China Maintains its Capitalist Course

Pete Dolack

The Western corporate media have been fixated on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s hold on power, speculating on if he will follow the Communist Party’s tradition of leaders stepping down after two five-year terms. The larger story, however, is that there appears there will be no change in course, at least for now, for China.

Perhaps the fixation on President Xi is due to the corporate media’s tendency to focus on personalities over issues, or perhaps because it could be presumed in advance that China would not become a poster child for the International Monetary Fund or World Bank. To be fair, Chinese institutions have strongly emphasized President Xi’s leadership, continually referring to him as the “core” of the party’s central committee and celebrating that “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” has been enshrined in the party constitution.

The way in which “Xi Jinping Thought” has been enshrined, however, indicates that the party and state leader is stressing continuity with his predecessors. The resolution by the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress adopting the report of the outgoing central committee said this in the first paragraph:

“The Congress holds high the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics and is guided by Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development, and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”

Looking past the ritualistic style, what is noteworthy about the above paragraph is that every Chinese leader is mentioned. The “Scientific Outlook on Development” is the product of President Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, who declared that China must end its reliance on cheap labor and invest more in science and technology. The “Theory of Three Represents,” laid down by former President Hu’s predecessor, Jiang Jemin, declares that the party should represent the most advanced productive forces, the most advanced culture and the broadest layers of the people. That is an assertion that the interests of different classes are not in conflict and that the party can harmoniously represent all classes simultaneously.

On the surface, that lineup of leaders seems unremarkable, but it represents a change from four years ago, when the party did not formally mention the “Scientific Outlook on Development” and attached the adjective “important” to the “Three Represents.” Combined with the announcement four years ago that the party declared “the role of the market” in China to be “decisive,” a switch from “basic,” this was a strong indication that China would further its integration into the world capitalist system, albeit on its own terms.

A continuing commitment to the capitalist road

The lines laid down by presidents Jiang and Hu, following the turn toward capitalism by Deng Xiaoping, would seem quite contradictory to “Mao Zedong Thought” or, for that matter, Marxism-Leninism. What can be reasonably inferred here is that the party will continue to use Mao as one source of its authority. That all post-revolutionary rulers are included in the list of enshrined theories, with none elevated above any other, indicates that the party is stressing continuity.

If there are to be any significant changes, particularly to economic policy, they are unlikely to be revealed before next autumn, when the third plenum of the new central committee will likely be held. Third plenums, generally held about a year after a congress, are often the occasions for major announcements, as was the case in 2013, when the above switch to making the market “decisive” was announced. (A plenum is a meeting of the entire central committee, generally scheduled at precise intervals.)

Also noteworthy in the congress’ resolution of October 24 was an acknowledgment that the party has to give greater priority to consumer interests and the environment:

“[T]he Congress forms the major political judgments that socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era and the principal contradiction in Chinese society has evolved into one between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life.”

The party, despite the heavy stress on “Xi Jinping Thought,” also sought to dampen hopes that the growth in living standards would be rapid:

“The Congress elaborates on the Party’s historic mission in the new era and establishes the historical position of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. It sets forth the basic policy for upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, and establishes the goal of securing a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and then embarking on a journey to fully build a modern socialist China.”

The resolution, which repeatedly referred to the goal of a “moderately prosperous society,” also stressed the party will firmly hold onto its leading role, uphold the unity of China and strengthen its military. As to the direction in which the party intends to lead, the list of goals in the resolution give a strong hint. Among the listed goals are “pursue supply-side structural reform as our main task” and “endeavor to develop an economy with more effective market mechanisms.”

Although “supply-side” in this context certainly is not meant in precisely the same way that “supply-side” was meant during the Reagan administration in the United States, is not without content, either. The Chinese business magazine Caixin, in a commentary about the congress, had this to say:

“The report said that ‘in resource allocation, the market plays the decisive role and the government plays its role better.’ This line shows unwavering determination to move toward market reform. But we should remain vigilant about how, under China’s current system, in terms of specific administration, the government plays a decisive role, while the market is in a subordinate role. Supply-side reform needs to accomplish five tasks — cutting overcapacity, lowering inventory, deleveraging, lowering costs, and improving economic weak spots. ‘Government failure’ cannot be entirely absolved in causing these problems.”

Party acknowledges “unbalanced and inadequate development”

So, again, more capitalism for the Chinese Communist Party despite its insistence that “socialism” is its guiding ideology. A commentary by the official Chinese press agency, Xinhua, offered these passages:

“The genesis of China’s development miracle is socialism, not other ‘-isms.’ The country succeeds not by rigidly copying the original ideas of scientific socialism, but by adapting it to China’s reality. Xi Jinping’s thought will be China’s signature ideology and the new communism. … China is now strong enough, willing, and able to contribute more for mankind. The new world order cannot be just dominated by capitalism and the West, and the time will come for a change.”

The reality is that China is ever more integrated into the world capitalist system, and has built its economy on being the world’s sweatshop — rendering it highly dependent on exports, particularly to the West. The party would like to follow the path of Japan, which started out making cheap consumer products before moving up the value chain to become a producer of high-end electronics and other technological products. Traveling such a path is a necessity if the party is to fulfill its goal of raising Chinese living standards and making China an undisputed global power.

The reference to the “principal contradiction” of China being “between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life” is an acknowledgment that China has made insufficient progress. A few numbers will illustrate that.

Household consumption in China remains far below the level of advanced capitalist countries. According to World Bank data, household consumption accounted for 37 percent of China’s gross domestic product in 2015, barely improved from 36 percent in 2007. (Household consumption is all the things that people buy for personal use from toothbrushes to automobiles.) To put that number in perspective, household consumption was as high as 71 percent during the Mao era and above 50 percent as recently as the early 1980s. In comparison, household consumption in advanced capitalist countries tends to be between 58 and 72 percent of GDP.

China’s rapid growth has been overly dependent on investment, and given the overcapacity of many Chinese basic industries and the rash of ghost cities constructed, the ability to continue driving growth through investment is questionable. Here again, data from 2015 is the latest available, when investment accounted for 45 percent of Chinese GDP, down only slightly from a high of 48 percent in 2011. To put that in perspective, the world average is 24 percent.

Wages rising but are still very low

Concurrent with the over-reliance on investment is an ongoing real estate bubble and increasing debt. For the period 2007 to 2014, only four countries saw their debt increase faster than China. A 2016 Financial Times report said that more than 60 percent of Chinese bank loans were directly or indirectly tied to real estate. That any downturn or stagnation remains well into the future is demonstrated in a sudden and pronounced drop in the Shanghai stock market in 2015, ending a stock bubble, not having much of a dampening effect on the economy. Nonetheless, a stock-market bubble is no panacea for low wages or a shredded social safety net.

And wages remain low in China, despite the gains of recent years. The minimum wage in Shanghai, the highest in China, more than doubled from 2010 to 2016, but was still the equivalent of US$327 per month. The minimum wage in most major cities is US$239 and in poorer provinces can lower still. These increases, the product of labor struggle, may be coming to an end for the near future, however, reports the China Labour Bulletin:

“Current central government policy was clearly stated by Vice Minister for Human Relations and Social Security, Xin Changxing, in July 2016 when he said that because: ‘Our advantage in labour costs is no longer as clear-cut as before; we should ease the frequency and scale of wage increases so as to preserve our competitive advantage.’ ”

Garment manufacturers are relocating to Bangladesh, Cambodia and Vietnam, where wages are even lower. The Bulletin reports that Chinese minimum wages (which are set locally) should be between 40 and 60 percent of the local average wage, but in most cities it is less than 30 percent. The gap between low-paid workers and those earning the average wage has been growing, nor are overtime rules enforced.

The Bulletin concludes its report on Chinese working conditions in sobering terms:

“A superficial look at China’s major cities seems to show a reasonably affluent society: young, hard-working middle class families, determined to make a better life for themselves. Look beneath the surface however and you soon realize that the goods, services and lifestyle products that these middle class families aspire to are all produced, marketed, and delivered to their homes by an army of over-worked and under-paid working class labourers.”

Socialism or sweatshops?

If socialism is defined as a system of political and economic democracy in which industry and agriculture are brought under popular control so that production is oriented toward human, community and social need rather than private accumulation of capital, and all human beings have a say in decisions that affect their lives and communities, integration into the world capitalist system on the basis of low-paid sweatshop labor allowing massive profits for foreign multi-national corporations is not socialism, whether or not with “Chinese characteristics.”

Western corporations, led by Wal-Mart, are responsible for production being moved to China. China did not “take” anybody’s job; it became the favored destination of the transfer of production by taking advantage of capital’s relentless desire to relocate to locations with the lowest wages and most permissive regulations. Japan and South Korea were able to move up the value chain, develop industry and become new members of the Global North. China’s intention is to do this, but it is by no means certain that there is room for it to do so.

China, because of its size, is able to extract concessions from foreign capital and assert more control than other developing countries, and thus is in the unique position of entering the capitalist system on its own terms. But the market has its own “logic,” one that no country is able to escape.

There is considerable speculation that Chinese leaders are playing a long game, using the capitalist system to develop with the intention of later nationalizing and moving again to a socialist system. A healthy skepticism toward such scenarios is more than warranted. Wealth is being accumulated. The power the concentration of capital inevitably builds, and the commonality of interests of capital across borders, are not something that can removed via a decree.

However much China’s leadership might believe it can control and harness the market, there are always interests at stake. Capitalist markets are nothing more than the aggregate interests of the largest industrialists and financiers, and, in the absence of sustained, organized resistance, those interests are decisive, with all the attendant exploitation.

The rapid minting of billionaires in China, the party’s welcoming of those with wealth, and the wealth acquired by those related to party officials, means that the material interests of the Chinese Communist Party is more capitalism.

In Organic Farming, Rules are Not Made to be Broken

Jim Goodman

The first day our milk was sold as certified organic, in 1999, we thought we had it made. The market for organic milk was growing and there was no reason to believe the growing consumer demand would not continue. Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, even regular supermarket chains were looking to get organic products on their shelves and for starters, that usually meant dairy.

There was a skill-set one needed to develop while making the transition to organic, because being “organic by neglect”— just dropping prohibited inputs like antibiotics, hormones, synthetic pesticides and fertilizer and hoping for the best, wouldn’t work very long.

We also learned there was a lot to be said for growing your own feed as opposed to purchasing it, again there was that learning curve, but using pasture as part of a crop rotation of hay, grain and cover crops— at least once you figured it out, made you wonder why you ever needed pesticides at all.

No organic farmer will deny there are times when animals get sick, it is too wet to cultivate or it gets so dry you have to buy feed and you remember your past life as a conventional farmer, when there was a synthetic fix for the problem or feed that was an easy phone call away. But no one ever said farming would be easy, you just figure it out, learn from the problem and plan ahead.

There are accepted organic farming practices that work and most farmers learn how to manage their farms accordingly, they learn from each other and they follow the rules. That is important, following the rules— rules are, after all, based on management practices that work. No doubt organic farmers in New England have more difficulty growing grain that we do here in the Midwest, but since organic cattle are mostly out on pasture, no grain or minimal grain feeding can work.

In drier parts of the West it can be difficult to meet the requirements of 30% dry matter intake from pasture during the grazing season, without costly irrigation. That’s a problem most of us east of the Mississippi don’t generally have, but then most Western farmers don’t have to worry quite so much about moving snow and keeping water running when it drops to -20 either. We all have our management challenges.

When the National Organic Standards Board, which is made up of 15 public volunteers from across the organic community, selected for their expertise in their respective occupations, makes a recommendation for a new rule or an interpretation of an existing one, USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) must consider it carefully.

When NOP puts rules for organic production in place, they need to be followed, farmers have to find a way— again, if farming were easy everyone would be doing it.

NOP is, per their website, “a regulatory program housed within the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service. We are responsible for developing national standards for organically-produced agricultural products. These standards assure consumers that products with the USDA organic seal meet consistent, uniform standards”.

Pretty straight forward, developing standards and assuring that organic products meet those “consistent, uniform standards”. Wouldn’t it be grand if all organic certification agencies and the USDA actually enforced those standards? If all organic products with the USDA Organic seal actually met those standards? Well, that would be a perfect world scenario and unfortunately, that is not the world we live in.

There are bad actors in every crowd so, it appears that when some processors, retailers and farmers saw consumer demand for organic growing, they also saw a market they could exploit, so they did. Most consumers of organic food are lured by the labels showing cows grazing next to a little red barn, that is what they want to buy, products from happy cows owned by profitable farmers that respect the rules, the environment and their animals.

And most organic milk is still produced that way— the barns are not always red, but most organic farmers still fit the image their customers see on the label.

But recent articles in the Washington Post describe a fact many small organic farmers have protested for at least ten years— there are many organic farms milking thousands of cows in operations that are little different than the conventional concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO’s). Post reporters, during several visits to Aurora dairy in Greeley CO, found only a few hundred cows grazing at any one time out of a herd of 15,000.

It is cheaper to produce milk this way, but it is not organic when the production system is not following the regulations. Organic certification is based on a yearly inspection, so there is a lot of trust involved and in the case of these industrial organic farms, that trust has been betrayed. USDA has done little more than give Aurora and some others, a slap on the wrist.

Aurora’s website states that “Aurora Organic Dairy is a leading producer and processor of high quality organic milk and butter for retail store brands”. These would be stores such as Walmart, Costco and Target. The sheer volume sold in these mega-stores does undercut a fair organic milk price and the fact that there are questions about the integrity of organic milk from the industrial organic farms that supply them, seems to make little difference to the mega-retailers.

Are dairy cows on certain mega-sized “organic” dairy farms meeting the grazing standards? Certainly they are eating something. The feed is supposed to be organic and organic farmers must provide paperwork proving the organic integrity of grown or purchased feed. Which brings up the question of who is growing all this organic feed and are they actually following USDA organic standards?

While the laws of supply and demand should encourage US organic farmers to increase production to meet the demand, as well as encourage more farmers to convert to organic production, it is not necessarily happening that way. US production accounts for about 60% of the organic corn and 20% of the soybeans needed to satisfy organic market demand. And while demand for organic grain is increasing about 15% a year, the deficit has and continues to be filled by lower priced imported grain from the Black Sea Region of Eastern Europe. (Or so the shipping bills of lading claim.)

Why? Imported grain is cheaper, despite shipping costs it is cheaper. And it is cheaper because it is not organic. Peter Whoriskey, reported in the Washington Post (May 12, 2017) “The label said ‘organic’ but these massive imports of corn and soybeans weren’t”. He describes a shipment of conventional soybeans from Turkey to California last year that somehow, in transit, became organic. At least the documentation said it was organic. This remarkable transformation boosted the profit margin on this one shipment by Whoriskey’s estimate, to over $4 million.

When simply providing a false organic certificate can make conventional grain organic, it is easy to see why most organic grain farmers in the United States are losing money, and why many of our domestic organic grain producers are considering giving up on organic production entirely. Organic grain prices, like organic milk prices are unsustainable, farmers cannot survive a 30 to 50% price cut.

If one’s wages were cut 30% with no reduction in workload, that would be a big deal. Yet, that is exactly what organic dairy farmers have seen happen to their pay price over the past year. And the salt in the wound is the fact that, according to USDA Ag Marketing Service data, organic dairy prices at the retail level have actually gone up over the past year.

In my previous life as a non-organic dairy producer, we knew we were getting screwed. Processors always made a profit, the farmers, not so much. We thought organic would be different, there was supposed to be an ethical commitment to organic, not just on the part of the farmer, but the processor, retailer and of course the regulatory agency as well.

Small farmers who work hard and play by the rules? That appears to count for nothing in the organic dairy business. Fraudulent organic production, of milk, grain, poultry, (or any other organic commodity) is destroying the organic farming sector in the United States. The solution is simple. The rules are on the books, they just need to be enforced. Why is that so difficult? It is not, but weak standards and failure to enforce standards is very profitable for some in the organic industry.

If consumers believe it is organic, if they believe USDA is insuring its integrity they will pay more, farmers will get a fair price and industry will profit. Pressure on USDA does not seem to work. If USDA doesn’t correct the situation we can continue to expect low milk prices and another harvest season of continuing low grain prices. Organic farmers with integrity will lose out to fraudulent imports, CAFO organic dairies and poultry operations, but as long as the big retailers can sell the myth it’s OK.

Those of us who still uphold that image of small red barns have struggled with drought, flooding and oppressive heat, but we have pastured our cattle as required by the NOP. We continue to grow our crops by the rules and we don’t raise our cattle, poultry or pigs in confinement.

We have provided a product that consumers expect when they buy organic and we struggle to make it work economically – without cutting corners. How much longer we can survive really depends on whether or not USDA decides that organic rules need to be followed by everyone … no matter how big their farm is, or what country they farm in.

The Balfour Declaration Planted Terror In The Middle East!

Salim Nazzal

I believe that there is no political declaration throughout history that has had devastating effects such as the Balfour Declaration. The Balfour Declaration has ignited wars lasting 100 years in addition that it has posed a serious to the entire globe. The evidence is that during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, The USA and the Soviet Union put their Nuclear weapons on alert. Also it   was recently revealed that Israel in the June war with Arabs in 1967   planned to blow up a nuclear bomb in the Sinai desert as a first warning, if the Egyptian forces were superior. Moreover, we have heard more than once that Israeli officials repeated words like that they are able to return the area to the Stone Age.

An important issue must be clarified in this regard

First, when Balfour gave his deadly promise, there was no persecution of the Jews in Europe because the promise came in 1917.

The second is that if there is persecution of an ethnic or religious group, it is natural to see refugee to escape from injustice. But the Zionist movement decided that the Jews should come to Palestine as invaders and not refugees. This is the main reason of the ongoing conflict with no prospects for its resolution so far.

The problem of Balfour’s promise is that he promised to give Palestine to the Jews of Europe, which means, despite the diplomatic attempts to bring envelope it in a moral form, it meant in reality the expulsion of the natives of Palestine. In this sense, it can be said that the Balfour Declaration was an order of expulsion.

If the Jewish example is to be followed internationally, this mean that each oppressed group or each group unhappy where they live has the right to expel others from their home!

Britain took over Palestine after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, and the League of Nations gave Britain the authority to mandate Palestine. The mandate juridical meant to take care of the people of the country so that they could administrate themselves. Balfour’s declaration was completely contrary to the resolutions of the League of Nations.

The promise of Balfour is no longer addressing refugees to flee to Palestine from injustice. The promise was granted to the Zionist movement that had the power, influence and ambition aimed at establishing a state that would be a bridge between the European and Berber civilization, as hers said. It was the first time in history that migrants brought by Britain from Europe succeeded not only in establishing a state, not only in expelling indigenous populations but also in acquiring nuclear weapons within 15 years of its establishment.

At the time of the promise, in 1917, US President Wilson issued what was known as the right to self-determination of peoples. This statement, however, had no value for Palestine. The United States was not very serious about this statement, which remained worthless. The United States supported the Balfour Declaration, contrary to Wilson’s declaration. Therefore, the promise came in the colonial climate. In this climate, there was no respect or value for the opinion of the indigenous population regarding their future. The first and last say was to the British authorities and their ally the Zionist movement.

The story that often said that Britain promised the Zionists to Palestine in return for the Jews persuading America to join Britain in the war may be the direct factor to produce the promise. But this was preceded by the Sykes-Picot secrete agreement 1n 1916 that divided the Arab region in the defeated Ottoman Empire between England and France

The Balfour State of Israel was achieved with iron and fire. The results were disastrous for the original inhabitants of Palestine who lost their homeland and were a disaster for the Arab region that had entered endless war since Israel was forcefully planted

The British Prime Minister’s decision to mark (with pride) the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration is a decision lacking political wisdom, adding salt to the wound. It shows that after 100 years all the oppression which Palestinians are subjected to do not change Britain which continues to play the role of a cruel state that undoubtedly planted the culture of terror in the Middle East and beyond.

Survey of UK nurses exposes staff crisis in National Health Service

Ajanta Silva

The National Health Service (NHS) is suffering from a staffing crisis that is resulting in staff being super-exploited and patients in wards being placed in a dangerous situation.

Addressing the Conservative conference this month, Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt--who has been presiding over the dismantling and privatization of the NHS since 2012--declared, “I can tell you we’ll increase the number of nurses we train by 25 percent—that’s a permanent increase of more than 5,000 nurse training places every single year.”

These claims were made despite Hunt’s scrapping of bursaries for nursing students and allied health professionals from September, which alone has contributed to a 23 percent decrease of applicants to study for these professions at university.

Just three days before Hunt made his speech, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) published a survey of Nurses and Midwives in the UK , “ Safe and Effective Staffing: Nursing Against the Odds.” It is a powerful indictment of successive Labour and Tory governments, which have deliberately crippled the NHS with a thousand cuts.

The RCN asked its members about their last shift or day worked in health or social care. Within two weeks, they received over 30,000 responses, which provide an accurate snapshot of workers’ experiences and the unprecedented decline in staffing levels.

Key findings of the survey are stagering, even though the survey was completed earlier in the year, when health services are not under the additional pressure they are during winter.

• Well above half of “respondents reported a shortfall in planned staffing of one or more registered nurses on their last shift,” while “41 percent of all shifts were short of one or more health care support workers.”

• One in five “registered nurses across the 30,000 shifts were temporary staff,” while more than a quarter of “health care support workers were temporary staff.”

• More than half of nurses, midwives and health care assistants said “care was compromised on their last shift,” and more than a third said that “due to a lack of time they had to leave necessary patient care undone.”

• More than 15,000 respondents “felt upset/sad that they could not provide the level of care they wanted,” and “44 percent of all respondents said no action was taken when they raised concerns about staffing levels.”

• More than two thirds of “all respondents said they worked additional time, on average almost one hour extra,” hence “93 percent of nursing staff who worked extra unplanned time for NHS providers were not paid for this.”

Based on their findings, the survey’s authors concluded that their “conservative estimate is that the additional unpaid time worked by registered nurses in the NHS across the UK equates to £396 million annually.” This is under conditions in which these and other health workers have been subjected to a seven-year pay freeze and pay caps by successive Tory-led governments.

Many frontline workers are concerned about the “dilution of the skill mix of the nursing workforce (proportion of registered to non-registered nurses) in acute settings over the past seven years.”

Along with the report, the RCN published the disturbing stories of the nurses and midwives they received.

One Accident and Emergency (A&E) nurse said, “Staffing levels, skill mix, sickness, unprecedented demands, patient numbers, lack of resources and capacity have left me fearing for a profession I once loved. I end a shift exhausted, stressed, dehydrated and with little if any job satisfaction. I’m paid around £5,000 less than a comparable professional with a massive level of responsibility and accountability—for patients’ lives. After 29 years I am considering leaving nursing due to lack of job satisfaction, being treated with utter contempt by managers and the government, and five years of pay restraint.”

A practice nurse said, “I always go above and beyond for my patients—we all do as nurses—but that is to the detriment of myself, minimal breaks, not drinking enough fluid, holding on for the toilet. Even doing this I don’t feel I have enough time for my patients. I was trained to provide holistic care, and often, because of the pressures we face, we are not able to do that.”

A community nurse said, “We do this job because we care for people, but the Government does not care for us. We regularly miss breaks, go 14 hours without a drink—to the point where one of my colleagues has developed kidney stones. I stay late basically every night. I take work home with me and receive no emotional support for an extremely draining and impacting job. Something needs to change.”

A midwife said, “Staff are working late without pay or claiming time back... Staff have become demoralised and have left to take up posts elsewhere. We don’t feel our opinions count, even though we are on the frontline.”

This summer, the Nursing and Midwifery Council reported that more nurses were leaving the register than joining it for the first time in recent history, resulting in an overall downward trend. This takes place amid a broader shortage of 40,000 nurses in the UK and 3,500 midwives in England alone.

Further exposure of the scale of the staffing cuts devastating the NHS was provided by the Health Service Journal in an analysis of the official data for the period 2014/15-2016/17. In England, 96 percent or 214 out of 224 acute hospitals operated without an adequate level of nursing staff during day shifts last October, while 85 percent of them did not have the right staff levels on night shifts.

Many hospitals are struggling to recruit and retain nurses and midwives due to low wages and stressful working conditions. Some NHS providers are intentionally running without adequate level of staff due to financial pressures created by years of underfunding and government demands for unmanageable “efficiency savings.”

In 2015, Hunt ordered the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) not to determine safe staff levels, in order to continue the Tory’s plans of year on year underfunding of the NHS so as to impose fully £26 billion “efficiency savings” by 2021.

In 2014, NICE began to recommend safe staffing levels in hospitals in the aftermath of the failings of Mid Staffordshire Hospital, revealed in the report of Sir Robert Francis the previous year.

Staff shortages are not confined to nurses and midwives. Nationwide, there are acute shortage of consultants, doctors, GPs and other clinical groups, thanks to the years of underfunding, the destruction of training opportunities and indifference to the health needs of working people.

The response of the government has been to further rationalise services by shutting down or downsizing A&E departments, maternity units, children units, heart units and closing down hospitals. At the same time the attacks on the pay, terms and conditions of workers are being escalated. Last year the government imposed an inferior contract on junior doctors, capitalising on the betrayals of the British Medical Association.

The RCN’s response to the staffing crisis is to call “for new legislation across the UK that guarantees safe and effective nurse staffing,” as if the Tories—hell-bent on the privatisation of the jewel in the crown of the post-war welfare state—will heed these appeals.

Tillerson delivers stern warning to Pakistan

Sampath Perera

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited Pakistan on Tuesday, the first high-level visit by a Trump administration official to what was once the principal US ally in South Asia.

Tillerson delivered a stern message to Pakistan’s political and military leaders reiterating the sharp criticism meted out to Islamabad by President Donald Trump in his August announcement of the new US strategy for prevailing in its 16 year-long war in Afghanistan. In that speech, Trump placed Pakistan “on notice” for harbouring terrorist “safe havens” and warned that if it did not bow to US demands and quickly mend it ways Washington would downgrade relations with Islamabad and otherwise take reprisals.

Tillerson’s visit to Islamabad was part of a South Asia tour that saw him also meet with Afghan and Indian leaders. He had two principal objectives. The first to implement the new Afghan war strategy, which aims to gore the Taliban into accepting a Washington-designed “negotiated settlement” that would leave the basic elements of the US-installed neo-colonial regime in Kabul intact.

Tillerson’s second main objective was to further cement the Indo-US military-strategic alliance. This, as he made clear in a speech last week to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), is directed at forcing China, if need be through war, to accept US-hegemony over the Indo-Pacific region. A key element in Washington’s frustration with Pakistan is that it has responded to the burgeoning Indo-US partnership by expanding its own alliance with Beijing.

In Islamabad, Tillerson told interim Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi that Pakistan is “so important regionally to our joint goals of providing peace and security to the region.” Abbasi replied by saying, “The US can rest assured that we are strategic partners in the war against terror and that today Pakistan is fighting the largest war in the world against terror.”

In touting the unending military occupation of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Abbasi was implicitly rejecting Washington’s accusations that Pakistan is maintaining covert ties to the Taliban and “selectively” targeting Islamist militias.

According to a statement from the US embassy in Islamabad, in his talks with Pakistan’s principal political and military leaders, Tillerson demanded Pakistan “increase its efforts to eradicate militants and terrorists operating within the country.”

Testifying before the Pakistan Senate the following day on the talks with Tillerson, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said that “things which due to diplomatic norms couldn’t be said were discussed during these talks.”

Asif said the US was seeking to blame Islamabad for the spread of Taliban control over much of Afghanistan, but the Pakistani leadership had told him, “There will only be room for improvement [in the Afghan situation] if Washington accepts their defeat, their failures in Afghanistan.” This, he said, “they are not ready to accept.”

Asif told the Senate that the civilian and military Pakistani leadership is united in affirming that there is no military solution to the Afghan conflict and that a political settlement is required, adding “The current government will not accept any dictation from the US.”

He said Pakistan had informed Tillerson that its influence on the Taliban is diminished and had urged Washington to work with other “influential players in the region” whose role is “indispensable” in creating a broad-based government and ending the war, including China, Turkey and Russia.

Pakistan’s venal ruling elite has relied heavily on Washington for military, economic and political support and would like nothing more than to resume its traditional role as satraps for American imperialism. But it has been rattled by Washington’s strategic embrace of its arch-rival India and the readiness of the US to shrug off its warnings that the arms deals and other strategic favours America has lavished on New Delhi have overturned the regional balance of power, fuelling a nuclear-arms race.

In response, Islamabad has scaled back its cooperation with the US in the Afghan War, including rescinding a carte blanche for drone strikes in FATA, and by reaching out to Beijing for closer ties.

China, likewise fearful of the Indo-US alliance, has reciprocated.

To prod Pakistan into doing its bidding and underline that Washington is determined to change the rules of the game in its dealings with Islamabad, Trump announced in his August speech that the US will press India to take a larger role in supporting the Afghan government—through economic assistance, military supplies, and by training Afghan security forces, albeit, at least for the moment, only in India.

This has outraged Pakistan, which accuses India of using Afghanistan to provide covert support to Islamist militia opposed to the Pakistan government, the so-called Pakistan Taliban, and to Baluchi national-separatist insurgents. The Pakistani leadership reiterated to Tillerson Tuesday that increased Indian involvement in Afghanistan constitutes a “red line.”

But, as Tillerson made clear during his subsequent visit to New Delhi, Washington remains determined to use India to goad Pakistan.

Abbasi was joined in his talks with Tillerson by Foreign Minister Asif, the head of the army General Qamar Javed Bajwa, and the head of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, the ISI, Lt. Gen. Naveed Mukhtar. The latter said the delegation had been organized so as to show “the leadership is united in the message it is sending.”

Underscoring the frosty character of US-Pakistani relations, Tillerson spent just 4 hours in the country before departing for a visit to India that was spread over three days.

As Pakistani officials noted, the logistics of Tillerson’s preceding, previously unannounced, trip to Afghanistan shed light on the severe crisis facing the US occupation. The US Secretary of State didn’t take the risk of visiting Kabul. Instead, he summoned the heads of the puppet government in Kabul, President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, to meet him at the infamous Bagram military base. A crude attempt by the Afghan government to claim the meeting was held in Kabul, not a US military bunker, by doctoring a press photograph, was quickly exposed.

While in Afghanistan, Tillerson sharply criticized Pakistan. He said the US has “made some very specific requests [to] Pakistan in order for them to take action to undermine the support that the Taliban receives and the other terrorist organisations receive in Pakistan.” The former Exxon CEO then made clear these requests have a sting attached, saying the new US war strategy “is a conditions-based approach, and so our relationship with Pakistan will also be conditions-based.”

The US is already partially withholding “war coalition” payments from Pakistan to bully it into taking more aggressive action against the Taliban, specifically the Haqqani Network. There are also unofficial threats to strip Islamabad of its status as a “major non-NATO ally” of the US and even label it a state sponsor of terrorism, which would almost certainly entail sanctioning at least some government and/or military leaders.

Recently the two-countries collaborated in a rescue operation in Pakistan that freed a US-Canadian family taken hostage by the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan in 2012. The US followed this up with a series of deadly drone attacks in the Afghan-Pakistan border region, prompting nervous warnings from Islamabad that the US should not attack its territory. There is massive opposition in Pakistan to US drone strikes, which for years terrorized and wrought death and destruction on FATA villagers.

Washington, however, has reiterated its threats to use drones to target Taliban and Haqqani Network forces inside Pakistan if Islamabad fails to deploy its military against them.

At the same time, tensions between Kabul and Islamabad are rising, including as the result of reciprocal bans on the entry of trucks from the other country. Kabul, which does not recognize the Durand Line as its border with Pakistan, has taken violent objection to Islamabad’s fencing of the border. Above all, Kabul is rhyming with New Delhi in charges that Islamabad is a “state sponsor of terrorism.”

In a new blow aimed at Islamabad, Afghan President Ghani announced this week that his country will not participate in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) unless Pakistan opens its borders for trade between India and Afghanistan. This dovetails with Washington’s own newly-articulated opposition to China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) infrastructure initiative, of which the CPEC is part.

In recent weeks, Washington has publicly opposed the CPEC, citing the same pretext as New Delhi: that it crosses territory disputed between India and Pakistan.

Emboldened by US strategic support, India, under Prime Minster Narendra Modi and his Hindu supremacist BJP, has increased military and diplomatic pressure on Pakistan, including labelling it the “mothership” of international terrorism. In Fall 2016, Modi publicly boasted about “surgical strikes”—Special Forces raids—inside Pakistan, declaring that the days of Indian “strategic restraint” were over. This precipitated a months-long war crisis. To this day, Indian and Pakistan troops routinely exchange deadly artillery barrages across the Line of Control that separates Indian- and Pakistani-held Kashmir.

Were war to erupt it would be the first ever war between nuclear-armed states and, given the increasing polarization of regional geopolitics into rival India-US and Pakistan-China blocs, would immediately raise the prospect of intervention by other nuclear powers.

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.”