Neoliberalism and the Coronavirus

Seiji Yamada

In This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein notes that the TV sets owned by Americans were manufactured in China with the energy input from coal-burning. Those carbon emissions are logged in China’s ledger. The trucking to bring the TV to your town’s big box outlet is logged in the U.S.’s ledger. However, the transoceanic shipping that brought the set from Shenzhen to Los Angeles is not logged under any country’s ledger.

Americans may point fingers at China for burning coal, but who is watching that TV? Not the migrant worker who mined that coal. Not the laborer in the Congo who mined the rare earth elements for the electronics. Not the steelworker in the foundry in Wuhan. Not the factory worker who sorted transistors into sockets. Not the Filipino merchant seaman on the cargo ship. Not the Sikh driver of the 18-wheeler. Not the grandma who greets you at the entrance of the big box outlet. Not the Chinese worker whose cough from the air pollution keeps him up at night. Now, what’s this? A fever, too?

We mention ledgers because capitalism is all about externalizing costs. “Some people” (because corporations are legally people) don’t take responsibility for their carbon footprint. “Some people” scrape the surface off the earth to get at “their” lithium. Some polluters don’t take responsibility for the health costs of their effluent. The shorthand definition of neoliberalism is capitalism on steroids. No longer does capital have to exploit workers in its own country. It can scour the world for the cheapest, most exploitable labor. Just pay them shit, since they live in shithole countries anyway. No longer does capital have to fret about environmental regulations in its own country. Just manufacture those goods someplace where the government says air that you can’t see through, or water that is green from algae is A-OK. Those goods end up a continent away, but as long as the shipping costs are cheap (burn, baby, burn), it makes more profit than employing local people for what they think is a livable wage.

Klein notes that in the decades since the 1997 Kyoto protocol, global carbon emissions have continued to grow. Rather, with free market globalization, reflective of the dominant neoliberal ideology and enacted through investor rights agreements – the basis of the world economy has become predicated on greater and greater fossil fuel combustion as capital seeks less expensive labor, goods are shipped in ever increasing volume between continents, and the cost of environmental destruction is externalized.

Paul Krugman notes that over a quarter of the manufacturing in the world takes place in China. China is the workshop of the world. That means coal-burning air pollution and lots of asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer at a young age for the Chinese. As China continues to burn coal for energy, millions more of its citizens will die prematurely of respiratory diseases. An estimated 366,000 deaths were attributed to coal-burning in 2013.

In sum, the strategy of wringing every last dollar out of child, prison, and slave labor for the sake of private profit is nearing the point of diminishing returns. Unleashing a fatal virus from bats into humans is a negative return. By wrecking the neoliberal-driven global economy, 2019-nCoV may just push the world into embodying that final section of the post-climate catastrophe, post-Ebola, post-rat fever world of David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks. The question is, do you find the final section pessimistic or optimistic?

Much has been made of how the novel coronavirus made the host species jump from its probable natural reservoir in bats to humans. The clustering of many of the early cases among workers at a market that sold wildlife for food is indicative. The cross-species jump is indicative of the further encroachment of humans on the remaining pockets of nature.

Wuhan, generally cited to have 11 million residents, served as a large population in which the virus could transmit before breaking out for the rest of China. Many of its large contingent of migrant workers and students left for their home towns before the Lunar New Year holiday (scheduled for Dec 24-30). The mayor of Wuhan, presumably referring to the larger metropolitan area, noted that 5 million had left Wuhan prior to the imposition of quarantine on Dec 23, leaving a population of 9 million. While China is known to closely survey its individual citizens, many migrant workers who are registered in their home provinces cannot be tracked so closely.

Since it infects the respiratory tract, the novel coronavirus is presumably spread by droplet – coughing, sneezing. Most viral respiratory infections are also spread by personal contact: shaking hands with an infected person, then touching your face. Is it spread by fomites (touching a surface touched by an infected person)? We don’t know yet.

The definitive work on The Origins of AIDS (2012), by Jacques Pepin, draws upon viral genomics, primatology, tropical medicine, and the history of colonialism and postcolonialism. Pepin carefully reconstructs how a zoonotic virus entered the human population and how it was amplified into a global pandemic by large-scale social and political economic forces. He outlines how human behavior abetted the evolutionary success of HIV, defined (from the perspective of the virus) as spreading to an increasingly larger number of hosts. HIV is not very contagious. It can only be transmitted through sexual contact and sharing of blood (injection drug use, transfusions). Its initial symptoms are minor, however, and the long period in which it lies dormant (on the order of a decade) before manifesting as opportunistic infections or cancers, allows it to be unknowingly transmitted to others. By incorporating itself into the genome of human cells and mutating constantly, HIV makes itself difficult to cure.

The novel coronavirus that appeared in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China in late 2019 has a different strategy to infect a large number of hosts. Firstly, it is pretty contagious. Early studies from China indicate that each infected individual is infecting more than two other people. The virus likes crowded places, like China. Thus far, it appears to be less deadly than its coronavirus cousins, SARS-CoV (which caused Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) with 23% mortality, or MERS-CoV (which causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) with 10% mortality. So far, the novel coronavirus appears to have approximately a 2% mortality, though this rate will likely be lowered as more patients with minimal or perhaps no symptoms are identified. From the virus’s perspective, it doesn’t help your cause if you’re too deadly – because you then kill your host before your person gives the virus the virus to another person. A 2% mortality rate is quite worrisome, though. Most influenza pandemics have a mortality rate of <0.1%. The Great Influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, which had an estimated mortality rate of < 2.5%, killed 50-100 million worldwide.

So, we now have new virus exploiting the vulnerabilities that humans set up for themselves by buying into the neoliberal program. Viruses are barely even a life form. They don’t thrive or propagate unless they take over the cells of their hosts. Who invited them to infect us humans anyway? “Those people” that eat weird food like bats? Wait, who invited those strange people anyway? Those slant-eyes, those carriers of the virus? Wait until we get white supremacy bound up with keeping out them foreigners. Wait, they’re there already.

But if we think about it – I’m afraid that slant-eye or round-eye, short- or long-nose, light- or dark-skin, it’s us watching that TV.

Bt Cotton: Cultivating Farmer Distress in India

Colin Todhunter

Later this month, India’s Supreme Court will hold a lengthy hearing on the commercialisation of genetically modified (GM) mustard, which would be the country’s first GM food crop. The court has asked the chair of the Technical Expert Committee to be present and says that the decision on GM mustard cannot be kept pending. The TEC has come out against using genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Indian agriculture.

As lead petitioner in a public interest litigation  challenging the government-backed push to commercialise this crop, Aruna Rodrigues has over the past few years submitted much evidence to the court alleging the science and field tests for GM mustard have been fraudulent and the entire regulatory regime has been dogged by malfeasance and a dereliction of duty.

To date, cotton is the only officially sanctioned GM crop in India. Those pushing for GM food crops (including the government) are forwarding the narrative that GM pest resistant Bt cotton has been a tremendous success which should now be emulated with the introduction of GM mustard. Ever since its commercialisation in 2002, however, the issue of Bt cotton in India has been a hotly contested issue. Bt cotton hybrids now cover over 95% of the area under cotton and the seeds are produced by the private sector. But critics argue that Bt cotton has negatively impacted livelihoods and fuelled agrarian distress and farmer suicides.

In a recent piece appearing in ‘The Hindu’, Imran Siddiqi, an emeritus scientist at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, argued that India’s cotton yields fall behind those of other major cotton producing countries. He attributes this to the decision to use hybrids seeds made by crossing two parent strains having different genetic characters. These plants have more biomass than both parents and capacity for greater yields. But they also require more inputs, including fertiliser and water, and require suboptimal planting (more space). Siddiqi notes that all other cotton-producing countries grow cotton not as hybrids but varieties for which seeds are produced by self-fertilisation.

A key difference is that varieties can be propagated over successive generations by collecting seeds from one planting and using them for the next. For hybrids, farmers must purchase seed for each planting. Using hybrids gives pricing control to the seed company and also ensures a continuous market.

Siddiqi says that the advantages of varieties are considerable: more than twice the productivity, half the fertiliser, reduced water requirement and less vulnerability to damage from insect pests due to a shorter field duration. He concludes that agricultural distress is extremely high among cotton farmers and the combination of high input and high risk has likely been a contributing factor.

Meanwhile, seed companies and Monsanto that issued licenses for its Bt technology have profited handsomely from an irresponsible roll-out to poor marginal farmers who lacked access to irrigation and the money to purchase necessary fertiliser and pesticides. Bt hybrids perform better under irrigation, but 66% of cotton in India is cultivated in rain fed areas, where yields depend on the timing and quantity of variable monsoon rains. Unreliable rains, the high costs of Bt hybrid seed, continued insecticide use, fertiliser inputs and debt have placed many poor smallholder farmers in a situation of severe financial hardship.  Prof A P Gutierrez argues that Bt cotton has effectively put these farmers in a corporate noose.

Cultivating knowledge 

It was against this backdrop that Andrew Flachs conducted fieldwork on cotton cultivation over four consecutive cotton growing seasons during 2012-2016 and a later visit in 2018 in the South Indian state of Telangana. His new book ‘Cultivating Knowledge: Biotechnology, Sustainability and the Human Cost of Cotton Capitalism in India’ (University of Arizona Press 2019) is based on that research.

A trained environmental anthropologist and assistant professor at Purdue University in the US, Flachs draws on anthropology and political ecology to show how the adoption of GM seeds affects livelihoods, values and identities in rural areas. By looking at everyday relationships and how farmers make choices, Flachs avoids falling into the pro/anti-GMO dichotomy that has polarised the debate on Indian cotton for the past 18 years. Instead, he looks at farmers’ aspirations, what it means to ‘live well’ and what ‘sustainability’ means in the everyday world of cotton cultivators.

Although some critics of GM cotton claim that the technology is directly responsible for fueling suicides and farmer distress, Flachs is careful to locate the narrative of agrarian crisis against the overall backdrop of neoliberal reforms in Indian agriculture, the withdrawal of public sector extension services and exposure to commercial seed, pesticide and unstable global commodity markets (and spiraling input costs).

In an increasingly commercialised countryside, independent cultivators have become dependent on corporate products, including off-farm commodified corporate knowledge. In the past, they cultivated, saved and exchanged seeds; now, as far as cotton cultivation is concerned, they must purchase GM hybrid seeds (and necessary chemical inputs) each year.

Flachs mentions former Minister of Agriculture Sharad Pawar who once stated that farmers decide to use GM cotton seeds based on rational decision making because GM gives better yields. Indeed, this kind of thinking underpins much of the rhetoric of the pro-GMO lobby. But such decision making is far from the truth (moreover, Prof Glenn Stone has shown how ‘facts’ about yields have been constructed and that these ‘facts’ become mere distortions of the actual reality)

With hundreds of different GM seeds brands available in local seed stores, it becomes clear in ‘Cultivating Knowledge’ that environmental learning and the type of decision making referred to by Pawar do not exist. Confusion, social learning, ‘herding’ and emulation are the norm. Seed choices are not based on rational, cost-benefit decision making whereby farmers plant and compare crop performances and opt for the best ones. Their choices of seeds are based on the advice of (unscrupulous) seed vendors, newspaper reports, advertising and what other farmers are opting for.

Caste and social status play a major role in who is listened to, who is emulated and who is given short shrift by seed vendors. If a (high status) farmer opts for a certain seed, for example, another farmer will emulate. But even the high status farmer is not necessarily basing his seed decision of testing in the field: he too is emulating others, opting for whatever brand is ‘popular’ that season.

Similarly, Flachs notes that if your neighbour sprays pesticides four times a day, you do it five times to be ‘responsible’, to make sure you are taking care of your crop; to make sure you don’t become infested and are then seen as the culprit for allowing your neighbours’ fields to be infested too. This, even though you overuse dangerous chemicals and become contaminated with pesticide spray or your food crop that your kids will eat becomes contaminated.

As Flachs implies – in a runaway neoliberal landscape, these types of risks (the overuse of pesticides, taking out loans, seed preferences) become regarded as ‘natural’, as the outcome of individual choices, rather than the expression of political structures or macro-economic policies. In the brave new world of neoliberalism that India began to embrace in the early 1990s, responses to the ‘invisible’ hand of the market, the performance of questionable on-farm practices and financial distress have therefore been internalised and have become associated with a notion of personal responsibility, which can result in self-blame, shame and even suicide.

Flachs notes that many cotton farmers also grow food crops. Here, in stark contrast to cotton, farmers still activate their own indigenous knowledge and environmental learning about seeds and cultivation, not least because they tend to still save their (non-corporate) seeds. For now, at least, the predatory commercialisation of the countryside has not yet penetrated every aspect of rural life.

While Bt cotton farmers are losing their traditional knowledge and skills, Flachs says they still have to make decisions and ‘perform’ the act of farming, taking into account potential risks and what other farmers are doing.

For cultivators of Bt cotton, chasing the dream of a better life means striving for higher yields, even if this entails greater debt and rising input costs. And each year, as fresh seed brands appear, in the hope of hitting a jackpot yield, Flachs indicates that last year’s brand is ditched in favour of a new one. In the meantime, debts increase and maybe one in four seasons a farmer will attain a good enough yield to break even.

In ‘Cultivating Knowledge’, negotiating risk and gambling on seeds, weather and pesticide use are very much part of what has become a chase for ‘better living’ and an integral part of the corporate cotton seed and chemical treadmill. Gambling more or less everything certainly does not bode well for poor, marginalised farmers. And it’s a treadmill that is difficult to get off – even though Bt cotton was sold under the promise of reduced pesticide use, levels of usage are now higher that than before Bt cotton was introduced but non-GM seeds have all but disappeared from seed shops.

Whether farmer’s lives have improved because of the GM technology – or to be precise, the way it has been rolled out – is open to debate, especially if we consider what Gutierrez says about the corporate noose around farmers’ necks and also consider alternative possibilities (for instance, GM straight line varieties), which could have been pursued. Moreover, as Flachs notes, with a glut of cotton, does the world need more of it anyway? Perhaps farmers – aside from adopting different routes for cotton cultivation – would have been better served by planting food crops. These are the ‘counterfactuals’ that seem to be overlooked when discussing GM cotton in India.

Cotton cultivation (including organic cotton growing which Flachs also discusses) in India is very much a social performance. Flachs indicates that the field is a stage where notions of community obligation and personal aspiration are played out within the context of heavily socially stratified communities.

Key to this performance is the concept of sustainability. Both sides of the GM debate talk a good deal about sustainable agriculture. But Flachs discusses what sustainability means to farmers. Is it about a quest for higher yields above all else? Or is it about debt-free sustainable livelihoods and ecological care of the land. In the chase for yields – set against rising input costs, debt, the threat of bankruptcy and suicide, a free-for-all GM seed market with often unscrupulous vendors, the increasing use of dangerous pesticides –  what are the impacts on farmers’ quality of lives?

Is the outcome ‘better living’ for farmers and their families? Or does an air of desperation or insecurity prevail within cotton cultivating communities? These are the questions that readers will be compelled to ask themselves while reading ‘Cultivating Knowledge’. And it will become clear just what the human cost of cotton capitalism for many Indian farmers really is.

When people talk about rolling out GM food crops to uplift the conditions of farmers and make farming more ‘sustainable’, they should abandon such generalisations and consider how farmers and farming communities face up to the challenges of increasing pest resistance, dependency on unregulated seed markets, the eradication of environmental learning, a lack of extension services and the loss of control over their productive means.

As Andrew Flachs says:

“Given that intimate local ecological knowledge has been shown to be crucial for sustainable endeavors, the GM seed market erodes rather than builds local efforts at sustainability…  These seeds make cotton farming less sustainable on Telangana cotton farms because they have created a system in which farmers can’t learn much about their seeds or apply that knowledge when they’re at the market buying seeds next year.”

For Flachs, organic cotton production (that also has its own set of issues to deal with), which provides safety nets and encourages ecologically and socioeconomically beneficial practices on farms, can help redefine what ‘success’ means in Indian cotton. While this may not in itself address the structural nature of the agrarian crisis, Flachs concludes that it offers some hope for incentivising local knowledge and technology that allows farmers to live well – and most importantly, to live well on their own terms.

More killed as poll shows half of Chile has joined protests

Andrea Lobo

Three demonstrators have died so far this year in Chile as four months of mass protests against social inequality and the entire capitalist establishment continue.

The killing of a 37-year-old soccer fan run over at high speed by an armored police vehicle led to major new demonstrations over the past week, particularly among the most impoverished and oppressed areas of the country’s capital, Santiago.

After a first division game on January 28, fans remained in the vicinity of the Colo-Colo stadium in Santiago peacefully chanting protest slogans when “the Carabineros [militarized police] of Chile deployed a completely disproportionate operation… provoking incidents that have ended the life of a fan of our Club,” as described in a complaint letter by the Colo-Colo board of directors. The driver has been arrested.

The nights since have been marked by barricades, demonstrations, the burning of buses, police stations and stores across Santiago. The police responded with brutal repression, including random beatings of bystanders, inundating neighborhoods with tear gas for three or four continuous hours and police charges with vehicles.

Students protest in Santiago, Chile, Tuesday, February 4, 2020

On Wednesday, a 22-year-old manning a barricade in the San Ramón neighborhood was killed when a hooded driver ran him over with a bus. In the same suburb of southern Santiago, a man was found dead in a looted and burned supermarket at a location where police attacked a demonstration. At least 124 demonstrators were arrested last week.

In December, the National Human Rights Institute (INDH) reported that the repression by the police and military had resulted in 29 dead, 8,812 arrests, 3,449 injuries, 544 lawsuits over torture and four alleged rapes by state officials.

In the face of such state violence, the protests and strikes only radicalized and grew, slowing the Chilean economy to 1.2 percent growth for 2019, the lowest since the Great Recession. The demonstrations last week, as well as the widespread and ongoing walkouts at high schools during the university placement exams to protest inequality in the educational system, signal a still potent social explosion.

However, the absence in the working class of a revolutionary leadership and a program to unite Chilean workers with the millions of workers entering the class struggle globally pose the lethal danger that social opposition will remain subordinated to bourgeois politics. The ruling class in Chile and internationally has responded with a shift toward dictatorship, offering workers nothing but further cuts and greater exploitation.

The January 2020 Barómetro del Trabajo poll provides valuable data on the definitive question of leadership. Fully half of the Chileans polled (adults) have participated in the protests since October, while another 19 percent said they haven’t but would like to participate. The privatized pension system, “abuses and inequalities,” public education, wage increases and health care were the top issues raised by protesters, in that order.

The poll exposes the absurdity of the claims made by the Trump administration and the Chilean right that “Russian trolls” on the internet provoked the upheaval, which included concentrations of over 1 million people and plunged the approval rating of president Sebastián Piñera to an unprecedented 6 percent.

More essentially, however, the demands of protesters in Chile are the same ones being raised by strikers and protesters across the world, proving that the discontent is the result of social conditions rooted in the global capitalist system and cannot be resolved under a nationalist program. Despite its natural wealth and significant industries, Chile’s economy is entirely dependent on global production chains and markets and remains under the yoke of US and European imperialism.

Class tensions are truly on a hair trigger. Only 2 percent of demonstrators polled raised the issue of public transportation fares, even though the incident that unleashed the recent wave of protests was a relatively minor fare hike in the Santiago Metro last October.

At the same time, only 2 percent of protestors mentioned “changing the constitution” as a demand. From the right-wing billionaire Piñera to the pseudo-left Workers Revolutionary Party (PTR), the entire political establishment and corporate media have forcefully promoted the question of a new constitution as a means to restore trust in the bourgeois political setup.

In April, a plebiscite will ask Chileans if they want a new constitution and whether the entire constituent body should be elected or half of should be composed of current legislators. Just like the “democratic transition” after the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, the constituent farce will be a means to maintain the power and profit interests of the local oligarchy and transnational corporations that installed and backed Pinochet.

Even though a majority is expected to vote “yes” on the referendum, the demands of the largest upswing in protests in half a century cannot be resolved through the constitutional project.

According to the Barómetro del Trabajo poll, 83 percent are “dissatisfied with the functioning of democracy in Chile,” and the same percentage indicate the country is “ruled by self-interested, powerful groups.” Only 7 percent “trust” political parties to draft a new constitution, while only 24 percent trust trade union leaders for this task. Finally, the disapproval rating is higher than 68 percent for all parties.

The bulk of the working class sees the establishment for what it is: an instrument of the 20 economic groups that control more than half of the country’s production and their patrons on Wall Street and in Europe. During the past 30 years, all parties have upheld the social austerity and privatizations carried out under the Pinochet dictatorship and betrayed every strike and other form of mass resistance.

Given how discredited they are, the Stalinist Communist Party of Chile (PCCh), which controls the main trade union confederation CUT, and the pseudo-left Broad Front have struggled to keep control of the protests through the Roundtable of Social Unity, a coalition of protest groups and trade unions. In turn, they used intermittent strikes to weaken their effect, isolated workers from their international counterparts and supported Piñera’s plebiscite, albeit claiming to oppose the president’s “roadmap.”

During the revolutionary strikes, occupations and protests in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the PCCh also worked to chain the opposition to bourgeois politics in the form of the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende, politically and physically disarming the working class despite in the face of the open preparations by Washington and the Chilean ruling class to overthrow Allende and install a right-wing dictatorship.

The ruling class also depended on petty-bourgeois apologists for the PCCh and its defense of capitalist rule for the success of its counterrevolution, namely the Pabloite forces that had long abandoned Trotskyism and operated in the trade unions and the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR).

Today, with the capitalist parties in an even more tenuous position, the same role is being played by the Morenoite Workers Revolutionary Party (PTR), which publishes La Izquierda Diario and reflects the interests of upper-middle class layers centered in the trade unions and academia.

While claiming to oppose the plebiscite, it has based its perspective on a pressure campaign directed to the PCCh and the Broad Front to demand a more radical Constituent Assembly within the same capitalist setup.

BorgWarner buys Delphi as mergers in global auto industry slash thousands of jobs

Tim Rivers

Michigan-based auto parts maker BorgWarner reached a deal last week to acquire Delphi Technologies in an all stock transfer worth $3.3 billion. The deal, which is expected to be completed in the second half of the year, is the latest move in the vast restructuring of the global auto industry as carmakers and suppliers scramble for the resources and technical expertise needed to dominate the emerging electrical and autonomous vehicle markets.

Both companies’ engine and transmission businesses are seen as vulnerable, with industry analysts predicting that the sales of internal combustion technologies—and perhaps even traditional cars—have peaked and will be on the decline. The tie up is aimed at creating enough sales volume to sustain profitability and will no doubt be followed by the slashing of thousands of “redundant” employees.

BorgWarner expects to cut $125 million from its payroll by 2023, which can only mean a jobs massacre. Currently, BorgWarner, whose largest customer is German automaker Volkswagen and biggest market is Europe, has 30,000 employees worldwide. Delphi Technologies, headquartered in London, UK, has 20,000 workers, including 5,000 engineers.

“I believe the merger to be one of many to come, and one of necessity,” Marcus Hudson, executive director at Calderone Advisory Group in Birmingham, Michigan, told Crain’s Detroit Business. “Suppliers are positioning themselves for the move to electric vehicles as well as declining automotive volumes. The merger allows BorgWarner, specifically, to continue to compete in traditional powertrains while setting it up to transition, however slowly, to the age of electronic vehicles.”

Calum MacRae, director of automotive product development at data analytics firm GlobalData, said there would be other acquisitions involving “old-school mechanical engineering companies looking to address the disruption coming down the road by making [their] core operations more efficient.” This, however, was “only a short-term fix for the long-term issues that these businesses face,” he said. “No doubt there will be other mergers of a similar ilk that will ratchet down costs but not lead to sustainable long-term competitive advantage.”

Michelle Krebs, executive analyst for Autotrader, said the deal suggests greater consolidation soon. “We are on the verge of significant transformation of the industry that’s just requiring tremendous investment by automakers and suppliers, and yet no one knows where the tipping point is and more importantly when they (will) make money from these investments,” Krebs said.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and the French producer PSA Group are expected to complete their merger later this year. Ford Motor has already established a “strategic partnership” with Volkswagen, even as both companies eliminate tens of thousands of jobs. At the end of October, Honda Motor Co. and Hitachi Ltd. spelled out a plan to merge four of their parts components divisions to create a single entity with almost $17 billion in sales. Bloomberg reports that “electric cars could be a job killer for Japan’s No.1 industry,” and several analysts have said the same about Germany.

Electric Vehicles (EV) with battery-operated motors, a single gear box and no fuel tanks have as much as 80 percent fewer moving parts and will require far fewer workers, according to industry analysts. Although EVs account for only account for a small percentage (one percent in the US, for example) they are expected to rise to 10 percent of the global market by mid-decade and over 50 percent by 2040. The scramble to dominate these new technologies is combining with a global downturn in sales and growing trade tensions to drive the restructuring of the world auto industry.

All of this is adding up to a new attack on the jobs, living standards and work conditions of autoworkers around the world. Last year’s strike by 48,000 General Motors workers in the US was largely driven by the demands of Wall Street that the traditional automakers shut plants, outsource production to new technology firms and create a workforce largely modeled on the “gig economy,” i.e., low-paid, temporary and disposable.

The 40-day GM strike was isolated and betrayed by the United Auto Workers union, which agreed to closure of the Lordstown Assembly Plant in Ohio and two transmission plants in Michigan and Maryland, and the expansion of temps. At the same time, the new contract will set up joint labor-management bodies for electric vehicles and other new technologies, guaranteeing the UAW officials cushy jobs as the oversee the slashing of jobs and wages.

The experience of Delphi workers is an indictment of the UAW, which has functioned as a tool of corporate management for decades.

Forty years ago, workers at the independent parts plants had wages and benefits that were near parity with their co-parts at Detroit’s Big Three automakers GM, Ford and Chrysler. Throughout the 1980s, the UAW betrayed a series of strikes in the parts industry, in a deliberate strategy to cut costs for the Big Three and help them “compete” with Japanese automakers and other competitors.

Between 1978 and 1998, GM built more than 50 parts plants in Mexico—where workers averaged between $1 and $2 an hour, making Delphi the largest private employer in the country. Far from unifying workers across the border in a common fight against the auto giant, the UAW promoted anti-Mexican hatred even as it isolated and betrayed the 54-day strike at two GM plants in Flint, Michigan in 1998.

The year afterwards, GM spun off its Delphi Automotive Systems part division, creating the largest parts manufacturer in the world. That was followed Ford’s spinoff of its Visteon parts division. Within five years, both parts companies declared bankruptcy in order to use the federal courts to slash their labor costs. With the collusion of the UAW, Delphi imposed a 60 percent wage cut on its 33,000 unionized workers, gutted pensions, health benefits and working conditions.

At the time, Delphi CEO Robert “Steve” Miller declared that globalization had made the “social contract” between large employers and unions a thing of the past and denounced decent pay, fixed pensions and medical benefits as an “anachronism” that American business could no longer afford.

When workers labored until 65 and died at age 70, he said, “defined-benefit programs perhaps made some economic sense,” but workers were living 30, 40 years after retirement, he complained, and “how can we afford it?”

If the Big Three automakers were unable to extract sufficient concessions from their workers during negotiations, Miller said, it was a “very realistic” prospect that the Big Three “will have to use the Chapter 11 process.” These predictions came true when the Obama administration, with the support of the UAW, threw GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy, destroying tens of thousands of jobs, slashing the wages of new hires and eliminating their pensions.

BorgWarner workers have fared no differently. The company was founded in Muncie, Indiana and employed 3,700 workers in the city during the 1930s, a period of explosive labor struggles in the region. In 2009, the UAW sanctioned the shutdown of the last BorgWarner plant in Muncie, leaving 780 workers without jobs in the city, which currently has an official jobless and poverty rate of 8.2 percent and 30 percent respectively.

Over the last several years, there have been a growing wave of strikes by auto parts workers, including Lear (2014), Nexteer (2015) and Faurecia (2019), but these struggles were isolated and sold out by the UAW. If workers at BorgWarner and Delphi are to defend their jobs, they will have to take the conduct out of the hands of the corrupt UAW. This means establishing rank-and-file factory committees to carry out a joint fight with all auto and auto parts workers in defense of jobs and living standards. In opposition to the nationalist poison of the UAW, US auto parts workers should reach out to their brothers and sisters in Mexico and internationally to prepare a cross-border fight against the transnational corporations.

Official response to coronavirus heightens popular anger at Chinese government

James Cogan

The initial attempts by Chinese authorities to conceal and downplay the public health danger posed by the outbreak of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus in the city of Wuhan has heightened already widespread alienation from, and distrust in, the political establishment. The Chinese Communist Party regime, which serves the interests of the small capitalist oligarchy that has enriched itself over the past four decades, is responding with public apologies, combined with state repression of its most vocal critics.

It is apparent that Chinese officials at all levels—from the city of Wuhan, to the provincial government of Hubei, to the national government in Beijing—were aware by late December that a new strain of coronavirus had emerged. Patients had begun admitting to hospitals in Wuhan from at least December 8, and possibly earlier, with a condition diagnosed as “pneumonia of unidentified causes” and had not responded to standard treatment. No public health alerts were issued.

On December 30, in defiance of the official silence, Wuhan doctor Li Wenliang posted a warning in an online chat group that he was treating patients infected with what he believed was a new infection similar to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)—the coronavirus that killed over 770 people in 2002–2003. He advised his medical colleagues to wear face masks and protective clothing. At the same time, other people clearly aware of the virus, had started a hashtag “Wuhan SARS” on Weibo.

The response of the authorities was to order Li Wenliang to report to police and compel him to sign a document confessing to “making false comments.” Any reference to a viral outbreak comparable with SARS was deleted from social media and censored from the print and television news. Tragically, Li became infected himself and he died last night of heart failure in a Wuhan hospital.

On December 31, while concealing the outbreak from the public, Chinese health officials gave the World Health Organisation (WHO) a preliminary alert regarding a new virus. On January 1, the Huanan market in central Wuhan where live animals were sold was closed down, purportedly for “renovations.” Many of the patients admitting for treatment either worked or regularly shopped at the market. Coronaviruses move from animals to humans and it believed that 2019-nCoV has its origins in either bats or snakes.

By January 10, the virus had been identified by Chinese researchers as belonging to the same family as SARS and there were clear indications that human-to-human transmissions were taking place. Between January 2 and January 16, however, Wuhan authorities did not release any update on the number of people admitting to hospital for what they knew was an infection that could not be treated with typical medication. In collaboration with the central government in Beijing, the local administration refused to issue any public health alert as it could impact on the broader Chinese economy and the operations and profits of big business.

The most damaging impact of the official silence was that it enabled the largely unchecked spread of the virus. Most people in good health who are infected with 2019-nCoV suffer from a high fever and a dry cough—not dissimilar from a case of influenza, which infects tens of millions around the world every year. Unaware they may be carrying a new virus, people in Wuhan went about their affairs thinking they had a bad dose of the flu. They were not advised to isolate themselves, especially from their older family members, friends and associates. The vast majority of people who have died from complications caused by 2019-nCoV are people aged over 60 with existing medical conditions.

Most seriously, the failure to issue health warnings coincided with the preparations across China for the Lunar New Year holiday. As many as five million people from Wuhan traveled to visit family in other parts of Hubei, other provinces, or other countries. Millions more came to Wuhan, the largest city in central China, from elsewhere. By the time belated notices and travel restrictions were issued on January 22, the virus had spread across the country and around the world.

The World Health Organisation, taking its lead from Beijing, did not classify the outbreak as a global health emergency until January 30. John Mackenzie, a member of WHO’s emergency committee that took the decision, told the Financial Times: “Had they [Chinese government] been a bit stronger earlier on, they might have been able to restrict the number of cases not only in China but also overseas.”

The number of cases of 2019-nCoV in China currently stands at just over 30,300, overwhelmingly in Hubei province, with at least another 24,000 “suspected” cases. Some health experts believe the official figures are a substantial underestimate, as many of those infected would not have felt it necessary to seek medical care. To date, 266 cases have been diagnosed outside of China.

The number of deaths attributed to the virus stands at 638, but the figure is rising exponentially. In the past 24 hours, Chinese authorities revealed that there had been over 70 deaths. Two people have died outside China, one in the Philippines and one in Hong Kong.

The Guardian reported today that Hu Lishan, a senior official in Wuhan, stated that the city was suffering a “severe” shortage of hospital beds to treat patients. According to Hu, 8,182 patients had been admitted to 28 hospitals with a total of 8,254 beds—stretching them to breaking point. There is anecdotal evidence that a significant number of doctors and nurses have fallen ill with the virus because they treated patients without adequate protection due to the government failure to issue the necessary warnings.

The virus has now led to the virtual shutdown of economic and social activity in many parts of China. Some 60 million people in Hubei province are living under an effective lockdown, instructed to remain in their homes unless it is necessary to leave and scanned with thermometers before they enter supermarkets or public buildings. Hundreds of factories in the massive export manufacturing zones of southern and eastern China have not reopened from the Lunar New Year holiday. Millions of workers are not being paid. Most events that would draw large crowds have been cancelled, while travel bans have been imposed on Chinese citizens by dozens of countries.

The top leadership of the Chinese regime, the Politburo Standing Committee headed by President Xi Jinping, is attempting to dampen the public fury over the handling of the viral outbreak. In a statement that effectively scapegoated Wuhan and Hubei officials, it criticised the “deficiencies” in the response and declared that the government would “draw a lesson from it.” At the same time, police agencies are hunting down people accused of sowing “panic” or creating instability by documenting and condemning the inaction of the state apparatus.

The news that Doctor Li Wenliang had died has nevertheless sparked an outpouring of rage on social media. The Financial Times reported this afternoon that reports on his death has been viewed over 360 million times on Weibo—the Chinese equivalent of Twitter—with hundreds of comments denouncing authorities. A hashtag “I want freedom of speech” was taken up widely before being censored off the social media site.

The legacy of the epidemic will be vastly increased popular anger, which is already explosive across China, over social inequality, the cost of living and official corruption.

Human Rights Watch report finds 138 Salvadorans killed after being deported from the US

Adam Mclean

Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report on Wednesday titled “Deported to Danger: United States Deportation Policies Expose Salvadorans to Death and Abuse,” which found 138 cases of deported Salvadorans who were killed upon return to their country of birth between 2013 and 2019.

The report, which interviewed over 150 people over a one-and-a-half-year period additionally identified 70 other deportees who were beaten, sexually assaulted, extorted or tortured. These cases were collected largely from incidents that were previously reported in the media, meaning that the total number of deportees who were subsequently killed is likely much greater.

Those interviewed by HRW include a former Salvadoran policewoman who fled to the US after being threatened by gangs and was murdered several years after her deportation, a father of three who had lived in the US for several years and was shot dead two weeks after returning to El Salvador, a woman who fled sexual violence from a gang member and who was repeatedly raped by the same man upon her return, and two brothers who were accused by police of belonging to a gang and who were beaten for days in a police barracks without charge. Such is the brutality Central American refugees are fleeing from and cruelly forced to return to.

Many of those killed, including a number who were killed in the course of the study, chose to remain in El Salvador fearing that leaving the country or even their hometown would be enough to endanger them, their family or their friends. A number of others who stayed in the country nonetheless left their home and live in hiding.

Nearly everyone interviewed said that they were fleeing violence from police, gangs or government death squads, the lines between which are often blurry. The report notes that the current national police director is under investigation for threats and links to drug trafficking and, referring to the state sponsored death squads, “extermination groups.”

Police violence is as rampant as it is egregious in El Salvador. According to the HRW report, “in 2019 the governmental Ombudsperson for the Defense of Human Rights in El Salvador (PDDH) reported that it had examined killings of 28 boys, 7 women, and 81 men… In 70 percent, [of the cases] witnesses said victims were unarmed. In 37 percent, witnesses saw police move the body or place or hide evidence. In 30 percent, PDDH concluded that the body showed signs of torture, including sexual assault.”

Originating in the Salvadoran Civil War, the Salvadoran “extermination groups” were used primarily against left-wing militants and continue to operate today. They are reported to either dress in all black or as police officers by those the HRW spoke to. According to the report, “Experts have shown that during and after the civil war, [they] were deeply rooted in the country’s security forces.”

The growing attacks on migrants is an international phenomenon in which no government is innocent. With Mexico’s acceptance of and cooperation with the “Remain in Mexico” policy, it is complicit in the crimes of the Trump administration. By knowingly deporting immigrants back to a country where they would face persecution and violence, let alone whipping up nationalism and xenophobia, the Trump administration has flouted the legal principle of non-refoulement and violated both international and national law.

There is a double lie in the Trump administration’s fascistic treatment of immigrants. While Trump utilizes dehumanizing rhetoric to slander and scapegoat immigrants, calling them everything from “rapists” to “insects,” the US has directly and indirectly supported the most violent and right-wing forces in Central America who are largely responsible for the refugee crisis to begin with. The legacy of US imperialism’s atrocities in Central America is precisely what created the conditions that are driving millions to abandon their homes and depart on a treacherous journey to an unknown country.

In the course of the Salvadoran Civil War, the Salvadoran army’s Atlacatl Battalion carried out a massacre of some 800 civilians, the majority of whom were children, in the rural town of El Mozote in 1981. The Atlacatl Battalion was created by the US Army’s School of the Americas and even received training at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. US Special Forces advisors operated with the unit in El Salvador, and, according to some accounts, were present during the December 1981 massacre. The El Mozote massacre was only the most infamous of that war. An estimated total of 75,000 were killed by such forces.

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are concerned about the peril facing deportees. While the terror directed towards immigrants in the US has substantially grown under Trump, the Obama administration broke records by deporting more immigrants than all 20th-century presidents combined.

The Obama administration also played a key role in the 2009 coup in Honduras. Despite international condemnation, the US refused to acknowledge what had happened as a military coup, allowing trade and financial aid to continue to Honduras. Mirroring the conditions in El Salvador, the country has since seen a poverty rate of around 70 percent, one of the highest murder rates in the world, the domination of the military and powerful gangs, and an outpouring of refugees.

Rotary Peace Fully-Funded Fellowships 2021/2022 for Masters and Professional Programs

Application Deadline: 31st May 2020

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All countries are eligible

About Fellowship: Each year, Rotary selects up to 100 individuals from around the world to receive fully funded academic fellowships at one of its peace centers. These fellowships cover tuition and fees, room and board, round-trip transportation, and all internship and field-study expenses.

Watch Video to learn how to apply for the Rotary Peace Fellowship
In just over a decade, the Rotary Peace Centers have trained more than 900 fellows for careers in peace building. Many of them go on to serve as leaders in national governments, NGOs, the military, law enforcement, and international organizations like the United Nations and World Bank.

Two types of peace fellowships are available.

1. Master’s degree

Offers master’s degree fellowships at premier universities in fields related to peace and conflict prevention and resolution. Programs last 15 to 24 months and require a practical internship of two to three months during the academic break. Each year, up to 50 master’s degree fellowships are awarded at these institutions: Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, International Christian University, Japan, University of Bradford, England, University of Queensland, Australia and Uppsala University, Sweden

2. Professional development certificate

For experienced professionals working in peace-related fields who want to enhance their professional skills, Rotary offer a three-month program in peace and conflict prevention and resolution at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. This program incorporates two to three weeks of field study. We award up to 50 certificates each year.

Type: Masters, Fellowship

Eligibility: The Rotary Peace Fellowship is designed for professionals with work experience in international relations or peace and conflict prevention and resolution. Fellows are committed to community and international service and the pursuit of peace.
Applicants must also meet the following requirements:

• Proficiency in English; proficiency in a second language is strongly recommended
• Strong commitment to international understanding and peace as demonstrated through professional and academic achievements and personal or community service
• Excellent leadership skills
• Master’s degree applicants: minimum three years of related full-time work or volunteer experience, bachelor’s degree
• Certificate applicants: minimum five years of related full-time work or volunteer experience, strong academic background

Eligibility restrictions: Rotary Peace Fellowships may not be used for doctoral study. And the following people are not eligible for the master’s degree program:

• Active and honorary Rotary members
• Employees of a Rotary club or district, Rotary International, or other Rotary entity
• Spouses, lineal descendants (children or grandchildren by blood or legal adoption), spouses of lineal descendants, or ancestors (parents or grandparents by blood) of any living person in these categories
• Former Rotary members and their relatives as described above (within 36 months of their resignation)

Recipients of Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarships or professional development certificate fellowships must wait three years after completion of the scholarship or fellowship to apply for the master’s degree program.
Rotary Peace Fellows who have completed the master’s degree program must wait five years to apply for the certificate program.

Number of Scholarships: up to 100

Value of Scholarship: The Rotary Peace Fellowship covers:

• -Tuition and fees
• -Room and board
• -Round-trip transportation
• -Internship/field study expenses.

Duration of Scholarship: 15 to 24 months

How to Apply: Candidates have until 31 May to submit applications to their district. Districts must submit endorsed applications to The Rotary Foundation by 1 July.
It is necessary to go through the Application Process on the Fellowship Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit fellowship webpage for details


Sponsors: Rotary International

OpenDemocracy Investigative Journalism Fellowship 2020 for Journalists ($2,100 monthly stipend)

Application Deadline: 16th February 2020.

About the Award: OpenDemocracy’s Tracking the Backlash project is excited to announce a six-month, full-time investigative journalism fellowship focused on sexual and reproductive health issues, starting in March 2020. Working closely with our editors, the fellow will focus on investigating the health impacts of organised opposition to women’s and LGBTIQ rights across the world.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: We are looking for applications from journalists with some experience in health or science reporting who are interested in developing their skills in this area while working on impactful investigations. As this is a specialist fellowship, you will get more out of this opportunity if you have at least 3-5 years of previous work experience, but we will consider applications in their entirety.
The fellow can be based anywhere in the world with reliable internet access though we particularly encourage applications from women and LGBTIQ people living in sub-Saharan Africa as well as Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and the South Caucasus, which are regions where Tracking the Backlash is expanding.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The fellow will be paid a stipend of $2,100 per month and will be expected to dedicate 40 hours a week to research, reporting, planning and other tasks for at least two major investigative projects. Throughout, they will receive ongoing mentorship on health reporting and how to plan and execute impactful investigations. They will also be invited to attend special training workshops.

Duration of Award: 6 months

How to Apply:

• Please review the details of this fellowship opportunity, its responsibilities and the experience we’re looking for
• Submit your application online, in English, by Sunday 16 February 2020 at 11:59pm GMT, including a copy of your CV and up to three examples of your previous work.

If you have any questions about this opportunity, please email kerry.cullinan@opendemocracy.net, using “Questions about 2020 health investigations fellowship” in the subject line of your message.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Government of Slovak Republic Bilateral Scholarships 2020/2021 for International Students

Application Deadline: 1st April 2020

Eligible Countries: Belarus, Belgium-French Community/Walloon region, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Israel, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Moldavia, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovenia, Serbia, Ukraine.

To be Taken at (Country): Slovak Republic

Type: Bachelor, Master, PhD

Eligibility: The scholarship is usually designed for study stays of students (bachelor/master level) and/or or research stays of PhD students.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The amount of monthly scholarship for academic year 2020/2021, if not specified otherwise in bilateral agreement:

• For students (bachelor/master level): 280 € per month.
• For PhD students: 330 € per month.
• For university teachers or researchers: 550 € per month.

Duration of Award: The length of scholarship (usually ranges from 3 to 10 months), the categories of eligible recipients (students on bachelor/master level/researchers/ teachers /PhD students) depends upon the agreement concerned.

How to Apply: Scholarships are awarded to applicants nominated by the competent authorities of eligible countries. National authorities are either education ministries or/and respective agencies designated by the ministries in the home country. Applications sent by individual applicants directly to the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic will not be processed.

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

The Lagos Creative Project Artist-in-Residence Programme 2020 for Artists of African and French Descent

Application Deadline: 20th March 2020

To be Taken at (Country): Lagos, Nigeria

About the Award: Focused on experimentation and new possibilities in painting and sculpture – two mediums celebrated African pioneer modernist artist, Ben Enwonwu excelled in – the residency welcomes work in all areas of the visual arts, and is open to artists of African and French descent. It seeks to foster cross-cultural ties and exchange between African countries and France by providing a platform for artists to broaden their practice, nurture new forms and ideas, establish networks and develop collaborative projects.
The programme encourages applications that engage Lagos as a mega city by exploring themes that preoccupied Enwonwu throughout his career, including identity, the body(the gaze), gender equality, spirituality and religion, peace and conflict resolution, and environmental sustainability.
During their stay, residents will immerse themselves in the increasingly vibrant Lagos art scene, through introductions to local artists, artisans, art organisations and events, as well as cultural and academic institutions. They are also expected to engage with the public through open studios, workshops, artist talks and focused discussions

Type: Short course

Selection Criteria: Residents will be selected based on the quality of their work, commitment to their practice and adherence to the themes. Successful applicants will be contacted via email.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: During their stay, residents will immerse themselves in the increasingly vibrant Lagos art scene, through introductions to local artists, artisans, art organisations and events, as well as cultural and academic institutions. They are also expected to engage with the public through open studios, workshops, artist talks and focused discussions.

Duration of Award: Two sessions will hold every year from July – September and October – December, at the Centre.

How to Apply: 

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Republican and Democratic Parties in Turmoil

George Ochenski

Stumbling into February, both major political parties in the U.S. are in disarray as they face uncertain, unplanned and uncontrollable futures going into a crucial election year.

For Republicans, it’s the dangerous and perhaps foolish choice to acquit a corrupt president who has been impeached. For Democrats, it’s looking like Bernie Sanders, the Independent senator from Vermont, may wind up sweeping the early primary states, upending the Democrat’s apple cart of cozy corporate campaign contributors with a wave of young, progressive, enthusiastic voters and millions of small-donor supporters.

At this writing, the Senate hasn’t yet voted on the question of whether to call witnesses in the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump — but suffice it to say it’s a long shot. This, of course, flies in the face of what a real trial is supposed to be, namely, where the “jurors,” in this case the 100 members of the Senate, are supposed to watch both sides present their cases, call witnesses to bolster their own or weaken their opponents’ arguments and objectively make their judgment based on the facts.

In this particular case, the most compelling witness would be former National Security Adviser John Bolton, a hard-core right-wing hawk hired and fired by Trump. While Trump’s administration has done a startling job of refusing to allow testimony or information from agencies and individuals, it’s fair to say they’re having a very tough time keeping Bolton from making his accusation. Truth is, that’s already been leaked from Bolton’s upcoming book, saying Trump did indeed condition the release of congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine to demand Ukrainian President Zelensky first announce investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden in relation to Burisma energy.

Bolton would offer “firsthand” testimony that blows away the Trump defense claim that only “secondhand” witnesses were called to testify in the House. Unfortunately for the president, even if the Senate doesn’t call witnesses, Bolton would be free to testify before the House or go straight to television. For a political party obsessed with controlling its members, Bolton is now their worst nightmare of uncontrollability.

Speaking of uncontrollable, the Democrats are wrestling with their own uncontrollable candidate in Bernie Sanders. Besides leading all the Democrat candidates in fundraising with a stunning $35 million from small donors last quarter, Sanders continues to inspire, energize and bring hope to large crowds across the nation. Recent polls put Sanders easily in the lead in the Iowa contest, leading in New Hampshire and overwhelmingly leading in California, which controls a huge percentage of delegates to the Democratic nominating convention.

Bernie also has the solid and enthusiastic support of millions of young voters who are embracing his platform of combating climate change, implementing universal health care, eliminating crushing student debt and addressing the mounting problem of income inequality in the U.S.

While there’s been much Demo hand-wringing about Sanders’ positions, it’s his attack on “millionaires and billionaires” that has party insiders tied in knots at his ascendancy while their hand-picked neoliberal, Joe Biden, slides downward in the primary polls. Despite the worries about Bernie’s “electability,” the reality of Sanders’ standing and potential early primary victories is undeniable and his supporters are unshakably — and uncontrollably — dedicated.

With both major political parties in turmoil, one for defending corruption, one for trying to quash a progressive candidate, it’s fair to say February is going to be quite the month in U.S. politics. Maybe it’s time to consider tossing the control exerted by the two-party system and offer voters expanded choices to address the many and daunting challenges of the future.