-dating the introduction of the post-World War II welfare state. How far this has gone is indicated in the fact that public sector employment is now at its lowest since 1947, the year before the foundation of the National Health Service (NHS).

The jobs have mostly gone in councils in the main towns and cities nationwide. These are run, in the majority, by the Labour Party. Labour has imposed billions of pounds in austerity since the Brown Labour government bailed out the banks to the tune of around £1 trillion after the 2008 crash.

Labour-held Birmingham city council, for example, has announced further cuts of £113 million for the current 2017/2018 budget. Since 2010, the council has cut services by £650 million.

By 2018, 13,000 public sector jobs will have been slashed in Birmingham, the UK’s second largest city. The council is currently engaged in a long running dispute with striking refuse workers, responsible for ensuring the safety of refuse collection, over a planned 120 redundancies.

In just the four years to 2014, the councils comprising the region of Greater Manchester, with a population of 2.5 million people, imposed cuts—including thousands of job losses—of £1.2 billion. Nine out of ten of the councils are Labour-run.

This is entirely in line with Labour Party policy. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell wrote to Labour councils last year instructing them to set legal budgets—i.e., impose cuts. He recently addressed a meeting of leading financiers and business magnates in the city of London, reassuring them that business has no need to fear a Labour government.

After a decade of cuts and losing more than £40 billion of its budget, the NHS is plagued with staff shortages among frontline staff, including doctors, nurses and midwives. Between January 2017 and March 2017, there were 86,000 vacant posts. This is expected to worsen due to the Brexit vote and the insecurity for EU workers it implies.

While the public sector has been haemorrhaging vital jobs and services, there has been a growth in employment overall. But the growth has been confined mainly to low-paid, temporary, and zero hours contacts jobs in what is known as the “gig” economy.

The ONS reports a rise in the private sector share of employment—up 167,000 from the previous quarter to 26.696 million, the highest since 1999 when comparable records began.

The move away from the public to the even worse paid private sector employment is having a knock-on effect in relation to poverty. Of the 30 percent of UK children classified as poor, two thirds live in working households dependent on benefits to supplement their income.

The decline in public sector jobs has not been caused by austerity cuts alone but though a parallel process of privatisation and outsourcing. This has resulted in private companies raking in handsome profits at the expense of deteriorating services.

A recent programme on BBC Radio 4, You and Yours, aired an item on Homecare—care in the community for the elderly, disabled and vulnerable. Once provided by local authorities, this is now outsourced to private companies. According to Richard Whittell, who works for Corporate Watch, Home Care was privatised and run “increasingly by big corporate players. He said that councils have handed over “huge amounts to corporate players, to the tune of “£70m in the last five years.”

After the Thatcher years, privatization and the redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich continued unabated under the government of New Labour, led first by Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown. Much of this was bound up with the introduction of the Tories’ Public Private Partnership (PFI) into hospitals, schools and the London Underground.

Under PFI, the public-sector leases assets built and owned by private companies, which make staggering profits out of the contracts. According to the website FullFact, in 2016/2017 the NHS alone paid £2 billion for past and present PFI contracts. The latest figures as of 2015 show the NHS will have to continue paying for 105 projects until 2050.

Labour also introduced Foundation Trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups into the NHS, laying the ground for the introduction of the market into health provision. These initiatives were taken up and expanded under the Conservative governments that came to office after Labour was ousted in 2010.

Commenting on the GMB report, the union’s national secretary, Rehana Azam, said, “funding reductions are cutting into sheer bone.” Not only are public sector employees “being denied fair pay rises” [capped at one percent for the past seven years] but the “vital services they deliver are being stripped back and hollowed out and denied the resources they need.”

The catastrophic decline in public sector is an indictment of the trade unions. Unison, the GMB and others including the health and education sector unions, with a membership of around 3.5 million—have sabotaged all struggles against austerity. Admitting the compliance of the unions with the cuts already imposed, Azam is quoted in the GMB report saying, “Any sensible opportunities for efficiencies are long gone,” and that in order to provide services “GMB’s members are performing miracles.”

This elicited the comment from a reader on the LocalGov website, who said, “About time the unions told members to stop performing miracles and start working to contract, hours and health and safety rules.”

CDC report finds large increase in sexually transmitted disease across the US

Matthew Taylor

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) 2016 Sexually Transmitted Diseases Surveillance report, released last week, revealed that rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are rising across the United States. The rise in these preventable and treatable diseases has coincided with the slashing of funding for public health programs and clinics which provide accessible testing and treatments.

Notably, the report points to the social roots of the crisis and the entirely preventable rise in infections: “STD public health programs are increasingly facing challenges and barriers in achieving their mission. In 2012, 52% of state and local STD programs experienced budget cuts. This amounts to reductions in clinic hours, contact tracing, and screening for common STDs. CDC estimates that 21 local health department STD clinics closed that year.” The annual estimated cost of treating STDs in the US was nearly $16 billion dollars last year.

The report found an increase in a host of common STDs including gonorrhea and chlamydia as well as the now less common syphilis, a disease which was at record low rates of infection at the beginning of the century

New cases of syphilis increased by 27,814, or a 17.6 percent increase from 2015. Reported cases of gonorrhea increased by 468,514, or 18.5 percent. There were also 1.59 million new cases of chlamydia reported, representing an increase of 4.7 percent.

Altogether, from 2015 to 2016, new cases reported for the three diseases were over 2 million, a new record according to the CDC. All three diseases are treatable with antibiotics, but if they are not diagnosed early can lead to multiple health problems, including stillbirth in infants, infertility, and an increased risk of HIV infection.

Young people between the ages of 15-24 make up over half of new cases of STDs. In the period between 2012 and 2016 rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea infections amongst males in this age group increased by 14 percent and 29.9 percent respectively, while decreasing only slightly for females. During the same time period, syphilis infections increased by 54.2 percent for males and 64.5 percent for females.

There are an estimated twenty million new cases of STDs in the US reported each year, and a total of 110 million cases at any given time. The report notes that certain demographic groups are at particularly high risk of contracting STDs. These include gay and bisexual men, pregnant women and especially young people between the ages of 15-24, who make up approximately half of all new cases each year.

Pregnant women and their children are at especially high risk. Many cases, both gonorrhea and chlamydia are asymptomatic in women, and the lack of treatment can cause Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, which can lead to damage to the reproductive system, including infertility. Other consequences of the lack of treatment of these two diseases can include “stillbirth, low birth weight, and premature rupturing of the membranes.”

The report also takes note of the many secondary health problems caused by STD infection, including “ocular and neurosyphilis, pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, infertility, HIV, congenital syphilis, and neonatal herpes.”

Rates of chlamydia infection increased across all regions in the US between 2015 and 2016. The highest reported cases of infection are amongst younger women, who are more widely tested. The overall rate of infection is 497.3 per 100,000 people.

Gonorrhea, which saw the largest year over year increase of any of the three STDs, had previously reached a historic low in 2009 of 98.1 per 100,000 people. Since that time, rates of infections have steadily increased. Today that figure is 145.8 per 100,000 people.

The increase in infections has occurred across ethnic lines, with African Americans hit hardest at a rate of 481.2 per 100,000, followed by Native Americans at a rate of 242.9 per 100,000. The rise in gonorrhea is especially troubling due to the fact that the disease has evolved to become resistant to many common antibiotics, such as penicillin and tetracycline. It is now routinely treated with two antibiotics simultaneously.

Syphilis had steadily been in decline for many years and reached a low of 2.1 per 100,000 people in 2000/2001, the lowest rate since testing began in 1941. That figure has increased to 8.7 per 100,000 in 2016. The increase has occurred across every region of the US and across all ethnic groups, with African Americans having the highest rate of infections at 23.3 per 100,000 followed by Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders at 13.9 per 100,000. The infection rate also increased across all age groups, with those between the ages of 20-29 hit the hardest.

The human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common STD in the US and worldwide. There are more than forty different types of the virus that have been identified, many of them asymptomatic. In fact, a study conducted in 2013-2014 found that 42.5 percent of American adults aged 18-59 years carried some form of HPV.

The majority of diseases caused by HPV are the result of only a few varieties of the virus. As the report notes: “HPV types 16 and 18 accounts for approximately 66 percent of cervical cancers in the United States, and approximately 25 percent of low-grade and 50 percent of high-grade cervical intraepithelial lesions, or dysplasia. HPV types 6 and 11 are responsible for approximately 90% of genital warts.”

Several vaccines have been developed that target the most dangerous strains of HPV, and since the mid-2000s have become more widely used. The CDC has recommended that all children be vaccinated. A national survey in 2015 found that 63 percent of girls age 13-17 had taken at least one dose of the vaccine, with 42 percent having completed the entire series of vaccinations. Amongst boys, the number was lower with just 50 percent of boys in the same age group taking the initial dose and 28 percent completing all recommended doses.

Tom Price resignation highlights corruption in Trump’s cabinet

Shelley Connor

Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Tom Price resigned on Friday, amid mounting criticism of his use of chartered jets and the apparent use of these government-funded trips as personal outings with his wife.

Between May and September, Price’s travels aboard private jets had cost the Treasury about $400,000, according to Politico. Moreover, many of Price’s trips had been of a personal nature: in June, for example, the HHS chartered a jet to Nashville, where Price owns a condominium. He spent the day touring a medicine dispensary, giving an extemporaneous speech at a health care summit, and having lunch with his son. On another occasion, he and his wife flew to St. Simons Island, Georgia to visit a resort where they own property, making an appearance at a medical conference.

Price stated on Thursday that he would reimburse the government for his travel fees. Significantly, he only offered to pay for his seat, which, according to an HHS spokesperson, cost $51,887.31. That Price could write a personal check for a sum that exceeds an average worker’s annual wage is no surprise, since he is a multi-millionaire. But the amount falls well under Politico’s $400,000 figure. It does not include the seats for Price’s staff, who traveled with him on his many jaunts to physicians’ conferences and pharmaceutical company gatherings.

Price issued a four-paragraph resignation letter on Friday in which he expressed “regret” for having “created a distraction” from the administration’s mission—which, it should be pointed out, is to strip healthcare from millions of Americans in the service of insurance and pharmaceutical executives. He made no apology for his actions.

Several other members of Trump’s cabinet have incurred scrutiny over their travel expenses. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, and Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin are all being investigated for their use of privately chartered jets or government planes, or for combining official travel and plush holiday trips.

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin requested the use of a military jet—at a cost of $25,000 an hour—to transport him and his new wife, Louise Linton, to their European honeymoon. After questioning by Treasury officials, he rescinded the request. A few weeks later, he and Linton traveled by military jet to Kentucky, taking advantage of the trip to view the solar eclipse in the path of totality. Linton posted a photo of the couple deplaning, tagging the expensive, designer brands she was wearing to Instagram.

In July, Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin issued a memo demanding that Veterans Affairs staffers curb their travel expenses. Less than two weeks later he took his wife to Europe at the public’s expense. The pair attended a championship tennis match at Wimbledon, took a cruise down the Thames, shopped, and toured historical sites. They were accompanied by Shulkin’s acting undersecretary, Poonam Alaigh, and her husband, as well as Shulkin’s chief of staff and an aide. A security retinue of six also accompanied the delegation.

Ostensibly, the trip was official government business. However, at least half of their time was spent on recreation, and Shulkin’s wife, who is not a government employee, had her flight paid for and was given a per diem reimbursement for expenses by the Department of Treasury.

As Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke is responsible for public lands coveted by oil and gas industries and their shareholders. Zinke took multiple flights aboard a privately chartered jet owned by Nielson and Associates, an oil and gas exploration company based in Wyoming. One such trip cost $12,375. For most of these flights, there were commercial options available for a few hundred dollars. Jay Nielson, executive vice president of Nielson and Associates, feigned ignorance about Zinke’s travels on his company’s jets, saying, “Part of why people charter planes is they like to remain somewhat private.”

Scott Pruitt, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, is widely known for his extravagant use of federal funds. Congressional inquiries have focused on his 18-person, 24-hour security detail, the $25,000 “secure” phone booth he had built for himself, and his frequent flights from Washington, DC to his home state of Oklahoma. Pruitt has also cost the federal purse an estimated $58,000 for private jets he has used to travel the country in support of the sweeping cuts he plans to make to the EPA.

Tom Price is thus far the only cabinet member to have drawn Trump’s ire over travel expenses. For Trump, the primary concern was the “optics” of Price’s use of public resources. Furthermore, Price had already found himself in Trump’s crosshairs when the administration met resistance for its efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Trump had jibed at Price in July, during a speech at a Boy Scout Jamboree. In reference to the healthcare plan Price had presented to congress, Trump threatened; “He better get the votes. Otherwise I will say, ‘Tom, you’re fired.’”

The Trump cabinet’s eye-popping travel expenses have highlighted the gulf between his demagogic campaign promises to “drain the swamp” and end government waste, and the reality of the open oligarchic rule in the capital.

Aristocratic arrogance and contempt also finds expression in the various responses of administration officials to criticism. Zinke has referred to the investigation into his travels as “a little BS.” Louise Linton, upon receiving a critical comment on her preposterous Instagram photo, unleashed a snide tirade against the commenter, demeaning the woman’s income and lifestyle. Linton’s response inspired comparisons to Marie Antoinette, whom she once portrayed on television.

Speaking to the Washington Post, Poonam Alaigh dismissed concerns that the VA delegation’s trip to Europe represented wasteful spending. “Were there some breaks we got? Sure. But they were reasonable,” she said.

The Trump administration has ruthlessly worked to dismantle programs to provide working Americans clean air, unpolluted drinking water, healthcare and education. It has portrayed American workers as lazy and irresponsible, and therefore undeserving of assistance. At the same time, Trump appointees have plundered the Treasury to maintain their positions among the financial aristocracy, traveling with unwarranted security details aboard luxury flights to protect themselves from the public they so clearly abhor.

Of course all the tone-deaf assertions and actions of the Trump cabinet pale by comparison to the privileged existence of Trump himself, who has spent more than a quarter of his presidency at his own hotels, golf clubs and other resorts, including the “winter White House” at his Mar-e-Lago estate, at a total cost to the Treasury that dwarfs all the boondoggles enjoyed by all other administration officials combined. It is likely that Trump’s sensitivity to the exposure of Price’s high-cost travel was sparked, not only by the administration’s failure to repeal Obamacare, for which he held Price partly responsible, but by concern that Price’s lifestyle would draw unflattering attention to the far more lavish perks enjoyed by the “commander-in-chief.”

Trudeau rushes to declare Edmonton attack a “terrorist” act

Roger Jordan 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a statement early Sunday morning claiming that an incident in which a 30-year-old man attacked a police officer, then hours later struck several pedestrians during a high-speed police chase, constituted a “terrorist attack.”

Police have yet to officially identify the alleged assailant, who was taken into custody after the police-chase culminated in the van he was driving overturning. However, the CBC, based on police sources, is reporting that he is a Somalian refugee claimant named Abdulahi Hasan Sharif.

Public Security Minister Ralph Goodale has said the Edmonton assailant was on a terrorism watch-list, while the RCMP has revealed he was interviewed by the Canadian police and intelligence services’ Integrated National Security Enforcement Team in 2015.

According to the media, authorities are planning to charge the assailant with five counts of attempted murder and terrorism offences. The latter would make him liable to significantly harsher punishment.

Much about what happened on Saturday night remains unclear. Even as police and senior government officials have rushed to label the incident a “terrorist attack,” they admit that all evidence points to this having been the act of a single individual or, to use the words of Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson, a “lone wolf.”

The incident began at around 8:15 p.m., when the assailant rammed his car into a barricade behind which stood a police officer who was providing security for an Edmonton Eskimos football game at which there was to be a ceremony honouring Canada’s military.

The officer was thrown several meters on impact. The assailant reportedly jumped from his car and attacked the cop with a knife but his assault was repelled and he then escaped on foot.

Police claim that they subsequently found an Islamic State flag in the assailant’s abandoned car.

The police officer, Constable Mike Chernyk, was not seriously injured in the attack, and approximately 90 minutes later authorities held a press conference at which they declared that while a manhunt was under way, the public was not at risk.

Two hours later, at around midnight, officers stopped a white U-Haul van at a traffic checkpoint. When an officer recognized the driver’s ID as being that of the man police were looking for and challenged him, the suspect allegedly drove away at high speed. Around 20 police cars then gave chase through downtown Edmonton at speed of 80 miles per hour, sending pedestrians and automobiles scurrying for safety.

Police claim that during the chase the suspect deliberately struck four pedestrians. None suffered serious injury.

One passer-by who witnessed the chase expressed the feelings of many when he commented to CBC, “That high-speed chase should have never, ever, in a million years have happened downtown.”

At a 3 a.m. press conference, Edmonton Police Chief Rob Knecht declared that the assailant was in custody and that the incident was being treated as a terrorism investigation.

The attack, like similar incidents which have targeted innocent people around the world, is deeply reactionary. But the narrative of Saturday night’s events the authorities and media are now developing should be treated with extreme caution and skepticism.

According to Public Safety Minister Goodale the fact the assailant was known to the authorities and on Canada’s terrorism watch list “is a detail of the investigation that the authorities will pursue in the appropriate way.”

Far from being a mere “detail” Sharif’s presence on a watch list raises serious questions about the authorities’ response. If his identity was known, why did police declare there to be no threat to public safety at 10 p.m. Saturday, almost two hours after the attack on the police officer? And since authorities considered him to be a terrorist threat, why did police engage in a high-speed chase through streets packed with football fans and local residents, giving him added opportunity and motive to strike passers-by with his vehicle?

These issues cannot be brushed aside, especially given the fact that in virtually every other attack of a similar character in recent years, it has later emerged that the perpetrators were well-known to the authorities.

For example, both of the assailants who carried out a similar attack last June on London Bridge and at Burgh market in Britain’s capital were known to police as Islamist extremists. One of them had even appeared in a televised documentary about jihadis. In that attack, the assailants rammed pedestrians with a van before exiting the vehicle and attacking them with knives, leaving seven dead.

None of the discrepancies in the official narrative were reflected in the response from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who labelled the incident an act of terrorism before any evidence had been made public.

“The Government of Canada and Canadians stand with the people of Edmonton after the terrorist attack on Saturday,” declared Trudeau in his Sunday morning statement.

Echoing the stock-lines governments all over the world have employed in promoting a phony “war on terror” that has been used to justify imperialist war and sweeping attacks on democratic rights, Trudeau continued, “We cannot—and will not—let violent extremism take root in our communities. We know that Canada’s strength comes from our diversity, and we will not be cowed by those who seek to divide us or promote fear.”

In evaluating Trudeau’s statement, it is important to note that in October 2014, he and his Liberals, as well as the New Democratic Party, did not join Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper in claiming that Canada was under terrorist attack, even as they forthrightly condemned the murder of an unarmed soldier in Ottawa and the attack on the Parliament complex carried out by a lone, psychologically disturbed gunman.

Harper exploited the Ottawa attack to ram through his Bill C-51, giving vast new powers to the national security apparatus. These included virtually unlimited access to government information on Canadians and the right of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the country’s premier spy agency, to break virtually any law in actively “disrupting” vaguely defined “threats” to national security.

Trudeau’s response to the Edmonton events underscores his government’s sharp shift to the right and should cause workers and youth to beware of Liberal attempts to stoke public fear over terrorism to justify further attacks on democratic rights and closer collaboration with Washington, both in aggression in the Middle East and in “policing” North America, including attacks on the rights of refugees and migrants.

The claims of Trudeau and his Liberals to represent a “progressive” alternative to Harper—claims that were eagerly promoted by the trade union bureaucracy—were always bogus. The Canadian elite’s traditional party of government, the Liberals, implemented the greatest social spending cuts in Canadian history when they last held office, as well as joining US-led wars in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan and in the wake of 9/11, dramatically expanding the powers and reach of the national security agencies.

That said, the Trudeau government is more and more openly embracing and expanding the reactionary agenda of its Conservative predecessors.

In June, Trudeau’s Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland, delivered a bellicose address in which she argues that “hard power,” i.e. war, had to be a key part of Canada’s foreign policy in the 21st century. This was swiftly followed by the release of a new defence policy that calls for military spending to be hiked by 70 percent to $33 billion per year over the next decade.

The same month, the Trudeau government unveiled its draconian Bill C-59, which in the name of “reforming” Bill C-51, makes a few cosmetic changes to Harper’s police-state law, while enshrining its vast expansion of the powers of the country’s intelligence agencies.

The Liberals’ bill also mandates Canada’s signals intelligence agency, the Communications and Security Establishment (CSE), to conduct offensive cyberwarfare operations. This will be done in conjunction with the military, which under the new defence policy has been given additional possibilities to cooperate with the intelligence agencies in this area thanks to the boosting of the Canadian Armed Forces’ cyberwarfare budget.

Puerto Rico faces health catastrophe as Trump tweets “We have done a great job”

Andrea Lobo

In anticipation to his scheduled visit to the island on Tuesday, President Donald Trump sent a barrage of tweets throughout the weekend from his luxury golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, which essentially blamed Puerto Ricans for the suffering they are facing.

After San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz criticized the administration’s response—comparing conditions on the US territory to “something close to a genocide”—Trump branded all criticisms as “fake news” and attacked Cruz’s “poor leadership.”

“They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort,” Trump tweeted Saturday, typifying the contempt of the US financial oligarchy to the island’s 3.4 million people. To Wall Street the demands of the island’s population for water, electricity, cell phone connections, gasoline and other basic necessities is an unwanted interruption to milking the island for debt repayments.

The president escalated his attacks on Sunday, criticizing “politically motivated ingrates” and insisting “We have done a great job.” He fraudulently declared in another tweet that all buildings had been inspected even though many towns, especially in rural and mountainous areas, remain out of reach of rescuers, let alone building inspectors.

Aping Trump, the right-wing correspondent for Fox News Geraldo Rivera confronted Mayor Cruz Sunday morning, cynically declaring, “I don’t see people dying.”

Speaking on Sunday, David Lapan, spokesperson of the Department of Homeland Security, which integrates FEMA, indirectly criticized the San Juan Mayor for any suggestion that they are not all in the “life-saving team”.

There is every indication officials are grossly under-reporting the death toll, which stands at 16. The Center for Investigative Journalism contacted several of the hospitals and the Forensic Science Institute finding that dozens and perhaps hundreds of corpses are piling up and going unreported.

Including the 1,500 national guardsmen in Puerto Rico, the number of military personnel deployed to the island is now over 6,400 soldiers, according to Caribbean FEMA director, Alejandro de la Campa. Eleven days after the hurricane, FEMA has received 63,000 claims of damaged homes. De la Campa indicated that a mere $21 million has been approved via FEMA’s infrastructure program for an “initial response.”

In addition, about 3,000 road obstructions are blocking half of all highways. Of the 69 hospitals, only one functions fully and 55 partially. Less than 5 percent of the electrical grid is operating, only half of the supermarkets are open, although they are running out of food, and ATMs and credit cards are largely not working.

Ricardo Ramos, executive director of the publicly-owned electric agency AEE, said only 3 percent of the electric grid had been restored across the island. Ramos acknowledged that the island-wide blackout was connected to decades of austerity measures and, more recently, to the decisions by the Financial Oversight Board, which oversees Puerto Rican finances on behalf of Wall Street.

“Our plants are very antiquated. Our generating infrastructure is very old and was designed for another epoch. Part of our fiscal plan was to build it with more resistance to the pounding of storms. It was rejected [by the Financial Oversight Board]; it was not meant to be, evidently,” declared Ramos. Due to austerity measures, 4,500 badly needed linesmen have been sacked since 2012. “They are the ones most urgently needed right now,” said the AEE director.

Officials have also said the cities of Isabela and Quebradillas would continue evacuating because of the danger of a collapse of the Guajataca dam, whose breach is expanding two to four inches each day. Repairs are scheduled to begin today.

Even in the areas where it is reported as available, the water service is being frequently interrupted. The pumps for the aqueduct that feeds water to the north of the island keep running out of fuel, shutting off water.

The head of the Aqueduct and Sewage Authority (AAA), Eli Díaz, indicated that the problem would be resolved over the weekend after a “deal” with FEMA. Such “deals” underscore the anarchic character of relief efforts, which are still being carried out on a for-profit basis. The availability of fuel and energy for water, hospitals, and other critical infrastructure is dependent on FEMA’s ability to sign contracts with private diesel or gasoline suppliers.

The dean of Public Health School at Florida International University, Tomás Guilarte, warned in an op-ed in the Miami Herald that the lack of electricity means sewer systems are failing. “This leads to bacterial infections—such as cholera, dysentery, E. coli and typhoid—that can be disastrous. The typical treatments, like tetanus shots or powerful antibiotics, are not readily available on the island, where medical supplies are quickly running out.”

The mosquito-borne diseases dengue and conjunctivitis are already showing outbreaks, according to a report Thursday by the Washington Post, which also indicated that thousands are not receiving urgent care and have had critical surgeries postponed.

The warning of a cholera epidemic underscores the devastated state of the infrastructure, given that Puerto Rico hasn’t suffered such an outbreak since the 1850s.

Guilarte also warned about the grave risks from the exposure to chemicals and pollutants, given the 18 open and six closed Superfund toxic sites in Puerto Rico, which he describes as areas where “mismanagement of contamination threatens human health and the environment.”

The EPA’S 2014 Climate Change Adaptation Implementation plan warns Superfund cleaning teams explicitly to plan for “increased intensity of hurricanes” to protect people from toxic releases. Not only did these warnings not prevent 13 sites from being flooded in Texas and leaking chemicals after Hurricane Harvey, but the report, even for future consideration, was removed from the web site by President Trump after his inauguration.

An EPA spokesperson warned last week that it was getting its teams in place to assess the Superfund and oil sites and other regulated facilities. Juan Declet-Barreto of the Union of Concerned Scientists warned that toxins will “add even more to what is undoubtedly going to be a public health crisis.”

A 2013 study by the Puerto Rico Climate Change Council reported that natural drainage for storm water was being undermined through real estate development, particularly in the cities. It notes that fully half of the population lived in areas susceptible to landslides, while a “relatively high poverty rate increases the island’s social and economic vulnerability to climate change impacts.” Nearly half of the population lives below the official poverty line.

A 2016 Congressional report found that more than half of Puerto Rico’s landfills were in violation of EPA regulations. InsideClimateNews reports that a five-story coal ash pile near the impoverished city of Guayama could be of greatest concern, a risk already compared by EPA advisor Michael Dorsey to the polluted water in Flint, Michigan.

Governor Roselló indicated that two regions in the island still have “disconnected communities.” Eliván Martínez, a journalist for the Center of Investigative Journalism, reported last week from Guaonico, one of the villages still inaccessible in the Utuado district, that residents are getting water from a nearby river and scavenging the forest for food. “The mountains near my house melted…We have gone back to ancient times, bathing in the river with muddy water. In this situation, human pride crumbles down,” said neighbor Edgardo Matías.

Millions defy brutal crackdown by Spanish police to vote in Catalan referendum

Alejandro López & Alex Lantier

Mass protests engulfed Catalonia Sunday as large parts of the region’s population mobilized against a brutal and indiscriminate crackdown by Spanish national police, who were dispatched to block the Catalan government’s referendum on secession from Spain. Millions worldwide reacted with horror to television news reports showing Civil Guard riot police assaulting peaceful protesters, including teenagers and elderly people, who were defending polling stations or lined up to vote.

The Popular Party (PP) government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy sent some 16,000 police to Catalonia to shut down polling stations, seize ballot boxes and attack voters. At least 844 people were injured across the region as police launched baton charges and fired rubber bullets. The police operation failed to overcome mass popular resistance, however. Catalan authorities claimed that 90 percent of the 2,315 polling stations organized for the referendum had remained open.

Early on Sunday, a helicopter and some 100 Civil Guards descended on Sant Julià de Ramis, the voting place of regional Premier Carles Puigdemont, and attempted to storm the village’s polling station. Hundreds of voters blocked the doors of the local sports center that served as the polling station, chanting “We will vote!”, but police used a hammer to break the glass, forced their way into the building, and beat or dragged off the voters.

Civil Guards drag away elderly woman in Sant Julià de Ramis

Police attacked and beat voters at schools and other polling places across the regional capital, Barcelona. Videos emerged of officers kicking people sitting in polling places and dragging women away by their hair. At the Escola Infant Jesús School polling place, police assaulted Maria José Molina, 64, whose picture with her head drenched in blood went viral on the Internet.

Maria José Molina outside the Escola Infant Jesús voting school

Molina told Barcelona-based daily La Vanguardia that she was sitting next to her husband several meters from the door when riot police grabbed her shoulders and legs and carried her off. “I am a light woman,” she said, adding that police officers “threw me face first to the pavement.”

Police arriving in towns across the region rapidly found themselves facing large, hostile crowds who booed and demanded that they leave. In Girona, police tried to seize the ballots at the Escola Verd de Girona, when a crowd shouting, “We want to vote! We want to vote!” blocked the main entrance. Police then assaulted the crowd, which began to chant “Murderers! Murderers!”

Opposition to the police crackdown extended throughout the region, including in areas opposed to independence. In L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Catalonia’s second city—home to first, second and third generation Spanish-speaking migrant workers who went to Catalonia in the 1960s—police were met with protesters chanting in Spanish, “Go away, occupation forces!” and “We want to vote!”

Spanish police also clashed with Catalan officials, including firefighters who turned out to form human shields between riot police and voters, and the region's police, the Mossos d'Esquadra.

After the Spanish police’s rampage across Catalonia yesterday, the explosive conflict between Madrid and Barcelona is set to further escalate today. While Puigdemont claimed a victory for the Catalan referendum and called for secession late last night, Spanish officials in Madrid offered a brazen defense of their onslaught against the population of Catalonia and demanded that the Catalan administration submit to its diktat.

Denouncing the referendum as “an illegal mobilization with disorganized logistics,” Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy spoke from the Moncloa Palace to defend his decision to unleash his police against the Catalan population. He said that “the state responded with firmness and serenity… We did what we had to do. I direct the government and we have carried out our responsibilities.”

Rajoy bluntly demanded that the Catalan government abandon the referendum: “I ask them to end their irresponsibility, to admit that what was never legal is now clearly unrealizable, and that continuing this farce will take them nowhere… Put an end to it. It will lead to nothing good.”

Late last night, in Barcelona, Puigdemont responded by saying that the Spanish state had “written today a shameful page in the history of its relations with Catalonia.” He added, “Catalonia’s citizens have won the right to have an independent state constituted in the form of a republic… In consequence, my government will transmit in the coming days to the Parliament, the seat and expression of the sovereignty of our people, today’s electoral results so that it can act as specified by the Referendum Law.”

The Referendum Law states that under these conditions, Catalonia will declare independence and secede from Spain, even though only a minority of the total population voted “yes.” 2.26 million people voted yesterday, or 42 percent of the 5.34 million voters in Catalonia. Of these, 2.02 million voted “yes”, and 176,000 voted “no.”

Puigdemont appealed for support from the European Union bureaucracy in Brussels, asserting that Spain’s conduct “violates its fundamental principles” and adding that the Catalan issue was “no longer an internal matter” of Spain.

The crackdown, coming after weeks of threats and police operations launched by Madrid in Catalonia, is a political indictment not only of the PP, but of the entire Spanish ruling elite and all of Spain’s main NATO allies. While Spanish police raided offices, confiscated ballots and arrested officials, and the government in Madrid sent police reinforcements, heads of state including US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron met with Rajoy and issued cordial joint statements calling for Spanish unity.

Last night, Britain’s Foreign Office whitewashed the PP crackdown. Its spokeswoman said, “The referendum is a matter for the Spanish government and people. We want to see Spanish law and the Spanish Constitution respected and the rule of law upheld.”

This is a fraud! Madrid’s barbaric crackdown was not a legal action, but an act of terror against innocent people aimed at whipping an entire region of Spain into line. The country has seen nothing like it since the Spanish Civil War and the end in 1978 of the 40-year regime of the fascist dictator Francisco Franco.

The stench surrounding the ruling establishment in Madrid extends to Washington and the major European powers. They  are reprising the role they played during Franco’s rule: endorsing a bloodstained right-wing Spanish regime they see as a key military ally, and one that is dedicated to the suppression of the working class.

The crackdown has also exposed the bankruptcy of the two main opposition parties in the Spanish parliament, the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and Podemos. Unsurprisingly, the PSOE, a tool of the Spanish state machine, refounded as an explicitly anti-Marxist, social democratic party in 1979, unequivocally endorsed Rajoy’s crackdown.

PSOE General Secretary Pedro Sánchez, who is often presented as a “left” within the party, hailed Rajoy and the PP: “I want to express the full support of the PSOE for Spain’s rule of law, its rules and its institutions, the support of the PSOE for the territorial integrity of this country that is now at risk. We are in a moment in which the general interest must prevail over the parties… it is the moment of reason, of common sense.”

As for Podemos, while hordes of riot police beat and bloodied innocent people across Catalonia, it issued impotent appeals for the PSOE to abandon its tacit support for the minority PP government in Madrid and instead form a coalition government with Podemos. As the first police attacks began, Podemos officials began appealing to the PSOE. Iñigo Errejón, secretary for policy and strategy, asked in a tweet, “Why is the PSOE so silent?” Irene Montero, spokesperson for Podemos in parliament, said “the PSOE has to be more democratic.”

Podemos General Secretary Pablo Iglesias told the press: “The PSOE cannot continue looking away. They have made a serious mistake by supporting the PP’s strategy. Better late than never and hopefully they will rectify and support us to get the PP out.”

The bankruptcy of the PSOE and Podemos notwithstanding, the minority PP government hangs by a thread after its bloody crackdown. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), whose support was key to passing the PP government’s budget this year, has criticized the PP and on Saturday it led a march in Bilbao in defense of the Catalan referendum.