Behind GM’s shift to all-electric vehicles by 2035 (Part 2)

Marcus Day

EV investments: Speculation and consolidation

As with every major technological development in recent decades, including the emergence of the internet in the 1990s, the electric vehicle sector is the vessel for massive levels of speculation on Wall Street. Companies producing electric vehicles have been the center of an increasingly frenzied stock market bubble involving sums of money that dwarf the actual investments being made in the technology itself.

Tesla is the most notorious example, with the run-up of its stock price roughly 800 percent over the course of the pandemic, even though it has only eked out relatively small profits in recent quarters. The company has a market capitalization of over $800 billion, larger than the next nine global automakers combined, in spite of the fact that Tesla, which produced fewer than 500,000 vehicles last year, controls much less than 1 percent of the global auto market. This has led to a surge of CEO Elon Musk’s fortune to the obscene amount of $177 billion.

A new sign is unveiled at General Motors Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant, Friday, Oct. 16, 2020, in Hamtramck, Mich. The automaker is investing $2.2 billion at its plant to produce a variety of all-electric trucks and SUVs. GM's first all-electric truck will be a pickup with production scheduled to begin in late 2021. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

In addition to Tesla, a number of start-ups, virtually none of which are actually producing and selling vehicles yet, have become outlets for the enormous amounts of money sloshing about in the stock markets due to the central banks’ multi-billion-dollar handouts and reduction of interest rates.

Many of these firms have been raising money through special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), shell companies created for the purpose of acquiring another company. SPACs allow the acquired company access to share markets (and the current wild speculative investment) without the lengthy review process and stricter requirements of an initial public offering (IPO).

Over $6 billion has been raised for EV companies via SPACs, according to Bank of America. Companies which produce batteries for EVs are also eyeing SPACs to become the latest “landing pad for investors,” a recent report in TechCrunch noted.

One of the more significant EV startups is Lordstown Motors, which was formed in 2018 and acquired the site of GM’s Lordstown Assembly Plant almost for free after the plant closed in 2019. It effected a reverse-merger with DiamondPeak Holdings last October.

In spite of having yet to produce a single vehicle, as well as growing doubts among analysts that the company will ever be competitive in an increasingly crowded EV landscape, Lordstown Motors currently has a market capitalization of $4.44 billion, more than the 108-year-old luxury carmaker Aston Martin.

The markets responded favorably to GM’s 2035 EV announcement, with its share price jumping as much as 7.4 percent in intraday trading, closing up 3.5 percent.

The immense costs associated with the transition to EVs and other new vehicle technologies has at the same time been driving new waves of consolidation and shake-ups in the auto industry. In addition to the most prominent example, the transatlantic merger between Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group to form Stellantis, other major automakers have been racing to work out cost- and technology-sharing agreements.

Ford and Volkswagen and Daimler and BMW have each announced partnerships in recent years. Within days following GM’s 2035 EV announcement, Ford stated it would double its planned investments in EVs and autonomous vehicles, reaching $29 billion by 2025, and subsequently announced that it was partnering with tech giant Google, planning to use the company’s technology and services for a range of its operations.

For its part, GM revealed last spring that it would partner with Honda, announcing plans last month to build two electric crossovers for the Japanese automaker, one at its plant in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico, under the Honda nameplate, and another at its Spring Hill, Tennessee, plant for Honda’s Acura brand.

GM has also sought to make inroads into alternative energy models in the commercial trucking sector. It had initially planned to purchase an 11 percent stake in trucking startup Nikola, before that company’s founder was forced to resign under allegations of fraud (the two nominally still have plans to collaborate on the production of a vehicle). More recently, GM announced it was partnering with heavy-duty truck maker Navistar, along with logistics giant JB Hunt, to produce a hydrogen fuel cell truck.

The impact of the EV transition on the workforce

As with all significant technological advances under capitalism, the shift to EVs, along with the developments in artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles, are not being directed at the betterment of society or the improvement of working conditions, but rather are being used to intensify the exploitation of the working class.

EVs require far fewer components than traditional vehicles. GM’s current electric model, the Chevy Bolt, has a motor with just three moving parts, compared with 113 in a combustion engine, according to the consulting firm PwC. A United Auto Workers whitepaper in 2019—which presented mass job cuts as an all-but inevitable result of the shift to electric vehicles—cited Ford and VW executives who stated that EVs would reduce labor-hours-per-vehicle by as much as 30 percent.

The reduced labor required for EVs will be used by the auto corporations to carry out a vast restructuring in order to increase their profits, with the potential for thousands of more layoffs and the increased misery for those who remain.

According to the website Autoblog, some 100,000 workers in the US alone are employed at factories that make transmissions and gas or diesel engines. A massive wave of bankruptcies and job cuts could sweep the already vulnerable auto parts industry. Roughly 75 to 100 of the biggest parts makers “face irrelevance” if they don’t secure a place in the move to EVs, Paul Eichenberg, an auto industry consultant, told Crain’s Chicago Business.

The UAW reacted to GM’s announcement of the transition to all-electric vehicles with its typical combination of lies and reactionary nationalism. “The important thing is that President Biden agrees with our position that these new jobs replacing (internal combustion) engines are union wage and benefit jobs that are created right here in the US,” UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg stated.

What are the “union wage and benefit jobs” to which it refers? For over 40 years, the UAW has facilitated one concessions contract after another, bargaining away rights won by workers over decades of struggle, including pensions, the eight-hour day, annual cost-of-living raises and more. At the same time, it has allowed the companies to drive down wages and vastly expand their use of low-paid temps, resulting in working conditions more akin to the 1930s, in return accepting millions in bribes.

Worse, the UAW has worked hand-in-glove with the auto companies during the COVID-19 pandemic, colluding with the companies in ensuring a premature reopening of plants and then covering up the spread of cases, which has resulted in the deaths of dozens of autoworkers.

Striking plant workers cheer outside the General Motor assembly plant in Bowling Green, Ky, Monday, Sept. 16, 2019. (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston)

The UAW is playing a key role in GM’s restructuring of its workforce in preparation for new technologies. In 2018, Cindy Estrada, the UAW’s then-vice president for GM, signed a secret memorandum of understanding allowing the company to replace much of the workforce at its Lake Orion Assembly Plant with subcontractors. Lake Orion, which produces experimental autonomous vehicles, is a major test-bed for the company’s workforce of the future.

The UAW then sold out a 40-day strike by GM workers in 2019, forcing through a contract which allows for the expanded use of temps and approved the closure of three US plants, including Lordstown Assembly.

Where jobs may someday return at the automakers’ plants producing EV parts, such as GM’s planned joint venture with battery maker LG Chem in Lordstown, they will be fewer in number and earning lower wages. Meanwhile, the relentless effort to drive up profitability for GM’s wealthy investors will result in the “Amazonification” of working conditions throughout its operations, with high-tech means of monitoring workers to enforce speed-up and the maximum possible output. These conditions are in the works throughout the auto industry and more widely.

Technology, capitalism and the fight for socialism

The social and economic implications of electric vehicle technology presents one with a paradox. In and of itself, the new technology is a positive development. It will make automobiles cheaper to produce and more efficient. Autonomous vehicles, which are not much further down the road, have even more potential.

And yet the benefits of this technology, under the present social system—capitalism—will accrue only to a tiny minority in the form of soaring profits and share values. Meanwhile, workers can expect layoffs, poverty and the destruction of much of existing industry upon which they rely for their livelihoods.

Moreover, EV technology is already turning into another flashpoint in the conflict between the United States and China, as well as in the growing conflict between the US and its erstwhile allies in Europe. Instead of using this technology for the common betterment of humankind, the United States and the other major powers are seeking to dominate this powerful new technology at the expense of its rivals, raising the danger of catastrophic military conflict.

This is not the result of EV technology itself, or of technology in general. Rather, it is the product of the irrational and outmoded character of the capitalist system. Every new technological advance, including not only electric vehicles but faster 5G cellular networks, artificial intelligence and, dreadfully, vaccines against COVID-19, aggravates the contradictions at the heart of the capitalist system. These are between the socially-coordinated character of the labor process and private accumulation of surplus, in the form of profits, by the capitalists, and between the globally-integrated world economy and the nation-state system, which leads inevitably to war.

An entirely different outcome is possible. Electric vehicle technology can and should be used to shorten the working day in the auto industry, improve access to transportation and form part of a global strategy to dramatically curb carbon emissions.

But in order for that potential to be realized, workers internationally must join together to take control of the colossal resources hoarded by the private corporations and their parasitic billionaire investors, and instead harness them to the needs of society. This is the program of socialism.

Rocket attack on US base in Iraq underlines continued Middle East militarism under Biden

Bill Van Auken

A rocket attack Monday on the heavily fortified American military base in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, has underlined the continued US intervention in the Middle East under the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden.

The attack, which killed one military contractor, initially identified as a Syrian Kurd, and wounded nine others, including an American soldier, came as the Pentagon is formally evaluating US troop deployments in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared Washington “outraged” by the attack. Tehran, meanwhile, angrily refuted allegations that Iran was in any way involved in the rocket strike. A little-known group calling itself Saraya Awliya al-Dam, or Guardians of the Blood Brigade, claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack.

A wall is damaged in a residential complex after rockets attack in Irbil, Iraq, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021.(AP Photo/Salar Salim)

A similar attack on a US base in Iraq last December led to a spiral of US retaliation that included the bombing of Iraqi Shia militia positions and the criminal US drone strike assassination of senior Iranian leader Qassem Suleimani and a top Iraqi militia leader at Baghdad international airport last January.

While in the course of his election campaign, Biden criticized this assassination and promised to “end the forever wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East,” there is no indication of any move toward a de-escalation of American militarism in the region.

In a press conference last Friday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said that the ongoing review of US deployments was aimed at assuring “that we have a robust enough deterrent capability in the Middle East,” including “both the fixed and the rotational capabilities in the region to deal with the threats that are posed by Iran.”

Officially, Washington has 2,500 troops deployed in Iraq and approximately 900 in Syria, along with 2,500 more in Afghanistan. The real US military footprint is undoubtedly far larger, however. The Pentagon stopped releasing figures on the number of uniformed forces and military contractors deployed in the three countries in 2017 on the order of the Trump White House. Moreover, other military units are rotated in and out of the war zones on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, as many as 40,000 more troops are deployed across the region at US military bases in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries. US aircraft carrier strike groups have carried out continuous threatening maneuvers in and near the Persian Gulf, while the Biden administration has continued menacing Iran with the overflight of the region by B-52 Stratofortress heavy bombers.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who previously commanded the US Central Command, which oversees military operations in the region, is “comfortable” with the current US military presence there, the Pentagon spokesman said last Friday.

While US troops remain in Iraq and Syria under the pretext of preventing any resurgence of ISIS, their real mission is to counter Iranian influence in both countries. In Syria, the Biden administration is continuing the “keep the oil” policy pursued under Trump, with US forces guarding oil fields in Syria’s northeastern governorates of Deir Ezzor and Hasakah.

Damascus has reported that this operation is only expanding, with convoys of vehicles carrying heavy equipment and weapons arriving at a US base near the Omar oil field in Deir Ezzor, and US forces sending 60 armored vehicles along with bulldozers to the far northeast of Hasakah, near the triple

border between Syria, Iraq and Turkey, to build a new base near oil fields. The aim is to deny the energy

resources to the Iranian-backed government of President Bashar al-Assad.

A previously unknown US oil company, Delta Crescent Energy, has signed a contract with the Pentagon’s Syrian Kurdish proxy ground forces to exploit the oil fields. The firm’s principals include an ex-Delta Force operative and Fox News contributor, and an ex-ambassador and Republican Party operative who called for the execution of Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. While Pentagon spokesman Kirby insisted that US troops were not “authorized to provide assistance to any...private company,” they were empowered to “protect civilians,” which would presumably include Delta Crescent Energy employees.

During his presidential campaign, Biden pledged to resume Washington’s participation in the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in which Iran accepted a sharp curtailment of its civilian nuclear program in return for the lifting of economic sanctions. The deal was unilaterally abrogated by the Trump administration in 2018, and relations between Washington and Tehran continue to deteriorate as the “maximum pressure” sanctions regime, an economic blockade tantamount to a state of war, remains in place under Biden.

The Biden administration has demanded that Tehran roll back measures that it took in response to the US repudiation of the deal and the failure of the European powers to counter Washington’s sanctions—increasing its uranium enrichment levels to 20 percent as well as its uranium stockpiles—before the US will lift sanctions and return to the agreement. In addition, administration officials have indicated that Washington intends to demand additional sweeping concessions from Iran, including that it scrap its ballistic missile program and cede its influence in the Middle East in the interests of US hegemony.

Last week, Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, warned that by the end of February Tehran would halt snap inspections of nuclear sites by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to exert further pressure for the lifting of sanctions that are causing poverty, hunger and preventable deaths among the Iranian population. Zarif also denounced US demands for Iran to return to “full compliance,” writing in a tweet: “US ceased participation in May 2018, violated JCPOA & punished those complying with UN resolution. As of today, US remains in EXACTLY same position. Before spouting off, COMPLY.”

In a speech delivered Monday to the Middle East Institute, the chief of the Pentagon’s Central Command, Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, cast the US intervention in the Middle East and its confrontation with Iran as an essential battle in the strategic confrontation between US imperialism and its “great power” rivals, Russia and, particularly, China.

“The United States faces increasing competition in the region from Russia and China both vying for power and influence through a combination of diplomatic, military and economic means,” he said in a virtual appearance. He went on to charge that Moscow and Beijing had “exploited an ongoing regional crisis; financial infrastructure needs; perception of declining US engagement; and opportunities created by COVID-19 to advance their objectives across the Middle East and central and southern Asian nations to gain or strengthen footholds in the region.”

He acknowledged that China represented the principal strategic threat. In the past several years, it has emerged as the number-one trading partner for the bulk of the countries in the Persian Gulf region, including both Iran and Iraq, as well as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is also signaling that US forces will almost certainly remain in Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of war and in violation of a peace agreement signed between Washington and the Taliban last year.

While the Taliban has complied with its pledge to stop all attacks with US and NATO forces in Afghanistan—not a single American soldier has been killed in the country over the past year—its fighters are continuing to overwhelm the forces of the US puppet government in Kabul, overrunning military bases, seizing arms and munitions, and encircling major provincial capitals.

Under the US-Taliban agreement, all US and other foreign forces are required to leave Afghanistan by May 1. There are increasing warnings from within the US military and intelligence apparatus that a full US withdrawal will spell an ignominious collapse of the US puppet regime. According to the New York Times, Biden fears the political repercussions of scenes like those in Vietnam, when the last US personnel were forced to evacuate by helicopter from the roof of the Saigon embassy.

Defense Secretary Austin is to meet with NATO ministers on Wednesday and Thursday for talks in which the decision on Afghanistan will be at the top of the agenda. There are currently some 7,000 NATO troops deployed in the country.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, undoubtedly foreshadowing Washington’s decision, declared Monday that NATO will not leave Afghanistan “before the time is right.”

The Taliban has warned that if the US does not comply with the terms of the peace deal and withdraw American forces, it will renew its attacks. In response, American commanders have requested that the Pentagon provide more troops and additional airpower for the continuation of the longest war in US history.

Australia’s Telstra imposes 1,400 more sackings as restructure resumes

Terry Cook

Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company, has recommenced its drive to eliminate 8,000 jobs by June 30, suddenly informing 1,425 workers at the beginning of January that they are being retrenched.

The massive job shedding is part of the former government-owned company’s far-reaching T22 plan, first unveiled in mid-2018. It is aimed at cutting $1 billion in costs, primarily through job cuts and by splitting off old infrastructure assets. The restructure was temporarily halted last year after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

FILE- In this Aug. 11, 2011, file photo, the Telstra name is painted on the side of a phone booth in Sydney, Australia. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)

At that time, Telstra’s chief executive Andy Penn claimed the decision to suspend sackings was “a public-spirited effort.” In fact, the delay was motivated purely by Telstra’s commercial interests. It required the temporary retention of staff to handle increased capacity and network demand as millions of people began to work from home due to pandemic restrictions.

Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU) national president Shane Murphy rushed to praise Telstra’s stay of execution, describing it as a “a big win for workers,” who could now “focus on their work.”

Telstra’s workers were contemptuously informed of the T22 restart by a company email. Telstra boasted that with the latest sackings it had achieved 90 percent of its job destruction target and would eliminate another 800 positions by the end of the financial year.

The CEPU and the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which cover Telstra staff, are seeking to block any struggle in defence of jobs. Murphy responded to the latest announcement by plaintively asking Telstra “to reconsider its position” because the staff reduction could adversely affect company operations.

This grovelling response is in line with the role played by the unions from the outset of T22. They have collaborated with the company at every point to facilitate the restructure and worked to block opposition by workers.

Through a series of union-supported programs, such as the company’s so-called assistance employee package, its career transition scheme and vague suggestions of possible redeployment for some sacked workers, combined with severance arrangements, the jobs have been destroyed without any organised opposition.

On the basis of its job destruction, Telstra announced a 16-cent shareholder dividend in a February 11 financial report, despite a sharp decline in half-year earnings. It also unveiled an increased cost reduction target of $2.7 billion for the next financial year. The news saw Telstra share price rise to $3.25, a six-month high.

Telstra reported that its underlying earnings fell by 14.2 percent to $3.3 billion over the previous financial half. In part, the coronavirus pandemic resulted in declines to lucrative international roaming revenues and required additional expenses for customer support. While before-tax profits fell 20 percent compared with the previous year, the company still raked in $1.33 billion, no doubt helped by earlier cuts to jobs and working conditions.

Penn has described the T22 restructure as the “biggest and most complex” since the privatisation of the telco, which began in 1997 under an earlier Liberal-National government and was completed by the Labor Party in 2011. T22 will split Telstra into three legal entities under an umbrella group by December.

InfraCo Fixed will own and operate Telstra’s physical infrastructure assets, such as ducts, fibre, data centres, subsea cables and exchanges. InfraCo Towers will own and operate Telstra’s physical mobile tower assets, and ServeCo will own and operate its retail business.

The creation of InfraCo will position Telstra for a takeover of the government-owned National Broadband Network (NBN), which was built with massive public funding to supposedly provide higher capacity communications and internet speeds.

Last December, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher telegraphed a future sell off by formally declaring the NBN rollout “complete and fully operational.” This fulfilled a legal requirement for the privatisation of NBN, valued at $57 billion.

When asked by the media last October about Telstra’s intentions for InfraCo, company chairman John Mullen would not rule out “a merger” with NBN Co once it is privatised, saying “operationally it would make a lot of sense.”

InfraCo will own the ducts and pipes the national broadband network runs and for which NBN Co must pay rent. This will give InfraCo a significant advantage over any other potential bidder.

The creation of the three entities creates the conditions for further restructuring and downsizing, a development the communications unions have pledged to support.

In a bulletin last November, CEPU divisional secretary Greg Rayner said “we will actively participate in that process.” He said Telstra had indicated it would “engage in a genuine consultation process with your union.”

In a “question and answer” bulletin issued on February 8, the CEPU and CWU sought to hose down concerns raised by workers about the impact of T22.

Answering one question, the unions confirmed that all jobs at Telstra would become redundant when the three-way split up is complete, but denied that retrenchments are inevitable. They wrote: “The three subsidiaries are going to have a whole lot of work with no employees to perform it. So, the scenario is one of thousands of jobless ex-Telstra employees and thousands of vacancies in the subsidiaries. As you can see, the solution is in the problem.”

To argue that Telstra, which is putting the axe through its workforce, will not utilise the breakup to further downsize is a bid to blind workers to what is being prepared and disarm them in the face of the company’s offensive.

The unions claimed: “In our preliminary discussions, Telstra has indicated the subsidiaries will seek to employ the same people from Telstra, to continue doing the same work once they have taken it over.” In other words, there is no guarantee that the new entities will employ the same workers.

Telstra’s restructuring is part of a broader offensive by the financial elite, being policed by the unions. This includes the now indefinite lockout of Coles workers at its Smeaton Grange warehouse in southwestern Sydney, where the United Workers Union is trying to push through a sell-out agreement for the closure of the facility and the destruction of 350 jobs.

At Australia Post, the CEPU and CWU are presiding over the “Alternative Delivery Model,” which has ramped up workloads and prepared the postal service for privatisation.

This offensive is now encountering resistance. The Smeaton Grange workers have rejected the union sell-out operation in multiple ballots. At Australia Post, workers have established an independent rank-and-file committee to organise a struggle against the union-enforced ADM and other attacks on workers.

To fight the assault on jobs and working conditions, Telstra workers also need to break with the corporatist unions. The experiences of the past decades have demonstrated that they function as a police force of management.

The fight against the restructure is not only against the company, but the government, Labor, the unions and the Fair Work industrial laws they use to block any collective action by workers.

This means fighting for a broader political movement of the working class, including by linking up with the Coles and Australia Post workers. That requires a new political perspective, aimed at placing Telstra, Australia Post, the major corporations and the banks under public ownership and democratic workers’ control. That is the fight for a workers’ government and for socialism.

Protests and work stoppages continue in Myanmar against military coup

Peter Symonds

Despite increased repression by the Myanmar junta, protests and strikes continued on Monday and Tuesday against the February 1 military coup after a weekend of widespread demonstrations. The protests are taking place in defiance of a ban on all gatherings of five or more people.

News is patchy as a result of heavy censorship. In an effort not only to control the news but also the ability of protesters to organise, the regime virtually shut down internet services on Sunday and Monday nights. British-based Netblocks reported that as of 1 a.m. Myanmar time on Tuesday morning, the country was “in the midst of a near-total internet shutdown.”

Demonstrators, with eyes blindfolded, lie down in the street to a protest a military coup in Yangon, Myanmar, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021. (AP Photo)

Nevertheless, the limited coverage gives a clear indication of continuing protests, not only in the major cities, but in many regional cities and towns.

Associated Press reported that soldiers and police attacked more than 1,000 protesters on Monday in front of the Myanmar Economic Bank in Mandalay, the country’s second largest city. Police reportedly fired warning shots into the air, while a number of people were injured by rubber bullets. Around 3,000 protesters, mainly students, returned to the city’s streets on Tuesday.

A satellite image taken Tuesday and released via CNN showed a huge slogan written on a major road in Mandalay declaring “We want democracy.”

Groups of demonstrators also mobilised in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, early on Tuesday. Police blocked off the street in front of the Central Bank, which has been targeted by protesters calling on bank employees to join the civil disobedience movement of work stoppages that is embracing growing sections of workers. The military has deployed armoured vehicles to the city’s streets.

Reuters reported that protesters on Tuesday stood on the tracks of the main railway line, blocking trains between Yangon and the southern city of Mawlamyine. They chanted “Release our leaders immediately,” and “People’s power, give it back.”

Hundreds of people marched through the west coast town of Thanked on Tuesday. Also yesterday, Frontier Myanmar reported that police fired rubber bullets at a protest of about 150 people outside the prison in the southern town of Myaungmya to demand the release of a local primary school headmaster.

The Myanmar Times reported that tens of thousands gathered on Monday in the township of Minbu, between Yangon and Mandalay, to rally against the junta. “More than 100,000 protestors comprising Hindus, Muslims, Mann oilfield and Htauk Shar Pin/Kanni oilfield workers and government staff took part in the protest today,” a protest leader said. The protesters shouted slogans against military rule and called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, President U Win Myint and other detained political leaders from the ousted elected government.

While the protests may not have been of the magnitude of those last weekend, there are growing signs of sections of the working class engaging in “civil disobedience” and refusing to work under the junta. According to Associated Press (AP): “The walkouts have been especially notable among government employees, including at the ministry that provides power nationwide, tax offices and the General Administration Department, which oversees a wide range of public services and government functions.”

Dr. Kyaw Zin, a surgeon who led one of the nation’s first walkouts at the government-run Mandalay General Hospital, told AP: “There is no way we can work under a dictatorship.”

The New York Times cited an electricity lineman, U Pyae Sone Ko Ko, who said about 60 percent of Ministry of Electricity and Energy employees had walked off the job. He noted that a large number were meter readers, and if they did not do their jobs, the ministry could not send out bills. “We have to take part in the C.D.M. [civil disobedience movement] to stop the regime and take down the dictatorship,” he said.

The banks have also been affected. Daw Thandar Kyaw, a bank employee who joined the walkout, said: “If we stop going to work, the economic sector will stop working. Min Aung Hlaing and the military dictators care about the economy because they love money. I strongly believe that we can bring down the dictators if all bank staff join the C.D.M.”

Earlier reports referred to action by other sections of workers, including garment and transport workers. According to the Myanmar Times, 2,750 truck drivers from the Myanmar Container Trucks Association (MCTA) “suspended operations indefinitely” last Friday in support of the anti-junta protesters.

The MCTA stated: “The trucks will transport cargo deemed essential for the country and its people—such as medicines—but they have stopped running for other goods and materials. This is because the banks and ports are closed.”

If the military has not simply turned its guns on protesters, as it has in the past, it is because it fears an explosion of opposition in the working class. Social tensions are already high as a result of the deteriorating economy and social crisis facing many working people, compounded by a surging number of COVID-19 cases. Economic growth for 2020-21 is projected to be just 0.5 percent.

A recent meeting of the State Administrative Council, the military’s new ruling body, reflected the junta’s concerns. As reported in the Global New Light of Myanmar, it discussed taking legal action against protesters, providing “true information” to the media, and resuming public transport—a reference to strikes and slowdowns by truck drivers and railway workers.

All the signs indicate that a powerful movement of the working class is developing in Myanmar in opposition to the coup and in defence of democratic and social rights. Its great political weakness, however, is its orientation to Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD), which do not represent the interests of working people, but those of a faction of the ruling class whose business interests and political ambitions have been stifled by the military.

Amid the uprising against the military in 1988, during which strikes by workers paralysed the economy, the junta relied on Suu Kyi to bring the mass movement to a halt. She called for an end to the protests in exchange for an empty promise by the military to hold elections in 1990. The armed forces seized the opportunity to turn their guns on protesters, killing hundreds. Having secured their grip on power, they refused to hold the promised election.

Facing a movement of the working class, Suu Kyi and the NLD are far more fearful of the threat it poses to bourgeois rule, than they are of military repression. The fight for democracy by the working class is intimately bound up with the struggle against the capitalist system for a socialist reorganisation of society to meet the pressing social needs of the majority, not the profits of the wealthy elites—whether the military chiefs or their “democratic” rivals.

Professional football testing and tracing regimens reveal further dangers for in-person teaching

Bryan Dyne

A set of coronavirus testing and contact tracing measures implemented last year to cover 11,400 people was recently published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report posted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These include testing “conducted 6 days per week” and “trained staff members” carrying out interviews “to identify contacts.”

The report noted how “extensive mitigation and surveillance measures in facilities,” including wearing masks and minimizing in-person interaction, along with employees who “were regularly educated about risks from household and community exposure,” combined to keep the spread of COVID-19 among those followed in the CDC study relatively low.

Carolina Panthers playing the Arizona Cardinals (Wikimedia Commons/Cedward Brice)

In a rational world, one might expect that these would be the absolute minimum guidelines for essential workers in a pandemic: for doctors, nurses, grocery workers, agricultural workers, emergency service workers, to name a few. However, in 21st century America, during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, such measures are not for such a critical section of society, but rather for professional athletes, specifically for players in the National Football League.

The protocols were laid out in a joint CDC/NFL paper that cataloged the spread of the coronavirus among players and staff from August 9 to November 21. The report also served as a review and assessment of the testing and contact tracing conducted for football players during the 2020 season.

First, it must be noted that whatever the successes of the program the league implemented, holding games at all was extremely irresponsible. As the study itself notes, 329 cases of the coronavirus were identified among the employees of the league, along with 20 confirmed cases among those who had contact with infected players or staff. Among these, dozens were offensive linemen, who are more at risk than their colleagues because of the weight they put on to play their position. It is sheer luck that no deaths have so far been reported.

Second, the study makes clear that for those workers who absolutely must work during the pandemic, there are methods to contain the extent of the virus as much as possible, if the resources are made available. According to ESPN, more than $100 million was made available to the NFL and the NFL Players Association, which built a robust infection control system.

From a purely scientific standpoint, the data is among the most detailed account yet produced of how the coronavirus spreads. During the season, every player in the league and most staff were tested six days a week, with the turnaround time on their laboratory PCR tests always less than 24 hours. They also were required to wear proximity devices, which allowed for real time contact tracing and recorded all interactions that occurred within six feet of other players and staff. The NFL also hired a support group of contact tracers to conduct interviews when the disease spread to family members, roommates or others not wearing the proximity devices.

The NFL then used the data collected to carefully watch the speed at which transmission of the virus occurs. It found, “Among the 21 persons with suspected within-club transmission, 12 had no device-recorded interactions of ≥15 consecutive minutes with a person with confirmed COVID-19, including eight who had no interactions >5 consecutive minutes and seven who had no interactions >15 cumulative minutes per day (with no other known exposures to a person with COVID-19).”

Of course, the fact that even with all the policies and restrictions put in place, infections in numerous different places and in multiple different ways still occurred is a warning to the working class. If transmission of the coronavirus can penetrate the NFL’s extraordinarily well-funded testing and contact tracing regimen, the vast majority of workers, who do not have access to such resources, stand no chance.

These results are further evidence that the virus is both airborne and can be present in the air long after the infected person leaves the room. This means that an infected person freely exhaling (not wearing a mask) in a poorly ventilated area can infect many people, even if no one is present in the room when he or she is.

Such dangers immediately call into question workplace and school reopenings in the United States and internationally. These dangers are multiplied when one considers that at the time the NFL games were being played, the new more infectious and deadly variants of the coronavirus had yet to emerge.

Compared to the players and staff of the NFL, teachers doing in-person learning are threatened a great deal more by the coronavirus. They are in enclosed rooms for hours on end, especially during the winter months, with ventilation systems that are more often than not either inadequate or nonexistent. They intermingle with their colleagues and their students, all of whom can transmit the disease, and, as documented by the NFL, all it takes are a few moments of an infected person eating lunch to potentially infect several others.

Yet those who work and learn in schools are tested even less than those in sports, generally at most once a week. Contact tracing across the country has essentially collapsed. And vaccines, which have been presented by the Biden administration and the media as the panacea that will allow schools to reopen, are being distributed and administered not to protect health care and other frontline workers, but to boost corporate profits by getting certain sections of workers, above all teachers, back to work.

Moreover, the CDC is encouraging schools to reopen at “any level of community transmission,” claiming that “strict adherence to mitigation strategies” will keep teachers, staff and students safe. This is the language of the Trump administration, which has now been appropriated by Biden. The entire ruling elite seeks to resume fully in-person learning in all school districts that currently provide remote instruction so as to pressure parents to return to their own equally dangerous workplaces.

This is a recipe for disaster. One of the more interesting results of the NFL study was that the spread of the virus among the players and staff of the NFL broadly mirrored that of the spread of the disease nationally. While some spikes in the data were caused by social events, the daily case counts from October through November rose while cases nationally were also rising.

The spread in schools, where hundreds of millions of dollars are not being spent by each district to meticulously track the extent of the virus, will be far greater. There have already been hundreds of thousands of infections among students and teachers and hundreds of deaths. The stage is being set for millions of new cases and thousands of new deaths.

That the NFL was able to contain the pandemic to such an extent is an example of the minimum necessary to protect essential workers: proper personal protective equipment, extensive testing, tracing, any necessary isolation, and, now that they have been deployed, vaccinations. At the same time, the data clearly show the immense dangers facing the NFL players, and implicitly argue that no one should be in the workplace if he or she does not have to be.

Teachers do not have to be. As the past several months have shown, they have risen to the challenge of teaching remotely, sacrificing even more than usual to ensure that their students are as much as possible able to learn under extraordinarily hostile conditions. Parents too have been forced to go to immense lengths to provide an education for their children. Those sacrifices are now being threatened by the accelerating herd immunity policies of the Biden administration, which acts on behalf of the murderous social system that allowed the pandemic to spread so far in the first place: capitalism.

Despite the Spin By Lobbyists , Extremely Tragic Health Impacts of Alcohol Confirmed by Latest Research

Bharat Dogra

It is now well that the powerful tobacco lobby spread many falsehoods to undermine the steadily growing scientific evidence regarding the very serious health risks of tobacco. Millions of dollars were spent on this lobbying, with huge benefits doled out to corrupt scientists, decision-makers and media. The lobbyists and their collaborators made huge fortunes while public health suffered a lot.

Something similar is now happening in the context of alcohol, with the highly resourceful and powerful alcohol lobby spending lavishly to compromise decision makers, researchers and media. While collusion with politicians and officials is important for getting contracts and thekas , pushing liquor vends right to the doorstep of even remote villages, media and researchers are important for spreading falsehoods that liquor is not so harmful after all, with the added subtle suggestion  that a mild dose may even be good for you, as well as for creating a false but attractive sense of  high living around alcohol to create new customers among youth in particular.

In some developing countries including India clever, subtle strategies pursued by lobbyists have even undermined strong traditional social values against alcohol, as mass media was used to identify alcohol consumption with modern living while the social values against alcoholism were treated with disdain and equated with backwardness and outdated thinking. In several households, including rural ones, the total avoidance of alcohol has been replaced by regular consumption within a generation, with heavy health, social and economic costs.

Despite all this, however, the latest research continues to confirm very serious adverse health impacts of alcohol and what is more, some responsible public health officials have been coming forward to refute the lobbyist driven false propaganda. Britain provides one example of this. Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer of Britain, recently overcame a lot of resistance from liquor industry lobbyists  to radically change two decade old guidelines which had understated health risks of liquor while also either implicitly conceding or at least not adequately refuting imaginery  claims of some health benefits ( for example in the context of red wine) spread by lobbyists and sellers of liquor.

The new guidelines came in the wake of growing concern over reported 500 per cent increase in deaths from liver disease among working age people in Britain since the 1970s. Another serious concern came with growing evidence of higher risks of a range of cancers associated with liquor, including red wine.

The evidence regarding the closer link between liquor and a range of cancers was supported by a new review from the Committee on Carcinogenicity in Britain. The development of the new guidelines was chaired by Prof. Mark Petticrew, Prof. of Public Health Evaluation at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and by Prof. Sally Macintyre, Prof. Emeritus  at  the University of Glasgow.

The new guidelines on liquor consumption released on 8 January 2016 by the Chief Medical Officer to replace nearly two decade old guidelines warn that drinking any level of alcohol increases the risk of a range of cancers. The guidelines also make it clear that no level of alcohol is safe for drinking in pregnancy.

These guidelines inform that drinking regularly over time can lead to a wide range of illnesses including cancers, strokes, heart diseases, liver diseases, and damage to the brain and nervous system.

On the other hand, these guidelines also make it clear that there is no justification for drinking for health reasons.

There is growing worldwide concern at the escalating costs of alcohol consumption  in terms of very serious health problems. There is more evidence than ever before of very serious health risks from alcohol but despite this, at least partly because of the overactive lobbyists, the overall trend in the world from 2005 to 2025 is of a significant rise in liquor consumption. This is also the overall conclusion of the World Status report on Alcohol 2018 prepared by the WHO.

The per capita per year pure alcohol consumption at the world level increased from 2005 to 2016 and is projected to increase again from 2016 to 2025. However the world level increase rate is much lower than the very fast  rate of growth of liquor consumption in India. The world level increase is driven above all by the rising trend in two highly populated countries, India and China. The rate of increase is higher in India than in China.

In India the per capita per year pure alcohol consumption increased from 2.4 litres in 2005 to 5.7 litres in 2016, a more than double increase in roughly a decade. This is projected to increase to about 8 litres in 2025 when for the first time since records are available the average consumption in India at 8 litres is projected to be higher than the world average of 7 litres.

According to the WHO Status report, in 2016, the harmful use of alcohol resulted in some 3 million deaths (5.3% of all deaths) worldwide and 132.6 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) – i.e. 5.1% of all DALYs in that year. Mortality resulting from alcohol consumption is higher than that caused by diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and diabetes. Among men in 2016, an estimated 2.3 million deaths and 106.5 million DALYs were attributable to the consumption of alcohol. Women experienced 0.7 million deaths and 26.1 million DALYs attributable to alcohol consumption.

The WHO report tells us that in 2016, of all deaths attributable to alcohol consumption worldwide, 28.7% were due to injuries, 21.3% due to digestive diseases, 19% due to cardiovascular diseases, 12.9% due to infectious diseases and 12.6% due to cancers. About 49% of alcohol attributable DALYs are due to non-communicable and mental health conditions, and about 40% are due to injuries.

13.5% of all deaths among those who are 20–29 years of age are attributed to alcohol.

Explaining the situation further this report tells us that the health and social harms from drinking alcohol occur through three main interrelated mechanisms: 1) the toxic effects of alcohol on diverse organs and tissues in the consumer’s body (resulting, for instance, in liver disease, heart disease or cancer); 2) development of alcohol dependence whereby the drinker’s self-control over his or her drinking is impaired, often involving alcohol-induced mental disorders such as depression or psychoses; and 3) through intoxication – the psychoactive effects of alcohol in the hours after drinking

According to research works consulted for preparing this status report alcohol consumption has been shown to increase the risk of HIV/AIDS by increasing the risk of transmission (resulting from an increased risk of unprotected sex ) and by increasing the risk of infection and subsequent mortality from tuberculosis and lower respiratory infections by suppressing a wide range of immune responses via multiple biological pathways, particularly in people who engage in heavy episodic drinking or who chronically consume large amounts of alcohol .

The harmful use of alcohol is associated both with an increased risk of acquiring HIV infection and with negative effects on people living with HIV/AIDS in terms of treatment outcomes, morbidity and mortality.

Further the WHO status report informs us  that alcohol consumption has a synergistic effect with viral hepatitis in the progression of liver disease . In addition, alcohol is a well-known causal factor for non-infectious liver diseases, including hepatitis and liver cirrhosis, and the latter is associated with high mortality.

Coming to cancer this report says that there is an established causal link between alcohol use and cancer development in the oropharynx, larynx, oesophagus, liver, colon, rectum and the female breast . The risks are generally higher for females than males. Even moderate alcohol intake, corresponding to daily consumption of no more than 25 grams of pure alcohol, has been shown to increase the risk of developing female breast cancer.

This report informs us that the  causal relationship of alcohol consumption and liver diseases is well established, and alcohol has been shown to have an ability to cause hepatocellular damage through ethanol metabolism-associated mechanisms and malnutrition  Alcohol is one of the most frequent causes of liver disease; alcohol-involved subtypes of liver disease include alcoholic hepatitis, steatosis, steatohepatitis, fibrosis and cirrhosis. Acute alcoholic hepatitis and liver cirrhosis are associated with high mortality (which can reach 50% in acute alcohol hepatitis), and the median survival time of patients with advanced liver cirrhosis can be as low as 1–2 years.

Giving an example from China this report mentions the Beijing 302 Hospital which is a large hospital treating patients from most parts of China, including over 40 000 patients per year with liver disease. Those treated for liver disease at the hospital are thus reflective of trends in liver disease in China. In the period 2002–2013, the distribution of types of liver disease changed at the hospital, with the proportion of alcoholic liver disease (ALD) more than doubling . Throughout this period, most of the patients with ALD (about 98%) were male. A study reporting this remarked that “the number of patients with ALD is rising at an alarming rate in China”.

The WHO report refers to  expansive literature which shows that alcohol intoxication can increase dysphoria, cognitive dysfunction, impulsivity and intensity of suicidal ideation. People have approximately seven times increased risk for a suicide attempt soon after drinking alcohol, and this risk further increases to 37 times after heavy use of alcohol . The alcohol-attributable fraction for suicide was estimated to be as high as 18%  It is also known that the presence of AUDs (Alcohol Use Disorders) at least doubles the risk of having depression .

This report points out that the potential effects of alcohol include impairment in attention, cognition and dexterity (which are important for such activities as driving a car); aggressive impulses and loss of behavioural control (important for criminal violence); and alcohol poisoning (which can be fatal).

Further this report tells us that alcohol poisoning is a consequence of drinking large amounts of alcohol in a short period of time. Drinking too much in a short period of time can affect breathing, heart rate, body temperature and gag reflex and may result in a coma and death. In comparisons with other psychoactive substances, alcohol is among the most lethal in terms of how close the amounts used for psychoactive effects are to the median amount that is lethal. While poisoning clusters from contaminated alcohol often receive global press coverage, poisoning with ordinary beverage alcohol – usually in concentrated form such as distilled beverages – is an everyday reality in many societies, although it is often under-recorded in health statistics.

The harmful use of alcohol is a component cause of more than 200 diseases  and injury conditions, the most notable being alcohol dependence, liver cirrhosis, cancers and injuries, the latest causal relationships established are those between alcohol consumption and incidence of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDs.

However, the alcohol industry and its lobbyists have worked overtime to ensure that the massive adverse impacts of alcohol consumption are not reported adequately and properly  so that people do not become aware about the full dimensions of these tragic impacts. A recent study led by scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Sweden’s Karolinska Institute has concluded that the alcohol industry “uses denial, distortion and distraction to mislead people about the risks of developing cancer from drinking, often employing similar tactics to those of the tobacco industry.” However, the WHO says that drinking alcohol is a well established risk factor for a range of cancers including tumors of the mouth, liver, breast, colon and bowel, and the risk of cancer rises with the level of alcohol consumed.

Earlier also heavy drinking was linked to damage to brain, adverse impact of memory and dementia, but recent findings by researchers of Oxford University and University College London ( published in British Medical Journal) has found that this damage is possible also at much lower alcohol consumption. This is also confirmed by another study involving 1300 women in the USA. Brain damage is likely to be higher in the case of binge drinking, particularly binge drinking involving adolescents.

Although the highly adverse impacts of alcohol consumption are very well-known, the alcohol industry has been trying for quite some time to somehow spread the myth that moderate levels are not a problem.

However an extensive study based on 195 countries which was published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet (August  2018) concluded clearly that not even one drink a day is safe.

Max Griswold, lead author for a group of over 500 experts said, “There is no safe level of alcohol,” “Overall, the health risks associated with alcohol rose in line with the amount consumed each day.”

Compared to abstinence, just one drink a day can lead to 1,00,000 additional deaths each year.

In the 15-49 age-group, alcohol is responsible for over 12% of deaths among all.

Deaths in this age-group is generally believed to cause more distress in households.

Considering 24 health problems, this study found that five drinks a day can raise severe health consequences by 37%. In Romania male drinkers average 8 drinks a day, while in Portugal and Ukraine they average 7 drinks a day.

Clearly the evidence of very adverse health impacts of alcohol remains very strong, despite all the efforts of resourceful lobbyists to undermine this evidence. In addition there are other equally and in some contexts even more damaging social impacts of alcohol. For instance a lot of research worldwide suggests alcohol use by perpetrator to be  involved in as many as about 50 per cent of all sexual assaults, apart from being an important factor in other crimes and violence as well.

Cyber Crime Volunteerism and the Unfolding of an Orwellian India

Lekshmi Sujatha

That the existence of democratic space and liberal discourse is shrinking in today’s India is a naked truth. Rabid polarization, communal disharmony, crony capitalism and stringent crack down of all the opposing voices against the government are realities of the day. With laws being thwarted and manipulated, brazen attempts to compromise the integrity of the legislature, executive, judiciary and the media are on full display. A 24×7 operating propaganda machinery ensures that the dubious motives of the ruling party are fulfilled, no matter how grave and atrocious the violations of people’s rights are. From religious discrimination in the form of CAA-NRC against Muslims to anti farmer laws, from anti trade union stand to flouting of environmental rules and tribal rights, the present dispensation is unleashing all its might in converting a democratic secular republic to an authoritarian dystopia.

Executions of new online and offline tactics go a long way in cementing and sustaining the idea of such a shrewd totalitarianism to continue masquerading as a benevolent democracy. The recent notification of Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs inviting Cyber Crime Volunteers is one such stealth weapon bearing unlimited potential in pitting citizens against each other. As per the notification, any Indian citizen could get associated by registering in any of three categories of cyber volunteer – Cyber Volunteer Unlawful Content Flagger for identifying online illegal and unlawful content like child pornography, rape and gang rape, militancy, radicalization, anti-national activities and reporting to the government; Cyber Awareness Promoter for creating awareness about cyber crime among citizen including vulnerable groups like women, children and elderly, and rural population; Cyber Expert for dealing with specific domains of cybercrime, forensics, network forensics, malware analysis, memory analysis and cryptography.

As per the ministry, the programme will be initially rolled out in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the North Eastern state Tripura, and after verifying the implementation feedbacks, it will be gradually extended throughout the country. Regarding the registration of volunteers, the portal says that those who sign up cannot use this programme for any commercial gain or issue any public statement about their association. They are also “prohibited from using the name or claiming association” with MHA on any public platform. It says the volunteer shall “maintain strict confidentiality of task assigned/carried out by him /her.” Also the registration seeking form says the State Nodal Officer of States/UTs also reserves the right to take legal action against the volunteer, in case of violation of terms and conditions of Cyber Volunteer Program. To participate, the portal demands willing citizens to furnish personal details, including name, details of the parents, contact details and email address. However, these will not be verified separately.

A basic reading of this notification itself raises numerous questions regarding the framework of operation, authenticity of procedures, accountability of the participants and those above them, and the constitutional and legal validity of rolling out such an exercise. For instance, let’s look at a few keywords specified – radicalization, anti national activities etc. Who defines the meanings of these words that have wider connotations in different contexts? How the interpretation will be done and shared? And even if it is done, how will it be ensured that such an interpretation is in lines with the existing legal and constitutional values? In a socio political environment filled with hatred and other-ing, what is the guarantee that people will not use such a dubious position to settle personal and political vendetta against each other?

Another grey area is the secrecy with which the volunteers will be operating. As they are not supposed to reveal their association with the government or their role in the programme, an ordinary citizen might never be able to guess the real intention of a person sitting next to him or her, who could actually be a cyber volunteer. It could be a relative, or a friend, or a neighbor and one may not be able to spell out a word against the government or its policies fearing the consequences. Personal, professional and social life will have to be spend with one’s lips zipped. Every single outlet of expressing one’s opinion, including the social media platforms shall be monitored and reported by the government’s “agents.” Isn’t this a blatant violation of Article 19(1) and 21 of the Indian constitution that offers us the fundamental right to freedom of speech, and right to life and liberty respectively? Isn’t this an infringement on the basic human rights as enshrined in the UDHR? Doesn’t this also amount to ignoring the Supreme court verdict in Shreya Singhal Vs Union of India, that struck down Sec 66A of the Information Technology Act (which had provisions of Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc )?

Under a discourse charged with toxic religious majoritarianism and hyper nationalism, equipping people with such uncontrolled power to flag anyone without any accountability is nothing less than scratching the head with matchsticks. Remember, this citizen spy network is in addition to the already existing surveillance tools employed by the state (like Aadhar and other biometrics) and its partners (including the domestic and global tech giants) in multitude ways. Even if for the sake of argument one agrees to the genuineness of some of its provisions like prevention of rape, gang rape, child pornography etc., what is the guarantee that such provisions won’t be misused by religious fanatics and conservatives against people opting for inter-caste or inter religious marriages, homosexuals, women and children? One can also not ignore the further human rights violations it would result in heavily militarized and AFSPA prevailing border regions like J&K and the North East where the programmes’s test dose will be served.

Considering the above concerns among others, at this juncture it would be better for the government to emphasize at least on Article 38(1) of the Indian constitution which says “the State shall strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall inform all the institutions of the national life.” It should remember that without a free, politically conscious, and participatory citizenry no democracy can survive. So in the interest of democracy and civility, the government-if at all intending to proceed further with this program- should at least ensure necessary  safeguards against its possible misuse, if not nipping it in the bud. Or else the Frankenstein monster this citizen Gestapo unleashing will only take the country to incorrigible depths of barbarity.