UK bill hands vast surveillance powers to police and intelligence agencies

Barry Mason

On March 1, Home Secretary Theresa May published the Investigatory Powers Bill (IPB), known by critics as the “snooper’s charter”.

It enshrines in law the previously hidden mass gathering of Internet data by the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) spying agency, as exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013.

The IPB is a far-reaching attack on privacy and democratic rights and greatly enhances the power of the growing surveillance state, as it brings the current diverse rules governing state surveillance into one piece of legislation.

In an unprecedented level of intrusion, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will have to keep records of the browsing history of everyone who accesses the Internet for a period of 12 months. State security forces will have the power to access this data unhindered, which would enable them to see every web site a person visited.

The introduction to the all-embracing bill states its purpose is to: “Make provision about the interception of communications, equipment interference and the acquisition and retention of communications data, bulk personal datasets and other information; to make provision about the treatment of material held as a result of such interception, equipment interference or acquisition or retention; to establish the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and other Judicial Commissioners and make provision about them and other oversight arrangements; to make further provision about investigatory powers and national security …”

It will establish in law the activities of GCHQ, providing the spy agency with access to all the data travelling on Internet cables passing through UK territory, its bulk storage and analysis. GCHQ’s nefarious practices, in which vast amounts of data entering and leaving the UK are hoovered up and shared with the US National Security Agency, as revealed by Snowden, will now be given legal sanction.

The IPB grants GCHQ, the National Crime Agency and, for the first time, a number of major police forces, the power to hack into mobile devices such as mobile phones and tablets and the licence to carry out non-targeted “mass hacking” of such devices.

The Home Office claim that the police power to hack individuals’ electronic devices dates back to the 1997 Police Act and would, in any case, only be used in “exceptional circumstances”. This is flatly contradicted by the head of the Metropolitan Police technical unit, Paul Hudson, who, in evidence to Parliament’s scrutiny committee, said such powers were used by police “in the majority of serious crime cases”. Hudson refused to provide any further information on his assertion in a public forum.

The Conservative government is allowing the unprecedented state surveillance of citizens on the basis that its snoopers need judicial legislation as well as the say-so of a government minister—the so-called “double lock” system. The double lock was trumpeted by the government as an assurance that the privacy of UK citizens would not be violated. This is a fraud.

In effect, the role of the judiciary will be to ensure there is a prima facia case for any hacking and establish that procedures have been followed. Their designated role under the IPB is to merely rubber stamp the minister’s decision, which will be paramount.

Moreover, access to web browsing records by the police and other security forces is totally exempt from the double lock and does not need to be authorised by a minister backed up by a judge.

The IPB also explicitly permits the use of spying techniques to bolster the country’s “economic well-being”, if this is linked to “national security” concerns. This could be widely interpreted to include many events, including industrial action taken by a group of workers.

The IPB has enormous legal implications, as it also undermines confidentiality between lawyers and their clients. Peter Carter QC, chair of the Bar Council Surveillance and Privacy Working Group, in a posting on the PoliticsHome web site on March 3 stated: “The Bill undermines the right to a fair trial because barristers will no longer be able to reassure clients that their communications, which the public interest demands should be immune from state intrusion, are in fact private and confidential. It will, for example, allow authorities to listen in on clients and lawyers who are in the middle of a legal dispute against the Government”.

An attempt by the Tories to introduce the snooper’s charter under the previous Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition was blocked when the Liberal Democrats withdrew support. Immediately following the outcome of the May 2015 election, in which the Tories gained an absolute majority, Home Secretary Theresa May announced her intentions to reintroduce the bill and make it law by the end of 2016.

The government is keen to rush the IPB through Parliament, and hopes to utilise the campaign leading up to the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union on June 23, in order to minimise public scrutiny of its passage through Parliament.

This has led to criticism even from within the ranks of the Tory party. The Independent newspaper noted February 27, “The former Tory leadership contender David Davis said there was ‘no doubt’ that the government wanted to rush the Bill through Parliament to avoid scrutiny. Government whips have told Labour that the Bill will be published on 1 March, with a second reading—giving MPs a line-by-line debate on the Bill scheduled for 14 March. The Bill will then go to committee stage from scrutiny on 22 March, with a final vote expected in Parliament by the end of April”.

An open letter, urging the government to delay the bill, published in the Conservative supporting Daily Telegraph, had over 100 signatories including Davis, Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron and Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, as well as the directors of human rights organisations Amnesty UK and Liberty, and leading academics.

The letter does not oppose state spying on the population in principle, stating, “Intelligence agencies and the police require strong surveillance powers. Their powers and responsibilities—as well as their limits—must be clear to be effective. All three parliamentary reports on the draft Investigatory Powers Bill concluded that it does not meet the requirements of clarity, consistency and coherence”. The letter states that the “intention to pass the IPB this year is not in the nation’s interest” (emphasis added).

A draft version of the bill published in November last year was scrutinised by three parliamentary committees, as part of the pre-legislative process. Their concerns and recommendations over privacy implications were supposed to be addressed in the revised March 1 bill.

The most important of these, the Intelligence Services Committee (ISC), produced an 18-page report on the proposed bill. The ISC is tasked with overseeing the work of the intelligence services. It is composed of former ministers, appointed by the prime minister, in consultation with the Leader of the Opposition, currently Jeremy Corbyn. Its workings are kept secret, and the prime minister filters its reports to Parliament.

The ISC and the other committees, while critical of the wording and presentation of the IPB, fully support its intentions.

Online IT industry news web site The Register posted a commentary on this fraudulent “scrutiny” process last month, noting, “The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament has warned the Government that it needs to make ‘substantive amendments’ to its draft Investigatory Powers Bill, before proceeding to outline changes which don’t appear to be very ‘substantive’ at all”. It described the ISC report as, “essentially a diligence exercise in legislative drafting” that was “largely targeted at the bill’s sloppy and rushed construction … rather than the powers contained therein”.

In response to the feeble treatment from the bodies ostensibly charged with scrutinising the bill, the Home Office did nothing more than add the single word, “privacy” to the title of Part 1 of the bill, and sent it back to be passed into legislation.

2016 NWAG SCHOLARSHIPS IN NIGERIA

NWAG to Award Scholarships to 37 Female Undergraduates in Nigerian Universities in 2016

The Nigerian Women Association of Georgia (NWAG) plans to award 37 one-time scholarships, one per state of origin as well as one for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), in the amount of fifty thousand Naira each, to Nigerian female undergraduate students in Nigerian universities.

Interested prospective applicants are advised to download an application form at the end of this message.

Completed application can be submitted with all required documents by pdf or word version to NWAG either by electronically via email at nwagscholarship@yahoo.com or by regular mail to 

NWAG
P.O. Box 14542, 
Atlanta, GA 30324.

SUBJECT LINE OF EMAIL: NAME OF APPLICANT & STATE OF ORIGIN, AND ALL ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS MUST BE IN PDF OR WORD FORMAT.

All applications must be POST-MARKED BY May 31st, 2016. Late applications will not be accepted. Applications may not be faxed or hand-delivered.

Applicants are required to submit the following documents together with their completed application form:

1. Proof of State of Origin- Letter of Origination from the university or a letter from your local government office
2. Two letters of recommendation from any two of the following:
   Church Pastor/Mosque Imam, Village Head, Local Government Chairperson or One of your Lecturers.
3. 1 Letter of recommendation from either the Dean of your Faculty/School or your Head of Department.
4. Photocopy of your current university student identification card
5. A current photograph of yourself
6. An explanation of why you need and should receive the scholarship-(not more than one-half typed page).
7. A type-written, double-spaced, two-page essay on:

 “How has the current inflation and its resultant high cost of living in Nigeria, affected the quality of education in Nigeria?” 

So far, NWAG has shipped over $1m (One million dollars) worth of medical supplies to various states in Nigeria. In addition, NWAG supports ten orphanages (Little Saints, Lagos State, Seventh Day Advert, Rivers State, Susana Homes, Abia State, Ananwim Home, FCT, Zuma Memorial, Edo State, St. Anthony’s Destitute Center, Akwa-Ibom State, Tenderlove Orphanage, Anambra State, Godswill Orphanage, Kogi, The Care People Foundation, Oyo State, and Izzi 

Motherless Babies Home, Ebonyi State) with their nutritional program all across Nigeria and in Atlanta, Georgia; NWAG supports the following non-profit organizations: the Atlanta Community Food Bank, Hosea Feed the Hungry, International Women’s House, MedShare International, Sickle Cell Foundation, Southside Medical Center and Susan G. Komen. 

A Debacle In Pakistan, A Lesson For Bangladesh

Taj Hashmi

What Indian nationalist Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915) once quipped, “What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow” is no longer applicable to what is left of Bengal today, Bangladesh and the Indian state of Paschim Banga. Bangladesh in particular is at the receiving end of all traits of culture – material or immaterial. While most of the acquired behaviour is benign, some are infested with debilitating “flesh-eating” bacteria, which have already infected the body politic of Bangladesh without being considered dangerous by many.

The rapid, mindless adoption of alien culture is reflected in the language, literature, music, attire, manners, social etiquette, food habit, and most importantly, in politics and political culture of Bangladesh. As the quarter-century of Pakistani hegemony substantially moulded the political culture, so has expatriate workers’ exposure to Arab culture since the 1970s profoundly impacted the popular culture in Bangladesh. Thus, civil-military authoritarianism; state-sponsored and hypocritical Islamization programmes; and persecution of freethinkers, women, and minorities have almost become normative across the country.

The Pakistani “debacle” I’m referring to is state-sponsorship of Wahhabism, pre-modern Sharia code, and the infringement of human rights, especially of minorities and women. Thanks to its unabated growth, political Islam has already destabilized the country, and has spilled over beyond its borders. It’s no exaggeration that the country’s criminal justice system – to a large extent – has broken down, and its leftover is comparable to what prevails in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, the age-old tribal honour system, “blood money”, and the so-called Blasphemy Law reign supreme.

Am I an alarmist for believing elements of the Pakistani “debacle” might eventually trickle down to Bangladesh? I don’t think so. Before I elaborate why I think the Pakistani “debacle” is potentially dangerous to Bangladesh, I cite just one example from Pakistan, in this regard. Recently, the whole world witnessed mammoth mass protests by tens of thousands of Pakistanis in Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad against the execution of Mumtaz Qadri, a convicted killer of Salman Taseer, a former Governor of the Pakistani province of Punjab. Qadri, the Governor’s bodyguard, gunned him down in January 2011 for his public sympathy for Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman, convicted to death in 2010 for allegedly committing blasphemy against the Prophet of Islam. Interestingly, Qadri didn’t belong to any Islamist extremist group but a Sufi order.

Are the killing of Governor Taseer and people’s support for his killer among millions of Pakistanis relevant to Bangladesh? Possibly yes. Bangladesh has already adopted the soft version of Blasphemy Law to placate extremists who have terrorized secular writers and intellectuals, and have already killed scores of them for their alleged blasphemous writings against Islam. Ominously, there are people and groups in the country who favour killing for blasphemy. Some of them are persistently asking for the Blasphemy Law – with the provision of death penalty for blasphemers – proscription of “anti-Islamic” books, organizations, and declaration of the tiny Ahmadiyya Muslim community “non-Muslim”, a la Pakistan.

As an eyewitness to the metamorphosis of the relatively liberal and secular Bangladeshi society into an illiberal, dogmatic and intolerant one during the last four decades, I think the complacent people and Government are collectively responsible for the rot. What was once unthinkable, is a reality today; and what we think will never happen in this country, might be in the pipeline, will give us an unpleasant surprise, one day! What our rulers once considered harmless or even necessary – trading secularism with Islamism – have become a big liability and threat to secular democracy in Bangladesh. I refer to the unwise rehabilitation of Islam-oriented political parties, and very similar to Pakistan, the quixotic decision to make Islam as the “State Religion” in Bangladesh.

Since Pakistan and what is Bangladesh today started their postcolonial journey together in 1947, and have inherited the state-sponsored “soft” Islamism introduced by the first Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan in 1949, they have a common legacy with regard to the Islamization process. Very similar to General Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan, two successive military rulers of Bangladesh – Ziaur Rahman and H.M. Ershad – also legitimized political Islam in their own ways. Meanwhile, thanks to state patronage, ruling elite’s political expediency and hypocrisy, and pressure from Islamist parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami, “soft” Islamism has become crystallized, and posing a threat to liberal democracy and secularism in both Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Ever since the Liberation, the fate of civility, democracy and secularism in Bangladesh is in a state of entropy. While the gradual decline of order into disorder has become the norm, unless democracy and secularism get a breathing space, the re-staging of the Pakistani tragedy remains a not-so-distant possibility in Bangladesh. I know Bangladeshi analysts, scholars, and politicians might disagree with me. “Bangladesh is very different from Pakistan” – albeit hyperbolic and hollow – has been the common thread of their argument. I wish the argument were convincing!

The reality in Bangladesh is somewhat very different from the elite perception. Despite the Supreme Court decision of August 1, 2013, which declared the registration of the Jamaat-e-Islami illegal, ruling that the party was unfit to contest national polls, the Islamist party is yet to be officially proscribed. And despite what we got from media reports early this month that Bangladesh Supreme Court could drop Islam as the country’s State Religion following a string of attacks on minority communities, one has reasons to believe no executive decision is in the offing, in concurrence with the judiciary. Once the genie is out, it’s almost impossible to put it back into the bottle.

Islamist extremism does not drop from the heavens or sprout up from the ground. Secular leaders – over the years – prepare the groundwork for Islamist takeover, terrorism, or insurgency through corruption, despotism, hypocrisy and opportunism. This has happened in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, and elsewhere. Bangladesh can’t remain immune to Islamist extremism, for an indefinite period. Since Islamism is an ideology-driven extremist ideology – not a law-and-order-problem – even highly efficient police and military are no match for Islamist extremism. Pakistan’s experience should be an eye-opener. Bangladesh must realize neither opportunistic politics nor political hypocrisy, but democracy and the rule of law are the only anti-dotes to Islamist extremism.

Jean-Claude Juncker Damns Obama’s Plan For Ukraine

Eric Zuesse

Jean-Claude Juncker, the most powerful person in Europe, the chief of the European Commission and therefore Europe’s closest equivalent to America’s President, said, in a little-noticed comment on March 3rd, "Ukraine will definitely not be able to become a member of the EU in the next 20-25 years, and not of NATO either.” The article reporting this, at europeonline.magazine, also observed that, "The commission, the EU‘s executive, plays a leading role in accession negotiations between the bloc and aspiring members."

The main reason why U.S. President Barack Obama had perpetrated his coup in Ukraine in February 2014, and why his CIA hired racist anti-Russian paramilitaries to carry it out as they did behind the cover of the popular anti-corruption “Maidan” demonstrations in Kiev, was in order to get Ukraine into NATO, so that U.S. missiles will be able to be placed near-enough to Moscow for a blitz-attack so as to conquer Russia. That would be America’s ultimate “regime-change” operation (toward which the regime-change in Ukraine is merely one of the most important steps); but the European Commission’s Jean-Claude Juncker has here said it’s not going to happen.

This isn’t only a reversal of what the EU had been promising to Ukraine’s government (especially promising to the post-coup government), but it’s also a drastic separation of Europe from America’s empire: a severe limitation of the control by the U.S. aristocracy, which has, ever since the time of U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush, been executing his plan to strangulate Russia by surrounding it with NATO member-nations on Russia’s western borders, and so cutting off Russia’s major trading-partner (Europe), thus squeezing Russia’s economy until a regime-change can be carried out there like was done in Ukraine, ‘democratically’ instead of by an outright invasion of Russia. This way, the threat of a NATO blitz-attack won’t even need to be acted upon, and the world’s most resource-rich nation, Russia, can thus be added to the U.S. international-corporate fold without NATO needing first to attack Russia by any such super “Prompt Global Strike” — a PGS that can destroy Russia’s command-and-control within just a few minutes, instead of within an hour or even more.

Juncker is thus challenging the U.S. aristocracy here; he’s saying that GHW Bush’s plan isn’t going to go all the way. The U.S. aristocracy can benefit by surging U.S. arms-sales that are generated from NATO’s expansions, but not into Ukraine.

As the representative of Europe’s aristocracies, Juncker is finally saying, to the U.S. aristocracy: You’re not going to control us entirely. We want to work with you on things such as TTIP, which will benefit the aristocracies of every participating nation; but, we’re not going to follow your lead regarding the conquest of Russia; we European aristocrats (the billionaires whom these government-officials represent) will instead pursue our own independent policies regarding Russia. We’re not going all the way with you on that.

American Exceptionalism Presents An Election Made In Hell

William Blum

If the American presidential election winds up with Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump, and my passport is confiscated, and I’m somehow FORCED to choose one or the other, or I’m PAID to do so, paid well … I would vote for Trump.

My main concern is foreign policy. American foreign policy is the greatest threat to world peace, prosperity, and the environment. And when it comes to foreign policy, Hillary Clinton is an unholy disaster. From Iraq and Syria to Libya and Honduras the world is a much worse place because of her; so much so that I’d call her a war criminal who should be prosecuted. And not much better can be expected on domestic issues from this woman who was paid $675,000 by Goldman Sachs – one of the most reactionary, anti-social corporations in this sad world – for four speeches and even more than that in political donations in recent years. Add to that Hillary’s willingness to serve for six years on the board of Walmart while her husband was governor of Arkansas. Can we expect to change corporate behavior by taking their money?

The Los Angeles Times ran an editorial the day after the multiple primary elections of March 1 which began: “Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States,” and then declared: “The reality is that Trump has no experience whatsoever in government.”

When I need to have my car fixed I look for a mechanic with experience with my type of auto. When I have a medical problem I prefer a doctor who specializes in the part of my body that’s ill. But when it comes to politicians, experience means nothing. The only thing that counts is the person’s ideology. Who would you sooner vote for, a person with 30 years in Congress who doesn’t share your political and social views at all, is even hostile to them, or someone who has never held public office before but is an ideological comrade on every important issue? Clinton’s 12 years in high government positions carries no weight with me.

The Times continued about Trump: “He has shamefully little knowledge of the issues facing the country and the world.”

Again, knowledge is trumped (no pun intended) by ideology. As Secretary of State (January 2009-February 2013), with great access to knowledge, Clinton played a key role in the 2011 destruction of Libya’s modern and secular welfare state, sending it crashing in utter chaos into a failed state, leading to the widespread dispersal throughout North African and Middle East hotspots of the gigantic arsenal of weaponry that Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi had accumulated. Libya is now a haven for terrorists, from al Qaeda to ISIS, whereas Gaddafi had been a leading foe of terrorists.

What good did Secretary of State Clinton’s knowledge do? It was enough for her to know that Gaddafi’s Libya, for several reasons, would never be a properly obedient client state of Washington. Thus it was that the United States, along with NATO, bombed the people of Libya almost daily for more than six months, giving as an excuse that Gaddafi was about to invade Benghazi, the Libyan center of his opponents, and so the United States was thus saving the people of that city from a massacre. The American people and the American media of course swallowed this story, though no convincing evidence of the alleged impending massacre has ever been presented. (The nearest thing to an official US government account of the matter – a Congressional Research Service report on events in Libya for the period – makes no mention at all of the threatened massacre.) (1)

The Western intervention in Libya was one that the New York Times said Clinton had “championed”, convincing Obama in “what was arguably her moment of greatest influence as secretary of state.” (2) All the knowledge she was privy to did not keep her from this disastrous mistake in Libya. And the same can be said about her support of placing regime change in Syria ahead of supporting the Syrian government in its struggle against ISIS and other terrorist groups. Even more disastrous was the 2003 US invasion of Iraq which she as a senator supported. Both policies were of course clear violations of international law and the UN Charter.

Another foreign-policy “success” of Mrs. Clinton, which her swooning followers will ignore, the few that even know about it, is the coup ousting the moderately progressive Manuel Zelaya of Honduras in June, 2009. A tale told many times in Latin America. The downtrodden masses finally put into power a leader committed to reversing the status quo, determined to try to put an end to up to two centuries of oppression … and before long the military overthrows the democratically-elected government, while the United States – if not the mastermind behind the coup – does nothing to prevent it punish the coup regime, as only the United States can punish; meanwhile Washington officials pretend to be very upset over this “affront to democracy”. (See Mark Weisbrot’s “Top Ten Ways You Can Tell Which Side The United States Government is On With Regard to the Military Coup in Honduras”.) (3)

In her 2014 memoir, “Hard Choices”, Clinton reveals just how unconcerned she was about restoring Zelaya to his rightful office: “In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere … We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot.”

The question of Zelaya was anything but moot. Latin American leaders, the United Nations General Assembly, and other international bodies vehemently demanded his immediate return to office. Washington, however, quickly resumed normal diplomatic relations with the new right-wing police state, and Honduras has since become a major impetus for the child migrants currently pouring into the United States.

The headline from Time magazine’s report on Honduras at the close of that year (December 3, 2009) summed it up as follows: “Obama’s Latin America Policy Looks Like Bush’s”.

And Hillary Clinton looks like a conservative. And has for many years; going back to at least the 1980s, while the wife of the Arkansas governor, when she strongly supported the death-squad torturers known as the Contras, who were the empire’s proxy army in Nicaragua. (4)

Then, during the 2007 presidential primary, America’s venerable conservative magazine, William Buckley’s National Review, ran an editorial by Bruce Bartlett. Bartlett was a policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan, a treasury official under President George H.W. Bush, and a fellow at two of the leading conservative think-tanks, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute – You get the picture? Bartlett tells his readers that it’s almost certain that the Democrats will win the White House in 2008. So what to do? Support the most conservative Democrat. He writes: “To right-wingers willing to look beneath what probably sounds to them like the same identical views of the Democratic candidates, it is pretty clear that Hillary Clinton is the most conservative.” (5)

During the same primary we also heard from America’s leading magazine for the corporate wealthy, Fortune, with a cover featuring a picture of Mrs. Clinton and the headline: “Business Loves Hillary”. (6)

And what do we have in 2016? Fully 116 members of the Republican Party’s national security community, many of them veterans of Bush administrations, have signed an open letter threatening that, if Trump is nominated, they will all desert, and some will defect – to Hillary Clinton! “Hillary is the lesser evil, by a large margin,” says Eliot Cohen of the Bush II State Department. Cohen helped line up neocons to sign the “Dump-Trump” manifesto. Another signer, foreign-policy ultra-conservative author Robert Kagan, declared: “The only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton.” (7)

The only choice? What’s wrong with Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate? … Oh, I see, not conservative enough.

And Mr. Trump? Much more a critic of US foreign policy than Hillary or Bernie. He speaks of Russia and Vladimir Putin as positive forces and allies, and would be much less likely to go to war against Moscow than Clinton would. He declares that he would be “evenhanded” when it comes to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (as opposed to Clinton’s boundless support of Israel). He’s opposed to calling Senator John McCain a “hero”, because he was captured. (What other politician would dare say a thing like that?)

He calls Iraq “a complete disaster”, condemning not only George W. Bush but the neocons who surrounded him. “They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction and there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.” He even questions the idea that “Bush kept us safe”, and adds that “Whether you like Saddam or not, he used to kill terrorists.”

Yes, he’s personally obnoxious. I’d have a very hard time being his friend. Who cares?

CIA motto: “Proudly overthrowing the Cuban government since 1959.”

Now what? Did you think that the United States had finally grown up and come to the realization that they could in fact share the same hemisphere as the people of Cuba, accepting Cuban society as unquestioningly as they do that of Canada? The Washington Post (February 18) reported: “In recent weeks, administration officials have made it clear Obama would travel to Cuba only if its government made additional concessions in the areas of human rights, Internet access and market liberalization.”

Imagine if Cuba insisted that the United States make “concessions in the area of human rights”; this could mean the United States pledging to not repeat anything like the following:

Invading Cuba in 1961 at the Bay of Pigs.

Invading Grenada in 1983 and killing 84 Cubans, mainly construction workers.

Blowing up a passenger plane full of Cubans in 1976. (In 1983, the city of Miami held a day in honor of Orlando Bosch, one of the two masterminds behind this awful act; the other perpetrator, Luis Posada, was given lifetime protection in the same city.)

Giving Cuban exiles, for their use, the virus which causes African swine fever, forcing the Cuban government to slaughter 500,000 pigs.

Infecting Cuban turkeys with a virus which produces the fatal Newcastle disease, resulting in the deaths of 8,000 turkeys.

In 1981 an epidemic of dengue hemorrhagic fever swept the island, the first major epidemic of DHF ever in the Americas. The United States had long been experimenting with using dengue fever as a weapon. Cuba asked the United States for a pesticide to eradicate the mosquito involved but were not given it. Over 300,000 cases were reported in Cuba with 158 fatalities.

These are but three examples of decades-long CIA chemical and biological warfare (CBW) against Cuba. (8) We must keep in mind that food is a human right (although the United States has repeatedly denied this. (9)

Washington maintained a blockade of goods and money entering Cuba that is still going strong, a blockade that President Clinton’s National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, in 1997 called “the most pervasive sanctions ever imposed on a nation in the history of mankind”. (10)

Attempted to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro on numerous occasions, not only in Cuba, but in Panama, Dominican Republic and Venezuela. (11)

In one scheme after another in recent years, Washington’s Agency for International Development (AID) endeavored to cause dissension in Cuba and/or stir up rebellion, the ultimate goal being regime change.

In 1999 a Cuban lawsuit demanded $181.1 billion in US compensation for death and injury suffered by Cuban citizens in four decades “war” by Washington against Cuba. Cuba asked for $30 million in direct compensation for each of the 3,478 people it said were killed by US actions and $15 million each for the 2,099 injured. It also asked for $10 million each for the people killed, and $5 million each for the injured, to repay Cuban society for the costs it has had to assume on their behalf.

Needless to say, the United States has not paid a penny of this.

One of the most common Yankee criticisms of the state of human rights in Cuba has been the arrest of dissidents (although the great majority are quickly released). But many thousands of anti-war and other protesters have been arrested in the United States in recent years, as in every period in American history. During the Occupy Movement, which began in 2011, more than 7,000 people were arrested in about the first year, many were beaten by police and mistreated while in custody, their street displays and libraries smashed to pieces. (12) ; the Occupy movement continued until 2014; thus, the figure of 7,000 is an understatement.)

Moreover, it must be kept in mind that whatever restrictions on civil liberties there may be in Cuba exist within a particular context: The most powerful nation in the history of the world is just 90 miles away and is sworn – vehemently and repeatedly sworn – to overthrowing the Cuban government. If the United States was simply and sincerely concerned with making Cuba a less restrictive society, Washington’s policy would be clear cut:

>> Call off the wolves – the CIA wolves, the AID wolves, the doctor-stealer wolves, the baseball-player-stealer wolves.

>> Publicly and sincerely (if American leaders still remember what this word means) renounce their use of CBW and assassinations. And apologize.

>> Cease the unceasing hypocritical propaganda – about elections, for example. (Yes, it’s true that Cuban elections never feature a Donald Trump or a Hillary
Clinton, nor ten billion dollars, nor 24 hours of campaign ads, but is that any reason to write them off?)

>> Pay compensation – a lot of it.

>> Sine qua non – end the God-awful blockade.

Throughout the period of the Cuban revolution, 1959 to the present, Latin America has witnessed a terrible parade of human rights violations – systematic, routine torture; legions of “disappeared” people; government-supported death squads picking off selected individuals; massacres en masse of peasants, students and other groups. The worst perpetrators of these acts during this period have been the military and associated paramilitary squads of El Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Uruguay, Haiti and Honduras. However, not even Cuba’s worst enemies have made serious charges against the Havana government for any of such violations; and if one further considers education and health care, “both of which,” said President Bill Clinton, “work better [in Cuba] than most other countries” (13) , and both of which are guaranteed by the United Nations “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and the “European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms”, then it would appear that during the more-than-half century of its revolution, Cuba has enjoyed one of the very best human-rights records in all of Latin America.

But never good enough for American leaders to ever touch upon in any way; the Bill Clinton quote being a rare exception indeed. It’s a tough decision to normalize relations with a country whose police force murders its own innocent civilians on almost a daily basis. But Cuba needs to do it. Maybe they can civilize the Americans a bit, or at least remind them that for more than a century they have been the leading torturers of the world.

Dealing With The European Refugee Crisis

Iqbal Alimohamed

First, it is important to define who are the hundreds of thousands of arrivals in Europe.Are they purely economic migrants, or persons displaced by war seeking temporary asylum in neighbouring countries, or genuine refugees outside their homelands because of persecution or fear thereof and unable to return to their homelands, or a combination of all these reasons? There is no consensus yet as no real determination has taken place.. The stark reality however is that many thousands have died in embarking on perilous journeys, and those surviving arrivals including the elderly and infirm, women and children are pleading to be allowed to live in safety, with a modicum of dignity.

Second, this gravest of humanitarian problems in recent history, is being deemed an European problem and the European Union_(EU) appears to dither in devising mechanisms to deal with it. Greece has borne the brunt of the problem, with Lebanon and Jordan helping beyond their capacity. Germany has taken over a million asylum seekers and pressure is being brought to bear on Turkey to assume an even higher burden than the over three million refugees it has already welcomed. No wonder Turkey is pressing for huge concessions from the EU in return for taking all irregular asylum seekers arriving in Greece. If the new deal is agreed, risks abound. Even if Turkey is considered “a safe country”.Turkey does not have an asylum framework or regime to ensure refugee protection, nor the necessary infrastructure to promote their socio-economic integration, through education, employment, etc

Another important question, hitherto not fully addressed is why this humanitarian problem is deemed solely an European problem and not an international one. In other words, why are other States / governments not participating fully in what is a universal “responsibility to protect”? After all, the refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc are the innocent, hapless victims of, in most cases, ill-advised Western intervention in conflicts in these countries. True, the USA and Canada have accepted some Syrian refugees but the numbers dwarf total arrivals in Europe. And many affluent Middle East countries have done little to write home about.

The world witnessed a similarly difficult situation in SouthEast Asia in the late 1970’s in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and lessons can be drawn from that situation. The problems were largely similar-corrupt smugglers, flimsy boats, swashbuckling pirates on the high seas, women raped, men thrown overboard, and no country of landfall willing to accept the arrivals. Finally, following an International Conference convened under UNHCR auspices, a decision was reached that countries of first asylum would grant temporary asylum to the refugees only pending their departure for resettlement to third countries, and that all costs incurred for the refugees’ stay in first asylum countries would be borne by the international, mainly Western, donor/resettlement, countries. Soon, immigration delegations arrived in the major refugee camps across South East Asia to interview refugees and prepare their dossiers. A Transit Centre was established to prepare refugees for orientation, training, etc in anticipation of their departure. The Sungei Besi Transit Centre in Malaysia was funded by the Norwegian people through a “door knock” appeal, and the Centre was inaugurated in person by the then Crown Princess Sonja and Crown Prince Harald. Evidence today clearly points to the successful settlement of all Vietnamese refugees, the so-called “boat people”, in North America, the Nordic countries, Europe, Australia, New Zealand. With virtually no exception, these refugees have added colour to the social fabric in their countries of adoption, while making valuable contributions to the economies of the host countries. If the political will exists, there is no reason why the so-called European Refugee Crisis cannot be solved on the basis of this well-tested and tried principle of international burden-sharing.

In an unjust world, wars will happen and there will always be the unfortunate victims. If legal channels are not available to asylum seekers to secure passage to third countries, and their resentment grows, they risk exploitation by traffickers and, worse still, by criminal gangs and terrorists, such as ISIS. Our overarching sense of humanity should impel us, our civil societies and our leaders to give succour to these victims by protecting them and giving them hope, even as the international community pursues parallel efforts for the attainment of durable peace in the conflict zones.

To quote Eleanor Roosevelt: ’’ It isn’t enough to talk about peace, one must believe in it. And It isn't enough to to believe in it, one must work for it.”

Arrium demands Australian mine workers take pay cuts

Terry Cook

After threatening last month to mothball its Whyalla steelmaking operations in South Australia, unless workers agreed to the elimination of 250 jobs, Arrium has demanded that workers at its nearby iron ore mines accept sweeping wage cuts.

Like BlueScope Steel, another steelmaker that was spun off from Australia’s mining giant BHP Billiton, the company is working closely with the trade unions to impose the burden of the collapse of the mining boom on workers.

Arrium last month posted a first half-year net loss of $235.8 million and declared it would have to slash costs by $60 million this year, in addition to $100 million worth of cutbacks inflicted last October. On March 2, it said its 400 iron mine workers had to accept a 10 percent pay cut in order to keep its steel and iron ore operations open.

On that day, Arrium convened a day-long meeting with Australian Workers Union (AWU) officials to discuss its latest ultimatum. Management also made clear it wanted to cancel a 3 percent annual pay rise required by the current enterprise agreement with the union.

Arrium’s dictates come amid a continuing rout in global iron ore prices, which have dropped from around $160 per tonne in 2011 to less than $60 per tonne. The plunge is driven by the deepening world slump, which has led to a massive over-capacity in steel production, especially in China, where millions of steel and other industrial workers face retrenchment.

After the meeting with Arrium, AWU organiser in Whyalla Scott Martin told the media that the company was “wedging the unions into making a decision.” He said “it would have been nice for them to come to see the union first, sit down with our delegates [and] explain what they’re looking for.”

In other words, Martin appealed to the company to work more closely with the unions, as the best means of suppressing workers’ opposition to its cost-cutting demands.

The AWU has already collaborated with Arrium to impose substantial cuts, including the destruction of 200 permanent jobs and 50 casual positions last October as part of the company’s initial savings package. In total, almost 900 jobs have been axed across the company’s Australian-based operations, all with the help of the unions.

This week the AWU has begun holding meetings with Arrium mine workers, putting resolutions “rejecting” pay cuts until the company “provides a clear plan for continued operation of its mines and steelworks.” AWU organiser Martin told the media: “Our workers would be willing to take a pay cut but we want to get guarantees about jobs.”

As it did at BlueScope Steel in Port Kembla, New South Wales, the AWU will do whatever is necessary to impose the company’s cost-cutting agenda, in return for a worthless company promise to keep its operations going.

Last November, the AWU and other unions worked with BlueScope management to bully Port Kembla steelworkers into endorsing the destruction of 500 jobs and a three-year wage freeze. At a series of union meetings, officials threatened workers that if they did not accept the cuts, the Port Kembla plant would be shut with the loss of more than 4,000 steel jobs and thousands more across the community.

Both South Australia’s Labor government and the federal Liberal-National government are backing Arrium’s demands. Late last month, South Australian Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis told the media: “If the workers want to negotiate a reduction in pay in exchange for keeping the company viable that’s a matter for them and that’s how the enterprise agreement system works.”

On Wednesday Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull visited Arrium’s Whyalla steel plant and announced a “no-bid” contract for the company to provide steel to replace 600 kilometres of ageing railway lines operated by the Australian Rail Track Corporation in South Australia.

Turnbull said the decision was a “clear-eyed practical” solution that would assist the company. The contract, which is estimated to be worth about $80 million over two to three years, will help the company extract some profits from Whyalla as it considers the ultimate closure of its plant and mines.

Together with the unions, the state and federal governments are trying to contain and divert the anger of workers across the state, which is being devastated by the destruction of thousands of jobs in mines, shipyards and the auto industry.

Arrium, formerly known as OneSteel, last month accepted a $US1 billion line of credit from a US group, GSO Capital Partners, which will inevitably mean a restructuring, carve-up or liquidation of the company. GSO is owned by Blackstone, a private equity giant that specialises in asset-stripping vulnerable companies.

Under this agreement, GSO will provide Arrium with a $140 million stand-by facility and a six-year loan of $665 million, at high interest rates, in return for warrants over 15 percent of Arrium’s issued capital. Arrium’s existing creditors must decide by April 5 whether to accept the deal.

While proclaimed in some financial circles as a “lifeline,” the agreement is firmly attached to Arrium driving through its cost-cutting plans, above all the wage and job cuts. This agreement, like the Turnbull government’s railway steel contract, will be used by the management and the AWU to place greater pressure on workers to accept the cuts.

There is absolutely no guarantee, however, that Arrium and its financial backers, even after achieving the cost savings, will not close the steel plant and mines and sack the entire workforce.

Commenting on the agreement last month, Baker Young Stockbrokers managed portfolio analyst Toby Grimm warned: “Ultimately if they (GSO) run the financial numbers and figure out that they will be financially better off with it (the steelworks) closed than with it open, then that’s more than likely a decision they’ll ultimately take.”

Arrium workers should reject the company-union ultimatums. The spreading of the wage-cutting demands from the steel plants to the mines demonstrates the sweeping nature of the assault now underway against the entire working class.

The assault on jobs and conditions requires a break with the thoroughly pro-business unions and the establishment of rank and file factory committees to fight to unify steel industry workers across the country and internationally in a common struggle. Above all, this struggle needs to be based on a new political perspective and the fight for a workers’ government and socialist policies, including placing the steel industry under public ownership and workers’ control.

Sri Lankan government announces tax hikes before IMF loan talks

Saman Gunadasa

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe announced tax increases to reduce the country’s budget deficit in a special statement to parliament last Tuesday. The measures, which will impact heavily on the living standards of workers and the poor, appear to have been implemented on the instructions of International Monetary Fund (IMF). An IMF team is due to visit Colombo this month for talks on a $US1.5 billion loan requested by the government to avert a balance of payment crisis.

Wickremesinghe’s central proposal was to hike Sri Lanka’s value added tax (VAT) from 11 percent to 15 percent. This will drastically increase the prices of every commodity and service.

In an attempt to deflect opposition, the prime minister said the increase would not apply to essential items. Apart from telecommunications and private education institutions, he failed to specify any other exemptions. More than 80 percent of Sri Lanka’s total tax income already comes from indirect taxes, which hit the poor hardest.

Other measures include the continuation of the Nation Building Tax (NBT) at 2 percent and reduction of tax’s threshold from 3.75 million rupees ($25,950) to 3 million rupees to include more businesses. The NBT is meant to be paid by businesses but in reality is passed on to consumers.

Non-corporate and corporate income tax is to be kept at 17.5 percent for another year, despite promises in last year’s budget to reduce it to 15 percent. The prime minister told parliament there would be a capital gains tax, ridiculously claiming it was a tax on “capitalists.” He did not say, however, what the percentage was.

Wickremesinghe said the tax measures would reduce the budget deficit to 5.4 percent of GDP, from 5.9 percent. The truth is that to lower the deficit by half a percent, the government will have to implement major cuts in public expenditure. Moreover, the IMF wants the deficit reduced to 3.5 percent by 2020. Wickremesinghe said there would be more talks with IMF on further changes to the tax system in 2017.

The way the special economic statement was developed and announced not only indicated IMF involvement but produced crude attempts by the government to hide this fact.

On March 2, Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake presented a document to cabinet on which the government’s statement would be based. President Maithripala Sirisena, however, criticised the cabinet paper, saying its wording was similar to the IMF that the opposition would accuse the government of dancing to the IMF’s tune.

The Colombo-based Sunday Times reported that Sirisena ordered all copies of the document to be collected and that cabinet members should not reveal its contents. On March 4, Wickremesinghe presented the same proposals in a nine-page document entitled, “Minimising the impact of the global economic downturn on Sri Lankan economy.”

In his statement to the parliament, Wickremesinghe blamed Sri Lanka’s debt problems on the former Rajapakse government and the global economic crisis. Rajapakse, he said, had put Sri Lanka in a “debt trap.”

Wickremesinghe declared that total outstanding government debt at the end of 2015 was 9.5 trillion rupees ($65.6 billion) or about 75 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), including loans by the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, Sri Lankan Air Lines, Sri Lanka Ports Authority and other state enterprises. Sri Lanka’s debt servicing payments for 2016, he said, had increased to 1,209 billion rupees.

The prime minister said the economic slowdown in China and Russia, and the escalating geo-political crisis in the Middle East was impacting on tea exports, tourism and overseas workers’ remittances. He warned that an interest rate hike in the US and Britain’s possible exit from the European Union would impact on the economy and make it harder to obtain cheap loans.

Wickremesinghe’s comments on the growing debt burden are hypocritical. The debt crisis is not simply a product of the Rajapakse government. It is driven by global processes and the cost of increased military spending by successive Sri Lankan governments during their 30-year war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The government’s new taxes and cost-cutting measures have been developed on the direct orders of international finance capital.

Wickremesinghe admitted to parliament: “We discussed the crisis situation with IMF managing director Christine Lagarde, economists such as George Soros, Joseph Stiglitz and Ricardo Hausman, and listened to their advice. Their opinion was that it was very difficult to predict the world economic situation and [they] advised us to put more weight on increasing national income with utmost care in spending.”

Just as the European banks and the IMF demanded in Greece, this “advice” means pauperising the working class and the oppressed masses by slashing jobs, wages and all social gains.

Colombo is desperate to obtain an IMF bailout loan. When the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government came to power early last year it immediately sought IMF funds. These appeals were turned down by the IMF, which said Colombo had not met its budget targets and failed to restructure and privatise the public sector.

Some of the IMF’s proposals, however, were implemented, including the abandonment of Central Bank interventions to determine the Sri Lankan rupee’s exchange rate. This has resulted in a devaluation of the rupee by more than 10 percent since the Sirisena government took office.

The value of exports fell by a dramatic 18.7 percent during the 10 months to December 2015. Textiles and garments, which contribute close to 50 percent of country’s total exports, declined by 12.8 percent in December, the third consecutive monthly fall. Tea, the second largest export, fell by almost 25 percent in December compared to the same month in the previous year. Despite large falls in oil imports, the country’s trade deficits for 2014 and 2015 were still over $8 billion.

Another blow to the economy has been declining workers’ remittances, mainly from the Middle East. These fell by 0.5 percent to $6.9 billion in 2015, down from $7 billion the previous year.

On February 29, Fitch Ratings downgraded Sri Lanka from BB-, three levels below investment grade, to B+. The outlook was also shifted to “negative” at the lower level suggesting a possible further downgrade. Fitch gave several reasons for its decision, including increased refinancing risks on account of large upcoming debt repayments and declining investor willingness to buy local-currency government securities. Fitch estimated that Sri Lanka’s current foreign exchange reserves are only sufficient to cover 2.9 months of external payments.

Finance Minister Karunanayake and Central Bank Governor Arjun Mahendran angrily dismissed the downgrade, declaring it was the opinion of just one institution. Moody’s, which maintained Sri Lanka’s B1 stable rating, said, however, that Colombo’s attempts to secure loans from the IMF and the Asian Development Bank revealed “Sri Lanka’s credit-negative vulnerability to external event risk.”

Sri Lanka’s downgraded rating and tax announcements saw a further slide on the Colombo stock market this week. Share prices fell by 2 percent on Wednesday, to the lowest level in 27 months.

Miflal Farook, a senior advisor to Asia Securities Stockbrokers, told the media the that “market is going down with latest tax reviews by the government, which indicates the economy is going to contract and will slow down the growth of major companies and put downward pressure on share prices.”

Wickremesinghe’s economic statement indicates that the economy is on a precipice and that the government is preparing even more ruthless attacks on jobs, wages and other social rights of the working class and the poor.

Medicare to test cost-cutting plan for Part B prescription drugs

Kate Randall

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) plans to test ways to pay for drugs under Medicare Plan B, which covers treatment in doctors’ offices, clinics and hospital outpatient centers. The plan would target prices for many intravenous cancer medications, injectable drugs, certain eye treatments and other medications under Medicare, the government-run health insurance program for the elderly and the disabled.

In an announcement Tuesday, the CMS said the plan would “test new models to improve how Medicare Part B pays for prescription drugs and supports physicians in delivering higher quality care.” Numerous oncologist and other physician groups have opposed the plan, saying it will adversely affect the care of vulnerable Medicare patients being treated for cancer and other complex conditions.

In a letter opposing the plan, the American Society of Clinical Oncology says that Medicare beneficiaries make up 60 percent of the 14 million Americans living with cancer. The group notes that elderly are 10 times more like to get cancer than younger people, and that their treatment involves careful consideration about which drugs to administer.

CMS argues that there are currently financial incentives for doctors to choose higher-cost medications, even in cases when less expensive drugs may be equally or more effective. Medicare pays outpatient doctors and hospitals the average selling prices of Plan B medicines plus 6 percent. Thus a provider will receive $60 for administering a $1,000 drug compared to $6 for a $100 medicine.

Under the first phase of the test plan, Medicare would get the average selling price of the drug, plus 2.5 percent and a flat fee of $16.80 per drug per day. Beginning in 2017, the proposal’s second phase would test the effectiveness of reducing or eliminating patient cost-sharing to influence patients and physicians to “improve beneficiaries’ access and appropriate use of effective drugs,” i.e., to incentivize the use of those drugs with the “best value.” The proposed rules will be open for comment through May 9 before being tested.

Medicare officials cite the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs in the US—which rose to $457 billion in 2015, or 16.7 percent of overall health spending—as justification for moves to rein in spending. Medicare Part B spent $20 billion on drugs administered by physicians and hospital outpatient departments last year.

Outpatient providers, including some physicians, clinic and hospital outpatient operators, are undoubtedly influenced by the higher return on prescribing higher cost drugs. Under the for-profit delivery of health care in America, the care of patients is ultimately subordinated to these profit interests, with unscrupulous physicians groups and hospital chains benefiting financially by prescribing drugs and providing treatments that bring the biggest return.

This corruption is particularly prevalent in Medicare, a government-run insurance program that is beholden to the operations of the capitalist market. But the CMS is not motivated by concern over such provider practices. Rather they are seized upon to introduce arbitrary rules that will cut reimbursements for Medicare drugs with little consideration of how this will affect patient care.

CMS officials point to the rising costs of prescription drugs as justification for the new rules. For example, according to the Journal of Oncology Practice, before 2000 the average cancer drug price for one year of therapy was less than $20,000. By 2012, 12 of the 13 new drugs approved for cancer therapy were priced above $100,000 per year.

However, unlike the majority of other industrialized nations, in the US there is no governmental regulation on what drug companies can charge for their products. In January, according to figures compiled by the Wall Street Journal, Pfizer, Amgen, Allegan, Allegan, Horizon Pharma and other drug makers have hiked US prices for dozens of branded medications, with many of the increases 9-10 percent over December 2015 prices.

This inconvenient truth about the for-profit health system in America is not addressed by the CMS proposals to reduce Medicare Plan B drug spending. Critics of the proposals note that drug companies may very well respond to the efforts to incentivize outpatient providers to use less-expensive drugs by raising their prices.

In a letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell and CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt, more than a hundred physicians groups and patient advocacy organizations expressed their opposition to the Medicare Part B model proposed by CMS. Those signing included the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Coalition of State Rheumatology Organizations, the National Infusion Centers Association and the National Association for Rural Mental Health.

The letter states: “We believe that this type of initiative, implemented without sufficient stakeholder input, will adversely affect the care and treatment of Medicare patients with complex conditions, such as cancer, macular degeneration, hypertension, rheumatoid arthritis, and primary immunodeficiency diseases.”

It notes that Medicare beneficiaries, who make up some of the oldest and sickest patients, must often try many drugs before finding the appropriate treatment, adding: “These vulnerable Medicare patients and the providers who care for them already face significant complexities in their care and treatment options, and they should not face mandatory participation in an initiative that may force them to switch from their most appropriate treatment.”

The letter also says that CMS is statutorily required to ensure that any initiatives target “deficits in care,” and can only be expanded in scope and duration after a careful assessment of “the model’s impact on quality of care, patient access, and spending.” Testing for the new Medicare Plan B model will be conducted among study and control groups based on ZIP codes or similar units rather than on units with perceived deficits in health care quality.

The letter to Burwell and Slavitt warns that under the proposed model, “Medicare beneficiaries with life-threatening and/or disabling conditions would be forced to navigate a CMS initiative that could potentially lead to an abrupt halt in their treatment.”

The proposed rule changes in the way drugs are paid for under Medicare Plan B are in line with the drive of the Obama administration to cut health care costs in general, and in Medicare in particular. More than 55 million Americans are currently enrolled in Medicare, and this population has greater health care needs due to age and disability, making them a prime target for cutting costs.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed into law in 2010, far from making strides toward universal and high-quality medical coverage, in fact initiated a counterrevolution in health care. Its key component, the individual mandate, requires individuals without coverage through their employer or a government-run program such as Medicare to purchase coverage from private insurers under threat of tax penalty.

The least-expensive plans under the ACA come with high deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs, as well as narrow provider networks and restrictions on prescription drug coverage. The program popularly known as Obamacare is serving as a model for employer-provided coverage, which is steadily eroding through increased premiums and deductibles as well as cuts to provider networks and services covered.

Medicare was initiated a half-century ago as one of the last social reforms in the US, under conditions of intense crisis for American capitalism as the nation was gripped by the civil rights movement and militant struggles by workers for higher wages and improved social conditions. The latest White House proposal to cut Medicare Plan B prescription drug costs are in line with efforts aimed at undermining this social program.

While the Obama administration has sought to distance itself from Republican proposals to privatize Medicare, the general trajectory of its health care policy is in line with the drive by the most right-wing sections of the ruling elite to do away with Medicare as well as Social Security, the government-run retirement program.