On the Persistence of Religion

Dan Corjescu

We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all

–Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus

Recently I received an angry note about the persistence of religion in the modern world as proof of the world’s ongoing irrationality in response to some of my comments in my lately published article “The Metaphysics of Revolution”.

I found the response interesting on many levels.

Firstly, the level of anger.

The emotional quality of some atheists’ responses to religion remind me of the worst characteristics of religious fanatics: intolerance, hatred, invective, and a blind desire for collective uniformity.

Why all the rancor if reason is on your side?

Calmly make your argument (as many indeed do such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett) and let that be your most potent, deliberative weapon.

After all, I thought emotional appeals are for religious people?

Clearly, for some, personal history and psychological trauma have a defining role to play in their world-view regarding religion (and other matters as well).

Full disclosure, here. I do not consider myself a religious person, but am sympathetic to those who profess religious inclinations so long as they do not impinge on other people’s freedoms and beliefs. You can believe in whom you want to but don’t tell me to whom I should bow down to.

With that said, I think the persistence of religion is, contrary to its vociferous detractors, at its a base a mildly rational one. What do I mean by that?

Well, it might all boil down to a frequent childhood question: Why is there something rather than nothing? Modern physicists will tell you that it has something to do with a “negative quantum vacuum” and “an infinity of parallel multiple universes”. Ok, sounds cool. But at the same time, if true, it is a concept that can only be fully grasped by a handful of people on the planet. Which curious fact sets them up as a kind of a new class of priests interestingly enough. They possess the ultimate truths which they proclaim in relatively easy to understand images for the general public. At the very least, this goes against the trend of the democratization of religion in the Western tradition (at least since the advent of Protestantism)

So we have a new naturalistic priesthood who can offer us scientific explanations that do not require any type of metaphysics. Fine and good. Yet, however, the very nature of science is expansive and ever changing, so what is believed today might very well not be believed tomorrow. Furthermore, what we believe in science can only be as good as what we can in some way perceive and test and convincingly confirm. Is it not therefore conceivable, scientifically, that a myriad of unknown unknowns have existed during the vast time since the supposed big bang? Unknowns that, if known, would lead to vastly different ultimate explanations than the ones we entertain currently? The recent discovery of “dark matter” and “dark energy” might be a relevant case in point. Furthermore, since we cannot go back 12 billion years to the beginning of time and space can we ever really be sure that the events which our current models describe took place as we think they did. We will, probably, never be able to perform that experiment (My apologies to CERN).

Thus, there are many naturalistic reasons that may give us pause as to the ultimate knowability of all that is. Science can and will explain many things, but in the end and by scientific necessity will all its theorizing about ultimate origins only serve as a possible, and forever necessarily partial explanation for all that is? And I can hear a true scientist say to that: It’s as good as you’ll ever get, live with it!

The problem is, of course, that the human being (for good and for evil) is endowed with a fertile imagination and (if he or she is lucky) a rich emotive life. The universe and ourselves seem to cast for many a mystical aura. This, of course, can be explained away by evolutionary psychology. But the logical reasoning behind it cannot be dismissed so easily. For as was just argued, science may forever be doomed to offer only theoretical explanations for fundamental questions. In other words, the child’s question of why there is something rather than nothing may forever be out of definitive, scientific reach. This scientific predicament leaves the door open to dreaming. Human dreaming about divinity, epiphany, and mystical teleology of all kinds. Yes this is certainly unscientific, but it fulfills a human need to answer childlike questions. And while we could soberly and severely say with Wittgenstein that: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent; such a resolution to the problem will not do for the vast majority of mankind. Man abhors silence. He will hear the universe speak, even if the output is insoluble riddles.

And perhaps most importantly, science cannot offer us values, reasons to live. Only religion and philosophy can do that. And yes science can help to enlighten both but it can never make of its facts and experiments a universe of value, beauty, and love; indeed by its very nature and practice it is not allowed to speak the words “good” and “evil”. It is thus both the morally creative faculty of humankind tied to its aptitude for wondrous imagination that I think will guarantee the survival of religion, or at least the religious instinct, for sometime to come.

Questioning Democracy

Sutputra Radheye

Equality. Freedom. Justice. Secularity. Rights. Federalism. People’s government. That’s the general view of democracy we have in our minds. Democracy promises to incorporate all these values while administrating the institutions of society, economy and polity. To be specific, what democracy is to people is what a sickle is to a farmer- a tool to bring good days. But, despite all its merits, I am still sceptical of its utilization value in a country like ours.

My scepticism is born out of a simple fact- in a democracy, all or at-least majority of the citizens are assumed to be capable (qualified) enough by the age of eighteen to be able to elect their representative. Also, the candidates are believed to be qualified enough to govern the country, the state, or the district.  Perhaps, it has to be assumed. Otherwise, the whole idea would have no existential value.  In reality, what we’re dealing with is completely the opposite of it, especially in a country like India. The only thing that makes us capable of a proper governance in majority of the cases is education. Despite having a functional education system, the dysfunctional attitude of it is immense. Firstly, we’re still trapped in the race of producing clerical, obedient minds as prescribed by the imperial rule. The system doesn’t allow creativity, and questioning. And, if in a democracy questions are not welcomed, it makes the entire framework dull.  Second, the majority of the population of India is still rural, and suffers from high illiteracy rate, keeping in mind the colossal population. The economics of rural areas have considerably low monetary evaluation and does increase the dependency on public institutions. The lack of infrastructure and human resource to accommodate and educate the people in public institutions have been widely reported throughout the years. Third, post liberalisation, with the opening up of education as a market and the introduction of private institutions, the public institutions are nothing but a curse of poverty for those who can’t afford private education. No-one opts for public education out of choice. And, millions of people still live below the poverty line.

So, clearly, the assumed premise is false in case of India. It is democracy that is keeping the people uneducated. If we structurally see, what we’re dealing in India now, is not merely democracy. It is democratic capitalism. And, capitalism believes in doing nothing until and unless there is a profit added to it. The ministers, and policy makers are also a product of the capitalist society. Why would they educate you if their vote bank is intact, and doesn’t pose tough questions to them? If they have done nothing for the people, and still have won the election? If all that the people wants to vote for you is a few gifts prior to election, and sometimes, money and alcohol, who would educate them to call for critical mind-set? We all know how innocence is a bliss. How can this be changed? Simple. Put an educational qualification that is needed in order to vote. What will this do? The politicians in order to win an election will have to build their vote bank as their old, illiterate vote bank would go out of work, and for that, they need to educate the people. With education will come a sense of critical thinking, and constructive formulation of decisions.

The quality of the representative in terms of intelligentsia will automatically increase as the literacy of the voting class is directly proportional to that of the representative (in most of the cases). Kerala is a striking example of what I am saying. Literate people will value education, and knowledge more than mere claims, and exaggerated alliterations of nationalism, or religious jingoism.Only in this way we can stop the populist choice from being unconscious to the materialistic social obstacles, and their scientific solutions, to being conscious of them. And, thus bringing the common India in sync with the laal-batti India.

Another aspect of democracy which shows the harsh capitalistic approach of it is the consideration of people as votes. People are not just votes. They are more than just numbers. When a politicians counts people in numbers or votes, the first mistake he does is ignoring real lives in the illusion of the mathematics. For a politician, losing 100 votes might mean very less, but the sufferings of 100 people is a democratic disaster. To be honest, when everything is about numbers, no-one cares about the humanly emotions and pain of the people- somehow which is the capitalistic way of doing things. In order to win over votes, politicians allow the evils of caste, class, religion, linguistic divisions seep in. They count the profit and loss of riots and massacres in votes, and thus, actually turning a blind eye to the solution of the problem.

So, in order to make the democracy work, we must question the authoritarian policies of education imposed on us as a society, and its economic, social and structural limitations. If ever democracy has to stand out as a futuristic and progressive approach for India, it must ethically work to diminish illiteracy, and thus, continuously bridging the gap between the populist and the elite.

Amazon wildfires expose fallacy of “green” capitalist politics

Miguel Andrade

While much of the world has been gripped by the accelerating surge of deforestation and wildfires in the Amazon rainforest and its implications for the global environment, the Brazilian and international ruling classes have sought to exploit the fires to gain advantage in the geopolitical and trade disputes that divide them.

The wildfires in in both the Amazon—covering roughly a third of South America and stretching across all of it’s countries except for Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay—and in the contiguous Pantanal wetland ecosystem in Paraguay and Bolívia surged in August. Simultaneous states of emergency and alerts were declared across several regions in both Peru and Brazil, while ashes descended over large areas of southern Brazil. Combined with a cold front coming from the south, the ashes blotted out the sun in the southeast of the country.

The August fires are the culmination of a protracted attack on Brazilian environmental and labor regulations. This process accelerated after the world economic crisis hit Brazil’s economy with full force from 2013 on, causing landowners to employ more destructive methods in order to lower production and labor costs, particularly by clearing new swaths of land at the edge of the rainforest or along the roads and waterways that run through it.

Deforestation was up by no less than 278 percent in July over the same period in 2018, while wildfires in the country were up 84 percent over last year. May through September is the dry season throughout the center of South America, and is also the time for seasonal agricultural burn-offs for both peasants and plantations.

Amazon deforestation, however, is not merely an incremental phenomenon: having lost 17 percent of its original extension, the forest is predicted to collapse if this loss reaches 25 percent, at which point irreversible damage would result in its desertification and transformation into a savannah. The Amazon forest is a huge carbon dioxide sink, with experts estimating that its biomass holds the equivalent of a hundred years of current levels of US carbon emissions.

With the desertification of the forest, most of these emissions would be released into the atmosphere, making even more difficult the already herculean task of reducing current emissions to contain global warming. Based on the average deforestation rate of recent years, experts estimated that such a collapse would come in 20 years, but the escalation of deforestation rates this year could bring such a point forward to within five years.

A prominent role in the increased fires is certainly played by global warming, which is lengthening the dry season. Its most immediate trigger, however, has been the concerted campaign by both Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and Amazonian state governors in pushing through deregulation and turning a blind eye to the destruction of the forest.

Bolsonaro has staffed his cabinet with climate change deniers who consider climate science a “Marxist conspiracy” and have repeatedly attacked governmental agencies charged with defense of the environment. In early August, this reached the point of firing the head of the country’s Space Research Institute (INPE) for making public, as required by Brazilian law, deforestation data. Bolsonaro claimed INPE was lying about deforestation and was publicly challenged by its head, Ricardo Galvão, who was then replaced by an Air Force colonel believed to be a Bolsonaro loyalist.

For their part, local governments have defunded the work of—and security for—rangers with the National Environmental and Renewable Resources Institute (IBAMA), exposing them to the violent retaliation of private mercenary armies working for big landowners, effectively blocking the enforcement of anti-deforestation laws.

The governor of Acre, Brazil’s westernmost state at the border with Bolivia, told supporters at a rally in late May not to pay environmental fines. Thumping his chest, he added that landowners who received fines should personally contact him. At the eastern edge of the forest, in the state of Pará, Governor Helder Barbalho enacted a law in early July vastly widening the conditions for the legalization of private ownership of public land.

Ostensibly directed at giving property rights to peasants who settled public lands after being displaced from other regions by either political or economic pressures, such laws have been used in Brazil for almost two centuries to fraudulently transfer property to big landowners. Barbalho has now scrapped the requirement that the claimant to the property actually settle it, requiring instead that merely the “intention” of settling it be presented. Estimates are that no less than 15 percent of the state’s territory will now be up for grabs.

Pará leads the growth in Amazon deforestation, and local newspapers reported on August 5 that owners of large farms on the edges of the BR-163 national road were organizing a “fire day” for August 10, reportedly to “show Bolsonaro they were willing to work” and felt “supported” by him.

The news of the accelerated destruction of the Amazon has provoked justifiable anger and revulsion in Brazil and around the world under conditions of increasing hostility to the inaction of world governments over global warming. Large demonstrations have been held in major Brazilian cities as well as across Europe and internationally.

Popular anger has been intensified by Bolsonaro’s scapegoating of the oppressed indigenous populations for the social problems plaguing the region, under conditions in which there are regular reports of environmental activists and peasant leaders being murdered by the private mercenary armies now torching the forest.

However, the debate over the Amazon situation has also exposed the grave dangers for workers and youth around the world stemming from the attempt to corral the fight against global warming behind a renewed push for a “green” rehabilitation of capitalism.

For months, the Bolsonaro administration had been sparring with the governments of Germany and Norway, which were major donors for the so-called “Amazon Fund” set up under the government of Workers Party (PT) president Lula da Silva in 2008. The Fund was created to help in reducing deforestation and fires, but in May, Bolsonaro disbanded its board of oversight by decree, partly in retaliation against the NGOs that constituted part of it. Both countries then announced the suspension of funding.

In response to criticism from the Norwegian and German governments, Brazilian officials declared that neither country had any right to criticize Brazil. They cited Norway’s planned oil drilling in the Arctic, saying it was “hypocritical” to sponsor such a project while seeking to block oil drilling at the mouth of the Amazon River.

The saber-rattling escalated after Foreign Policy published an article conjecturing that doctrines such as “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) could be evoked in the near future by major world powers to take control of the Amazon. It added that Brazil was “fragile enough” to bow to pressures, with its control of the rainforest due solely to “purely historical reasons.”

Transnational Honda shuts down production in Argentina

Andrea Lobo

Two weeks ago, the Japanese-based Honda Motor Company announced that it will permanently end car production in Argentina by May 2020, resulting in over 500 layoffs.

Honda plans to keep 200 workers on the motorcycle assembly line in its factory located in Campana, Buenos Aires Province. Last week, however, it announced that nine of its dealerships will also be closed, which would axe dozens of other jobs.

The layoffs have clearly exposed the rotten role of the Mechanics and Auto-Transport Union (Smata). The union belongs to a faction of the General Confederation of Workers (CGT) led by Hugo Moyano, a longstanding bureaucrat who began his rise as during the 1970s, when he joined the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (AAA) death squads that hunted down radicalized workers.

For years, Smata and the CGT have argued that to “save” their jobs workers had to put up with shorter hours, suspensions, lower salaries for new contracts, enormous cuts in real wages, firings and other concessions in order to remain “competitive”. Some were forced to transfer from the assembly plant in Florencio Varela, more than 70 miles away, when Honda decided to close it in 2016.

Many have generated profits for the company for nearly two decades, with some reporting on social media about developing tendonitis, arthritis and herniated discs as a result of punishing working conditions. They have never had a say about the concessions accepted behind their backs and enforced by the union.

Smata stated on social media, “The workers at Honda will face this tough situation doing what our union has taught us and what we did for years, TO WORK and remain organic within our organization, being militant and knowing that we and our families are in the hands of comrades who will do what they can to bring us solutions to this crisis.”

Joaquín, a worker laid off in 2018, commented on the statement: “Many comrades [in the union] and many superiors said that one day things would get better and that they wouldn’t hesitate in giving me a call. Today, we see a future in which that will not happen.” Marcos, a worker at Honda, noted, “People are very sad over the announcement… It means 500 co-workers, families without an income.”

Honda made its announcement on August 13, a day after the stock market plunged 40 percent and the peso lost one-fourth of its value against the dollar. The financial shock was spurred by the results of Argentina’s electoral primaries in which incumbent president Mauricio Macri, a right-wing multi-millionaire, saw his vote plummet.

Despite using this crisis as a cover for breaking the news, Honda explained to Reuters in a statement that the move was “part of a global reorganization of auto production and was unrelated to the results of the primary elections.”

Investors are terrified that the impending defeat of Macri signals a shift to the left within the working class and a growing rejection of capitalism. Honda executives, however, said that they had been considering the layoffs for “months.”

The official statement explained that Honda would discontinue production of its HR-V model in Argentina, “in the face of abrupt changes occurring to automobile industries around the world,” hoping to maximize “automobile allocation and production capacity on a global basis.” In a separate statement to Clarín, an executive used the term “regional re-configuration.”

The 9,000 HR-Vs assembled yearly in Campana are sold within Argentina, but the decision corresponds to international considerations. When production of the HR-V began in 2011 in Campana it was chiefly for export, with Honda and other auto firms seeing the country as a component of their global production. The Association of Auto Factories (Adefa) reported that 91 percent of cars produced in Argentina are exported, mostly to other Latin American countries.

The devaluation of the peso has meant a major cheapening of labor costs and a corresponding fall in living standards. The Argentine Center for Political Economy (CEPA) calculates that the cost of the basket of staple goods increased 150 percent since 2016, while the average salary increased 89 percent.

The fact that this was not enough to keep production in Argentina is a stark warning to workers globally about the extent of the job cuts that Honda and other automakers are planning.

So far this year, Honda announced 3,500 layoffs in Swindon, UK, 600 layoffs in Jalisco, Mexico and the elimination of one full shift in Marysville, United States. Honda has also fired about 800 workers from its motorcycle plant in Manesar, India.

French government fires bus and rail workers accused of “radicalization”

Anthony Torres 

Under the cover of “anti-terror” laws introduced by Socialist Party President François Hollande in 2016, the French rail and bus networks have placed their employees under the surveillance of the Interior Ministry. They are seeking to justify firing workers based on nothing more than a suspicion of being politically radicalized.

An article published Saturday by Le Monde reports what happened to a Parisian transport worker, speaking under the pseudonym Hocine. Seventeen months ago, a manager summoned Hocine at the end of his shift and informed him that he was suspended from his duties as a bus driver in the Ile-de-France region. A few days later, he received a letter at his parents’ house: “We are obliged to notify you of your dismissal [for a real and serious reason].”

The explanation given was as follows: “You have been investigated by the Interior Ministry resulting in an assessment of incompatibility being rendered against you.”

According to the newspaper, “public transport companies can ask the police to investigate job applicants and employees who wish to change their jobs or whose behavior is concerning.” These so-called “screening” operations aim to determine whether the person's attitude “gives serious reasons to believe that he or she is likely, in the course of his or her duties, to commit an act seriously prejudicial to public security or order.”

The National Service for Administrative Security Investigations (SNEAS) relies on various files relating to “the prevention of terrorism or breaches of public security and order.” These listings include the names of individuals suspected of religious radicalization or involved in movements designated by the state as extreme-left or extreme-right. The SNEAS gives a negative or positive opinion without explanation to the employer, who can launch a dismissal procedure against the employee on this basis.

When Hocine asked for clarification, his interlocutor “didn’t know what to say,” the Le Monde article noted. As the newspaper pointed out, the SNEAS report included no justification, meaning that the state’s characterization of Hocine as dangerous was made arbitrarily. Hocine denounced the procedure and told the official: “I am not a terrorist, I gave you my criminal record, there is nothing on it.”

One of the lawyers for dismissed workers, Thierry Renard, denounced this arbitrary system, which he said was comparable to “sealed letters,” a practice of the Ancien Régime allowing the kings to imprison their subjects without trial. “My clients cannot defend themselves because they do not know the reasons why they were fired,” Renard said. Under the guise of the fight against terrorism, he added, fundamental freedoms are being violated.

These procedures, which violate fundamental democratic rights, have already targeted dozens of workers in France.

According to a report by deputies Eric Diard (The Republicans, Bouches-du-Rhône) and Eric Poulliat (Republic on the Move, Gironde), the national rail network stated that it had “received just over 20 negative responses from 2,125 job applications, and two negative responses for 300 internal transfers.” By the end of 2018, the Parisian transport operator had sent some 5,800 cases to the interior ministry, resulting in 124 layoff notices (another 134 cases were still under review).

Russia launches floating nuclear power plant amid new “scramble for the Arctic”

Clara Weiss 

Last Friday, Russia launched a floating nuclear power plant, the Akademik Lomonosov, in the Arctic Sea from its port in Murmansk. The vessel is supposed to bring electric power to settlements and companies that are extracting hydrocarbons and precious stones in the Chukotka area.

The 144-meter (472-feet)-long platform is equipped with two KLT-40 nuclear reactors that are designed to generate power for up to 100,000 people living in the Chukotka region and companies operating there to extract raw material resources. It will first cross some 5,000 kilometers along the Arctic coast to Chukotka, where it will begin pumping out electricity offshore.

The launching of the Akademik Lomonosov platform is part of efforts by the Kremlin to significantly bolster its infrastructure in the region, including by electrifying it, building ports, and further expanding its icebreaker fleet.

It is the first time a floating nuclear power plant has been deployed since the US maintained one in the Panama Canal in the 1960s. Two Chinese state-backed companies are now also pursuing plans for at least 20 floating nuclear plants. American scientists are also reported to be working on similar projects. The Akademik Lomonosov has been criticized as a “floating Chernobyl” by the environmental group Greenpeace—referring to the 1987 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl—and a “nuclear Titanic.”

Fears about a nuclear accident are also running high because the launching of the Akademik Lomonosov comes just weeks after two significant military accidents in the region. In July, a fire on the nuclear submarine Losharik in the Arctic Barents Sea claimed the lives of 14 high-ranking Russian navy officers. A leading navy officer ominously stated at their funeral that they had averted a “planetary catastrophe.”

Then, in August, an accident occurred at a nuclear facility near the northern Russian town of Nyonoksa. Seven people, among them five nuclear scientists, were killed, and radiation that was up to 16 times higher than average was released. The cause for the accident is widely believed to have been a nuclear-powered missile test gone awry. In both cases, the Kremlin was engaged in an attempt to cover up the scale of the accidents.

Doctors at the local Arkhangelsk hospital who treated victims of the Nyonoska accident later told the outlet Meduza, which is close to Russia’s liberal opposition, that none of the medical personnel had been warned that the injured had been exposed to high levels of radiation. Consequently, no security measures by the medical personnel had been taken and both they and other patients in the emergency room had been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. One doctor also reported that files about civilian patients treated at the hospital for injuries they suffered during the explosion were later destroyed. Moreover, reports suggest that four stations in the region measuring radiation were turned off in the immediate wake of the accident.

While the danger of new nuclear accidents is very real, it cannot be understood in isolation from the international nuclear arms race, triggered above all by US imperialism, which has unilaterally withdrawn from the INF treaty, and the escalating military encirclement by the imperialist powers of both Russia and China. The “new scramble for the Arctic” has become an intrinsic component of these developments.

The Arctic is estimated to hold 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil reserves and 30 percent of its natural gas reserves, as well as huge deposits of rare-earth elements and other minerals such as nickel, uranium and diamonds. Climate change has led to a reduction of the Arctic sea ice levels by 40 percent since the late 1970s, making it more likely that significant portions of these resources can become accessible for extraction.

It will also make it possible to establish a direct sea transit route from Europe to Asia. Naval traffic across the Russian Arctic has already increased significantly in recent years. Lastly, the melting ice is set to fuel long-standing, unresolved disputes between the adjacent countries about territorial claims to the Arctic’s land and seas.

Political map of the Arctic (Credit: GRID Arendal)

In recent years, the Arctic has seen the largest military exercises since the end of the Cold War, including one by Russia with up to 70,000 troops in September 2017, and one by NATO in October 2018 that involved 50,000 troops, 20,000 of them from the US.

The Arctic is of central geo-strategic and economic significance to Russia. By virtue of its geography, Russia has a vast border across the Arctic Ocean. Up to two thirds of Russia’s oil and gas reserves are estimated to be located in its Arctic exclusive economic zone. The region, though sparsely populated by only 2 million out of 140 million Russians, accounts for 20 percent of the country’s GDP, which is highly dependent upon the extraction and export of raw materials.

Tongan government threatens to block access to Facebook

Tom Peters

The government of Tonga, an impoverished Pacific archipelago with 110,000 inhabitants, is threatening to block all access to Facebook.

The news website Kaniva Tonga reported on August 10 that Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pōhiva’s government was considering a “temporary” ban after anonymous Facebook users made “vicious allegations of a sexual nature” against King Tupou VI and his daughter Princess Angelika. The statements appeared in the Facebook group Mo’oni mo Totonu (Truth and Right).

Pohiva said a working group was looking into different options and a decision would likely be announced before the end of August. Nothing has yet been confirmed. Facebook officials have made no public statement on this extraordinary, anti-democratic threat.

The aim of such a ban would be to suppress freedom of speech and preempt the anti-government opposition by workers, farmers and young people. There is rising anger over social inequality and the role of the royal family and nobility, who largely control the country’s political system.

Only 17 members of the 26-seat parliament are democratically elected, with the remaining nine chosen by the nobility. The King also controls a Privy Council with powers to veto legislation.

Popular anger towards the royals reportedly flared on social media after the government dropped proposed constitutional reforms. Six pieces of legislation proposed in March would have given the government the power to appoint judges, the police commissioner and the attorney general, who are currently appointed by the Privy Council. The legislation has apparently been withdrawn by Pōhiva’s Democratic Party of the Friendly Islands (DPFI) government after the monarchy and its supporters mobilised against it.

The monarchical system is backed by the churches, business interests, and the regional imperialist powers, Australia and New Zealand, which have great influence over many aspects of the country’s police and judicial system. Neither Wellington nor Canberra has made any statement opposing a ban on Facebook, which is used by tens of thousands of Tongans to share news and communicate with each other.

The Tongan Chamber of Commerce has expressed concern, given the large number of businesses who use Facebook for advertising.

Pohiva has been falsely promoted for years as a champion of democracy, including by the New Zealand and Australian media. However, since being elected first in 2014 then in 2017, his government has enforced the monarchy’s continued domination over political life, while doing nothing to address worsening social inequality.

The royal family and nobility live in luxury while the vast majority of the population is mired in poverty. Youth unemployment is estimated around 40 percent in rural areas and most families rely on subsistence agriculture. Wages are extremely low, while prices for imported goods are high. Matangi Tonga recently reported that a labourer earns just 20.97 pa’anga per day, about US$9.00. Remittances from Tongans living overseas account for 35 percent of gross domestic product, making Tonga extremely vulnerable to global economic downturns and anti-immigrant policies.

Social problems include an explosion in methamphetamine use, particularly among young people. Police reported that more than 260 people were awaiting trial on drugs charges in July, and 28 police officers had been dismissed for involvement in the drugs trade.

The government has responded to the social crisis with undisguised contempt. In June, Pohiva lashed out after questioned about assistance for the poor and unemployed. The Tonga Broadcasting Commission reported he told parliament “the main cause of hardship in Tonga includes slothfulness and dependent lifestyles.”

Journalist Kalafi Moala wrote on August 22 that Pohiva faced criticism for feigning sympathy for climate change victims at the recent Pacific Islands Forum, while ignoring Tongans affected by the February 2018 Cyclone Gita. More than a year later, “damage to school buildings all over the island kingdom has still not been fully repaired.” Some classes are being held in unsanitary conditions in tents, leading to the spread of disease.

The entire ruling elite is supporting the crackdown on Facebook because it fears its austerity policies will lead to an explosion of popular unrest, as is happening internationally. The past year-and-a-half has seen mass protests and struggles of the working class in France, Algeria, Sudan, Puerto Rico and Hong Kong. Last year, Papua New Guinea’s government considered banning Facebook following mass protests against corruption, social inequality and police brutality.

Australian PM calls for new internet censorship measures at G7

Oscar Grenfell 

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison used a trip to the G7 international summit in France over the weekend to aggressively push for an escalation of online censorship, on the pretext of combating “violent” and “extremist” material.

Morrison’s proposals were part of a months-long campaign that his government has waged to exploit the fascist terrorist attack in Christchurch last March to erode online freedom of speech.

While Australia is not a member of the G7, Morrison was invited to attend the summit and took part in a series of sideline meetings, including with US President Donald Trump. Morrison’s performance underscored Australia’s central role as a loyal ally of the US, and an attack dog of its global Five Eyes spying and surveillance network, which has been intimately involved in online censorship.

The centrepiece of Morrison’s intervention was a call for the adoption of an international agreement that would pressure the major social media companies to report on their response to “extremist” and “terrorist” content on their platforms.

According to the Australian Associated Press, this would establish protocols for the social media corporations to regularly issue public reports on “how many attempts there were to upload violent or extremist content, how many the platform stopped before they went up, how many were posted for more than an hour, how many downloads there were, and how the company dealt with the material that was downloaded.”

As in previous calls from the Australian government for more stringent regulations, the terms “violent” and “extremist” are undefined. They could include exposures of police and state violence, footage or images from demonstrations or virtually any controversial political content.

In the wake of the Christchurch attack, senior government ministers warned against “right-wing and left-wing extremism,” signalling that mounting popular opposition to war, social inequality and authoritarianism is a central target of the censorship drive.

While the reporting regime would be voluntary, Australian government representatives said they anticipated that the social media companies would come under “pressure” to comply. Like other measures floated by the Morrison government, this is aimed at compelling the platforms to more aggressively remove content, lest they come under public attack from the authorities.

Significantly, Morrison’s policy has been backed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which announced prior to the G7 that it would provide an unspecified funding package to facilitate its roll-out.

At a one-on-one meeting with Morrison on Sunday, OECD head Angel Gurria reportedly gushed that the Australian prime minister had played the central role in a global crackdown on the internet since the Christchurch attack.

“But then somebody has to lead the charge, to make this have staying power, to make this stick in a way. And that was your role,” Gurria reportedly told Morrison, adding, “What happened then is that the idea caught fire.”

Morrison’s proposals have met with an enthusiastic response, because they dovetail with an attempt by governments throughout Europe and internationally to create a legislative framework for the suppression of political speech on the internet.

In March, the European parliament voted in favour of a directive which, under the guise of copyright reforms, would enforce the use of so-called upload filters in social media. This is aimed at ensuring that all content uploaded to YouTube and other platforms is scanned in advance by powerful computer censorship programs.

Similar measures have been taken by individual European states. In January 2018, the German Network Enforcement Law came into effect, requiring operators of internet platforms with more than two million users to remove or block access to “obviously illegal content within 24 hours of receiving the complaint.”

Last May, French President Emmanuel Macron called an international meeting, along with the New Zealand government, to call for social media corporations to prevent the sharing of “terrorist and violent extremist content.” Macron’s government has also been implicated in attempts to censor social media associated with mass “Yellow Vests” protests against social inequality and austerity.

The US announces provocative arms sale to Taiwan

Peter Symonds

The Trump administration has announced this month the largest and most significant arms sale to Taiwan in decades—66 advanced F-16 Viper fighters worth $8 billion. The provocative move takes place as the White House has stepped up its confrontation with China across the board—diplomatically, economically and militarily.

The sale of the F-16V warplanes will significantly strengthen the Taiwanese air force. Its advanced radar and avionics make it compatible with the F-35 stealth fighters that are operated by the US Air Force, Navy and Marines. The F-16Vs, which are expected to replace Taiwan’s ageing F-5E fighters, will add to its existing fleet of 144 F-16A/B aircraft, which it is in the process of upgrading.

The sale of F-16V fighters is the first such deal since the administration of President George H.W. Bush approved the sale of 150 fighter jets to Taiwan in 1992. The Obama administration rejected a request by Taipei to buy F-16C/D jets, only agreeing to upgrade the existing fleet.

The sale, which was first reported on August 16, still faces congressional scrutiny which may take weeks to finalise. However, both the Democrats and Republicans are supporting the Trump administration’s aggressive stance against China and have backed stronger ties with Taiwan. Indeed, Trump has been criticised by lawmakers from both parties for delaying the sale of the warplanes so as not to interfere with trade talks with Beijing.

Since coming to office, Trump has systematically boosted relations with Taiwan, including through the increased arms sales. In 2017, he approved a $1.42 billion package that included technical support for early warning radar, high-speed anti-radiation missiles, torpedoes and missile components. Last year Trump agreed to the $330 million sale of spare parts for F-16s and other military aircraft.

Trump set the stage for accelerated arms sales to Taiwan by signing the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act into law on the last day of 2018. In relation to Taiwan, the Act specifically calls on the White House to sell arms on a regular basis and urged top US military and civilian officials to visit Taipei for talks with their counterparts.

Two arms sales to Taiwan have already taken place this year: in April, a $500 million package of training and support for its F-16 fleet, and in July, a $2.2 billion sale including 108 Abrams tanks and 250 Stinger missiles. The sales approved by Trump have already exceeded those by both Obama and George W. Bush in their first term of office of $12 billion and $5 billion, respectively.

China has reacted angrily to the latest announcement. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying declared that Beijing “firmly opposes” the sale. “It must be stressed that the Taiwan issue concerns China’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and security interests,” she said, and warned that the “US will have to bear the consequences” if all arms sales did not stop.

Beijing regards Taiwan as an integral part of China and has threatened to use military force if the “renegade province” ever attempted to proclaim formal independence. As part of the normalisation of US-China diplomatic relations signalled by President Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972, Washington accepted the so-called One China policy which treats Beijing as the legitimate government of all China, including Taiwan. At the same time, the US opposes any forcible reunification of Taiwan with the mainland and the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act authorises the sale of “arms of a defensive character” to Taipei.

Israel launches airstrikes against Iraq, Syria and Lebanon

Bill Van Auken

Israel over the last three days has carried out air strikes against targets in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, all of them launched on the pretext of countering a supposed Iranian threat.

Those struck in the attacks included Shia militia members in Iraq, members of the Lebanese Hezbollah Shia militia in Syria, a heavily populated civilian neighborhood in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, and, on early Monday, the pro-Syrian Palestinian faction, the Patriotic Front for the Liberation of Palestine—General Command, in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

The Israeli media has reported that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also considering the launching of attacks against the Houthis in northern Yemen. The monarchical dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with which Tel Aviv is seeking to form a US-backed, anti-Iranian axis, have been waging a near-genocidal war against Yemen for more than four years. The Israeli military is reportedly already providing intelligence to the Saudi and UAE forces.

The weekend’s attacks came in rapid succession. An airstrike on the village of Aqraba, southeast of Damascus, late Saturday night reportedly killed one Iranian and two members of the Hezbollah military. A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that the target was a “killer drone facility” and that it had been struck in a preemptive attack to forestall what Israel claimed—with no evidence—was a planned Iranian drone attack.

While for the most part Israel has refused to either confirm or deny the hundreds of attacks it has carried out against Syria in recent years, Netanyahu openly celebrated the airstrike, declaring, “I reiterate: Iran has no immunity anywhere. Our forces operate in every sector against the Iranian aggression.” Quoting from the Talmud, he added, “If someone rises up to kill you, kill him first.”

In the early morning hours Sunday, Israel carried out a drone attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut. One drone flying at low altitude was brought down by youth throwing rocks. A second drone, loaded with explosives, blew up outside a residential building that houses a Hezbollah media center, causing significant damage, but no casualties.

The attack on Beirut represented a major escalation. While Israeli warplanes have routinely violated Lebanese airspace, military action has been rare since the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War, and there had been no attacks on the Lebanese capital.

The website Debka.com, which has close links to Israeli intelligence, claimed that the strike was a botched attempt to assassinate Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian major general and commander of the Quds Force, which is responsible for extra-territorial operations of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

And on Sunday, there was a drone attack on the Iraqi town of Qaim, which killed a commander of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), the Shia militias that played the major role in defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Iraq, along with eight others.

Israel has not acknowledged an attack on Iraq since 1981, when Israeli warplanes carried out the bombing of the Osirak nuclear power plant built by the government of Saddam Hussein near Baghdad.

While the IDF has not explicitly confirmed the latest strikes on Iraq, Netanyahu indicated that the IDF has been given a free hand to carry out attacks throughout the region. “We’re acting not only if required, we’re acting in very many theaters against a state that seeks to annihilate us,” he said. “I’ve given the security forces the order and the operational freedom to do what is necessary in order to disrupt these plots by Iran.”

Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun said that the attack on Beirut amounted to a declaration of war, adding, “We are a people seeking peace not war and we do not tolerate anyone threatening us in this way.”

Similarly, Iraq’s President Barham Salih and Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi on Monday called the Israeli strike there an “attack on Iraqi sovereignty.”

The Fatah Coalition, the second-largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament, which represents the PMU militias, called the attack “a declaration of war on Iraq and its people” and demanded the immediate withdrawal of the 5,000 US troops deployed in the country. The Iraqi Shia militias have reported that the Israeli strike was a “blatant attack with air cover over the area from American planes, in addition to a large balloon to monitor the area near the site of the incident.”

This is only the latest in a series of attacks on targets in Iraq. Last month, the New York Times quoted US officials who spoke not for attribution as saying that Israel was responsible for attacks that began on July 19 with a strike north of Baghdad. One of the US sources said that Tel Aviv was “pushing the limits,” and that the Israeli military actions risked “getting the United States military removed from Iraq.”

Oklahoma judge finds Johnson & Johnson guilty in opioid epidemic

Benjamin Mateus

In the first full-scale trial of an opioid manufacturer, Judge Thad Balkman of Cleveland County District Court of Oklahoma ordered the giant pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson to pay the state $572 million for its role in the opioid crisis which has killed more Americans than died in World War II.

The company was found culpable for pushing doctors through “false, misleading, and dangerous marketing campaigns” to prescribe opioid-based pain killers while downplaying the addictive risks associated with them, the judge wrote. Over-prescription “caused exponentially increasing rates of addiction, overdose deaths” and other dire health consequences.

Though there was widespread media praise for the ruling as a landmark event, it is far short of the $17 billion that Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter had urged the judge to order Johnson & Johnson to pay. Balkman’s verdict provides the state only a year’s worth of the estimated costs that would be required to treat those addicted and establish long-term prevention programs.

The financial markets took the verdict in stride. In after-hours trading, Johnson & Johnson’s stock price jumped from $127.78 to $133.61. Many investors had anticipated a judgment of over $1 billion.

Earlier this year Oklahoma settled with two other giant pharmaceuticals also embroiled in the opioid crisis: Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of oxycodone, agreed to pay $270 million, and Teva Pharmaceuticals $85 million.

These cases have been closely monitored by some two dozen opioid makers that are facing more than 2,000 lawsuits throughout the country. Over 500 of these have been filed just against Johnson & Johnson, which supplied 60 percent of the ingredients used by pharmaceutical companies, including its own subsidiary Jantzen, to manufacture opioids.

Johnson & Johnson is a US-based multinational corporation that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals and consumer packaged goods with revenues in 2018 at $81.58 billion. It has total assets worth close to $153 billion, ranked 37 on the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. For a company that size, the Oklahoma penalty is little more than a slap on the wrist, although it would become more than that if replicated in the other 49 states.

So far, despite more than 400,000 deaths and the devastation of entire regions of the country, not one executive linked to the opioid crisis has faced criminal charges, let alone been sent to prison, for their utterly negligent behavior in pursuit of profits.

The Oklahoma Opioid Trial Decision Against Johnson & Johnson notes these facts, among others:

• From 1994 to 2006, prescription opioid sales in the state increased fourfold.
  
• From 2011-2015, more than 2,100 Oklahomans died from unintentional overdoses of prescription opioid.
  
• In 2015, over 326 million opioid pills were dispensed to Oklahoma residents, enough for every adult to have 110 pills.
  
• Oklahoma dispenses the most prescriptions per capita of fentanyl, an opioid far more powerful than heroin.
  
• In 2017, 4.2 percent of babies born covered by SoonerCare were born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (This is a condition when a baby withdraws from certain drugs it is exposed to in the womb before birth.)

Del Monte Foods to close plants in Illinois and Minnesota

Andy Thompson

In the latest attack on jobs, Del Monte Foods announced last Thursday that they will be closing two plants in Illinois and Minnesota, laying off at least 800 workers. Additionally, the company will sell plants in Wisconsin and Texas calling into question the employment status of another 700 workers.

In 2013, San Francisco-based Del Monte Foods, which was being held by a private equity firm, was bought out in a $1.6 billion takeover by Del Monte Pacific, a transnational corporation based in the Philippines.

Del Monte Foods claims that the closing is due to changing market circumstances and a fall in demand for their products. A representative from the company specifically stated that, “Tariffs did not factor into this decision. The decision was made in order to align production with current consumer demand.”

Still, the closing of the plant is likely at least partly due to tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. In June, Del Monte Pacific CFO Parag Sachdeva stated that the company is seeing an increase in costs due to “rising metal packaging prices and impact of tariffs imposed by the U.S. government.”

The Trump administration has imposed tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum. Both materials are used in the production of cans in Del Monte plants.

In a statement after the closings were announced Del Monte said that the shutdowns are part of an “asset-light strategy” to cut costs and increase profits. In the past two years Del Monte also closed plants in Arkansas, North Carolina, Indiana and California, eliminating upwards of 400 jobs.

Anti-China witch-hunt targets Australian universities

Oscar Grenfell 

On August 21, the Australian government convened a “crisis meeting” with representatives of the universities and the intelligence agencies, as part of a hysterical campaign alleging pervasive “Chinese influence” throughout society.

Little has been revealed about what was discussed at the closed-door meeting. It was called amid demands by senior political figures and the corporate press for a crackdown on ties between Australian and Chinese research institutions, supposedly because they threaten “national security.”

The official purpose of the talks was to set “guidelines” governing collaboration with Chinese academics. As well as Education Department officials, the gathering was attended by representatives of the Home Affairs Department, which oversees the domestic spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), and the Australian Federal Police. Representatives from the Group of Eight, the country’s elite public universities, participated, along with members of university security and computer departments.

The Australian Financial Review (AFR) reported that the major universities had agreed to the meetings after briefings by Education Minister Dan Tehan earlier this month.

The article declared that the “university sector has allowed itself to become dependent on Chinese students.” It stated: “The government and its security agencies feel the sector has become compromised, and over past weeks and months the sector has been given multiple briefings by such agencies as ASIO, the Home Affairs Department, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Defence Signals Directorate voicing concerns about Chinese influence.”

The article said the “security agencies” were particularly concerned about research partnerships involving Australian and Chinese universities. After the meeting, Tehan insisted that universities would “likely” have to “liaise more closely with national security agencies.”

Lurid claims that such collaboration aids the Chinese military have played a central role in an anti-China campaign spearheaded over the past two years by the government, the Labor Party, the Greens and the corporate media.

These unsubstantiated assertions have been based almost entirely on the claims of the intelligence agencies. In 2017, for instance, the Guardian warned against a $100 million “innovation precinct” at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), unveiled the previous year by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

The Guardian trumpeted “defence fears” over the centre. It was funded, however, by private Chinese corporations, and focused on non-military research projects, including marine technologies, solar and wind power generation and the development of nanotechnologies.

Similar media campaigns have targeted other research initiatives, claiming, without any evidence, that they are of use to the Chinese military. The military and intelligence apparatus has invoked these assertions to push for unprecedented control over research, directly attacking academic freedom.

In a submission to the government in July 2018, the Australian Department of Defence requested powers to prohibit the publication of research, even for scientific purposes, and for warrantless entry, search, questioning and seizure powers to monitor compliance.

The department demanded authority to prohibit research on the virtually limitless ground that it has “reason to believe the technology is significant to developing or maintaining national defence capability or international relations of Australia.”

The request was inextricably tied to the Australia’s deepening integration into the US-led war drive against China, overseen by successive governments, Labor and Coalition alike.

The latest crackdown is also doubtless being conducted in close collaboration with the Trump administration. The AFR reported after last week’s meeting: “The university sector fears the government could be pressured by the United States to crack down even harder on its collaboration with China, following a series of measures being proposed by US Republicans, one of which directly implicates Australia.”

The Trump administration is currently pushing a series of bills targeting Chinese academics, researchers and students.

Britain sold more than £6 billion in arms for Saudi-led coalition’s deadly war in Yemen

Jean Shaoul

The British government, by supplying arms, personnel and expertise, has played a crucial role in the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

The coalition has been accused of hundreds of indiscriminate bombing operations against civilians since the start of the war in March 2015.

Saudi Arabia assembled a coalition to reinstate President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, whom Riyadh and Washington had installed after widespread protests forced the resignation of long-term dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011-12, after Houthi rebels drove out his corrupt government.

The coalition has the full backing of both Washington and London. In addition to Saudi Arabia it consists of Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and the Academi corporation, formerly known as Blackwater. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Morocco were coalition members but pulled out earlier this year. The support of Qatar for the coalition was suspended in 2017.

Britain has licensed the sale of at least £6.2 billion ($7.6 billion) worth of arms to the coalition, selling £5.3 billion of arms to Saudi Arabia, including £2.7 billion ($3.4 billion) worth of aircraft and £1.9 billion ($2.4 billion) worth of missiles, bombs and grenades, £657 million to the UAE, £85 million to Egypt, £72 million to Bahrain, £40 million to Kuwait and £142 million to Qatar, before it withdrew from the coalition.

But the real level of arms sales is probably much higher, as many are transferred under the opaque system of “Open Licences” that is used to sanction arms sales to blood-soaked regimes in the Middle East, such as el-Sisi’s in Egypt and the barbaric House of Saud. According to Middle East Eye, there has been a 22 percent rise in the use of secretive open licences since ministers pledged to increase Britain’s arms exports after the Brexit vote.

As well as supplying arms, Britain has sent more than 80 Royal Air Force personnel to Saudi Arabia, some working within the command and control centre that selects targets in Yemen for bombing and others training the Saudi air force. A further 6,200 British contractors work at Saudi military bases, training pilots and maintaining aircraft.

It also emerged that—unbeknownst to the UK population—there are British troops on the ground in Yemen. The Mail on Sunday reported in March that at least five British Special Forces commandos had been wounded in gun battles as part of a top-secret UK military campaign in Yemen.

The troops from the elite Special Boat Service (SBS), whose activities are never reported to Parliament, suffered gunshot injuries in fierce clashes with Houthi forces in the Sa’dah area of northern Yemen, where up to 30 British troops are based. British Special Forces are thus fighting on the same side as jihadis and militia linked to al-Qaeda that are part of the Saudi-led coalition and use child soldiers as young as 13 and 14 years old.

Earlier this month, it was revealed that last year Prime Minister Boris Johnson—then foreign secretary—had expressed his approval of the export of weapons systems to Saudi Arabia in the expectation they would be used in Yemen. Johnson also supported sending British troops to Yemen to take control of the port of al-Hodeidah, the main entry port for food entering the war-torn country. According to government officials, now that Johnson has become prime minister, that option “remains very much on the table.”

Last week, a United Nations panel of experts reported it had found fragments of British-made laser guidance missile systems used at an air raid site in Yemen, in a strike in September 2016 that it concluded breached international humanitarian law (IHL). The panel also found missile parts from the same British factory at the Alsonidar complex following a second air strike nine days later, where a water pump factory and a former tube maker were located.

These and other British-built aircraft, bombs and missiles have been used to target civilians in breach of UK arms export law that bans the sale of arms or munitions to a state that is at “clear risk” of committing serious violations of IHL. Yet according to the Ministry of Defence’s own data, the number of alleged IHL violations by the Saudi-led coalition had reached a staggering 350 by March 2018.

The war has created the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet in what was already the poorest country in the Arab world. Air strikes and other combat operations have caused the deaths of some 80,000 people, including at least 17,700 civilians. Millions of Yemenis are dependent upon food aid programmes, with at least 3.2 million people needing treatment for acute malnutrition, including 2 million children under the age of five. According to the Save the Children charity, as many as 85,000 children under the age of five have died from hunger and disease.

Last week, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it would have to close its food aid programme to 12 million and health services to 19 million because both the UAE and Saudi Arabia—the main donors—had failed to honour their combined pledges of $1.5 billion, made last February, exposing yet more Yemenis to hunger and disease.

Andrew Smith of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), speaking about Britain’s role in this catastrophe, said, “Thousands of people have been killed in the Saudi-led bombardment of Yemen, but that has done nothing to deter the arms dealers. The bombing has created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the complicity and support of Downing Street. These arms sales are immoral and illegal.”