The Global Greenwashing Heist

Thomas Klikauer

Source: author + AI: https://lexica.art/

When promoting greenwashing, corporations and their marketing departments (selling things) as well as their public relations departments (selling the ideology that capitalism is great and what you buy is good) essentially convey false messages. These posts pretend that a corporation or their products are greener, more environmentally friendly, and more sustainable than they actually are.

Greenwashing targets the environmentally conscious middle-class consumers. The marketing gimmick of greenwashing aims to make people in this social class feel good by insinuating that what they buy is good for the environment, sustainable, and, at least not too damaging.

Simultaneously, by pretending to be more environmentally friendly than corporations and their products, it encourages the following beliefs: “to do the right thing”, “every bit helps”, and to “help the environment”.

Greenwashing pretends to be green when it is in fact – not. It is a marketing trick – a con. It puts a good spin on what corporations do wrong. And worse, greenwashing seems to work, at least partially.

Many corporations have long found that they need to do two things – beyond just making profits. They need to sell things and they need to present capitalism in a good light.

The inextricable link between the media and capitalism creates media capitalism pushing a capitalism-sustaining ideology that needs to be, almost inevitably, flanked by mass deception.

In media capitalism, mass deception is the task of the media. It has to present the corporation as well as corporate capitalism in a positive light. And it also needs to protect corporation so that people do not become too much aware of the pathology created by corporate capitalism. The camouflaging of this pathology works under the following formula:

1. there is a growth in democracy;
2. there is a growth in undemocratic corporate power; and
3. there needs to be a growth in corporate propaganda as a means to protect corporate power against democracy.

Apart from global environmental destruction, one of the most serious pathologies created by corporate capitalism is that of monopolies. To disguise the fact that capitalism produces monopolies, we are fed with a daily dose of free market and competition is good ideologies.

Yet, just ten brands own most of today’s consumer packaged goods, and only six companies control the media. Although we might think we have a choice when it comes to spending our money, that choice is an illusion, says John Pabon in The Great Greenwashing. It is because of facts like these that the consumer choice ideology remains one of the most essential ideologies that sustains corporate capitalism.

One of the world’s most environmentally destructive corporations – Chevron – got in early on the game of greenwashing. Chevron’s greenwashing started in the 1980s with its “People do” marketing campaign while, simultaneously, violating the US Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

Getting in also on the greenwashing act is – no surprise here – Walmart that had to pay the laughable sum of $1 million for misleading consumers about its environmentally friendly products. In 2022, Walmart made a cool $143bn profits – $143,000,000,000. In other words, Walmart paid a microscopically small fine when set against their stratospheric profits. The corporation was shaken to the core.

Often such deceptive marketing comes with unsubstantiated claims – done in the correct assumption that most consumers will not check – like 50% less polluting, 20% more sustainable; 99% recycled, etc. One of the most illuminating examples comes from a carpet making company,

A rug is labeled 50% more recycled content than before. The manufacturer increased the recycled content from 2% to 3%. Although, technically true, the message conveys the false impression that the rug contains a significant amount of recycled fiber.

Even worse is the fact that we have oil companies positioning themselves as environmental activists. And it’s even more hideous form comes through astroturfing. Much of this is designed to divert attention away from corporate pathologies. It runs under the motto, look over here, not over there!

Linked to this is the next PR trick, only to talk about the positive aspects of a product or service. All the nasty stuff is quietly swept under the rug. This can be turbo-charged by sticking one’s own Eco-label onto products. Currently, there are 455 eco-labels in 199 countries across 25 industries – the fox is guarding the henhouse.

Best of all is when corporations create their own eco-label or have a faked organization doing it for them. It is a bit like issuing your own driver’s license for yourself or have your neighbor do it for you. What can possibly go wrong?

The key idea behind corporate eco-labels – not proper eco-labels like Demeter, for example – is that certification enables destructive businesses to continue operating as usual.

Perhaps the crowning achievement of greenwashing and environmental vandalism is shown by ExxonMobil corporation. For decades, the oil giant invests squillions into denying links between fossil fuels and climate change. ExxonMobil is only outdone by the tobacco industry with its 100 million tobacco-related deaths during the 20^th century. Neither Hitler nor Stalin could match what tobacco corporations did.

Beyond all this, tobacco was also running one of the most successful and lethal PR campaigns ever. It was designed to hide the true danger of their products – for decades. And it was successful. Perhaps tobacco corporations are the true masterminds of deceptive marketing and corporate public relations as shown in the classic film, Thank You for Smoking!

In both cases – oil and tobacco – people were busy focusing on the positive things they say they are doing, while corporations are busy plundering, polluting, and profiteering just out of sight.

While The Great Greenwashing argues that killing off your consumers is a pretty shaky business model, the aforementioned tobacco industry has shown otherwise – mountains of profits came with mountains of dead bodies.

Virtually the same thing is demonstrated in the master case of profits-vs-people as found in many management and business ethics textbooks. In one of the most infamous cases of profits-over-people – Ford’s Pinto – it has showed that killing people can be profitable – very profitable, indeed. It is a phenomenon known as necro-capitalism.

To smokescreen such corporate pathologies, management gurus, highly-paid business school professors, and the corporate apparatchiks of managerialism have invented a few handy ideologies such as, for example, the ultimate contradiction in terms: business ethics.

Their ideological endeavors are flanked by a true favorite of business schools and the pro-business press, the PR-Superstar of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This is spiced up by the ideology of corporate citizenship and corporate sustainability.

It is almost self-evident that a corporation like the tobacco giant Reynolds America claims, we have been 100% wind-powered since 2008 – diverting attention away from their cancer causing tobacco products while showing off their sustainability credentials.

All this hits the right spot as 81% of consumers say, it’s extremely or very important for companies to implement programs to improve the environment. As a consequence, virtually all corporations have a glossy corporate social responsibility report – even Enron had a 64-page long Code of Ethics.

Common to Enron and other corporations is the belief that corporate social responsibility has three pillars: the economy (read: corporate profits); the society (handouts to the poor is good PR); and the environment (greenwashing is good marketing).

Yet, CSR has never prevented corporations like Walmart and Amazon from paying slave wages. On the contrary. CSR and business ethics camouflage slave wages, environmental vandalism, and other corporate pathologies.

Meanwhile, greenwashing corporations also like to large-scale charity drives. Coping far better than workers, Unilever paid $772,000 as a bonus to its corporate boss for setting up a Sustainable Living Plan – his ¾ of a million bonus came on top of an already eye-wateringly high $1.4 million payout.

Meanwhile, toxic-forever-chemicals’ producer Dupont appointed a so-called Chief Sustainability Officer – how lovely. Many of these corporate bosses are listed on a ranking of the Top 100 Sustainability Leaders. Among them is cancer-causing Roundup producer Bayer. Just as Bea Perez from the world’s biggest plastic polluter, Coca-Cola.

Still topping all this is the extreme wastefulness of fast fashion – the poster child of greenwashing – where the high price of glamour meets global environmental destruction while causing 10% of all global emissions. Compare this to the 17% of global emissions from agriculture. It is something entirely different that tops much of this.

Yet, the true top-notcher of all this has been reached by the global good-doing elite. A traveling circus hopping – in their private jets, of course – from COP27ff meetings to the Davos’ get-togethers and beyond while selling the greenwashing ideology of sustainable capitalism. When not selling their ideological wares, they are busy with scuba diving, golfing, and shopping. Living in five-star hotels, enjoying luxurious spas, and dining at world-class restaurants.

Simultaneously, Coca-Cola, one of the world’s biggest plastic polluter, was a key sponsor of the Cop27 conference. No wonder Greta Thunberg called it the ‘blah blah blah’ conference.

Cop27 was – most likely – the world’s greatest greenwashing event, next to Davos, of course where the sheer number of private jets of the global good-doing elites frequently caused parking problems.

Even the 2022 Qatar was in on the greenwashing game. It had to. Qatar was, after all, the single most polluting event (aside from war) ever put on by human beings. Not to be beaten by that, Davos seeks to measure up.

Davos is the place where people meet who make more money in an hour than others make in a year. They are not out of touch, of course not! Instead, they pretend to save the world while greenwashing their corporations and capitalism. Of course, when greenwashing is in demand, the usual suspects are there: mining corporations like BHP and Rio Tinto which, accidentally, of course, blew up an Aboriginal heritage site.

Not to be missing out is scandal-prone Adani ready to get involved in the greatest corporate con in history while being good buddies with greenwashing politicians.

To façade (literally) its very own corporation’s destructiveness when it comes to global warming, Adani boss proudly announced the funding for the new Adani Green Energy Gallery at the British Museum.

Meanwhile, the British Museum also hosts other greenwashing corporations like BP as seen in the Mark Wahlberg movie, as well as Shell made infamous through the Brent Spar scandal. In the end, and after all that, one might close with the words of John Pabon,

While greenwashing is most visible in the private sector, examples from public sector institutions are just as egregious. They convene conferences, ad nauseum, with lots of fanfare but little accountability. They roadshow all their futuristic projects to deflect from projects stuck in the Stone Age. They put their hands out for greedy corporations with dirty money. Then, they dare to take a moral high ground and position themselves as modern-day messiahs.

While greenwashing moves on, spaceship earth travels towards the uninhabitable earth. Just as UN’s Guterres recently said, we are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.

On that highway, greenwashing remains a vital component as it disguises the pathologies of corporations and secures continuous corporate profits until a New Yorker cartoon will become a reality. Its captions read,

“Yes, the planet got destroyed.

But for a beautiful moment in time

we created a lot of values for shareholders”.

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger at the forefront of the African Revolution

Gerald A. Perreira

“You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future”.
Thomas Sankara

Niamey, Niger, August 19, 2023: Thousands of young people queue to register to volunteer to defend their country as part of a volunteer initiative. General Abdourahmane Tchiani, head of the Presidential Guards Unit, has repeatedly warned ECOWAS and unnamed Western nations against stepping in. “We once again reiterate to ECOWAS or any other adventurer our firm determination to defend our fatherland”.

History is a great teacher. If we do not learn from it, we are doomed to repeat mistakes made. Early post-colonial African leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Modibo Keita and Marien Ngouabi spoke of economic independence and the ongoing struggle for true independence. Well aware of the trap of bogus independence, what Walter Rodney referred to as “brief- case independence”, or what I refer to as “flag-and-anthem independence”, these leaders mobilised and organised their people for the completion of their respective national liberation struggles. However, Western imperialism and its stooges, or “running dogs of imperialism”, as the Chinese revolutionary leader, Mao Zedong called them, either overthrew or assassinated these visionaries. Like so many conquerors throughout history, the imperialists enlisted the support of reactionary regimes and Western assets in the military to achieve their diabolical agenda, that is to keep Africa in a state of permanent dependence and servitude, so they could continue their rape and plunder of the continent.

Frantz Fanon’s observation in his seminal work, ‘Towards the African Revolution’ remains as relevant today as it was when it was first published in 1964. Fanon observed that “the great success of the enemies of Africa is to have compromised the African themselves. It is true that these Africans were directly interested in the murder of Lumumba, Chiefs of puppet governments, in the midst of a puppet independence, facing day after day the wholesale opposition of their peoples, it did not take them long to convince themselves that the real independence of the Congo would put them personally in danger”.

Fast forward to 2023, and as if to confirm his status as a compromised African, ECOWAS Chairman, Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu, is expressing his concern that the emerging trend of coups in West Africa had reached “alarming levels”. Of course, alarming for him as he wonders if he will be the next neo-colonial leader to be swept aside.

As a multipolar world emerges, all over Africa the people are rising up and challenging decades of neocolonial rule, exploitation and fake independence, favouring relations with Russia and China over the US and West Europe. Regardless of what takes place at the political level, it is when the masses rise up that real and meaningful transformation occurs. It is the masses who make history. They are just waiting for the moment, for the tipping point and the moment is here.

In Africa, here in the Caribbean and South America, and throughout the Global South, people at the grassroots are often clearer about what is taking place globally than many who are located in the ivory towers of academia, who so often become confused. In the poorest areas of Guyana, people who have never travelled far from their area or had access to books, or even in some cases internet, are very clear about why Muammar Qaddafi was killed, while we had the globally renowned Guyanese economist and dependency theorist, Clive Thomas, regurgitating the imperialist narrative “Qaddafi must go!” For the masses, knowledge is not gleaned from books and other people’s stories and therefore it is not disembodied. Knowledge devoid of an experiential dimension becomes an abstraction and this precludes an authentic understanding of the immense pain suffered by the peoples of the Global South, and the devastating impact that the injustice we experience has on every aspect of our lives, including whether we and our loved ones even get to live.

Thus, the only people who truly understand the suffering that inflicts millions on this earth every day are the sufferers themselves. As we say in Guyana, “who feels it, knows it”. Those who have been forced to reckon with it, and to fight it themselves, are the ones who will eventually make the change. These are the people who filled the stadium on August 7th to support the revolutionaries of Niger as they closed Niger’s airspace and refused to surrender. These are the people who are signing up in their thousands to defend Niger as I write this article. These are the people in Nigeria and Ghana who oppose their country’s proposed military intervention in Niger because they understand all too clearly that this is a proxy war hatched by the imperialists, especially the US and France. These are the ones in Haiti, who understand and support Jimmy Chérizier, while Haitian activists residing in the US and France and commenting from their ivory towers are falling for the Western narrative which insists on criminalizing those from the Haitian streets who have become conscientized, and now, instead of fighting each other, are fighting their oppressors.

“When the people stand up, imperialism trembles”.
Thomas Sankara

The political heirs of the traitors who stood in the way of the post-colonial revolutionary African leaders are now plotting and planning ways to thwart and kill this new generation of African revolutionary leaders, Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso, Assimi Goita of Mali, and Abdourahmane Tiani of Niger, all in the name of ‘democracy’ – liberal democracy, a Western colonial imposition, an illusion of democracy, a trap that has left the African continent in chaos, persistent poverty and chronic dependency – the hallmarks of the neo-colonial arrangement. It is the chains of this enslavement that the revolutionary coup leaders in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are determined to break. The same chains that Imran Khan is determined to break in Pakistan.

“Imperialism is a system of exploitation that occurs not only in the brutal form of those who come with guns to conquer territory. Imperialism often occurs in more subtle forms, a loan, food aid, blackmail. We are fighting this system that allows a handful of men on earth to rule all of humanity”.
Thomas Sankara

In the words of Kwame Nkrumah: “Neo-colonialism is not a sign of imperialism’s strength but rather of its last hideous gasp”. The Empire knows that it has come to the end of its reign, even if they refuse to admit it openly. The power and influence of the Empire is fading faster than could have ever been imagined even a year ago, it is indeed taking its last hideous gasp. Although in the open, the US and West Europe are still strutting on the world stage with their usual arrogance and bravado, behind closed doors they are in panic mode.

This new set of compromised Africans, under the umbrella of ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), continue to push for a military intervention in Niger, backed of course by France and the US, but as I write, are still retreating from making that fatal mistake as they realize it would be doomed to failure. The Western Corporate media continues to bleat about restoring ‘democracy’ to Niger, despite the   fact that the coup leaders have the overwhelming support of the people – isn’t that democracy? BBC repeats the same thing over and over, that the US and EU are committed to finding a diplomatic solution to Niger’s “political turmoil”, despite the fact that there is no turmoil as the people of Niger express their overwhelming support for the coup. It is the imperialists that are in turmoil as they realize the extent of the support the coup leaders and Russia have, and the extent of the hatred that is being directed towards them.

The people make history – coup supporters in the streets of Niger, “Down with France, Long Live Putin”

ECOWAS is a neo-colonial body that colludes with the imperialists to keep the existing political and economic arrangement intact. It’s the Black face of White supremacy. Obviously, the coup leaders of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are well aware of this. All three countries are members of ECOWAS. However, unlike the pro-Western puppets they removed, these revolutionaries are determined to move beyond sham independence and bogus liberal democracy. Those useless neo-colonial States like Nigeria should pay attention to the suffering of their people, rather than talking about invasion. Where were these “running dogs of imperialism” when NATO was bombing Libya into dust. Truth be told, some of these cowards, who call themselves African leaders went along with the imposed decision to destroy Libya. The good news is that it is only a matter of time before they are swept away by the rising tide of the African Revolution.

Why did the ECOWAS proposed invasion, backed of course by the French and the US, not eventuate when the first deadline they imposed on Niger expired? The reason is that they realized then, and are realizing even more so now, that they would not only have to reckon with the military but also the people of Niger who have already had a taste of the dignity that comes with true independence and real sovereignty. In addition, these compromised Africans are afraid that their shameless and traitorous behaviour will be even further exposed than it already is, and that this will cause greater unrest in their own countries.

The Niger coup leaders took the courageous and imperative step of not only kicking out their French neo-colonial masters but have threatened sanctions, withholding the supply of precious raw materials such as gold and uranium. This has sent shock waves throughout the imperialist world. The withholding of uranium is especially terrifying for the French government since uranium from Niger in part powers French nuclear power plants. The French State is the major shareholder in the multi-national mining company Orano (formerly known as Areva), that has been mining uranium in Niger for almost 50 years. According to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), Niger is the world’s seventh-largest producer of uranium and has Africa’s highest-grade uranium ores. Although Orano has already depleted some mines, they are determined to remain in the country, having set their sights on Niger’s Imouraren mine. Listed as the one of the world’s largest uranium deposits, Orano refer to it on their website as “Imouraren Project, the mine of the future”.  Despite this wealth of resources, Niger remains one of the poorest countries in the world, which tells you everything you need to know about France’s ill-gotten gains. In France, one out of every three light bulbs is lit thanks to Nigerien uranium, while in Niger, nearly 90% of the population has no access to electricity. Is this the democracy they want to restore in Niger?

To operate the fifty-six nuclear reactors in France’s eighteen power plants, an average of approximately 8,000 tons of uranium is required every year. This uranium comes mainly from three countries: Kazakhstan (27%), Niger (20%), and Uzbekistan (19%). Although Niger only accounts for 5% of global production, well behind Kazakhstan (43%), Canada (15%), Namibia (11%), and Australia (10%), and even though France could manage without Niger’s uranium, it is the precedent that Niger is setting that is most alarming for France and the entire Western world. Not since Muammar Qaddafi nationalised Libya’s oil companies in 1973, leading to a global oil supply crisis that resulted in desperate measures including carless days in major Western cities, have the imperialists been so afraid. As Francois Mitterrand boldly admitted in 1957, “Without Africa, France will have no history in the 21st century”.

Africa is the world’s true superpower
As I have written in previous articles, there is nothing that the US and Western Europe fears more than a united Africa that is free and independent, and whose resources can no longer be extracted in an exploitative manner. We must never forget that the Western world’s development was possible as a result of hundreds of years of the free labour of captured and enslaved Africans, and the plunder of African resources since the onset of the colonial project right up to the present day. They know that a united and independent Africa would completely alter the balance of power globally. It is a well-documented fact that if Africa stopped the flow of all raw materials to the Western nations for just one week, these nations would grind to a halt.

In 2007, in Conakry Guinea, Qaddafi made a simple observation to a cheering crowd of thousands: “Whenever I ask people about Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola people immediately say it’s an American or European drink. This is not true. The kola is African. They have taken the cheap raw material from us, they’ve made it into a drink, and they sell it back to us for a high price. We should be producing it ourselves and selling it to them.”

This is exactly the point that the revolutionary leader, Ibrahim Traoré is making as he implements projects to increase the manufacturing and processing of raw materials in Burkina Faso. This is of course a fundamental step in the struggle to free any country from persistent poverty and dependence. You can only achieve economic freedom and prosperity for your people when you halt the export of raw materials and start to produce the final product locally.

At this critical juncture in history, Africa is finally realizing its immense power.  These times represent a new opportunity because global events are transforming the balance of power and China and Russia are backing Africa’s attempt to take its rightful place on the world stage. This is a moment we cannot afford to miss or to be robbed of. Realizing our power is primarily a psychological transition, it is quite simply a matter of liberating ourselves from our mental incarceration. Almost every known natural resource needed to run the contemporary industrial/high tech economies—such as uranium, gold, copper, cobalt, coltan (for cell phones, video games, laptops), platinum, diamonds, bauxite, and especially large reserves of oil are located in Africa.  Azania (South Africa) alone contains half the world’s gold reserves. Democratic Republic of Congo contains half of the world’s cobalt and 80% of the world’s known coltan reserves. One quarter of the world’s aluminum ore is found in the coastal belt of West Africa and the continent is awash in petroleum reserves.

A defining moment for Africa and Africans all over the world, we are getting a glimpse of the kind of power that Africa possesses.  Ibrahim Traore, Assimi Goita and Abdourahmane Tiani embody the ideas of Garvey, Nkrumah, Sankara, Qaddafi and every great African freedom fighter who envisioned an Africa free from the bondage of colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism. We must rally to support them as they face the age-old imperialist arsenal of weapons. The usual all-out campaign to demonise them has already been launched, their entire psych-ops will be based on a sophisticated program of deception. If that fails, which it will, given the current awareness worldwide that the emperor is indeed naked for all to see, the next move will be military intervention, using the neo-colonial satraps amongst us, such as President Tinubu of Nigeria, just as they have done in the past.

Compromised Africans come in many guises. Bola Tinubu is an obvious case, openly working in tandem with the imperialists and therefore easy to spot. However, I have seen many who should know better getting excited over the speeches of African leaders who remain conceptually incarcerated, and therefore also compromised, such as President William Ruto of Kenya. He is a good orator and his speeches are full of promise, much the same as Barak Obama’s speeches were. In fact, the vision of a free and independent Africa articulated recently by President Ruto sounded nothing short of revolutionary. I don’t wish to be a pessimist, but a good talker is one thing and decisive action is another, and sadly, there are so many contradictions with regard to President Ruto that I know he inevitably falls into the first category.

President Ruto is calling for a new financial arrangement but says nothing about dismantling the neo-liberal capitalist arrangement that the present financial model is based on. Why? Because the ideology that his center-right party, the United Democratic Alliance adheres to is neo-liberal capitalism. He wants to have a fair financial arrangement within an unfair arrangement. Totally impossible. He uses the word ‘Afrocentric’ but I’m certain he uses it as a substitute for ‘African’ rather than as an ideological concept. He is calling for betterment for our African homeland within a system that colonised and enslaved our ancestors and is still ravaging Africa to this day. This same system got rid of the leaders I mentioned above and frustrated every attempt they made to bring about a new and just economic and financial order. And it is the defenders and enforcers of this same system that are lining up against the revolutionary leaders in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Herein lies the contradiction that renders his speeches nothing more than empty rhetoric.

Time for ‘us’ to put sanctions on ‘them’
It is time for Africa to finally rid itself of the last vestiges of colonialism and neo-colonialism. If we have to stop the flow of strategic resources to the Western capitals until they comply with our demands for self-determination, then so be it. It is time for us to apply sanctions on those Western capitals that refuse to respect our God-given rights. The way in which Western sanctions against Russia have completely backfired, resulting in an economically stronger Russia and an isolated West, now teetering on economic collapse, has shown the world that the pendulum has already swung. Western hegemony is over. Africa has never been in a better position to finally take its place at the global table as an equal partner and demand prosperity for its people. The Worldwide Pan-African Movement and the African masses are crying out for this – the time is now.  Africans everywhere must exert maximum pressure on their leaders to realize this power; we owe this much to all those who have gone before us, who have fought and died to realize this dream. Those African leaders who cannot get on board must be moved out of the way. An ECOWAS invasion of Niger must not be tolerated.

The global shift that is happening before our eyes is not a recent phenomenon, it has been building up for decades. The US and Western Europe have been in panic mode behind closed doors for a very long time. They thought that bombarding the world with anti-Russia and anti-China propaganda would work, but it has failed dismally, and much to their dismay, African youth are taking to the streets in greater and greater numbers waving Russian flags. The experience of the people throughout the Global South, especially in Africa, has of course run contrary to Western propaganda. Having experienced centuries of exploitation and genocidal policies by the West, they have never forgotten the fact that both Russia and China, who never had colonies in Africa or anywhere in the Global South for that matter, assisted them in their struggles to free themselves from Western domination and Apartheid in South Africa.

In an article that appeared in the Financial Times as far back as 2007, authors W. Wallis and G. Dyer, wrote: “Western powers real concern is that African States will opt for Chinese deals to free themselves from the punitive conditions of IMF/ World Bank loans and other forms of financial dependence on Europe and the Unites States. As the second largest source of oil in Africa, Angola is now in such a strong position that it is rejecting IMF loans completely. As one consultant put it, with all their oil revenue, they don’t need the IMF or the World Bank. They can play the Chinese off against the Americans.”

In another article titled, ‘China and USA in New Cold War over Africa’s Oil Riches. Darfur? It’s the Oil, Stupid…’  author William Engdahl points out: “Today China draws an estimated 30% of its crude oil from Africa. That explains an extraordinary series of diplomatic initiatives which have left Washington furious. China is using no-strings-attached dollar credits to gain access to Africa’s vast raw material wealth, leaving Washington’s typical control game via the World Bank and IMF out in the cold. Who needs the painful medicine of the IMF when China gives easy terms and builds roads and schools to boot?

What does all this mean for Africa? Quite simply it means that we now have a choice in trading partners, and although all trading partners drive a hard bargain – some are giving better deals than others and in addition, respect our right to self-determination.

Black Power – African Power!
This is the moment to put all our efforts into the realization of Nkrumah and Qaddafi’s grand plan for a United States of Africa. As I write, I am heartened by news that Algeria has refused France’s request to use its airspace for a military operation in Niger. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune stated that “a military intervention could ignite the whole Sahel region and Algeria will not use force with its neighbours”. Only when we can achieve this level of unity and power, will we be able to take our rightful place in the world. At last, we will be able to engage with the rest of the world on our own terms and in our own interest. Backed by a population of 1 billion people, Africa will then be able to make demands that cannot be ignored.

In 2009, at a meeting of the AU in Addis Ababa, Qaddafi, commenting on West European and US attitudes to Africa, and had this to say: “If they do not want to live with us fairly, then they should know it is our planet and they can go to another planet.”

Fair and just is all we are seeking – only the unfair and unjust have anything to fear.

Imperialism can only be buried in Africa…
In an article in 2011, I invoked as its title Sekou Toure’s bold assertion: that imperialism will be buried in Africa. To Western commentators this might have seemed optimistic, and indeed some commentators asserted that it was not grounded in reality and that we were, if anything, being crushed by imperialism’s might. However, looking at it from a revolutionary Pan-African perspective one simply sees it as inevitable. Imperialism can only be defeated in Africa.  Although there is a revolutionary fightback globally, and most notably throughout Central and South America, it is only when Africa is free that imperialism can finally be buried, since it is Africa that fuels the imperialist’s existence and their space age.  The onus is on revolutionary Pan-African organizations/movements, on the continent and in the Diaspora, to provide clear analysis and strategies capable of thwarting the enemies’ plans at every point. We must rid ourselves of the evil scourge of US and West European imperialism, their created, funded and facilitated so-called ‘jihadists’ (aka NATO’s foot soldiers) and the confusion and havoc they are spreading, and their neo-colonial regimes. There is no room or time for indecision leading to inaction. We must bury imperialism in Africa once and for all or we will surely perish.

Following the destruction of the Libyan Jamahiriya and the assassination of Muammar Qaddafi, veteran African freedom fighter and former president of Namibia, Sam Nujoma, was extremely critical of the African Union’s weakness, stating that they “had woefully failed to mobilize militarily to stop the bombing of Libya and that the African Union should have mobilized their forces in order to fight and defend the territorial integrity of Libya”.  He offered the following advice: “Africans should talk war – the language best understood by Western countries…The imperialists understand no other words than fighting. We dislodged them from our continent by fighting them. If we did not fight in Namibia or in Zimbabwe or elsewhere, we would not be free today. We must now prepare to fight them again…”

I end with the immortal words of Kwame Nkrumah: ” We have awakened. We will not sleep anymore. Today, from now on, there is a new African in the world”.

UK local councils and private sector partners intensify attacks on refuse workers

Barry Mason

Refuse collection workers face an assault on their pay, terms and conditions at the hands of the UK’s local authorities and private outsourced companies—including many that are wholly-owned by the local authority and that won the contract bid by offering low pay and high levels of exploitation.

There are several ongoing disputes. Five have been settled or averted in the last few weeks as employers made supposedly improved pay offers, accepted by the trade unions, which in no way meet up with the huge surge in the cost of living. Several more disputes are in the pipeline.

Strikers on the refuse workers picket line at the Whitley depot in Coventry during the 2022 dispute

The collection of domestic refuse is the responsibility of local authorities. However, many councils, regardless of which political party is in control, outsource refuse services. Refuse workers provide an essential service but are among the lowest paid.

Forty Unite union members, employed by contractor Urbaser in Selby are holding four-day stoppages. Urbaser is contracted to Conservative-controlled North Yorkshire unitary authority for refuse services in the Selby area. The Unite members rejected an eight percent pay offer. Bin loaders and ground workers are paid only £10.64 an hour; drivers, who must have HGV licences, are paid only £12.51 an hour. Stoppages are scheduled to continue into September.

Refuse collection workers employed by Allerdale Waste Services (AWS) serving Workington and environs, began an all-out strike May 16. AWS is wholly owned by the Labour-controlled Cumberland council. The GMB and Unite union members demanded higher pay as loaders were paid £10.90 an hour and drivers were on £11.89 an hour, among the lowest rates in the country.

The council had been using agency staff to break the strike, but a High Court order effective August 10 stopped employers using agency staff against strikers. To circumvent this the council planned to put agency staff on short-term contracts. On Thursday, the strike ended after a vote on a union backed deal that brokered by the conciliation service Acas. The settlement sees loaders pay go from £10.90 an hour to a below inflation £11.81 (8.3 percent). Drivers see their pay increase from £11.99 an hour to £13.62 an hour (13.6 percent.)

Refuse workers employed by Labour-controlled Canterbury City Council’s waste collection service Canenco have been on strike since July 5, with stoppages scheduled to go on until September 10. Canenco is wholly owned by Canterbury City council. 

The GMB members are demanding £15 an hour for HGV drivers and £12 an hour for loaders. They are seeking pay parity with refuse collection workers in neighbouring local authorities. Canenco recently offered to meet the workers’ demands but only to be paid from January next year.

Recent disputes settled or averted include those in Bristol, Somerset, Sandwell, South Gloucestershire and the Derbyshire Dales.

In Bristol, 300 refuse workers employed by Bristol Waste, members of the Unite and Unison unions, were due to strike against a company owned by the Labour council. Many were only being paid just above the minimum wage.

Under the deal negotiated by the unions they received an 8.5 percent increase over 12 months and a one-off £500 payment. This falls short of the RPI rate of inflation currently at 9 percent—it has been in double digits for most of the last two years.

A deal in July averted a strike by around 200 Unite union members working for Suez under contract to Somerset council. The company was able to push through a nine percent offer. Loaders had been on £10.98 an hour and drivers on £13.63 an hour.

After four weeks of stoppages, GMB members working for Serco on a Sandwell Borough Council contract returned to work after the union agreed an 8.5 percent pay deal in July.

Around 150 Unite union members employed by Suez under contract to South Gloucestershire Council returned to work at the end of July with Unite claiming they had won a 10.1 percent deal. This was a large drop from the 15 percent rise initially demanded.

Planned strikes by GMB members employed by Serco under contract to Derbyshire Dales District Council were called off after the union accepted a pay deal bringing them into line with other Derbyshire local authorities.

GMB members employed by Veolia, under contract to Sheffield City Council are being balloted for strike action. They have rejected a two-year deal comprising an eight percent rise backdated to May this year followed by a two percent rise in May next year. The ballot closes September 4.

At Labour-controlled Coventry Council, forty HGV refuse lorry drivers in the Unite union voted to strike after the council decided to end widely accepted “task and finish” provisions, whereby refuse workers go home after finishing their round.

A July 31 Unite press release stated, “Coventry council has threatened its refuse workers with significant cuts to their terms and conditions and is refusing to negotiate… The threats were issued to Unite during talks with the council this afternoon (July 31), which subsequently collapsed… The attacks are part of the council’s attempts to fight equal pay claims by GMB members.” 

The pending dispute results from a sell-out deal brokered in July last year by Unite to end a seven-month-long bitter strike by over 70 HGV Coventry Council refuse drivers. Coventry Council used agency staff and its arms-length council-owned Tom White Ltd waste disposal firm to break the strike.

The main demand to upgrade the drivers pay from Grade 5 to 6 in recognition of their skills and responsibilities was not met, saving the council around £30 million in equal pay terms claims. Unite hailed the 12.9 percent pay settlement but the council stated that this was not a “blanket increase” and included items such as “allowing drivers to work Saturdays.” The union hailed a below-inflation pay increase of 8 percent for newer drivers.

Within months the deal has unraveled. An April 4 BBC News article stated the council had stopped making payments related to the deal without informing Unite of its intention.

A leaked email sent by Unite local representative Peter Skerrett to Coventry councillors read, “You will of course be aware that following nearly eight months of strike action involving our refuse driver members, we did finally reach an agreement last year. I am less sure if you are aware that for some of our members the payments linked to that agreement have now been withdrawn over the last few weeks. We had agreed that a review would take place.”

The major issue for the union bureaucracy was that it was not consulted on the changes imposed. The email continued, “But equally no changes should have been enforced without first getting union agreement. Our view is that this now means that we are once again in dispute… We are asking that while negotiations take place, the payments are reinstated… should this not be possible… (we will) issue the council with notice for industrial action.”

While many councils still outsource services such as refuse collection, there is a growing trend toward bringing services back in house. A 2019 report by the Association for Public Services Excellence stated 77 percent of councils were planning to bring services in house. A roundtable panel discussion report published in the Local Government Chronicle on June 7 noted, “The big outsourcing contracts that were in vogue… in (the) naughties [sic] have fallen from favour—not least due to some well publicised private sector failings—and authorities are increasingly turning to in-house provision.”

Croydon Council, led by a Conservative mayor but with no overall control, plans to continue to use an outsourced company for its refuse collection after current provider Veolia is replaced in 2025.

The Inside Croydon blog noted June 2 how outsourcing was primarily organised to funnel taxpayers’ money into the corporate sector, at the expense of a proper provision of services and of workers’ pay, conditions and pensions. With the Veolia contract, “bidders offered unrealistically low prices in order to win the deal, and then did not provide the levels of service that had been expected. In 2020, Croydon gave Veolia a £22 million contract ‘uplift’ in order to improve the service provided…(with) no noticeable improvement.”

A report to the council stated that costs incurred by a different outsourcer were likely to increase. “[Jason] Perry’s [elected Tory mayor] nodding-dogs cabinet nonetheless approved the mayor’s outsourcing plan, their main concern not being on service delivery to residents, but on shaving costs by not incurring any pension liabilities for the waste contractor’s workers.”

The article quoted a council report, “The outsourcing model carries much lower risks for the council in terms primarily of HR and pension contributions and is thus the recommended option.”

Election campaign in Poland dominated by war hysteria and xenophobia

Martin Nowak

There are less than two months to go until the parliamentary elections in Poland on October 15. The closer the election date, the more the country’s political elites seem to be working themselves up to a reactionary fever pitch. More rearmament, more nationalism, more racism and above all more anti-Russian war hysteria are the central pillars here. Behind this is the fear of the Polish bourgeoisie, regardless of factional disputes, of an eruption of working class opposition. Their solution is war.

Polish troops sing national anthem during the ceremony marking Polish Army Day in Warsaw, Poland, Monday, Aug. 15, 2022. [AP Photo/Michal Dyjuk]

Poland plays a central role in NATO’s military build-up against Russia and, according to the will of the governing parties and the opposition, should expand it even further. As the linchpin of NATO’s eastern flank with its “rapid reaction force,” which has been increased to 300,000 troops, Poland links the Baltic states and the Baltic Sea region in the north with the Balkans and the Black Sea region in the south and the Western European NATO states.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Poland has become the most important hub for all military logistics. Whether weapons or foreign visitors—everything lands near the small Polish town of Rszeszow and covers the last 100 kilometres into Ukraine overland.

Poland itself has already delivered weapons and materiel worth over three billion euros to Ukraine, including around 250 tanks. Before the delivery of German tanks, this put it ahead of Germany in third place among arms suppliers. Since the start of the war in February 2022, it has also almost doubled its own military budget, which has risen from 2.3 percent to more than 4 percent of gross domestic product, or about 28 billion euros. Poland has set itself the goal of building the largest land army in Europe, with 300,000 soldiers.

While the representatives of all parties repeat the mantra that this was a necessary reaction to “Russian aggression,” Poland itself played a leading role in provoking the Russian attack on Ukraine.

As early as 2008, the then Prime Minister and today’s opposition leader Donald Tusk had agreed with US President George W. Bush on the installation of a US missile defence shield in Poland, thus deliberately intensifying the confrontation with Russia.

Poland then played a decisive role in the Maidan coup in 2014. Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski travelled to Kiev together with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to force elected President Viktor Yanukovych to resign. Sikorski is a member of Civic Platform (PO)—which Tusk also belongs to—and is married to the American anti-communist historian and journalist Anne Applebaum.

After the start of the civil war in Ukraine, the Polish government shifted the focus of the army from the west to the eastern border. In April 2014, Tusk demanded that NATO move more troops to Poland. Since then, Polish politics has shifted further and further to the right, both under the rule of the PO and the nationalist conservative PiS, which has led the government since the end of 2015.

Social crisis and xenophobia

Although the government and opposition in Warsaw both support the all-dominant pro-war issue, the ruling PiS is apparently afraid that opposition to the war policy and its devastating social consequences will break out elsewhere.

It is working people that must bear the full brunt of the enormous costs of rearmament and war. Since the beginning of the war, inflation has risen rapidly. At one point it was around 18 percent, and food prices even doubled last year in some cases. In the meantime, the official inflation rate has dropped to 11 to 12 percent and that of food to just under 20 percent. According to official OECD figures, the average purchasing power of Polish wage earners has fallen by 7 percent in the past year alone.

The government has tried to dampen the social consequences of inflation with a series of subsidies and tax cuts but has just as quickly withdrawn them as inflation has fallen. The only remaining drop in the ocean is the suspension of VAT (sales tax) on food. Nevertheless, food in Poland is only marginally cheaper than in neighbouring Germany, and with wages that are only half as high. Rents have also exploded recently, reaching Western European levels in big cities like Warsaw and Krakow.

There have already been repeated mass protests against the untenable social and political conditions in Poland in recent years. In September 2021, for example, tens of thousands of doctors, nurses and other health workers fought for higher wages and better working conditions. And in June this year, nearly half a million protested in Warsaw against PiS efforts to establish dictatorial rule.

The PiS government is responding to the social crisis and resistance to it with the tried and tested methods of the extreme right. It is unleashing a nationalist campaign and trying to deflect social tensions onto the weakest in society, refugees, and immigrants. At the same time as the parliamentary elections, it is planning a referendum in which voters will be asked to answer four leading questions that will be used, among other things, to stir up racism and hostility towards refugees.

Part of the PiS government’s demagogy is also directed against the European Union, with which it is in legal disputes on several issues. At the same time, Poland is economically dependent on EU funds and the European market. Opposition leader Tusk was president of the European Council for five years.

One of the referendum questions is: “Do you support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa under the forced relocation mechanism imposed by the European bureaucracy?”

In the accompanying election video, PiS mixes voices of opposition politicians with scenes of burning cars, vandalism and a hooded black man with a knife. The head of the government, Mateusz Morawiecki, asks: “Do you want this to happen in Poland? Do you want to stop being the masters of your own country?” The primitive and repulsive imagery evokes associations with the Nazi hate sheet Der Stürmer.

But anyone who thinks that this filth only comes from the PiS is far off the mark. Earlier, opposition leader Tusk had already used riots in France following a police killing as an opportunity to demand on Twitter: “The Polish people must regain control of their country and its borders!” Tusk accused PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski of letting 130,000 migrant workers from India, Nigeria and Pakistan into the country “quickly and easily” last year.

However, it is not only in Poland where asylum policy increasingly bears fascist traits. An anti-refugee campaign is raging all over Europe, costing thousands of refugees their lives.

The second referendum question also has an anti-refugee target. It is: “Do you support the removal of the barrier on the border between the Republic of Poland and the Republic of Belarus?”

This refers to the 5.5-metre-high and 186-km-long border fence, which was completed in 2022, is guarded by video cameras and military-armed patrols, and cost 350 million euros. Poland and the EU accuse Belarus of waging a “hybrid war”—such inhumane language—by allowing refugees to reach the border. The bulwark is part of a total of more than 2,000 kilometres of border fences of “Fortress Europe.”

Armament and war plans

The fascist agitation against refugees is complemented by an intensive militarist campaign.

On August 15, the largest military parade since the end of the Stalinist Polish People’s Republic took place on the traditional “Army Day” in Warsaw under the motto “Strong Red and White.” Two thousand soldiers of the Polish army and of NATO allies marched to martial music and in a sea of national flags past the main stage, where President Duda, Prime Minister Morawiecki and Defence Minister Blaszczak inspected the parade. The martial show was complemented by 200 vehicles on the road and around 100 aircraft in the sky.

The Ministry of Defence website proudly lists the latest equipment acquired as part of the massive military upgrade programme. The government finalised defence contracts worth $15 billion last year for 1,300 American Abrams and South Korean K2 tanks alone.

Around 70 so-called “military picnics” were also held across the country, where military equipment was also presented, and local politicians, flanked by representatives of the army and militia, veterans and underage scouts, delivered “patriotic” speeches.

The Scout Association and the WoT national militia signed a cooperation agreement in 2020, and a new subject, “security education,” including shooting training, was introduced in Polish schools from grade 8. This underlines how far the militarisation of the whole of society goes.

Here, too, the opposition follows the same course as the government and sometimes attacks it from the right. For example, the “Law on the Oath of the Fatherland” on military rearmament was passed almost unanimously in both chambers of the Polish parliament.

Here, too, the opposition voiced criticism from the right. One criticism was that the quantitative expansion of the army to 300,000 men was not expedient and that more quality was needed. Another criticism was that defence spending, which had recently increased to 4.0 percent of GDP, should not be financed by debt, but should be accompanied by social cuts.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Poland is not only massively arming itself, but is preparing to be the first NATO power to intervene with its own soldiers in the Ukraine war or to open a new front against Belarus.

For some time now, Poland has deployed 2,000 soldiers as well as 5,000 militarily armed border guards on its border with Belarus to ward off “hybrid attacks.” In June, Poland quintupled the number of its soldiers at the border: 4,000 are to be permanently stationed there as part of the new “Rengaw” task force, the remaining 6,000 are to be held in reserve. The “asylum” offered by Belarus to the Wagner mercenaries and their leader Prigozhin after their failed coup attempt served as a pretext.

Since then, reports of an alleged threat by Wagner mercenaries have been escalating, with claims that, disguised as refugees, they could infiltrate Poland and destabilise the country. In fact, the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW), in a situation report at the end of June, only referred to a new military tent camp for 30 to 50 people near Assipovichy, more than 300 kilometres from the border. More recent ISW reports even refer to a withdrawal of Wagner personnel.

Recently, the alleged violation of airspace by two Belarusian helicopters was turned into a major military provocation by the press on the basis of social media posts.

It is becoming increasingly clear that plans for an intervention by the Polish army are being worked on feverishly. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the ruling PiS party, had already called for a NATO “peace mission” to support Ukraine shortly after the war began. In May last year, retired US General Jack Keane raised the issue of an “international coalition” to secure control of the Black Sea against Russia.

In March this year, the Polish ambassador in Paris, Jan Emeryk Rościszewski, openly threatened military intervention in an interview with French TV station LCI. “If Ukraine does not defend its independence, we will have no other choice, we will be forced to enter the conflict.” The recent disastrous failure of the Ukrainian summer offensive, admitted in the Washington Post, gives this threat renewed relevance.

The Polish Volunteer Corps (Polski Korpus Ochotniczy - PDK) is already openly fighting in Ukraine alongside the far-right Russian Volunteer Corps. Recently, there have been accusations from Russia that the Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian Brigade, founded in 2009, could play a key role in an intervention, as it consists of NATO and non-NATO soldiers.

Biden administration launches new student debt repayment program

Alex Findijs

The Biden administration launched a new income-based repayment plan for student loans this week. Known as Saving on Valuable Education (SAVE), the plan reduces monthly student loan payments for borrowers by decreasing the percentage of a person’s income they must pay. 

President Joe Biden speaks about student loan debt forgiveness in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022, in Washington. [AP Photo/Evan Vucci]

Starting next July, SAVE participants will pay 5 percent of their discretionary income above 225 percent of the federal poverty line based on their family size. For graduate loans the rate will be 10 percent with a weighted average between the two for borrowers with both. Until then borrowers will pay 10 percent of their discretionary income, defined as their post-tax income minus the 225 percent of poverty level threshold. 

Based on these figures, the Department of Education expects that 1 million people will not have to make any payments through the SAVE plan. A single person making $15 an hour, or just over $30,000 a year, would be eligible to pay zero dollars a month on their loan. 

The income-based plan decreases the percentage by half when compared to other income-based repayment plans and also voids interest accrual if the monthly payment does not cover it. Additionally, married couples will not have to report their combined income and spouses will not count towards a person’s family size. 

After 20 years for undergraduate loans, and 25 years for graduate loans, borrowers would become eligible for the remainder of their loan to be forgiven. For those with less than $12,000 in loans, they would be eligible after 10 years, plus an additional year for each extra thousand dollars up to the 20-year threshold. 

SAVE was initially proposed in January and comes just weeks before payments are scheduled to begin again in October. Interest accrual begins in September. Participants in the REPAYE income-based program will be automatically enrolled in SAVE and 30 million borrowers will be invited to enroll by the Department of Education. 

The Biden administration has touted the plan as a major reform that will drastically reduce student loan payments and provide a pathway for debt forgiveness for millions of borrowers. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a Biden administration plan to forgive $10,000 in student debt for all borrowers the Democratic Party has heavily promoted the SAVE plan. 

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona told reporters Monday afternoon, “With the SAVE plan, we are making a promise to every student. Your payments will be affordable. You’re not going to be buried under a mountain of interest, and you won’t be saddled with a lifetime of debt.”

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said “President Biden’s SAVE plan helps Americans with student debt by capping interest growth and lowering monthly payments. That’s real money back in people’s pockets.”

SAVE may reduce monthly payments for many borrowers, and the reduction in interest confronts a major issue that millions have struggled with for decades. Some loans are so large that the interest is greater than the payments made, causing the total loan to grow over time instead of being paid off. 

But despite the vast praise from the Democratic establishment, there are a number of remaining issues with the plan. 

Parents who took out loans on behalf of their children are not eligible for SAVE. They are only eligible for the most expensive plan that requires participants to pay 20 percent of their discretionary income for 25 years. 

There have also been reports from borrowers of irregularities in their loan balances and the application process. Business Insider interviewed one woman whose monthly student loan payment was set to more than $49,000. She reported that she had made multiple efforts to contact her loan service provider over several weeks but that the error had not been corrected. If the issue is not rectified before October 15 when payments resume her bank account would be overdrawn. 

Others have reported on social media that their estimated monthly payments under SAVE are larger than before, or through other programs, while issues with the application process have been reported by others. 

Issues with the program process may be addressed but there are longstanding issues with income-based repayment programs that are not resolved by SAVE. 

Under previous repayment programs, only 32 people had ever had their student loans forgiven after decades of payments as of March 2021, a product of the abysmal management of student loan accounts by federal contractors in charge of managing the records of borrowers. 

The issue was so severe that the Biden administration recently announced the forgiveness of $38 billion worth of loans to 800,000 people who had made payments for 20 years or more but never saw their remaining balance forgiven due to improper record keeping and reporting by student loan servicers. This action was almost immediately challenged in federal court by The New Civil Liberties Alliance on behalf of the right-wing Cato Institute and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Nothing in the new SAVE plan does anything to correct the egregious mismanagement of billions of dollars of debt. Without addressing this issue it is entirely possible that millions of people will never actually see the debt forgiveness they have been promised under SAVE.

For low-income borrowers the plan will potentially reduce their monthly payments to zero and the voiding of unpaid interest will help control the inability of millions to pay down their loans. But even these reforms are limited in their scope. Millions of borrowers will continue to be saddled by extensive debt and the cost of higher education will continue to balloon, sending more and more students into debt for an education. 

The plan is also paired with the expanding assault on education funding in the United States. When the plan was first announced earlier this year, the Department of Education announced that the program would coincide with an intensive review of the performance of university programs, specifically the ratio of debt to income that students take on after graduation. 

This is a thinly veiled attack on the humanities and low paying social service professions such as social work. Programs in history, social sciences and the arts will be targeted for funding cuts as part of the growing calls among the American ruling class to enforce austerity and make funds available for war with Russia and China. 

While millions of people will be relieved by the reduction in payments, the SAVE plan is a purposely limited effort to stem the mass outrage over the Democratic Party’s refusal to handle the student debt crisis. Nearly $1.7 billion in student debt will remain, and the Biden administration continues to insist that it cannot do any more to assist student borrowers, particularly rejecting calls that it abolish all student debt. 

To the extent that the Biden administration has intervened to manage the debt crisis it is because of the broader economic issues caused by crushing student debt. Millions of people burdened with large debts are unable to pay for homes, vehicles, even basic food items.

According to the Student Debt Crisis Center student loan borrowers are 61 percent more likely to experience food insecurity and eight times more likely to have insecure housing. By reducing monthly payments and interest the Biden administration hopes to free up money for consumer spending as fears of recession grow. 

The Biden administration, languishing with just a 40 percent approval rating, is also looking ahead to the 2024 election year with hopes that student debt reform will boost its prospects amid a growing resurgence of the class struggle in the United States.