US Attorney General Barr gives fascistic tirade against Antifa, Black Lives Matter

Patrick Martin

In a television interview Sunday night on Fox News, US Attorney General William Barr declared that some of the Democratic representatives who questioned him at a congressional hearing two weeks ago were revolutionaries seeking to overthrow American capitalism, in league with terrorists.

US Attorney General William Barr on Fox News

The fascistic rant—whose logical conclusion is the criminalization of all political opposition to the Trump administration—came in the course of an appearance on “Life, Liberty & Levin,” a Sunday night interview program.

Barr began with fulsome praise for the police, attacking the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests against police violence that swept the United States after the May 25 police murder of George Floyd. “The fact is, generally speaking, we have superb police in this country,” he said. “There will be some instances of excessive force, but by and large it’s an excellent police force. And if they’re going to be demonized like this, they’re not going to work in these cities.”

Host Mark Levin, in what appeared to be a choreographed effort, cited a report by an ultra-right think tank on the loosely organized protest group Antifa (antifascist). The Gatestone Institute, which sponsors brazenly Islamophobic “research,” was chaired until 2018 by John Bolton, who then joined the Trump administration as national security adviser.

The Gatestone report cites material produced by the Verfassungschutz, the German secret service agency that has placed the German Trotskyists of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP—Socialist Equality Party) on its surveillance list, while giving its stamp of approval to the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the principal vehicle for the revival of neo-Nazi trends in Germany.

The report presents Antifa as a large, well-organized international conspiracy of tens of thousands of militants, although it is invariably described by supporters as little more than a signboard used by anarchists and other protesters in different localities, who communicate through social media but do not constitute an organization in any real sense of the term.

Barr hailed the Gatestone report—which quotes his own comments about Antifa—and launched into a diatribe against Antifa. “They are a revolutionary group that is interested in some form of socialism, communism,” he said. “They’re essentially Bolsheviks.”

He went on to claim that Antifa used “fascistic” tactics. According to Barr, they infiltrated the mass protests against police violence. “What they do is, they are essentially shielding themselves or shrouding themselves in First Amendment activity,” he said. “They hijack these demonstrations and they provoke violence. And they have various tiers of people from the sort of top provocateurs down to people who are their minions and run the violent missions.”

He continued, “It’s a new form of urban guerrilla warfare. Mao Tse-Tung used to speak about the guerrilla being like fish swimming in the ocean the way the guerrilla moves through the people. The guerrilla hides out among the people as a fish in the ocean.”

The purpose of this demented presentation, issued without the slightest attempt to present any evidence, was to make an amalgam stretching from the alleged violent protesters through Black Lives Matter and other groups organizing the anti-police protests, to the Democratic Party.

Barr described this entire range of political opinion as though it were a unified and coherent political tendency, which he described as “the left,” which was seeking power through a coordinated campaign to remove Trump from office. All those opposing Trump constituted “a Rousseauian Revolutionary Party that believes in tearing down the system.”

The attorney general included the corporate media in this amalgam, claiming that the media deliberately concealed evidence of widespread Antifa violence in Portland, Oregon and other US cities.

“Anyone with eyes can see what’s happening,” he declared. “They see the violence. They see these groups of agitators and their black outfits, their helmets and their shields, which, incidentally, have the hammer and sickle on them most of the time, are rushing the police, causing violence, throwing rocks… You don’t see it on any of the national news. You don’t see it on the networks. You don’t see it on the cable stations. And yet you hear about these peaceful demonstrators, so it’s a lie. The American people are being told a lie by the media.”

There is a definite fascistic content to the type of political amalgam concocted by Barr. Just as Trump tweeted that Black Lives Matter protests constituted “treason”—a crime punishable by death—Barr suggests that “the left” is at war with the Trump administration and “America,” and should be treated accordingly.

Referring to the House Judiciary Committee hearing, where there was mild criticism of federal police tactics in Portland, Barr said that some members of the committee were “true believers” and “essentially revolutionary,” while the majority were “cowards who are mostly interested in getting reelected.”

After reading those words, dripping with menace, it is necessary to remind oneself that Barr is not a Nazi jurist condemning all opponents of the Führer to be hanged. He is the chief law enforcement official of a government that is nominally democratic, where public opposition to the president is legal, and where the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees such rights as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

Despite his phlegmatic demeanor and lawyerly word-juggling, however, Barr has much in common with Carl Schmitt, the principal legal theorist of the Third Reich.

That such an individual is the nation’s chief law enforcement official and presides over the machinery of the “justice system” of the United States testifies to the rotted out, degenerate and profoundly antidemocratic character of “American democracy.” Genuine democracy is incompatible with the staggering levels of social inequality that prevail in the US. More accurately, the United States is an oligarchic society that has yet to fully shed the trappings of bourgeois democracy, but, in the face of mounting social tensions and a growing threat of working-class revolution, is lurching toward dictatorial forms of rule.

Trump’s attorney general is well aware that groups like Antifa and acts of minor vandalism—overturning fences outside federal buildings and setting small fires—are no threat whatsoever to the capitalist system. In his reference to the Bolsheviks, however, Barr reveals his real fears and those of the entire American ruling elite, whether pro-Trump or anti-Trump.

The Bolshevik Party led the first successful mass revolutionary workers’ uprising in history, the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, which established the Soviet Union as the first workers’ state. It is the repetition of that example, on a much wider scale, that is the nightmare of American imperialism and its official thugs like Barr.

For their own political reasons, they choose to lump together the threat from below, from the working class, and their opponents within the ruling elite, in the Democratic Party. But it is the working class that is the real target of the repressive measures that Barr & Co. are preparing.

Lebanese government resigns amid mounting anger over port blast

Jean Shaoul

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab announced his government’s resignation in a televised address to the nation yesterday evening.

The move came amid mounting fury over last Tuesday’s catastrophic explosion in one of Beirut’s port warehouses storing 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun, left, receives a letter of resignation from Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab, at the presidential palace, in Baabda, east of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Aug. 10, 2020. (Dalati Nohra via AP)

There were angry demonstrations over the weekend leading to violent clashes when security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters and injured more than 700 people.

Announcing the government’s resignation, Diab said he had come to the conclusion that corruption in Lebanon is “bigger than the state.” He added that “This crime” was a result of endemic corruption and called for the trial of those responsible for the deadly blast. He said he was taking “a step back” so he could stand with the people “and fight the battle for change alongside them.”

Diab laid the blame for the “earthquake” that had hit Lebanon on his government’s corrupt predecessors, saying, “They [the political class] should have been ashamed of themselves because their corruption is what has led to this disaster that had been hidden for seven years.”

It is reported that Diab will stay on in a caretaker role. On Saturday, he had announced early parliamentary elections, saying he would stay on for two months.

The government’s resignation followed the resignation of several ministers, including his closest ally, Environment and Administrative Development Minister Damianos Kattar, who cited the government’s inability to carry out reforms.

While the blast’s immediate cause has not been confirmed, the disaster was the result of the criminal neglect and callous indifference displayed by successive governments and the ruling elite. For years, they ignored repeated warnings about the dangers of storing such a powerful chemical without proper safety controls so near to residential areas.

According to Beirut’s Governor Marwan Abboud, the death toll from the explosion has risen to 220, with 110 people still missing, many of whom are believed to be foreign workers and lorry drivers, making identifying them more difficult. More than 6,000 people have been injured. The army has called off the rescue operation at the port because no survivors had been found.

Fully twelve percent of the city’s population—300,000 people—have seen their homes destroyed or damaged by the blast that blew up buildings, shattered windows and set neighbourhoods ablaze. Officials have estimated losses at $10 billion to $15 billion.

With no other shelter available, people are being forced to sleep in severely damaged homes, many without windows or doors. Speaking to the BBC, Rona Halabi, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said, “These people need shelter, they need food… they also need cleaning detergents, they need help in picking up what is left of their homes.”

She pointed out that the blast had caused heavy damage to two water and electricity stations, under conditions where lengthy power outages were already a daily occurrence.

Last week, President Michel Aoun announced an investigation into the cause of the blast, including whether any “external interference” in addition to negligence was a factor. A report is to be forthcoming within four days. Some 20 leading officials are reportedly under house arrest, while others have had their bank accounts frozen.

A judge has begun questioning Maj. Gen. Tony Saliba, who heads State Security. Apparently State Security had compiled a report about the dangers of storing the material at the port and sent a copy to the offices of the president and prime minister on July 20.

Diab, an engineering professor, was installed as a “technocrat” to head the government in January after mass social protests against economic hardship, government corruption and the country’s sectarian political setup forced the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Washington, Paris and Riyadh’s man in Lebanon.

Diab’s cabinet, many of whom were professional people not politically aligned with the main political parties, had the support of the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, which with its allies has the largest political bloc in Parliament.

This earned his government the undying hatred of the Christian and Sunni plutocrats allied with Harari’s Future Movement, which refused to cooperate with the government, leading to the eruption of small but violent clashes between the two rival blocs in recent months. Last June, President Aoun warned that this could spark another civil war in a country that saw a bitter armed conflict between shifting alliances backed by external forces from 1975 to 1990.

The port explosion comes amidst an unprecedented economic and financial crisis exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic that has seen tourism revenues and remittances from the Gulf and the Lebanese diaspora plummet. The ensuing lockdown caused untold suffering among workers, refugees and migrants. The only limited social safety net is provided by sectarian-based parties, and health care is dependent upon the ability to pay exorbitant prices.

In March, the government defaulted on a $1.2 billion Eurobond, later extending it to all its overseas debt, as the collapse of the lira wiped out the foreign currency reserves of the heavily indebted country, fueling inflation and widespread poverty.

Days later, after declaring a state of emergency, the government announced that the central bank would pump dollars into the market to prop up the currency and that it was preparing an appeal to the US-dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan. Any such loan would be tied to the usual demand for “free market reforms” that would plunge millions into destitution and cut across key and conflicting interests of the ruling elite.

But above all, an IMF loan would be contingent upon political alignment with the Sunni oil states, with whom relations have cooled over the last six years. Such an alignment would be directed against Iran and, by extension, Syria, conditions that are anathema to Hezbollah. Without acceding to the IMF’s terms, loans pledged at an aid conference by the European and regional powers in 2018 would not be forthcoming.

In addition, last year the US widened its sanctions against Hezbollah, which it has designated as a terrorist organisation, targeting legislators as well as a local bank, forcing it to close, thereby adding to Lebanon’s already severe financial and economic crisis.

Last June, the US’s Caesar Act came into effect, imposing sanctions against the Syrian government and those dealing with it, thereby further undermining Hezbollah’s finances and preventing Lebanon from purchasing Syrian oil.

Washington, Riyadh and Paris have sought to exert “maximum economic pressure” on Beirut, implementing what amounts to a blockade against the country for the purpose of eliminating Hezbollah as a political and military force in Lebanon and Syria as part of their broader campaign against Iran. Their aim is to engineer a return to power by their local agents, the Sunni Future Movement of Hariri and his allies.

On Sunday, French President Macron continued the pressure. Co-hosting a virtual conference with the UN that pledged nearly $300 million in emergency humanitarian aid to Beirut, mainly for health care, education, food and housing, he warned that “it would be strictly monitored.” He added that no money for rebuilding the city would be made available until Lebanon committed itself to implementing political and economic reforms . The forces organising the demonstrations of recent days include the Christian and Sunni parties and ex-generals around Hariri’s US-aligned Future Movement. They are calling for the formation of an interim “salvation” government, “potentially headed by the military” and including bankers and other business figures, to “resolve the humanitarian and economic crisis,” and prepare the way for elections on the basis of a new electoral law—in as much as three years’ time. Their aim is to restore the direct rule of the plutocracy, in the service of imperialism, and limit or eradicate the influence of the “mobsters” in Lebanon and Syria—a euphemism for Hezbollah.

This points to the very real dangers that the legitimate anger of workers, youth and middle-class layers engulfed by the ever-widening crisis will be channeled behind yet another bunch of kleptocrats, this time possibly headed by military generals, and directed against the impoverished supporters of Hezbollah and its allies.

What is absolutely decisive in the present situation is the building of a new revolutionary leadership, advancing a perspective for unifying the working class across all religious, sectarian, national and ethnic divisions, not just in Lebanon but across the region, in the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the building of the United Socialist States of the Middle East as part of a world federation of socialist states. This requires building sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International throughout the region.

Facebook Fellowship Program 2021/2022

Application Deadline: 1st October 2020 11:59pm PST

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Any

To be taken at (country): Any country (excluding US embargoed countries)

Research Areas:

• CommAI
• Computational Social Science
• Compute Storage and Efficiency
• Computer Vision
• Distributed Systems
• Economics and Computation
• Machine Learning
• Natural Language Processing
• Networking and Connectivity
• Security/Privacy
• Research Outside of the Above: relevant work in areas that may not align with the research priorities highlighted above.

About the Award: Giving people the power to share and connect requires constant innovation. At Facebook, research permeates everything we do. We believe the most interesting research questions are derived from real-world problems. Our engineers work on cutting edge research with a practical focus and push product boundaries every day. We believe that close relationships with the academic community will enable us to address many of these problems at a fundamental level and solve them.

Type: PhD, Fellowship

Selection Criteria and Eligibility

• Full-time PhD students who are currently involved in on-going research.
• Students work must be related to one or more relevant disciplines.
• Students must be enrolled during the academic year(s) that the Fellowship is awarded.
• The Fellowship Program is open to PhD students globally who are enrolled in an accredited university in any country.

Number of Scholarships: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Each Facebook Fellowship includes several benefits:

• Tuition and fees will be paid for the academic year (up to two years).
• $37K grant (one-time payment during each academic year).
• Up to $5,000 in conference travel support.
• Paid visit to Facebook HQ to present research.
• Opportunity for a paid internship at Facebook.

Duration of Scholarship: Facebook Fellowship Award to cover two years!

Required application materials:

• 1-2 page research summary which clearly identifies the area of focus, importance to the field, and applicability to Facebook of the anticipated research during the award. Please reference the topical areas below.
• Student’s CV (with email, phone and mailing address). Please include applicable coursework.
• 2 letters of recommendation (one must be from an academic advisor).

How to Apply: The Application is now live. Go to the Site and enter your information.

Visit scholarship webpage for details

Food Security In India – An Analysis

Bisma Ahad

Food is the basic need and fundamental right of every human being. The United Nations (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 25,1948) used an ecological perspective rooted in social justice to define “right to food”. It emphasizes ” quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumers belong, and which ensure a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear” ‘. Therefore ensuring food security is the responsibility of every nation. Food security has been defined in 2002 by FAO as Ensuring that all people at all times have both physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”. India has achieved self-sufficiency in food grains in the 1970s. It has consistently been able to provide enough food for its entire population since the mid-1990s, with a decline in production between 2014 and 2016 caused by drought. But India needs to take various new and improved initiatives to enhance and improve its food security as it faces supply constraints, water scarcity, low per capita GDP, and inadequate irrigation. The Economic Survey said that India ranked 76th in 113 countries assessed by The Global Food Security Index (GFSI) in 2018, based on four parameters – affordability, availability, quality, safety, and natural resources. Therefore food security is a complex phenomenon, which includes a range of factors i.e. poverty, income distribution, international trade markets, agricultural development, human resources management and development policies and programs of the government, population growth, and climatic conditions. Poverty being the main cause of food insecurity as poor households are not able to fulfill their square meals. Thus results in malnutrition, undernourishment, and various health issues. Developing countries, especially India faces the problem of food insecurity due to the economic crises.

Despite various schemes and programs, Initiated by the Indian government to counter food security issues Indian’s biggest challenge remains for ensuring the population the nutritional and enough food. The government introduced many major programs to eradicate food security issues such as the public food distribution system (PDS), Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Entrepreneurs Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY), etc. But these programs fail to reach every section of the society and hunger continue to make vulnerable and deteriorated situation of the poor people. The International food policy research Institution (IFPR) classified the status of hunger into five categories–low, moderate, serious, alarming, and extremely alarming, India falls into the category of alarming. Further studies have indicated that consumption and expenditure on food grain have decreased up to a certain level due to an increase in food prices and enlargement in the consumption of non-food items. Despite the economic growth in recent years around one-third of Indian’s population still lives the poverty line. All these estimates indicate the existence of food insecurity at the micro-level in terms of either lack of economic access to food or lack of absorption of food for a healthy life.

No doubt the Government of India introduced The National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA 2013). It includes the Midday meal scheme, the Integrated Child Development Services scheme, and the Public Distribution System. Further, the NFSA 2013 recognizes maternity entitlements. The main problem in the implementation of the NFSA is how to identify the beneficiaries? Although the Act purposes to cover 67 percent of the population, it does not provide any identification criteria based on which beneficiaries will be chosen. The socio-economic and caste census (SECC) data can give some direction on how this can be done, but it does not provide a clear estimate. Instead of identifying the poor, it would be better to adopt an ‘inclusive approach’ in which all poor and marginalized populations are included and rich people are kept out,  It requires proper verification and counter checks by various departments without being involved in corruption practices. Otherwise, the NFSA will fail to reach its beneficiary or target population.

The overall impact of ICDS and MDM scheme on malnutrition has remained very limited due to a meager allocation of resources, faulty project, and carelessness in implementation. The poor quality of food served under MDM in many schools in different states across the country is a serious cause of concern. In fact, in 2012, the corporations (comprising North, south, and East corporations of Delhi states) found 83 percent meals nutritionally deficient. Moreover, utensils and dining areas were often found to be unclean and unhygienic. The most serious problem in ICDS is related to implementation and accountability. Since children have no ‘voice’ in the system, there is no self-correction mechanism. There is rampant corruption in each phase of the implementation of these projects. Thus results in failure of ICDS and midday meal scheme

PDS (Public Distribution Scheme) was established to provide essential consumer goods at cheap and subsidized prices. The main agency, which provides food grains to the PDS, is the Food Corporation of India (FCI) set up in 1965. Its primary duty is to undertake the purchase, storage, movement, transport, distribution, and sale of food grains and other foodstuffs. But the PDS has been criticized on various grounds. The main motive of PDS was to manage and distribute food stock to the poorest of the poor at affordable and cheap prices so that hunger and malnutrition can be eradicated from the country. But it was found that the poor people are least benefited i.e. only 20% of households are provided the stock with the cost-effectiveness which is very small. Another critic of PDS is the burden of food subsidy, which puts several fiscal burdens on the government. There is also the inefficiencies in the operations of FCI as some researchers and The Bureau of Industrial Costs and Prices (BICP) of the Government of India (GOI) have pointed out several inefficiencies in the operation of the Food Corporation of India. The economic cost of FCI foodgrain operations has been rising because of an increase in procurement prices and other costs that is distribution cost and carrying costs. The inefficiencies in the operations of FCI are due to its highly centralized and bureaucratic mode of operation. To rectify this, experts advocate the ‘toning up’ of the personnel and working of FCI on the one hand and reorganizing the food security system on the other hand. Another flaw in the PDS is that the ration cards are provided to only those people who have their residential addresses and those who are migrant laborers and homeless are left out of the food security system.

The Attack on Indigenous Rights in Brazil

Yanis Iqbal

On 5 August, 2020, the Brazilian Supreme Court ordered President Jair Bolsonaro to institute measures aimed at protecting indigenous people from the Covid-19 pandemic. This ruling is the legal recognition of the totally disastrous anti-indigenous policies of the Bolsonaro government. Like other indigenous people living in the Peruvian jungles, eastern Bolivia, the Ecuadorian Amazon and the Colombian Amazon, Brazilian collectivities too have been disproportionately impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 23,000 members of 190 indigenous groups in the Amazon basin have been infected by the virus and all of these communities share a commonality – they suffer from structural inequalities.

According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), “Indigenous peoples, in particular indigenous women and girls are often disproportionately affected by epidemics and other crises. Indigenous peoples are nearly three times as likely to be living in extreme poverty as their non-indigenous counterparts. They account for almost 19 per cent of the extreme poor”. In Latin America, more specifically, it is estimated that 43% of the 44.7 million indigenous people are poor (living on less than $5.50 a day in 2011 purchasing power parity prices (PPP))and 24% are extremely poor (living on less than $1.90 a day in 2011 PPP prices).

Another UN DESA document states, “Indigenous peoples in nearly all countries fall into the most “vulnerable” health category. They have significantly higher rates of communicable and non-communicable diseases than their non-indigenous counterparts, high mortality rates and lower life expectancies. Contributing factors that increase the potential for high mortality rates caused by COVID-19 in indigenous communities include mal – and undernutrition, poor access to sanitation, lack of clean water, and inadequate medical services. Additionally, indigenous peoples often experience widespread stigma and discrimination in healthcare settings such as stereotyping and a lack of quality in the care provided, thus compromising standards of care and discouraging them from accessing health care, if and when available.”

While Brazilian communities do experience the disadvantageous effects of structural inequalities, their plight has been politically amplified by the Bolsonaro administration which has accelerated extractivism during the Covid-19 pandemic. With more than 23,000 cases and 600 deaths, indigenous Brazilians are dying at a higher rate than the general population and it is estimated that they die of the virus twice as often as the non-indigenous people. Some communities, such as the Arara people, living near the Xingu river basin and the Xicrin in southwest Para state, are on the verge of extermination due to Coronavirus.

These high death rates among the indigenous population are killing knowledgeable elders, the main transmitters of indigenous culture. The recent death of the famous leader, Aritana Yawalapiti of the Yawalapiti people, on August 5, 2020, underscores the cultural loss taking place as the diffusers of traditional knowledge die and the wisdom of indigenous people gets lost.

Behind the soaring statistics on the death of indigenous people in Brazil, one can observe the unmistakable presence of Bolsonarian extractivism. The UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, José Francisco Cali Tzay, has said, “In some countries, consultations with indigenous peoples and also environmental impact assessments are being abruptly suspended in order to force through megaprojects relating to agribusiness, mining, dams and infrastructure.” José Francisco Cali Tzay’s statement, while not explicitly referring to Brazil, accurately describes the consequences of Bolsonarian politics.

In the Brazilian region of Rondônia, “Indigenous organizations have reported the presence of garimpeiros (illegal gold miners) and madeireiros (timber traffickers) who have used the current health crisis as a cover to intensify their profit-driven invasions in the territories where the Karipuna people lives.” Rondônia is a region where, ever since the election of Bolsonaro as the president, the National Mining Agency (ANM) has granted mining permits even for demarcated indigenous lands i.e. lands that have been legally regularized through the federal government and presidential authorization. In 2013, for example, “the Ariquemes Small-Scale Miners Cooperative (Cooperativa Mineradora dos Garimpeiros de Ariquemes or COOMINGA) obtained a small-scale gold mining permit for an area that includes part of the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau Indigenous Territory [which was officially demarcated in 2006]. The cooperative is now the third-largest producer of tin in the country, according to the ANM’s 2018 Annual Mining Report. In 2016, the Rondônia Tin Cooperative (Cooperativa Estanífera de Rondônia) acquired a mining permit to mine cassiterite, the main tin ore, in an area that included segments of the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau territory. The largest open-air cassiterite mine in the world is located in Ariquemes, Rondônia.”

The events in Rondônia are directly driven by the extractivist agenda of Jair Bolsonaro which glorifies anti-indigenous hatred and allows extractive capital to exploit previously protected territories. Under his administration, applications to mine on indigenous lands in Amazon have increased by 91% and 4,000 requests have been submitted for mining on 31 indigenous reserves. Moreover, the number of invasions of indigenous areas has increased from 111 in 2018 to 160 in 2019 and in July 2019, 20,000 illegal gold miners had invaded the Yanomami Park, the largest indigenous reserve in Brazil. These illegal miners were “well funded, likely by entrepreneurs, who pay workers and provide them with earthmoving equipment, supplies and airplanes. Three illegal air strips and three open-pit goldmines are in operation within the Yanomami indigenous territory.” As a natural result of the extension of extractivism into ecologically fragile areas, deforestation astronomically increased and “year-on-year deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon rose by 34% between August 2018 and July 2019, felling an area of forest about as big as Jamaica.” All the invasions have been punctuated by regular violence and according to the Human Rights Watch, “Indigenous people who have organized themselves to defend their forests—in the absence of adequate law enforcement—have been threatened, attacked, and, according to community leaders, murdered by people engaged in illegal deforestation.” In July 2019, for instance, 10-15 heavily armed men had invaded the village Yvytotõ of the Wajãpi community and killed one indigenous individual to access the gold reserves located in the village.

The ecocide, ethnocide and genocide of 2019 have continued in 2020 and in the first few weeks of the year, 5 indigenous people have been murdered due to land conflicts. Deforestation has persisted with 529 square kilometers of forest being destroyed in April, 2020, representing an increase of 171% when compared to the same month the previous year. Mining invasions, too, have progressed unabated and the Triunfo Do Xingo area, where many indigenous people live, has been witnessing the aggressive and repeated incursion of miners, cattle ranchers and other commercial actors. In June and July 2020, 3,842 fire alerts have been reported in Triunfo Do Xingo, linked to illegal land grabbing and mining activities, significantly increasing the Covid-19 risks of indigenous people whose co-infection of Covid-19 with other high-prevalence diseases can lead to high mortality rates.

Mining magnates in Brazil have been emboldened to murder indigenous people and invade ancestral lands by the Bolsonaro administration which has secured a suitable investment climate for extractivism. Through the fusion of anti-indigenist rhetoric and pro-mining policies, Bolsonaro has unleashed a war against the 900,000 indigenous people living in Brazil. In terms of rhetoric, the following statements are adequate to show how Bolsonaro has discursively activated the extermination and dispossession of indigenous people:-

• “The Indians do not speak our language, they do not have money, they do not have culture. They are native peoples. How did they manage to get 13% of the national territory”.
• “There is no indigenous territory where there aren’t minerals. Gold, tin and magnesium are in these lands, especially in the Amazon, the richest area in the world. I’m not getting into this nonsense of defending land for Indians”.
• “This unilateral policy of demarcating indigenous land by the Executive will cease to exist. Any reserve that I can reduce in size, I will do so. It will be a very big fight that we’re going to have with the UN”.
• “It’s a shame that the Brazilian cavalry hasn’t been as efficient as the Americans, who exterminated the Indians.”

In terms of policies, Bolsonaro has attempted to implement a “dream” initiative by sending a bill to the Brazilian Congress in February 2020. This bill would open Brazilian indigenous reserves to “commercial mining, oil and gas exploration, cattle ranching and agribusiness, new hydroelectric dam projects, and tourism — projects that have been legally blocked under the country’s 1988 Constitution.” Marcio Santilli, a former head of FUNAI (National Indian Foundation), the agency responsible for indigenous affairs, has said that the dream initiative will “not promote the economic development of the Indians, but guarantee the exploitation by third parties of their natural resources. It would encourage Indians to live from royalties while watching the dispossession of their lands.”

Bolsonaro’s staunch and brutal opposition to indigenous people has continued during the Covid-19 pandemic and in July 2020, the Bolsonaro government vetoed provisions of a law that entailed the government to provide disinfectants, drinking water and a guarantee of hospital beds to indigenous people amid the pandemic. Bolsonaro also “vetoed funding for the states and local governments with emergency plans for indigenous communities, as well as provisions to help give them more information on coronavirus, including greater internet access.” Along with the orchestrated genocide of indigenous population, Bolsonaro is also busy protecting illegal mining from environmental actions. On 6 August, 2020, Bolsonaro’s Defence Ministry suspended operations by the environmental protection agency Ibama against illegal miners on an indigenous reserve in Amazon.

The Defence Ministry has said that the suspension occurred on the request of the Munduruku tribe who apparently want marauding miners to steal their lands. This claim is false insofar that the Munduruku tribe have protested against illegal gold mining operations in their territories in 2019 and have promised to keep on fighting against extractive elites. In fact, a statement released by the Munduruku tribe unequivocally expressed opposition to mining and made it clear that the indigenous group will never request miners to dispossess them: “You are destroying our sacred sites and disturbing our spirit world. This is bringing diseases and death to our people. We will not accept this destruction anymore…Gold mining is dividing our people, introducing new diseases, and contaminating our people with mercury. Mining brings drugs, alcohol, weapons, and prostitution. And greed.”

At the opening of the 74th United Nations general assembly, Jair Bolsonaro has declared that he is representing “a new Brazil, resurgent after being on the brink of socialism.” Now, we can observe how Brazil, revived by Bolsonaro after the supposed curse of socialism, is slaughtering indigenous people for the penetration of extractivism into the entrails of Amazon and other protected regions. Instead of installing sanitary cordons around indigenous territories and efficiently carrying out essential Covid-19 practices – isolation, laboratory confirmation, contact tracing, efficient detection of suspected cases – Bolsonaro has called Coronavirus a “little flu” and a “cold”, denied the infection and death rates and hysterically advanced the interests of the mining sector. Instead of these anti-science and extractivist policies, a science-based and socialist response would have been much better.

In addition to the proper protection of indigenous people living in remote regions, much could have been done to alleviate the conditions of the urban indigenous population which, in the case of Brazil, constitutes half of the indigenous population. This urban population serves as an expendable reserve army of labor for capitalism and consequently, experiences high levels of inequalities in the form of informal employment and gender pay gap. The rate of informal employment for indigenous women and men is 85% and 81%, respectively, compared to 52 per cent and 51 per cent for non-indigenous women and men. Furthermore, indigenous women’s hourly earnings are less than a third of those of non-indigenous men with the same level of education. During the pandemic, it is this indigenous reserve army of labor which is experiencing exploitation along with the indigenous people living in the protected regions.

The present-day mass deaths of Brazilian indigenous people are similar to the colonial ethnocide of late fifteenth and early sixteenth century that dramatically reduced the population from 150 million before 1492 to less than 11 million 100 years later. A native commentary on the colonial conquest of Guatemala and the consequent outbreak of smallpox plague terrifyingly encapsulates the contemporary indigenous situation: “Great was the stench of the dead. After our fathers and grandfathers succumbed, half of the people fled to the fields…The mortality was terrible. Your grandfathers died…we became orphans, oh, my sons! So we became when we were young. All of us were thus. We were born to die!”

As Brazil progresses into the Covid-19 pandemic, it is necessary that Bolsonaro’s extermination campaign be stopped. Brazilian indigenous people suffer from malnutrition and other immune-suppressive conditions, thus increasing their susceptibility to Coronavirus infection. The high immunological vulnerability of indigenous communities has been compounded by Bolsonaro’s crony capitalism that allies itself with extractive elites. While the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) has urged “Governments to intensify protection measures to stop external farmers, settlers, private firms, industries and miners from entering indigenous peoples´ territories taking advantage of the present crisis”, Bolsonaro has clashed head-on with these organizations, opening indigenous territories for extractive robbery. But indigenous resistance to Bolsonaro and his extractive power bloc is in the offing and the statement released by the Brazil’s Indigenous People Articulation (APIB) sets the tone for the future revolt: “we remain firm, as our ancestors did, who for more than 520 years have resisted, fighting, whether for the right to territory, to overcome dictates of the dictatorship, as well as other epidemics, the landowners’ bullets or the lengthy attempt to make our cultures and ways of life invisible.”

German government continues to boost military spending and cover for fascists

Johannes Stern

In response to the dangerous further spreading of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany and Europe, the ruling class is not reacting with an offensive to protect public health and to eliminate the deficiencies in the health system but is mobilizing further billions for rearmament and war.

On Thursday, the Defence Ministry informed members of parliament about the so-called 25 million euro proposals, which are to be handed over to the Budget Committee by the end of the year. All armament projects with an estimated cost of more than €25 million must be discussed and implemented by this committee.

The military blog “Augen geradeaus!” (“Eyes Front!”), which has close links to the Defence Ministry, has published an initial list of the 29 (!) such planned proposals. Among them are:

* A successor to the G36 assault rifle, the Bundeswehr’s (armed forces) previous standard weapon. The first proposal for a new system, consisting of a basic weapon and accessories, is to be presented to the Budget Committee at the end of October.

* In addition to the 138 new fighter jets already launched in April, 38 Eurofighters (the latest version, Tranche 4) are to be procured. The corresponding proposal is also to be adopted in the last week of October.

* Also, there are numerous naval upgrade projects, including 31 Sea Tiger naval helicopters and the development and procurement of a so-called “naval drone.” The purchases are part of a comprehensive upgrade of the German navy. Among other things, four multi-purpose combat ships MKS180 are to be built in the next few years, at a cost of around €6 billion. These will be joined by further F125 frigates and Class 212A submarines.

* The tank units are also to be further upgraded. “The old Marder infantry fighting vehicle is to get a service life extension for its thermal imaging targeting system, and the Leopard 2 main battle tank will receive a distance-activated protection system,” reports Augen geradeaus! Also, a successor model to the Badger armoured engineering vehicle is planned, and the Boxer armoured transport vehicle will be built as a new model for joint fire support teams.

* It is also planned to increase ammunition stocks. Several proposals will address this. In the first week of September, the Budget Committee will discuss the “supplementary procurement of the RBS15 Mk3 sea/land target drone for the first and second batch of corvettes,” in mid-September the procurement of new GBU-54 guided bombs for the Eurofighter, and in October and November new ammunition for the 125 frigates, torpedoes and new tank ammunition.

* Significantly, the Special Forces Command (KSK), which is riddled with right-wing extremist terrorist structures, is also to be upgraded and will receive, among other things, “new reconnaissance and combat vehicles and medium-sized tactical support vehicles to replace the Serval.” From the outset, the WSWS has made clear that the announced restructuring of the KSK was primarily intended to make the elite right-wing extremist force more effective.

Kárpátia singer János Petras poses during the handover ceremony on a leopard battle tank supplied by Germany (Source: Facebook page of Kárpátia)

The billion-euro armament projects are aimed at expanding Germany’s ability to make war. At the beginning of the week, the frigate “Hamburg” set sail with 250 soldiers to intervene in the escalating proxy war of the regional and great powers in Libya. In spring, the grand coalition had expanded and extended numerous foreign deployments of the Bundeswehr.

A few days ago, in an interview with Die Zeit, Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) demanded that it was “high time” to aggressively discuss “how Germany must position itself in the world in the future.” She said that Germany was expected to “show leadership, not only as an economic power.” It is about “collective defence, it is about international missions, it is about a strategic view of the world, and ultimately it is about the question of whether we want to actively shape the global order.”

To enforce the geostrategic and economic goals of German imperialism internationally, the German bourgeoisie is not only rearming its own military but also its allies within the European Union. It is becoming increasingly clear what militarist and fascist traditions it is resuming 75 years after the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

According to an official report from the Defence Ministry, the handover of the first of a total of 44 German Leopard 2 battle tanks to the Hungarian army began at the end of July. The handover ceremony took place in the garrison town of Tata in the presence of Parliamentary State Secretary Thomas Silberhorn (Christian Social Union, CSU), who praised the military cooperation between Germany and the EU with the extreme right-wing Orban regime.

“Hungary is modernising its land forces and Germany is a strategic partner in this process,” said Silberhorn. The use of the same weapon systems and close cooperation in the training of tank crews increased the interoperability of the armed forces and was “an important component of the Common Security and Defence Policy,” he said. The German government would “continue to be committed to close military cooperation between the two countries and thus also to strengthen cohesion in Europe based on the values and interests of the two countries.”

The Defence Ministry’s report does not go into more detail regarding the “values and interests” underlying the “military cooperation” between Berlin and Budapest. But the fascist character of the handover ceremony in Tata was obvious. Official participants in the event included, among others, members of the notorious neo-Nazi rock band Kárpátia, who had even written their own song for the tank handover—commissioned by the Hungarian army.

An entry on Kárpátia’s Facebook page says that the band “was asked to write a march by tank crews in Tata in March.” The timing for the song could not have been “better, as the first Leopard 2A4 tanks” have now been delivered, “followed by 40 more Leopard 2A7 tanks in the next few years.” One was “lucky enough” to “admire these big cats, listen to them rumble, to see them get down to it...” It is no “big secret that the band has always been pro-military” and “satisfied with the development of the armed forces.”

On Facebook, the band has published numerous pictures showing members of Kárpátia in martial gear posing in front of German battle tanks. Their posts clearly show their ideological outlook. They glorify Miklos Horthy, the former Reich administrator, anti-Semite and Hitler ally, drum up support for a new and “ethnically pure” Greater Hungary. The lyrics of their songs drip with fascist and militarist ideology. According to media reports, the Hitler salute can be regularly seen at Kárpátia concerts, and singer János Petras rants against Roma and Jews.

Following the ceremony, the Hungarian government, which awarded Petras the country’s Golden Cross of Merit as early as 2013 and itself rehabilitated Horthy and Hungarian fascism, has defended its cooperation with Kárpátia. In response to an inquiry by Der Spiegel, the defence ministry in Budapest declared that the “tank march” was about “love of the homeland and respect for the soldiers. We are pleased that a work of art has been created that popularises military service and the military vocation as widely as possible.”

This is also the attitude of the German government. According to Der Spiegel, the Defence Ministry has stated that it does not want to take “a position on the internal affairs of the Hungarian armed forces.” It is becoming increasingly clear that the extreme right-wing terrorist networks in the Bundeswehr, the police and the secret services exist and can operate largely unchecked, mainly because these fascist forces enjoy the official support of the capitalist state and its political representatives.

Trump executive orders set stage for tens of millions of evictions

Jacob Crosse

On Saturday, President Donald Trump announced a series of constitutionally dubious executive actions at his exclusive golf resort in New Jersey that would, among other things, slash federal unemployment benefits by at least $200 and fail to extend a partial federal moratorium on evictions.

The previous day, a comprehensive analysis by researchers at the Aspen Institute, based on data from the US Census Bureau and the National Low Income Housing Coalition, estimated that between 28,900,000 and 39,900,000 tenants in the US are at risk of eviction by the end of the year.

The authors warn that “if conditions do not change” and without “robust and swift intervention,” up to 43 percent of renter households will be at risk in the next several months. Since the start of the pandemic, 30 percent of renters have reported using government aid or other forms of assistance to pay rent, while another 30 percent expect to have to borrow cash or obtain a loan to pay September rent.

After two weeks of half-hearted negotiations and theatrics between Democratic congressional leaders and Trump administration officials, both sides adjourned Friday without reaching an agreement to extend the now-expired federal unemployment enhancement for the roughly 30 million Americans who had been receiving it. Nor did the two sides reach a deal to extend the federal partial moratorium on evictions, which, according to the Urban Institute, covered roughly 12.3 million people.

Speaking before wealthy supporters in a gilded ballroom at his private Westminster golf club, Trump claimed that his executive order on evictions “will solve that problem largely, hopefully completely.”

In fact, it will “largely” and “completely” do nothing to prevent the coming tsunami of evictions, nor those already in progress in cities such as Milwaukee, which saw 502 filings for the week of July 26, according to EvictionLab.org. The executive order is nothing but a directive to federal agencies instructing them to “consider” whether a temporary halt on evictions is necessary.

Prior to the pandemic, millions of US workers and their families were already besieged by skyrocketing rental costs coupled with a dwindling supply of affordable housing and stagnant wages. The pandemic has further exposed the terminal rot of American capitalism and left millions on the brink of homelessness.

Researchers at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University found that between 2012 and 2017 the number of available units renting for $1,000 or more a month increased by five million, while the availability of low-cost units—that is, units renting for $600 a month or less—declined by 3.1 million. Units offering rents between $600 and $999 also decreased by 450,000 over that same period.

At the same time, roughly 53 million workers in the US, according to the Brookings Institution, are deemed “low-wage workers,” with a median hourly wage of $10.22. Nearly half of them, working in retail sales, food preparation, personal care, building cleaning, construction or driving, have been laid off during the pandemic or had their hours drastically reduced.

By July 2020, 50 million workers had applied for some sort of unemployment assistance, and 20 million renters reported living in households where someone had suffered a COVID-19-related job loss. Food pantry requests in some states have increased by as much as 2,000 percent (New Jersey), while 30 million have reported not having enough to eat.

Job losses have overwhelmed working class neighborhoods. The New York Times reported that unemployment rates in the South Side of Chicago, North Las Vegas, South Los Angeles, and certain New York City boroughs, which hovered around 10 percent prior to the pandemic, have ballooned to more than 30 percent in the last four months.

Rental prices have continued to increase. Data compiled by Zumper.com, an online rental platform, found that nationally rent is up 0.7 percent on a year-to-date basis for a one-bedroom apartment, meaning the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment stands at $1,233 a month. The rent for a two-bedroom apartment increased by exactly one percent, to $1,493 a month.

In New York City, the average rent for a one bedroom unit, at $2,840, remains unaffordable for the vast majority of human beings on the planet. The World Socialist Web Site spoke to Chad, a college student and part-time cook for a private dining club in Manhattan. “When the quarantine started, we all got laid off,” he said.

Chad explained that he attempted to apply for unemployment benefits the day after he was laid off in mid-March. “The application itself—it was very difficult because you couldn’t sign on to the website,” he said. “And then, when you tried to call, they would just send you on an endless loop till they finally kicked you out, as in hang up on you.

“Press five to talk to this person, and then press eight to talk to that person. And they just kept doing that until it just kicks you out. You just have to keep trying. For weeks I didn’t get anything.”

After a month, Chad started receiving his state benefits, “200-some-odd dollars,” he said. Shortly thereafter he began to receive his federal supplement, bringing the weekly total to “about $800, which is less than what I made, but being that there was nowhere to go I could just sit in the house and save money.

“When I had the stimulus plus the extra unemployment, I saved a lot of that money,” he continued. “I went to a real minimalist lifestyle. I didn’t spend anything extra. I just paid what I needed, and I stayed current on my bills.

“For the average New Yorker, [$800 a week] is a bare minimum. If I wasn’t married, with another income in my household, I would be decimated right now.”

Without the $600 federal enhancement, “my savings are going to dwindle,” said Chad. “For the last [two] weeks, I got $200, so now covering my bills, the money that I saved up is slowly going to be depleted. When it gets below a certain amount, then I’m going to worry.”

Asked what he thought about the Democratic Party’s recent negotiations, Chad said, “I don’t think anybody’s doing anything. What I will say is that I don’t see any sense of urgency on the Democratic Party’s part. They’re good. They have free health care for life. All of them make a good amount of money. So, they’re not hungry. They have nothing to worry about.”

He continued, “These lawmakers, they don’t know the struggles of an average person. And they’re sitting there arguing over giving people pennies. What did they give us, $1,200 in April? How long does $1,200 last an average person if you’ve got to worry about rent, food, and whatever? I think it’s laughable that they’re arguing about this.

“Another thing that I thought about: You’re forcing these kids to go back to school just so you can make the average working person go back to work. We live in a society where you have to gamble with your kid’s life just to make sure that they have a life.

“For example, I jog every morning. I pass by two or three daycare [centers] on my morning jog. I’m looking at these parents dropping their kids off at daycare just so they can go to work. That’s a shame that it has to be that way. You have an administration that’s so inept that they’re willing to gamble with the average working person’s life just to keep this economy going so rich people can still sit out in quarantine. That’s exactly what’s happening now.

“I consider myself one of the fortunate ones. I’m not rich by any means, but I’ve been able to get by. But ask me a month from now, ask me two months from now how that looks. I can guarantee you it’s going to look totally different. Once these costs start adding up, they will be more than the $200 a week that I’m bringing in.

“This government in general, whether Democrat or Republican, nobody came up with a clear, concise way to deal with COVID-19. The Democrats are the ones saying, ‘Hey, it’s not us saying it.’ But I didn’t hear them propose anything that would help.

“We live in a real interesting time. We have other countries that dealt with it better, but then we have other countries that opened up but had to shut right back down, which is what we’re going to go through here. But I don’t know if we’re going to shut down. I think they’re just going to sit there and keep doing what they have been doing, pretending that it’s not happening.”