Multifaceted Attack Against Venezuela on Eve of Maduro Inauguration

Frederick B. Mills, William Camacaro & Roger D. Harris

Venezuelan President Nicholás Maduro’s inauguration for his second term on January 10 is targeted by the US, the allied Lima Group, and the hardline Venezuelan opposition.  They have demanded that Maduro refuse inauguration. A multifaceted attack aimed at regime change is underway using sanctions, military threats, and a campaign of delegitimization to replace the democratically elected president.

Since President Hugo Chávez began his first term as president in 1999, the Bolivarian Republic has promoted regional integration and independence, resisted neoliberalism, opposed “free trade” agreements that would compromise national autonomy, and supported the emergence of a multipolar world. On account of these policies, Chávez (1999-2013) and now Maduro, have faced relentless attacks by the colossus to the north. Today the Maduro administration faces the challenges of defending national sovereignty from imperial domination and overcoming crippling US sanctions that have exacerbated a severe economic crisis.

The US has brazenly announced its consideration of a “military option” against Caracas and has assembled a coalition of the willing in Colombia and Brazil to prepare for an eventual “humanitarian” intervention. Most alarming is that the US seems indifferent to the consequences of such an invasion, which could easily become a regional and global conflagration involving Colombia, Brazil, and even Russia and China.

What the US finds particularly infuriating is that Maduro had the temerity to run for re-election in May 2018 after the US demanded he resign. The US State Department had issued warnings four months prior to the election that the process “will be illegitimate” and the results “will not be recognized.” US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley insisted that Maduro abdicate and presidential elections be postponed.

The Venezuelan National Electoral Commission rejected this diktat from Washington. On May 20, 2018, the Venezuelan electorate had the audacity to re-elect Maduro by a 67.84% majority with a participation rate of 46.07% (representing 9,389,056 voters). Two opposition candidates ran for office, Henri Falcón and Javier Bertucci, despite a boycott orchestrated by opposition hardliners and the US.

New Phase in the Campaign Against Venezuela

The campaign to bring about regime change enters a new phase with the inauguration of President Maduro for a second term. With no legal standing or representation inside Venezuela, the Lima Group has now become a major protagonist of  a soft coup in Venezuela.

Just five days before the inauguration, at a meeting held in the capital of Peru, 13 out of 14 members of the Lima Group issued a declaration urging Maduro “not to assume the presidency on January 10… and to temporarily transfer the executive power to the National Assembly until a new, democratic presidential poll is held.”

The following day, Andres Pastrana, former president of Colombia, a member nation of the Lima Group, tweeted that the new president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, should “now assume the presidency of the government of transition as established in the constitution beginning the 10th of January and as requested by the Lima Group.”

In a speech delivered before the Venezuelan National Assembly on January 5, Guaidó stopped short of claiming executive power, but declared that starting January 10, Maduro ought to be considered an “usurper” and “dictator.” Guaidó also urged convening a transitional government that would hold new elections and “authorize” intervention from abroad.

Although the US is not a formal member of the Lima Group, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, participated in the meeting by teleconference. Pompeo had returned earlier in the week from a visit to Brazil and Colombia, during which, according to a senior State Department official, Maduro’s inauguration was on the agenda:

“There’s a very important date that is coming up, which is the 10th of January, where Maduro will hand over power to himself based on an election that many governments in the region and globally have condemned, including the United States, . . . as illegitimate. So we will be discussing, I’m sure, our joint efforts with Colombia and with the region to address this new era beginning on the 10th of January in Venezuela.”

The US Imperial Project

US policy towards Venezuela has three strategic objectives: privileged access to Venezuela’s natural resources (e.g., the world’s largest petroleum reserves and second largest gold deposits), restoration of a neoliberal regime obedient to Washington, and limitation of any movement towards regional independence.

These US objectives are conditioned by a continuing adherence to the Monroe Doctrine for Latin America and the Caribbean, the so-called “backyard” of the US empire. The contemporary mutation of the 1823 imperial doctrine entails a new Cold War against Russia and China and hostility to any regional integration independent of US hegemony.

Back in the 1980s-90s during Venezuela’s Fourth Republic, local elites afforded Washington preferential access to Venezuela’s rich natural resources and dutifully imposed a neoliberal economic model on the country. Currently, US policy appears aimed at  re-establishing such a client state.

However, to bring about such a return, the US imperial project would have to change not only the Venezuelan leadership but dismantle the institutions and even the symbols of the Bolivarian revolution. The devastating US economic sanctions are designed to increase economic hardship in order to ultimately break the will of the chavista base and fracture the Venezuelan military as well as the civic-military alliance. This breakdown would presumably pave the way for installation of a provisional government.

It is time once again to give peace a chance. But Washington has opted for the collision course set by the Lima Group as well as the Secretary General of the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS) over efforts of the Vatican and former prime minister of Spain, Luis Zapatero, to broker dialogue between the government and the opposition. The imperial project is abetted by the conservative restoration in Brazil and Argentina and the electoral victory of uribistas in Colombia.

Multifaceted War Against Venezuela and the Bolivarian Response

Washington is engaging in a multifaceted war against Venezuela by deploying economic sanctions, backing a campaign to install a transitional government, and preparing proxy military and paramilitary forces for an eventual intervention.

On August 4, 2018, a failed assassination attempt against President Maduro did not draw condemnation from either Washington or the Lima Group. On November 4, according to Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, three Bolivarian National Guard were killed and ten wounded in an attack by Colombian paramilitary forces in the frontier region of Amazonas. On December 5, the Brazilian vice president-elect Hamilton Mourão declared: “there will be a coup in Venezuela . . . And the United Nations will have to intervene through a peace force . . . and there is Brazil’s role: to lead this peace force.”

On December 12, 2018, President Maduro reported that “734 members of a paramilitary  group called G8 was training [in the city of Tona, Colombia] for attacks against military units in the frontier states of Zulia, Tachira, Apure and Amazonas.” This report ought to be taken seriously given the presence of eight US military bases in Colombia,  the recent association of Bogotá with NATO, Colombia’s rejection of direct communication with Venezuelan authorities, and its participation in US-led military exercises over the past two years. Last week, US Secretary of State Pompeo visited Colombia and Brazil to shore up joint efforts to “restore of democracy” in Venezuela.

In response, Venezuela has been fortifying the civic-military alliance built up over the past two decades.The National Guard, military, and militias (now over 1,600,000 strong) have been able so far to fend off several terrorist attacks against public institutions and government leaders as well as an assassination attempt against President Maduro in August.

Caracas has also been developing close military cooperation with Russia and consolidating ties with China. With the recent visit of a pair of its TU 160 heavy bombers to Venezuela, Russia has demonstrated its ability to transport armaments more than 10,000 kilometers at supersonic speeds should the Caribbean nation come under attack by a foreign power.  China has entered into agreements for massive economic cooperation with Venezuela, partially offsetting the punishing US sanctions. Also, the visit of a Chinese navy hospital ship in September subtly signaled Chinese military support of Venezuela.

Shifting Geopolitical Environment

Although the Lima Group now backs a soft coup in Venezuela, with the inauguration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) as President of Mexico in December, the group has lost the support of one of its key members. Mexico declined to sign on to the latest Lima Group declaration and warned against “measures that obstruct a dialogue to face the crisis in Venezuela.” Maximiliano Reyes, Mexico’s deputy foreign minister, said: “We call for reflection in the Lima Group about the consequences for Venezuelans of measures that seek to interfere in [their] internal affairs.”

The extreme partisanship of Secretary General of the OAS Luis Almagro against Venezuela has undermined his standing. In September2018, Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez declared that Uruguay would not support Almagro for a second term as Secretary General of the OAS.  Almagro was finally expelled from his own political party in Uruguay, the Frente Amplio, in December 2018, largely for his statements in Colombia about the need to retain a military option against Venezuela.

In December 2018, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP) held its 16th meeting in Cuba, declaring its “concern for the aggression and actions against regional peace and security, especially the threats of the use of force against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.” ALBA was founded by Venezuela and Cuba and is now comprised of ten nations.

No Other Choice but Resistance

The Venezuelan people have a long history of resistance to foreign domination and are not likely to view a US-backed “humanitarian” intervention as a liberating force. Nor are the popular sectors likely to support an unelected “transitional government” with a self-appointed Supreme Court in exile which is currently based in Bogotá, Colombia. And if the coalition of the willing includes Colombian paramilitary forces who are notorious for their role in the murder of community activists inside Colombia, their deployment in the event of a “humanitarian” mission would be abhorrent inside Venezuela.

The 1973 US-backed coup in Chile, followed by a lethal cleansing of that nation of leftists, is a cautionary lesson. Add to this the historic memory of the political repression during Venezuela’s discredited Fourth Republic and the Caracazo of 1989, in which the most marginalized and poor were the main victims, and it would be no surprise should the popular sectors have only one thing to offer a provisional government bent on inviting imperial intervention: resistance.

Is There Still Hope for Rojava?

Edward Hunt

As the U.S. foreign policy establishment grapples with President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, officials in Washington are overlooking what could be the biggest impact of his decision: the effect on the revolution in Rojava, the most promising democratic experiment in the Middle East.

Since Trump announced on December 19 that U.S. forces in Syria are returning home, most of the foreign policy establishment has lapsed into a kind of collective panic about the geopolitical implications for U.S. power and influence in the Middle East. Although some U.S. officials support Trump’s decision, arguing that a direct U.S. military presence in Syria is no longer necessary, most foreign policy experts portray Trump’s move as a victory for U.S. enemies and a sacrifice of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the U.S.-backed forces who are fighting the Islamic State in Syria.

“A precipitous U.S. troop withdrawal will undermine critical U.S. interests in Syria,” argues former U.S. official Mona Yacoubian, who is now a senior advisor at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Throughout the debate, U.S. officials have done little to consider the ramifications of Trump’s decision for the revolution in Rojava. Without U.S. forces positioned in Rojava, the Kurdish-led region in northeastern Syria, the Syrian Kurds who are leading a social revolution there face an imminent attack from Turkey, which has repeatedly threatened to eradicate them and their revolution.

“If we leave now, the Kurds are going to get slaughtered,” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) warned.

The revolution in Rojava is one of the few positive developments to emerge from the civil war in Syria. For the past several years, the Syrian Kurds have been creating self-governing communities that involve the democratic participation of their residents, including women and ethnic minorities. Committed to the principles of feminism, environmentalism, and democratic confederalism, the Syrian Kurds have united these communities in an autonomous democratic federation across northern Syria.

Sadly, U.S. officials have never fully supported the revolution in Rojava. After the Syrian Kurds announced the creation of their new autonomous region in March 2016, U.S. officials spoke out against it. This past November, U.S. Special Representative for Syria Engagement James Jeffrey told Congress that the area is primarily important as leverage in negotiations with the Syrian government. The U.S. relationship with the Syrian Kurds, Jeffrey said, is “tactical and temporary.”

Even against the backdrop of this limited U.S. support, Trump’s recent decision is a serious betrayal. Over the past several years, U.S. officials have repeatedly praised the Syrian Kurds as their most effective partners in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria, pledging not to abandon them. Last September, Trump praised the Kurds as “great, great people,” insisting that “we have to help them.”

“Tens of thousands of Kurds died fighting ISIS,” Trump said. “They died for us and with us.”

With his latest announcement, Trump has thrown all of these notions into disarray, leaving administration officials backtracking from their previous commitments. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who had previously called the Syrian Kurds “great partners” and pledged to include them in future negotiations to end the war in Syria, now evades questions about whether the United States has an obligation to help them.

National Security Advisor John Bolton recently said that the U.S. withdrawal is conditional on a Turkish pledge not to attack the Kurds, but he confirmed that “we are going to withdraw from northeastern Syria.”

Given the upcoming U.S. withdrawal, the Syrian Kurds are facing an existential threat from Turkey. For years, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been threatening to eradicate the Syrian Kurds, portraying them as terrorists no different from the Islamic State.

Erdogan once said that “we will do everything and anything we need to do to eliminate the Kurds,” according to former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

Early last year, the Turkish government acted on its threats, invading and conquering Afrin, one of the three cantons of Rojava. Some 200,000 residents fled the area and an estimated 500 civilians were killed. More than 800 Kurdish fighters died trying to defend the area.

Another Turkish incursion into northern Syria would be disastrous for the Syrian Kurds and the revolution in Rojava.

Some U.S. officials have indicated that they can help the Syrian Kurds by keeping them supplied with weapons. The Emergency Committee for Rojava, a recently organized support network, is calling on Congress to provide economic, political, and military assistance.

If it really is the mission of the United States to help democratic movements around the world, then U.S. officials will come to the assistance of the Syrian Kurds. The next moves by the Trump administration may very well determine whether the revolution in Rojava and the people leading it can survive.

Gabon and Coup Mania

Binoy Kampmark

It starts with a presumption, makes its way through a discussion, and becomes a set, moulded stereotype: Africa is the continent of tin pot dictatorships, unstable leaderships, and coups.  Latin America, attuned to brigandage and frontier mentalities, is not far behind.  Such instances lend themselves to the inevitable opportunity to exploit the exception.  Gabon, ruled by the same family without interruption since 1967, is being stated as a possible example.

The news so far, if one dares trust it, suggests that a coup was put down in the African state with the loss of two lives.  Seven of the plotters were captured a mere five hours after they seized a radio station, during which Lieutenant Kelly Ondo Obiang broadcast a message claiming that President Ali Bongo’s New Year’s Eve message “reinforced doubts about the president’s ability to continue to carry out of the responsibilities of his office.”  Bongo, for his part, had seemed indisposed, suffering a stroke in October and slurring his words in a speech during a December 31 television appearance.

As with other attempted coups, the plotters portrayed themselves as up-market planners in the Brutus mould.  They were killing Caesar to save Rome.  In this case, the men of the Patriotic Movement of the Defence and Security Forces of Gabon were keen to “restore democracy”.  The attempt was put down with some speed.  “The situation is under control,” came a government statement some hours after security forces regained control of the RTG state broadcasting headquarters.  Guy-Betrand Mapangou, true to the sort of form shown by a regime unmoved, insisted that, “The government is in place.  The institutions are in place.”

The coup fascination may not be healthy but is nonetheless fascinatingly morbid.  Jonathan Powell and Clayton Thyne from the University of Central Florida and University of Kentucky cannot get enough of the business, and have compiled a register of failure.  These political scientists insist on defining coups as “illegal and overt attempts by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting executive”.  But having to presumably stake some exceptional view to the field, the authors insist that those who go through with a coup have power for at least seven days.  (Why not six or eight?)

This cottage industry invariably produces much smoke but a conspicuous lack of fire.  In 2016, with the failed coup in Turkey unfolding, James McCarthy, writing for Wales Online, insisted on a guidebook approach, drawing from Thyne and Powell’s research.  They, according to McCarthy, “found there were 457 coup attempts between 1950 and 2010.  Of those, 227 were successful and 230 failed.”  Invariably, the Americas and Africa feature as the prominent zones of coups.

The BBC has felt free to run with a map featuring African states “with the highest number of coups since 1952,” a kind of morbid horror show of instability.  Sudan is a big league player in this regard with 14, followed by other states which seem to be in competition with each other (Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Benin and Nigeria come in with eight; Sierra Leone and Ghana sport ten).

Unmentioned in the show was the number of times conspirators, cabals and groups have been encouraged, courtesy of external powers, to sabotage fledgling democratic regimes and back counter-revolutionary agents.  As important as the coup plotters are the coup backers, often to be found in Washington and European policy planning departments and company boardrooms.  The story of stuttered, mutated revolutions in Africa and Latin America is very much one of externally directed coups as much as failed local experiments.

The issue, as if it matters much, about whether a coup is, or is not happening, is a constant theme.  According to Powell, “Coup leaders almost invariably deny their action was a coup in an effort to appear legitimate.”  This is banally leaden as an observation.  All coups must, by definition, be asserted as acts of dissimulation, and not savage, all extirpating revolutions.  To merely depose a leadership is, by definition, conservative.  In a modern state, decapitation might create some initial chaos but leaves the structure, for the most part, intact.  Coups often have the effect of shoring up the junta, in whatever form it takes.

The field of coup gazing also has a moral edge.  There are coups with supposedly good import, and those that are not.  Portugal’s “Carnation Revolution” ending the seemingly interminable rule of António de Oliveira Salazar, is cited as one example.  A coup might engender fertile grounds for a democratic movement, or suffer entropic decline before authoritarian reassertion.  A good coup, speculated the Washington Post, took place in Burkina Faso in 2015, with the end of Blaise Compaoré’s rule.  The same paper does note the rather banal qualifier: that “policymakers and academics should not get too excited about the allegedly positive consequences of coups in Africa.”  African armies, for instance, might propel democratic elections; they might just as well remain in power.

Scholars such as Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way argue that multiparty elections in the aftermath of change can just be a front.  Democratic talk can be so much babble before manipulating strongmen.  “Competitive authoritarian regimes,” argue the authors, can entrench themselves.  All this seems beside the point in Gabon, a distant murmur to the academic discourse and policy pondering that dazzle a good number of analysts.  The obvious point tends to be same: coups tend to be rooted in evolutionary orthodoxy rather than earth shattering revolution.  They are also often the work of unseen hands behind unstable thrones.  Identify those hands, and you may well have some answers.

Open Letter to Bayer CropScience: Bayer Has Never Been Transparent In Its Life!

Colin Todhunter

“Transparency creates trust. At Bayer, we embrace our responsibility to communicate how we assess our products’ safety — and we recognize that people around the world want more information around glyphosate. This month, we published more than 300 study summaries on the safety of glyphosate on our dedicated transparency website. “

Mason is scathing in her response and begins her letter by saying, “Bayer CropScience has never been transparent in its life.” She makes it clear to Baumann from the outset that she considers Bayer CropScience and Monsanto “criminal corporations.”

Her letter outlines a cocktail of corporate duplicity, cover-ups and criminality which the public and the environment are paying the price for, not least in terms of the effects of glyphosate.

She has sent her letter to various mainstream media outlets. I recently received it and have placed it here, so anyone can access it in its entirety. I urge everyone to read the letter and circulate it on social media.

Access it here: Open Letter to Bayer CropScience

New Zealand’s public healthcare crisis worsens

Tom Peters 

New Zealand’s Labour Party-led coalition government took office in October 2017 promising to address the severe crisis caused by more than a decade of cuts to the public health system. The previous National Party government underfunded healthcare by billions of dollars as part of austerity measures demanded by the corporate elite to force the burden of the 2008 financial crisis on working people.

More than a year later, Labour’s election promises—like those it made to address poverty and inequality—have been exposed as a fraud. Nominal funding increases have failed to keep pace with inflation, and therefore with the needs of the growing and ageing population and increasing levels of sickness. Public hospitals remain drastically understaffed and overcrowded, wages for health workers are effectively frozen, and thousands of patients are being denied treatment.

The government’s priority, spelled out in its “budget responsibility rules,” has been to keep taxes low for corporations and the rich, and overall public spending below 30 percent of GDP, the same level as National. As the world economy becomes ever more volatile and heads towards another recession, governments in every country are responding with deeper cuts to spending on healthcare, education and other essential services.

The Ministry of Health has instructed the country’s 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to reduce their operating deficits, totaling $240 million last financial year, which is likely to lead to further cost-cutting. The government set aside only $100 million for deficit relief and Minister David Clark said the majority of the DHBs would remain in deficit in 2018–2019.

On December 28, Fairfax Media reported that thousands of people “are still being declined for specialist hospital assessments and elective surgeries” because of “strict criteria” for publicly-funded operations. Between January and March 2018, 7,467 doctor referrals of patients for specialist assessments were declined. The figure was only “slightly down on three years ago when 7,762 referrals were declined.”

Doctor Philip Bagshaw, who founded the Christchurch Charity Hospital (CCH) in 2007 in response to unmet need, said the hospital treated 1,344 patients in the year to November 2018, up from 880 patients the year before. The number of CCH patients who had been turned away by the public system more than doubled from 2017 to 2018.

Medical professionals have spoken out about the appalling conditions in hospitals. Senior doctor Yoojin Na, who recently resigned from Whanganui Hospital, “slammed the District Health Board for staffing levels she says have caused delays to treatment of life-threatening diagnoses,” the Whanganui Chronicle reported on December 8.

Doctors with little experience often worked unsupervised by senior colleagues, she said, warning that “an overwhelmed and rushed junior doctor may miss a potentially life-threatening, time-sensitive diagnosis. It’s difficult to think critically when one is constantly bombarded, which is sometimes what happens overnight.” A letter signed by 26 doctors and sent to the DHB described overnight staffing levels as “unacceptably unsafe.”

In working class South Auckland, Counties Manukau DHB is desperately under-funded and understaffed. According to Radio NZ, it has left 58 administrative staff vacancies in Middlemore Hospital unfilled in order to save around $2.2 million this year.

Middlemore’s emergency department is frequently swamped, putting patients at risk. On December 3, patients faced an average wait time of almost seven hours, according to a display screen in the hospital.

On October 31, the New Zealand Herald reported that in the first half of 2018, 132 of 258 children (51 percent) referred to the DHB for dermatological treatment for severe skin conditions were turned away. The DHB told South Auckland doctors to advise patients to seek private treatment due to the lack of publicly-funded dermatologists. Doctors told the newspaper poor families could not afford private treatment for dermatitis and other conditions which are often caused by living in overcrowded and rundown housing.

Over the past year, healthcare workers have attempted to fight back, demanding significant improvements in conditions and pay. In July around 30,000 nurses and healthcare assistants held their first nationwide one-day strike since 1989. The struggle, however, was sold out by the New Zealand Nurses’ Organisation (NZNO), which enforced a pay rise of just 3 percent per year and a government promise to hire 500 nurses nationwide, an increase of about 2 percent.

More recently, thousands of anaesthetic technicians, midwives and ambulance paramedics have taken limited industrial action. About 3,300 junior doctors are due to strike for 48 hours on January 15–16, seeking better wages and rosters. The unions involved have worked to ensure that each dispute remains isolated and to prevent any unified campaign by healthcare workers and others against the Labour government.

A mental health worker at Middlemore recently told the WSWS that the NZNO’s deal had made no difference to working conditions. Staffing levels were still at “unsafe” levels, which contributed to frequent assaults on nurses. She explained that “so many staff members are getting burnt out and ringing in sick” and management “haven’t been doing the rostering properly—sometimes there are all juniors and maybe just one senior staff.”

The mental health unit was almost always full, she said. The large number of homeless patients created additional problems because “you can’t discharge them unless you know that they’re getting discharged to a place where it’s going to be safe for them. So they’re taking up beds that could have been for those that are waiting.”

Similar conditions prevail throughout the country, despite Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s statements that she would prioritise addressing the mental health crisis. Fairfax Media reported on December 28 that at Wellington Hospital’s mental health unit “patients are having to sleep on couches” due to overcrowding. For the year to the end of October, the 29-bed ward had an average of 31 patients.

The worsening crisis in healthcare and other social services is fueling class tensions that will inevitably erupt in further strikes and protests in 2019, bringing workers into confrontation with the Labour-led government. These struggles must be guided by a socialist perspective for the complete reorganisation of society based on meeting human need. Genuinely universal and well-resourced public healthcare is fundamentally incompatible with capitalism, a system that subordinates everything to the accumulation of private profit by an elite few.

The strangulation of the nurses’ struggle by the NZNO also demonstrates the urgent need for a rebellion against the union bureaucracy and for new organisations: rank-and-file workplace committees, controlled by workers themselves. These must be built in every hospital to unite health workers with other sections of the working class—teachers, transport workers and others—in New Zealand, Australia and internationally.

Scientific breakthrough promises to increase agricultural productivity by 40 percent

Philip Guelpa & Thomas H. Douglass

A common trope among some environmentalists is that human population growth has outstripped the planet’s carrying capacity and is responsible for environmental degradation. This political outlook holds that only a drastic reduction in the number of humans can avert utter disaster. A corollary to this view is that because science and technology have created the environmental crisis, they will not provide solutions to it.

Newly announced research has demonstrated that genetic engineering can radically improve upon the natural photosynthetic process in plants, the basis of nearly the entire food chain on the planet. This work demonstrates that advances in science and technology, if applied rationally, can end the threat of hunger that faces large swaths of humanity. The new technology can furthermore decrease the areas of land needed to feed the Earth’s population, thereby mitigating habitat destruction and increasing carbon capture, a process necessary to reverse global warming.

The work, conducted by researchers at the US Department of Agriculture, and genome research, crop science and plant biology centers at the University of Illinois, was published in the journal Science (South, Cavanagh, Liu, and Ort, “Synthetic glycolate metabolism pathways stimulate crop growth and productivity in the field,” January 4, 2019; see also commentary by Eisenhut and Weber, “Improving crop yield”).

The research reports success in overcoming a “flaw” in the photosynthetic process that, if implemented in food crops, could improve productivity by as much as 40 percent.

Photosynthesis is the process by which green plants use the energy from sunlight to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) and water into sugars, and ultimately all other biological molecules. These in turn provide the food on which the plants themselves and animals, including humans, depend.

The rate at which photosynthesis operates is a key limiting factor in the planet’s biological carrying capacity—the number of living organisms that can be sustained by Earth.

It has long been known that there is a “glitch” in the chemical process of photosynthesis, significantly reducing its efficiency. A key chemical component of photosynthesis—the enzyme RuBisCO—sometimes reverses the photosynthetic process by absorbing oxygen, normally a waste product, rather than CO2. This results in a 20 to 50 percent reduction in plant growth due to the creation of toxic byproducts, including the molecule glycolate, that the plant must expend energy to remove. In short, not only does the plant waste energy from sunlight and fail to incorporate carbon into sugar, it must spend additional energy intended for growth to remove toxins it creates.

This flaw in the photosynthetic process and the evolutionary “fix” to clean it up are examples of how evolution produces biological systems that are not imperfect, yet sufficient for survival (i.e., indicating that evolution rather than intelligent design is responsible for life on Earth).

This photosynthesis reversal process, known as photorespiration, occurs more frequently at higher temperatures. With ongoing anthropogenic global warming, the productivity of some crops on which humans depend could be significantly impacted in the future. In some cases, agricultural yield losses resulting from temperature change, aridity, storms and rising sea levels could cause food shortages, malnutrition, and famine, especially in less-developed economies.

Using genetic engineering techniques, the researchers provided plants with more efficient tools to clear out the waste molecule glycolate, a byproduct of photorespiration. In one method, the scientists introduced a glycolate removal pathway drawn from E. coli bacteria. In another and even more successful method, the scientists introduced a similar pathway from green algae.

Testing their methods in tobacco, a “model organism” or species commonly used for scientific study, the researchers found that plants grown in the field could achieve a more than 40 percent boost in productivity over time.

Further research will seek to introduce these modifications into food crops, a process estimated to be implemented within a decade. If successful, this new technology and related advances have the potential to significantly increase agricultural productivity at a time when the effects of climate change—including increased droughts, floods, and plant disease—threaten to have substantial negative impacts on food resources.

The development of agriculture more than 10,000 years ago was the technological revolution that permitted a dramatic expansion of the human population and, in turn, laid the basis for civilization. The newly reported research on photosynthesis and other scientific advances to enhance the disease and drought resistance, and nutrient richness of food crops have the potential to provide another great revolution in the food supply.

However, the primary contemporary cause of famine and malnutrition is not lack of resources but rather economic inequality, climate change, and war. The benefits of scientific advances can only be realized provided that they are employed freely and equitably under a globally planned, socialist economy, rather than monopolized by private agribusiness corporations.

Insurgent Gabon soldiers shot dead in foiled coup attempt

Eddie Haywood 

On Monday morning, several soldiers from the Gabonese army stormed the state-owned radio station in the capital city Libreville. After seizing control of the station’s operations, the coup leader, Lt. Obiang Ondo Kelly, broadcast a statement. After declaring that the military had overthrown the government, Kelly announced a “National Restoration Council.”

A video clip circulated showing the insurgent soldiers inside the radio station and two armed men dressed in military fatigues generally worn by junior officers in the Gabonese army standing behind Lt. Kelly, who was seated before a microphone.

Reading the statement, Lt. Kelly appealed to listeners: “If you are eating, stop; if you are having a drink, stop; if you are sleeping, wake up. Wake up your neighbours... rise up as one and take control of the street.”

Kelly stated on air that the rebel faction represented the Patriotic Movement of the Defence and Security Forces of Gabon, and specifically called on Gabonese youth to “take charge of their destiny.” He made a further overture to the Gabonese military, calling on soldiers to take control of transportation systems, armament reserves and airports, in the “interests of the nation.”

Gabon’s President Ali Bongo Ondimba was out of the country during the coup attempt, receiving medical treatment in Morocco. Ondimba has been hospitalized since October after suffering a stroke, when he left the country to attend a conference in Saudi Arabia. The insurgent soldiers appeared to be taking advantage of the president’s absence.

Minutes after the takeover of the radio station, government troops poured into the streets, accompanied by tanks and armored vehicles, and stormed the radio station. A volley of shots rang out before the government declared that it had routed the coup plotters and restored order.

In the first moments of hearing the broadcast, several youth in Libreville took to the streets in support of the coup and set a car and tires on fire. Internet was cut off, with electricity cut in some areas of the city, and the government imposed a curfew over Libreville. In addition, Gabon closed off the border with Cameroon, in effect stopping trade between the two countries.

One insurgent was killed at the radio station, while others surrendered. Lt. Kelly fled, and a short time later, he was shot dead while hiding in a house. Government spokesman Guy-Bertrand Mapangou told the media that the government was investigating the group’s motives.

The coup attempt takes place amid increased political tensions in the region, particular in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where an announcement of a result in the disputed election contest to name a successor to President Joseph Kabila has been delayed indefinitely.

Notably, the coup attempt occurred mere days after the Trump administration deployed 80 troops to Gabon for the purpose of “protecting US assets in the event of violent demonstrations” arising from the Congolese election.

France also maintains a permanent military presence in the country, with nearly 1,000 troops and an air detachment located at Camp de Gaulle adjacent to the airport in Libreville.

Gabon is a tiny country in Western Africa with a population of 1.5 million and a government that is run by a dynastic elite. The Bongo family has held power in Libreville for more than a half a century, beginning with the installment of Omar Bongo as president in 1967 by French president Charles de Gaulle. With Omar Bongo at the helm, French imperialism sought to maintain its economic interests in its former colony after Gabon’s independence in 1960.

Omar Bongo remained in power for the next 42 years until his death at age 73 in 2009. His rule was characterized by nepotism, corruption and the enrichment of a tiny layer of elites who carved up Gabon’s vast oil and gas deposits, along with significant resources of uranium, minerals and precious gems, giving extraction contracts to Western companies. While this parasitic elite enriched itself, it came at the expense of the Gabonese masses, who experienced social misery.

In an election marred by irregularities and fraud, Bongo’s son Ali Bongo Ondimba was elected president in 2009. The poll was met with social unrest, with protesters pouring into the streets of the capital in anger at such a blatant display of dynastic succession. For its part, the incoming Bongo administration violently cracked down on the protests, with security forces swarming into the streets of Libreville, firing tear gas, beating protesters, and carrying out mass arrests.

In 2016, social unrest again rocked the country when Ondimba was reelected once again amid widespread allegations of irregularities in the tally. More than 1000 were arrested and 17 people killed, with scores injured in the ensuing police crackdown.

In recent years, the Bongo dynasty has come under fire from Washington and Europe following the release in 2010 of a US Embassy cable from Wikileaks documenting the embezzlement of millions of dollars from the Bank of Central African States which Bongo funneled to political supporters in France of then French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

For its part France was from the start opposed to an Ondimba government, and during the Bush administration, Omar Bongo remarked to then US Ambassador R. Barrie Walkley, “The French don’t like my son.”

While it is unknown whether Washington or Europe were behind the coup attempt, there are indications of a falling out of relations in recent years between Washington and the Bongo regime, after enjoying years as a subservient partner of US interests. In 2010, a US Senate report documented serious crimes committed by the Bongo government, including election fraud and corruption.

According to the report, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations highlighted that Omar and Ali Bongo have amassed “substantial wealth while in office, amid the extreme poverty of its citizens.”

The Senate report is a completely hypocritical and cynical whitewash of Washington’s criminal involvement. The Bongo dynasty served for years as a pliant government carrying out the dictates of American capitalism in Gabon. Highlighting this, in 2010 then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stressed the importance of Gabon and called Ondimba “a valued partner.”

Speaking to the media regarding the attempted coup, a spokesman for United States Africa Command (US AFRICOM) issued a complete denial that American troops stationed at Libreville had any involvement in the coup attempt, and further denied that American forces participated in the operation to restore order.

Notably significant is AFRICOM’s close relationship with the Gabonese military, in particular through several training and readiness exercises conducted in the country over the last decade, which leave little doubt to the predatory aims of the Pentagon.

In 2017, AFRICOM held training exercise Judicious Activation in the country, consisting of training given to Gabonese troops in establishing a short-term forward operating base from which military forces could mount an attack and set up logistics in order to sustain forces in deployments across the region.

Considering the vast scale and reach of AFRICOM’s operations extending across the African continent, it can be stated with certainty that Washington is keeping a watchful eye over the political turmoil in Gabon and will intervene at a moment’s notice if American economic interests come under threat.

Guatemalan establishment indifferent to deaths of US incarcerated migrant children

Andrea Lobo

Guatemala’s government and its entire ruling establishment have responded to the recent deaths of two Guatemalan children under US custody with an indifference that not only reflects their disdain for the country’s impoverished masses, but also their efforts to demonstrate loyal submission to the Trump administration.

Jakelin Caal, 7, died on December 8, and Felipe Gómez Alonzo, 8, on December 24, after crossing the border into the US and being taken into custody by the border patrol.

Along with much of the media, Guatemalan authorities have remained silent about the case of Yazmín Juárez, a 20-year-old Guatemalan migrant, who filed a suit last month against the US federal government over the death of her 19-month-old daughter, Mariee, after contracting a respiratory infection and being inadequately treated at an ICE family detention center in Arizona earlier last year.

While Hondurans and Salvadorans comprised the bulk of the caravans that gained widespread media attention and sympathy internationally last year, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported that, for the first time on record, it arrested more Guatemalans crossing the border than any other nationality during the 2018 fiscal year, which ended in September. A total of 50,401 Guatemalan migrants were detained, twice as many as in the previous fiscal year.

On December 25, the US Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen provided data showing that six people died during fiscal year 2018 (ending in September) in CBP custody, while CBP commissioner Kevin McAleenan told CBS that Jakelin was the first child to die in more than a decade.

The deaths of Jakelin and Felipe attest to the ruthless detention regime imposed on migrants by the Trump administration. While investigations are underway into the deaths, it is known that Felipe became ill after being sent to the temporary detention facilities known as hieleras or “ice boxes”, and that Jakelin collapsed after she was ripped away from her father by officials claiming their relationship could not be confirmed.

Many more migrants die while crossing the Sonoran Desert into the US, where CBP officials are known to destroy water and provisions left for migrants by volunteers.

Jakelin’s body was received by a group of saddened neighbors of San Antonio Secortez and nearby towns of the Raxruhá municipality. Dozens gave money and food baskets to the family. Felipe’s body has not been returned to his hometown due to continued examinations.

Jose Manuel Caal, Jakelin’s uncle, told reporters that the girl and her father were escaping hunger. “The poverty we live in, the crops we grow aren’t enough to support a family,” he noted.

In Nentón, Huehuetenango, Felipe’s uncle and one of his cousins had no time to mourn or wait for the body and are already planning on attempting the trip to the United States. “I have no land, I have nothing for my children to live better,” he commented to Prensa Libre shortly after the news came of Felipe’s death.

The outrage over these deaths among workers in the US and the popular anger and grief in Guatemala are anathema to both governments.

The Guatemalan government of President Jimmy Morales has not protested the deaths or the brutal treatment of migrants by US authorities and has instead reproduced the threats by the Trump administration. In fact, the death of Jakelin Caal was temporarily covered up by the Guatemalan authorities despite reports that the consulate at Del Río, Texas was informed on December 8 at 6 a.m. It wasn’t until December 13, five days after her death, that the CBP acknowledged the incident.

Guatemalan Foreign Minister Sandra Jove released the following statement shortly after revealing the identity of the girl: “The government of Guatemala regrets that a citizen has lost her life in this journey and points out that places where migrants cross now are more dangerous and distances they travel are longer.”

On December 25, after the death of Felipe, the Foreign Ministry published a new communiqué stating: “we requested a clear investigation that respects the proper process that US authorities assign to this case.” That day, the Guatemalan government’s Human Rights Ombudsman made the following pronouncement: “The efforts by the US authorities must not center only on controlling migratory flows, but also on the integrity of the migrants, since two children have died in the custody of the border patrol in less than 15 days.”

The Guatemalan consul in Del Río, Tekandi Paniagua, was asked whether the death of Caal, reportedly a healthy 7-year-old girl, could have been avoided. He refused to respond until the autopsy.

After Nielsen and Trump blamed the families directly for the children’s deaths, the Guatemalan government made no protest.

Trump has continued his bullying unbothered. On December 28, for instance, he tweeted:

“Honduras Guatemala and El Salvador are doing nothing for the United States but [are] taking our money. Word is that a new Caravan is forming in Honduras and they are doing nothing about it. We will be cutting off all aid to these 3 countries-taking advantage of U.S. for years!”

On January 1, the CBP attacked migrants seeking to cross the border near Tijuana with tear gas and arrested at least 25 of them. Again, there was no protest by Guatemala or other regional governments.

On June 18, at the height of popular rage against Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy against migrants characterized by the separation of children from their parents, the Guatemalan government made no protest but instead declared that it “respects US foreign policy in migration matters.” President Morales again failed to protest the deployment of US troops and violent threats against caravan members by Trump in October, or the shooting of rubber bullets and tear gas canisters to disperse caravan members, including women and young children, inside Tijuana in November.

Such subservience has angered workers, peasants and wider layers of the population. “The imperviousness of the US government and the security forces killed her; the Jimmy Morales administration killed her; the ineptitude and subservience of foreign minister Sandra Jovel killed her; the Congress that legislates for the rich killed her; the greedy elites killed her; the depriving transnational corporations killed her; indifference killed her; we all killed her,” wrote historian María Aguilar in an op-ed on Jakelin’s death for El Periódico.

The hostility to the masses by the Guatemalan ruling class has in turn become useful to mouthpieces of the US imperialist foreign policy, setting the tone for the response by most of the media and political opposition in Guatemala.

The New York Times, in a December 28 article titled “Guatemala cautious on Young Migrants’ Deaths, Wary of Angering US,” sought to shift the blame for the deaths onto the Guatemalan government. It attributes its “solicitous approach” toward Trump’s anti-immigrant offensive to President Morales bid to secure Trump’s backing for the expulsion of a UN-sponsored “anti-impunity” commission, the CICIG (International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala).

Foreign Minister Jovel issued an ultimatum on Monday giving the UN body 24 hours to leave the country.

Undoubtedly, Morales wants Trump’s blessings regarding the CICIG, which had been investigating him for illicit campaign financing and several of his family members and political associates in other corruption cases. But in making this argument, the Times and many others in Guatemala and elsewhere are seeking to channel social opposition over the migrant deaths behind support for the CICIG.

Far from seeking to “combat the corruption that has crippled Guatemala’s political and economic development—and, in part, fueled the migration of its citizens,” as the Times claims, the CICIG is fully controlled by the US State Department and has functioned as a lever of imperialist domination. It has been used to pressure the ruling National Convergence Front to adopt policies that are even more subordinate to US capital and its geopolitical interests—policies that are chiefly responsible for the desperate social conditions forcing migrants to leave.

These policies include the imposition of social austerity and attacks on democratic rights with the aim of keeping Guatemala as a source of cheap labor and natural resources. At the same time, Washington has sought further US militarization of the region, the timely servicing of the public debt to Wall Street and the cutting of economic and political ties with US rivals, chiefly China.

A government report presented in August indicates that 59.3 percent of the population lives under poverty, 8.1 percentage points more than in 2006. The official poverty rates of the municipalities where Felipe and Jakelin lived exceed 80 percent. Decent-paying jobs, health care, sanitation facilities, secondary education, electricity, internet, cable and other basic needs are largely inaccessible. Guatemala collects the smallest share of tax revenues relative to its GDP in the world.

Agricultural workers make on average 40 to 60 quetzales ($5-8) per day, below the paltry minimum wage for the sector of 90 quetzales ($11.6) daily.

At the same time, Guatemala is the world’s fifth main exporter of palm oil and the fourth of sugar. After agricultural products, textiles constitute the second largest export sector, followed by chemicals, minerals and metals.

What maintains the intolerable levels of poverty for workers and peasants is the drive for profits by major transnational corporations and local landowners that continue bleeding Guatemala’s soil and labor.

Almost one of every two children in Guatemala suffers chronic malnourishment, with thousands of children under five dying each year from preventable conditions (13,000 in 2015 according to UNICEF). Youth seeking to escape desperate poverty, domestic abuse or gang violence also face the possible nightmare of being locked up, beaten, and sexually abused in the shelters controlled by the Social Welfare Secretariat (SBS). In 2017, 41 girls died in a fire at a shelter after they set fire to mattresses as part of a failed attempt to escape their “refuge.” The treatment meted out by US authorities to the 15,000 migrant children held in custody is not that different.

The opposition parties in Guatemala were also largely silent on the deaths of Jakelin and Felipe, and their few statements were toothless. For instance, the only official statement by the ex-guerrilla URNG-Maiz, signed by its only legislator, Walter Félix, attacked Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy but made no further demand than calling on the Morales government to “elucidate the case.”

A June analysis by the CELAG think tank (Latin American Strategic Center on Geopolitics) warned that there is no political “left” in Guatemala, citing the lack of political support for the ex-guerrilla URNG-Maiz and the Indian nationalist Winaq Party, adding that “flexible and informal labor hamper the development of trade unions.”

Back in May, the Washington-based think-tank Stratfor expressed confidently that any social explosion in the country would fall “once again under the auspices of CICIG’s Guatemalan defenders,” referring to the channeling of mass protests in 2015 against the Otto Pérez Molina administration behind the CICIG’s corruption case against him, culminating in his resignation that year and replacement by the fascistic Vice-President Alejandro Baltazar Maldonado. Shortly thereafter came the election of the ex-comedian Morales, an even more pliable defender of the interests of US imperialism and the local oligarchy.

The entire establishment opposition has based its criticisms of Morales on defending the CICIG and its corruption cases against the ruling coalition. The CELAG piece reflects concerns among ruling circles in Latin America that the alignment of the pseudo-left behind the CICIG and its other right-wing backers could eventually render them useless as instruments for channeling social unrest behind the bourgeois politics.

Their unpopularity, however, runs much deeper. It is the result of their abandonment of the class struggle after the guerrillas, along with the student and indigenous protest organizations became the left flank of the UNE (National Union of Hope party) faction of the ruling elite following the “peace process” in the late-1990s, while the living conditions of peasants and workers continued to worsen. This was in turn the inevitable result of the nationalist politics advanced by the petty-bourgeois leaderships of the Maoist and Castroite guerrillas and Stalinist Guatemalan Workers Party (PGT), which actively undermined the struggle to develop a Marxist revolutionary party based on the international working class to fight for socialism.

Only such a party, a section of the ICFI, in the Guatemalan working class, leading behind it all toiling masses, can provide a viable leadership for the struggle against imperialism and social inequality by fighting in unison with workers in the US and across the region to overthrow capitalism, expropriate the wealth of the financial elite and local oligarchy and crush all exploitation, hunger and violence.

Sears liquidation temporarily averted, thousands more jobs to be slashed

Jessica Goldstein

Sears Holding Corp. put its decision to liquidate on hold Tuesday, considering a revised offer for a takeover bid by its chairman and former CEO, hedge fund manager Eddie Lampert. The original takeover bid to purchase all of Sears’ assets, including 425 of its retail stores, for $4.4 billion was announced by Lampert on December 28, 2018, and was initially rejected by the company’s board.

Lampert bid for the US retail chain through an affiliate of his ESL Investments hedge fund, Transform Holdco LLC. The offer included a $1.3 billion financing commitment from three financial groups. Lampert took over as the company’s CEO in 2013 and stepped down after the company filed for bankruptcy in October 2018.

According to Sears’ lawyers, Lampert has until 4 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday to make a $120 million down payment as part of a revised bid. If the offer is accepted, 425 of 500 remaining stores will remain open and up to 50,000 of the current 68,000 employees will be retained.

The company’s stock, now considered a “penny stock” and recently valued at near zero, rose 30 percent to $0.39 per share after the announcement.

In late 2018, Sears announced that it planned to close 80 Sears and Kmart stores across the US in March, in addition to the nearly 200 already set for closure. The retailer filed for bankruptcy earlier in October when it was operating nearly 700 stores, saying it would close only 142 unprofitable stores; the next month, it announced that an additional 40 would be closed.

Sears has suffered a series of financial crises as a part of America’s ongoing “retail apocalypse” that has claimed big box chains such as Toys “R” Us, Bon-Ton stores and The Sports Authority. Throughout much of the 20th century, the company was the country’s largest retailer and its largest private-sector employer. The once powerful department chain suffered financial losses as it faced competition first from big box retailers like Walmart and later from e-commerce giants like Amazon.

The 126-year-old department store chain began as a mail-order retailer in the late 19th century. Through its mail order catalog, it was able grow rapidly by penetrating into underserved rural markets as railroads linked together distant parts of the country and the Rural Free Delivery Act of 1896 expanded mail routes into rural areas.

Sears opened its first department store in Chicago, Illinois in 1925, and continued to expand after the post-World War II boom in the US. By 1975, Sears, along with Montgomery Ward and JC Penney, captured 43 per cent of all department store sales in the country.

By 1991, Walmart overtook Sears as the largest retailer in the US, as a part of the phenomenon of the growth of big box stores which relied heavily on ultra-low-wage labor and cheap goods produced in other countries, many of which had been torn apart by US imperialist exploits. Department stores in the US are being phased out, and Sears, though comparable to the expanse of Amazon in its heyday, was no exception.

Lampert purchased the giant retailer through a merger with discount chain Kmart in 2005, and through his hedge fund engaged in a series of relentless acts of bloodletting to extract every ounce of financial profit that he could from the dying chain. ESL engaged in numerous stock buybacks and other financial schemes to artificially inflate the stock price, while accumulating a large amount of the company’s shares for itself.

When Sears declared bankruptcy in October, Lampert personally owned a 31 per cent stake in the company, while ESL Investments held an additional 18 per cent. Lampert is currently the company’s largest shareholder.

In addition to owning the largest amount of the company’s stock of any of its shareholders, Lampert and ESL own a large amount of its debt. In October, ESL and a related fund, JPP, owned about $2.66 billion in Sears debt, with interest on the notes of between $200 million and $225 million per year.

In 2014, Sears sold its Land’s End clothing brand to a consortium that was two-thirds controlled by ESL. In 2016, Sears sold Craftsman brand tools to Black & Decker for $900 million to pay off debt, including to Lampert’s hedge fund. Sears’ Die Hard batteries were put up for sale in 2017, and in 2018 Lampert made a $400 million bid for Kenmore appliances and an $80 million bid for Sears Home Improvement stores.

In 2015, Lampert split off 235 of the company’s most profitable stores and 31 other Sears real estate holdings to sell to a private real estate trust, Seritage Growth Properties, for $2.7 billion. Lampert’s hedge fund owns 43.5 per cent of this partnership and Lampert serves as chairman. From this transaction, Lampert and ESL have extracted hundreds of millions of dollars from the company in rent, property tax expenses, insurance and utility payments.

Lampert founded ESL Investments in 1988 after a brief period in Goldman Sachs’ risk arbitrage department. The hedge fund specialized in betting on undervalued stocks. He and his wife, attorney Kinga Lampert, own three mansions and a 288-foot luxury yacht. His net worth, which has fallen since Sears’ bankruptcy and possible liquidation were announced, is valued at nearly $1 billion.

Lampert is a perfect example of the parasitic oligarch who has been elevated to the top of society via financialization. His wealth has been gained not through his own merits or hard work, but through a series of financial transactions that have bled the vast productive forces of society dry.

The livelihoods of 68,000 Sears employees now hangs in the balance. If any worker loses his or her job because of a cutthroat deal or liquidation, it will not be the outcome of impersonal economic forces but a premediated criminal act by the ruling class.

Most Sears retail employees are paid extremely low wages, in many cases not enough to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment in most American cities. According to Glassdoor.com, a cashier can expect to make on average $19,697 per year; a sales associate, $21,079 per year; a visual merchandiser, $27,498 per year; and an automotive technician, $33,027 per year.

Whatever the outcome for Sears, further attacks are being planned on workers throughout the economy. In order to fight back, workers must form their own rank-and-file committees to defend their jobs and fight for better wages and working conditions.

In their struggle, workers at Sears should link up with other heavily exploited workers in the retail and logistics sector, including Amazon workers and UPS workers, and autoworkers at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, who are also faced with the threat of job losses and plant closures.

The capitalist system has nothing to offer the working class. Only through a unified struggle of the working class, independent of the trade unions and capitalist political parties, can workers defend their right to a good-paying job by fighting for an end to capitalism and putting in its place socialism, a system in which the productive forces of society are used to meet the needs of the vast majority and not a few wealthy parasites.