25 Aug 2020

With COVID-19 Under Control, Cuba Launches New Economic Battle

Helen Yaffe

The exemplary domestic and international response of socialist Cuba to the global SARS-CoV2 pandemic has been recognised worldwide. By late July, authorities had the virus under control; 87 people had died, none of them children or healthcare workers, and Cuba was entering phase three of post-Covid-19 recovery.
While Cuba’s public health response protected the population, the economic cost was high, particularly through the loss of international tourism – the country’s second largest source of foreign revenue – as borders were closed. This compounded adverse conditions already imposed by external factors, principally the economic crisis in Venezuela and the intensification of US sanctions under the Trump administration from 2017.
From GDP growth of 4.4% in 2015, following US President Obama’s rapprochement with Cuba, growth slowed to 1.3% between 2016 and 2019 and was forecast at just 1% for 2020. Now in the context of the pandemic, on 15 July, the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean forecast a fall in Cuba’s GDP of 8% for 2020; the forecast for Latin America and the Caribbean was -9.1%.
Challenges facing the Cuban economy
On 16 July, in a speech to the Council of Ministers, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel pointed out that ‘in recent months we have faced numerous [US] attempts to prevent the arrival of fuel at our ports, shortages of food, supplies and raw materials to sustain important production processes, and [US] sanctions that have reduced our foreign exchange earnings in the midst of the pandemic.’ Despite this, he said, ‘we raised, as far as possible, wages in the budgeted sector; [electricity] blackouts were avoided; we maintained the vitality of productive activity, the fundamental investments for developing the country; we approved measures to protect and serve the entire Cuban population, without distinction, from the impacts of Covid-19.’
However, the country’s approach has to change, he said, as it recovers from the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, faces the resulting global economic crisis and advances with the country’s National Plan for Economic and Social Development until 2030. He announced a strategy of economic transformation which, within the framework of the centrally planned economy, will introduce greater emphasis on market mechanisms and the private sector to stimulate domestic production, particularly in agriculture, decentralise decision making and unify Cuba’s dual economy. Increasing market mechanisms heightens contradictions within the socialist planned economy, but is a necessary concession under the adverse circumstances listed below:[1]
+ Intensification of the US blockade. In 2019 alone, 86 new sanctions were introduced by the Trump administration, including application of Title III of the Helms Burton Act of 1996, which seeks to curb foreign investment in Cuba, and measures to obstruct oil shipments from Venezuela. The cost of the US blockade in 2019 alone was calculated at $4bn; a figure that will rise substantially in the coming period. That was double Cuba’s 2019 debt servicing obligations.
+ The ongoing economic crisis in Venezuela, one of Cuba’s main trading partners, which suffered a 25.5% fall in GDP in 2019 as US sanctions were intensified.
+ A growing shortage of foreign exchange due to several factors: the 9.3% decrease in international tourism in 2019 (resulting from US measures); the loss of export markets in medical services (from Brazil and Ecuador), which by January 2020 had seen a 19.6% fall in earnings on the previous year; and the freeze on tourism in late March 2020 due to the pandemic. With the emerging global economic crisis, remittances are expected to fall dramatically.
+ From September 2019, Cuba had to function with 50% of the fuel it requires and oil from Russia, Algeria and Angola was purchased under less favourable conditions.
+ A Caribbean-wide drought saw agricultural production in Cuba fall below planned output; shortages were exacerbated by the pandemic.
+ US sanctions created shortages of medicines, and prevented Cuba from purchasing, or receiving donations of medical equipment to treat Covid-19 patients.
Shortages have seen long queues for food staples during the pandemic. President Diaz-Canel recognised this in his speech: ‘…there is a shortage in stores, yes, and why is that? Why does Cuba not have more hard currency? Among other things, because of the blockade, because of the financial persecution…because every time we export to someone, they try to cut that export; because every time we are arranging credit, they try to take away the credit; because they try to stop fuel getting to Cuba and then we have to buy in third markets at a higher price.’
The loss of tourism revenue and a falling demand for exports has meant a sustained loss of income while additional expenses were incurred in the health sector; financing the isolation centres for treatment of Covid-19 patients, covering workers’ wages and social security for the population. In April and May, the state-controlled prices of some staple products were reduced. Inevitably, the budget deficit has risen. Internal factors which contribute to Cuba’s economic weaknesses, inefficiency and low productivity, have frequently been identified and measures to address them were announced by President Diaz-Canel in summer 2019.
Planning to combat uncertainty
The new ‘economic-social strategy’ was approved by Cuba’s Council of Ministers on 16 July and announced to the population the same day via the daily televised Round Table (Mesa Redonda) programme, which began by airing the President’s speech.2
In the subsequent discussion, Cuba’s Minister of the Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil, explained that the strategy covers 16 key economic areas. ‘We always say that the more the uncertainty, the greater the planning must be’, he said. ‘So we have a detailed strategy that is in line with our economic model and guidelines [for updating the Cuban economy], while focusing on lifting obstacles and operating our economy in a more functional way’. The new strategy is based on nine principles:
1) Maintaining centralised planning, while decentralising the administrative allocation of resources.
2) Augmenting national production and ending dependence on imports.
3) Regulating the market through (mainly) indirect methods.
4) Increasing integration between different economic actors in the state and non-state sectors.
5) Harnessing domestic demand to generate jobs and productive growth.
6) Increasing the autonomy of management in state sector enterprises to improve efficiency.
7) Implementing approved but pending aspects of policy that update forms of management and ownership.
8) Encouraging internal competitiveness, to guarantee efficient use of material and financial resources, and by expanding incentives.
9) Adhering to environmental policies and sustainable development.
The objective is to increase national production, decrease imports and increase and diversify exports. Policies will aim to diversify commerce in agricultural production, strengthen the autonomy of state enterprises, create mini-, small- and medium-sized state enterprises in industry, permit non-state businesses to import and export via 37 specialised state enterprises, allow cooperatives to sell directly to foreign and mixed-ownership companies, encourage foreign direct investment, especially in food production, foster cooperatives and improve and expand self-employment. Many of these measures were announced last summer, now the aim is to speed up their simultaneous implementation.
Other measures enable the state to capture urgently needed hard currency from a population which holds a lot of cash (liquidity in the hands of the population was 59% of GDP in 2018). In late 2019, the government opened 80 outlets selling domestic appliances, electric motorcycles and car parts in freely convertible (globally traded) currencies, including the US dollar which was removed from domestic commerce in 2004. Used cars went on sale for US dollars in February. From 20 July, an additional 72 state stores run by Tiendas Caribes and Cimex began selling ‘medium and high-range’ food, toiletries and hardware goods in freely convertible currencies. Purchases can be made with a national bank card from an account opened with tradable currencies, or international MasterCard and VISA cards not linked to US banks. The hard currency collected at these stores will help purchase the supplies required in the over 4,700 stores which continue to sell to the population in Cuban national pesos (CUP) or convertible pesos (CUC). Cuban state and non-state entities can hold current accounts in hard currency. Tourists can pay for some services in hard currency. Also, from 20 July, the 10% tax applied to US dollars that enter the Cuban banking system was removed.
Reducing the importation of food and fuel is vital; but progress has been painfully slow. 70% of the food Cubans consume is imported, despite the potential for domestic substitution. The US blockade obstructs external financing of investments in the technologies Cuba needs to shift from imported hydrocarbons to domestic renewable energies. Meanwhile, encouraged by the Trump administration, right-wing Cuban exiles are intensifying media attacks on Cuba, demanding tougher sanctions and a community boycott of remittances and visits to the island.
President Diaz-Canel said: ‘…globally we are witnessing the confluence of a deep crisis as a consequence of the impact of Covid-19 [and] the definitive collapse of neoliberal paradigms defended by imperialism…’ Cuba’s public health response to Covid-19 put those neoliberal paradigms to shame. Now it needs an end to the US blockade so it can develop the potential of its welfare-centred economy.’
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Syria Faces Calamity as Trump’s New Sanctions Combine With Surging Coronavirus

Patrick Cockburn

“If I don’t buy masks or medicine, I may die or survive, but if I don’t buy bread for the family, we will all die of starvation,” says a retired 68-year-old teacher in Damascus, explaining why he does not have masks, sterilisers or medicines. “We need two bundles of loaves every day which costs us at least 600 Syrian pounds (24 US cents), but if we buy masks, they will cost us about 1000 SP (40 cents). The choice is between bread and masks.”
Millions of ordinary Syrians are having to choose between buying food to eat and taking precautionary measures against coronavirus, which local witnesses say is much more widespread than the Syrian government admits.
Poverty and deprivation have worsened dramatically since the US introduced all-embracing sanctions on Syria on 17 June under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, which Donald Trump signed into law late last year. Named after the individual who documented the murder of thousands of Syrians by the Syrian government (Syrian officials deny the allegations), the legislation is supposedly intended to restrain it from carrying out further acts of repression.
In practice the Caesar Act does little to weaken President Bashar al-Assad and his regime, but it does impose a devastating economic siege on a country where civilians are already ground down by nine years of war and economic embargo. The eight in 10 Syrians who are listed by the UN as falling below the poverty line must now cope with a sudden upsurge in the coronavirus pandemic.
As with UN sanctions imposed on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the 1990s, the Syrian leadership will be least affected by the new American measures because it controls resources. The real victims are the poor and the powerless who suffer since the price of foodstuffs has risen by 209 per cent in the last year. The cost of a basic food basket is 23.5 times what it was before the start of the Syrian crisis in 2011 according to the World Food Programme (WFP).
Beneath a hypocritical pretence that it is helping ordinary people, the Trump administration is stoking a humanitarian catastrophe in a bid to deny a victory to Russia and Iran, the two main supporters of Assad during the conflict. Confirming this aim, the US special representative for Syria James Jeffrey says that US policy is to turn Syria into “a quagmire” for Russia, like the one the US faced in Vietnam, and to give the US a degree of control over Syria similar to what it had in Japan at the end of the Second World War.
Such aims are dangerously unrealistic as Assad, Russia and Iran have already won the war militarily, but US wishful thinking does have the potential to further devastate the lives of millions of Syrians. Detailed and reliable information has been lacking about how they are surviving, or failing to survive, as the Caesar Act is implanted and the virus spreads. Access to Syria by journalists is limited and news from Syria, however dire, has largely dropped out of the international news agenda because everybody is preoccupied with the progress of the pandemic in their own countries.
A nurse at one of the largest hospitals in Damascus has given The Independent a detailed account of how coronavirus and the Caesar Act are combining to bring fresh disasters to Syria, a country already ruined by nine years of war. Muhanad Shami (which is not his real name) is 28 years old and works in the giant al-Mouwasat University Hospital in Damascus. He speaks graphically and convincingly of the worsening crisis in the Syrian capital and in his own hospital as the virus spreads amid crippling shortages and soaring prices.
“It’s an atmosphere of fear and panic in the hospital,” says Muhanad. “Every day hundreds of sick people come here, most of them suffering from coronavirus symptoms, but the hospital is already full.” Its buildings hold more than a thousand patients, many of them sleeping on mattresses on the floor.
He says that the official numbers of infections announced by the Syrian authorities may be only about 10 per cent of the real figure: “On Friday 14 August, the ministry of health announced only 72 cases in Syria, but in my hospital alone there were about 200 people crowded into the yard nearby and all of them were sick, coughing, with a high temperature, a need for oxygen, and no feeling of taste and smell.” The hospital management only had enough equipment to test three people who all tested positive.
The swift rise in the number infected is scarcely surprising, given that, until recently, the government played down the threat from coronavirus, leading people to take few precautions to avoid catching it. Muhanad says: “Every day, I go to work in a bus or minibus which should carry eleven people, but is mostly crowded with 15 people and I am the only one who wears a mask.” He normally gets a mask and disinfectant from his hospital but, when these are not available, he walks 45 minutes from his flat to the hospital rather than risk being crammed into a bus.
“I am surprised I am not sick so far,” he says. “Maybe it is because I am walking to work most days and sweating and that makes me more immune.” Three doctors and several nurses, two of whom he knew, have died at the hospital, where there is a shortage of masks. “I just wash my hands and drink water every 10 minutes. I spend the day in a state of anxiety.”
Private hospitals are also full up and oxygen cylinders and ventilators often have to be purchased privately. Muhanad says that his “aunt has four children and the whole family are sick with coronavirus, so our relatives living in the United Arab Emirates sent her some money to buy equipment.” She spent about $450 (£345) on medicine, ventilators and oxygen cylinders, but then faced the problem that there is no continuous supply of electricity in Damascus to keep equipment like a ventilator running all the time.
The pandemic strikes at a population already weakened during nine years of war and sanctions – already stringent and economically destructive before the Caesar Act provoked a collapse in the Syrian currency this summer. Muhanad’s monthly salary is the equivalent of $20, which he doubles by taking tips from patients for injections and other medical procedures. He can no longer afford the modest two-room flat he shares with two others, because the landlord is raising their rent by a third: “About four months ago, before the Caesar Act, things were expensive but now they are unaffordable.” He used to buy a kilo of tomatoes for 100 Syrian pounds (4 cents), but since the act the tomatoes are three or four times more expensive, while the cost of a taxi ride has tripled and that of a bus has doubled. There is a cheap government bread ration but enormous queues outside the bakeries.
Muhanad blames the Syrian government for pretending that coronavirus was less widespread than it really was, leading people to crowd together without masks in the markets. He sees the Caesar Act plunging an impoverished people deeper into misery.
The number of Syrians who are food insecure has risen in the last six months by 1.4 million to 9.3 million, more than half the population, according to the WFP. The Caesar Act and coronavirus do not appear to be weakening Assad, Russia and Iran, but there is every sign they are together plunging ordinary Syrians into a deep and lethal quagmire.
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COVID-19 and the Nakedness of the Corporate University

David Schultz

The coronavirus pandemic has both changed everything and accelerated trends that were already occurring across the world in business, politics, and how people shop and interact. The same is true with American higher education. As colleges and universities across America are restarting, Covid-19  has laid bare the nakedness of the corporate university, revealing how education and learning have long been displaced as the primary purpose of colleges and universities.
The corporate university is a product of the 1970s and 1980s.  After World War II  government funding for higher education, especially state universities, was seen as a tool of economic development, a battle line in the Cold War, and an instrument of democracy.  Science and technology were important, but arts, humanities, foreign languages, and the social sciences were part of a traditional liberal arts education that benefited society and produced, as philosopher John Dewey once said, the next generation of democratic leaders.  The benefits of college education were a public good, worthy of public investment.  But beginning with the economic retrenchments of the 1970s and the onset of neo-liberalism, higher education changed.  States cut investments to their universities, grants to students shrank, and college education increasingly came to be viewed as a private good or investment.
Higher education responded by turning corporate.  Colleges and universities sought business sponsorships and partnerships.   They restructured and assumed top-down management styles that increasingly viewed faculty as workers and less as co-participants in education.  Boards of trustees become more heavily composed of business leaders who in turn hire school presidents with corporate tendencies or experiences and less traditional education backgrounds or resumes.  Higher education, as did corporate America, restructured and replaced workers (full time tenured professors) with part time and contingent staff, and layered yet pricey middle and senior management with little knowledge or affection for traditional liberal arts education.
But colleges and universities also turned corporate in transforming education into a commodity and students into customers.  One, students were told college was an investment in their future and therefore borrowing to finance it became a cost-benefit decision in their career options.  Two,  admissions departments increasingly sold schools not on the basis of the quality of education they received but on career placement.  Then schools emphasized internships, dorm life,  on-campus activities, sports, technology, and internet connectivity for convenience. Three, at the graduate level, the expansion of face-paced but expensive professional programs (often offered without the traditional rigor of a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation) in business and other fields  were sold as career investments for Baby Boomers anxious for credentials, with the tuition reaped by the schools helping to finance undergraduate programs.  Four, going to college was all about the amenities of learning and not learning itself.  Higher education transformed the college experience into a cash nexus–pay us a lot of money and we will provide you with a host of on-campus activities and connections that will be a worthy return on your investment.
The 2008 global recession destroyed the business plan for American higher education.  Public education budgets were slashed and student debt topped that of personal credit cards.  Students were tapped out, and the number of eligible and college ready 18-year olds was declining.  Higher education should have collapsed but it managed to limp along by intensifying its cost cutting and tuition hiking measures.
Then came Covid-19.  When schools went on-line last spring students rightly revolted.  They demanded  refunds not just for dorms but on tuition.  They argued that the college experience they were sold included all those campus-based experiences, internships, and connections that they no longer were receiving.    College administrators were in a bind.  They tried to say the tuition was justified because they were still getting an education but such a claim was shrill at best since this aspect of college experience had long since disappeared or had become merely one stick in a bundle of goods sold as the university experience.
Students and their parents are not buying this argument. Take away all these other amenities and what do you really have?  The nakedness of colleges and universities that is about anything but education.  College has become a collection of  commodified externalities surrounded by a central core of educational nothingness.  For this fall, the reality is, as recent decisions by Notre Dame and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill already show, on-campus learning is a huge public health risk.  Yet no college wants to say it is going completely on-line for fear that students will not attend or want price reductions.   Yet what will happen is that much of higher education will do a bait and switch–begin school in-person and once the tuition dollars are in switch back on-line.  This will be the short-term fix for the crisis of corporate universities, yet it does little to address decades of damage to the disappearing educational mission of higher education.
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UK Government Darwin Fellowship Award 2021

Application Deadline: 19th January 2021

 Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

 To Be Taken At (Country): UK

 About the Award: The Fellowship programme is intended to support Fellows to draw on UK technical and scientific expertise in the fields of biodiversity and sustainable development to broaden their knowledge and experience.

 Type: Fellowship

 Eligibility: Applications for Fellowship funding should come from an organisation (the Lead Organisation) and not an individual. There should be a named individual within the Lead Organisation responsible for the application, called the Project Leader. The host organisation where the individual will carry out the training or research must be in the UK.
The Lead Organisation:
  • must have expertise in natural resource management
  • can be either a public or private sector organisation
  • should provide experts from within the organisation with a proven track record and at the forefront of their discipline(s) to work closely with or supervise the Fellow. This expertise is typically expected to be a minimum of 10 years of relevant experience
Darwin Fellowships will support promising individuals who:
  • have a link with a recent or current Darwin Initiative project or
  • are currently involved directly in the implementation of the key biodiversity conventions and agreements listed above
Further information is available in the guidance.

 Number of Awards: Not specified

 Value of Award: Eligible costs (depending on the nature of the Fellowship) include a monthly subsistence, Lead organisation expenses, travel costs and fees for academic qualifications. Further information on Darwin Fellowship awards can be found in the Darwin Round 25 Guidance.

 How to Apply: 
Visit Programme Webpage for Details
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Ignore at your peril: Palestine ranks high in Arab public opinion

James M. Dorsey

Rare polling of public opinion in Saudi Arabia suggests that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may be more sensitive to domestic public opinion on foreign policy issues such as Palestine than he lets on. The polling also indicates that a substantial number of Saudis is empathetic to protest as a vehicle for political change.
The poll conducted on behalf of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy is likely to reinforce Prince Mohmmed’s resolve to crackdown on any form of criticism or dissent at a time that the kingdom is struggling with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and a steep fall in oil prices and demand.
The Washington Institute survey strokes with polling by others, including James Zogby, an Arab-American researcher and activist and author of The Tumultuous Decade: Arab Public Opinion and the Upheavals of 2010–2019.
Saudi reluctance to follow in the footsteps of the United Arab Emirates in recognizing the State of Israel suggests that autocratic Arab leaders, despite denying freedoms of expression and the media and cracking down on dissent, are at times swayed by public opinion. Polls are often one of the few arenas in which citizens can voice their views.
“I know that the Saudi government under MbS (Prince Mohammed) has put in a lot of effort to actually do its own public opinion polls… They pay attention to it… They are very well aware of which way the winds are blowing on the street. They take that pretty much to heart on what to do and what not to do… On some issues, they are going to make a kind of executive decision… On this one, we’re going to ignore it; on the other one we’re going to…try to curry favour with the public in some unexpected way,” said David Pollock, a Middle East scholar who oversees the Washington Institute’s polling.
Mr. Pollock’s most recent polling suggests that Palestine ranks second only to Iran among the Saudi public’s foreign policy concerns.
Mr. Zogby’s earlier 2018 polling showed Palestine as ranking as the foremost foreign policy issue followed by Iran in Emirati and Saudi public opinion. The same year’s Arab Opinion Index suggested that 80 percent of Saudis see Palestine as an Arab rather than a purely Palestinian issue.
Speaking in an interview, Mr. Pollock said that with regard to Palestine, Saudi officials “believe that they have to be a little cautious. They want to move bit by bit in the direction of normalizing at least the existence of Israel or the discussion of Israel, the possibility of peace, but they don’t think that the public is ready for the full embrace or anything like that.”
Much of the internal polling is conducted by the Riyadh-based King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue, initially established in 2003 to promote government policies in the wake of the 9/11 bombings and Al Qaeda attacks in the kingdom itself.
Mr. Pollock concluded in 2018 on the basis of three years of polling of Saudi public opinion that only 20 percent favoured open relations with Israel prior to resolution of the Palestinian issue.
Saudi Arabia last week said it would only formalize its relations with Israel once the 2002 Arab peace plan that calls for a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had been adopted by Israel.
The UAE said its move had been in part designed to prevent Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank, occupied during the 1967 Middle East war, that would have rendered the Arab peace plan irrelevant.
Mr. Zogby suggested that widespread doubt that an Israeli-Palestinian peace can be achieved may have softened public attitudes towards relations with Israel.
“This should not be overstated, however, since it appears from our survey that this shift may be born of frustration, weariness with Palestinians being victims of war, and the possibility that normalization might bring some benefits and could give Arabs leverage to press Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians,” Mr. Zogby cautioned.
Public responses in the Gulf to the formalization of the UAE-Israeli relationship have been divided, often more diverse in countries with a greater degree of freedom of expression and assembly.
Voices in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, countries with tightly controlled media and no legal political groupings, spoke out in favour of the UAE move.
Political groups, civil society organizations, trade unions and professional associations in Kuwait and Bahrain, many associated with the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement, were more critical.
A statement by more than half of the members of Kuwait’s parliament insisted that there could be no normalization without a resolution of the Palestinian problem.
Oman’s grand mufti, Ahmed bin Hamad al-Khalili, sought to dampen potential Omani aspirations of following in the UAE’s footsteps by declaring the liberation of occupied land “a sacred duty.”
The importance of public opinion in the Gulf was highlighted in the Saudi poll by responses to the notion that “it’s a good thing we aren’t having big street demonstrations here now the way they do in some other countries” – a reference to the past decade of popular revolts that have toppled leaders in among others Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Algeria and Sudan.
Opinion was split down the middle. 48 percent of respondents agreed, and 48 percent disagreed.
Saudis, like most Gulf Arabs, are likely less inclined to take grievances to the streets. Nonetheless, the poll indicates that they may prove to be more empathetic to protests should they occur.
“Arabs know what they want and what they do not want. They want their basic needs for jobs, education, and health care to be attended to, and they want good governance and protection of their personal rights. While they are focused on matters close to home, at the same time they continue to care deeply about the denial of legitimate rights and the suffering of other Arabs, whether in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, or Yemen,” Mr. Zogby said.
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Morality and Immorality in Contemporary Politics

Bhabani Shankar Nayak

In the world of ideology free zone of politics, the question ‘of morality and immorality in popular and mainstream political traditions’ is becoming irrelevant. The incompetent governments, helpless states, visionless leadership, directionless politics, weak judiciaries and compliant media organisations are the net output of amoral and illiberal politics.  The moral critique of political system does not yield any electoral dividends for radical politics within democratic system. The irrespective of ideological formations, the political system is designed in such a way that exploits people and stands with the capitalists, and upholds the interests of the propertied class through corrupt means. It looks as if there is a clear bifurcation between politics and morality in praxis. The moralistic cults based on hard work, honesty, sobriety, sexual propriety, thrift, nonviolence, truth, and other Gandhian, Ambedkarite, Marxist, Mandelian, and Martin Luther King’s shared and collective values in politics are becoming obsolete and considered to be liabilities in politics.
The deepening of moral crisis in politics is an extension of utilitarian values incorporated in the society during early industrial revolution and patronised during managerialist led market revolution during 20th and 21st century. The moral dumbfounding cultural effect in politics is further accelerated by the growth of fictitious online social, economic and cultural life in the age of information technology. It ensures mass melancholy of the obsolete and immoral self-serving politics of brutal capitalism, which hides behind democracy and individual freedom. It does not guide people and society towards peace, progress and prosperity due to its immoral political landscape. The immoral politics is based on illiberal ideas and practice, which divides the society and people on moral questions. In 2012, psychologist Jonathan Haidt has published his book “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Religion and Politics”. He has outlined moral foundations of politics based on ideals of care, fairness loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty. According to Jonathan Haidt, these moral qualities are intuitive and integral to human beings. But in reality, there are collective material foundations, which helps to develop these moral qualities in human beings. These qualities are products of everyday experiences of working classes in their work place and their interactions with fellow workers that ensures these moral qualities in working population.
What are the political alternatives before the working-class masses? How to ensure morality in politics?  The answers to these questions are complex but not difficult to answer.
It is time to bring back mass politics rooted in class, dedicated to class and led by working classes. The concept of class politics is no longer confined within organised industrial zones. The trade unions used to organise these workers in their work places. The trade unions and working-class people have played a major role in wage bargain movements in the workplace to anti colonial and anti-capitalist struggles. The working classes have played a major role in democratisation of society and in enlarging individual liberty and citizenship rights. The working-class morality in politics has shaped morality both in radical and mainstream politics. The work and the workplaces used to be the source of working-class consciousness, which shaped political movements, ideologies and leadership based on working class morality.
In the age of information technology driven economic system, there is disintegration of work and workplace. The working-class people and their work places are scattered all over the places from the bedrooms of garment workers to the bathrooms of information technology workers. The work has entered into every step of worker’s life and individualised work and working culture. The workers as citizens are alienated both from their work place and fellow workers, which helped to develop depoliticised consciousness and growth of anti-politics machine. The capitalism and its political systems treat individuals as orderly objects and not as citizens and human beings with rights and liberties. Such an economic, social, political and cultural transformation in work and workplace led to growth of professionalisation of technocratic politics shaped by the ruling and non-ruling classes to uphold their own interests. It promotes culture and politics of competitive immorality based on selfish-self-interests. The authoritarian megalomaniacs are controlling the state and government in defence of their capitalist masters.
Moreover, the separation of market from producers and consumers has helped for the growth of market led democracy, which diminished citizenship rights and trying to convert citizens into self-interested and self-satisfying customers only. The customer driven politics based on self-interests has dismantled the collective foundation of politics, state and governments. Citizens are disinterested clients of a democratic state and government, where the capitalist classes rule and promote immoral politics. The moral crisis in politics is framed as crisis of state, government, secularism, multiculturalism, socialism and democracy. Such analysis hides the failures and vulnerabilities of capitalism and its immoral political projects. It promotes capitalism as only alternative and there is no other alternative to authoritarian capitalist doctrine. The moral crisis in politics has huge detrimental impacts on working class needs and desires. The moral crisis in capitalist politics is an opportunity for working classes to revitalise their political project by mobilising different sections of working classes both in their organised and unorganised forms. The collective political movements of working classes based on working class morality can revive the revolutionary politics to save democracy and individual freedom.
The universal nature of working-class experiences produces shared universal political morality and promotes politics of solidarity, cooperation and fraternity. The working-class internationalism can defeat the immoral politics of neo-imperial wars and neo colonial economic system to establish world peace based on shared prosperity. The revival of working-class politics and working-class morality can defeat the immoral alliance of reactionary religious forces, conservative and right-wing politics and illiberal market economy. The emphasis on working class morality needs to evolve with secular and scientific ethos while directing addressing everyday life issues of people, animals and environment. The working-class morality can inspire people to organise themselves as a collective struggle for political, social, cultural and economic transformation in the society. The politics based on working-class morality can only achieve the politics of transformation based on egalitarian and secular values.
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USA’s Militarization of Latin America

Yanis Iqbal

Maj. Gen. Andrew Croft, the commander of 12th Air Force, wrote on 22 August: “I have seen an increasingly contested strategic space where Beijing and Moscow are aggressively investing time and resources in Latin America to support their authoritarian models of governance. The Air Force must reinforce the strength of our longstanding commitment to the Western Hemisphere. We lose ground when we are unable to commit to spending the time and resources to fly our aircraft south and train alongside our partners.”
Croft’s statement reflects the growing American hysteria against the presence of any extra-regional actors in the Latin American continent. For US policy-makers, Latin America is not an aggregation of sovereign nations but a large lump of subordinated states constituting “America’s backyard”. Consequently, this conceptualization of Latin America as a natural extension of the American empire has led to viewing the engagement of any South American country with China, Russia and Iran as a “threat” to peace and security.
On February 7, 2019, Admiral Craig S. Faller – the commander of the United States Southern Command – told the Congress that the Western Hemisphere is facing “a troubling array of challenges and threats”. These threats included alarmist assertions about the growing dominance of China, Russia and Iran and a general demonization of the socialist governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua: “China has accelerated expansion of its Belt and Road Initiative at a pace that may one day overshadow its expansion in Southeast Asia and Africa. Russia supports multiple information outlets spreading its false narrative of world events and U.S. intentions. Iran has deepened its anti-U.S. Spanish language media coverage and has exported its state support for terrorism into our hemisphere. Russia and China also support the autocratic regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, which are counter to democracy and U.S. interests. We are monitoring the latest events in Venezuela and look forward to welcoming that country back into the hemisphere’s community of democracies.”
In response to the perceived threats posed by the China-Russia-Iran nexus, the Secretary of Defense has decided to conduct an assessment of the sufficiency of resources available to the U.S. Southern Command, the U.S. Northern Command, the Department of State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to carry out their respective missions in the Western Hemisphere. This assessment is required to include “a list of investments, programs, or partnerships in the Western Hemisphere by China, Iran, Russia, or other adversarial groups or countries that threaten the national security of the United States.”
In addition to warlike preparations, USA has also pursued a policy of increased militarization wherein it has tried to ensure “technological superiority” with regard to “anti-US actors”. In March, 2020, USA decided to send additional ships, aircraft and forces to South America and Central America in order to combat the influence of Russia and China. According to Navy Adm. Craig Faller, commander of Southern Command, “This really was born out of a recognition of the threats in the region,”. Along with the mobilization of the Southern Command, USA has substantially enlarged its security aid to Latin America: From $527,706,000 in 2019, US security aid to Latin America has increased by 10% to $581,270,000.
Chinese Footprint
The present-day US militarization of Latin America is rhetorically driven by an imperialist discourse framing the continent as a possession of the American empire which China, Russia and Iran are trying to appropriate. To take an example, R. Evan Ellis, a Latin America Research Professor at the US Army War College, told before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission that China’s engagement with Latin America “threatens the position of the United States, our security and prosperity, and the democratic values, rights, institutions and laws on which we depend.” To substantiate his statements, Ellis enunciated various strategies through which China is undermining USA’s dominance:
  • “Trade with, loans to, investment in, and other forms of economic and other support to anti-US regimes, indirectly enabling their criminal activities and contributions to regional instability”.
  • “Through providing an alternative to commerce, loans and investment from the West, making governments of the region less inclined to support the US on political, commercial, or security issues, or to stand up for rule of law, democracy or human rights, particularly where it might offend the PRC;”
In both these points, one can observe the imperialistic high-handedness with which Ellis is declaiming his pro-US rhetoric. While Beijing’s efforts to engage with sovereign nations and construct an alternative to the global American empire are regarded as enabling “regional instability”, no questions are asked about USA’s expansionist quest to imperialize the entire world through militaristic tactics.
In order to vilify China and smear its non-aggressive foreign policy, hawkish security experts have framed the country’s diplomatic involvement with various Latin American nations as a type of authoritarian tactic. Using this line of reasoning, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) writes: “Beijing has now officially established its own version of soft power… which emanates from its undemocratic system and rests on its ability to shape the viewpoints of others through co-optation and persuasion.” Not having any empirical evidence to prove its unconvincing statements, NED talks vaguely about the “hypnotic effects” exercised by “Chinese-style warm welcome”: “The Chinese-style warm welcome, the carefully selected tours that include visits to sites with symbolic historical and cultural significance, and ad hoc friendly discourse delivered by the Chinese hosts can have hypnotic effects on their foreign guests.” This is an indication of the extent to which America hysteria against China can reach.
In the same way as NED, the Brookings Institution has also tried to slander China’s diplomatic initiatives in Latin America to preserve the coercive dominance of USA in the continent. As per the think tank, “it would be fair to assume that China’s growing economic power and ambitions of global leadership, coupled with its inherently closed and repressive model of political control, will hurt the region’s prospects for strengthening its liberal democratic systems and respect for human rights.” While saying this, the Brooking Institution conveniently forgets that it the US, with its Western-styled liberal democracy, that has hurt the region most in the form of coups, violence and overt brutality against social movements. Most recently, a US-backed coup in Bolivia has resulted in two massacres and massive repression of social movements.
The Iranian Connection
Like China, Iran, too, experiences American hostility towards its engagement with Latin American countries. Lieutenant Andrew Kramer of the U.S. Navy terms Iranian support for the “economically backward governments” of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela as efforts “to maintain pockets of instability and hostility close to U.S. borders.” Echoing this perspective, William Preston McLaughlin, a Colonel (Ret.) of U.S. Marine Corps and Magdalena Defort, an Intern Analyst at the Foundation of Defense of Democracies, argue that “Iran’s presence in Latin America is an imminent threat to peace and political stability in the Western Hemisphere because its forces interact with Latin America’s deeply rooted revolutionary ideology and various well-intentioned but flawed “liberation theology” social movements.” Here, both of the analysts are merely parroting the imperialist “Monroe Doctrine” that subverted the sovereignty of Latin American nations and tethered the people of the continent to the whims of the American empire. Through the Monroe Doctrine, USA relegated the entire Latin American continent to the status of the empire’s handmaiden and constantly used its military muscles to overpower any regional initiatives challenging the dynamics of subjugation. Now, when Iran is lending support to the anti-imperialist administrations of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, it has come under the radar of USA for ostensibly destroying peace and political stability in the Western Hemisphere. In August 2020, for instance, USA confiscated four Iranian fuel shipments that had been bound for Venezuela, making it clear that it would not tolerate anti-imperialist opposition in Latin America.
In addition to portraying Iran as a threat to global peace, both the analysts also used a shrill, scaremongering rhetoric to over-exaggerate the strength of the country. According to the analysts, “Iran has used every agency within its borders to help extend Iranian tentacles into the political, cultural, economic, and military life of Latin America.” This bears striking resemblance to the traditional war-mongering US narrative that frames Hezbollah as a menace to justify the militarizary raising funds, seeking recruits, probing for our weaknesses and challenging our defenses,”. Through these discourses, USA seeks to unleash a new war against the anti-imperialist axis of Latin America which is standing up to militaristic predatoriness of the global hegemon.
Russian Presence
Besides Iran and China, Russia is another nation perceived as a “threat” to US security. General John Kelly, commander of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) noted in his Congressional testimony, “it has been over three decades since we last saw this type of high-profile Russian presence” in Latin America. In his command’s 2015 Posture Statement, Kelly added: “Periodically since 2008, Russia has pursued an increased presence in Latin America through propaganda, military arms and equipment sales, counterdrug agreements, and trade. Under President Putin, however, we have seen a clear return to Cold War tactics. As part of its global strategy, Russia is using power projection in an attempt to erode U.S. leadership and challenge U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere.”
John Kelly’s representation of Russia as a military threat has been repeated by the Commander of US Southern Command, Admiral Kurt W. Tidd who said in his February 2018 Posture Statement to the US Senate Armed Services Committee that: “Russia’s increased role in our hemisphere is particularly concerning, given its intelligence and cyber capabilities, intent to upend international stability and order, and discredit democratic institutions…Left unchecked, Russian access and placement could eventually transition from a regional spoiler to a critical threat to the U.S. homeland.” With the help this narrative, USA has aggressively pushed forward the agenda of greater militarism in Latin America as it strives to maintain “technological superiority” in relation to Russia and expand its already large military expenditure.
On the top of depicting Russia as a military threat, US analysts have additionally portrayed the country’s support of socialist governments in Latin America as a danger to the economically empty liberal democracies of the West. According to IBI Consultants, a National Security consulting company specializing in Latin America, Russia’s growing presence in Latin America “is now an integral part of an alliance of state and nonstate actors that have shown their hostility toward the United States in their ideology, criminalized behavior, and anti-democratic nature.” Reiterating this point, on July 9, 2019, Admiral Faller declared before the Congress that “Russia seeks to sow disunity and distrust, propping up autocratic regimes in Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, which are counter to democracy and U.S. interests.” For Faller, those nations which don’t doggedly toe America’s imperialist line automatically become “threats” to democracy and if Russia shows solidarity with these anti-imperialist nations, it, too, classifies as a threat to US interests.
As USA continues to militarize Latin America, it is increasingly becoming clear that it wants to protect its old, imperial structures from being challenged by anyone. It has been explicitly acknowledged even by pro-US analysts such as Ellis that US military assistance in Latin America “potentially serves U.S. strategic interests by helping to inoculate receiving states against radical or anti-democratic [read “socialist”] solutions which find receptivity when populations lose faith in the ability of a democratic political system and a free market economy to effectively address the corruption, inequality, injustice, and other dysfunctionalities plaguing their country [Emphasis mine].” US military assistance, therefore, is not apolitical and is ideologically tarnished with the objectives of stabilizing free market economies-bourgeoisie democracies and subverting socialist countries.
The United States Intelligence Community’s assessment of threats to US national security had stated in 2019 that “anti-US autocrats [in the Western Hemisphere]will present continuing challenges to US interests, as US adversaries and strategic competitors seek greater influence in the region.” Here, “anti-US autocrats” refers to the socialist administrations of three Latin American countries: Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. These three countries have been facing strong US belligerence for their anti-imperialist stance. US sanctions against Cuba have tightened during the pandemic; USA’s hybrid war against Venezuela has intensified as Trump has decided to use frozen funds to topple Nicolas Maduro and USAID (United States Agency for International Development) has strengthened its regime change operations against the Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. Due to the support lent by China, Russia and Iran to the socialist governments of Latin America, USA has decided to eradicate these extra-regional actors from its “own” backyard and re-proclaim a complete American dominance in the region. In times like these, the international community needs to oppose the militarism of USA against new regional alliances in Latin America.
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People Who Are in Denial About Coronavirus

Eric Zuesse

There are basically two different policy-approaches to the coronavirus problem: One is the passive approach, waiting for ‘herd immunity’ to develop naturally. And the other is the active approach, in which the Government does take action — not just wait while the most-vulnerable individuals die off from the disease. The “herd immunity” approach is libertarian; it assumes that “let nature take its course” is always best; it is “laissez faire.” The “take action” approach is the exact opposite — very restrictive (including strong disincentives — “punishment” — for individuals’ misbehaviors that transmit the disease and endanger other people). This is the old debate between some form of anarchy on the one side, and some form of “socialism” (legally enforced governmental policies) on the other side.
The earliest popular ideological debate regarding coronavirus-policy was between advocates of Denmark’s socialistic approach, versus neighboring Sweden’s laissez-fair approach. EuroNews headlined on March 26th “Neighbours Denmark and Sweden miles apart on coronavirus confinement”, and reported that “when it comes to handling the coronavirus crisis, they are on very different trajectories,” which were Denmark’s socialism, versus Sweden’s libertarianism.
At that time, there was no clear indication, yet, as to which approach would win out. For example, on April 19th, Denmark had 1,275 Covid-19 cases per million, whereas Sweden had 1,424. So: per million inhabitants, they were about the same.
Even as late as 12 May 2020, three libertarian co-authors at the prestigious U.S. neoliberal and neoconservative Council on Foreign Relations’s journal Foreign Affairs headlined, confidently, that libertarianism would win out: “Sweden’s Coronavirus Strategy Will Soon Be the World’s: Herd Immunity Is the Only Realistic Option—the Question Is How to Get There Safely”.
But, by the time of June 29th, the data had become clear to the exact contrary, and so I headlined “‘Herd Immunity’ Is a Failed Response to Coronavirus”, and reported the subsequent increases in each of these two countries’ numbers.
DENMARK = 1,329 (up 4%)
SWEDEN = 1,517 (up 7%)
On May 10th:
DENMARK = 1,782 (up 34%)
SWEDEN = 2,567 (up 69%)
On June 17th:
DENMARK = 2,123 (up another 19%)
SWEDEN = 5,404 ( up another 111%)
And here it is as of June 28th:
DENMARK = 2,188 (up another 3%)
SWEDEN = 5,450 (up another 1%)
And, finally, on 22 August:
DENMARK = 2,783 (up another 27%)
SWEDEN = 8,515 (up another 56%)
Furthermore, one of the leading libertarian arguments against taking action has been that supposedly the economy will perform better if there are no coronavirus-restrictions placed by the Government. However, Sweden’s unemployment-rate has been hit at least as hard by coronavirus as Denmark’s has:
Denmark’s unemployment-rate was 4.1% in March, 5.4% in April, 5.6% in May, and 5.5% in June.
Sweden’s unemployment-rate was 7.1% in March, 8.2% in April, 9% in May, and 9.8% in June.
So, on that day, August 22nd, I sent to an influential libertarian website (not as influential as Foreign Affairs, but more populist — not funded by billionaires like the CFR is), which has come to specialize on coronavirus, the following article for them to consider, since it discredits their many libertarian articles about coronavirus:
and the response from them three hours later was:
I appreciate you’re willingness to engage on this topic, but your choice of source is poor. The logic is bad, and whole areas of policy are ignored.
Firstly, comparing Sweden only to Denmark and Norway is absurd. Sweden imposed no lockdown, yet fared far better than many countries which did so (Belgium, Netherlands, UK, Spain and Italy). This alone is a perfectly strong argument that lockdowns are totally ineffective for their stated aims.
Secondly, it at no point talks about deaths caused by lockdowns, which is a huge factor (accounting for nearly half the excess deaths in the UK). 
Thirdly, it mentions GDP but doesn’t discuss that the economy is MORE than that. A suffering economy is not about money or finance, it is about well-being for the working class. Good wages, affordable rent and the freedom to run your own small business. All of which have been destroyed by the lockdown policy, which Sweden shows was (at best) pointless.
I promptly replied:
None of the countries with good results have achieved them via an expectation of ‘herd immunity’. No country is anywhere near the 70%-infection-rate that produces herd-immunity. It’s a myth; it’s just a lie.
For example, though the imperialistic libertarian country United States warns travelers that the coronavirus risk is exceptionally high in Uganda (warning “Level 3,” which is their highest), Uganda is actually one of the world’s lowest coronavirus-risk countries, and they achieved it by stringent policies, which is exactly what you reject. Whereas U.S. now has 17,587 cases per million, Uganda has 47. The country that has a 374 times higher percentage of its population coronavirus-infected, warns its suckers to stay away from the country that has 1/374th of the risk.
Why is [your site] feeding into this deception of its readers, instead of exposing it to them? Have you switched to being pro-imperialistic (pro-neoconservative, which is a variety of neoliberal or “libertarian”)? All of a sudden, the neoliberal countries, such as U.S., Brazil, and India, which are or have been the world’s worst on coronavirus-performance, are the ones to emulate? Why? Or else: which countries ARE the ones to emulate on this? Say it. Prove it. The statistical data by now are certainly sufficient to do this. Why don’t you do it, instead of continue to deceive readers? Why do you deceive readers so that they would support, instead of condemn, the imperialistic U.S. Government’s alleging that Uganda is more coronavirus-dangerous than the U.S. itself is? It’s a lie, but how would your readers be able to know this?
I don’t get it. You seem stuck in your existing false beliefs. Please explain so that I will become able to understand. Right now, I don’t.
I received a reply that said I should “apologise” because “We have never expressed any support for the US or its Imperial policies in any way, shape or form,” and “the statistics speak for themselves — the virus is harmless to the vast majority of people, and in no way justifies any of the draconian or authoritarian laws being imposed opportunistically in many countries around the world (including the United States).” In other words: the U.S. under Trump isn’t being sufficiently laissez-faire about this matter. The evidence that I had cited was ignored, not discussed, by him.
Subsequently, I checked a few of the other nations that are among the best on coronavirus-performance. For example, there’s China. It has 59 coronavirus-19 cases per million population, and the U.S. has 298 times as many cases per million, but the U.S. Government rates China also in the highest-risk category, “Level 3,” for Americans to visit, on account of its supposedly higher-than-U.S. danger of becoming infected with that virus.
Then, there’s Vietnam, which the U.S. Government had tried to conquer but couldn’t. Vietnam has only 10 coronavirus cases per million inhabitants. America has 17,587 per million; so, obviously, that’s 1,759 times as many. Vietnam also is rated “Level 3” — the worst, most coronavirus-dangerous, category. The Government of Americans is warning Americans to avoid visiting Vietnam because it’s just too dangerous a coronavirus-risk for an American, whose country has 17,587 cases per million. Obviously, no intelligent person trusts a government such as this. (No more than such a person would trust the Government that had promised it was certain that WMD existed in Iraq in 2002, or that Syria had gassed people on 7 April 2018, or that the overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected President in 2014 was a ‘democratic revolution’ instead of a U.S. coup — or on, and on, such as about “Russiagate”.)
Then, there’s Myanmar, which has only 8 cases per million inhabitants — 1 divided by 2,198 times as many cases-per-million as the U.S. does — and the U.S. Government refuses even to call that nation “Myanmar,” but instead calls it by what the British did when they had it as a colony, which is “Burma,” and the U.S. regime’s travel-advisory rating of “Burma,” for ‘Burma’s would-be now U.S. imperial masters, is likewise exactly the same as they rate Uganda: “Warning — Level 3”. The U.S. regime is telling its citizens that a country which is 2,198 times safer on the coronavirus danger than the U.S. itself is, is instead too unsafe on coronavirus for Americans to travel to. They care so much about the safety of their own citizens, as to warn them against visiting a country that’s thousands of times safer. How sincere is that? But some people still respect the lie, and the liars (serial-liars), as if they weren’t.
Perhaps people who are in denial about coronavirus are simply in denial about reality — the broader, global, reality.
On coronavirus-19 — this pandemic — the best data regarding the international reality is this, which is the constantly up-to-date listings of all countries and their respective numbers. To see the rankings there of all countries on the crucial outcome-variable of “Tot Cases/1M pop” just click onto that column’s heading and countries will be ranked that way. Same for the other crucial outcome-variable “Deaths/1M pop,” and for the far less-crucial process-variables (such as “Tests/1M pop”). Two successive clicks onto the given column-heading will reverse the ordering of the countries regarding that variable. You’ll be seeing there the existing rankings, as of that given moment. To see the trends within any given country, just click onto the name of that country, and then scroll down to the charts “Daily New Cases” and “Daily New Deaths” (tracking both of the crucial outcome-variables)
However, people who are in denial about coronavirus-reality avoid those numbers like the plague. Perhaps they do that because, to their libertarian ideology, these numbers are “the plague.”
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