Twitter bans RT and Sputnik from advertising

Trévon Austin

In an escalation of the efforts to use allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election to crack down on social media, Twitter announced on Thursday that it has banned Russian government funded media companies Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik from advertising on the microblogging platform.

In a blog post announcing the move, Twitter claimed that the “decision was based on the retrospective work we've been doing around the 2016 U.S. election and the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that both RT and Sputnik attempted to interfere with the election on behalf of the Russian government," insisting, "we did not come to this decision lightly."

While Twitter has indicated that it would not be blocking any other news outlets from advertising the move sets a chilling precedent, giving the social media platform the ability to decide which news outlets are allowed to promote their content, limiting free speech and freedom of the press online.

Twitter has announced that it will use the $1.9 million it has collected from RT advertising efforts over the last six years and "donate those funds to support external research into the use of Twitter in civic engagement and elections, including use of malicious automation and misinformation..."

In response to Twitter's allegations, RT's deputy editor-in-chief Kirill Karnovich-Valua stated the outlet "has never been involved in any illegal activity online, and that it never pursued an agenda of influencing the US election through any platforms."

RT editor-in-chief and head of social media Margarita Siymonyan called Twitter's decision "highly regrettable" and stated that the move was part of the campaign being raged against Russia since the beginning of this year. In a separate tweet, she also accused Twitter itself of pushing RT to "spend big" during the election.

In a statement on Facebook, Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, called Twitter’s decision “yet another aggressive step” and claimed that Twitter was folding under pressure from US intelligence agencies. “Naturally, a response will follow,” Zakharova said.

Sputnik told news agency AFP it "has never used advertising on Twitter.”

Earlier this month, RT claimed that the Department of Justice demanded that the media outlet register itself as a "foreign agent" under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The law originated in World War II and required companies or individuals considered to be working on behalf of a foreign government in the US to disclose their funding and relationship with foreign governments or actors with the DOJ.

Since US officials first alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, the ruling elites, with the Democratic Party leading the way, along with Google, Facebook, and Twitter, have been engaged in efforts to censor political dissent online and silence voices genuinely critical of the US government.

Unsubstantiated tales of Kremlin-linked human "trolls" aimed at spreading discontent and conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton, are being used to justify attempts to stifle free speech on the internet.

Google and Facebook have not stated whether or not they would follow in Twitter in banning RT and Sputnik from advertising, but maintain that "Russian agents" have spent tens of thousands of dollars on advertising with them as well.

Within the last month, both Facebook and Twitter have announced plans to modify the "transparency" of advertising on the social media platforms. Facebook has begun testing a split newsfeed in Bolivia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Serbia, Slovakia, and Sri Lanka which relegates content from news organization’s pages to a separate feed. Journalists and independent media outlets in these countries have reported that their readership from Facebook has collapsed as a result.

In April, Google altered its search engine algorithms to promote more "authoritative" content and censor left wing website, with the World Socialist Web Site seeing the greatest decline in referrals from the search engine.

Leading officials in the U.S. government that have been pressuring social media companies to impose new limits on their platforms applauded Twitter's decision, but claim that it does not go far enough.

Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee who has been leading the charge to censor the internet, stated, “I appreciate the effort, although RT and Sputnik have been known entities for some time," and "what I hope is we’ll see enhanced efforts on discovering other fake accounts as well as avatars that might not be as obvious.”

Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar and Republican Senator John McCain, who introduced legislation earlier this month that would require Facebook, Google and other technology companies to disclose who is purchasing online political advertising, said "the action only underscored the need for a new, across-the-board standard for social media companies to follow when it comes to political advertising," according to the New York Times .

In a statement, Klobuchar said, "Twitter’s announcement today is a positive step, but one company preventing two outlets — RT and Sputnik — from placing ads on its platform is not a substitute [for government regulation]."

The actions being taken by Twitter and other tech companies in the United States are part of a broader plan to crack down on social opposition as the ruling class pursues imperialist wars abroad and escalates the attack on the living standards of the working class at home.

High Court disqualifies five MPs, demanding “single-minded loyalty” to Australia

Mike Head

Australia’s supreme court yesterday disqualified five members and ex-members of parliament, including deputy prime minister and National Party leader Barnaby Joyce, on the basis that they are dual citizens. The judgment is deeply reactionary, saturated with nationalist language demanding “unqualified allegiance to Australia.”

The High Court’s terse unanimous ruling adopted the strictest possible interpretation of section 44(i) of the 1901 Constitution, which states that any person who “is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power” is “incapable” of being elected to parliament.

The judgement insisted that anyone “entitled” to citizenship of another country was “ineligible” to stand for parliament, even if they had no knowledge of that entitlement and had never accepted it.

Along with Joyce, National Party cabinet member and deputy leader Fiona Nash was removed. Malcolm Roberts, a senator for Pauline Hanson’s anti-immigrant One Nation, was also ousted by the court. Two ex-Greens senators, Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters, had their removals upheld. They had already resigned their seats in July in a groveling display of subservience to Australian nationalism.

Two other senators, ex-National Party minister Matt Canavan and Nick Xenophon, who heads his own populist party, were cleared by the court, but only because the judges found that they were not, in law, citizens of other countries.

In a rare joint judgment, the seven judges spoke with one voice, insisting that the paramount issue was to ensure that no candidates for parliament had “foreign loyalties or obligations.” The court ruled that any interpretation that permitted a person to argue ignorance of their divided “allegiance”—that is, that they had no knowledge of any entitlement to dual citizenship in another country—would threaten the “stability” of the parliamentary system.

Australia is a country of migrants, with over 28 percent of its population born overseas. The children of migrants and, in some cases, grandchildren, have the right to claim citizenship in their parents’ home country, and Australian law allows them to do so. As many as three million people, for example, hold or can hold British passports. Amid all the judges’ invocations of patriotism, there was no mention of the fact that their court ruling disqualifies an estimated half of the country’s entire adult population from standing for federal parliament, unless they formally renounce their entitlement to citizenship in another country.

The High Court ruling has potentially far-reaching ramifications for democratic rights. If dual citizens are proscribed from standing for election, what comes next? Should their purported “divided loyalties” bar them from voting and from other basic political and civil rights? The colonial-era Constitution contains no bill of rights or even a guarantee of the democratic right to vote.

The entire political establishment has nevertheless immediately lined up behind the anti-democratic ruling, with the leaders of all the parliamentary parties declaring their “respect” for the High Court and the constitution. Greens’ leader Richard Di Natale was the most vociferous. On television last night, he boasted that Ludlam and Waters had acted “in the national interest” by quitting their seats as soon as their dual citizenships were raised.

The purging of parliament may be far from over. Reportedly, up to 20 other MPs could face disqualification under the court’s hardline interpretation of Section 44(i). Calls are already being revived for a McCarthyite “audit” of all parliamentarians to determine their “sole loyalty,” as previously demanded by the Greens.

John Cameron, the Western Australian lawyer who triggered the witch-hunt in July, by initiating Ludlam’s removal, said: “There will be others. This opens up a huge can of worms.”

The court specifically agreed with the submission of former independent MP Tony Windsor, presented by ex-solicitor-general Justin Gleeson, which stressed the need for “single-minded loyalty” to the country.

The issue of citizens’ obligations to the Australian state in time of war was pointedly raised. The judges insisted that it was impermissible for a politician to have any “duty of allegiance or obedience” to another country. “So long as that duty remains under the foreign law,” the court stated, “its enforcement—perhaps extending to foreign military service—is a threatened impediment to the giving of unqualified allegiance to Australia.”

The judges bluntly rejected the Liberal-National Coalition government’s own submission to the court, in which it argued that MPs should be removed only if they knew of their entitlement to citizenship elsewhere. Such interpretations would introduce an “implied mental element,” the judgment stated. The resulting uncertainties, it asserted, would be “apt to undermine stable representative government.”

Reiterating a 1992 ruling, the court said the only possible defence would be if a candidate had taken “all reasonable steps” to renounce a foreign entitlement.

A similar approach would uphold many other anti-democratic provisions contained in the 1901 Constitution, such as the power of the unelected governor-general to dismiss governments and take control of the armed forces as “commander-in-chief.”

The court’s decision, particularly the ousting of Joyce, destabilises the already unstable Coalition government, which holds power with only a one-seat majority. The ruling, however, was conveniently handed down one day after parliament went into recess for four weeks, giving the government and the political establishment some breathing space to try to reorganise the affairs of state.

In Joyce’s place, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop will be anointed acting prime minister when Turnbull travels overseas. Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion will be installed as National Party leader.

Joyce, who has since renounced the New Zealand citizenship he inherited through his father, has announced he will contest a December 2 by-election and seek to win back his parliamentary seat.

The decision temporarily leaves the Turnbull government without a working majority, but there are just four sitting days of parliament scheduled before December 2, and the government currently has confidence and supply assurances from several crossbench MPs.

If Joyce is defeated in the by-election, however, the government will lose its majority in the House of Representatives. It would then face the possibility of being brought down via a no-confidence motion, if all the five Greens, third party and independent members joined with Labor in voting to oust it.

The High Court ruled that each of the four ousted senators will be replaced, in effect, by the next candidate on their party’s list in last year’s “double dissolution” election. This may exacerbate already sharp rifts in the Coalition, because Nash, a National, is due to be replaced by a Liberal Party member.

More broadly, the government’s turmoil throws further into doubt its capacity to impose the full agenda of austerity and militarism required by the corporate elite. Today’s Australian editorial sounded a warning. Turnbull, it asserted, “must find a way to control the political debate and command the economic narrative as he promised when he took over. Public patience is wearing thin and the parliament is perilous.”

The primary objective of the witch-hunt against some of the ruling elite’s most loyal parliamentary servants, on the grounds that they have had “divided loyalty,” has been to fuel a broader ideological campaign of nationalism and paranoia about “foreign” influence. For well over a year, the media, acting as the mouthpiece of the intelligence agencies, has been publishing racist-tinged hysteria against alleged Chinese “interference” in Australian politics, business and society.

The High Court decision has been handed down under conditions in which both US and Australian imperialism are consciously and recklessly provoking tensions with China, most sharply with the Trump administration’s threats to “totally destroy” North Korea—a formal ally of the Beijing regime. Any political organisations, workers or youth who oppose war will be accused of acting in the interests of a “foreign power” or even committing treason.

The promotion of patriotism is also aimed at diverting mass hostility to the government in a reactionary direction, as social inequality accelerates and class antagonisms deepen.

The political atmosphere being consciously whipped up recalls the conditions prior to World War I and World War II, when, immediately upon the outbreak of war, thousands of people deemed to have “allegiance” to enemy nations were rounded up and imprisoned in internment camps. At the same time, socialist and working class organisations, including the Trotskyists, that opposed Australian imperialism’s involvement in the war, were illegalised, and several of their members sent to jail.

Newly released documents point to state cover-up and complicity in assassination of John F. Kennedy

Barry Grey

Information contained in nearly 2,900 previously classified documents released Thursday concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy further undermines the official narrative of a lone killer and points to a cover-up and complicity on the part of forces within the US intelligence agencies.

What are generally deemed the most sensitive—and potentially incriminating—documents were withheld, as President Donald Trump acceded to extraordinary pressure from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and delayed their release.

These 300 documents, consisting of thousands of pages of material, include an extensive file on the head of the CIA office in Dallas at the time of the November 22, 1963 killing; a dossier on a prominent Dallas businessman who conferred with nightclub owner Jack Ruby just before Ruby shot and killed the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald; files on two anti-Castro Cuban terrorists involved in mass murder; documents concerning Oswald’s six-day trip to Mexico City and meetings with Russian and Cuban officials seven weeks before the Kennedy assassination; and information on Watergate burglars and longtime CIA operatives E. Howard Hunt and James McCord.

From the moment the 35th president was killed by a volley of shots as his caravan drove past Dealey Plaza in Dallas up to the present time, there has been a systematic effort to keep from public view critical facts pointing to political motives underlying the murder and to dismiss all questioning of the 1964 Warren Commission Report as “conspiracy theories.”

The commission, announced by Lyndon Johnson a week after Kennedy’s assassination and headed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren, concluded that Oswald, acting alone and using a mail order rifle, killed Kennedy by firing three shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building, which overlooks Dealey Plaza. The commission said Oswald had no connection to US intelligence agencies or other parties.

The American public, with good reason, has never accepted this narrative. A recent poll by FiveThirtyEight and SurveyMonkey found that only 33 percent of Americans believe the assassination was the work of only one person, while 61 percent believe others were involved. A 1979 report issued by the House Select Committee on Assassinations seconded this view, concluding that Kennedy “was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.”

Kennedy’s assassination had a traumatic effect on the American public and continues to haunt the popular imagination. It came at a time of mounting crisis for US imperialism both at home and abroad, signaling the beginning of the end of the United States’ post-World War II global economic and geopolitical hegemony. Only weeks before his death, Kennedy sanctioned the coup that overthrew South Vietnamese President Diem, leading to his murder, an event that marked a nodal point in the escalation of the US intervention in Vietnam.

Washington’s mounting economic contradictions were reflected in a worsening balance of payments crisis and gold drain, which would lead eight years later to the collapse of the Bretton Woods monetary system and the ending of dollar-gold convertibility.

Domestically, the ruling class faced a growing civil rights insurgency and a militant working class determined to defend and extend its postwar economic gains. The elimination of Kennedy was an inflection point in the transition of US ruling class domestic policy from social reform and relative class compromise to class war and political reaction.

The documents released on Thursday make clear that both the FBI and the CIA were well aware of Oswald’s activities and were closely tracking him in the period leading up to the assassination. Yet they failed to warn the Secret Service, tasked with protecting the president, about the former Marine, turned expatriate living in the Soviet Union, turned active member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.

One of the more spectacular documents concerns 1975 testimony by Richard Helms, the CIA director under presidents Johnson and Nixon, to the President’s Commission on CIA Activities, which was headed by then-Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. A lawyer for the commission is quoted asking Helms: “Is there any information involved with the assassination of President Kennedy which in any way shows that Lee Harvey Oswald was in some way a CIA agent or agent…?” At that point the document breaks off, without Helms’ reply.

Other material documents the fact that the intelligence agencies were closely monitoring Oswald’s movements. One document shows that the CIA intercepted Oswald speaking to a Russian KGB agent in Mexico City on September 28, 1963. Another, dated October 25, less than a month before the assassination, is from the New Orleans office of the FBI. In it, the FBI notes Oswald’s involvement in the New Orleans chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and discusses the agency’s contacts with Cuban sources concerning Oswald.

A number of documents shed light on the systematic nature of the cover-up, which began virtually the moment the shots rang out on Dealey Plaza. One is a memo from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover dictated the evening of November 24, 1963, shortly after Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald, before live TV cameras, as the Dallas police were leading the handcuffed suspect down a corridor in the police headquarters building.

Hoover says, “Last night we received a call in our Dallas office from a man talking in a calm voice and saying he was a member of a committee organized to kill Oswald.” He notes that he informed the Dallas police of the call and insisted that they take precautions to prevent an attack on Oswald. Furious that the accused assassin was killed before a confession had been extracted from him, Hoover writes of the need for “something issued so that we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin.” This was written, of course, before any serious investigation of the killing had begun.

Lyndon Johnson, who told Earl Warren that his commission had a “patriotic mission” to stamp out “dangerous rumors” of state involvement in the assassination, was himself convinced that Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy. One document in the trove released Thursday shows Richard Helms telling the Rockefeller Commission in 1975 that Johnson “used to go around saying that the reason President Kennedy was assassinated was that he had assassinated President Diem.”

In its account of the released documents, the Washington Post writes: “The CIA publicly acknowledged in 2014 that John McCone, its director at the time of the assassination, participated in a ‘benign cover-up,’ according to a paper by agency historian David Robarge. His article said McCone was ‘complicit in keeping incendiary and diversionary issues off the commission’s agenda.’ He wrote that McCone did not tell the commission about CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro, some of which had been planned at the Mexico City station.”

There is ample material in the newly released papers concerning the criminal activities of the US government in the period leading up to the assassination. A 1975 document from the Rockefeller Commission speaks of Attorney General Robert Kennedy telling the FBI that the CIA considered approaching Chicago mobster Sam Giancana to have the mafia go to Cuba and kill Fidel Castro for $150,000. Schemes to assassinate Castro included the use of gunmen, poison pills, a skin-diving suit contaminated with a disabling fungus and tuberculosis, and a “booby-trap spectacular seashell.”

Behind the public face of the Kennedy administration marked by rhetoric about the defense of democracy around the world, both John and Robert Kennedy had a particular fascination with assassination plots, particularly against Castro. It was less than three years since the Bay of Pigs debacle, in which President Kennedy signed off on the CIA scheme to use Cuban anti-Castro expatriates to invade the island, murder Castro and install a US puppet regime.

Despite the failure of the plot and Kennedy’s fury over the CIA’s false assurances and incompetence, his administration remained mired in the swamp of anticommunist adventurers and terrorists. Two of the CIA’s anti-Castro allies, Luis Posada and Orlando Bosch, were implicated in the blowing up of a Cuban commercial airliner and death of 73 innocent passengers in 1976. Posada escaped from prison in Venezuela with the aid of an anti-Castro group with close ties to the Reagan administration. He was subsequently implicated in terrorist bombings in Cuba in the late 1990s.

Other illegal activities described in the newly released documents include the FBI’s relentless wiretapping of Martin Luther King, Jr., whom Hoover considered to be part of a world communist conspiracy, and FBI spying on Mark Lane, a liberal lawyer and author of a number of books debunking the Warren Commission Report.

Spain imposes military rule in Catalonia to preempt independence bid

Alex Lantier & Alejandro López

The Spanish Senate formally voted 214-47 on Friday to authorize the implementation of Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, suspending parliamentary rule in Catalonia. It handed Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy full powers to suspend the Catalan regional government, proceed with punitive measures outlined in Rajoy’s October 21 speech, and impose an unelected Catalan government answerable only to Madrid.

As Article 155 was being debated in the Senate, where Rajoy’s right-wing Popular Party (PP) has an absolute majority, the Catalan parliament anticipated the outcome of the debate and voted to declare independence. Thousands of protesters surrounded Catalan government buildings in Barcelona Friday night amid calls to defend the newly-declared republic.

Yesterday’s events mark a historic collapse of democratic forms of rule in Western Europe and a return to authoritarianism with far-reaching implications. The Spanish political set-up created 39 years ago, in the so-called Transition from the 1939-1978 fascist regime established by General Francisco Franco, has burst asunder. With the full support of the European Union and Washington, Madrid aims to police 7 million Catalans through unilateral decrees, backed by the police and army, while holding in reserve the invocation of Article 116 to impose a nationwide state of emergency.

The defense of the basic interests of the working class requires determined political opposition to repression in Catalonia. The danger of a bloodbath is looming, as Madrid moves to enforce the diktat of the European financial aristocracy on the workers in Catalonia and across Spain.

EU Council President Donald Tusk reiterated the European powers’ support for the implementation of Article 155 yesterday, writing on Twitter: “For [the] EU nothing changes. Spain remains our only interlocutor.” Tusk cynically added that he hoped Madrid would use “force of argument, not argument of force.”

In a speech urging the Senate to adopt Article 155, Rajoy declared that now “there is no alternative.” He continued: “The only thing that can and therefore must be done in such a situation is to use the law to enforce the law.” He said his government had four goals: to “return to legality” in Catalonia, “win back the people’s confidence,” “maintain the high levels of economic growth and job creation of recent times,” and “organize elections in a situation of institutional normality.”

“What we must protect the Catalans from is not Spanish imperialism, as they claim, but from a minority that in an intolerant fashion is acting as if it owned Catalonia,” Rajoy declared.

Rajoy’s brief for dictatorship in Catalonia is a pack of lies. His claim that there is no alternative to invoking Article 155, which only a few weeks ago was widely described as the “nuclear option” in the Spanish press, is absurd. Scotland held an independence referendum in Britain in 2014, and Quebec held an independence referendum in Canada in 1980 and 1995. But neither London nor Ottawa sent tens of thousands of paramilitary police to assault peaceful voters, as did Rajoy during the October 1 Catalan independence referendum. Nor did they forcibly preempt moves towards secession.

Responsibility for the crisis lies squarely with Madrid, which, after its brutal crackdown on the October 1 referendum, has consistently sought to inflame the conflict. On October 19, Catalan President Carles Puigdemont confirmed that he had suspended moves toward independence and appealed to Madrid for dialogue. With its unilateral rejection of this appeal, its arbitrary imprisonment of Catalan nationalist politicians Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart, and its moves to invoke Article 155, Madrid forced the Catalan nationalists in Barcelona on the path to a declaration of independence.

Rajoy's calls for “legality,” “elections” and “institutional normality” are a cynical ruse, presenting the drive to dictatorship as the defense of democracy and constitutional rule. Madrid is well aware that it can impose its agenda only by means of state terror and repression. According to Rajoy’s October 21 speech, he aims to seize control of the Catalan budget, government, education system, police force and public media.

These measures will provoke deep opposition among millions of people, and Madrid is preparing to forcibly repress it. The paramilitary Guardia Civil, the Arapiles motorized infantry regiment and other army units stationed in neighboring regions are all preparing to intervene in Catalonia.

As protests and calls for civil disobedience spread, Madrid is preparing “express” mass sackings of Catalan public sector workers. Yesterday, the Spanish Senate approved measures allowing Madrid to discipline workers “without recourse to previous mechanisms regarding disciplinary measures.”

At a press conference Friday night, after a meeting of his ministerial cabinet to discuss the Senate vote, Rajoy announced the suspension of the Catalan government and the holding of elections on December 21. Madrid also confirmed that it would bring charges of “rebellion,” a crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison, against current Catalan government and parliament members.

These announcements expose Rajoy’s claim that Madrid will organize elections in Catalonia as an Orwellian fraud. If his plans go forward, most of the Catalan political opposition to the PP will be in prison as these elections are held. Moreover, whoever was elected on December 21 would be seated in a legislature stripped of all power to legislate or name a regional government. It could only impotently look on as Madrid imposed its will.

The key concern of Madrid and the new Catalan government will be to continue imposing harsh austerity measures against the workers. Yesterday, the EU sent Madrid a letter demanding further cuts to Spanish public spending to reach a public deficit target of 2.2 percent of gross domestic product. Economy Minister Luis de Guindos and Treasury Minister Cristobal Montoro replied with a statement that they would take “all necessary measures to guarantee the fulfillment of budgetary stability objectives.”

The turn to authoritarian rule in Spain is an urgent warning to the working class. Decades of deep austerity, imperialist war and the promotion of law-and-order measures across Europe since the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and particularly since the 2008 Wall Street crash, have produced a mortal crisis of capitalist rule. With tens of millions of workers unemployed across Europe, the ruling class is aware of explosive social anger. Its response when it encounters opposition is a rapid resort to dictatorial measures.

The critical question today is the mobilization of workers in Catalonia, in Spain and across Europe in struggle against a return to authoritarian forms of rule. Workers must reject all attempts to justify a turn toward dictatorship and military repression of the population based on calls for the defense of Spanish territorial integrity. The only progressive way to establish the unity of the Iberian Peninsula and Europe as a whole is the mobilization of the working class in a revolutionary and internationalist struggle against dictatorship and war, and for socialism.

The struggle to mobilize the working class must be undertaken on the basis of complete independence from and opposition to the entire ruling establishment, including the trade union bureaucracies and the bourgeois parties claiming to be “left.” Forces such as the CCOO (Workers Commissions) trade union and Spain’s Podemos party are aligning themselves with Rajoy’s drive to dictatorship.

Podemos General Secretary Pablo Iglesias responded to the Senate vote by tacitly backing Rajoy’s call for Catalan elections, saying only that these should be held “without repression.” Adopting a neutral position as Madrid prepares its repression, he said, “I believe there is a silent majority of Spaniards that is neither for unilateralism [i.e., the Catalan declaration of independence] nor for violence and repression.”

CCOO official Fernando Lezcano insisted that his union would discourage all acts of defiance of Madrid by workers. He warned, “We will not give a single instruction that could lead to civil disobedience or to public sector workers carrying out actions that could be punished.”

Australian statistics show collapse in manufacturing, mounting jobs crisis

Oscar Grenfell

Reports released in recent weeks have underscored the destruction of manufacturing jobs, enforced by successive Australian governments and the corporatised trade unions, and a deepening jobs crisis, especially for young people.

Data from the 2016 census, released this week, showed that the number of manufacturing jobs fell by 24 percent over the preceding five years. The sector now accounts for just 6.4 percent of total employment, the lowest level in history, down by 2.6 percentage points since 2011.

This month’s annual Jobs Availability Snapshot, conducted by the Anglicare charity, found an average of almost five applicants for every entry-level job across the country.

The reports puncture the claims by the Liberal-National government and the corporate elite, based on understated jobs figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, that employment is rising.

The census indicated there were just 683,688 workers employed in manufacturing in 2016, including in part-time roles, down from 902,826 in 2011. The precipitous decline is the result of an ongoing offensive by the major corporations, Labor and Liberal-National governments at the state and federal level, and the unions, against the working class.

The fall was even starker in working class areas that were once industrial hubs. In the New South Wales Illawarra region, centred on Wollongong, south of Sydney, manufacturing jobs fell by 36 percent from 11,858 in 2011 to just 7,000 last year.

Wollongong was previously a steel manufacturing centre. In 2011, shortly after that year’s census, BlueScope Steel announced 1,300 sackings at the city’s Port Kembla steelworks.

The cuts, which followed decades of layoffs and restructuring, were enforced by the Australian Workers Union (AWU). In 2015, the AWU struck a sellout enterprise agreement with the company, mandating a further 500 sackings, the destruction of longstanding working conditions and an unprecedented three-year wage freeze.

The unions have played a similar role in every area. In South Australia, almost 18,000 manufacturing jobs were destroyed over the five-year period. In that state, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) collaborated with General Motors in the destruction of hundreds of jobs at its Holden plant in the northern Adelaide suburb of Elizabeth. This month, the company, the state’s Labor government and the union enforced the closure of the plant, directly destroying over 900 jobs.

At least 5,000 manufacturing jobs were slashed in Victoria between 2011 and 2016. There, the AMWU enforced the shutdown of Ford’s remaining plants in Broadmeadows, Melbourne and Geelong last year, and the end of production at Toyota’s plant in Altona, Melbourne this month. Estimated flow-on job losses from the closure of the entire car assembly industry nationally are as high as 200,000, centred in the car components sector.

Commenting on the census figures, social demographer Mark McCrindle said the “declines in manufacturing employment are unprecedented.” He told the media: “You’ve got an increasing shift from full-time work to part-time or casual work, and that’s all creating a weaker employment market.”

Workers increasingly confront unemployment, and low-paid, precarious work in the “gig economy,” mainly in the services sector.

The number of workers employed part-time over the five-year period grew by 14 percent, as opposed to 4 percent for full-time work. Part-time employment now accounts for a third of all jobs, up from one-tenth 25 years ago.

In South Australia, the number of full-time jobs fell by 10,000, to 435,000, while part-time employment increased by 22,000 to 270,000.

In Sydney, the Daily Telegraph reported that part-time work between the inner-west suburbs of Newtown and Homebush increased by 20 percent to more than 35,000, accounting for almost a third of employment in one of the city’s most densely populated areas.

Employment in the rental, hiring and real estate services industry grew by almost 15 percent to account for over 182,000 jobs nationwide. This was on the back of the ongoing housing bubble on the east coast, fuelled by property investment speculation and a mountain of debt.

Jobs in healthcare and social services, along with education, rose by over 15 percent, apparently based on a proliferation of private education institutions, employment providers and health-related industries.

Successive governments have spearheaded the privatisation of each sector, providing a boon for corporate operators, while creating a mounting crisis of the public health and education systems.

Figures for individual services sector occupations also showed a dramatic rise. The number of baristas and cafe employees grew by 23 percent over five years. The increase was 27 percent for fitness instructors and 25 percent for beauticians.

The growth of these sectors has contributed to wage growth being at its lowest level in recorded history, at an annual 1.9 percent across the private sector, much less than the real cost of living.

Workers in the services industries are among the lowest paid, and many do not receive weekend and overtime penalty wages, often as a result of wage-slashing agreements signed between major companies and unions.

According to figures released by the Department of Employment this week, annualised wage growth in new union-brokered enterprise agreements over the June quarter was 2.6 percent, the lowest since 1991. Across many industries wages do not keep pace with the rate of inflation, in other words, the unions are enforcing effective wage cuts.

Anglicare’s jobs availability report indicated that young people and unskilled workers are being forced to compete for these poverty-level jobs. In May, some 124,000 entry-level job seekers were eligible for just 26,000 positions.

Since 2006, the proportion of advertised entry-level jobs has fallen by 7 percent. In 2012, there were more than 60,000 entry-level jobs advertised. That number is now well below 50,000.

Anglicare noted that successive governments have punished the unemployed, through the expansion of work for the dole schemes aimed at forcing them into menial, unpaid work to receive their meagre welfare benefits.

The Liberal-National government, deepening attacks initiated by previous Labor governments, has initiated an automated debt repayment system. Thousands of welfare recipients have been falsely accused of being “overpaid” and owing the government money.

Underlying the destruction of manufacturing, the growth of precarious employment and the assault on the unemployed is the dominance over society of a capitalist elite, whose soaring wealth is increasingly derived from parasitic financial speculation. This layer is intent on increasing its fortunes through the destruction of “unprofitable” industries and ever-greater exploitation.

Australian troops sent to the Philippines despite end of Marawi siege

Mike Head

As war tensions mount in Asia, driven by Washington’s confrontation with North Korea and its ally China, the Australian government is yet again sending forces into a sensitive strategic zone to support US-led military operations.

Defence Minister Marise Payne on Monday announced that 80 Australian troops would soon be dispatched to the Philippines, ostensibly to train its army in “urban warfare”—skills that the Australian military has acquired in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past 16 years. In what has become the norm since the invasions of those two countries, another far-reaching military commitment has been made without any parliamentary debate, let alone any approval by the Australian population.

Payne confirmed the deployment at an annual Southeast Asian defence ministers’ meeting with her Asian, US and other imperialist counterparts, held at the former US Clark Air Force Base north of Manila. Her announcement came some two months after Canberra first publicly “offered” to send troops to the Philippines.

When Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop initially revealed the offer in August, she claimed that Australian troops could assist the fight against alleged Islamic State (IS)-linked forces in Marawi City on the southern island of Mindanao.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull insisted the insurgency was “a real threat” to Australia. “We do not want Marawi to become the Raqqa of southeast Asia,” he asserted.

Now, however, the deployment is going ahead despite the Philippines government of President Rodrigo Duterte this week declaring it had won the Marawi battle.

In reality, Canberra made a US-backed “offer” that the Philippines government could not refuse. US troops are also in the Philippines under the guise of fighting “IS terrorists.”

Washington and the Philippines military seized upon the Marawi conflict, which began as a battle between rival armed gangs, to effectively stand over Duterte, who showed signs of tilting Manila’s foreign policy toward China, from where he hoped to secure investment and aid.

In return for Duterte’s compliance with the US intervention, the Trump administration and its partners have deflected criticism of his regime’s fascistic activities, in which police and vigilantes have killed thousands of people in poor urban areas via a “war on drugs.”

On Monday, Payne gave a joint media conference with Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana. Payne said: “The ADF [Australian Defence Force] will provide mobile training teams that will begin providing urban warfare counter-terrorism training in the Philippines in the coming days.”

Payne provided no detail on where the “mobile” teams would operate, only saying the training would be “conducted on Philippines military bases.”

Australia and the US are the only two countries to have Status of Visiting Forces defence agreements with the Philippines, providing access to bases and a legal framework for “enhanced military cooperation.”

In a media statement, Payne indicated that the troop commitment was part of a wider partnership. “As part of the increased cooperation, Australia and the Philippines defence forces will also work together to enhance intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in the southern Philippines; strengthen information sharing arrangements; and enhance maritime security engagement and bilateral maritime patrols.”

No specifics were provided about the maritime patrols. They could well include “freedom of navigation” exercises to challenge Chinese activities on the islets it controls in the strategic South China Sea; where the Philippines also has territorial claims. Since taking office last year, Duterte has declined to pursue a confrontation with China over the issue, despite his predecessor, Benigno Aquino, taking a US-backed case to an international tribunal to contest China’s territorial claims.

Lorenzana, who is regarded as being closer to the US-aligned Philippines military than Duterte, thanked Australia for its contribution to the Marawi siege, which included two AP-3C Orion military spy planes and intelligence sharing. “From the start, Australia has been providing invaluable support,” he said.

Previously, Payne revealed that Australian troops were already on the ground in the Philippines. “We have increased our engagement—a surge if you like—in the context of the current events,” she said in Manila on September 8 during an earlier media event with Lorenzana.

It remains unclear how long the soldiers have been there, undoubtedly working closely with US forces, whose presence in Mindanao was acknowledged by the US embassy on June 9.

Unanswered questions also still exist about a brazen display of support for Duterte by the director-general of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), Nick Warner, in Manila on August 22.

Australia’s top foreign spy official met with Duterte and Lorenzana at the presidential palace. The president’s office released photos of Warner and Duterte grinning and using Duterte’s signature closed-fist hand gesture, a symbol of his 2016 presidential campaign pledge to kill thousands of “criminals.”

ASIS is Australia’s equivalent of the US CIA. The presence of its chief, who was also involved in interventions in Iraq and Solomon Islands, and previously headed Australia’s Defence Department, was a revealing sign of Canberra’s active intelligence and military involvement in the Philippines.

The Philippines deployment is part of Australia’s escalating involvement in aggressive US military operations globally. In May, the Turnbull government added 30 troops to the Australian contingent in Afghanistan, increasing it to 300. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the Australian military is supposedly providing similar training as it now will in the Philippines.

Behind the back of the Australian population, special forces personnel may also be participating secretly in other US-led operations. The winter edition of the Australian & NZ Defender Magazine has an article on US military operations in the west African country of Niger. It features photo coverage of Australian special forces there, along with US, Canadian and Belgian commandos. The Australians are reported to be involved in “ambush drills, ambush establishment and emergency medical response.”

The five-month siege of Marawi, which has left much of the city in ruins, particularly the eastern half, has provided an idea of the brutal kind of “training” being provided by US and Australian personnel in the Philippines.

Air strikes and thousands of government troops inflicted a savage enormous toll on the city’s population, killing more than 1,000 people and damaging or destroying hundreds of houses, mosques and other buildings. About 400,000 residents were forced to flee their homes.

This week, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis praised Filipino soldiers, declaring they had defeated the insurgents without attracting allegations of human rights violations. Mattis said the United States provided critical tactical intelligence in the Marawi operation, deploying surveillance planes and drones, thermal imaging and eavesdropping equipment.

Germany’s “Jamaica” coalition parties agree on debt brake, tax cuts and privatisation

Ulrich Rippert 

On Tuesday evening, representatives of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU)—collectively known as the Union—the neo-liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Greens met for their first concrete negotiations on forming a future so-called Jamaica coalition government (so named for the black, yellow and green colours of the respective parties and the Jamaican flag).

According to reports in the media, initial discussions held between the various parties last week were aimed at getting to know one another and had mainly an “atmospheric character.” Now, concrete discussions have commenced. Within a few hours and without any major conflicts, the negotiators of the four parties agreed on guidelines for fiscal policy on Tuesday evening.

Three areas were defined in a key document: firstly, compliance with Germany’s existing debt limit (known as a debt brake) and the retaining of former finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble’s rigid “black zero” savings policy; secondly, tax relief for big business and the rich; and thirdly, comprehensive privatisation measures for companies wholly or partly owned by the state, such as German Rail (Bundesbahn), Deutsche Post AG, Telekom, and airports.

A few hours before these proposals were announced, representatives of all the Jamaica parties had participated in the first sitting of the new German parliament (Bundestag), which witnessed the formal integration of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) into the country’s official policymaking process. There can be no doubt that the AfD also supports the financial policy agreed on at the Jamaica talks. At its pre-election conference last spring, the AfD expressly declared its support for strict compliance to austerity policies together with its opposition to any increase in taxes on the rich.

A closer look at the financial policy guidelines of the Jamaica Alliance makes clear they represent a considerable intensification of the anti-social policies introduced by the country’s previous grand coalition of conservative parties (the Union) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). It was these policies that led to a massive loss of votes for both the SPD and the Union parties in the September federal election.

Compliance with the debt brake means a continuation of Wolfgang Schäuble’s brutal austerity policy. The debt brake was the most important instrument in Schäuble’s finance policy. It has had catastrophic consequences for Germany’s schools, hospitals, nursing homes and infrastructure. Introduced in 2010, it bans the federal government, states and municipalities from acquiring new debt, and commits them instead to carry out social cuts, redundancies and privatisations.

Schäuble has fought to impose this same stringent policy across the European Union (EU). His policies have led to economic and social devastation in countries such as Greece, Spain, and Portugal, and this is now the policy that the CDU-CSU, FDP and Greens intend to intensify.

The coalition proposals also envisage substantial tax cuts for big business and the rich, demanded in particular by the FDP on behalf of its business clientele. The depreciation of fixed assets is to be accelerated, tax support for research and development introduced, and the “solidarity” tax on incomes reduced—the measure introduced after capitalist reunification of Germany to provide some support to eastern Germany following the shutdown of most of its industry.

The Greens also stressed that they would be prepared to agree on tax relief for families and children, as well as for low- and middle-income earners, plus support for those renting accommodations and building renovation. This is all smoke and mirrors, however. All policy decisions, which require fresh finance, are subject to strict financing requirements, such as the previously mentioned debt brake.

The Handelsblatt reports that Schäuble had sought to exert pressure on the finance ministry through his confidants, and in particular he agitated for a comprehensive programme of privatisation. State participation in more than 100 companies is to be reduced to a minimum. Plans had already been worked out by the previous government but had been blocked by the coalition partner, the SPD.

The consequences of such privatisations have already made themselves felt in the US, Britain and other countries, as well as from the example of the German Post. Major state companies have been broken up and the most profitable parts privatised and rationalised, with devastating consequences for employees and consumers.

The Greens are playing a key role in the massive attacks that will flow from these economic and financial proposals. The negotiating leaders of the Union and the FDP were surprised at the willingness of the Green delegation to nod their heads in agreement. FDP leader Christian Lindner wrote jubilantly on Twitter that a “major turnaround in financial policy” was now possible. His secretary general, Nicola Beer, spoke of a “surprisingly good result from the talks.”

Jürgen Trittin was the main representative of the Greens in the exploratory talks over economic and financial affairs. The former Maoist had already played a key role in the former SPD-Green federal government headed by Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer. Trittin was environment minister in that government. As a representative of the party’s “left” faction, he developed the arguments to justify Germany’s military intervention in Kosovo, the social attacks bound up with the Agenda 2010 programme, and the dismantling of democratic rights.

He plays a similar role today. Trittin agreed with the financial policy guidelines and then declared on German television the next morning that nothing had been definitively decided. What had been agreed was only an “interim result…under the proviso we get a financial plan and everything is financially viable.”

The talks so far show very clearly that the Greens are striving for a Jamaican coalition because they agree with the FDP and the Union on all fundamental issues. They have already proved their boundless adaptability at a state level, where they are involved in governing 10 different states in eight different political constellations.

The agreement between the Greens, the FDP and the Union is not limited to financial policy. It is even greater in foreign policy, militarism and arming the state. The one-time green pacifists are experts when it comes to justifying brutal warfare on the pretext of defending human rights.

The Greens advocated military participation by Germany in both the Libyan war and Syrian conflict. In 2014, they actively supported the Maidan coup in Ukraine and accused the government of not being tough enough against Russia.

The Greens support the EU, the setting-up of a European army and the plans of French President Emmanuel Macron, who aims to realise his “European vision” through states of emergency and drastic labour market reforms. They have no inhibitions when it comes to financing the massive military rearmament agreed on by the last government.

The Greens are a party of the well-to-do, urban petty bourgeoisie, which closes ranks with the capitalist state when increased international and social tensions threaten their privileged status.

A Jamaica coalition would potentially extend Schäuble’s austerity policy across Europe, possibly with an FDP finance minister and a Green foreign minister pushing for the militarisation of the EU. In domestic and refugee policy, all of the establishment parties are basically in agreement with the AfD. For their part, the SPD and the Left Party, as the possible next official opposition, are preparing to suppress all resistance to these policies.

Trudeau courts Amazon CEO to locate its second headquarters in Canada

Laurent Lafrance

In a missive to “Dear Jeff,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has petitioned Amazon’s mega-billionaire CEO, Jeff Bezos, to establish his company’s second North American headquarters in Canada. In his two-page Oct. 13 letter, Trudeau combined phony “progressive” rhetoric, with boasts about Canada’s business-friendly environment, effectively offering up Canadian workers on a silver platter to the Amazon boss.

More than 230 cities across the US, Canada and Mexico have submitted bids to serve as the site of the second North American headquarters of the Seattle-based electronic commerce and cloud computing company. According to Amazon, its “HQ2” could create as many as 50,000 “high paying jobs” in the chosen city, with the company investing up to $5 billion.

The selection process is itself revealing of the power Amazon wields over governments. Exercising the 21st century version of the medieval royal prerogative, the world’s largest online retailer launched a form of auction in which city officials competed to make the best offer to Amazon, i.e. the lowest operational and labour costs possible, topped off with tax breaks and government subsidies. Key criteria demanded by the company include a prime location, access to mass transit, proximity to an international airport and, above all, a “business-friendly environment and tax structure”. The bidding contest has now ended, with Amazon slated to announce the winner in 2018.

As CEO and the largest shareholder, Bezos has profited handsomely from Amazon’s vast expansion, which is based on the ruthless exploitation of low-wage labour. On one morning in July, a surge in Amazon’s stock price netted him $1.4 billion in little more than an hour—a sum the average Amazon worker would take 54,280 years to make—and briefly made Bezos the world’s richest man. Over the past five years, which have witnessed an uninterrupted rise in stock values as millions of people around the world have been plunged into ever greater poverty and precarious working conditions, Bezos has raked in an obscene $70 billion.

Trudeau made clear in his letter that he wants to help this social parasite amass an even greater fortune. Although Canadian cities are legally barred from offering Amazon company-specific tax breaks as some cities in the United States have done, Trudeau argued that this should not be an obstacle because Canada can offer other advantages. In addition to a “deep pool of highly educated prospective workers” and “stable banking systems,” Canada “enjoys a universal health care system,” which means corporations do not have to worry about funding healthcare provisions, “and a robust public pension plan which help support our excellent quality of life and lower costs for employers,” Trudeau assured him.

On top of this, Canada’s corporate tax rates are far below those in the United States and the lowest in the G-7.

The letter is typical of the Liberals’ efforts at covering up their right-wing, pro-corporate agenda with “progressive” rhetoric. The Prime minister touted Canadian cities as “progressive, confident, and natural homes for forward-thinking global leaders.”

Trudeau made implicit references to Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, contrasting them with Canada’s “multiculturalism” and “inclusion.” “We have,” added Trudeau, “introduced dedicated immigration services, allowing companies to attract highly skilled global talent through an expedited review process to quickly recruit for the skills they need.” In reality Canada has a discriminatory, “merit-based” immigration system, explicitly tailored to the needs of big business. Trump has himself praised it, calling it a model for US immigration “reform.”

The true attitude of the Liberal government towards immigrants is demonstrated by Trudeau’s attempts to discourage Haitian asylum seekers fleeing Trump’s anti-refugee policies from coming to Canada. More recently, Trudeau exploited a knife assault on an Edmonton police officer by a mentally-disturbed Somalian refugee to lay the groundwork for a further clampdown on refugees.

Trudeau’s bluster about “diversity” and “inclusion” echoed the criticisms made by giant US tech companies such as Microsoft and Facebook of Trump’s decision to end DACA, a program protecting almost a million young migrants from deportation. However, the billionaire CEOs’ attack on Trump was not made out of concern for the migrants, but because they would lose a large number of low-paid immigrant workers.

Trudeau avoided in his letter favouring one or another Canadian city, writing instead that all the contestants had “the full support of our government.”

The competition to woo the tech transnational is fierce. While many US candidate cities and states did not reveal the content of their financial pledges to Amazon, some did. For instance, New Jersey proposed $7 billion in potential credits against state and city taxes, while California’s state assembly introduced legislation that would grant Amazon $1 billion in tax breaks over the next decade. The mayor of Stonecrest, an Atlanta suburb, went so far as to pledge his city would use 345 acres of industrial land to create a new city called Amazon with Bezos being its mayor for life.

Most of Canada’s major cities—including Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Halifax—have entered the competition and are likewise trying to outdo each other in offering Bezos and other Amazon investors the biggest incentives possible. Toronto boasted of its lower business costs relative to American cities of similar size, expanding infrastructure and low crime rates.

Calgary Economic Development has launched a $500,000 marketing campaign to attract Amazon. Among other things, it bought a full-page ad in the Seattle Times saying they would fight a bear for the company and even wrote chalked messages onto local sidewalks such as “Hey Amazon. We’d change our name for you. Calmazom? Amagary?”

In 2016 Amazon had revenue of US$ 135.98 billion and currently has market capitalization of around $470 billion. Jeff Bezos is the second-richest member of the Forbes 400 with a net worth of US$ 67 billion. From 2005 to 2014, the company received more than $750 million in local government subsidies to build warehouses and data centers.

Bezos is also highly influential in US politics through his ownership of the Democratic Party-aligned Washington Post, which is playing a central role in the neo-McCarthyite anti-Russia campaign. This campaign, based on unsubstantiated and sensationalist allegations that Moscow hijacked the 2016 presidential election, is being spearheaded by sections of the military-intelligence and political establishments to shift politics even further to the right, including by agitating for confrontation with Russia and censorship of the internet and social media.

Bezos’s wealth mainly comes from the super-exploitation of tens of thousands of warehouse workers across the globe, who work in sweatshop conditions and for poverty wages. Even the professionals employed by Amazon—engineers, software developers, etc.— are pressured into working grueling hours so as to meet quotas and subject to intense performance evaluations.

In 2016, an employee placed on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP), a status that means likely termination, attempted suicide at the Seattle headquarters, an event that shed light on the realities of the “new economy” in the US and the working conditions at Amazon.

While municipal officials are gaga over the economic “dividends” that will come to the city selected as the site of Amazon’s second headquarters, the mega construction project and the influx of higher paid professionals will have a socially disruptive impact, driving up housing prices and the overall cost of living. The Seattle Times recently reported that the median price for a house in August in Seattle was $730,000, up almost 17 percent in a year.

Trudeau concluded his letter by telling Bezos that the US and Canada “enjoy the longest, most peaceful and mutually beneficial relationship of any two countries in the world.” With this, Trudeau made clear that the establishment of HQ2 in Canada—in addition to boosting Amazon’s bottom-line—would contribute to strengthening the economically and military-strategic partnership between Canadian and US imperialism.

One final aspect of Trudeau’s groveling appeal to Amazon that cannot be passed over is the devastating exposure it provides of the trade unions, which in the years prior and since his 2015 election victory have endeavored to paint the Liberal Prime Minister as a “progressive” and “labour friendly” politician. As prime minister, Trudeau has routinely been feted at union conventions and top union bureaucrats like Unifor President Jerry Dias and Canadian Labour Congress head Hassan Yussuff boast of their unprecedented access to Trudeau and his ministers.

Trump administration silences government environmental scientists

Daniel de Vries

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) abruptly canceled talks by three scientists just days before a planned workshop Monday in Providence, Rhode Island. The move heightened concerns of scientific suppression at the agency, in particular related to climate change research.

The workshop Monday capped a three-year long assessment of Narragansett Bay, funded in part by EPA, to help improve water quality in the million-acre watershed. The scientists barred from speaking were Autumn Oczkowski, a Research Ecologist in EPA’s National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, who was set to give the keynotes address which addressed the issue of climate change; Rose Martin, a postdoctoral fellow who works with Oczkowski; and Emily Shumenchia, an ecologist contracted by EPA.

A key component of the assessment, and one that conflicts with the political agenda of the Trump administration, is the documentation that climate change is already impacting the environmental health of the Bay and recognition that it will pose significant challenges in the future.

Since taking office in February, EPA head Scott Pruitt has initiated a multi-pronged effort to rollback and suppress the agency’s work on climate change. Those two words are being scrubbed from agency web pages. The newly released 38-page draft EPA Strategic Plan for 2018-2022 omits any acknowledgment of a warming planet.

On the regulatory side, Pruitt this month signed a formal proposal to withdraw rules requiring power plants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. And despite the administration’s diversionary claims that the causes of global warming are an unsettled question, their proposed budget hammers the agency’s Air, Climate and Energy research program with 50 percent cuts.

An EPA spokesman confirmed the decision to prevent the scientists from speaking at the workshop Monday, but refused to give a justification—a tacit admission that political motivations lay behind it.

“It’s definitely a blatant example of the scientific censorship we all suspected was going to start being enforced at EPA,” John King, a co-chair of the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program science advisory committee told the New York Times. “They don’t believe in climate change, so I think what they’re trying to do is stifle discussions of the impacts.”

Immediately after arriving at EPA, Pruitt instituted a new policy to require that all staff submit details of upcoming events for central vetting. Previously decisions to speak at conferences and workshops were made by supervisors and program managers, only rarely elevated in controversial cases. The muzzling of scientists in Narragansett marks the first instance that has come to public light. It is unknown how often the agency has denied speaking engagements in the ten months since Pruitt’s appointment.

Among the panels on which the silenced EPA staff were to appear was one titled, “The Present and Future Biological Implications of Climate Change.” As the title suggests, the warming waters, rising sea levels and more intense rainfall documented locally are intimately tied to the ecological health of one of New England’s largest and most diverse estuaries. While water quality in Narragansett Bay has improved significantly over the previous decades largely as a result of improved wastewater treatment, this progress is under threat from a changing climate.

The observed local climate impacts, including changes in species due to warmer water, are expected to lead to more severe consequences in the future. Among these include “potential ripple effects on the food web” as the amount and type of phytoplankton in the Bay alter. The report also notes amplified risks of flooding as rising sea levels and bigger storms combine with urbanization trends which reduce the capacity of the watershed to retain water.

Such conclusions directly contradict the interests behind the Trump administration’s environmental program, in which no amount of scientific evidence can outweigh the short-term profit interests of American corporations.