Amid mounting social discontent, Pakistan’s opposition parties to step up campaign for new elections

Sampath Perera

With Pakistan in the throes of mounting social, economic and geopolitical crises, Prime Minister Imran Khan and his right-wing populist Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) government are being pressured by a ten-party opposition alliance to step down and call fresh elections. An ultimatum on January 31 for the government to step down passed with no response. The opposition alliance subsequently announced that it would expand its campaign. Previous attempts by the government to stop opposition rallies by declaring them illegal have failed.

Formed last October, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) is led by the dynastic Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N). These longstanding parties of the Pakistani bourgeoisie have been widely discredited by their implementation for the past three decades of International Monetary Fund-dictated pro-market “reforms,” and their support for Washington’s neo-colonial Afghan war and the seven decades-old partnership between the Pakistani military and the Pentagon.

Police officers in riot gear stand guard outside the head office of Election Commission of Pakistan on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

Both parties are now posturing as strong opponents of the right-wing policies of the Khan government. Almost as soon as he assumed office in August 2018, Khan unceremoniously dropped his election campaign rhetoric about building an “Islamic welfare state” in favor of further pro-market reforms demanded by the IMF.

The PDM claims the PTI government is illegitimate because the military rigged the 2018 election to ensure a PTI victory and Khan’s assuming office. At the time, both the PPP and PML-N rejected the election results, but they soon reconciled themselves to sitting on the parliamentary opposition benches. While there was acknowledgment that the military—which has repeatedly staged coups and effectively controls the country’s foreign and national security policies—pulled strings behind the scenes on the PTI’s behalf, there was little to no popular support for the corrupt PML-N and PPP’s challenge to the election outcome.

However, amid rising popular dissatisfaction with the PTI government due to the skyrocketing cost of living, its privatization measures, destruction of jobs, and the paltry support it provided during an inadequate and ill-prepared COVID-19 lockdown, the PDM has been able to gain some popular traction.

From December 2019 to March 2020, prices were rising at a double-digit annual rate, peaking at 14.6 per cent in January. Since then, inflation has hovered between 8 and 10 per cent, making it increasingly difficult for many to put food on the table.

At the IMF’s urging and in the name of reducing the budget deficit, Khan imposed a wage freeze on all government sector workers as part of the budget for the 2020-21 financial year. At the same time the government increased the defense budget by 12 per cent, and to 18 percent of all state expenditure.

In November, Pakistan Steel Mills laid off 4,544 workers as part of the Khan government’s privatization drive. The government’s pledge to the IMF that it will sell off a long list of state-run enterprises has provoked widespread opposition. These include protests this year by Water & Power Development Authority workers against the privatization of the state-run utility and its power distribution entities. Health care workers have also continued to voice their opposition to the government’s plans to privatize the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, the top hospital in Islamabad.

The impact of these economic policies is especially devastating for young workers. In running for office, the PTI not only postured as an alternative to the corrupt parties of Islamabad. It promised it would significantly expand youth employment opportunities.

The Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

Popular anger towards the government has been exacerbated by the ever-worsening socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic domestically and globally.

The official figures show Pakistan with relatively low numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths, 555,000 and 11,830 respectively. However, given Pakistan’s ramshackle health care system and teeming slums, and the widespread prevalence of hunger and disease, these figures undoubtedly understate the pandemic’s true impact.

The government responded to the pandemic with callous indifference towards the poor. Apart from a face-saving measure of four monthly payments of 12,000 rupees (about US$74.50) to 12 million low-income earners, nothing has been done to assist the estimated 20.6 million workers who have lost their jobs since April. Khan refused to implement comprehensive lockdown measures to prevent the spread of the virus, because “people would die of hunger.”

Undermining the government’s claim to be overseeing an economic and jobs recovery, official figures indicate that poverty has increased by 10 million since the onset of the pandemic, meaning that 60 million Pakistanis now live in poverty.

Other data shows that poverty was in fact much more widespread in the country prior to the pandemic than the government cares to admit. Hafiz A. Pasha, an internationally recognized economist and former minister in past PML-N and PPP governments, told the Express Tribune in December 2019 that the PTI government was implementing “probably the toughest” IMF program in the country’s history and that this would result in the pauperization of some 20 million people. Pasha projected that the number of people in poverty would increase from 69 million in June 2018 to 87 million by June 2020.

Despite the health emergency and the severe economic crisis caused by the pandemic, the government has continued to push through IMF-dictated anti-worker policies, whilst removing the limited lockdown measures instituted in the spring. Its main aim has been to meet the IMF targets and obtain a resumption of payments from a suspended $6 billion loan.

In addition to hypocritically posing as opponents of the PTI’s ruinous economic policies, the PML-N and PPP leaders have made limited criticisms of the military and intelligence apparatus for routinely violating democratic rights.

The support the Pashtun Tahaffuz [Protection] Movement (PTM) has given the PDM helps the PPP and PML-N leaderships deflect attention away from their own complicity in the military’s crimes. Formed in 2018 to demand the military be held to account for abuses against the Pashtun population and especially the enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and wholesale violations of human rights it carried out in the Northwest region formerly known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the PTM attracted widespread popular support.

Although the PTM limited its demands for “justice” only to crimes against Pashtuns, its agitation struck a chord among millions of other Pakistanis who have suffered at the hands of the military—whether in Karachi, occupied since 2013 on the pretext of fighting “crime” and “terrorism,” or Balochistan, where the military is brutally suppressing a Baloch ethno-separatist insurgency.

Pakistan’s venal ruling elite, including governments led and supported by the PPP and PML-N, prosecuted war in the FATA region as part of its reactionary partnership with US imperialism. Washington, for its part, terrorized the region with industrial-scale killings by Predator drones.

The criminal role of Washington and the reactionary Pentagon-Rawalpindi axis, however, do not trouble the PTM. By joining the servile local agents of US imperialism in the Islamabad elite to form the PDM, and continuing to support it despite formally withdrawing from the alliance, the PTM has doubly demonstrated its own right-wing, pro-imperialist character.

Neither the PPP or PML-N, nor the PDM as a whole, represent a path forward for the workers and toilers of Pakistan against the destruction of their livelihoods and the gutting of democratic rights. Led by tried and tested elements of the ruling elite, the PDM merely intends to exploit mass dissatisfaction towards the Khan government for reactionary ends in the bitter factional feud unfolding in Islamabad. The anti-democratic character of this alliance is symbolized by its president, Maulana Fazalur Rehman of the Islamist fundamentalist Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F). A fixture of the political establishment, Rehman for many years connived with the US-backed dictator General Pervez Musharraf.

This “unlikely coalition,” as some commentators have described it, has lasted longer than many initially expected. The PDM’s continued ability to challenge the government reflects growing resentments within powerful sections of Islamabad’s elite, which perceives the Khan government’s policies as damaging to its interests.

Geopolitical crisis fuels factional disputes within the ruling class

With the backing of top military leaders, Khan has attempted to sideline the PTI’s principal political opponents through corruption cases. However, powerful sections of the ruling elite, including elements within the military, apparently believe that this campaign has gone too far. Almost every significant leader of the opposition is facing corruption charges from the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), an agency with wide-ranging powers established in 1999 by Musharraf to intimidate or jail those opposed to his coup regime.

The military has directly ruled Pakistan for almost half of its existence as an independent state. While Musharraf was forced from power in 2008, the military has remained very much the power behind the throne, including maintaining its own relations with Washington and fiercely rebuffing civilian attempts to assert control over foreign and security policy. Under the Khan government, it has significantly increased its economic role, exacerbating factional tensions in Islamabad. Khan has appointed serving or retired military generals to key economic, industrial and policymaking positions.

Over the past decade-and-a-half Islamabad’s relations with Washington have become increasingly fraught because the latter has anointed its arch-rival, India, as its principal South Asian ally and made it a pivot of its anti-China strategic offensive. Islamabad and Beijing have responded by strengthening their longstanding partnership, with China making a point of privileging its ties with the Pakistani military. An expression of this is Beijing’s favoring of the military over civilian authorities to economically and strategically supervise the building of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). A factor in Beijing’s calculations was undoubtedly Khan’s commitment to Washington, later reversed to, “review” the CPEC projects.

The CPEC includes large-scale infrastructure projects with investments exceeding $US 60 billion. Generous kickbacks attached to large development projects certainly play a major role in the dogfight within the political establishment. It is likely that the generals are devouring the lion’s share. These tensions are significantly exacerbated by the country’s severe economic crisis amid ongoing global economic turbulence.

Foreign direct investment in the country remains abysmally low, while exports are virtually stagnant. The economy is essentially functioning on borrowed money. Under the Khan government, the public debt has increased as a ratio to gross domestic product from 72.5 per cent to 87 per cent. Repayments for foreign borrowings alone have increased to $10.4 billion this year.

The IMF is demanding politically explosive measures, including a further raising of electricity tariffs and higher tax collection targets. Apart from the government’s need to secure the resumption of its $6 billion IMF loan, the IMF’s approval of its economic policy is essential for Islamabad to borrow from other international banks and raise money by issuing bonds. The demand from Saudi Arabia for the early repayment of a loan of $3 billion, of which $1 billion remains outstanding after December and January payments, put significant pressure on Pakistan’s dwindling foreign reserves.

Islamabad is also being rattled by the continuing crisis in its relations with Washington. During the Cold War, Pakistan was Washington’s principal South Asian ally. Nothing could more clearly demonstrate the extent of Islamabad’s geopolitical crisis in recent years than Washington’s public endorsement of India’s 2016 and 2019 “surgical strike” attacks deep inside Pakistan’s territory, under the pretext of “self-defense.” On both occasions, New Delhi’s aggressive actions brought the two countries to the precipice of an all-out war.

Washington has secured its alliance with India by providing New Delhi access to civilian nuclear technology and advanced US weaponry, and expanding cooperation between the two countries’ militaries. In doing so, Washington has ignored repeated warnings from Islamabad that it is dangerously disrupting the “balance of power” in the region.

A further geopolitical setback for Islamabad came when the imperialist and great powers, China excepted, spurned its pleas that they oppose New Delhi’s illegal stripping of the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region of its semi-autonomous constitutional status. This reactionary power play was followed by a brutal security crackdown in Indian-held Kashmir that continues to this day.

Counting on Beijing’s own fears of the growing Indo-US alliance, Islamabad is desperately relying on Beijing to push back against India’s belligerence. This intertwining of the India-Pakistan rivalry with the conflict between US imperialism and China is further destabilizing the entire region, and increasing the threat of a catastrophic war fought with nuclear weapons.

Biden’s assumption of the reins of power in Washington has revived hopes among sections of Pakistan’s ruling elite that relations with the US can be patched up. These sections believe they can get back in Washington’s good graces by helping shepherd the Taliban into striking a deal with the US-installed government in Kabul along the lines demanded by Washington.

However, the Biden administration has made it abundantly clear that it intends to strengthen the Indo-US “global strategic partnership,” as part of a further ratcheting up of US imperialism’s drive to thwart China’s emergence as a “strategic competitor.” Any attempt by Islamabad to maneuver with Washington will therefore immediately come up against US demands that it should curtail China’s growing influence in the country. That would include, above all, revisiting the CPEC projects opposed by both Washington and India.

US foreign policy specialists have indicated the Biden administration also plans to pressure Islamabad to endorse Washington’s highly provocative and dangerous campaign against Beijing over of its treatment of the Muslim Uyghur minority in China’s strategically situated Xinjiang province. Anthony Blinken, the incoming US Secretary of State, has expressed his support for the grotesque accusation labelled by his predecessor, the Trump acolyte Mike Pompeo, that China is perpetrating a “genocide” against the Uyghurs.

Ontario government risking lives of educators and students by reopening schools

Omar Ali

Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce announced Wednesday that the hard-right Ford government is intensifying its homicidal drive to reopen all of the province’s schools. By mid-February, students will even return to in-person classes in Toronto and the neighbouring Peel and York Regions. The Greater Toronto area has been hit especially hard by COVID-19 due to large workplace outbreaks and cramped living conditions.

Lecce’s announcement was the culmination of a dishonest propaganda campaign designed to convince parents and students that schools are safe.

Albert Campbell High School (Photo: Toronto District School Board)

Well aware of the widespread opposition to cramming pupils from dozens of households into small, poorly-ventilated rooms on a daily basis, the Ford government delayed school reopenings after the Christmas break.

To divide teachers and parents and feign that it was adhering to a science-based policy, the government reopened educational institutions regionally, beginning in sparsely-populated northern Ontario on January 11. Between January 25 and February 1, more than 250,000 students returned to the classroom in various parts of southern Ontario. Thirteen districts, including Hamilton and Windsor, are now set to follow on Monday, before Toronto, Peel, and York join them on February 16.

The most cynical aspect of the back-to-school drive is the government’s attempt to claim that it is being driven by concerns about children’s well-being. Education Minister Lecce said in a statement last week, “[The] government agrees with the growing consensus in the medical community that returning students to in-person learning is essential to the well-being, development and mental health of children.”

This is a lie. The reality is that the government “agrees” with big business that students must return to school so that their parents can be freed up from childcare responsibilities in order to go back to work churning out profits for the capitalists. This was more or less spelled out by the chief medical officer in Renfrew County in eastern Ontario, Dr. Robert Cushman, when the local school district reopened last month, “These kids need to go back to school,” said Cushman. “They need it for their education, they need it for their mental health, their social lives. And not only that, the parents of so many students are working parents so this is a driver of the economy.”

Thousands of teachers, parents and students across the province are well aware of the fact that they are being sacrificed on the altar of corporate profit. They are troubled by the dangerous conditions they will confront in schools, as shown by last week’s walkout by special education assistants at Beverley Public School in Toronto. But the opposition to school reopenings has been smothered by the education trade unions, which have opposed worker job action as “illegal” and instructed school staff to put their faith in the pro-employer Ontario Labour Relations Board to ensure safe working conditions. Accepting the right-wing propaganda that “we must learn to live with the virus,” they are now urging the government to accept their proposals for reduced class sizes and other minimal safety measures so it never has to close schools again!

The Ford government gained ideological fodder for its push to resume in-person learning in a report from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto (also known as SickKids Hospital), released in mid-January. SickKids has been advising the provincial government on children and COVID-19 throughout the pandemic.

Dr. Ronald Cohn, a contributor to the report and the CEO of SickKids, summed up the report’s outlook, noting, “It is our strong opinion that schools should be the last doors to close and the first to open in society.”

Central to the report’s argument is the adverse effects of social distancing on the health of children, particularly young children. “It is critical to balance the risk of direct infection and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) in children and youth, school staff and the community with the harms of school closure, which is impacting children and youth’s physical health, developmental health, mental health and learning,” states the report.

The authors claimed it is possible to reopen schools with “enhanced infection prevention and control strategies and a robust testing strategy.” However, this “enhanced” strategy does not even include mass testing for asymptomatic students, a critical measure given that the vast majority of infections among children are asymptomatic.

The study also called for teachers and support staff to be prioritized for vaccination.

The report accepts the continued spread of the virus in schools as a given, writing, “It is anticipated that we will continue to detect cases of symptomatic and asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection in schools and it is important that public health authorities and schools be prepared to respond to cases involving both students and staff.” Astonishingly, the report observed that even if positive cases were detected at a school, this should not be considered reason enough to close it.

Much of the report is a rehash of earlier recommendations given to Queen’s Park as the new school year approached in late summer, and many of which the government chose to ignore. However today, the nationwide seven-day average of cases is approximately ten times greater than it was then. The government has not marshalled nearly enough resources to establish an adequate testing and tracing system that could reasonably allow for the reopening of schools even in a scenario where community transmission was under control.

The same week the SickKids report was published the Pediatricians Alliance of Ontario released its own report calling for the reopening of schools as soon as possible. The doctors cited the increase in “suicidal attempts, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, overdoses, eating disorders” and other maladies among their patients during the course of the pandemic.

The shedding of crocodile tears by the ruling elite over the health and social impact of the pandemic on children and families should fool no one. It does not appear to have occurred to any of these medical experts that the mental health crisis and related social problems are the product of decades of savage cuts to public spending and social services by the very same political parties who now pose as protectors of the well-being of “our kids.” The social, educational and health disaster created by these policies has been exacerbated over the first year of the pandemic by the funneling of hundreds of billions of dollars into the coffers of the major banks, big business and top 1 percent, while families and the public services they rely on have been starved of resources.

Despite the claims that the topic of school reopenings remains controversial, scientific studies have clearly established that children play a critical role in community transmission of COVID-19. A study of Montreal area schools found that the increase in general community rates of infection during the fall were preceded by a growth in infections among students. “Our analysis suggests we can expect a further increase in COVID-19 cases once schools are reopened in person,” the authors wrote. Notably, they argued that school reopenings could negate other policies aimed at restricting spread and “could therefore accelerate the exceeding of hospital capacities.”

Moreover, the spread of new variants of the novel coronavirus renders some recommendations made by SickKids even less effective than they once were. For example, at this point there is a large question mark over whether non-medical masks are at all effective against the British B.1.1.7 variant of the virus, which is more transmissible.

At the same time, the federal Liberal and Ontario governments have badly bungled the vaccination program, making the SickKids report’s appeal to inoculate educators akin to pushing on a string. Delays in the production and distribution of the Pfizer vaccine resulted in no new doses being delivered last week. Less than 300,000 doses have been administered so far in a province of nearly 15 million residents.

In truth, the provincial government has consistently ignored its own inadequate measures on schools during the pandemic. An investigation by the Toronto Star published on January 21 uncovered internal documents dating to last summer from Lecce’s office that showed how the government quickly abandoned its initial plans for controlling the spread of the virus. The planned widespread surveillance testing of students was dramatically downsized; the proposal to test all teachers—initially floated by Ford—was quickly abandoned; and the government refused to cap the sizes of classes at 15, or indeed impose any class-size reductions.

Predictably, the news media has marched in lockstep with the Ford government. The Liberal-aligned Toronto Star, a strong supporter of the McGuinty-Wynne Liberal governments which gutted education budgets and attacked teachers’ working conditions during their 16 years in power between 2003 and 2018, published an editorial entitled “Let’s not fail our children, it’s time to open their schools.” Cynically using the fact that the Ford government has allowed wide swathes of the economy to remain open throughout the pandemic, the Star demanded that it do the same for schools. “Toy-making factories are open while our children rot in front of their Zoom school,” it complained.

The effects of the pandemic and social distancing on childhood development and mental health are real and considerable. However, they will only be worsened by a full reopening of schools, which will result in skyrocketing infections among children and young people, who will carry the deadly virus home to their parents and other vulnerable family members.

The only way to protect child welfare and development during the pandemic is to provide billions of dollars in resources to guarantee high-quality online learning for all and full wages to parents who must remain home to look after their kids. The resources for such policies must be expropriated from the super-rich, who are wealthier than ever after a year of mass death and misery.

UK universities step up jobs cull in collaboration with the trade unions

Henry Lee

As the COVID-19 pandemic worsened last March, the University and College Union (UCU) fell in line behind the government and employers’ insistence that “we are all in it together”.

Its negotiators in the pensions and pay dispute, the largest UK university strike in history, put an offer on the table which they admitted “fall[s] short of our original demands” and pledged, “[w]e won’t escalate our disputes during the pandemic—but we won’t abandon them either”.

Manchester University staff and students protest at the Oxford Road campus during last year's national pensions and pay strike

This spirit of generosity was not shared by the universities, who announced plans to make compulsory redundancies, or opened “voluntary” redundancy schemes with the blessing of the UCU, citing projections that income from the inflated fees paid by international students would fall due to deferred or declined offers.

This expected fall failed to materialise, with UCAS figures released in September revealing that the number of students from outside the UK and EU starting a course in 2020 increased 9 percent on the previous year. However, between March and September, over 3,000 university staff were made redundant, according to information obtained by Edvoy.

Even without the excuse of a fall in student numbers, university management continue to use the room to manoeuvre provided by the UCU to force through job losses and restructuring plans, in some cases after previous attempts had failed due to staff and student opposition. These major attacks mirror the mass job losses in the higher education sector which followed the 2008 financial crash, and the response of the UCU has been identical. It is happy for jobs to be lost, as long as it can contain the anger of workers by “negotiating” slightly improved terms and maintaining its position at management’s side.

Last November, the WSWS reported on the hundreds of redundancies being planned at the universities across the UK. The response of the UCU to the attack on jobs, and the continued reopening of campuses during the pandemic, with many university staff classified as “critical workers”, has been to isolate each dispute and oppose calls for unified national action.

The pattern for the UCU’s betrayals was the dispute at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, which was called off on the basis of a management commitment to make no compulsory redundancies. This was hailed by UCU Scotland President and Socialist Workers Party member Carlo Morelli as a “magnificent victory”—even as the Socialist Worker admitted “many workers at the university have come forward to take voluntary redundancy”.

At the University of East London (UEL), where 441 staff have been notified they may be made redundant, 92 staff have already been affected by the restructuring, according to the Guardian. The majority of these are “voluntary”.

After receiving a mandate from members in December to strike, the UCU responded merely by calling on them to work to contract. The chair and vice-chair of the UEL branch of UCU are among the compulsory redundancies, but while the UCU has described this as victimisation it refused to call a stoppage in response.

Goldsmiths University of London has brought forward a new restructuring plan, attempting to cut £6 million from its budget, after an earlier one was defeated by student and staff opposition last year. Goldsmiths UCU branch responded by calling for members to work to contract and boycott the assessment of coursework, demanding the university commit to “no compulsory redundancies for the next 2 years”.

University management responded to this assessment boycott by threatening to deny furlough requests from anyone taking part. Against this attempt to victimise those participating in industrial action, the UCU has not escalated their response, but instead launched a petition on the basis that the university’s victimisation “discriminates against women trade unionists particularly”.

That the UCU has made such pathetic token gestures to defend its own members against victimisation and intimidation by university management demonstrates that it does not intend to wage a serious struggle against job cuts. In every dispute, the UCU reveals its character as a tool of the universities in managing and containing workers’ anger, while imposing the cuts demanded.

A motion put to the members of the UCU branch at Senate House University of London is explicit about the attitude of the union towards redundancies: “The current VR [voluntary redundancies] offering is not the best the University can afford, and offering more favourable terms would, likely, avoid the need for compulsory redundancies through change management processes.” That is, the UCU will wage no struggle against job cuts, as long as the university provides them with slightly better redundancy terms with which they hope to placate their membership.

In response to the plan for 200 job losses announced by Bangor University in October, the only response of the UCU has been to work out, together with the other two university trade unions, UNISON and Unite, an “amazing counterproposal” of “collective pay sacrifice”. This would be in return for a commitment to make no compulsory redundancies and to give the unions seats on the University Council. If this further integration into management is granted, the unions will use their position to impose yet more pay cuts and “voluntary” redundancies.

The University of Leicester has told 145 staff they may be made redundant and announced plans to “disinvest” in certain areas to focus on the “areas of excellence” which bring in more income—on the basis of a report from external private consultants which has not been published. The plans to make research staff redundant in the Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour and to completely eliminate research in pure mathematics were condemned by the UCU, which pointed out that the university had put itself in a dire financial condition prior to the pandemic, having spent large amounts of money on capital investments and become reliant on private finance. The UCU did nothing to oppose the 162 redundancies made by the university during the first wave of the pandemic.

Many of the redundancies planned nationally target areas of research which are vital to help combat the pandemic. The University of Liverpool has announced 47 redundancies in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, and the University of Leeds is seeking voluntary redundancies in both the School of Medicine and the Faculty of Biological Sciences.

The University of Dundee has announced restructuring plans in which it will merge several schools, cutting the equivalent of 34 full-time jobs. The UCU branch announced that if the university does not commit by February 5 to making no compulsory redundancies, they will organise a strike ballot.

Liverpool UCU members have voted to commit the branch to balloting for a strike, and the Leeds branch has “entered into dispute” with the university.

Given that the national UCU policy is to launch a “consultative” online ballot before any actual strike ballot, and that the declaring of a “dispute” inevitably leads to months of negotiations with management, many staff members will leave their jobs before any action is taken.

Events at the University of Brighton illustrate how the unions limit and isolate any industrial action even when their members do force a strike. The university announced a plan to centralise its IT service and notified 49 staff that they may be made redundant, with UNISON estimating 6-15 jobs will be lost. To oppose these changes, which will harm the IT provision in every department, the UCU called on all members to work to contract and arranged a mere five days of strikes in December. When the university did not respond, the UCU called five more for February.

The Brighton branch of UNISON voted overwhelmingly to join the strike in a consultative ballot, but the national union blocked the organisation of the follow-up statutory ballot.

Solent University in Southampton announced in November plans to cut 109 jobs, and said it would send dismissal letters before Christmas. The UCU’s use of a consultative ballot delayed any possible action until long after this point, with the postal ballot which gave a mandate for strike action closing January 20.

The UCU Left faction, under the influence of the Socialist Workers Party, works to provide the union with a “left” cover, advancing ever milder criticisms of every betrayal and spreading the illusion that the leadership can be pushed to the left.

When the UCU committed last March not to escalate strike action in the face of escalating dangers for workers, the UCU Left blamed the members for this betrayal, writing “In these circumstances [of the pandemic], it is perhaps not surprising that many UCU members have put their feelings of anger about the direction of higher education on hold. There seem to be more important things to worry about in the short-term than pension contribution rates and pay inequalities.”

To give the illusion of united national action, even while branches were being practically isolated, the pseudo-left within the union bureaucracy set up the “UCU Solidarity Movement”, which has mostly organised online rallies and solicited donations to strike funds, while hailing every dispute as a sign of the UCU’s ability to fight. This continued even after the union bureaucracy charged a £10 levy to around 100,000 of its members to keep afloat a Fighting Fund to “support … members who take strike action and face salary deductions from their employers.” This is despite the fact that the bureaucracy already coins in around £22 million in the dues income it receives annually.

Austria: Green Party continues deportation policy of the far-right Freedom Party

Markus Salzmann

The brutal deportation of three Austrian-born minors last week clearly shows that the parties involved in the Austrian coalition government—including, above all the Greens—have fully adopted the policies of the far-right Freedom Party.

Last Thursday, a group of people, including three minors, were taken from a deportation centre in Vienna-Simmering and flown to Georgia and Armenia. Around 160 people protested against the deportations.

Police drag away a protester (video clip)

The deportation of women and children was carried out with precision and extreme brutality by a large contingent of police. According to several observers at the scene, special police units were present wearing masks and accompanied by police dogs. Witnesses compared the police action to an “anti-terrorist operation.” According to several participants in the protests, the security forces made fun of their victims, making clearly audible, derogatory remarks aimed at provoking resistance.

When sit-ins were organised in front of the deportation centre to prevent the group from being forced to travel to the airport, police brutally attacked the peaceful protesters. According to a report in the German weekly Der Freitag, shortly before 5 a.m. police declared that “this assembly had assumed a character threatening public order” and would be dispersed.

Shortly afterwards, according to the report, “everything happened very quickly. Someone shouted an incomprehensible command. then there were kicks, blows and screams. The police forcefully dragged people away, along the asphalt. Individual policemen beat peaceful demonstrators who fell to the ground or were only just caught from hitting the ground by bystanders. Some young people fought back, but only briefly.” Then the vehicles left for the airport.

The deportations have been sharply criticised and on the same day, around 1,000 people gathered in the centre of Vienna to demonstrate against this inhumane policy.

Among those grabbed for deportation were two girls, Tina (12) and Lea (5), as well as their mother. They were flown to Georgia, their mother’s home country. Both children were born and raised in Austria. Numerous classmates, teachers and friends campaigned for the family to be able to stay in Vienna. Just one day before the deportations, several classmates came to the deportation prison to say goodbye to Tina through barred windows. Many expressed their bewilderment, anger and sadness in interviews.

The family lacks any prospects for the future in Georgia—a country which is completely foreign to the children. The former Soviet republic, ruled by rival cliques of oligarchs, is plagued by disastrous political, economic and social conditions. Although the Georgian authorities regularly and brutally suppress all forms of opposition, the country was classified as a “safe country of origin” by Austria in 2016.

Half of all workers are employed in agriculture, working largely under precarious conditions. Unemployment and poverty are rampant, and the coronavirus pandemic has merely exacerbated the situation. According to the World Bank, Georgia’s gross domestic product fell by about 6 percent last year and according to official figures, the coronavirus has claimed more than 3,000 lives in the country.

The situation is even worse in Armenia, where another child was deported. The Austrian Foreign Ministry has currently issued a level 6 travel warning for the country. Even after the end of recent hostilities with neighbouring Azerbaijan, the situation remains highly unstable. Tens of thousands who fled the contested areas have still not returned, and the war has further aggravated an already dire social and economic situation. The pandemic rages unchecked, and in January, hundreds of sick people could no longer be treated in the country’s clinics.

Undeterred, the governing coalition in Austria of the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) and the Greens justified the deportations. The notoriously right-wing interior minister, Karl Nehammer (ÖVP), blamed the family for the deportation, brazenly declaring it was a case of “asylum abuse.”

As they have done many times before, the Greens tried to hide their involvement in right-wing government policies with a few crocodile tears. Green Federal President Alexander van der Bellen declared in a video on Twitter: “I cannot and will not believe that we live in a country where this is really necessary in this form.” Other Greens, such as Vice-Chancellor Werner Kogler, also joined the chorus of hypocrisy, declaring that the deportation had been “inhumane.”

This posturing, however, cannot hide the fact that the Greens have taken over the role of the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), which quit the government in 2019. From the start of their period in government, the ÖVP and the Greens agreed to continue the right-wing programme of the FPÖ with regard to immigration and asylum policy. Like other ÖVP ministers, Nehammer explicitly emphasised at the beginning of the coalition that he would not change course.

At the same time, Kogler has left no doubt that he plans to continue the coalition despite the deportations. In the past, the existing asylum laws had been passed without his party’s consent, the vice-chancellor said. Other parliamentary majorities would be needed to change the laws.

The Green minister of health, Rudolf Anschober, argued in similar fashion. In an interview with Puls 24, he said, “My God, we are in government so we can contribute to making things better. That succeeds on many days, on some days unfortunately not.”

In 2020, the ÖVP and the Greens gave their consent to around 900 deportations. The fact that fewer people were deported in 2020 than in previous years was only due to the pandemic. Apparently, however, the ÖVP and the Greens want to increase the number of deportations again this year, as the opposition FPÖ recently demanded. Last year, the Greens, together with the ÖVP and FPÖ, voted against accepting refugees from the Greek refugee camp Moria.

The transparent attempt by Austrian Socialist Party (SPÖ) leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner to make political capital out of the deportations is doomed to fail. “As a mother, I am stunned that well-integrated children are torn away and deported to a foreign country,” Rendi-Wagner wrote on Twitter.

In fact, the Social Democrats together with the ÖVP have constantly tightened asylum legislation in recent years and laid the groundwork for the deportations. In 2016, the SPÖ and ÖVP agreed to the so-called emergency regulation to limit asylum applications. This means that only a few groups of refugees are now given an opportunity to apply for asylum if the government sees a threat to public order and internal security in Austria due to an increased number of asylum seekers.

Vienna’s SPÖ mayor Michael Ludwig also spoke out against the deportations. In fact, Ludwig has long been an advocate of a strict asylum and immigration policy. Last spring, together with his party colleague and right-wing hardliner, Hans Peter Doskozil, head of the Burgenland provincial government, Ludwig spoke out against accepting asylum seekers from the Greek islands. Ludwig said at the time that, although there were free capacities in Austria, he saw no reason for such a step.

Fascist Republican representative stripped of committee assignments

Jacob Crosse

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted Thursday evening to punish Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene for her advocacy of fascist conspiracy theories and threats of violence by stripping her of her committee assignments. A resolution to discipline Greene, a QAnon adherent, passed the House on a near-party-line vote, 230-199. Only 11 Republicans voted in favor of the resolution.

The measure to remove Greene, House Resolution 72, advanced past the Rules Committee on Wednesday and was taken up by the House on Thursday. The resolution only requires that Greene be taken off the two committees to which she is currently assigned, and does not prohibit her from serving on other committees or bar her from future assignments.

An LED billboard calling for the resignation of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., is seen on Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2021, in Dalton, Ga. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

The measure was taken up after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy refused to remove Greene from her assignments on the Budget Committee and the Education and Labor Committee following recent exposures of Greene’s social media accounts, on which she advocated assassinating Democratic politicians, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, and characterized mass school shootings as “false flag” events staged by supporters of gun control.

Facing denunciations from Democratic members as well as some Republicans, Greene, in a speech from the floor of the House on Thursday, attempted to portray herself as a free speech advocate who has been the victim of “cancel culture” and an all-powerful media conspiracy. Unconvincingly claiming to be a “very regular American” Greene parroted such lines as, “You see, school shootings are absolutely real,” and, “I also want to tell you, 9/11 absolutely happened.” That she had to grit her teeth and spit out such statements only underscored her embrace of the delusional ultra right.

Greene never apologized for “liking” social media comments advocating the assassination of Democratic politicians, nor did she recant comments in which she claimed that Muslims shouldn’t serve in the government, that Jewish bankers started the wildfires in California with space-based lasers or that George Soros (a Jewish billionaire) was funding “migrant caravans.”

Attempting to excuse her past support for QAnon, a fascist conspiracy theory that postulates that Donald Trump is the leader of movement that will massacre Satan-worshiping, child sacrificing, cannibalistic Democratic politicians, Greene claimed, “The media … is just as guilty as QAnon of presenting truth and lies to divide us.”

Early Wednesday morning, McCarthy met with House Majority Leader Representative Steny Hoyer to discuss his proposal that Greene give up her seat on the Education and Labor Committee but retain her position on the Budget Committee. Hoyer and the Democrats rejected the proposal, with Hoyer telling reporters on Wednesday that the outcome was not “sufficient … given her consistent statements before and after her membership in the Congress, which have given great concern for people’s individual safety.”

“She’s placed many members in fear for their welfare,” Hoyer said. “We believe she also gave aid and comfort to those who led an insurrection.” Why Hoyer did not seek to have Greene arrested and prosecuted, in that case, he did not say.

In 2019, McCarthy stripped Iowa Representative Steve King of his committee assignments after King signaled his support for “white nationalism” and questioned what was offensive about “white supremacy” in an interview with the New York Times. But he declined to take the same action against Greene, who has been publicly backed by former president Trump.

During a roughly four-hour-long Republican caucus meeting late Wednesday night Republicans discussed what to do about Greene as well as a possible challenge to the third-ranking member of the leadership, Liz Cheney of Wyoming, daughter of the former vice president. Cheney was one of the 10 House Republicans to join Democrats in voting to impeach Trump, and Trump loyalists have demanded her removal from the leadership.

McCarthy essentially balanced the two cases against each other, rejecting action against either congresswoman. After Greene addressed the caucus, McCarthy declared his opposition to any disciplinary action, and the assembled Republicans reportedly gave the fascist a standing ovation. At the same time, Cheney retained her position, as the caucus voted 145 to 61 to reject a call for her resignation.

Demonstrating the degree to which the Republican party has doubled down and shifted even further to the right in the wake of the January 6 coup attempt, McCarthy put out a statement Wednesday night “condemning” Greene’s comments while praising her for privately denouncing QAnon in the caucus meeting. He argued that the comments were made “before she was ever a member of Congress,” as though that lessened the significance of her call for murdering one of the leaders of that Congress (Pelosi). Removing Greene from her committee assignments would set a “bad precedent,” he said.

Despite Greene’s claims that she had “stopped believing” in QAnon in 2018, she has defended the conspiracy theory on social media as late as December 4, 2020, after her election to Congress from Georgia’s 14th District. The district, in the northwest corner of the state, has a long history of ultra-right and fascist representatives, including Larry McDonald, a member of the John Birch Society.

While the Republicans attempt to paper over the differences between the growing fascist elements within their ranks and the more established wing of the party, represented by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Representative Cheney, the disciplinary action against Greene will do nothing to stop the growth of fascism in the US and internationally, which arises from the contradictions of the capitalist system which the Democrats defend as much as the Republicans.

Greene, like her hero Trump, is not merely a deranged or repugnant individual. Both are the products of the turn toward fascism and violent repression by an American ruling class that is responding to the decline of the global position of American capitalism and terrified of the growing resistance and militancy in the working class.

Kroger grocery chain closes Southern California stores due to new “hero pay” laws leading to worker protests

Rafael Azul

About 20 grocery store workers rallied in Long Beach, California recently to protest the closure of two Kroger supermarkets. Management at the supermarket chain announced that, in response to a $4-an-hour pay raise to all supermarket employees, it would close those two markets in mid-April and lay off and/or transfer the 200 workers employed at both stores.

At the rally, workers carried homemade signs denouncing corporate greed, demanding hazard pay and calling on all workers to speak out.

Workers protest against Kroger's closure of the Food4Less in Long Beach (Credit: World Socialist Web Site)

Long Beach is an industrial port and logistics city in Los Angeles County. As of last weekend, the city had reported 48,824 cases and 698 deaths from the coronavirus. It lies directly southwest of the city of Los Angeles, which for several weeks has been the worldwide epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic with more than 17,000 deaths and more than one million positive cases as of this writing.

The Long Beach City Council mandated the $4-an-hour “hero pay” wage supplement two weeks ago, in response to the pandemic. The order will last 120 days. Similar ordinances are being proposed in other California cities. The LA City Council is discussing a $5-an-hour hazard pay as are other Los Angeles suburbs.

Last week, the board of supervisors in Santa Clara County also voted to draft a $5-per-hour measure. Similar measures are being considered in San José and the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Long Beach wage supplement applies to supermarkets and all grocery stores with at least 300 employees nationally or more than 15 employees at each store.

Kroger management denounced the Long Beach rule, charging the city with interfering in the wage-bargaining process, and for treating other large retailers unequally. Long Beach exempted retail giants Target and Walmart from the rule, even though both those chains sell groceries. A company statement declared that both stores had been “long-struggling.” A company spokesperson indicated that underperforming stores in other cities would also close if forced to pay the extra amount.

The Long Beach Press-Telegram quoted an email from John Votava, corporate affairs director for Ralphs supermarkets, who called the new mandates “misguided,” placing “any struggling store in jeopardy of closure.”

The California Grocers Association has filed a lawsuit against the Long Beach measure, claiming that “grocers operate with razor thin margins.”

Not so for Kroger Company—the Brookings Institution reported the firm made $2.6 billion in profits between February 2 and November 7, 2020, out of which it used $989 million for stock buybacks.

Last November, in a study entitled “Windfall for Profits and Deadly Risks,” Brookings examined pandemic hazard pay at Kroger and 12 other companies, ranging from big-box stores and grocery chains to pharmacies and electronic stores. “The numbers are stark,” declared the report. “They paint a picture of most companies prioritizing profits and wealth for shareholders over investment in their employees.” The study found that these companies could have quadrupled hazard pay to their workers and still made a handsome profit during the pandemic.

Nationally, the average Kroger’s cashier makes a poverty wage of $10 an hour. In Long Beach, a city with a high cost of living, the minimum wage for employers with 26 or more workers is almost as exploitative, $14 per hour.

Kroger and the other retailers have counted on the complicity of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW). Nearly 17 years ago, a 19-week strike and lockout involving 59,000 Los Angeles area grocery workers resulted in a resounding victory for the employers, including Ralphs and other Kroger markets.

The UFCW accepted drastic reductions in overtime pay, cuts to holiday pay and sick time, increases in health care deductibles and the elimination of defined benefit pension plans. This sellout then served as a model for UFCW contracts across the country.

More recently in 2019, the UFCW settled for contracts in California and Oregon with wages increases of under one percent per year, well below the inflation rate, while banning strike action. In 2020, the UFCW pushed through another sellout agreement in West Virginia. A $4-an-hour increase would barely begin to compensate for those betrayals

Workers should place no confidence in the union to defend their jobs or wages or to protect them from the coronavirus pandemic. That is why grocery workers across California, the US, and internationally must take matters into their own hands, forming rank-and file committees independent of the UFCW and other unions to fight for adequate pay and resources to confront the COVID-19 pandemic and make up for decades of attacks on wages, benefits and working conditions.

French teachers denounce Macron government’s “herd immunity” policy in schools

Will Morrow

There is widespread and growing opposition among educators in France to the Macron government’s policy of permitting the coronavirus to spread unhindered through schools among teachers, students, and their families.

Last night, Prime Minister Jean Castex delivered a press conference to announce that the government was continuing to reject any lock-down measures. The seven-day rolling average for daily cases is over 20,000, and for daily deaths, 427. More than 64 percent of emergency care beds nationally are occupied, with 3,277 coronavirus patients now in intensive care units. Yet Castex declared that the “situation does not justify” a lock-down.

Students leave their school in Cambo les Bains, southwest France, Thursday November 5, 2020 (AP Photo / Bob Edme)

His statements directly contradict the warnings of scientists and medical professionals, who have denounced Macron’s announcement last week rejecting a national lock-down. Macron is openly pursuing a policy of allowing the virus to spread in order to prevent any impact of a lock-down on the profits of French corporations. The Journal de Dimanche cited Geoffrey Roux de Bézieux, the head of the national employers’ association, confirming that it was in continuous exchange with the government, and that “businessmen would be indignant at the return of a solution identical to that of March,” when a full lock-down was implemented.

The school system is the sharpest point of the policy of sacrificing lives for profits. The French government has boasted that it has kept schools open throughout the pandemic for more days than any other country. As across Europe and in the US, children and teachers are being herded into classrooms so that their parents can be forced into workplaces.

Among teachers and students internationally, however, opposition to this policy is growing. In Chicago, over 20,000 educators voted to reject the resumption of in-person classes demanded by the Democratic mayor and the Biden administration. Educators in the UK forced the closure of schools in January.

French teachers who spoke to the World Socialist Web Site described non-existent social-distancing measures, being kept in the dark as their students contract the virus, and a systematic policy of keeping schools in classrooms even as cases are confirmed.

Stéphanie, who has taught for 21 years and currently teachers second-year primary school, told the WSWS she was “more than upset by the current situation. Today my school learned that a student tested positive for the virus. This student ate in the canteen (therefore without a mask), and no one is considered as a contact case. In my own class I have had students with the virus. One stayed home for a week, returned without any explanation, and no one was considered a contact case because everyone wears a mask. You can imagine how seven-year-olds wear a mask.”

The social-distancing policy is “that we open the window,” she said. “The rules for contact tracing are different at school than elsewhere: There is [supposedly] never any contact in schools. No social distancing because we have all the students there.”

The government’s policy “is that the schools must absolutely remain open to protect the economy while putting the workers directly in danger.”

Emmeline, an English teacher with three years’ experience as a substitute teacher in middle and high school, described similar conditions.

“There is no social distancing at my school. I have six classes in total and I have up to 33 students per class… A lot of the students don’t wear their masks properly or the mask is too big for them so it just slips off their face all day long. One was coughing and sneezing in class today and pulled his mask down each time so there’s bound to be sick children in that class in the days to come. Several of my students have had Covid but recovered from it. Tons of kids at my school have had it but the school hasn’t been closed despite all the contaminations.”

She said she thought schools needed to be closed and online learning organized, with large investments in resources for both students, parents and teachers in order to facilitate this. “The government needs to start investing in real solutions,” she said. “What happened during the first lockdown was just an absolute joke: we had nothing to work with. Just our books, our computers, our wifi, our mobile phones… it was absolutely terrible. I honestly think that if they have the correct online resources per class/per level, we’d be able to do online teaching and it would be a heck of a lot easier for everyone. No commuting, no overcrowded classrooms, not having to wear the mask and potentially contaminate your classmates.”

“I really feel like we’re the ‘sacrificed’ ones,” she added. She said she had not previously heard about the ongoing struggle by Chicago teachers against the school openings, but supported it. “Wow, I didn’t know [about it]! Good for them!” She added that she thought there should be a united struggle by teachers in Europe and the United States. “I completely agree with it,” she said. “I’m beyond tired of being exploited… It’s like we’re not important. Underpaid, invisible: just go to work and shut up.”

Claire, a middle-school teacher with 17 years’ experience, said that the government is protecting “the large fortunes and shareholders,” which is why schools are kept open. “The worst is that they camouflage it all by saying that closing schools would be a disaster for the children.”

“I think the children are being put in danger, but the education ministry has insisted since the beginning that the school setting is safe and that children are not contagious… In October, we had a dozen confirmed cases but some parents with the virus have continued to send their children to school, and other students have never been tested. For the last three weeks, we have had cases. In October, 5 teachers were contaminated, two of them definitely at school.”

The Macron government has only been able to keep schools open because of the complete support it has received from the trade unions for its criminal policy. The national education unions call for keeping schools open. They maintain the Macron government’s lying claim that it would be impossible to organize effective at-distance learning, and that teachers must therefore continue to keep schools open.

In November, strikes broke out at dozens of schools across the country. The unions responded by calling a one-day “warning strike,” which they made clear was not aimed at closing schools, but to let off steam and smother demands for the closure of schools.

If a struggle is to be organized against the Macron government’s policy of herd immunity, it must be organized by educators and students themselves. Educators should form their own action committees at schools, independent of the trade union apparatuses, and reach out to other teachers online in France and across Europe. This would provide the means for the preparation of a European-wide strike to enforce the closure of schools and non-essential workplaces, so that the vaccine can be safely administered to the population. Vast resources must be expended to provide all the required resources to students and teachers for remote learning, and to provide an income to parents to remain home and care for their children.

LSETF/USADF Employability Training Programme 2021

Application Deadline: 12th February 2021.

Type: Training, Internships

Eligibility:

• Must be a Lagos resident
• Must have a Lagos State Resident Registration Agency ID (LASRRA ID – can be gotten at any LGA office)
• Must have a minimum of JSSCE qualification

** All applicants will be required to go through a screening process to determine their eligibility for the training.

LSETF USADF Employabilty Training courses include:

Construction:

• Electricals
• Refrigerator and Air Conditioning
• 2D/3D Design
• Interior Design
• Site Supervision

CREATIVE SECTOR

• Fashion Design
• Hair Dressing
• Interior Dressing

DIGITAL SKILLS

• Virtualization
• Cloud computing
• Software Engineering
• Cyber Security

To be Taken at (Country): Lagos, Nigeria

Number of Awards: Numerous

Value & Duration of Award: The project will achieve this through the provision of skills development training that will last between 4-12 weeks, and will ensure the placement of a minimum of 50% of the beneficiaries in Internships/jobs.

How to Apply: APPLY HERE

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

Medea Benjamin & Nicolas J. S. Davies

In 2004, journalist Ron Suskind quoted a Bush White House advisor, reportedly Karl Rove, as boasting, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” He dismissed Suskind’s assumption that public policy must be rooted in “the reality-based community.” “We’re history’s actors,” the advisor told him, “…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Sixteen years later, the American wars and war crimes launched by the Bush administration have only spread chaos and violence far and wide, and this historic conjunction of criminality and failure has predictably undermined America’s international power and authority. Back in the imperial heartland, the political marketing industry that Rove and his colleagues were part of has had more success dividing and ruling the hearts and minds of Americans than of Iraqis, Russians or Chinese.

The irony of the Bush administration’s imperial pretensions was that America has been an empire from its very founding, and that a White House staffer’s political use of the term “empire” in 2004 was not emblematic of a new and rising empire as he claimed, but of a decadent, declining empire stumbling blindly into an agonizing death spiral.

Americans were not always so ignorant of the imperial nature of their country’s ambitions. George Washington described New York as “the seat of an empire,” and his military campaign against British forces there as the “pathway to empire.” New Yorkers eagerly embraced their state’s identity as the Empire State, which is still enshrined in the Empire State Building and on New York State license plates.

The expansion of America’s territorial sovereignty over Native American lands, the Louisiana Purchase and the annexation of northern Mexico in the Mexican-American War built an empire that far outstripped the one that George Washington built. But that imperial expansion was more controversial than most Americans realize. Fourteen out of fifty-two U.S. senators voted against the 1848 treaty to annex most of Mexico, without which Americans might still be visiting California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, Utah and most of Colorado as exotic Mexican travel spots.

In the full flowering of the American empire after the Second World War, its leaders understood the skill and subtlety required to exercise imperial power in a post-colonial world. No country fighting for independence from the U.K. or France was going to welcome imperial invaders from America. So America’s leaders developed a system of neocolonialism through which they exercised overarching imperial sovereignty over much of the world, while scrupulously avoiding terms like “empire” or “imperialism” that would undermine their post-colonial credentials.

It was left to critics like President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana to seriously examine the imperial control that wealthy countries still exercised over nominally independent post-colonial countries like his. In his book, Neo-Colonialism: the Last Stage of Imperialism, Nkrumah condemned neocolonialism as “the worst form of imperialism.” “For those who practice it,” he wrote, “it means power without responsibility, and for those who suffer from it, it means exploitation without redress.”

So post-World War Two Americans grew up in carefully crafted ignorance of the very fact of American empire, and the myths woven to disguise it provide fertile soil for today’s political divisions and disintegration. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” and Biden’s promise to “restore American leadership” are both appeals to nostalgia for the fruits of American empire.

Past blame games over who lost China or Vietnam or Cuba have come home to roost in an argument over who lost America and who can somehow restore its mythical former greatness or leadership. Even as America leads the world in allowing a pandemic to ravage its people and economy, neither party’s leaders are ready for a more realistic debate over how to redefine and rebuild America as a post-imperial nation in today’s multipolar world.

Every successful empire has expanded, ruled and exploited its far-flung territories through a combination of economic and military power. Even in the American empire’s neocolonial phase, the role of the U.S. military and the CIA was to kick open doors through which American businessmen could “follow the flag” to set up shop and develop new markets.

But now U.S. militarism and America’s economic interests have diverged. Apart from a few military contractors, American businesses have not followed the flag into the ruins of Iraq or America’s other current war-zones in any lasting way. Eighteen years after the U.S. invasion, Iraq’s largest trading partner is China, while Afghanistan’s is Pakistan, Somalia’s is the UAE (United Arab Emirates), and Libya’s is the European Union (EU).

Instead of opening doors for American big business or supporting America’s diplomatic position in the world, the U.S. war machine has become a bull in the global china shop, wielding purely destructive power to destabilize countries and wreck their economies, closing doors to economic opportunity instead of opening them, diverting resources from real needs at home, and damaging America’s international standing instead of enhancing it.

When President Eisenhower warned against the “unwarranted influence” of America’s military-industrial complex, he was predicting precisely this kind of dangerous dichotomy between the real economic and social needs of the American people and a war machine that costs more than the next ten militaries in the world put together but cannot win a war or vanquish a virus, let alone reconquer a lost empire.

China and the EU have become the major trading partners of most countries in the world. The United States is still a regional economic power, but even in South America, most countries now trade more with China. America’s militarism has accelerated these trends by squandering our resources on weapons and wars, while China and the EU have invested in peaceful economic development and 21st century infrastructure.

For example, China has built the largest high-speed rail network in the world in just 10 years (2008-2018), and Europe has been building and expanding its high-speed network since the 1990s, but high-speed rail is still only on the drawing board in America.

China has lifted 800 million people out of poverty, while America’s poverty rate has barely budged in 50 years and child poverty has increased. America still has the weakest social safety net of any developed country and no universal healthcare system, and the inequalities of wealth and power caused by extreme neoliberalism have left half of Americans with little or no savings to live on in retirement or to weather any disruption in their lives.

Our leaders’ insistence on siphoning off 66% of U.S. federal discretionary spending to preserve and expand a war machine that has long outlived any useful role in America’s declining economic empire is a debilitating waste of resources that jeopardizes our future.

Decades ago Martin Luther King Jr. warned us that “a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

As our government debates whether we can “afford” COVID relief, a Green New Deal and universal healthcare, we would be wise to recognize that our only hope of transforming this decadent, declining empire into a dynamic and prosperous post-imperial nation is to rapidly and profoundly shift our national priorities from irrelevant, destructive militarism to the programs of social uplift that Dr. King called for.