Strikes erupt across Spain as snap general election campaign begins

Alejandro López

Strikes are erupting across Spain on the eve of the snap elections called by the Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government after its electoral debacle in last month’s local and regional elections. Drawing hundreds of thousands of workers, the strikes are part of a broader movement across Europe and internationally, with workers raising similar demands in every country, and are met with police crackdowns and legal threats.

Striking Spanish service workers [Photo: Servicios CCOO]

Terrified that rising social opposition will cut across its plans to escalate war in the Ukraine and impose €24 billion in cuts and tax increases in 2024, the PSOE-Podemos government called elections for July 23. They hope to hand power to the right-wing Popular Party (PP) and the fascistic Vox party, in order to crush rising social opposition at home and escalate war abroad. This takes place as the trade union bureaucracies are being exposed as state-funded pro-corporate tools to impose real wage cuts amid soaring inflation.

Last week, 33,000 workers from the metal, naval, automaker and aeronautic industries in Pontevedra, Galicia, paralysed industrial activity of the entire area. Workers also blocked main roads and the AP-9 highway, the main highway linking northern Spain with Portugal, and organized protests of thousands of people.

The strike, over a pay increase and better working conditions, was launched on Thursday, June 15, and continued for two days last week. It covers around 3,700 companies impacted by the provincial metal collective agreement.

The CIG, CCOO and UGT union bureaucracies were forced to call the strike by rising anger in the rank and file. Workers have seen their salaries decrease month by month, as 2022 saw inflation rise 8.4 percent, while food inflation far exceeds 10 percent. Unions are now demanding 4 percent raises for 2023, 2024, and 2025, as the metal bosses propose ridiculous 0.5 percent for 2023, and 2 percent for 2024 and 2024. These amount to deep cuts to wages.

The union bureaucracies are working to weaken the struggle as much as possible so as to impose a concessions contract. They are calling for strike action on different days and without appeals to other metalworkers’ struggles across Spain, or even to other striking workers in the same region: 500 Galician firefighters are striking for better wages and conditions.

Behind the backs of workers, the unions are seeking a “compromise” with the metal bosses, which will inevitably mean wage increases well below inflation.

The acting PSOE-Podemos government has responded ruthlessly, deploying hundreds of police firing rubber bullets and using truncheons against strikers, leaving over a dozen injured. Police stopped workers from demonstrating in front of the Ifevi conference centre, which was holding the biannual Metal Industry and Technologies International Trade Fair, Mindtech—the leading industrial fair for the metallurgical and metalworking sector.

The CIG union reported “contusions, baton blows, rubber bullets” and a young man “had a dislocated shoulder due to a police tackle”, describing the riot police’s action as “very disproportionate”. The unions have called for further strikes on July 6 and 7.

Terrified that other metalworkers could join the fight for higher wages and overturn the reactionary union-business framework of “collective agreements” negotiated at provincial level, the union bureaucracies rapidly intervened to close down other metal workers struggles.

In Valencia, the unions, which had previously called for three days of strikes this week, agreed to a new provincial metal collective agreement covering 85,300 workers. It includes below-inflation wage increases of 3 percent in 2023, 2024, and 2025 and 2.5 percent in 2026. In the Balearic Islands, the unions, after days of protests and strikes, agreed to 4 percent increases for 2023, 2024 and 2025 affecting 42,000 workers.

In the retail sector, 4,000 shop assistants from over 100 stores went on strike last Wednesday to demand pay increases at Swedish clothing store H&M. They resumed their strike again yesterday. This takes place as the highly profitable summer sale season is set to kick off. Once again, the unions are trying to dissipate the struggle, calling only for two more strike days in early July.

Shop assistants are striking after months of pay discussions ended in failure and after strikes at H&M’s main competitor, Inditex, led by billionaire Amancio Ortega, led to 20 percent raises earlier this year. The main demands of the strikers are that H&M cover the vacancies caused by sick leave or leave of absence, which is provoking work overload, and that contract hours be extended beyond part-time. Most workers hold part-time contracts.

The union bureaucracies are deeply implicated in the deterioration of conditions. In 2021, they accepted the layoffs of 400 workers and the reduction in work time for 170 others, without any pretense of a fight.

In the auto industry, union negotiators imposed a sell-out of over 6,000 Michelin tire workers. Last week, they enforced their collective agreement on 900 striking workers at Lasarte-Oria, the last Michelin factory in Spain that had refused to accept the deal of 5 percent increases in 2023, 3 percent in 2024 and 2 percent for the following two years. The deal is linked to the profits of the company, thereby not guaranteeing workers’ purchasing power.

The unions had already enforced the same deal at other Michelin plants in Vitoria, Aranda de Duero, Valladolid y Almería.

In the airline industry, the Spanish Union of Airline Pilots (SEPLA) began a third round of strikes at Air Europa last Monday, Spain’s third largest airline, after a verbal deal reached in early June over pay and working conditions fell through. Hundreds of flights have been cancelled.

The PSOE-Podemos government has attempted to break the strike by imposing harsh minimum service requirements on strikers. The Ministry of Transport required that 90 percent of flights to the islands (Canary and Balearic Islands) and 65 percent for flights within Spain and Europe proceed during the strike.

Rather than appeal to tens of thousands of European aircrew workers that have been engaged in mass strikes for over a year against these draconian requirements, SEPLA shut down a strike by pilots at Iberia’s Air Nostrum airline. Air Nostrum pilots had been on intermittent strike since February, striking every Monday and Friday of every week. This led to an indefinite strike since the beginning of June.

Last Friday, SEPLA called off the strike, without any concessions from the company, claiming “advances” in negotiations.

In the justice sector, intermittent strike action and protests that began in April continued last week. Around 45,000 civil servants are striking against the PSOE-Podemos government, demanding wage increases of €350 to €450. The strike, followed by 80 percent of staff, provoked the suspension of millions of judicial actions, from declarations to notifications, summons, appearances, trials, seizures, evictions and proceedings.

This strike wave exposes the PSOE-Podemos government as a reactionary government of imperialist war and attacks on the working class. It reveals in particular the reason why the PSOE and Podemos called snap elections, even under conditions where it is widely expected that this could return to power a coalition government of the right-wing Popular Party and the fascistic Vox party. The PSOE and Podemos are terrified of massive working class opposition to war, austerity and police-state repression erupting uncontrollably on its left flank.

Bank for International Settlements report charts a financial system in crisis

Nick Beams

The annual report of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the global umbrella organisation of the world’s central banks, provided details of a world financial system wracked by deepening problems any one of which could set off a crisis on the scale of the 2008 crash or even greater.

Bank for International Settlements (BIZ) in Basel, Switzerland [Photo by Wladyslaw Sojka (Free Art License 1.3)]

A key feature of the report is that in portraying the present situation it makes clear that measures taken by governments and central banks at one point in time, which appeared to be a rational response to overcome dangers to financial stability, only created the conditions for the eruption of even more severe turbulence.

The report, which was issued at the weekend, begins: “The global economy has reached a critical and perilous juncture. Policymakers are facing a unique constellation of challenges. Each of them, taken in isolation, is not new; but their combination on a global scale is.”

These words, coming from the horse’s mouth, should perhaps be emblazoned across the computer screen of every journalist, columnist and academic who has denounced the Marxist movement for its alleged “catastrophe mongering” and “exaggeration” in its exposure of the irresolvable contradictions of capitalism.

The report places at the centre of its analysis the combination of high inflation and rising financial vulnerabilities—unprecedented in the post-war period—resulting from the increase in debt, both public and private. These problems have emerged in the past but never together. In the 1970s and early 1980s high inflation was not accompanied by financial instability and when financial dangers developed, as in 2008, they occurred in a low-inflationary environment.

The report noted that the “rather unique combination of high inflation and widespread financial vulnerabilities is not simply a bolt from the blue” and not just a product of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. The roots of the problems go deeper as “debt and financial fragilities do not appear overnight; they grow over time.”

Pointing to these issues, it stated: “The challenges the global economy is now facing reflect in no small measures, a certain ‘growth illusion,’ born out of the unrealistic view of what macroeconomic stabilisation policies can achieve… The unintended result has been reliance on a de facto debt-fueled growth model that has made the economic system more fragile and unable to generate robust and sustainable growth.”

Debt creation did not begin yesterday, or even the day before, but goes back almost four decades when the US Fed made a decisive turn in response to the Wall Street crash of October 1987.

The Fed determined that henceforth its task was not to prevent the development of speculative financial bubbles, many of them financed by debt, but rather to engage in a clean-up operation when they burst by pumping more money into the financial system to enable speculation to continue.

This led to the financial crash of 2008 and then to the market meltdown of March 2020, when the pandemic struck. Governments and central banks responded with corporate bailouts and the provision of trillions of dollars of essentially free money to the financial markets, boosting the fortunes of the financial oligarchy to stratospheric heights.

Just as the financial authorities thought instability had been contained, it erupted again in March with three of the four largest banking failures in US history.

The report noted that while the global economy withstood the “strong headwinds” better than expected over the past year “signs of strain started to emerge. In particular, financial stress rattled the financial system engulfing both banks and non-bank financial institutions and prompting a forceful response to limit contagion.

“The strains share a common cause: the system is under stress following the era of low-for-long interest rates.”

The stresses that have most recently manifested themselves are far from over, as the report outlined.

“There are widespread macro-financial vulnerabilities in the system. Public and private debt levels are historically high. Asset prices, notably those of real estate, have started softening on the back of rich valuations. Interest rates may need to stay higher and for longer than financial markets are pricing in. The strains that have emerged so far reflect interest rate risk, but credit losses are still to come. This will further test the resilience of the financial system.”

This situation has arisen because the policy measures taken by governments and central banks at one point to alleviate a crisis and prevent a financial meltdown, while they have provided an immediate solution, have only created the conditions for its eruption in a higher form.

The BIS acknowledged this, to some extent, with the introduction of the concept of a “region of stability identified as the set of fiscal and monetary combinations which are consistent with macroeconomic and financial stability.”

But the concept has no analytic value because the boundaries of the “region” are characterised as fuzzy and indistinct. In other words, those in charge of the regulation of the capitalist economy have no real idea of what effect their emergency measures will have over the longer term.

As the report put it: “A policy conduct that may appear stabilising in the near term can, over time, inadvertently shrink the region and take policies towards the boundary. The economic system may appear stable for a long time until, suddenly it is not.”

This latter phrase is repeated several times in the report and underscores the central problem facing the would-be regulators. The problem lies not in their lack of computing power or information but is rooted in the very nature of the capitalist system itself.

The private ownership of the means of production and finance mean that economic and financial processes operate as a powerful force behind the backs of market participants, giant corporations, banks, and finance houses. Within their operations there is a degree of conscious control but outside in the broader economy and financial system anarchy reigns, which, despite all efforts to regulate it, repeatedly erupts in the form of a crisis.

While the BIS analysts are bereft of any solutions to contain the contradictions of the profit system and its inherent anarchy, they are guided by a sure class instinct and decades of experience when it comes to what must be done—the working class must be made to pay.

This is set out in the two policy prescriptions outlined in the report. First, it said: “The priority for monetary policy is to bring inflation back to target.”

As has become ever clearer over the past year, the “fight against inflation” is directed to slowing economic growth, even to the extent of inducing a recession, to suppress the wage demands of the working class. This policy must be continued even when, as the report acknowledged, wage increases are well behind the level of inflation and one of the chief causes of inflation is profit gouging by corporations.

“While nominal wage growth has not been exceptionally strong so far,” the report said, “this should not provide too much comfort.… Some catch-up is on the cards particularly given the strength of labour markets.”

In other words, while the wages struggles of the working class have been somewhat contained by the trade union bureaucracies in every country, that situation may not endure, thus requiring the battering ram of interest rate hikes.

The second arm of policy directed against the working class is cuts in government spending. As usual with such reports this is couched in language aimed at disguising its essential class content.

“The priority for fiscal policy is to consolidate,” the report said pointing to the growth of government debt to historic highs.

Under conditions where all major governments are expanding their military budgets, this means deep cuts in social spending directed against the working class. Cuts would also work to slow the economy thereby putting downward pressure on wage demands and lessen the need for steeper interest hikes which adversely impact on the financial system.

“Consolidation,” the report said, “would provide critical support in the inflation fight. It would also reduce the need for monetary policy to keep interest rates higher for longer, thereby reducing the risk of financial instability.”

The BIS report makes clear that for all the declarations about the “stability” and “resilience” of the financial system its underlying historic crisis is deepening. There is no prospect of some kind of restoration of “normalcy” because, as the historical record shows and as the report itself acknowledged, measures taken at one point to rescue the financial system have only created the conditions for even greater instability.

How Syriza’s betrayals strengthened the extreme political right in Greece

Robert Stevens & Chris Marsden

New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, center left, Friday, June 23, 2023. [AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris]

New Democracy (ND) Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was sworn in Monday after defeating the opposition Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left—Progressive Alliance) in a rout in Sunday’s Greek general election.

As well as the right-wing ND taking office for another term, the election saw the reconsolidation in parliament of three far-right parties, which won more than 12 percent of the vote combined and 34 seats.

The election of a conservative government and the elevation of the far-right in what one analyst described as “the most conservative parliament since the restoration of Greece’s democracy in 1974” is the political responsibility of Syriza.

In government between 2015 and 2019, Syriza imposed savage austerity, while loyally defending and funding Greece’s key role within NATO and implementing brutal “Fortress Europe” measures against refugees on behalf of the European Union (EU). It has only deepened this agenda, demobilising and betraying the workers and youth who once looked to it for leadership.

Syriza first came to power in January 2015 in a landslide based on pledges to end the austerity measures demanded by the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but demonstrated within a few months that it was a party working solely in the service of the bourgeoisie. The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) assessed this in its statement “The Political Lessons of Syriza’s Betrayal in Greece” as “an immense strategic experience for the working class.”

The ICFI had from the beginning rejected Syriza’s claims and those of its numerous pseudo-left cheerleaders internationally that its election would lead to the implementation of left-wing and even socialist policies. Based on an analysis of Syriza’s class character as representative of upper-middle class strata, advancing a pro-capitalist program, the IC warned that it would rapidly renege on its promises and impose the austerity offensive demanded by Greece’s creditors—leading to the strengthening of right-wing and fascistic forces.

In a perspective column dated January 27, 2015, “The significance of the election of Syriza in Greece,” the WSWS stated:

The International Committee of the Fourth International rejects with contempt the political excuse offered by the petty-bourgeois pseudo-left to justify support for Syriza and its pro-capitalist agenda—that a Tsipras government is a necessary “experience” for the working class, from which it will somehow come to understand the necessity for genuinely socialist policies.

Such sophistries are advanced only to oppose the emergence of a revolutionary movement of the working class, a development possible only through a relentless political exposure of Syriza. This task is undertaken by the World Socialist Web Site in order to prepare workers and young people for the decisive struggles they face in Greece and internationally.

In an article published the following day, “Syriza’s electoral success and the pseudo-left,” the WSWS wrote:

Another of their [the pseudo-left’s] arguments is that one must support Syriza so that the working class can go through these experiences and learn from them. This is pure cynicism. Given the enormous dangers posed by a Syriza government, the task of a Marxist party is to expose the class interests represented by Syriza, to warn the working class against its consequences and provide it with a clear socialist orientation.

The ICFI’s analysis of Syriza was placed in the context of the development of similar political formations internationally, including Podemos in Spain, the Left Party in Germany, the Left Bloc in Portugal and the New Anti-Capitalist Party in France.

The betrayal by Syriza set a pattern that was to be repeated beyond the borders of Greece. Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the British Labour Party in September 2015. Corbyn’s declared mission was to save the Labour Party from “Pasokification”—the meltdown experienced by Greece’s social democratic PASOK after it imposed the first raft of EU- and IMF-dictated austerity measures.

In his victory speech to Labour’s 2016 Special Conference, Corbyn declared, “Since the crash of 2008, the demand for an alternative and an end to counter-productive austerity has led to the rise of new movements and parties in one country after another. ... In Britain, it’s happened in the heart of traditional politics, in the Labour Party, which is something we should be extremely proud of.”

Among the most ardent supporters of Corbyn was Syriza’s former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who had only resigned from government in July 2015 to distance himself from the austerity measures being imposed by Tsipras, which he had been instrumental in negotiating. Corbyn even employed Varoufakis as an economic adviser.

The outcome of the Corbyn “experience,” four years of abject political capitulation to his right-wing opponents inside and outside the Labour Party, was a rout, with Labour, now led by Sir Keir Starmer, pledged to savage austerity and marching in lockstep with a vicious Conservative government in backing NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine.

After claiming that workers had to go through the “experience” of governments run by Syriza and their ilk in order to arrive at socialism, not one pseudo-left tendency has ever even acknowledged that the result has instead always been a lurch to the right. Moreover, after each political betrayal, the search continues for the next Syriza—a petty-bourgeois formation employing a smattering of left-sounding phrases that can be offered up as a bogus alternative leadership for the working class.

Het Actie Funds 2023

 Application Deadline: Rolling.

Tell Me About Award: Het Actiefonds is an organisation that supports the struggle for a sustainable and socially just world in which people and the environment are more important than economic interests. We do so by financially supporting grassroots activists and social movements all over the world.

Which Fields are Eligible? To see what kind of protests we fund, visit this page.

Type: Grants

Who can Apply?

WHAT WE FUND

• Grassroots activist groups that strive for a sustainable and socially just world in which people and the environment are valued above economic interests
• Direct actions, such as demonstrations, blockades, occupations, strikes, revolts, revolutions and other creative forms of (non-violent) confrontational protest
• Protests that pressure authoritarian and oppressive regimes, aiming for political change
• Politically controversial and radical projects that have difficulty finding funding elsewhere
• Protests that are part of a long term strategy aimed at systemic change

WHAT WE DO NOT FUND

• Groups that try to exclude other progressive movements
• Conferences, seminars, workshops, debates or other meetings, unless they clearly aim to prepare for political direct actions
• Humanitarian projects, healthcare or emergency aid
• Campaigns or other educational projects that only focus on awareness raising or advocacy
• Micro-credit programs or income generating projects
• Structural organisational costs, like wages or rental costs
• Juridical procedures, unless these are part of a broader activist campaign
• Projects through third parties; we want to cooperate directly with the groups we support
• Individuals, political parties or religious organizations
• Projects with a total project budget of more than €20,000
• We have a strong preference for organizations with an income of less than €100,000 per year

ADDITIONAL CRITERIA FOR URGENT APPLICATIONS

In some cases it is not possible to plan your protest weeks in advance, because of sudden political or societal developments. Therefore it is possible for us to treat your application as urgent, in which case we will make a decision within days. For urgent applications, we handle the following criteria:

•  Your project responds to a sudden political or societal event and is therefore time-bound.
• The protest has not been planned yet; this option is specifically meant for unforeseen situations, not for last minute funding of activities that are already prepared.
• The requested amount does not exceed €250.

How are Applicants Selected?

We ask you to make sure that you have read the criteria before handing in your proposal. It would be a shame if you invest your time in an application that does not meet our criteria.

Het Actiefonds only supports specific protests and campaigns. Those can be part of lengthy project, but we do not give ongoing support.
The maximum grant size is €2,500 per project. Our average grant size is between €750 and €2,000.

We get together for the decision-making process every month. This means that there is no deadline for handing in your application. But do make sure to file the application at least a month before your protest takes place. In case it is not possible to plan the protest weeks in advance because it responds to un unforeseen situation, we can treat your proposal with urgency.

Which Countries are Eligible? Any

How Many Awards? Not specified

What is the Benefit of Award?

• Het Actiefonds only supports specific protests and campaigns. Those can be part of lengthy project, but we do not give ongoing support.
• The maximum grant size is €2,500 per project. Our average grant size is between €750 and €2,000.

How to Apply: For your convenience we also provide our application form as a downloadable Word document. If you fill in the offline form, please email it to project-hetactiefonds@protonmail.com.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Merck International Research Scholarship 2023

Application Deadline: 31st August 2023

Tell Me About Award: Those who want to apply for the Merck International Research Scholarship in Germany are encouraged to do so.

Merck Research Grants are open to all international students from anywhere in the world. Merck encourages research students to take part in new, difficult research projects in the future.

This award can be used during the 2023–2024 school year. The scholarship is open to scientists at any point in their careers, no matter where they work or what kind of study they do.

This is a great chance for kids from all over the world who are really interested. Those who are chosen will get between 100,000 EUR and 500,000 EUR per year for 3 years.

Merck was founded in Germany in the year 1668. Merck is a pharmaceutical company that is one of the biggest in the world.

It gives you the freedom to adjust to your life’s goals and supports self-service for things like taking care of a child or an elderly person, getting special deals on travel, and more.

Merck is a great place for people who are good at research and want to start their journey in research. Merck tries to make your life easier and more enjoyable than your work.

Which Fields are Eligible? Those who are chosen must work on the following challenging study areas in the future.

Type: Research, Scholarship

Who can Apply?

• Anyone from anywhere in the world can apply, no matter what country they are from.
• To be eligible for this study award, applicants must have a master’s degree from a well-known university.

• Documents: If the application is accepted, candidates will be asked to submit a full plan and meet with the other finalists in 2023 for a deep-dive workshop.
• Language requirement: Students must show that they can write and speak English well

Which Countries are Eligible? All Nationalities

Where will Award be Taken? Germany

How Many Awards? Not specified

What is the Benefit of Award? The successful candidate of the Merck International Research Scholarship will receive an amount of 100,000 EUR to 500,000 EUR / Year for the duration of 3 Years. The award is funded by Merck Company.

How Long will Award Last? 3 years

How to Apply: To apply for the Merck International Research Scholarship 2023 in Germany, entrants must first register with the Merck Online Application System.

If this is your first time visiting this website, click “Register” and fill out an application with a real email address.

Your link to sign up will be sent to the email address you gave. The link to the official ad and the link to the online application portal are given below:

APPLY HERE

Visit Award Webpage for Details

A wrecking operation?: Warner Brothers Discovery initiates new round of layoffs, targets Turner Classic Movies

John Conrad

Multinational entertainment and media giant Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) carried out another round of cuts and layoffs last week, centered primarily in the company’s cable television networks. A main focus of these cuts has been the company’s pay-television network Turner Classic Movies (TCM).

WBD owns and operates numerous cable TV networks, including the Discovery Channel, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Science Channel and Animal Planet, as well as the former Scripps networks such as Food Network and HGTV [Home & Garden Television]. The conglomerate also owns the former Turner-branded networks such as TNT, TBS and truTV. Major news network CNN is also owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.

The layoffs appear to be focused largely on the leadership positions of the various television networks, signaling that WBD is further consolidating their management and operation under one roof. The present cutbacks have been anticipated for over a month and follow a string of significant layoffs over the last year at WBD and some of the other major US entertainment and media corporations.

WBD was created in April 2022 after the spin-off of media and entertainment conglomerate WarnerMedia by telecommunications giant AT&T, and its merger with Discovery, Inc. The latter action saddled the new company with some $50 billion of debt. On top of this, the conglomerate is now taking heat due to the failure at the box office of its $265-million comic-book film The Flash.

Kathleen Finch, Chairman and Chief Content Officer, US Networks Group at WBD, addressed the firm’s cost-cutting measures at a conference in February: “When you go through a merger, you do sort of figure out how many layers we need. How much staff do we need? I’m not really running these networks as 30 individual teams, they’re clustered together, they’re put together with leaders at the top who really live and breathe that content.”

The late Robert Osborne and Charles Tabesh (now fired) at the 68th Annual Peabody Awards for Turner Classic Movies [Photo by ANDERS KRUSBERG / PEABODY AWARDS / CC BY 2.0]

It is now obvious that WBD has TCM is in its crosshairs. Beginning on Tuesday, Warner Bros. initiated a purge of TCM’s top leadership, including general manager and 25-year TCM veteran Pola Changnon, Vice President of Enterprises & Strategic Partnerships (also TCM Classic Film Festival Director) Genevieve McGillicuddy, Senior Vice President of Programming and Content Strategy Charlie Tabesh and others.

According to insiders who spoke with entertainment news publication The Wrap, this week’s changes will see the number of employees at TCM slashed from about 90 to around 20, “with the responsibilities of overseeing the network distributed among other units under the WBD umbrella. Meanwhile, budgets have already been progressively cut at the network, leading many to wonder what the future will bring.”

Since its launch in 1994, TCM has broadcast dozens of older films per week, largely, but not limited to, movies before the 1970s. Alongside established “classics,” the network has screened a diverse range of “B-level” westerns, film noir and horror, short films, cartoons, silent movies and under-appreciated and forgotten works from around the world. The channel often produces thoughtful and engaging programming, through which it presents cinematic works uncut, without commercial interruptions and often with short introductory and concluding commentary and discussion.

In addition to its film distribution and exhibition work, TCM has made an important contribution to film restoration and preservation work over the last several decades, spending large sums of money annually on ensuring that future generations are able to view quality versions of past cinematic works.

TCM, with all its limitations, has consistently proven to be one of the few locations in the American media-entertainment world where people can access more artistically serious and historically informed television programing. The programming’s decision-making is guided to a higher degree by considerations of artistic merit rather than the mere bottom line.

Despite the bland statements of Warner Bros. executives about their great love of “classic cinema” and other assurances that there would be no alteration in programming, the changes at TCM have provoked an outpouring of criticism and opposition on social media, including from various prominent Hollywood filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson. WBD CEO David Zaslav attempted to assuage the directors’ fears, claiming that he was fully committed to the classic movie network. Time will tell.

TCM, generating approximately $266 million in net operating revenue in 2022, is seen as small fry by the $28.72 billion giant.

Institutional shareholders own a majority of Warner Bros. Discovery. The Vanguard Group owns over 203 million shares, over $3 billion worth, an 8.38 percent stake, while Black Rock owns over 116 million shares, worth almost $2 billion, a 4.78 percent stake. The rest of Warner Bros. stock is controlled by various banks and investment management firms, Warner “insiders” and retail investors.

The studios and streamers are under immense pressure from Wall Street to significantly increase their profits. This is bound up with anxieties in particular around the transition toward greater investment in streaming since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hollywood Reporter commented that over the last year Wall Street has “urged Hollywood giants to prove that, when it comes to streaming, they can write in black ink instead of red, with management teams typically vowing to do so starting in 2024 or beyond.” Although streaming revenue has seen an increase, it is not enough to compensate for the decline in television and box office revenues.

In 2022, global cinema box office revenue totaled $26 billion, a 27 percent increase over 2021, but 35 percent below pre-pandemic levels. Cable television viewership has also declined significantly. Astonishingly, according to a report by Variety, based on data from Nielsen, in 2022 only five ad-supported cable networks managed to average more than 1 million viewers over the course of the year. This was down from nine ad-supported cable networks in 2021 and at least 20 such networks in 2012. Reflected here is also a growing disgust with the proliferation of grotesque “reality TV” programs. Serious, hour-long drama is now almost a thing of the past.

Over the last year, Warner Bros. has laid off several thousand workers, terminated numerous film and television projects and removed a significant amount of film and television content from its streaming platforms. In February, Disney announced 7,000 layoffs as part of a corporate restructuring to save billions of dollars. Paramount Global announced last month that it would be laying off 25 percent of its domestic workforce, primarily in network television, following dismal quarterly earnings.

These cuts are only the beginning of a massive assault against film and television workers, and, more fundamentally, the further denigration of art and culture. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the studios and streamers see the film and television writers’ strike as an opportunity to cut costs by “exiting undesirable talent contracts.” In other words, the billion-dollar studios and streamers are considering canceling contracts with writers by exercising “force majeure” provisions.

The reorganization and cuts at TCM should be viewed with great concern. This most recent episode demonstrates once again that the preservation and cultivation of serious works of art and culture is not possible within the framework of the crisis-ridden profit system.

Official US intelligence report finds no evidence for laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2

Benjamin Mateus

On March 20, 2023, President Joe Biden had signed into law S.619, the “COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023,” stipulating that the Intelligence Community (IC) had 90 days to declassify and release as much of the information as possible in their investigation into the origins of the COVID pandemic. This would have placed the deadline for the release to June 18, 2023.

Five days late, on June 23, 2023, Friday at 18:25 Eastern Standard Time, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released its report on “the potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and the Origin of COVID-19.” Indeed, Friday evening press releases by government officials on issues that have the potential to undermine their credibility have often been used to avoid immediate media scrutiny.

A lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology [AP Photo/Chinatopix via AP]

Not only does the ODNI report offer not one shred of evidence in support of the fascistic right-wing Wuhan lab leak conspiracy, but it goes far to corroborate the earlier statements made by the WIV scientists and World Health Organization (WHO) officials on the topic. 

The American ultra-right has sought to cover up the lack of evidence behind its claims that China created SARS-CoV-2 with savage attacks in social media on principled scientists such as Dr. Peter Hotez and the plethora of accusations in right-wing publications such as the Sunday Times that the WIV was collaborating with researchers from the Chinese military to weaponize pathogens. This has been supplemented recently by  the claim in Public by journalist Matt Taibbi that three WIV scientists who were “engaged in gain-of-function research” had fallen ill in November of 2019, supposedly the first victims of COVID-19.

None of these news reports offered any new or relevant information on the origins of the COVID pandemic. They only regurgitated hearsay and lies that have been repeated from the beginning in a campaign led by fascists like former Trump aide Steve Bannon to shift the blame for the pandemic onto Chinese authorities and use the issue as a political weapon to promote anti-Chinese bigotry and prepare for war. They sought to make up in volume and hysteria what they lacked in facts and evidence.

It is notable that the recent ODNI report confirmed what the US intelligence agencies had previously stated as far back as April 2020 when they wrote that “almost all IC agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not genetically engineered … was not laboratory-adapted … [and] was not developed as a biological weapon.” These findings have significant implications, as the Republican-led investigation into the COVID origins has repeatedly insinuated that the virus was manipulated through gain-of-function research without evidence to back up these assertions. 

The “Proximal Origins” paper

The ODNI statement actually substantiates the evidence provided on March 30, 2020, by Kristian Andersen and colleagues, in an initial scientific assessment, “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” which remains pertinent and fundamental to the origins question. 

At the time, the authors wrote, “The genomic features described here may explain in part the infectiousness and transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 in humans. Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here. However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”

That initial report was followed by Dr. Edward Holmes and colleagues’ comprehensive report, “The Origins of SARS-CoV-2: A Critical Review,” published in Cell in 2021. The authors of the paper wrote, “There is currently no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 has a laboratory origin. There is no evidence that any early cases had any connection to the WIV, in contrast to the clear epidemiological links to animal markets in Wuhan, nor evidence that the WIV possessed or worked on a progenitor of SARS-CoV-2 prior to the pandemic.”

They then noted, “The suspicion that SARS-COV-2 might have a laboratory origin stem from the coincidence that it was first detected in a city that houses a major virological laboratory that studies coronaviruses. Wuhan is the largest city in central China with multiple animal markets and is a major hub for travel and commerce, well connected to other areas both within China and internationally. The link to Wuhan therefore more likely reflects the fact that pathogens often require heavily populated areas to become established.”

This was followed by Dr. Robert Garry’s letter in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science) in 2022 titled, “SARS-COV-2 Furin Cleavage Site was not Engineered.” He succinctly explains the numerous features of the coronaviruses furin cleavage site—a hobby horse of the right-wing conspiracy theorists—that demonstrates why it was not engineered. 

Because of the highly complex molecular interactions of viruses and their host, allegations of bioengineering must be met with deep skepticism. Reliance on careful analysis and submission to scrutiny by experts in the field is obligatory before any malign conclusions can be drawn. Repeatedly, the principled experts in this field have unanimously rejected laboratory manipulation.

The ODNI press release reaffirms these conclusions, only stating that the researchers at the WIV were conducting “extensive research on coronaviruses,” (which everyone knew) and asserting that “we continue to have no indication that the WIV’s pre-pandemic research holdings include SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific-research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID pandemic.” 

The wildlife trade at Huanan market

The statement is compelling in that since the publication of the “Proximal origin” paper, no scientific evidence has emerged on behalf of the conspiracists that provides the lab-leak hypothesis any credibility. On the contrary, evidence of wildlife trade at the Huanan seafood market and raccoon dog DNA in the COVID-infected western stalls of the market have only confirmed the market was the focal point of the outbreak that led to the COVID pandemic. 

That two lineages of the virus were present further undermines the lab leak hypothesis, since this would require two separate leaks, each traveling the 16 miles to the market and infecting no one on the way, then radiating outward from Huanan. 

The critical work conducted by Dr. Michael Worobey, evolutionary biologist from the University of Arizona, bears reviewing again. Using data obtained from the WHO’s phase one study on COVID’s origin in 2021, he found that early cases in December 2019, connected with and without links to the market, for both lineages of the virus circulating at the time, centered to a high statistical degree around Huanan market and not the WIV. 

The witch-hunt against WIV researchers

In this regard it has been central to the right-wing conspiracy, whether SARS-CoV-2 was bioengineered or not, that the virus was released from the WIV. The claims by the Republican-led investigation that several WIV researchers fell ill from COVID in the autumn of 2019 are the most recent effort to bolster the case. This culminated in the naming of Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu, according to “sources within the US government,” as researchers suspected of having leaked the virus from the WIV and therefore being responsible for the deaths of tens of millions. 

Without even speaking to these scientists, who continue to work on critical issues of pandemic potential pathogens, if such allegations are real or considering the potential dangers and harm, right-wing outlets like Public, The Wall Street Journal and others subjected them to monstrous libels.

As evolutionary biologist Dr. Florence Débarre, who has been tracking the evidence behind the COVID origin, recently noted, “You can also consider the ethics in naming people, of suspecting or even accusing them without evidence (so far) of being the source of the pandemic. They are human beings, not just characters in your story.”

As to the supposed sickened researchers, the ODNI report offers no names. It does acknowledge that the “supposed” sickened researchers had symptoms that could have been caused by several diseases and “some of the symptoms were not consistent with COVID-19.” They go on to note, “consistent with standard practices, those researchers likely completed annual health exams as part of their duties in a high-containment biosafety laboratory. The Intelligence Community assesses that the WIV maintains blood samples and health records of all of their laboratory personnel—which are standard procedures in high-containment laboratories.”

The report added, “We have no indications that any of these researchers were hospitalized because of the symptoms consistent with COVID-19. … According to WHO’s March 22021 public report, WIV officials including Shi Zhengli—who leads the WIV laboratory group that conducts coronavirus research—stated lab employees all tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.” They also acknowledge that they could not confirm if the sickened researchers had handled live viruses before falling ill.

Dr. Peter Daszak, right, and Dr. Shi Zhengli, are two leading scientists studying bat coronaviruses, pictured at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. [Photo by EcoHealth Alliance]

On the same evening that the ODNI report was released, Jon Cohen, of the journal Science, who has been writing with care and intelligence on the Wuhan lab leak conspiracy and providing much needed objective reporting on the subject, published his follow-up report. Cohen wrote he had received an email from Ben Hu denying he ever became sick in late 2019. “The recent news about so-called ‘patient zero’ in WIV are absolutely rumors and ridiculous,” Hu said to Cohen in an email. “I did not get sick in Autumn 2019 and did not have COVID-19-like symptoms at that time. My colleagues and I tested for SARS-CoV-2 antibody in early March 2020 and were all negative.” Yu Ping corroborated these in another email stating these charges were “fake news.” 

The brief ODNI report also addresses issues regarding biosafety and collaboration with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). In this regard, the assessments made corroborate the findings observed by the American Embassy in Beijing in a cable sent to Washington dated January 19, 2018, “China Opens First Bio-Safety Level 4 Laboratory.” 

According to the embassy cable, the WIV scientists were working on coronaviruses, and they had assistance from the international community in bringing their laboratories up to code. Additionally, they were encouraged to continue research into potentially pandemic pathogens, they were precluded “from studying human-disease-causing SARS coronaviruses” in their new labs until such permissions were granted through approving authorities. 

The collaboration between the military and nationally recognized laboratories are longstanding and not unique to China, as evidenced by the integrated work between the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, the National Institutes of Health, and other institutions.

The ODNI report states, “… some of the research conducted by the PLA and WIV included work with several viruses, including coronaviruses, but no known viruses that could plausibly be a progenitor of SARS-CoV-2. For example, PLA researchers have used WIV laboratories for virology and vaccine-related work.” As the report notes, the collaborative work was intended for public health needs to enhance China’s knowledge of pathogens and early disease warning capabilities. The few live viruses they did possess “were too distantly related to have led to the creation of SARS-CoV-2.”

The witch-hunt against American researchers

It is clear that the ODNI report will have little influence on the witch-hunt being led by leading Republicans with the support of their Democratic colleagues. Even as the ODNI report was being released, Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) announced the first subpoena against Dr. Kristian Andersen to gain access to his private communications and Slack messaging channels. 

Wenstrup wrote, “We are following the breadcrumbs of a COVID-19 cover-up straight to the source. Dr. Kristian Andersen played a pivotal role in potentially suppressing the lab leak hypothesis, and Americans deserve to know why this happened, who was involved, and how we can prevent the intentional suppression of scientific discourse during a future pandemic.”

He continued, “It is clear that the authors of ‘Proximal Origins’ may have possessed conflicts of interest for supporting a zoonotic origin of COVID-19. Fully investigating the internal messages between the co-authors and contributors is a crucial step to inform future legislation and hold guilty parties accountable.”

The ODNI report only confirms that the entire conspiracy that has been ongoing for more than three years was woven out of whole cloth and lacks any basis in any factual, objective evidence. In short, it was politically motivated and functioned as a mechanism of US imperialist foreign policy. The subpoena against Andersen and colleagues only means that science itself is now under assault and being criminalized if it doesn’t suit the purposes of the state.