Iraq in flames

Bill Van Auken

Iraqi security forces opened fire on unarmed civilians for the fourth day in a row Friday as protesters poured into the streets once again in defiance of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s declaration of a round-the-clock curfew.

The death toll was reported at 65 Friday night, with more expected to be killed in overnight clashes. The real number of dead is undoubtedly far higher. The number of wounded, from live ammunition, rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannon, has been reported at over 1,500.

Anti-government protesters chant slogans during a demonstration in Baghdad on Friday [Credit: AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed]

Heavily armed soldiers, members of Iraq’s elite counterterrorism squads and riot police have been deployed in an attempt to prevent demonstrators from marching on central Baghdad’s Tahrir Square and on the Green Zone, the heavily fortified center of the Iraqi government, the US and other Western embassies and the various military contractors hired to prop up the regime. Snipers on rooftops have been deployed to pick off protesters.

The government has shut down the internet across Iraq in its bid to suppress the organization of fresh protests. There have also been reports of masked death squads going to the homes of known activists and assassinating them.

Thus far, these repressive measures have proved counterproductive, with every state killing fueling the popular anger against the government. Unrest has gripped the impoverished Shia neighborhoods of Sadr City, where more than a decade ago militias confronted American troops. Crowds there reportedly have set fire to government buildings as well as the offices of Shia-based parties that support the government.

The protests, which have demanded jobs, improved living conditions and an end to corruption, are the largest and most widespread that have broken out in Iraq in the more than 16 years since Washington launched its war to topple the government of Saddam Hussein.

Most of those confronting US-trained security forces in the streets are unemployed youth and young workers whose entire lives have been shaped by the criminal US war of aggression, the subsequent eight years of US occupation and the bitter sectarian conflicts instigated by Washington as part of its divide-and-rule strategy.

The effects of the US war amounted to sociocide, i.e., the systematic destruction of an entire society. The number of Iraqis who lost their lives due to the war is estimated at well over a million. What had been among the most advanced healthcare, education and social welfare systems in the Middle East were demolished, along with the bulk of the country’s infrastructure.

Washington launched the 2003 invasion based on lies about “weapons of mass destruction” and the predatory conception that by militarily conquering Iraq it could seize control of the vast energy resources of the Middle East and thereby offset the decline of US imperialism’s global hegemony.

The Iraq war, however, just like the US-organized wars for regime change in Libya and Syria, resulted in a debacle. Within three years of withdrawing most of US troops from Iraq, the Obama administration began sending another 5,000 back in to wage the so-called war against ISIS, which reduced the predominantly Sunni cities of Anbar province and Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, to rubble.

Having spent trillions of dollars and sacrificed the lives of 4,500 troops—along with tens of thousands of wounded—Washington has proved utterly incapable of establishing a stable US puppet regime in Baghdad.

The current prime minister, Abdul Mahdi, is typical of the politically bankrupt bourgeois politicians that the US war and occupation brought to the fore. Initially a Ba’athist, he became a leading member of the Iraqi Communist Party before switching his allegiance while in exile to the Islamist ideology of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini. Finally, he found his way into the puppet regime erected by the Americans in 2004 as its “finance minister.”

Attempting to rule Iraq on the basis of sectarian politics, these elements have succeeded only in looting the country of hundreds of billions of dollars. They have failed to provide either jobs, essential services such as water and electricity, or the reconstruction of the country’s shattered infrastructure.

In the same speech in which he announced the round-the-clock curfew, Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi insisted that there was no “magic solution” to resolve the demands of the youthful demonstrators.

The demonstrators know, however, that Iraq, which boasts the fifth largest crude oil reserves in the world, is taking in more than $6 billion in oil revenues every month, and that the lion’s share of this wealth is flowing into the hands of foreign capitalists and a narrow Iraqi financial elite, along with corrupt politicians and their cronies. There is nothing “magical” in understanding that, placed under the control of Iraqi working people, this vast wealth could be used to meet the desperate social needs of tens of millions.

The protests have shaken the regime to its core precisely because they are centered in the country’s majority Shia population, the ostensible base of the ruling parties. What is emerging in Iraq as elsewhere in the Middle East is the resurgence of the class struggle in opposition to the sectarianism and repression through which imperialism and national ruling cliques have dominated the region.

This social eruption is part of a broader movement that has seen protests against Gen. Sisi’s police-state dictatorship in Egypt, mass demonstrations against IMF-style austerity measures in Lebanon and the more than month-old strike by 146,000 teachers against the Jordanian government.

These struggles are exposing once again the political bankruptcy of the national bourgeoisie, not only in Iraq, but throughout the Arab world. From the Ba’athist regimes of Saddam Hussein and Bashar al-Assad, to outright stooges like Abdul Mahdi and Sisi, this class has proven organically incapable of resolving any of the democratic and social demands of the Arab masses or establishing any genuine independence from imperialism.

Taking place against the backdrop of the rising threat of yet another US imperialist war, this time against Iran, it is noteworthy that the upheavals in Iraq have been met with undisguised hostility in both Washington and Tehran.

Iranian officials have suggested that these mass protests against unemployment, intolerable living conditions and government corruption are the work of “infiltrators” backed by a combination of the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Clearly, the bourgeois-clerical rulers of the Islamic Republic fear that the revolt in Iraq can serve as a spark to reignite the mass protests of the Iranian working class that broke out in 2017-18 against unemployment, falling living standards, and sweeping social cuts.

For its part, the US State Department has issued a pro forma declaration affirming the right to protest in the abstract, while deploring “violence”—by the demonstrators, not the security forces—and appealing for “calm.” Meanwhile, the US corporate media has largely ignored the mass protests and the Iraqi regime’s bloody repression.

One need only imagine the response of the “human rights” imperialists to the gunning down of scores of demonstrators in Iran, Venezuela, Russia or any other country targeted by Washington for regime change. In the case of Iraq, however, US imperialism desperately fears that the revolutionary intervention of the masses will cut across its war aims.

The events in Iraq assume immense international importance under conditions in which there is an absence of a mass antiwar movement in the US and internationally. This is bound up with the role played by the pseudo-left. These political tendencies, which emerged out of the middle-class protest movements of the 1960s and ‘70s, have moved sharply to the right. Reflecting the social interests of privileged layers of the upper middle class, these groups, some of them still claiming to be socialist, have played a key political role in providing justifications for imperialist intervention and mass slaughter under the cynical banner of “human rights.”

The mass social upsurge in Iraq—widely seen as a potential battleground for a US war against Iran—points to the only way forward in stopping a new and more terrible war in the Middle East, and with it the threat of a global conflagration.

It is the struggle of the working class against capitalism, in Iraq, the broader Middle East, the United States and internationally, that provides the foundation for the emergence of a new mass antiwar movement. This movement must be armed with a program of socialist internationalism to unify workers all over the world to put an end to the source of war, social inequality and dictatorship: the capitalist system.

Indonesia: Student unrest continues as tens of thousands of workers set to strike

Oscar Grenfell

Large student protests continued in Jakarta and other major Indonesian centres on Monday and Tuesday in defiance of violent police repression and strident denunciations by senior ministers in the government of President Joko Widodo.

The demonstrations, which grew last week to become some of the largest student mobilisations in two decades, are in opposition to attempts by the parliament to introduce a regressive new criminal code and the passage in September of legislation defanging the official anti-corruption body.

Protesters have also raised broader issues, including a call for an end to “militarism” in Papua and West Papua, amid a brutal army crackdown in those provinces, and demands for government action to put an end to massive peat fires that are enveloping the major cities with a toxic haze.

The protests have continued, despite Widodo’s postponement of any parliamentary vote on the criminal code, which includes a raft of anti-democratic measures criminalising various sexual activities, and explicitly anti-communist provisions.

Student protesters in Jakarta on Monday, Credit: @kaylstr (Twitter)

On Monday afternoon, thousands of student and youth protesters marched towards the House of Representatives compound in central Jakarta. Unlike during rallies the previous week, they were blocked from approaching the building by police barricades and heavily-armed officers. The protest coincided with the final plenary session of the parliamentary body, for the 2014 to 2019 term.

During the clashes that ensued when protesters sought to breach the barricade, hundreds were injured, while hundreds more were detained. Police allegedly used a barrage of tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, prompting mass panic.

Jakarta authorities acknowledged 210 injuries. A hospital spokesman told the Jakarta Post that 38 of those wounded were taken to Partamina Hospital in South Jakarta. In an indication of the demographics of the emerging movement, 22 of them were university students and nine were high school pupils.

Skirmishes continued into the evening, with police claiming that protesters threw rocks at them and resisted dispersal. The following day, authorities announced that they had arrested some 519 people, who were being subjected to questioning to determine whether or not they were students.

The mass-roundup follows police violence last week, including arrests of prominent artists critical of the government and a brutal crackdown on protests. Police agencies have also been scouring social media to identify “troublemakers.”

On Thursday, two students were killed in the town of Kendari in South Sulawesi, after police attacked demonstrations there. While the exact circumstances of their deaths are not clear, one of the students was shot and another had received major head injuries. The fatalities occurred the same day that Amnesty International Indonesia called for an urgent investigation into “mass police violence” against the demonstrations.

The government has responded by branding the protesters as “rioters,” and accusing them of seeking to disrupt the ceremonial presidential and parliamentary inaugurations that occurred earlier this week.

Attempts to dampen-down the unrest, however, may be further complicated by plans by tens of thousands of workers to take strike and protest action on Wednesday next week.

New US tariffs escalate trade war with Europe

Alex Lantier

The Trump Administration announced on October 2 that it would impose $7.5 billion in punitive tariffs on European Union exports to America, based on a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling against EU subsidies to Airbus. After Washington imposed $200 billion in tariffs on Chinese exports and a 25 percent tariff on EU steel last year, to which China and the EU replied with billions in retaliatory tariffs, this new move sets the world’s major economies on a course to all-out trade war.

Trump called it a “big win for the United States.” US officials, who are also preparing sanctions on EU auto exports, said they would impose a 10 percent tariff on Airbus aircraft and 25 percent tariffs on various EU agricultural and industrial goods. US aircraft manufacturer Boeing had called for a 100 percent tariff on Airbus planes, apparently trying to lock Airbus out of the US markets.

EU officials, who have brought a similar WTO suit against US subsidies for Boeing and are waiting for a ruling authorizing tariffs against US products, threatened to retaliate. EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström declared, “Our readiness to find a fair settlement remains unchanged. But if the US decides to impose WTO-authorised countermeasures, it will be pushing the EU into a situation where we will have no other option than do the same.”

Trucks hauling shipping containers drive near containers stacked five-high at a terminal Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019, on Harbor Island in Seattle. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

In an article titled “Europe can do more than Trump realizes,” the Sueddeutsche Zeitung warned that US tariffs on $40 billion in EU auto exports “could sink Germany into an economic crisis.” However, it threatened, “America in 2018 sold products worth 270 billion euros to Europe, three times more than it did to China. Does Trump really want to endanger this, a year before his re-election bid? Retaliation from Brussels could do serious damage to the US economy.”

Governments on both sides of the Atlantic are acting with staggering recklessness. After the 2008 Wall Street crash, the dominant factions of the ruling class still recognized that trade war policies in the last great capitalist economic collapse, the Great Depression of the 1930s, had disastrous economic and military consequences. The Davos Economic Forum noted, “Protectionist policies helped precipitate the collapse of international trade in the 1930s, and this trade shrinkage was a plausible seed of World War II.”

A decade later, however, both sides are stoking the same economic rivalries—even though, twice in the 20th century, these exploded into world war between US and European capitalism.

The potential dangers in terms of job losses and economic dislocation are incalculable. In today’s world of transnational production, the imposition of tariff barriers on international trade not only threatens to eliminate millions of jobs involved in assembling finished aircraft, cars or other manufactured products that are then exported across national borders. It also threatens to wreak havoc across the supply chain of each manufacturing corporation, whose activities depend on rapidly and cheaply assembling products from parts made around the world.

The last year has seen a wave of warnings, as the various tariffs went into effect, that they could tip the economy back into a recession like the 2008 Wall Street crash. The World Bank’s 2018 Global Economic Prospects report noted: “A broad-based increase in tariffs worldwide would have major adverse consequences for global trade and activity. An escalation of tariffs up to legally-allowed bound rates could translate into a decline in global trade flows amounting to 9 percent, similar to the drop seen during the global financial crisis in 2008-09.”

The blow would be particularly serious amid signs that world capitalism is already falling back into its first coordinated global recession since 2008. With US manufacturing contracting and Germany sinking into recession, world trade growth will sink to only 1.2 percent this year, according to WTO estimates, the slowest since 2008.

Whatever the immediate outcome of the various US-EU tariff disputes, there will be no peaceful long-term settlement of these conflicts. Rather, global relationships and institutions that have formed the framework of world economy for decades are disintegrating in the face of historically rooted, objective contradictions of the capitalist system.

Trump said as a presidential candidate that nuclear war in Europe was not “off the table” and called the NATO alliance with Europe “obsolete” upon his election—to which the EU powers replied by pledging to spend hundreds of billions of euros to build their own independent military forces. Since then, Washington and the EU have imposed escalating tariffs, causing the failure of last year’s G7 summit, and clashed over US threats of a new neo-colonial war on Iran. With the latest tariff ruling, these intractable economic and military conflicts are reaching a new, even greater intensity.

Shortly after the establishment of the EU in 1992, one of its main founders, French President François Mitterrand, told a journalist in a moment of candor: “France does not know it, but we are at war with America—yes, a permanent, rival, economic war without any obvious casualties. Yes, the Americans are very brutal, voracious, they want an unlimited domination over the world. It is an unknown war, a permanent war, without visible dead yet a war to the death.”

The year before, the Stalinist bureaucracy had restored capitalism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. But the elimination of the Soviet Union as a military and political counterweight to the imperialist powers has only intensified the contradictions of capitalism that underlay the world wars and social revolutions of the 20th century: between world economy and the nation state system, and between socialized production and private appropriation of profit. After three decades of escalating inter-imperialist economic rivalry, the world is yet again teetering on the brink.

The antipode to the growth of nationalism, trade war and militarism is the resurgence of the international class struggle. From the mass strikes of auto workers and teachers across North America, to “yellow vest” protests in France, mass movements against military regimes in Sudan and Algeria, and the mass protests in Hong Kong, anger against social inequality is mounting among workers. The economic crisis presents this emerging movement with vast revolutionary tasks.

Writing in 1934, as he fought to mobilize the working class against the approaching danger of World War II, the Russian Marxist Leon Trotsky warned: “The national state with its borders, passports, monetary system, customs and the army for the protection of customs has become a frightful impediment to the economic and cultural development of humanity.” The task facing the working class, he stressed, was “not to bind itself to the national state in time of war, to follow not the war map, but the map of the class struggle.”

Averting a new relapse into economic depression and war requires an international revolutionary struggle to take state power out of the hands of the financial aristocracies that are driving the trade war, expropriate their ill-gotten wealth, and build a socialist society on a global scale.

Ukraine government announces large-scale privatizations, threatening mass layoffs

Jason Melanovski

While the government of Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky has become embroiled in a political crisis between President Donald Trump and the Democrats in the United States, in its domestic policies Zelensky’s administration has continued to move forward with plans to privatize and sell off many state-owned enterprises and much of the country’s land area to wealthy speculators.

Zelensky ordered the Ukrainian Parliament to submit a bill regarding land reform with a goal to open the country’s land market on December 1, 2019. Last week, the newly appointed Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk set out a definitive timeline to open Ukraine’s land market on October 1, 2020, regardless of the bill’s outcome.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its state-owned farms, a moratorium on the private sale of arable farm land was enacted in 2001. Despite rabid opposition from Western imperialism, the moratorium on sales of farm land has been renewed 10 times, most recently in December 2018.

In August 2018, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against the Ukrainian government’s ban on the sale of agricultural land, declaring that it violated “human rights” and was illegal according to the European Convention on Human Rights.

The opening of the Ukrainian agricultural land market to investors has long been a goal of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank: it has featured in its loan agreements with Ukraine ever since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Ukraine, long known as the “bread basket” of Europe, has an estimated 32 million hectares of arable land. By comparison, Germany—which has roughly double the population of Ukraine—has just 12 million hectares of arable land. In addition, Ukraine is home to 54 percent of the world’s “black earth” soil, which is particularly valuable because it is highly fertile and can easily grow a multitude of crops such as grains, cereals and oilseeds.

Global warming will further increase the value of Ukraine’s land. A 2014 World Bank report titled Ukraine: Soil Fertility to Strengthen Climate Resilience noted that Ukraine, which faces significant issues due to soil erosion and increased droughts due to global warming, has a “highly competitive advantage” relative to other agricultural areas under warming conditions due to its “advantageous geographical location” and “its proximity to large and growing neighboring markets—the Russian Federation and the European Union.”

The IMF and Ukraine’s Western imperialist creditors view the opening of Ukraine’s land market as a priceless opportunity for foreign investors to buy the country’s highly valued fertile “black earth” at rock-bottom prices in comparison with land prices in their own countries.

Zelensky’s proposed outline for agricultural reform seeks to ensure that the Ukrainian bourgeoisie will not be cut out entirely by the interests of imperialism. It is aimed at enabling Ukrainian oligarchs to purchase the land for themselves or function as intermediaries for Western investors. Only Ukrainian citizens or Ukrainian legal entities will be permitted to buy and sell land. Foreign companies and citizens will only be able to purchase land through Ukrainian legal entities.

The opening up of Ukraine’s agriculture to foreign capital is part of a large-scale program of privatization that will entail mass layoffs and far-reaching attacks on the living standards of the working class.

During the same announcement on September 2 that calls for the adoption of land reform, Zelensky tasked Honcharuk with transferring at least 500 state-owned enterprises to a State Property Fund, from which they will then be sold off at auction to the highest bidders.

Making clear that the jobs of tens of thousands of workers will be on the line, the cabinet announced on Monday, September 30: “More than 1,000 inefficient enterprises will be liquidated. The state will no longer spend taxpayers’ funds to support inefficient loss-making enterprises.”

Algerian regime jails top generals, Workers Party leader Louisa Hanoune

Kumaran Ira & Alex Lantier

On September 25, after a two-day trial, an Algerian military court imposed 15-year jail sentences against top figures linked to deposed former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. They were accused of “conspiring against the army” and “the authority of the state.” The accused were Bouteflika’s younger brother and adviser, Said, ex-spy chiefs General Mohamed Mediene (known as “Toufik”) and General Athmane Tartag (“Bachir”), and Louisa Hanoune, the leader and three-time presidential candidate of the petty-bourgeois Workers Party (PT).

The aim of the trial was not to reveal the real crimes of Bouteflika’s allies, but to terrorize the movement in the working class against Algerian strongman Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah’s military regime. It was a reactionary attack on democratic rights. Algeria is paralyzed by mass protests that erupted in February against Bouteflika’s bid for a fifth presidential term.

The military court was silent on the crimes committed by Mediene and Tartag while they led the armed forces in the bloody 1991-2002 Algerian civil war. Hanoune, on the other hand, was arrested after she criticized Salah and the military, warning that the military could launch a bloody coup against mass protests similar to the one launched in 2013 by Egyptian General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. She was charged with “attacking the authority of the army” and “conspiracy against the authority of the state.”

Hanoune’s lawyer, Mokrane Ait Larbi, said the court was “surrounded by military checkpoints” and that “journalists were not authorized to approach the court.” While his client’s close ties to the Bouteflika clan are a matter of public record, he noted that the military had furnished “no proof that there was a conspiracy” in which she participated.

Said Bouteflika, Mohamed Mediene and Bachir Tartag were arrested in May over a meeting in which they allegedly discussed imposing a state of emergency and firing Salah in a last-ditch effort to keep Abdelaziz Bouteflika in power. They were accused of meeting in late March to discuss forming a new body led by ex-President Liamine Zeroual to lead a post-Bouteflika “transition.” The meeting was held shortly after Salah called for Bouteflika to step down. On April 2, Bouteflika resigned.

The late March meeting was part of the ruthless infighting the protests provoked within the Algerian ruling class. Ex-Defense Minister Khaled Nezzar, who has since fled to Spain, stated in May that Saïd Bouteflika contacted him at the time to warn that Salah could move against Bouteflika, and that he was planning to “remove the army chief, impose a state of emergency and keep his brother in power.” He also told Nezzar that Salah could move against the Bouteflika clan “from one instant to the next.”

During the trial, Hanoune’s lawyer confirmed that his client participated in one of these meetings, on March 27, as a “parliamentarian and head of a legal party.”

The military defendants in the trial, with whom Salah worked for decades, were infamous for their role in torturing and murdering approximately 200,000 Algerians during the civil war. However, they faced only the limited charge of plotting against Salah; they were not prosecuted for the army’s crimes against humanity, in which they and Salah are all implicated.

Gen. Mohamed Mediene led the Algerian secret services, the Intelligence and Security Department (Département du renseignement et de la sécurité, DRS), from 1990 to 2015. Trained by the KGB, the Soviet bureaucracy’s intelligence agency, he was infamous for his role in the Algerian civil war, during which he went only by the name “Toufik” in order to preserve his anonymity as he planned savage repression of the Islamist militias. He led a faction of the army brass known as Les éradicateurs (“the Eradicators”), working closely with the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) party.

Jeff Bezos’ Whole Foods slashes medical benefits for nearly 2,000 part-time workers

Eddie Haywood

Amazon-owned grocery chain Whole Foods Market announced last month that it is eliminating medical benefits for nearly 2,000 part-time workers employed at its stores across the United States. The cuts come after the company announced in March that it would cut workers’ hours to between 20 and 30 hours per week. The cuts to healthcare benefits will go into effect January 1, 2020 and will affect approximately 1,900 workers.

Whole Foods was bought by Amazon in 2017 for $13.7 billion. The grocery chain employs more than 91,000 workers at 500 stores in the US, Canada and the UK.

The healthcare cuts for his employees stands in sharp contrast with the vast wealth of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos who sits atop a personal fortune of $115 billion. Analysis provided by consumer tracking group Decision Data found that Bezos makes enough money in 2 to 6 hours to more than cover the cost of an entire year of benefits for all of the workers facing cuts.

Justifying the benefits cut, Whole Foods stated it “made the change to better meet the needs of our business and create a more equitable and efficient scheduling model.” Translated, this means that the economic interests of workers are to be sacrificed by the profit considerations of Amazon, with the burden of skyrocketing of health care costs placed squarely on the backs of workers.

Underlining this, the company stated that it is “working to help employees find resources for alternative health care options or to explore moving them to full-time positions offering health benefits.” In other words, Whole Foods fully intends to shift the cost of health care to workers.

The costs of health insurance for workers are enormous. The slashing of insurance for Whole Foods workers follows the overall trend set by Obamacare, which shifted the burden of the rising cost of health insurance from corporations to workers.

In 2017, only 56 per cent of workers acquired their health care coverage from their employers, down from 75 percent in 2008.

According to figures published by the Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR), the decline since 1979 in health care coverage for workers in the US is drastic. Between 1979 and 2008, employer-based coverage dropped 12.4 per cent. Presently, over 28 million workers, 8.8 percent of the population, have no insurance.

In its announcement of the cuts, Whole Foods attempted to minimize the news by stating that “only” two percent of the total workforce would be impacted. In reality, the gutting of benefits and slashing of wages for workers is part of the decades-long social counterrevolution carried out against the working class by the financial aristocracy, impacting workers across all economic sectors.

Since the pay increase to $15 per hour announced in October by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Whole Foods workers at nearly every store location have seen a corresponding cut in their hours to as little as 20 per week. Notably, the cutting of work hours has left workers to perform the same workload in less time, with Whole Foods not hiring new workers to take the slack.

The cutting of hours and medical benefits expose the fraudulent character of Jeff Bezos’ wage increase as a cynical public relations ploy to halt mounting opposition to Amazon’s brutal exploitation of its workers. The wage increase is to be more than offset with hours cuts and the gutting of benefits.

In an interview with Business Insider, a 15-year worker at Whole Foods stated she was “devastated” by the news of the medical benefits cut. She reported that her family was covered by the health-insurance plan she is enrolled in through her job at Whole Foods, and that she would now have to increase her hours or look for a second job, as well as face increased cost for childcare.

“I am in shock. I've worked here 15 years. This is why I keep the job — because of my benefits.”

The gutting of workers’ benefits and hours by Whole Foods is not surprising in the least. After the announcement of workers getting hours cuts in March, the World Socialist Web Site wrote: “The cut in hours to Whole Foods workers lines up with the experience of workers at Amazon itself, who discovered that their modest pay increase was tied to the elimination of stock bonuses and other benefits.”

The attack on the social and economic position of workers is by no means isolated to Whole Foods and Amazon workers, but rather a calculated strategy by the financial aristocracy to eradicate every social gain won by the working class through immense struggle in decades past.

Workers from all sectors—autoworkers, teachers, public and private—have experienced their standard of living drop over the last half century, with wage and benefits cuts and gutting of workplace safety regulations all part of a coordinated attack by both the Republican and Democratic parties carrying out the dictates of the financial aristocracy against the working class.

Markets plunge as US enters manufacturing recession

Andre Damon

The US manufacturing sector has entered recession—defined as two quarters of contraction—the Institute for Supply Management said Tuesday, falling to the lowest level since the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crash.

The figure is only the latest in a series of negative economic indicators that contributed to a substantial selloff in the US and global stock market Wednesday.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) said that growth in trade this year would be the lowest in a decade, amid the eruption of a trade war that it called a “destructive cycle of recrimination.”

World trade will grow by only 1.2 percent this year, the WTO reported. Just six months ago, it expected trade to grow at 2.6 percent this year.

Markets around the world plunged in response to the figures. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 494.42 points, or 1.9 percent, after a 1.3 percent drop the day before. The S&P 500 had its worst two-day selloff of the year. All three major US stock indexes are below their values over the past 12 months.

The UK stock market had its worst day in over three years, with the FTSE 100 closing 3.2 percent lower.

Aircraft being assembled [via Canva Pro]

But the global trade war, which is dragging down economic growth worldwide, is only intensifying. After the markets closed Wednesday, the White House announced the imposition of an additional $7.5 billion in tariffs on imports from the European Union.

The measures, targeting European aircraft, will be the most aggressive US trade measures against the EU since Washington imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum last year.

The negative economic figures are putting increased pressure on the Federal Reserve board to cut interest rates at its next meeting this month. The Wall Street Journal reported that the likelihood of another Federal Reserve rate cut this year rose to 89 percent, up from 73 percent a week earlier.

Responding to the negative economic data Tuesday, US President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter: “As I predicted, Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve have allowed the Dollar to get so strong, especially relative to ALL other currencies, that our manufacturers are being negatively affected. Fed Rate too high. They are their own worst enemies, they don’t have a clue. Pathetic!”

Trump has repeatedly demanded that the Federal Reserve take a more accommodative monetary policy, and has sought to blame it for a slump in the stock market.

Under pressure from Trump and substantial sections of Wall Street, the Federal Reserve has abruptly reversed course from its plans to “normalize” monetary policy after a decade of bailouts, “quantitative easing” and zero percent interest rates.

The New Evil Empire

Serge Halimi

The US seems to have decided that it can’t take on China and Russia at the same time, so its principal geopolitical rival in the coming decades will be China. Trump’s Republican administration and the Democrats agree on this, though they are campaigning vigorously against each other ahead of next year’s presidential election. China has replaced the ‘evil empire’ of the Soviet Union and ‘Islamic terrorism’ as the US’s main adversary. But China, unlike the Soviet Union, has a dynamic economy, with which the US has an enormous trade deficit. And China’s strength is far more impressive than that of a few tens of thousands of Islamic fundamentalist fighters wandering the deserts of ancient Mesopotamia or the mountains of Afghanistan.

Barack Obama instigated a US foreign policy pivot to Asia and the Pacific. Trump typically formulates the new strategy with less elegance and subtlety (see Curbing China’s rise, in this issue). Trump views cooperation as a trap, a zero-sum game, so China’s economic growth automatically threatens that of the US, and vice versa: ‘We are winning against China,’ he said in August. ‘They had the worst year … in a half a century, and that’s because of me. And I’m not proud of that.’

‘Not proud’ doesn’t sound like Trump. Just over a year ago, he allowed a cabinet meeting to be broadcast live. They discussed everything: one member congratulated himself on the slowdown in China’s economic growth; another blamed the epidemic of opioid addiction in the US on fentanyl imported from China; a third blamed the problems of American farmers on China’s retaliatory trade measures. Trump blamed North Korea’s recalcitrance over nuclear weapons on the indulgence of its ally, China.

Selling more maize or electronics to China is no longer enough. The US wants to isolate a rival whose GDP has increased nine-fold in 17 years, to weaken it, to stop it from extending its sphere of influence, and above all to prevent it from becoming a strategic equal. Since China’s spectacular increase in wealth has not made it more American, or more docile, the US will show no mercy.

In a fiery speech on 4 October 2018, Vice-President Mike Pence criticised China for its ‘Orwellian system’, ‘tearing down crosses, burning bibles and imprisoning believers’ and ‘coercing American businesses, movie studios, universities, think tanks, scholars [and] journalists’. He even talked of an ‘effort to influence … the 2020 presidential elections’. After Russiagate, could this be a Chinagate, this time aimed at ousting Trump? The US seems somewhat fragile.

The Root Problem is the Capitalist System

Evo Morales

Brother President of the United Nations General Assembly, Tijjani Muhammad Bande.

Brother Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres.

Sisters and brothers Presidents, Chancellors and Delegates

Sisters and brothers of the International Organizations and all the peoples of the world:

Once again we meet in the most important multilateral organization of humanity, to reflect and analyze collectively on the global problems that concern the peoples of the world.

We note with concern the deterioration of the multilateral system, product of unilateral measures promoted by some states which have decided to ignore the commitments, good faith and global structures built for a healthy coexistence between states, within the framework of international law and the basic principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

We meet in this forum to discuss and find solutions to the serious threats facing humanity and life on the planet.

The Threat to Mother Earth

Our house, Mother Earth, is our only home and is irreplaceable. It increasingly suffers more fires, more floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, droughts and other catastrophes.

Each year is hotter than the previous one, the thaws are greater, the level of the oceans grows. Every day we suffer the disappearance of species, soil erosion, desertification and deforestation.

Sisters and brothers, we are warned that if we follow this course of action, by the year 2100 we will reach an increase of 3 degrees Celsius. That would imply massive and devastating changes.

The consequences of climate change will condemn, according to data from our organization [the United Nations], millions of people to poverty, hunger, no potable water, losing their homes, forced displacement, more refugee crises and new armed conflicts.

Sisters and brothers, in recent weeks we have been surprised by the forest fires that have been unleashed in different parts of the planet: in the Amazon, in Oceania and Africa, affecting flora, fauna and biodiversity.

In recent weeks, fires have broken out in Bolivia, which we have been fighting against using our financial, technical and human resources. To date, our country has spent more than $15 million to mitigate fires.

We thank the International Community for their timely cooperation in our fight against the fires, as well as their commitment to participate in post-fire actions.

Military Spending and World Poverty

Sisters, brothers and the peoples of the world:

The arms race, military spending, technology at the service of death and the unscrupulous arms trade have increased.

The financial system remains undemocratic, inequitable and unstable, which privileges tax havens and the banking secrecy that subjects weak countries to accept conditions that perpetuate their dependence.

We note with sadness that the great social asymmetries continue. According to Oxfam, today 1.3 billion people live in poverty, while 1% of the richest kept 82% of the world’s wealth in 2017.

Inequality, hunger, poverty, the migration crisis, epidemic diseases, unemployment, are not just local problems, they are global problems.

On the other hand, the creative capacity of humanity, every day surprises us with new inventions and new technological applications. They have offered great solutions to very complex problems. Technology has meant a qualitative leap for humanity. However, it is necessary that from this multilateral body agreements on the matter be established with the participation of all States.

The Root Problem: The Capitalist System

Sisters and brothers, it is essential to talk about the structural causes of the different crises.

Transnational companies control food, water, non-renewable resources, weapons, technology and our personal data. They intend to commercialize everything, to accumulate more capital.

The world is being controlled by a global oligarchy, only a handful of billionaires define the political and economic destiny of humanity.

26 people have the same wealth as 3.8 billion people. That is unfair, that is immoral, that is inadmissible.

The underlying problem lies in the model of production and consumerism, in the ownership of natural resources and in the unequal distribution of wealth. Let’s say it very clearly: the root of the problem is in the capitalist system.

That is why the United Nations is more relevant and important than ever.  Individual efforts are insufficient and only joint action and unity will give us an opportunity to overcome them.

As we have already said, the responsibility of our generation is to give the next a fairer and more human world.

That will only be achieved if we work together to consolidate a multipolar world, with common rules, defending multilateralism and the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations and International Law.

Bolivia‘s Achievements

Sisters and brothers, in Bolivia we have taken very important steps:

We are the country with the highest economic growth in South America, with an average of 4.9% in the last six years.

Between 2005 and 2019, the Gross Domestic Product increased from $9.574 billion to $40.885 billion.

We have the lowest unemployment in the region. It fell from 8.1% in 2005 to 4.2% in 2018.

Extreme poverty fell from 38.2% to 15.2% in 13 years.

Life expectancy increased by 9 years.

The minimum wage rose from $60 to $310.

The gender gap in land titling for women was reduced. 138,788 women received land in 2005 and 1,011,249 up to 2018.

Bolivia ranks third country in the world with the highest participation of women in Parliament. More than 50% of Parliament is made up of women.

Bolivia was declared a territory free of illiteracy in 2008.

School dropout rate fell from 4.5% to 1.5% between 2005 and 2018.

The infant mortality rate was reduced by 56%.

We are in the process of implementing the Universal Health System, which will guarantee that 100% of Bolivians access a free, dignified service, with quality and warmth.

We passed a law to provide free health care for cancer patients.

The above data are part of the achievements of our democratic and cultural revolution, which have given Bolivia political, economic and social stability.

Sisters and brothers:

How do we achieve these achievements in such a short time? How is it that Bolivia has taken the path to defeat poverty and underdevelopment?

Thanks to the conscience of the people, of the social movements, of indigenous, peasants, workers, professionals, of men and women of the countryside and of the cities.

We nationalized our natural resources and our strategic companies. We have taken control of our destiny.

We are building a Community and Productive Social Economic Model, which recognizes basic services (water, electricity, telecommunications) as a human right.

Today we can say with pride and optimism that Bolivia has a future.

Bolivia’s Right of Access to the Pacific Ocean

Sisters and brothers, there is a pending issue in the region, the sea is indispensable for life, for the integration and development of peoples.

Therefore, Bolivia will not give up its right to sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean.

In 2015 and 2018, the International Court of Justice of the Hague, through its decisions, ruled on the following elements:

First: In paragraph 19, of the ruling of October 1, 2018, it established that “Bolivia had a coastline of more than 400 kilometers along the Pacific Ocean.” [This Pacific coastland was lost to Chile in a late 19th century war].

Second: In paragraph 50, of the ruling of September 24, 2015, it established that “The issues in dispute are not matters resolved by arrangement of the parties, by arbitration, or by judgment of an international tribunal” or “governed by agreements or treaties in force”.

Third: In paragraph 176, of the ruling of October 1, 2018, it established “However, the conclusion of the court should not be understood as an impediment to the parties [Chile and Bolivia] continuing their dialogue and exchanges, in a spirit of good neighborhood, to address the issues related to the situation of [land-locked] confinement of Bolivia, a solution that both parties have recognized as a matter of mutual interest. With the will of both parties, significant negotiations can take place.”

Sisters and brothers, this judicial decision has not ended the controversy, on the contrary, it is explicit in recognizing that it continues and emphasizes that it does not close off the possibility of both states finding a solution.

Therefore, the United Nations Organization must monitor and demand full compliance with the decisions of the court, so that both peoples continue negotiating in good faith, to close open wounds. It is possible to promote a good neighborhood spirit, and open a new time in our relationship, to forge mutually acceptable and lasting solutions.

Sisters and brothers, our countries face diverse and conflicting situations, which must be approached in a sovereign manner and solutions must be found through dialogue and negotiation, in favor of the interests of the people.

Bolivia, in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations, ratifies its rejection of the economic and financial blockade imposed against Cuba, which violates all human rights.

Finally, sisters and brothers, I take this opportunity to thank all member countries for their support in the various initiatives promoted by Bolivia.

This year: The International Year of Indigenous Languages, The Declaration of the Rights of Peasants and the Declaration of June 21 as International Solstice Day.

To conclude, we ratify our commitment to consolidate a new world order of peace with social justice, in harmony with Mother Earth to Live Well [Vivir Bien], respecting the dignity and identity of the peoples.

Thank you.

Peace without demolishing caste privileges is not possible

Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Is it possible to speak of social justice and democracy without talking about the privileges of those who have looted the resources as well as exploited the social system and provided it ‘divine’ sanctity to justify the caste discrimination. I have found this biggest challenge in India from those who claim to fight for the ‘poor’. Now we should all fight for ‘peace’ and talk about ‘protecting’ the ‘nature’. Question is who is destroying the nature and how is peace possible.

Is peace possible unless there is a sense of guilt and acknowledgement of fact of exploiting nature as well as people historically. How can we protect our nature unless those who have amassed huge wealth and resources by hook or by crook, voluntarily do so. Is it possible that the crook will voluntarily leave their privileges whether they got from socially hierarchical positions, caste hierarchies or state patronage ?

We are telling the people that the end is coming. Yes, end is already there but should people stop asking question now. Should people stop seeking justice now. We know the earth is exploited but then who exploited it. Why we hesitate in naming and shaming them. The exploitation of the earth is not done by the Adivasis or indigenous people. It is not done by the Dalits. It is not exploited by the farmers. So why should all these communities be made to suffer the guilt and thuggery of those who really exploited it.

There are massive campaign against exploitation of nature. There is natural calamities now. Climate change is the real crisis but can we handle it without involving the Dalits and Adivasis in it. There is consciousness but if we all are worried about it then we need to also think of leaving our privileges. How will you do it when the meaning of economic growth is related to sale of cars and other vehicles. How will you maintain the environment, a great level of clean air and clean water if millions wash their sins ( literally) in the rivers. Ofcourse, there is dirt also going from the big factories.

Tomorrow, we will celebrate Gandhi Jayanti. There will be marches and talks. People would speak about his dreams, non violence and what not as if he was the only person who spoke about it. Will write about it in the coming days but my question is who should become non violent. How do we speak of non violence from those who are exploited for centuries. Talking and teaching non violence and peace to the communities exploited and shamed by the caste system will never bring peace. Why dont we teach peace and non violence to those who celebrate violence in every day life, in their festivals, in their every deed.

So, it is easy to preach everything to the communities who have protected our environment and our lives. Important for us to name and shame those who exploited our system. It is they who need to learn importance of non violence and peace. It is they who need to leave their privileges and not those who are being hounded out in the name of environment protection. Expose those who built big corporate resort in our forests and then talk about Adivasis encroaching those land.

So far not heard a single sentence from peace nicks about why the two Valmiki children were killed ? This is not the first case and nor will this last. The Savarna violence on Dalits continue unabated. Who should we talk about peace. Shouldnt the criminals be punished. What do you do with the community which join hands in the name of caste.

‘ We must unite’, we must end caste system, we must not segregate, it is too much they say. Please go to your village, without taking your privileged people along with you. Stay with the most marginalised, organise their meet and then see the reactions of your privileged friends you have not asked to come. Who should end caste system. Can it go by just removing surnames. Who will remove the poison in the belly ? There are good people in every caste, they say. Yes, you dont decide your caste, you did not choose your religion and that is fair enough but why dont you speak against the caste atrocities, the untouchability that these caste inflict. Why dont you stand with those who face such violence and I call it divine violence. Empty rhetoric wont work. Caste is privilege and see it, if you have sensitivity and understanding from the villages we all ‘love’ so much.

Will they go to those caste communities who still feel proud of their violence and have no shame in their misdeeds. We have not heard much from political class as well as champions of peace on any murders that are committed in the name of caste and come from those villages highly romanticised by the preacher of ‘peace’.

We Need Peace In The Middle East

John Scales Avery

We need solidarity to face future stress

Stress can produce conflict. For example shortages of food or water can lead to regional wars.  But wars only make original problems worse. Today the world is facing a number of severe problems, and solidarity will be needed to minimize the suffering with which we and future generations are threatened. The problems include shortages of fresh water, rising temperatures due to climate change, and food insecurity. These problems are especially acute in the Middle East, a region that is already torn by bitter conflicts and wars. In order to successfully minimize suffering, it is vital that peace be achieved in the Middle East. Let us look at some of the problems in detail:

Shortages of fresh water

It is estimated that two thirds of the world’s peoples currently live under water stress for at least one month each year. Half a billion people now suffer from water shortages and stress for the entire year. Half of the world’s large cities are currently plagued by water scarcity, and the situation is expected to get worse.

Under many desert areas of the world are deeply buried water tables formed during glacial periods when the climate of these regions was wetter. These regions include the Middle East and large parts of Africa. Water can be withdrawn from such ancient reservoirs by deep wells and pumping, but only for a limited amount of time.

In oil-rich Saudi Arabia, petroenergy is used to drill wells for ancient water and to bring it to the surface. Much of this water is used to irrigate wheat fields, and this is done to such an extent that Saudi Arabia exports wheat. The country is, in effect, exporting its ancient heritage of water, a policy that it may, in time, regret.

Lethal heat events

A new study by C. Mora et al., “Global Risk of Deadly Heat”, published in Nature: Climate Change, on 19 June, 2017,  has warned that up to 75% of the world’s population could face deadly heat waves by 2100 unless greenhouse gas emissions are rapidly controlled. The following is an excerpt from the article:

“Based on the climatic conditions of those lethal heat events [studied], we identified a global threshold beyond which daily mean surface air temperature and relative humidity become deadly. Around 30% of the world’s population is currently exposed to climatic conditions exceeding this deadly threshold for at least 20 days a year.

“By 2100, this percentage is projected to increase to 48% under a scenario with drastic reductions

of greenhouse gas emissions and 74% under a scenario of growing emissions. An increasing threat to human life from excess heat now seems almost inevitable, but will be greatly aggravated if greenhouse gases are not considerably reduced.”

Food insecurity

Unless efforts are made to stabilize and ultimately reduce global population, there is a serious threat that climate change, population growth, and the end of the fossil fuel era could combine to produce a large-scale famine by the middle of the 21st century.

As drought reduces food production, as groundwater levels fall in China, India, the Middle East and the United States; and as high-yield modern agriculture becomes less possible because fossil fuel inputs are lacking, the 800 million people who are currently undernourished may not survive at all.

According to a report presented to the  Oxford Institute of Economic Policy by Sir Nicholas Stern on 31 January, 2006, areas likely to lose up to 30% of their rainfall by the 2050’s because of climate change include much of the United States, Brazil, the Mediterranean region, Eastern Russia and Belarus, the Middle East, Southern Africa and Southern Australia.

Modern agriculture has become highly dependent on fossil fuels, especially on petroleum and natural gas. This is especially true of production of the high-yield grain varieties introduced in the Green Revolution, since these require especially large inputs of fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation.

Today, fertilizers are produced using oil and natural gas, while pesticides are synthesized from petroleum feedstocks, and irrigation is driven by fossil fuel energy. Thus agriculture in the developed countries has become a process where inputs of fossil fuel energy are converted into food calories. Therefore there is a threat that the end of the fossil fuel era may produce a very large-scale famine.

The end of the fossil fuel era

The fossil fuel era is ending. The extraction and use of  petroleum and natural gas must  certainly end within a century because these resources will be exhausted within a hundred years. However, we must remember that human society and the biosphere are threatened by the existential risk of catastrophic climate change unless immediate steps are taken to stop the extraction an burning of fossil fuels. Therefore, one way or another, the fossil fuel era will end. On hopes, for the sake of future generations, that it will end very quickly. The end of the fossil fuel era will have an especially great impact on the Middle East because so many economies of the region are based on oil. Ways must be found to diversify these economies.

Steps towards peace in the Middle East

One of the most important steps towards peace in the Middle East would be to guarantee the security of all the peoples and countries of the region. Perhaps a coalition of the United States, the European Union, Russia and China could act as guarantors.

A nuclear-free Middle East would be highly desirable, but difficult to achieve.

Palestinians who wish to leave Israel or Lebanon should be allowed to do so, and they should be welcomed by the Arab states of the region, where jobs for them should be provided.

These steps could help the Middle East to achieve peace, and peace is urgently needed so that the serious future problems mentioned above can be faced with solidarity.