Reopening schools: A medical experiment on children

Andrea Peters

On February 2, a nine-year-old child in Texas died from COVID-19. The little girl, Mackenzie Gongora from the city of San Antonio, was diagnosed with the disease just three days earlier. Her family received a call from the after-school program Mackenzie attended on January 29 telling them that she had a headache, stomachache and fever. They immediately took her to the doctor, where they discovered that she had coronavirus.

Elementary school students in Godley, Texas, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2020. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

With Mackenzie presenting mild symptoms and there being no indication of respiratory problems, physicians told her parents to take her home and make her comfortable and to return to the hospital if her conditioned worsened. Her illness did not appear to progress. But on the morning of February 2—also her father’s birthday—Mackenzie’s parents awoke to find her lifeless body. They are, no doubt, destroyed.

Mackenzie’s father and eight-year-old sister have also tested positive for COVID-19. Scarborough Elementary School, where she attended, issued a pro forma statement stating the “community is saddened.” It has not announced on its website any plans to close the school for quarantine, or even mourning.

The little girl’s death follows quickly on the heels of the loss of two other children to coronavirus in Texas. In Tarrant County, nine-year-old J.J. Boatman and a child under the age of one died in late January. Like Mackenzie, J.J. was attending in-person school.

Dr. Arthur Caplan, professor of bioethics at New York University, told the World Socialist Web Site: “You can’t underestimate potential health dangers for children. We do know there are some who are severely damaged. We’re not sure yet what the virus might be doing over time to them. So we want to be cautious, not cavalier, about protecting children, and that means carefully following up and monitoring what’s happening to some sub-sample of numbers. We shouldn’t ignore them in our studies. We want to get them to school for social and psychological purposes, but that doesn’t mean that we should just throw away caution because they’re kids.”

After noting the importance of testing vaccines on children, he added that this was still “six to nine months away.”

According to the latest data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 276 children under the age of 17 have died from the illness and 2,241,893 have tested positive—making up over 12 percent of total infections in the US. Case numbers for the young are rising, a fact that, as COVID-19 whistleblower Rebekah Jones has pointed out on Twitter, coincides with many post-holiday school reopenings. As the more contagious UK variant of the virus becomes dominant in the US, these numbers will grow.

Hospitalizations of those under 17 have been rising since October, increasing alongside the overall rising rate in the adult population. The number of children receiving in-patient care for COVID-19 last spring and summer—when schools were overwhelmingly shuttered—was much lower and seemed to be following a different trend than that of adults at the time.

A central claim behind the back-to-school drive being implemented by the Biden administration with the support of the education unions and backed to the hilt by every section of the political establishment—from the “left” to the far right—is that COVID-19 does not pose a serious risk to children. This claim rests upon the one-sided interpretation of data, the suppression of data and, perhaps most fundamentally, data that do not exist.

The World Socialist Web Site has written an extensive critique of media reports and the CDC’s claim that it is safe to reopen schools. In short, many studies indicating that schools are significant sites of transmission have been ignored, in favor of very limited research conducted in settings where the school environment looks nothing like that found in the majority of K-12 systems in the US or during times when schools were largely closed.

Beyond this, however, an enormous amount of information about COVID-19 is simply missing, particularly as it applies to children. Testing for coronavirus in the young is low, compared to their overall share of the population and total tests done. For instance, working with data from 10 states, the American Association of Pediatrics found that just 6 to 18 percent of all testing was carried out on children.

This is attributable not to the fact that children do not get coronavirus, but that they, similar to a large segment of the adult population, are mostly asymptomatic or only mildly symptomatic. In other words, their infection rate appears low not because children do not get infected but because those infections are not being recorded.

However, undetected COVID-19 is not harmless to the body. Current data show that asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic infections can pose serious long-term risks, including to a patient’s respiratory and cardiovascular systems.

All those stampeding educators and children into the classroom know this. They simply lie about it when arguing that reopenings can be done safely.

A December 28 article published in Forbes noted: “‘Kids don’t get sick from COVID-19.’ Early into the pandemic, this was one of the false claims that far too many parents, and even medical professionals, were quick to embrace and repeat. But we learned more. … We now know that children can absolutely get sick from COVID-19, that they can die from it, and that they can develop long-term health complications, even if their initial presentation seemed mild.”

Because COVID-19 is a new virus, there has only been limited time to study its lasting effects. However, it is well-known that viruses in general scar the body, including adenoviruses, enteroviruses, Coxsackie viruses, tespiratory syncytial virus (RSV), chicken pox, Ebola, West Nile virus and other coronaviruses (a category that includes SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19). Some of the illnesses associated with these viruses include diabetes, chronic anemia, hepatitis, hearing loss, muscle weakness, abnormal gait, abnormal reflexes, memory loss, muscle and joint pain, chronic fatigue, headaches, asthma, decreased lung function, myocarditis, pericarditis, persistent heart failure, and on and on.

Among adults sufferers of COVID-19 it is already clear that lasting effects include “brain fog,” chronic fatigue, joint aches, blood clots, rashes, hair loss, loss of taste and smell, depression, anxiety, and damage to the heart, lungs and kidneys. In some cases, these conditions are life-threatening. It is unclear when or whether they will resolve.

One of the most concerning problems witnessed in asymptomatic patients—including children—is serious damage to the respiratory system. Studies coming out of China, for instance, albeit working with limited sample sizes, have found what are called “ground glass opacities” in asymptomatic young people, similar to those seen older patients. Doctors do not yet know what the implications of this damage is or how it will develop as individuals age.

According to an article posted on WebMD in August, the director of Palm Beach County’s health department, Dr. Alina Alonso, found these Chinese studies so concerning that she warned county officials in July about the danger of school reopenings.

“They are seeing there is damage to the lungs in these asymptomatic children. … We don’t know how that is going to manifest a year from now or 2 years from now. Is that child going to have chronic pulmonary problems or not?” she told commissioners.

There are myriad other dimensions of “long-haul” coronavirus infections.

A November 2020 Swedish study of five children found “fatigue, dyspnoea, heart palpitations or chest pain, and four had headaches, difficulties concentrating, muscle weakness, dizziness and sore throats” to be lasting problems. One child had to be hospitalized for perimyocarditis. And while, “some had improved after 6–8 months … they all suffered from fatigue and none had fully returned to school.” The study’s authors made a particular point about the problem of extremely limited data regarding COVID-19 in children.

Neurological and psychiatric illnesses are also appearing in young “long-haulers.” In August, ABC News carried a report about a 15-year-old in Britain who tested negative on COVID-19 diagnostic and antibody tests but clearly had the illness. She currently suffers from encephalitis and has undergone a significant mental regression as well as a change in personality. Her acute symptoms included hallucinations and violent seizures.

Her physician, a pediatric neurologist at the Evalina London Children’s Hospital, noted, “I think that COVID has taught us that every time we feel complacent, that we know the spectrum, a new spectrum sort of evolves.”

“We worry that the long-term effect would be in essentially brain growth,” he added, with children having a lot of this ahead of them.

In October, the Union of Pediatricians in Russia reported that scientists have found a 30 percent decline in the cognitive functioning of children infected with the virus. They also detected a fall in the sperm count of boys with severe cases, which could impact their future fertility. They have no idea if either condition will resolve itself.

This list goes on.

A Wall Street Journal piece published in August reported the comments of a New York doctor who reported seeing young patients with auto-immune disorders. She believes they were triggered by COVID-19. In a study of adults, researchers at the University Hospital Frankfurt have found clear evidence of heart damage among some asymptomatic COVID-19 sufferers.

What is being carried out with the forced reopening of schools is effectively a medical experiment on more than 50 million children. COVID-19 will spread within the schools under conditions in which nobody yet has a full picture of how widespread, severe and long-lasting the impact of the virus is on the young. The early data are alarming.

Some children will die, others will become severely ill. How many will grow up with organ damage, cognitive decline, mental and psychological problems, auto-immune disorders and the like? The answer of the politicians and union leaders—all of whom endlessly bellyache about the “well-being of the children”—is: Let’s find out.

The Senate trial of Donald Trump: The questions that must be answered

Barry Grey

The Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump, which begins today, arises out of an event without precedent in the history of the United States: an attempted coup d’état by the president of the United States, aimed at overturning the result of an election, violently suppressing Congress and establishing a one-man dictatorship. In the course of this attempted coup, the lives of senators, representatives and even the vice president were threatened. Several people were killed.

On the eve of the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., center right, the lead Democratic House impeachment manager, walks through the Rotunda to the Senate to prepare for the case, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Feb. 8, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

There is no question that Donald Trump is guilty of not only “High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” He has committed felonies of the most serious character. His impeachment should be followed by his indictment on criminal charges, trial, conviction and lifelong imprisonment. His many co-conspirators should be identified, subjected to criminal proceedings and thrown into high-security prisons along with him.

But this is unlikely to be the result of the Senate trial. While the 80-page Democratic House managers’ brief released last week lays out a detailed factual case documenting that Trump led a months-long campaign to prepare a coup d’état, the Democrats who control the Senate—not to mention President Biden—have no stomach for this fight. Although Trump’s conspiracy was either directly supported or facilitated by the Senate Republicans, the Democrats continue to bow politely before this right-wing riffraff and address them as “colleagues.”

To the extent that the Democrats’ trial strategy is directed to the Republican senators—i.e., persuading them to convict Trump—the proceedings will evade what should be its central purpose: to expose before the entire country the criminal conspiracy led by Trump and involving sections of the state, including the military-police apparatus and powerful sections of the corporate-financial elite.

There are a number of obvious questions that relate to the operation of the conspiracy that must be answered, including:

• How was it possible that the Capitol Police, the D.C. National Guard, the FBI and other federal security forces were so completely unprepared for what was known in advance to be a violent attack?
  
  
• Why was there a virtual stand-down of Capitol security forces despite well documented plans for violence, involving fascistic militias like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers?
  
  
• With whom were the leaders of the mob in contact during the assault? Who visited the Trump White House in the days leading up to the attempted coup? How did the fascists know the layout of the Capitol building?

But there are more fundamental questions that no one is asking, let alone answering. First and foremost: If the coup succeeded, what was the plan?

The Democrats’ own indictment lays out in extensive detail the months-long conspiracy to overturn the results of the election that culminated on January 6. Trump organized a mob to storm the Capitol and stop the Congressional certification of the results of the election. This is precisely true. But if they succeeded in seizing hostages, what were they going to do?

And what were the forces within the state involved in this operation? In the months before the coup, Trump made critical changes to the military aimed at facilitating it. The military has just initiated a “lockdown” supposedly aimed at addressing the proliferation of “domestic extremism” within its ranks. Who within the military supported the operation, and what were their roles?

Who, moreover, was providing the financial backing? As is well known, in order to uncover the roots of a criminal conspiracy, it is necessary to “follow the money.” Trump’s own cabinet was stocked with billionaires, including individuals like his former education secretary, Betsy DeVos, the sister of Blackwater founder Erik Prince. The DeVos family is known to have provided funding for the right-wing demonstration in Michigan to demand an end to restrictions on the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. What is the connection between the fascistic mob on January 6 and high-level support within the ruling class?

Finally, who were the Republican politicians and officials, at both the federal and state levels, who worked with members and leaders of the various fascist militia and vigilante organizations?

Many of the senators sitting as jurors in the trial either facilitated or directly participated in the events underlying it. This includes Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, who led the drive to reject the Electoral College vote on January 6. It also includes all those, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who helped Trump promote the lie of a rigged election by refusing for weeks to acknowledge Biden’s victory.

The New York Times published a report yesterday, “‘Its Own Domestic Army’: How the G.O.P. Allied Itself With Militants,” reporting on the political alignment of the Republican Party with fascistic militias involved not only in the January 6 insurrection but also the plot to kidnap and assassinate the Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, prior to the election.

The Times notes:

Following signals from President Donald J. Trump—who had tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” after an earlier show of force in Lansing—Michigan’s Republican Party last year welcomed the support of newly emboldened paramilitary groups and other vigilantes. Prominent party members formed bonds with militias or gave tacit approval to armed activists using intimidation in a series of rallies and confrontations around the state. That intrusion into the Statehouse now looks like a portent of the assault halfway across the country months later at the United States Capitol.

What was the involvement of Republican Party officials throughout the country, along with local sheriffs and police departments, in facilitating and supporting the January 6 insurrection?

The Democrats oppose the full exposure of the conspiracy. Biden is seeking to distance himself completely from the Senate trial. “Biden’s strategy for Trump’s impeachment: Sit back and STFU,” noted a headline in Politico yesterday. “The Biden team,” Politico wrote, “has shut down question after question about where Biden stands on this week’s trial, even with its massive historical, constitutional and political ramifications. On Monday, press secretary Jen Psaki wouldn’t even say whether the president would receive daily updates on the trial’s progress.” It continued:

“The last thing Americans want to see right now is that conversation from the podium,” Karen Finney, a former Hillary Clinton campaign adviser and Democratic strategist, said of the White House talking about impeachment. “Part of what they’re trying to do here is say ‘it’s a new day it’s a new administration.’ They’re not going to use the White House and the tools of the presidency to engage in politics.”

In other words, it is necessary to “move on.” In particular, the Democrats want to cover up the complicity of its “colleagues” in the Republican Party, which has become an incubator for fascist forces and their integration into the political establishment.

What Trump expresses is the deep-rooted, anti-democratic and fascistic tendencies embedded in the state and the entire ruling class. The Democrats have no desire to expose the extent of the conspiracy, because this would involve an exposure of the underlying political and social conditions of which the Trump administration is an expression.

Global Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Ten Years of Rising Dangers

Manpreet Sethi

Early 2010s: A Mood of Optimism

The decade of the 2010s dawned with much nuclear hope and optimism, basking in the glow of President Obama’s Prague speech of April 2009. The NPT RevCon in May 2010 reflected and added to this sentiment as a final document was consensually achieved and an ambitious Action Plan identified 46 steps for the promotion of non-proliferation and disarmament.      

The mood of the times was also captured by the renowned nuclear strategist, Thomas Schelling, who wrote in an article in Daedalus, “There is no sign that any kind of nuclear arms race is in the offing—not, anyway, among the current nuclear powers…That should contribute to nuclear quiescence... Except for some ‘rogue’ threats, there is little that could disturb the quiet nuclear relations among the recognized nuclear nations.”

Indeed, the nuclear superpowers appeared to have arrived at a stable modus vivendi that minimised the possibility of nuclear use. President Obama’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) recommended limiting the use of nuclear weapons to “extreme circumstances,” thereby at least notionally moving the ‘use’ spectrum to a narrow range of contingencies. On non-proliferation, too, there was a sense of well-being about the NPT, with it having achieved a universality with only four outliers. The two nuclear taboos—against nuclear use and nuclear proliferation—were perceived to be strong. 

In 2010, President Obama also convened the first Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in Washington, DC. The US was joined by 47 other states to call attention to securing nuclear material as a way of countering the threat of nuclear terrorism. In 2012 and 2014, when the two next Summits were held, the number of participating states grew to 53, and several joint statements, ‘house gifts’, and ‘gift baskets’ were announced. By the time of the last Summit in 2016, however, Russia and the US had fallen out, which not only led to Moscow opting out of the event, but also impacted other aspects of their nuclear relationship.

Mid-Decade: An Altered Nuclear Landscape

The souring of US-Russia relations began with the Ukrainian crisis in 2014 and eventually began reflecting in their nuclear policies as well. For instance, further arms control between US and Russia stalled, and mutual accusations of nuclear build-up in violation of existing treaties, such as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, began to be made. It was  around this time that emerging Chinese belligerence also began to alter other inter-state equations. As political relations became stressed among the major nuclear powers, hedging strategies became visible in military capability build-up, including  ‘nuclear modernisation’.      

Meanwhile, fissures between the nuclear weapon (NWS) and non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) erupted at the 2015 NPT RevCon, which was unable to achieve a consensus final document. NNWS refused to accept more non-proliferation obligations, such as denial of enrichment and reprocessing technologies or acceptance of the Additional Protocol as mandatory for nuclear cooperation. Instead, they urged NWS to move towards disarmament. It may also be recalled that before the RevCon, two Humanitarian Initiative conferences were held in 2013 and 2014, which drew attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear use and hence the need for their delegitimisation. This initiative gathered momentum with several NNWS pressing for negotiations for a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons. In response to an UNGA resolution, a UN conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument was convened in 2017. None of the nuclear-armed states, however, participated in these negotiations. Nevertheless, riding on the support of some enthusiastic NNWS, the effort led to the adoption of the Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in June 2017.

While the Ban treaty was being negotiated, much doctrinal churning and capability build-up were underway in the nuclear-armed states. President Trump’s entry in 2017 heralded a casualness in US’ nuclear approach, which became evident in a display of nuclear brinkmanship. His ‘tweeterrances’ (deterrence through tweets) with North Korea are ample illustration of this phenomenon. The 2018 NPR expanded the role of nuclear weapons to include large-scale conventional, cyber, and space attacks. It identified Russia and China as significant nuclear challenges, deterring whom required a range of capabilities, including low-yield nuclear weapons for regional contingencies. Efforts were initiated to build submarine-launched, nuclear-armed cruise missiles to add to the already formidable American deterrent.

Meanwhile, Russia was already fortifying its nuclear deterrence through building ‘invincible’ weapons that no defences could defeat. Underwater nuclear-armed drones and hypersonic missiles were among the new weapon systems introduced to meet the challenges posed by the US pursuit of ballistic missile defence (BMD) and Prompt Global Strike (PGS). Russia also emphasised its tactical nuclear weapons to give credence to a strategy of ‘escalate to de-escalate’ in case of US/NATO conventional attacks.

While a distant third in terms of nuclear numbers, China, too, became more open about its nuclear modernisation efforts in this period. 2018-2020 saw Beijing reflecting far greater confidence in its nuclear missiles in terms of their survivability, penetrability, and accuracy.

A Decade Ends: Risks of Nuclear Use and Proliferation Rise

As a result of these and other related developments, the decade ended with a higher sense of the risk of nuclear use, especially as a result of accidental use due to miscalculation or misperception exacerbated by the fog of war. Strained inter-state relations, unregulated modernisation of nuclear arsenals, emergence of new technologies, and breakdown of the arms control architecture were some of the factors aggravating nuclear risks.

The possibility of nuclear proliferation, too, re-emerged. On the one hand, North Korea’s nuclear and missile advancements continued to haunt South Korea and Japan. Both countries saw the emergence of debates on developing their own nuclear capability to establish credible deterrence. Meanwhile, in West Asia, the threat of nuclear proliferation accelerated after the 2018 US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. The 2015 agreement had actually marked a high point for non-proliferation since it was meant to arrest Iran from enriching uranium beyond 3.67 per cent, and keeping the stockpile below 300 kg. Several other restrictions were also put in place while allowing Iran to pursue the full fuel cycle for its peaceful nuclear programme, albeit under IAEA safeguards. The stalling of the JCPOA resulted in Iran also taking ‘remedial measures’ of its own, including enriching uranium up to 20 per cent. By the end of 2020, it had accumulated close to 17 kg of such uranium. While this is far from weapons capability, threat perceptions in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE are on the rise.

Doomsday (Clock) Reflections

Over the years, the Doomsday Clock maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1947 has become a good indicator of the state of global nuclear (and climate) concerns. In 2010, the minute hand of this clock stood at 6 minutes to midnight. In fact, the time was adjusted from previous year’s 5 to 6 minutes. President Obama’s problem-solving approach to nuclear issues with Russia, Iran, and loose nuclear material were all seen as contributors to a ‘hopeful state of affairs’. However, in 2012, the minute hand was once again back at 5 minutes owing to a lack of action on nuclear arms reductions or disarmament.

The rest of the decade saw the world’s steady progression closer and closer to midnight. In 2015, the time reduced to three minutes; in 2017, it moved up by another thirty seconds; in 2018, by another thirty seconds; and, in 2019, by twenty more seconds. Consequently, the year 2020 ended with the dubious distinction of the world being at 100 seconds to midnight—the closest ever to Armageddon. Ironically, this happened in the same year that the world commemorated the 75th year of the atomic bombings, and NPT’s 50th year. The TPNW attained its 50th ratification, enabling it to enter into force in January 2021, also in 2020. While this last development is noteworthy at least on a normative scale, it does not lead to a world free of nuclear weapons. Nuclear-armed states remain entrenched in deterrence beliefs and capability build-up despite the unprecedented healthcare emergency that mauled their economies through 2020.

As the world steps into 2021, hope has been pinned on the change in American leadership. Given the power of this one country to steer global nuclear developments, and given that President Biden has indicated a wise and stabilising approach to many nuclear issues, optimism for a change of nuclear direction is widespread. While none believe that a world without nuclear weapons will suddenly and miraculously become possible, perhaps it will be possible to inch towards a safer nuclear perch from where such a world at least becomes visible.

Russia: A New Start?

John Feffer

It’s winter in Russia, which is not a season for the faint-hearted. The pandemic is still hitting the country hard, with the number of new COVID cases hovering around 20,000 a day, which has cumulatively put the country in the global top five in terms of infections.

Under these inauspicious conditions, if you are brave enough to face down the cold and COVID to protest openly against the government of Vladimir Putin, your reward may well be a trip to jail. If you’re very good at your job of protesting, you might win the grand prize of an attempt on your life.

Yet, for the last two weeks, Russians have poured into the streets in the tens of thousands. Even in the Russian Far East, protesters turned out in Yakutsk (45 below zero) and Krasnoyarsk (22 below).

Putin has predictably responded with force, throwing more than 5,000 people into jail.

Media coverage of the Russian protests focus, not surprisingly, on Alexei Navalny. After recovering in Germany from an assassination attempt, the Russian opposition leader returned to Moscow on January 17. He was promptly arrested at the airport where his plane was rerouted. His close associates, who’d shown up at the original destination of his flight to welcome him home, were also detained. These arrests, and the government’s desire to lock Navalny away in prison for as long as possible, triggered the latest round of demonstrations throughout the country.

Vladimir Putin has ruled over Russia for more than two decades. Because of the constitutional changes he rammed through last year, he has effectively made himself leader for life. Will these latest protests make a dent in his carapace of power?

Meanwhile, the U.S. and Russian governments this week exhibited a modest form of engagement by extending the New START treaty on nuclear weapons for another five years. Despite this hopeful sign, no one expects anything close to a full reset of U.S.-Russian relations during a Biden administration.

But as Putin faces protests in the street and Biden deals with recalcitrant Republicans in Congress, the two countries might at least avoid direct conflict with one another. More optimistically – and can you blame a boy for dreaming? – the two countries could perhaps find common cause against the global scourges of nuclear weapons, climate change, and pandemic.

Putin vs. Navalny

Although they face each other across the Russian chessboard, Vladimir Putin and Alexei Navalny share some basic attributes. They are both adept politicians who know the power of visuals, symbols, and stories. They rely on the media to sustain their popularity, Putin using state-controlled media and Navalny exploiting social media.

And they have both been willing to adjust their messages to grow their appeal among everyday Russians by turning to nationalism. Putin started out as a rather conventional Soviet bureaucrat, with a commitment to all of the ethnic groups within the Soviet Union. Even when he became the leader of Russia in 1999, he thought of himself as the head of a multiethnic country. Particularly after 2014 and the conflict with Ukraine, however, Putin began to make appeals to russky (ethnic) Russians rather than rossisky (civic) Russians. He has made the defense of ethnic Russians in surrounding regions – Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltics – a priority for his administration.

Navalny, meanwhile, started out as a rather conventional Russian liberal who joined the reformist party Yabloko. Liberalism, however, has never really appealed to a majority of Russians, and parties like Yabloko attracted few voters. Navalny began to promote some rather ugly xenophobic and chauvinistic messages. As Alexey Sakhnin writes in Jacobin:

He participated in the far-right Russian Marches, waged war on “illegal immigration,” and even launched campaign “Stop Feeding the Caucasus” directed against government subsidies to poor, ethnic minority-populated autonomous regions in the south of the country. It was a time when right-wing sentiments were widespread, and urban youth sympathized with ultra-right groups almost en masse. It seemed to Navalny that this wind would fill his sails — and partly, it worked.

Navalny used nationalism to wipe away any memories of his unpopular liberalism, but it was difficult to compete with Putin on that score. So, increasingly, the oppositionist focused on the corruption of the Putin regime, publishing exposes of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s wealth and most recently a video tour of a huge palace on the Black Sea said to be the Russian president’s (which Putin denies).

With these critiques of the ruling elite’s corruption, Navalny can bring tens of thousands of angry protesters, particularly young people, onto the streets. Unlike present-day Belarus or Ukraine 2014, the Russian protestors don’t represent the overwhelming majority of their fellow citizens. Vladimir Putin remains a relatively popular figure in Russia. Although his approval ratings have dropped from the 80 percent range that were common five years ago, they still hover around 70 percent. U.S. presidents would be thrilled with those numbers. Approval of the Russian government is considerably less – around 50 percent – which suggests that Putin has successfully portrayed himself as somehow above everyday politics.

Still, the Russian leader is worried. In his latest speech at the World Economic Forum, Putin spoke in apocalyptic terms of a deteriorating international situation. “The pandemic has exacerbated the problems and disbalances that have been accumulating,” he said. “International institutions are weakening, regional conflicts are multiplying, and the global security is degrading.”

His comments on the global situation reflect more parochial concerns. Because of COVID, the Russian economy contracted by 4 percent in 2020. Although the government implemented various measures to cushion the impact, many Russians are suffering as a result of rising unemployment and falling production. The Russian economy depends a great deal on sales of oil and natural gas. Any further reduction in global trade – either because of the pandemic or tariff wars – would complicate Russia’s economic recovery and consequently undermine Putin’s political position.

The immediate challenge comes from the parliamentary elections later this year. Putin’s United Russia party currently holds a comfortable majority in the Duma. The other two top parties are led by nationalists who are equally if not more fanatical – Gennady Zyuganov of the Communist Party and Vladimir Zhirinovsky of the Liberal Democratic Party. But a political force coalescing around a figure like Navalny could disrupt Putin’s balance of power.

That’s why Navalny returned to Moscow. And that’s why the Russian court decided this week to lock Navalny away for more than two years – for violations of a parole that required him to report to the authorities that tried to kill him. Navalny has taken an enormous risk, while Putin is taking no chances. The Russian leader has long deployed a preemptive strategy against any potential rival. Those who dare to oppose him have been killed (Boris Nemtsov), poisoned (Vladimir Kara-Murza), jailed (Mikhail Khodorkovsky), or forced into exile (Garry Kasparov).

Civil society is also under siege in Russia, with activists vulnerable to charges of being, basically, spies and saboteurs under a “foreign agent law.” Yet the environmental movement, the women’s movement, the LGBT community, and others continue to protest against the country’s authoritarian system. And these protests are not just taking place in relatively liberal enclaves in the western part of the country like Moscow and St. Petersburg. Large-scale demonstrations took place at the end of 2020 in Khabarovsk, in the Russian Far East, over the arrest of the region’s independent-minded governor. While Navalny gets the press, civil society activists have quietly built up networks around the country that can turn people out onto the streets when necessary.

Like all authoritarians, Putin uses “law and order” arguments to his advantage. Russians have a horror of anarchy and civil strife. They have long favored an “iron fist” approach to domestic politics, which helps explain the persistent, posthumous fondness for Stalin, who had a 70 percent approval rating in 2019. According to polling conducted last year, three in four Russians believe that the Soviet era was the best period of time for Russia, and it certainly wasn’t the dissident movement of that period that made them nostalgic.

The protesters thus have to tread carefully to avoid losing popular support among a population fond of an iron fist but also deeply disgusted by the corruption, economic mismanagement, and social inequality of the Putin era. The Russian opposition also has to grapple with the distinct possibility that getting rid of Putin will usher in someone even worse.

U.S.-Russian Relations

The extension of New START, the last nuclear arms control treaty in effect between Russia and the United States, is a spot of good news in an otherwise dismal outlook for relations between the two countries. Biden has prided himself on his knowledge of and commitment to arms control. So, if the two countries can agree on terms of selective engagement, the next four years could be profitably taken up by a series of negotiations on military weaponry.

New START merely establishes ceilings on nuclear warheads for both sides and addresses only strategic, not tactical, nukes. So, as Stephen Pifer argues, a follow-on treaty could establish a ceiling on all nuclear warheads, for instance at 2,500, which would cover battlefield nuclear weapons and result in at least a 50 percent cut in the arsenals of the two sides. Another option for bilateral negotiations would be to focus on limitations to missile defense or, at the very least, cooperation to protect against third-party missile attacks. A third option would be to focus on conventional weaponry and constraints on weapons sales.

The Biden administration could even move more quickly with an announcement of a no-first-use policy of nuclear weapons – something Biden has supported in the past – and agreeing with Moscow to de-alert ICBMs much as Reagan and Gorbachev de-alerted another leg of the nuclear triad, strategic bombers, back in 1991.

This arms control agenda is only part of a larger potential program of selective engagement. The United States and Russia could return to their coordination around the Iran nuclear deal. They could explore ways to cooperate on global challenges like climate change and pandemics. They could even start addressing together the harmful effects of economic globalization, a topic Putin brought up in his recent Davos speech.

To do so, however, the two countries will have to manage the numerous points of friction in their relationship. For one thing, they’ve gone head-to-head in various proxy battles – in Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya. Russia is legitimately furious that NATO expanded to its very doorstep, and the United States is legitimately concerned about Russian interventions in its “near abroad,” most recently in Ukraine. The United States has lots of evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election – not to mention Russian involvement in a coup attempt in Montenegro that same year and its meddling in the presidential election in Madagascar two years later – and Russia is pissed off at U.S. “democracy promotion” in the Color Revolutions and within Russia itself. Russia is eager to finish the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would bring natural gas to Germany, while the United States is eager to sell its own gas to its European ally. Then there’s Russia’s penchant for assassinating Russians in other countries and repressing protestors at home.

Any of these issues could scuttle cooperation between Moscow and Washington. One way of negotiating around this minefield is to delink the agendas of cooperation and conflict. Arms control advocates have a long history of doing just that by resisting calls to link other issues to arms control negotiations. Thus, the Iran nuclear deal focuses exclusively on the country’s nuclear program, not its missiles, not its relations with other countries in the region, not its human rights situation. The same lack of linkage has historically applied to all the arms control agreements between Washington and Moscow.

This strategy of delinking doesn’t mean that these other issues are completely off the table. They are simply addressed at different tables.

Those who desperately want a new cold war with Russia will not be happy with such a practical solution. They don’t want to talk with Putin about anything. As repugnant as I find the Russian leader, I have to acknowledge that he heads up an important global player and he has the support (for the time being at least) of much of his population. So, even as we challenge the Russian leadership’s conduct at home and abroad, we must also work with Moscow in the interests of global peace, prosperity, and sustainability.

Of course, there’s another word for all this.

Diplomacy.

The Foreign Roots of Haiti’s “Constitutional Crisis”

Mark Schuller

As per usual, news on Haiti in the U.S. remains limited, except for periods of ‘crisis.’ As if on cue, U.S. media began reporting on Haiti’s “constitutional crisis” this week.

Sunday, February 7, is the end of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse’s term according to the constitution. He refuses to step down. Last week, the opposition called for a two-day general strike, uniting around a transition with the head of Haiti’s Supreme Court stepping in.

Most reporting failed to note the international role, and particularly the U.S., in creating this “crisis.” And nearly all focused only on one segment of the opposition: leaders of Haiti’s political parties.

Predictably, foreign media led their stories with violence. True, the security situation is deteriorating: Nou Pap Dòmi denounced 944 assassinations in the first eight months of 2020. But leaving the discussion at “gang violence” whitewashes its political dimensions: on January 22, leaders of the so-called “G9” (the group of 9), a federation of gangs led by former police officer Jimmy Chérisier (a.k.a. “Barbecue”) held a march in defense of the Haitian president. Human rights organization RNDDH reported in August 2020 that the government federated them in the first place.

This “gangsterization” occurred without Parliamentary sanction, since January 13, 2020 – a day after the tenth anniversary of Haiti’s devastating earthquake – Parliament’s terms ended, leaving President Moïse to rule by decree. One such decree in November, as the wave of kidnapping increased, outlawed forms of protest, calling it “terrorism.”

Readers in the U.S. should not need to be reminded of white supremacists’ violent attack on Congress and the U.S. Constitution on January 6 that killed at least 6, on the heels of other coup attempts in Michigan and other vigilante attacks. In the U.S., police killed 226 Black people last year. The irony of U.S. officials opining on violence, democracy, or rule of law, is apparently invisible to some readers.

In addition to parallels of state violence against Black people in the U.S. and Haiti, missing from most stories are specific roles played by previous U.S. administrations – from both parties – in fomenting and increasing it.

Haiti’s ruling Tèt Kale party got their start in 2011, when bawdy carnival singer Michel Martelly was muscled into the election’s second round by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the United Nations Special Envoy and co-chair of the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC) Bill Clinton.

This support from the Clintons, the U.S., and the so-called “Core Group” (including France, Canada, Brazil, the European Union and the Organization of American States [OAS]), never wavered, despite the increasingly clear slide toward authoritarianism. In 2012, Martelly installed mayors in all but a handful of towns with allies. Then Parliament’s terms expired in 2015, the five-year anniversary of the earthquake, with promises to hold elections never materializing. The election that did finally lead to Martelly’s hand-picked successor, Jovenel Moïse, was fraudulent, yet the U.S. and Core Group continued to play along – and offer financial support – until finally the electoral commission formally called for its annullment. Because of international pressure, the final round was held weeks after Hurricane Matthew ravaged large segments of the country, with the lowest voter turnout in the country’s history.

Why would so-called ‘democratic’ countries continue to support the Tèt Kale state? What was in it for empire?

Having to thank his friends in high places, Martelly’s reconstruction effort focused on providing opportunities for foreign capitalist interests in tourism, agribusiness, sweatshops, and mining. Not surprisingly, donors to the Clinton Global Initiative made off like (legal) bandits. Ironically $4 billion for this disaster capitalism was Venezuela’s PetroCaribe program, offering low-cost oil and low-interest loans. With the Haitian State safely under the Clintons’ watch, the transformative potential of this alternative to neoliberal globalization and example of South-South solidarity was squandered. Cue foreign mainstream media’s focus solely on “corruption” of this complex movement demanding #KotKobPetwoKaribe? Where did the funds from PetroCaribe go?

This popular movement was an extension of the uprising against International Monetary Fund imposed austerity. On July 6, 2018, during the World Cup, the Haitian government announced a price hike for petroleum products. Right after Brazil lost the match, the people took to the streets – all across the country – and shut it down. In Kreyòl, this was the first peyi lòk – lockdown or general strike.

Faced with this popular swell of dissent that for the first time in my twenty years working in Haiti brought together people from every socioeconomic status, at one point reaching 2 million people across the country (out of a population of 11 million), the government increasingly turned to violence, including a massacre in Lasalin, a low-income neighborhood near the port and a stronghold for the party of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

I was in Haiti during the 2003-4 coup. Comparing the people on the streets then and now, Jovenel Moïse would have been forced out by November, 2018, and certainly would have been gone by February 7, 2019, two years ago.

So why is he still in office?

Like his predecessor “Sweet Micky,” Martelly’s stage name, the “Banana Man” as Moïse was known during the campaign, had friends in high places. President Trump met with Moïse and other right-of-center hemispheric heads of state at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Haiti was crucial in the U.S. ouster of Venezuela from the OAS. Despite the billions in aid from Venezuela, and bilateral cooperation that began in 1815 when Haitian president Alexandre Pétion provided crucial arms and support for Simón Bolívar, President Moïse sided with Trump. In 1960, Haitian president “Papa Doc” Duvalier – whom history and solidarity movements judged as a dictator – did the same thing to Cuba, and the U.S. generously rewarded him.

Given the new White House occupant, and campaign promises to the key battleground state of Florida, one might think that President Biden would reverse course vis-à-vis Haiti. Why, then, would Immigrations and Customs Enforcement continue to deport 1800 people, some not even born in Haiti, sending not one, but two, deportation flights this Thursday?

Making the connections, The Family Advocacy Network Movement (FANM) sent an open letter denouncing both forms of state violence and violations of human rights.

Voices within Haiti amplified in foreign corporate media are political parties. The Kolektif Anakawona outlined three other – much larger – segments. On November 29, popular organization coalition Konbit issued a five-language call for solidarity. Batay Ouvriye outlined popular demands for whomever takes office. A group of professionals, FPSPA, denounced the United Nations’ rushing elections and their support for what they qualify as a dictatorship. David Oxygène, with popular organization MOLEGHAF, critiqued the political party consensus as olye yon lit de klas, se yon lit de plas. Rather than a class struggle, it’s a struggle for position (power). Both he and Nixon Boumba underscore that the opposition plan is a short-term solution, when Haitian movements are asking for long-term solutions, changing the system. Activist journalist Jean Claudy Aristil and others point out the fundamental hypocrisy and limits of “Western democracy.” Moneyed interests – including imperial powers – who dominate the political process in Haiti are by no accident the same transnational capitalist class who have rigged the system in the U.S., the model for other political systems in the Americas.

These Haitian activists and scholars are not asking for U.S. intervention in support of what Oxygène called 2 zèl yon menm malfini – two wings of the same vulture.

They are asking for us to dismantle imperial interference and join them in transforming our institutions so that people-to-people solidarity and a democratic global economy can then be possible.