Millionaire speculator blurts out ruling class strategy of mass unemployment and wage-slashing

Patrick Martin

There are certain times when an individual makes a statement that encapsulates the thinking of an entire social class. Such is the case with the remarks Tuesday of multi-millionaire property developer Tim Gurner before the Property Summit of the Australian Financial Review.

In the comments, which were widely shared and condemned on social media, Gurner identified what he considers to be the essential “problem” produced by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not that 25 million people have died and millions more are suffering from debilitating illness.

No. According to Gurner, “I think the problem that we’ve had is that people decided they didn’t really want to work so much anymore through COVID, and that has had a massive issue on productivity.” 

Singling out building trades workers, whom he confronts every day in his $10 billion construction business, Gurner said they “have definitely pulled back on productivity. They have been paid a lot to do not too much in the last few years, and we need to see that change.”

The claim that workers have been “paid a lot to do not too much” is an absurd and self-deluded lie. According to the International Labor Organization, wages around the world outside China fell by 1.4 percent in 2022 alone as a massive surge in the cost of living eroded workers’ living standards. As for doing “not too much,” the COVID-19 pandemic was a death knell to the 40-hour work week, with 50-hour weeks in the auto industry and 70-hour weeks on the railroads and docks becoming the norm.

“We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around,” Gurner continued. “There’s been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them, as opposed to the other way around. So it’s a dynamic that has to change.”

Gurner’s prescription for the problem of the working class refusing to accept their status as wage slaves is simple: “We need to see pain in the economy.” This includes “massive layoffs,” which have already begun and will lead to “less arrogance in the employment market.” He continued, “We need to see unemployment rise—unemployment has to jump 40 to 50 percent, in my view.”

Around the world, 220 million people are unemployed. Gurner wishes this number to grow by another 110 million, with the immeasurable suffering caused by hunger, malnutrition, substance abuse and broken homes that accompany mass unemployment.

After an explosion of anger online, Gurner has since said he “deeply regrets” his comments. This insincere statement was perhaps motivated by the fact that such a blurting out of the truth has, in the past, encouraged the erection of the guillotine.

Gurner, who has an estimated wealth of $929 million AUD, or $600 million USD, was not speaking for himself alone. In his remarks, delivered in all earnestness, he was giving voice to the sentiments of the entire capitalist class, which is using mass unemployment as a bludgeon to ensure that workers’ wages continue to plummet. 

His recommendation that the “problem” of working class arrogance should be remedied with mass unemployment is, although perhaps stated more directly, the policy of central banks all over the world. In August 2022, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell declared that the COVID-19 pandemic had created an “out of balance” labor market, and that reducing inflation would require “pain.”

The implementation of “pain” is working its way throughout every industry and country. If American autoworkers want to know what CEOs like Mary Barra and Jim Farley really think, they have only to watch the one-minute video of Gurner’s remarks. The auto bosses are planning to create mass unemployment through the shift to electric vehicles (EVs), which require far less labor. Wages and benefits at EV battery plants will be slashed even below the level of the temporary part-time work force at GM, Ford and Stellantis.

And behind the auto bosses stand the major banks and the financial oligarchy as a whole, which hold the whip in hand. They dictate policies in every industry and to their political servants in the Biden administration and in capitalist governments throughout the world.

The ruling class policy of slashing jobs and living standards and imposing ever more brutal conditions of exploitation has broad social and political implications. Such measures cannot be imposed democratically. They require the direct intervention of the state to suppress or smash the struggles of the working class. The Biden administration gave the first glimpse of this with its intervention last December to ban a strike by railway workers and impose on them a contract many of them had already voted to reject.

In country after country, the capitalist rulers are moving towards mass repression and dictatorship and building up authoritarian and fascist movements to serve as the instruments of the attack on democratic rights. In the US this is personified by the transformation of the Republican Party under the aegis of Donald Trump. Similar forces are being developed in Germany (the AfD), in France (the party of Marine Le Pen), in Italy (the fascist Giorgia Meloni is now prime minister) and in many other countries.

Earlier this year, the television series Succession showed a billionaire media family—a thinly fictionalized version of Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News empire—turning to the buildup of fascist politicians to enforce its class interests. With Gurner’s comments, one is not sure if it is a case of art imitating life or the other way around.

Libyan officials warn Derna flood death toll could reach 20,000

Alex Lantier

The horrific scope of the death and destruction caused by Storm Daniel across eastern Libya continues to emerge, as rescuers and reporters arrive in the flood zone. Towns across eastern Libya are devastated, with 11,300 confirmed dead as of last night in Derna, which was flooded by a massive wall of water after two dams burst. Its mayor, Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi, has warned that the death toll in his city alone could reach 20,000.

A general view of the flooded city of Derna, Libya, is seen Wednesday, September 13, 2023. The rainwater that gushed down Derna's mountainside and into the city has killed thousands and left thousands more missing, washing entire neighborhoods out to sea. [AP Photo/Muhammad J. Elalwany]

“The estimated number of deaths in the city could reach between 18,000 to 20,000, based on the number of buildings in the districts destroyed by the flood,” Gaithi told Al-Arabiya television. “We actually need teams specialised in recovering bodies. I fear that the city will be infected with an epidemic due to the large number of bodies under the rubble and in the water.”

The failure to maintain basic infrastructure and to prepare emergency response policies, flowing from the 2011 NATO war in Libya that plunged the country into an ongoing 12-year civil war, has exacted a horrific human cost.

Inhabitants of Derna heard what sounded like explosions when the two dams burst, and shortly afterwards the city was submerged under seven-meter high waves. “I heard a whoosh, I thought it was an aeroplane. The force of the water collapsed my neighbour’s house,” one man told the Financial Times. When he left his home after the flood waters receded, he added, “I was walking on corpses.”

Another survivor said that he and his mother barely managed to reach safety by scrambling inside a house that was not carried off by the flood waters. He added, “The scene I saw afterwards, whatever I say, it’s impossible to describe. Bodies were floating on the water, cars were floating by, girls were screaming. It lasted an hour or an hour and a half, but if felt like more than a year.”

A quarter of Derna was swept out to sea, and thousands of bodies are still trapped under the rubble of buildings or are washing up ashore. The victims “are being buried in mass graves. There’s no time or space to bury them in single graves. We removed 500 bodies in a single operation,” said Osama Ali, a spokesman for the Ambulance and Emergency Center in Libya. Rescuers are calling for emergency shipments of body bags to the region.

“Bodies are everywhere, inside houses, in the streets, at sea. Wherever you go, you find dead men, women, and children. Entire families were lost,” aid worker Emad al-Falah told AP.

Map shows the flood damage extent in Derna, Libya [AP Photo/Phil Holm ]

Rescue efforts are further complicated because only two of the seven roads into Derna survived the floods. Currently, many rescue workers are forced to rely on helicopters for transportation, and water and electricity are cut off in the city.

Other cities near Derna have also been shattered. Journalist Mohamed Eljarh said that rescuers had still not reached the coastal city of Susah and other nearby villages. In Susah, he said, “Hundreds of homes are buried under mud, debris and water. No help has arrived. Other areas have been similarly affected. The death toll is going to be staggering.”

This is the product of the 12 years of fighting since the 2011 NATO war on Libya and the ensuing eruption of civil war between governments in eastern and western Libya. Rival militias whom the NATO powers had supported as their proxies to wage war on Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime have tore the country apart. As Libya’s economy fell by half, and major oil companies plundered Libya’s oil wealth, nothing was spent on dam repair or emergency services.

The risk of a flood catastrophe was well known to scientists and state officials in Libya. Last year, hydrologist Abdelwanees A. R. Ashoor of Omar Al-Mukhtar University published a paper warning that a major flood in Derna would be “likely to cause one of the two dams to collapse.” He wrote, “If a huge flood happens, the result will be catastrophic for the people of the wadi and the city.”

Another scholarly journal also published last year by Sebha University similarly warned of the poor maintenance of the Derna dams and called for urgent action. “The results that were obtained demonstrate that the studied area is at risk of flooding,” its findings stated. “Therefore, immediate measures must be taken for routine maintenance of the dams, because in the event of a big flood, the consequences will be disastrous for the residents of the valley and the city.”

But with local authorities controlled by rival NATO-backed militias focused on waging war against each other, such warnings went unheeded. Moreover, the warnings and evacuation orders that would have been given by Libya’s meteorological service prior to the NATO war were not issued, because the meteorological service has collapsed during the past 12 years of fighting.

Petteri Taalas of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva told RFI: “Before, Libya had a relatively modern meteorological service, but this is no longer the case. It virtually does not work at all anymore. The observation network is virtually destroyed. Thus, the storm arrived but virtually no evacuation took place. Of course we could not have avoided economic losses, but we could have avoided most of the human losses.”

WMO officials said they issued warnings and contacted Libyan officials 72 hours before the dams collapsed, which led to the declaration of a state of emergency in Libya. But instead of ordering an evacuation of low-lying areas, the eastern Libyan government’s Interior Ministry ordered a curfew. This forced inhabitants of these cities to stay in the path of the flood surge unleashed by the dam collapse.

Libyan prosecutors have now launched an investigation into the disaster response to decide whether to press negligence charges against any officials.

Above all, however, responsibility for the disaster lies with the NATO imperialist powers who launched a war for regime change in Libya with catastrophic consequences. The failure of dams and of critical public services in the Derna region flow from the fact that all of Libya has been plundered for over a decade by imperialism.

There are mounting indications of mounting popular anger at the handling of the floods, and of fear in ruling circles of the working population.

Al-Jazeera reported that the Libyan National Army (LNA) militia of warlord and CIA asset Khalifa Haftar, which controls Derna, is stopping journalists from entering Derna and confiscating their cell phones.

Fadellalah, an IT worker in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, whose family lived in Derna, spoke to the Associated Press (AP). He said he had called his family on Sunday to urge them to move to higher ground, but that now at least 13 members of his family are confirmed dead and 20 are missing. “Some of them didn’t have cars. They didn’t have a way to get out,” he said.

AP noted that Fadelallah “asked that his surname not be used because he fears reprisals from government officials and armed groups who could view his story as criticism of their efforts.”

Government Of Germany DAAD Scholarships 2024/2025

Application Deadline: 2nd November 2023

Offered Annually? Yes

To Be Taken At (Country): Germany

Type: Short courses/Training, Masters

Eligibility for Government of Germany DAAD Scholarships: Foreign applicants who have gained a first university degree in the field of the Performing Arts at the latest by the time they commence their scholarship-supported study programme.

What can be funded?

In this study programme, you can complete

• a Master’s degree/postgraduate degree leading to a final qualification, or
• a complementary course that does not lead to a final qualification (not an undergraduate course)

at a state or state-recognised German university of your choice.
This programme only funds projects in the artistic field of the Performing Arts (Drama, Theatre Directing/Theatre Dramaturgy, Musicals, Performance Studies, Dance, Choreography). Other DAAD scholarship programmes are available for applicants from the fields of Theatre and Dance Studies or for artists with a scientific project.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Government of Germany DAAD Scholarships:

• A monthly payment of 850 euros
• Travel allowance, unless these expenses are covered by the home country or another source of funding
• One-off study allowance
• Payments towards health, accident and personal liability insurance cover

Under certain circumstances, scholarship holders may receive the following additional benefits:

• Monthly rent subsidy
• Monthly allowance for accompanying members of family

To enable scholarship holders to learn German in preparation for their stay in the country, DAAD offers the following services:

• Payment of course fees for the online language course “Deutsch-Uni Online (DUO)” (deutsch-uni.com) for six months after receipt of the Scholarship Award Letter
• if necessary: Language course (2, 4 or 6 months) before the start of the study visit; the DAAD decides whether to fund participation and for how long depending on German language skills and project. Participation in a language course is compulsory if the language of instruction or working language is German at the German host institution.
• Allowance for a personally chosen German language course during the scholarship period
• Reimbursement of the fees for the TestDaF test which has either been taken in the home country after receipt of the Scholarship Award Letter or in Germany before the end of the funding period
• As an alternative to the TestDaF for scholarship holders who have taken a language course beforehand: the fee for a DSH examination taken during the scholarship period may be reimbursed.

Duration of Program: 

• Masters/Postgraduate study programmes: Between 10 and 24 months depending on the length of the chosen study programme or project
• Complementary studies not leading to a final qualification: One academic year

How to Apply: The application procedure occurs online through the DAAD portal. You are also required to send additional documents by post to the specified application address. 

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Raac concrete public safety crisis widens in Britain with every type of building affected

Robert Stevens

Almost every type of publicly-owned building in Britain is impacted by the Raac concrete scandal.

Prior to the school term beginning, the Conservative government was forced to fully or partially close over 100 schools due to the danger posed by the presence of Reinforced Autoclave Aerated Concrete—a pre-cast, porous type of concrete that is susceptible to structural failure, particularly when exposed to moisture.

Following concerns over the safety of the material, which has a 30-year life span, construction with Raac was stopped in Britain in the late 1990s, after decades in which it was routinely used as a cheaper building material, mostly in flat roofs but also in walls and floors. The vast majority of buildings containing Raac are still in use despite it having reached or surpassed its life cycle.

The government was forced to act after a school ceiling collapse during the summer holiday, fortunately with nobody in the building. Hundreds more schools are currently being inspected after reporting the suspected presence of Raac in a government survey.

Building work underway at one of the affected schools, Abbey Lane Primary in Sheffield, England, September 1, 2023

But the problem could be wider still. The Department for Education (Dfe) is now sample checking schools which reported no Raac in case a mistake was made—professional inspectors were not used for the initial survey. Jane Cunliffe, chief operating officer at the DfE, told MPs, “If that sample check shows there were false negatives, we will have to think about what we do and whether there’s more surveying we need to do.”

Meanwhile, new schools are closing a week into the start of term. On Monday, a school in Teesside closed to almost all its pupils after potentially dangerous concrete was found in several parts of the building. The same day, Middlesbrough’s Kader Academy closed its doors to all pupils except those in its nursery.

Not just schools but hospitals, social housing, university buildings—including student accommodation—airports, police stations, courts, shopping centres and concert venues are affected. Buildings have been closed at 41 hospitals and 13 universities. At least 10 concert venues and theatres have also been forced to shut.

Seven hospitals are made “made nearly exclusively” of Raac. These are Queen Elizabeth Hospital, King’s Lynn; Leighton Hospital, Crewe; James Paget Hospital, Great Yarmouth; Frimley Park Hospital, Camberley; Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Huntingdon; Airedale Hospital, Keighley; and West Suffolk Hospital.

On Monday, ITV reported on the appalling situation at Withybush Hospital in west Wales, which has been forced to close six wards and has more than 150 props holding cracked ceilings up across the site. The hospital is still being used by the local population of 120,000. The chief executive of west Wales’s health board said attempts to make the hospital safe—with the presence of Raac known of since 2019—had been like “trying to rebuild an aeroplane while it’s in the air.”

On Tuesday it was announced that Raac had been discovered in part of the Houses of Parliament, following announcements of its presence in both of London’s main airports, Heathrow and Gatwick. Heathrow’s Terminal 3 was opened in 1961, and Raac was first identified on the site last year. Heathrow management claim there is no safety threat describe the terminal being used by almost 20 million people annually.

This week the National Concert Hall of Wales, also known as St David’s Hall, was forced to close with all events cancelled this month and into October. The building in Cardiff, often packed to its 2,000 seat capacity, has Raac planks in its ceiling. The Classic FM website noted, “Construction for St David’s Hall began in 1977, and the 2,000-seater hall opened in 1982—meaning the Raac planks found in the ceiling of the concert venue have been there for over 40 years.”

Many more buildings are likely affected as Raac was originally available to buy on the open market, so would have been extensively used in the private sector too.

The immediate danger to life is manifest. It was revealed by the Telegraph last week that cracked Raac planks had been found in a still occupied block of flats in Southampton built in the 1970s. The planks formed “both supporting and internal walls of the property,” reported the newspaper. A source explained, “The life expectancy of this concrete is 30 years, and it’s been nearly 50 years. The planks could potentially collapse without demonstrating signs of distress, as we’ve seen in schools. But these planks already have cracks, and they’re not even safe enough to repair. It needs to be condemned.”

On September 8, the Open Democracy website reported from the Knights estate in Basildon, Essex, which “was the first example of Siporex (another name for Raac) being used for housing in the UK and is still standing.” The estate contains 18 homes. “The much larger Laindon 1, 2 and 3 ‘Siporex estate’ was built nearby using the same material shortly after Knights, but was demolished in the 1990s after years of structural issues.”

One Knights tennant told reporters, “There’s a metal bit sticking out and a massive crack and you can see through to the outside from our house. If we’re inside you can actually see daylight.”

In a study of the widespread use of Raac in Essex, one of the most populous counties in Britain with over 1.8 million residents, the Sunday Times noted that Raac was treated as a “wonder material”, and “widely used after the Second World War.”

The newspaper noted, “In Essex, which had been heavily bombed in the war, swathes of public buildings were quickly erected using Raac panels.” However, following the building of the trial Knights estate in 1962 and the 950 houses built at the Siporex estates, “Concerns were immediate. Before construction had even finished, one councillor suggested that ‘a bulldozer should knock the lot down’, claiming that the homes would end up being demolished within 20 years. Within four years families were complaining of cracks in the walls and ceilings.”

But it would be another 27 years before the estate was finally demolished as unsafe. As far back as 1984, even a Tory MP, Sir David Amess, with the estates in his Basildon constituency, was warning about the dangers of the material that “cracks as one walks on it”.

The danger is amplified by the widespread presence of asbestos, which releases deadly fibres when disturbed. The vast majority of schools and hospitals are expected to contain the material, but in most cases the location is unknown.

This July, Tory MP Mark Francois related in Parliament how several schools in his constituency had been found to contain Raac. One of them, King Edmund School in Ashingdon, “had to have a large block demolished because of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, or Raac.” He added that it was only “when they demolished the building” that they “found that it contained a large quantity of asbestos, which no one realised was there. The school had to be completely closed while the area was thoroughly decontaminated.”

The worsening Raac safety crisis is the result of decades of austerity, deregulation and cost-cutting carried out by successive Tory and Labour governments.

The Financial Times editorialised last week that the “’crumbling concrete’ affair” was “a legacy of years of underspending on construction and maintenance,” which was “compounded by Conservative ‘austerity’ policies in the 2010s.” It noted, “As in many parts of Europe, postwar reconstruction, baby booms and the expansion of the welfare state drove a surge in public investment in Britain through to the 1970s,” adding, “spending later dropped in most countries. But the decline in the UK after Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government arrived in 1979 was sharper than most.”

The editorial added, “Though Tony Blair’s Labour government [1997-2007] began to rebuild capital spending, a study last year found long-term average net public investment dropped from 4.5 per cent of gross domestic product in 1948-78 to 1.5 per cent in 1979-2019. Even under New Labour, Britain’s investment share was smaller than the OECD average or most G7 peers.”

Declassified documents expose UK’s involvement in Pinochet’s 1973 coup

Thomas Scripps

Declassified government papers have further exposed British imperialism’s support for General Augusto Pinochet’s murderous September 11, 1973 coup against President Salvador Allende in Chile.

Pinochet led a military overthrow of the democratically elected government and began a 17-year reign of terror, torturing and murdering tens of thousands of workers and left-wing organisers, driving hundreds of thousands into exile and implementing brutal free-market policies. His operation crushed a revolutionary movement of the Chilean working class and rural poor which had impelled a wave of nationalisations and threatened to spread across South America.

A tank in support of Augusto Pinochet approaches the government palace during the 1973 coup. [Photo by @goodvibes11111 / CC BY-SA 4.0]

There were two factors which contributed to the success of the counterrevolution. The most critical was the role played by Allende himself and his Stalinist and Pabloite supporters in politically and literally disarming the working class.

The second was the extensive support and direction given to Pinochet by world imperialism. The United States was the leading player, but the UK was also heavily involved. Its actions in Chile in the 1960s and 70s are an example of the violently counterrevolutionary role played by British imperialism around the globe throughout its history—continued, even with its more limited resources, to this day.

During the 1964 and 1970 elections in Chile, the UK’s Information Research Department (IRD)—a psy-ops unit under the Foreign Office but working closely with MI6—sought to manipulate the media and sway influential figures in the country against Allende. Declassified UK, the investigative news site headed by Mark Curtis, explained in a 2020 article, the IRD “provided US officers with a list of Chilean journalists who could produce desirable content.”

The exposure in 2018 of the Integrity Initiative—a network of trusted journalists, academics, politicians and military officials throughout Europe run by the Institute for Statecraft—proved the Foreign Office’s continued use of the same tactics today.

IRD operatives in Chile also collected information on left-wing and trade union activity, shared with the US government, and developed close connections with institutions which would serve as centres of opposition to an Allende government. In the words of one of its officers, Elizabeth Allott, the department had “very close contacts with specialist officials in the [Chilean] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, [redacted], and certain student organisations. As elsewhere in Latin America we can cover areas closed to the Americans.”

After the coup, the IRD began sharing information with “the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government information organisations” and “military intelligence” services, directly implicating British government officials in Pinochet’s repression.

Declassified UK also reports on the UK’s contribution to the regime’s counter-insurgency strategy, noting that the idea “was first raised during the visit of British navy chief Sir Michael Pollock to Chile in late November 1973, two months after the coup.”

Allott provided three books plus a “Manual of Counter Insurgency Studies” to government officials three months later, placing British imperialism’s vast experience in subjugating the people of its colonial possessions at the disposal of the Pinochet’s junta. “The Fight Against Communist Terrorism in Malaya”, a “Review of the Emergency in Malaya (1948-57) and “two booklets on the Philippines insurrection” followed.

British operations in Malaya (now Malaysia and Singapore) included using starvation as a weapon of war—killing livestock and spraying Agent Orange—extrajudicial killings like the Batang Kali massacre, herding hundreds of thousands of civilians into concentration camps, torture, collective punishment and deportations. The war was begun and waged for its first three years by Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee.

Britain’s collaboration with the Chilean dictatorship continued in full knowledge of the atrocities being carried out by Pinochet’s torturers and executioners. The UK’s ambassador to Chile Reginald Secondé reported how “The extent of the bloodshed has shocked people,” but commented coldly of the repression, “the lack of political activity is, for the time being, no loss”.

In fact, Pinochet was celebrated for reversing the losses suffered by British business interests under the Allende government. Secondé told the Foreign Office, “most British businessmen… will be overjoyed at the prospect of consolidation which the new military regime offers,” with executives, at Shell in particular, “all breathing deep sighs of relief.”

Among the most important British interests was copper, for which it relied on Chile’s exports. Price increases since Allende’s election and US sanctions were costing the UK an extra £500,000 a year.

Secondé summarised, “this regime suits British interests much better than its predecessor… The new leaders are unequivocally on our side and want to do business, in the widest sense, with us”.

A substantial part of that business was UK arms exports. In 1966, Labour Defence Secretary Denis Healey had established the Defence Sales Organisation with the aim of “ensur[ing] that this country does not fail to secure its rightful share of this valuable commercial market.” The Heath Conservative government (1970-1974) acted on this imperative, ensuring Pinochet took delivery of eight Hawker Hunter fighter jets before being turfed out of office and pledging to honour ongoing contracts worth £50 million.

The declassified files show British defence officials plotting, “in due course to make the most of the opportunities which will be presented by the change in government”.

These plans were interrupted by the working class for a period. James Callaghan, foreign secretary in Harold Wilson’s Labour government (1974-76), approved the pending delivery of two Leander Class frigates, two Oberon submarines, the refitting of a destroyer and of Hawker Hunter engines, and several smaller projects. But the government was forced to refuse to enter any new contracts. Workers at the Rolls-Royce factory in East Kilbride delayed the shipment of refurbished jet engines for years.

With the Thatcher government taking power in 1979—the closest ideological allies of Pinochet, sharing his admiration for the ultra-free-market economists the “Chicago Boys”—arms shipments to Chile restarted in earnest, and have continued since. The dictator paid regular friendly visits to Thatcher in Britain.

Besides its commercial interests, the UK shared with the US and all the imperialist powers a powerful political desire to see the revolutionary movement in Chile made a bloody example of.

In the two years prior to the coup, four states of emergency had been declared in Britain in response to a revolutionary wave of industrial action—a fifth was in place at the time of the coup itself. Only a few months later, Heath’s Conservative government would be toppled by the working class, requiring the Labour Party to restore stability through a series of targeted concessions. A section of the ruling class had been making preparations for Britain’s own military coup.

Secondé said approvingly of the popular movement in Chile, “the final seal of failure has now been put on this experiment by the Chilean armed forces,” with “obvious advantages”.

Significantly, the ambassador also noted disadvantages. Namely, that the events would lead the working class to conclude that no peaceful, parliamentary transition to socialism would be allowed by the ruling class. Stalinism and Pabloism—a national-opportunist tendency which had emerged within the Trotskyist Fourth International—played a politically devastating role in preventing this critical lesson, and the related conclusion of the need for an independent vanguard party of the working class, from being drawn and acted upon.

The British ruling class remained a good friend to Pinochet to the end. During a visit by Pinochet to the UK in 1998, a Spanish court issued an international arrest warrant charging him with human rights violations. After a two-year wait in which Pinochet lived in luxury in London, Labour Foreign Secretary Jack Straw contrived a way to refuse Pinochet’s extradition on grounds of ill health, allowing him to return to Chile. He died almost seven years later with 300 charges pending. Straw was praised by Thatcher as “a very fair man.”

Labour’s actions were an expression of its total acceptance of Thatcherite politics and disconnect from any past connections with the working class through which popular hostility to the Chilean dictatorship had made itself partially felt.

CDC approves updated COVID vaccine boosters

Benjamin Mateus

The latest iteration of the mRNA COVID vaccine boosters from Pfizer and Moderna, designed to target the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant which was dominant throughout much of the world this past spring, will be available soon at major pharmacies and health centers after being greenlighted by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earlier this week.

This will be the third COVID booster jab offered to Americans considered low-risk (the fifth for high-risk groups since 2021) and the first time since the World Health Organization (WHO) and Biden administration unscientifically ended the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) declarations last May. One of the factors motivating this decision was to shift the provision of the vaccines to the private market, with companies now able to charge marked-up prices.

Criminally, the list price of the vaccines, which were developed through federal programs funded by taxpayers, is now $110 to $130 per dose. While in theory most people with private and public health insurance should have these costs covered, there will undoubtedly be bureaucratic loopholes that make this difficult for millions, forcing many to pay out-of-pocket. For those without insurance, they will have to navigate community health centers, while provision through the Biden administration’s “Bridge Access Program” remains unclear.

On Tuesday, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted nearly unanimously (13-1) to recommend the jabs for all Americans six months of age or older. CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen signed off on these recommendations hours after the vote. Novavax’s protein-based COVID vaccine directed at XBB.1.5 awaits regulatory approval in the next few weeks but should receive similar CDC recommendations for eligibility.

In a statement released by the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Dr. Peter Marks said:

Vaccination remains critical to public health and continued protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death. The public can be assured that these updated vaccines have met the agency’s rigorous scientific standard for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality. We very much encourage those who are eligible to consider getting vaccinated.

These reformulated mRNA, or protein-based vaccines, do not require new clinical trials as their safety has been previously determined. Indeed, in the almost three years they have been employed, they have proven their safety profiles with very rare cases of anaphylaxis or deaths associated with the vaccines.

According to the CDC’s “Reported Adverse Events,” with hundreds of millions of COVID vaccines administered, anaphylaxis occurred in about five cases per 1 million vaccine doses given. Multiple studies have yet to demonstrate any unusual patterns in cause of death after vaccination [See Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, and Link 4]. In fact, for those who have been vaccinated for COVID-19, all-cause mortality was lower than the expected all-cause mortality rates.

As for vaccines causing inflammation of the heart, known as myocarditis, one study found there were potentially 320 such cases out of nearly 7 million vaccine doses among persons 5-17 years old within 98 days of vaccination.

Regarding adolescent males, although the rates of myocarditis caused by the mRNA vaccines are higher than background, they are still very rare events, amounting to only 22.4 excess cases per million with Pfizer and 31.2 excess cases per million with Moderna. Most of these were reported to be transient in nature and were cleared by their physicians for all physical activity. However, the most recent data collected on the last bivalent booster among more than 110,000 vaccine doses given to those 12-17 years old found that there were zero case of myocarditis.

Data obtained in the laboratory setting also indicate that the new booster shots produce a significant immune boost protecting against the latest Omicron subvariants that are circulating, including the highly-mutated and divergent BA.2.86 (Pirola) lineage. Meanwhile, real world data with the previous iteration of the COVID boosters found that they provide better protection against hospitalization than the original COVID booster based on the wild-type strain of the coronavirus. The implication is that these new iterations will improve a person’s immune response against the latest viral strains.

The near universal recommendations by the ACIP came as some surprise by many who expected the COVID boosters might be limited to high-risk populations in the face of high levels of population immunity from previous infections and vaccinations. This more restrictive approach is being implemented in the UK, some EU countries, China and Mexico, where they will be prioritized to the elderly and most vulnerable, including immunocompromised individuals, nursing home populations and those with medical comorbidities. Germany, for instance, is not running any winter campaign efforts though they are recommending annual boosters for at-risk groups.

The basis for the universal recommendations came from the CDC’s own analysis that if provided to the entire population then 400,000 hospitalizations and more than 40,000 deaths could be averted over the next two years. These facts raise inconvenient truths about the nature of the pandemic and the health agency’s cavalier and negligent response to the latest ongoing surge of infections and hospitalizations across the US.

Important information gleaned from the presentation suggests that the CDC expected the reformulated vaccines to offer 65 percent vaccine efficacy against symptomatic infection. As usual, immunity should reach its highest point after one month and then begin to rapidly wane over the intervening four to six months. This would place most people at risk of infection or hospitalization after the winter surge has receded, presuming they are vaccinated in the weeks ahead.

Nonetheless, the CDC anticipates that weekly hospitalizations will climb over the winter and reach last year’s range of admissions. They acknowledged that persons from six months of age to 49 years without underlying medical conditions were still being admitted to the ICU or dying with COVID-19 in the period from July 2022 to June 2023.

COVID-associated deaths in the US during the first seven months of 2023 were 451 for ages 20 to 44; 2,821 for those 45 to 64 years old; and 24,776 for those over 65. Additionally, 80 infants, children and young adults died from COVID-19 during this period. In total, more than 28,000 have died from COVID in the first half of 2023, which is considered an undercount as they are based on how these deaths are coded.

Upending all the lies that COVID-19 is “like the flu” and does not impact children, in the first seven months of 2023 the flu only killed 28 people in the US between the ages of one and 19, while during the same period 54 died of COVID in the same age range. While data for flu deaths under 12 months of age was not provided, 26 COVID deaths officially took place among those less than one year old.

When the CDC reviewed risks based on the number of underlying medical conditions and the increased risk of admission to the ICU, mechanical ventilation and death, the hazard ratio jumped dramatically for one condition and then again for those with more than one condition, underscoring the considerable risk most people with poor health face in the US and the rest of the world face when infected with COVID-19.

In contrast to the Biden administration’s propaganda that “the pandemic is over,” in summarizing their findings the CDC refers to the current surge as a “pandemic” and notes that “the absolute number of hospitalizations and deaths is still high.” They found that the most vulnerable—infants and older adults—have the highest COVID-19-associated hospitalization rates, and they anticipate that this winter COVID-19 will continue to impact healthcare systems.

These findings are vital for the population, and one must ask why these have not been provided in such a cogent manner? Additionally, why are these vaccines just being offered when a surge has been underway for the last three months? Why haven’t public health measures been implemented to protect people from the ravages of the virus with the impact it causes on every organ system in their body, increasing one’s risk of diabetes, heart disease and stroke which are not being counted in these metrics?

Weekly hospitalizations for COVID have risen three-fold since late June and as of the week ending September 2, 2023, stand at 18,871. Weekly deaths, a lagging indicator, have also been inching higher at 672 as of August 12, 2023, which are up 40 percent from early July. The fact that these unreliable data are a month old means that using these metrics will have little impact in protecting the population should the virus evolve into a more virulent form.

Currently, the latest Biobot Analytics data on SARS-CoV-2 wastewater levels updated on September 11, 2023, indicate that the current national surge continues, corresponding to approximately 720,000 COVID infections each day.

Recent experience with the lackluster uptake of the bivalent COVID boosters indicates that many may choose to forgo this life-saving preventative measure. This is not an individual failure but a public health disaster, the product of a bipartisan propaganda campaign of the capitalist ruling elites designed to condition people to ignore the threats posed by SARS-CoV-2.

Workers should take every measure to acquire these treatments and protect themselves and their families, even though the vaccines alone do not guarantee against COVID-19 infection or Long COVID. The vaccine-only strategy of the Biden administration is fundamentally a flawed public health approach and dangerous. Still, under the present circumstances, it is vital to protect one’s health and well-being as much as possible.

The CDC’s universal recommendation for the new booster shots is correct but does not stem from a shift in their perspective or policy to inure the population to treat COVID like another seasonal virus.

South Korean government targets democratic rights

Ben McGrath

In recent weeks, the administration of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has stepped up its anti-democratic attacks on government critics. In language reminiscent of the country’s past dictatorships, Yoon has denounced opposition to the government as the result of “communist totalitarianism” influence and “anti-state forces.”

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, centre, looks around military vehicles following South Korea-US joint military drill at Seungjin Fire Training Field in Pocheon, South Korea, on June 15, 2023. [AP Photo/Jung Yeon-je]

The Yoon administration and the ruling People Power Party (PPP) seized on a September 1 event in Tokyo attended by nominally independent South Korean lawmaker Yun Mi-hyang. It was held by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) to mark the 100th anniversary of the massacre of up to 10,000 Koreans in a pogrom following the Great Kanto earthquake. The commemoration included the participation of numerous other organizations in Japan.

Chongryon is aligned with North Korea, which was seized on by the Yoon administration to  denounce Yun, a former member of the opposition Democratic Party (DP). The president declared on September 4: “All citizens together must, without regard for political affiliation, respond firmly to anti-state activities that are attempting to shake and destroy the system of liberal democracy.” The PPP also submitted a motion for disciplinary proceedings against Yun in the National Assembly.

The scandal is entirely manufactured. Chongryon is one of the two main organizations representing Koreans in Japan, the other being the Korean Residents Union in Japan (Mindan), aligned with the South. It is not uncommon for Chongryon and Mindan to attend events together, as they did at other memorials on September 1.

The attack on Yun is not simply aimed at one lawmaker. Rather, it reflects far broader concerns in ruling circles about growing opposition among workers and youth over declining economic conditions, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and the US-led war drive against China.

Real wages have been declining since April 2022 amid high inflation. The average monthly real wage for the first half of the year dropped for the first time since 2011. Furthermore, the purchasing managers index for South Korean manufacturing indicates that the sector has contracted for 14 consecutive months, the longest in nearly 50 years. This has been driven by declining exports, particularly to China.

Having no progressive solution to declining living conditions, the government is seeking to blame any discontent on “outside forces” and to discredit socialism. The government is also making clear that it will use force against protests and strikes. While a lawmaker may be sanctioned in parliament, workers will face riot squads and mass arrests in the country. There is a long history of red-baiting tactics against the working class alongside the draconian National Security Act, which makes socialism illegal.

Yoon declared on September 1 at an event marking the 60th anniversary of the Korean National Diplomatic Academy: “Our freedom is now under constant threat. Communist totalitarian forces and their opportunist followers, as well as anti-state forces, are still inciting anti-Japanese sentiment and misleading the public into thinking the South Korea-US-Japan cooperation mechanisms produced at Camp David will put the Republic of Korea and the people in danger.”

The August 18 Camp David summit between the US, South Korea, and Japan marked a significant escalation in the war drive against China. It included plans for trilateral war games, expanded military intelligence sharing, and a three-way leaders’ hotline to facilitate cooperation in the event of regional “crises.”

Yoon has in effect signed up for a US-led war with China behind the backs of the South Korean population. However, his administration is worried that anti-war sentiment will derail these plans as workers are unwilling to participate in such a catastrophic conflict.

In doing so, Yoon has aligned Seoul with the right-wing government of Japan, the imperialist power that ruthlessly colonized Korea from 1910 to 1945. Successive governments, including the current Kishida administration, have downplayed or denied crimes committed against the Korean people during this period. In part, this is aimed at countering widespread anti-war sentiment in Japan.

The Democratic Party has criticized the Camp David summit from a right-wing, nationalist standpoint. On August 21, for example, Park Gwang-on, DP floor leader in the National Assembly, stated, “Many people evaluate the summit as one where the national interests of the US and Japan are visible but not those of South Korea.”

Such statements are not anti-war and only foster divisions between Korean and Japanese workers while obfuscating the danger of a catastrophic world war. Sections of the South Korean bourgeoisie have long used anti-Japanese chauvinism to distract from conditions domestically. In criticizing these statements, the Yoon administration is also working to ensure that the entire ruling class is brought into line with the US war preparations.

Yoon also used his Liberation Day speech on August 15 to denounce “communist totalitarianism” several times, declaring, “[S]till rampant are anti-state forces that blindly follow communist totalitarianism, distort public opinion, and disrupt society through manipulative propaganda.”

He added, “The forces of communist totalitarianism have always disguised themselves as democracy activists, human rights advocates or progressive activists while engaging in despicable and unethical tactics and false propaganda.” In other words, anyone voicing concerns about democratic rights or the danger of war is being branded as “anti-state” and targeted for suppression.

This is not the first time Yoon has denounced opponents in such terms. During the 16-day truckers’ strike at the end of last year, Yoon declared the truck drivers’ demands for improved conditions was “similar to the North Korean nuclear threat.” Earlier this year, he pledged to restrict the rights to free speech and assembly while accusing the DP-aligned Korean Confederation of Trade Unions of being pro-North Korean.

For all of Yoon’s claims to be defending “democracy,” his government is reviving the police state measures imposed upon the southern half of Korea beginning in 1948 with the US puppet Syngman Rhee regime, which comprised former Japanese collaborators and stooges for US imperialism.