Strikes in transport and other sectors to hit the UK

Robert Stevens

A series of strikes is set to begin in Britain this week, pointing to a nascent rebellion by workers against the efforts of the trade unions to suppress opposition to the corporate-government onslaught on jobs, wages and conditions.

On Sunday evening, members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) and the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) walked off the job for 24 hours to protest unsafe conditions resulting from ticket office closures and job losses. The strike will bring much of the London Underground network to a halt, with the closure of many central London stations.

On Tuesday, train drivers employed by Southern Rail, which is run by the Govia Thameslink Railway franchise, will walk out for 48 hours, with an additional 24-hour strike to be held Friday. The drivers are protesting the company’s decision to impose Driver Only Operated (DOO) trains, first by eliminating the role of conductors in opening and closing doors and reducing their mandate to collecting fares. The move, endangering public safety, is aimed at the eventual elimination of conductors on the railways.

Southern, backed to the hilt by the Conservative government, claimed they were justified in imposing DOO, citing a report by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), a non-ministerial government department. Ian Prosser, the chief inspector of railways, stated, “ORR is satisfied that with suitable equipment, proper procedures and competent staff in place, it is a safe method of working. ” [Emphasis added]. However, the rail industry-funded body, stuffed with Tory appointees, was forced to acknowledge that such procedures, equipment and staff do not presently exist, highlighting over 20 serious safety failures related to DOO and concluding that until changes are made DOO remains unsafe.

Drivers have warned that removing conductors would be a threat to passengers both when on board and when alighting, with only grainy CCTV camera pictures available to check whether or not it is safe to close a door.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, British Airways (BA) cabin crew are set to strike in protest against a two-tier wage system and poverty pay. Pay rates for the 4,000 cabin crew involved start at just £12,000, plus £3 an hour flying pay. Two thousand are in the Unite union.

Unite cited a recent survey revealing that almost half of new cabin crew had taken on a second job to make ends meet, with some sleeping in their cars between shifts. Two-thirds admitted to going to work unfit to fly because they could not afford to be off sick.

The train strikes are set to spread. This week, the RMT is to ballot its members employed by Arriva Rail North in a pay dispute. However, the pro-Conservative Party Daily Telegraph noted that “the dispute is underpinned by the possibility of the company introducing driver only trains--the issue which has been at the centre of the industrial action on Southern. ”

The action would affect cities such as Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne and Hull, and could spread to the West Midlands, Merseyside and other lines into London.

Teachers in Northern Ireland are also set to strike this month. Members of the National Association of Schoolmasters and Women Teachers (NASUWT) are to hold a one-day strike over pay, workloads and job security in an ongoing dispute. The teachers will strike in the Derry City, Strabane, Mid Ulster, Fermanagh and Omagh council areas on January 31.

Last Friday, members of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) began industrial action short of a strike in a pay dispute, refusing to take part in inspections carried out by the Education and Training Inspectorate until further notice. They are to hold a half-day strike on January 18.

These strikes are taking place in the face of the sabotage of a previous round of industrial action that was slated to take place among postal workers, Southern Rail staff and airport staff during the Christmas and New Year holiday period. The Communication Workers Union ensured that a strike by postal workers at Crown Post Offices was confined to just 4,000 of its members at 50 offices.

On December 20, Unite announced that a strike over pay by 1,500 of its members employed by the baggage handling firm Swissport was off, with the union recommending the workers accept a new pay offer.

Prior to Christmas, the BA crews were also set to strike, but soon after its Swissport intervention, Unite, Britain’s largest union, connived with the company to call off the strike. General Secretary Len McCluskey personally intervened in the negotiations and the union recommended a pay offer that was subsequently rejected by the membership by a margin of 7 to 1.

The RMT were unable to prevent a strike by conductors at Southern, held December 18 and 20, but the union offered the company a Christmas truce.

Under conditions of escalating crisis for the British ruling elite, the government is insisting that workers sacrifice their historically won social gains so that British corporations can compete in a post-Brexit environment.

In March, the government’s Trade Union Act will take effect, imposing as requirements in strike ballots in “important public services,” including transport, a 50 percent turnout and a vote to strike by fully 40 percent of the entire workforce.

Even more draconian measures are being demanded. Prior to the Christmas strikes, Tory MP Chris Philp stated that any proposed public-sector strikes should be legally required to go before a High Court judge “who would determine whether the strike was unreasonable and disproportionate for it to continue.”

Philp is part of a group of 20 Tory MPs who have discussed his proposals with Prime Minister Theresa May. He also proposes that “we follow what Canada, Italy and Spain do by making sure that even if there are public-sector strikes, 50 percent of the services should still be running.”

When forced to call limited actions to make a show of opposition, the unions are desperate to prove that the suppression of struggles can be carried out under the existing legal arrangements, utilising their services.

The unions’ role is underscored by the fact that in both the Southern dispute over DOO and the BA cabin crew struggle, workers are opposing attacks made possible only by previous betrayals by the unions.

The rail unions have collaborated for years in the imposition of DOO nationwide. Just in the capital, the rail unions collaborated in the elimination of 130 conductors from London Overground trains by Transport for London and then Conservative Mayor Boris Johnson. The RMT also agreed to the closure of all 265 London Underground ticket offices, completed in December 2015, with the loss of more than 800 jobs.

In 2010, Unite sold out a struggle by BA cabin crew, enabling the airline to impose its new two-tier wage structure.

New year opens with wave of layoffs in the US

Jerry White

The New Year is opening in the US with a wave of layoff announcements and threats of further downsizing during the year.

In the latest blow to retailers, hundreds of women’s clothing stores, operated by Ohio-based chain The Limited, shut their doors over the weekend at shopping malls across the United States. The company, which has 235 stores nationwide and 4,000 employees, quietly began layoffs in December before shuttering its stores on Sunday.

Last week, Macy’s announced it was closing 68 stores and cutting more than 10,000 jobs. Sears also said it will shut down another 150 Sears and Kmart stores, after poor holiday sales. Kohls and JC Penney previously carried out mass layoffs.

Retailers have been hit by a series of factors, including the stagnation of real wages of large numbers of consumers and the growth of online shopping giants like Amazon.

In addition to the retailers, the Big Three Detroit-based automakers are carrying out thousands of temporary and permanent layoffs, including the elimination of entire shifts—and the wiping out of more than 3,000 jobs—at assembly plants in Detroit and Lansing, Michigan, and Lordstown, Ohio, halfway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

Last Friday, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported slower-than-expected job growth in December. The economy added 156,000 jobs last month, the vast majority in the lower-paying service sector. Obama’s Labor Secretary Thomas Perez hailed the numbers, saying they showed the “strength” of the economy. In reality, there has been no recovery for millions of Americans who, living from paycheck-to-paycheck and up to their necks in debt, face the constant threat of job loss.

Other recent layoff announcements include:

· Lexington, Kentucky-based Lexmark International is laying off 320, or 10 percent, of its software business employees.

· Data-storage company Seagate Technology Inc. has cut 155 jobs at its Shakopee, Minnesota facility.

· Alorica will cut 200 jobs at its customer communications center in Utica, New York.

· Dole Packaged Foods will close its Stockton, California frozen yogurt product plant, eliminating 30 hourly and supervisory jobs.

· Internationally, Chinese tech giant ZTE will cut five percent of its global workforce or 3,000 jobs.

The dire situation facing workers will only escalate under the incoming Trump administration. Despite his bogus pronouncements of concern for the plight of American workers, Trump’s economic program is based on massive corporate tax cuts and deregulation and protectionist trade measures, which will destabilize the world economy and provoke retaliation against US exporters. He is also proposing a sharp spending increase for the military and some funding for infrastructure projects, all of which will be a boondoggle for private contractors and other businesses.

Corporations are also demanding the continued lowering of labor costs in the US, which was central to the economic policy of the Obama administration over the last eight years.

This was implemented with the full assistance of the trade unions, which worked with the White House to suppress a “wages push” by millions of workers whose labor agreements expired in 2015-16 and who were determined to recover wages lost in the years following the 2008 financial crash. With the backing of the unions, wage increases in the private and public sectors have largely been limited to the rate of inflation and any raises have more than been eaten up by increased health care costs under Obamacare.

The latest retail layoffs highlight structural changes in the economy. Millions of workers, young and old, face a “New Normal” of low-paying, precarious jobs, while the wealthy elite extracts billions in profit, chiefly through financial parasitism.

Dayton, Ohio businessman Leslie H. Wexner opened the first The Limited store at a shopping mall in the Columbus, Ohio suburb of Upper Arlington in 1963. So named because it limited the variety of clothing to lower costs of quick-selling merchandise, the brand eventually grew to 750 stores with sales of more than $1 billion.

This allowed Wexner to expand into other retail ventures that would be based in the Columbus area, including well-known chains such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria’s Secret, Express, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and others. A decade ago Wexner sold a majority share of The Limited to private equity firm Sun Capital Partners, which bought the company outright in 2010. Wexner, the CEO of L Brands, pulled in $26,669,306 in total compensation in 2015.

A month ago, The Limited announced it was laying off 248 of its headquarters staff in New Albany, Ohio, as Sun Capital continued to pursue a possible sale. After selling off all of its clothing stock at up to 90 percent discount, along with fixtures and mannequins, the empty stores were permanently closed Sunday.

“I think it is very sad,” said Amanda Conley, 49, who bought two of the last pairs of pants at a central Ohio store, told the Columbus Dispatch. “It’s been a staple here. Of course, it affects employees and their livelihoods.”

Even as workers were being tossed into the streets, however, the $9 billion private equity firm was milking the retail chain for as much as possible. In a letter to investors Friday, Sun Capital Partners said it made 1.8 times its $50 million investment in Limited Stores while writing down the remaining equity value to zero.

Fortune noted, “The disclosure illustrates how private equity firms can boast a profit from companies whose equity value has been wiped out, having previously recouped their original investment by taking dividends from these companies, often by having them borrow more money to fund the dividends.”

Many traditional retailers are falling victim to pressure from online giant Amazon, which is able to quickly ship merchandise from its massive and strategically located warehouses using low-wage workers whose productivity is electronically monitored. In the case of The Limited they have also fallen victim to other “fast-fashion” stores, like those owned by Swedish multinational H&M (Hennes & Mauritz AB), which specialize in the latest fashion discount apparel aimed at younger shoppers.

Apparel retailers, including H&M, rely on a global supply chain, which includes brutally exploited workers around the world. In April 2013, 1,133 garment workers were killed and 2,500 wounded when Rana Plaza, an eight-story building housing several textile factories, collapsed in the Bangladeshi capital on Dhaka. Half of the 125,000 shirts made each day at the complex were sold to H&M. Workers made $1.43 a day, for 10-12 hours, producing 250 T-shirts per hour.

Retail workers in the United States are subjected to inconsistent hours, low pay and an authoritarian atmosphere at work. Most are on-call employees who must phone in or wait for a call from a manager to find out their schedules. Turning down a shift because of a scheduling conflict with family, school or another job means having your hours cut or instant dismissal.

The retail industry as a whole employed around 16 million workers, up more than nine percent since 2009; nonsupervisory retail work pays 30 percent less than other private sector jobs.

Last June. 5,000 workers authorized the first strike in 40 years at Macy’s flagship department store in mid-town Manhattan and four other locations in the state. Workers wanted wage and health care improvements and to end the policy that allowed Macy’s to reduce a salesperson’s commission if a customer returned the merchandise within six months.

Collaborating with state and local Democrats, including New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, the Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union (RWDSU), which is part of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, quickly reached a deal, which retains the punitive commission policy and significant out-of-pocket health care costs.

India and Vietnam: Strengthening Bilateral Relations

Amruta Karambelkar

2016 has been an important year in India-Vietnam relations, characterised by several high-level bilateral visits. Prime Minister Modi paid a visit to Vietnam in September 2016, preceded Defence Minister Parrikar's visit in June 2016. New Delhi has recently hosted two important leaders from Vietnam: Defence Minister General Ngo Xuan Lich in and Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, the chairperson of the National Assembly, in the first and second week of December 2016, respectively. The former visit signifies the continuation of the steadfast bilateral security cooperation; the latter  was aimed at deepening legislative cooperation between the two countries. New Delhi appears to be pivoting on its traditional friend, Vietnam, as it actively expands its role in Southeast Asia. Similarly, Hanoi is focusing on its relationship with India as a potential roadblock to Beijing’s aggression.

Defence and EnergyIndia and Vietnam reached a milestone in 2013 when India offered a US$ 100million credit line and agreed to train Vietnamese sailors in submarine operations. Prime Minister Modi raised the credit line five times during his visit. Right before the General Ngo’s visit, India let the Vietnamese ambassador visit the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier under construction at the Cochin Shipyard. Ngo’s visit saw the Indian Air Force (IAF) ink an agreement to train Vietnamese fighter pilots in Su-30 operations. By way of the IAF-VAF agreement, India has also expanded its military cooperation from naval to air.

Both India and Vietnam largely use Russian hardware, and India is experienced in operating and maintaining Russian platforms. In recent years Vietnam has purchased Kilo-class submarines and SU-30 fighter jets as part of its ongoing force modernisation programme. In view of that, General Ngo  met with India Inc at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) to discuss bilateral cooperation in the defence industry. As Vietnam has been actively modernising its military over the past few years, Indian companies have the opportunity to develop Vietnam’s defence industries by setting up production facilities in the country. The exploration of such possibilities could lead to a bilateral security enmeshment. The Modi government has paved the way for greater private participation in defence manufacturing. The Look East Policy in its third decade (renamed the Act East Policy) seeks a greater role in Southeast Asia and one of the ways to do this would be through wider and deeper security ties. Defence manufacturing or servicing would be a step in that direction. Nguyen also backed India’s Act East Policy and appreciated Vietnam's role, as envisaged by India, in it.

India and Vietnam signed several agreements during Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan’s visit, notably one on cooperation in civil nuclear energy. She encouraged Indian oil companies to explore oil and gas blocks in Vietnam’s continental shelf. Since the past few years, Vietnam has sought to develop its civil nuclear capabilities. As an emerging economy, Vietnam’s energy needs are growing. Vietnam has been actively seeking a foreign presence in its claimed portion of the South China Sea, thereby looking to make investor countries a stakeholder in the maritime dispute. It hopes that other countries, by way of protecting their assets in the South China Sea, would be concerned with the region's security, which could serve as a speed-breaker to China’s aggression. Previously Vietnam had granted exploration rights to ONGC in the strategically important blocks in the disputed waters.

Political CooperationIn March 2016, Nguyen was elected as the chairperson of the National Assembly, making her the first woman to serve in this position. She was re-elected to the politburo that year, and her ranking in the politburo hierarchy makes her the third most powerful person in Vietnamese politics.

India and Vietnam elevated their relations to a ‘comprehensive strategic partnership’ during PM Modi’s visit to Vietnam in September 2016. Both countries appear to have institutionalised their legislative relations. Chairperson Nguyen was heading a delegation of Vietnamese legislators, who also attended sessions of the Indian Parliament as observers. An agreement was signed between the Lok Sabha and Vietnam's National Assembly. Prime Minister Modi expressed the need to institutionalise an exchange programme between young parliamentarians from both the countries.

Conclusion

While India’s defence relations with Vietnam have remained steady, the chairperson’s visit is noteworthy since it would facilitate inter-legislative contact. All the political parties in India have unanimity over India’s policy on Vietnam. Nguyen must have realised this when she met the opposition members in the Indian Parliament. Similarly, political unanimity over India in the National Assembly of Vietnam would be crucial in a region that is witnessing strategic opaqueness.

In September 2016 in Hanoi, PM Modi in his joint press statement said that maritime territorial disputes should be resolved peacefully and according to international law, with reference to the South China Sea dispute in which Vietnam is one of the claimants. Vietnam, like other Southeast Asian claimants, is canvassing political support for its stance. India, like other major stakeholders, is interested in the stability and security of the South China Sea. As an emerging economic and naval power, India has projected itself a credible player in Southeast Asia. In a region that has historically witnessed political polarisation caused by great power rivalries, India, without such historical baggage or hegemonic ambitions, makes for a viable alternative.

2016 Goes Down As Hottest Year On Record

 Andrea Germanos

Earth is “on the edge.”

So declared the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Thursday, announcing that 2016 was the warmest year on record.

The first global assessment of last year’s temperatures finds that 2016 broke the record set in 2015 by close to 0.2°C , with last year’s record having broken the record set in 2014.

According to meteorologist Jeff Masters, who is not part of the C3S: “The 3-year string of warmest years on record is the first time such an event has happened since record keeping began in 1880.”

“We are already seeing around the globe the impacts of a changing climate,” Copernicus’s Juan Garcés de Marcilla. “Land and sea temperatures are rising along with sea-levels, while the world’s sea-ice extent, glacier volume, and snow cover are decreasing; rainfall patterns are changing and climate-related extremes such as heatwaves, floods and droughts are increasing in frequency and intensity for many regions.”

Annual global air temperature at a height of two metres (left axis) and estimated change from the beginning of the industrial era (right axis). Sources: Copernicus Climate Change Service, ECMWF, for data from 1979; Met Office Hadley Centre, NASA and NOAA for blended data prior to 1979. (Credit: ECMWF, Copernicus Climate Change Service)According to a press statement from Copernicus, “2016’s global temperature exceeded 14.8°C, and was around 1.3°C higher than typical for the middle years of the 18th century.”

The peak for global temperatures occurred in February, when they were around 1.5°C higher than at the start of the Industrial Revolution—the global warming cap goal global nations agreed to in the Paris climate deal negotiated at the end of 2015.

Yet, as Masters, noted, “[a]ssuming that all nations who agreed to the Paris Climate Accord in 2015 fulfill their pledges, Earth is on track to see 2.3°C of warming over pre-industrial levels by 2050. This is above the ‘dangerous’ 2°C level of warming considered likely to greatly increase the risk of hunger, thirst, disease, refugees, and war.”

The incoming U.S. administration, however has given signs that it will go full-speed ahead at driving further climate change. Among other things, Donald Trump has chosen climate change skeptic and “fossil fuel industry puppet” Scott Pruitt to head the EPA, while the president-elect himself falsely declared last month that “nobody really knows” if climate change is real, and has also threatened to cancel the Paris climate deal.

Taking that action, said noted climate scientist Ben Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California, would be like “embracing ignorance with open arms.”

Germany-based insurance group Munich Re, meanwhile, announced Wednesday that 2016 was also particularly disastrous.

“A number of devastating earthquakes and powerful storms made 2016 the costliest twelve months for natural catastrophe losses in the last four years,” it said in a statement.

At over $31 billion USD, the costliest disaster of the 750 events was a pair of earthquakes that hit the Japanese island of Kyushu in April; the costliest to hit North America was Hurricane Matthew, and the flooding in August in the southern United States was also a notably expensive disaster.

“A look at the weather-related catastrophes of 2016 shows the potential effects of unchecked climate change,” said Peter Höppe, Head of Munich Re’s geo risks research unit. “Of course, individual events themselves can never be attributed directly to climate change. But there are now many indications that certain events—such as persistent weather systems or storms bringing torrential rain and hail—are more likely to occur in certain regions as a result of climate change.”

New Zealand prisoners subjected to abusive treatment

Sam Price

Reports released in December on four New Zealand prisons reveal that inmates have been subjected to inhumane treatment. The reports are written annually by the Ombudsman’s office under provisions of the Crimes of Torture Act (COTA). The four adult Corrections Department facilities are Arohata, Manawatu, Invercargill and Otago.

The information was released to the New Zealand Herald during an investigation into the solitary confinement of Ashley Peacock, a compulsory mental health patient. Peacock has been kept in a small, concrete room in the Tawhirimatea mental health unit for five years and only allowed outside for 90 minutes a day.

The reports reveal a wide range of degrading and abusive treatment. Sleeping conditions are described as “deplorable” and drinking water as discoloured. In most cases, there was an almost 17-hour gap between evening meals and breakfast. Prisoners are filmed, in varying stages of undress, during strip searches or while using the toilet, either directly or by security cameras.

Inspectors found a pervasive culture of bullying and victimisation amongst the prisoners. Nineteen inmates told of sexual abuse. Only two of these cases were officially reported because the prisoners feared reprisals.

Prisoner suicides rose from four in 2015 to 10 in 2016. There were also 26 attempts at suicide or self-harm last year. One prisoner at Otago Corrections Facility was handcuffed behind his back for 21 hours a day for 10 weeks after several attempts at self-harm.

New Zealand has the seventh-highest level of incarceration in the OECD, at 261 per 100,000, just below Mexico. Prisoner numbers rose to a record high of over 10,000 in November, and prisons were unable to manage the increase. This resulted in double-bunking in cells designed for only one inmate, and longer lockdown times of up to 15 hours a day (from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m.) so staff could be used to relieve shortages in other prisons.

The COTA reports highlight the lack of adequate staffing. In one example, staff who were on leave or were no longer employed at one prison were incorrectly rostered, resulting in prisoners being unattended for up to two-and-a-half hours at a time. According to Fairfax Media on December 5, the Department of Corrections said 600 prison officers were required by September 2017, yet 194 Corrections jobs were eliminated in 2015.

Incarceration rates have sharply increased over the past three decades, in line with the assault by successive governments on jobs, living standards and social services. During the Lange Labour government’s big-business “reform” agenda of the 1980’s, the daily average number of prisoners rose 30 percent, from 90 per 100,000 of total population in 1984 to 117 per 100,000 in 1990.

New Zealand’s prison population has ballooned by 41 percent under the current National government, which has implemented a severe austerity program in response to the 2008 global economic crisis including attacks on education, wages, welfare and labour rights.

In November, the first inmate to be charged under the “three-strike” legislation, enacted in 2010, received a compulsory sentence of seven years’ imprisonment, subject to parole, after pinching the backside of a female prison guard. David Seymour, leader of the far-right ACT Party which introduced the legislation, said parliament had passed the law because “judges were not taking crime seriously enough.” The courts have so far issued 7,647 first strike warnings and 175 second strike warnings, for offences from a list of 40 crimes.

The victims of the harsh imprisonment regime are the most impoverished and oppressed sections of the working class. Maori, who constitute 15 percent of the general population, make up more than half the 8,000-plus male prison muster. Around 34 percent of all prisoners are aged between 20 and 29 years.

An investigation by Al Jazeera in June identified a litany of “familiar themes” applying to Maori inmates in particular. The majority had problems with literacy and numeracy, histories of drug or alcohol abuse or came from so-called “dysfunctional” families. Contributing social factors included inter-generational unemployment, inter-generational lack of education, adoption and being raised in the social welfare system.

Labour and National have both promoted hard-line “law and order” policies, including tougher jail sentences and increased police powers, to deal with deepening social tensions produced by the crisis of capitalism. Helen Clark’s 1999–2008 Labour government opened four new prisons to accommodate a 36 percent increase in prisoners, from 4,917 in 1999 to 7,771 in 2007. Labour also launched the country’s first privately-run prison, Auckland Central Remand Prison, initially operated by Australasian Correctional Management.

In 2010, the National government engaged the international conglomerate Serco to run Auckland Central Remand. The results of privately-operated, for-profit prisons are disastrous. Reports have emerged of the inhumane treatment of the Serco-run Mt Eden Correctional Facility prisoners, including 16–19 year-olds confined to cells for up to 23 hours, and “fight clubs” between inmates condoned by guards. The Serco-run Wiri Prison in South Auckland has been ranked worst by the Corrections Department, who based their ranking on the level of assaults, positive drug tests and complaints by inmates.

Due to widespread media attention surrounding the Mt Eden fight clubs, the contract will not be renewed when it expires in 2017. Yet former Prime Minister John Key and Corrections Minister Judith Collins refused to end arrangements between Serco and the Wiri prison, and the government has considered renewing the contract between Serco and Mt Eden in future. Serco’s management is promoted as a model for the publicly owned prisons to follow. Key told the Herald on October 6: “I think there’s a place both for private and public prisons and they hold each other to account.”

In response to National’s proposal to spend an estimated $1 billion on 1,800 extra prison beds, Labour’s corrections spokesman Kelvin Davis declared in a December 13 press statement: “The government is clearly comfortable with pouring more money into a bottomless prison pit because it’s easier to provide a pop-up prison than to rehabilitate and reintegrate prisoners in order to reduce offending.”

Labour’s history, however, proves that it is committed to the same punitive measures as National. In discussing a Salvation Army report on prisons with Fairfax on December 7, Davis admitted that “successive governments have vied for who can be toughest on crime.”

Campaigns by Labour MPs for recent local body elections demonstrate that if Labour is elected to govern in 2017, it will continue this trend. Former Labour leader, now Auckland mayor, Phil Goff, and his successor in the Mt Roskill electorate, Michael Wood, have both promised to increase police recruitment and to open more police stations.

British Labour Party moving to support ending free movement of EU workers

Robert Stevens

In his New Year message, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn sought to re-launch himself as a “populist” leader. The most striking refutation of efforts to cast him as a principled politician “standing up for people” and “taking on the establishment” is provided by the discussion over Labour championing immigration controls against European Union citizens.

The demands for a political makeover for Corbyn centre on enabling Labour to compete on the terrain of right-wing movements such as the UK Independence Party (UKIP) by abandoning his declared support for the free movement of EU labour.

Britain’s exit from the European Union (Brexit) has provoked a major crisis for the bourgeoisie and all its institutions, including the Labour Party. Corbyn’s position, which he shares with big business and the Labour right, is that business must have continued access to the EU’s Single Market. Free movement of EU citizens to other EU countries is enshrined in the constitution of the EU along with the movement of goods, services and capital.

However, pushed by its anti-EU wing and seeking to win back support it has lost to UKIP, the Conservative government of Theresa May is demanding that an end to the free movement of EU citizens is at the core of Brexit negotiations.

Citing the same considerations of supposedly representing the “will of the people” as expressed in the June 23 referendum vote to leave the EU, senior Labour figures have stepped up their own demands that an end to free movement must be made central to the terms of Brexit.

Keir Starmer, whom Corbyn appointed as Labour’s Shadow Brexit Secretary, stated last month that the party’s support for free movement is no longer sustainable and “the rules must change.” Speaking to the Sunday Times January 1, he reiterated that there must be “a fundamental rethink of immigration rules from start to finish.”

Andy Burnham, the former shadow Home Secretary and the party’s candidate for mayor of Greater Manchester, has said he is no longer willing to be “complicit” in Corbyn’s support for free movement. This, he claimed, was “inherently discriminatory” against working class areas of the country and was “undermining the cohesion of our communities and the safety of our streets.”

Others Labourites including Hilary Benn and Yvette Cooper have called for tighter controls, with Cooper telling the House of Commons magazine last month that Labour “can make a progressive argument to say that free movement hasn’t been working for the British economy in a way that’s fair.”

The Financial Times ran an article headlined, “Councillors tell Labour to take tougher line on immigration,” featuring a series of interviews with Labour councillors in 20 constituencies where there had been a clear vote to leave the European Union in last June’s referendum on membership and where UKIP is presently in second, or a close third place, behind the sitting Labour Member of Parliament. The piece was a barely disguised call for the removal of Corbyn on the basis that he is “out of touch” with Labour voters.

The conflict between the Tories and Labour over which is more stridently opposed to immigration, whether or not the politicians involved supported Brexit last summer, demonstrates the extent to which political designations of what is “left” and “right” in capitalist politics have no genuine content. What is being played out post-Brexit is which party best articulates the national interests of British imperialism. Anti-migrant rhetoric is a key platform for the promotion of the type of nationalism and xenophobia needed to justify policies of trade war and stepped-up militarism.

Corbyn and his supporters, as always, have signalled their readiness to change tack with the prevailing political winds. Speaking to the Independent, a source close to the leadership said that Corbyn’s shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott and self-styled left “has never called for open borders... all Diane has proposed is sensible and progressive immigration policies that benefit Britain and its economy.”

It should be noted that Corbyn is a political bedfellow of the Stalinist Communist Party of Britain (CPB) and has written regularly for its daily Morning Star. The CPB is a long-time opponent of freedom of movement and a purveyor of nationalism. It was a vital component of the Left Leave group in the Brexit campaign along with the pseudo-left Socialist Workers Party, Counterfire and others.

More fundamentally, Corbyn is politically and financially beholden to sections of the trade union bureaucracy that are actively championing an end to free movement.

Britain’s largest union, Unite, is currently holding its leadership election with incumbent Len McCluskey—a Corbyn supporter—and challenger Gerard Coyne fighting primarily over how best to respond to the threat both agree is represented by immigration.

Coyne stated, “My many conversations with Unite members leave me in no doubt that those who voted for Brexit expect that promise of an end to uncontrolled immigration from the EU to be kept, and will feel betrayed if it is not.”

He added, “Theresa May and other ministers should not wait until Article 50 has been triggered to set out a negotiating position on free movement of labour. They should be saying now, without equivocation, that the issue is non-negotiable. There can be no compromise on the principle of taking back control of our borders.”

McCluskey said that Labour could lose electorally to UKIP if it did not “get its narrative right on free movement” and immigration. Launching his bid to be re-elected as general secretary, he declared “workers have always done best when the labour supply is controlled and communities are stable.” He presently argues that this should be achieved by extending trade union organisation and collective bargaining protections, rather than ending EU free movement.

Workers must oppose all attempts to divide them against one another, including calls for “taking back control of borders” and for the reassertion of “national sovereignty.” However, this implies no support for either the Remain faction of the British bourgeoisie or any claim that support for the EU somehow represents a means of opposing the spread of nationalist and xenophobic sentiment.

The EU is an instrument of the European bourgeoisie and the Single Market is a trade bloc developed so as to compete more effectively against its global rivals—to which free movement of labour is a subordinate aspect to secure the interests of Europe’s corporate elite. The EU already operates as a Fortress Europe when it comes to keeping out immigrants. Moreover, it is teetering on the brink of collapse as a result of the spread of nationalist tensions, protectionist sentiment and the emergence of right-wing movements across the continent.

In opposition to this, British workers must understand that they are part of an international class, one whose interests are diametrically opposed to the nationalism spewed out by the bosses and their political representatives. This means consciously asserting their own independent class interests in opposition to all sections of the British ruling class and in a common struggle with workers across Europe against capitalism.

The Socialist Equality Party called for an active boycott of the Brexit referendum and our warning that the Remain and Leave camps were equally reactionary has been entirely confirmed by events. We said in our statement, “Against the national chauvinism and xenophobia promoted by both sides in the referendum campaign, the working class must advance its own internationalist programme to unify the struggles of workers throughout Europe in defence of living standards and democratic rights. The alternative for workers to the Europe of the transnational corporations is the struggle for the United Socialist States of Europe.”

New Indian army chief threatens Pakistan and China

Wasantha Rupasinghe

India’s new Army Chief of Staff, General Bipin Rawat, has made a series of belligerent remarks since assuming his new command on Jan. 1. Most ominously, in an exclusive interview with the Times of India published Wednesday, Rawat boasted about the Indian military’s preparations to fight a simultaneous or “two-front war” against its main, nuclear-armed, strategic rivals: China and Pakistan.

Rawat has also issued repeated warnings to Islamabad that, if “provoked,” India can and will strike inside Pakistan to suppress anti-Indian Kashmiri insurgents.

Only such action, vows the Indian Army Chief, will not simply be a repeat of the cross-border raids that Indian Special Forces carried out inside Pakistan-held Kashmir in late September―the first attack New Delhi has publicly admitted mounting inside Pakistan in more than four decades. Any further military strikes against Pakistan will be of a “different manner and different style” said Rawat, when embarking Thursday on a three-day tour of the Indian Army’s Jammu and Kashmir-based Northern Command. “We will surprise the enemy.”

“The two-front (war) is a real scenario,” Rawat told the Times of India. “The Army, Navy and IAF (Indian Air Force) are now jointly very much prepared for such an eventuality.”

Rawat claimed that India has been able to significantly strengthen its military posture against China in recent years, transforming it from simple “dissuasion” into “deterrence.” Moreover, as the result of changes now underway, including the development of India’s nuclear arsenal and the strengthening of its military might along the Chinese border, New Delhi will soon achieve “credible deterrence” vis-a-vis Beijing.

Rawat was particularly enthused about the progress the Indian Army has made in creating a new 90,000-strong Mountain Strike Corps to be deployed on India’s disputed border with China. He said the corps will give India “quick-reaction ground offensive capabilities” on its northern borders for the first time. “All adversaries,” said Rawat, “respect strength, which comes from having the ability to strike across the border.”

According to India’s Army Chief, the raising, arming and equipping of the new mountain corps is well “underway.” The government has also given its “full support” to a massive strategic infrastructure program. This involves building facilities to house the new border force and strengthen fortifications near India’s disputed, 4,000 kilometer-long, border with China. However, far and away the biggest part of the strategic infrastructure program is the building of 73 all-weather roads and 14 “strategic” railway lines for ferrying troops and materiel to the Himalayan border regions in India’s northwest and northeast.

Rawat reportedly owes his appointment over more senior officers to his willingness to use force and countenance “strategic risk.” Senior figures in India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, beginning with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are said to have been impressed by Rawat's role in overseeing both last September's Special Forces attack on Pakistan and a May 2015 cross-border raid directed against anti-Indian insurgents in Myanmar (Burma).

Scroll.In reporter Saikat Datta says a “senior insider” told him that Modi wanted an Army Chief “in line with his aggressive Pakistan policy-” an officer steeped in the art of counter insurgency, and also with considerable experience on the Line of Control (that divides Indian- and Pakistani-administered Kashmir).”

Under the two-and-a-half year-old government of Modi and his Hindu supremacist BJP, tensions between India and both Pakistan and China have surged.

This is inextricably linked with the Modi government's push to integrate India ever more fully into US imperialism's anti-China “Pivot to Asia” and Washington’s reciprocal showering of strategic favours on New Delhi.

Emboldened by Washington’s embrace of New Delhi as a “global strategic” partner and “Major Defense Partner,” Modi has aggressively asserted India's claim to be South Asia's dominant power, demanding Pakistan “change its behaviour” and pushing back against China's growing regional economic influence.

In response, Beijing and Islamabad have enhanced their own longstanding military-strategic ties, including through the joint development of the Arabian Sea port Gwadar and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Relations between India and its principal rivals have grown even more fractious over the past four months,

Following India's much trumpeted “surgical” military strikes inside Pakistan, their armies bombarded each other across the Line of for Control in disputed Kashmir almost every day for close to ten weeks This resulted in scores of fatalities on both sides.

The cross-border artillery and gun-fire exchanges have now abated, but not the threat of war.

The Modi government is continuing to ratchet up pressure on Pakistan, including by announcing emergency purchases of munitions and armaments to improve its war-readiness and by instructing Indian authorities to maximize India's water usage under the terms of the increasingly contested Indus Water Treaty.

Even more significantly, Indian government and military leaders from Modi on down have proclaimed their determination to enforce their demand that Pakistan prevent its territory from being used to provide logistical support to the anti-Indian insurgency in Kashmir even if this results in all-out war.

India-China relations have also become increasingly embittered. The Indian elite is angered and frustrated that during the recent war crisis with Pakistan, Beijing has repeatedly come to Islamabad's aid. According to all reports, China has counseled Pakistan to work to restore the truce along the Line of Control and otherwise dampen down tensions with India. But under conditions where New Delhi has thrown open its military bases to US warplanes and battleships, consistently parroted Washington's provocative stance on the South China Sea dispute, and expanded strategic ties with America's chief Pacific allies, Japan and Australia, China calculates it has no choice but to stand by its traditional regional ally, Pakistan.

In a show of strength directed against both Beijing and Islamabad, but particularly the former, India has staged tests of ballistic missiles capable of striking targets throughout China in the past two weeks. On Dec. 26, India tested its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile, the Agni-V, which can strike a target up to 5,000 kilometers away with a 1,500 kilogram nuclear warhead. This week it was the turn of the Agni-IV, which has a 4,000 kilometer range.

Explaining to Defense News the significance of the Agni-V, retired Indian Army Brigadier and military analyst Rahul Bhonsle boasted that it will give India the means to threaten “major Chinese counter value targets such as large cities.” “This,” he continued, “will certainly place the country at par with the Chinese as well as other major missile powers such as the United States and Russia.”

China has responded angrily to the missile tests, charging that India is violating a UN resolution passed after New Delhi carried out nuclear tests in May 1998. It forbids India from developing nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles.

But Washington, determined to build up India as a strategic counterweight to China, long ago voided in practice the limits the UN sought to place on India's nuclear program. In 2008, the US created a unique status for India in the world nuclear regime, giving it access to advanced civilian nuclear technology and fuel, even though it has refused to sign the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty. Now the US is similarly trying to gain India admittance to the Nuclear Suppliers Group by bending the rules.

Following this week's Agni-IV test, the Chinese state-run Global Times ran a column accusing India of “missile fever” and suggesting that if the UN fails to act China could help Pakistan expand its missile program.

US jobs report shows lower than expected hiring in December

Tom Hall 

The December jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed that the American economy added 156,000 jobs last month, less than the 175,000 expected by economists.

The BLS’s breakdown of the figures showed that by far the largest share of job growth was from the service industry, with 132,000 jobs added, especially in the healthcare and social assistance sector which added 70,000 jobs.

Economists acknowledged the generally tepid character of the report. PNC chief economist Stuart Hoffman called it “a ‘vanilla pudding’ jobs report that keeps the Fed on a gradual rate hiking path.”

Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez went further, releasing a statement declaring that “[t]he US economy again demonstrated its strength in December.”

Manufacturing, while adding 17,000 jobs, remained slightly below employment levels from the previous December. The construction industry and mining and logging shed 3000 and 2000 jobs, respectively.

Average hourly wages rose 0.4 percent in December, or roughly 10 cents per hour compared to November. This meant a total increase in nominal wages of 2.9 percent through all of 2016, the largest annual wage increase since the end of the recession in 2009. Reports in the press presented this as balancing out the weaker than expected job growth.

However, the increase in wages last year is still well below the more than 3.5 percent annual wage growth that the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates would have to be sustained for several years in order for American workers to recoup the wages they lost as a result of the Great Recession. Annual wage growth remains far below the levels from before the recession. In November 2007, the month before the official beginning of the recession, year-on-year wage growth rate was 3.89 percent.

Significantly, year-on-year monthly wage growth (according to figures from the EPI) during the recession was higher than at any point during the recovery, and never fell below the 2.9 percent being hailed as a sign of a strong jobs market today. This is consistent with the character of the “recovery” itself, with a return to profits based on predominantly low wage, part time or casual jobs, focused on lower-paying sectors such as the service industry.

The labor force participation rate remains at the near-historic lows which it has hovered around since the recession, rising slightly from 62.6 percent in November to 62.7 percent in December. This is largely driven by the millions of workers who, discouraged by poor job prospects, have given up looking for work and have dropped out of the labor force altogether.

The EPI estimated that there were 2.33 million “missing workers,” in December, or people who were not employed but were not seeking work due to “weak job opportunities” and are therefore not counted in the official unemployment rate (which, driven by the slight increase in labor force participation last month, rose slightly from 4.6 to 4.7 percent). If it included these workers, the EPI noted, the unemployment rate would be 6.1 percent.

The structural shift in the labor market means that the traditional statistics used to measure the jobs market mask a more dire underlying reality. This was acknowledged by the head of the Gallup polling agency in 2015 when he called the official unemployment rate a “Big Lie” of contemporary American politics.

An alternate measure of joblessness compiled by the BLS, referred to in the press as the “real unemployment rate,” which includes those “marginally attached” to the labor force and those working part time jobs involuntarily, was 9.2 percent last month.

The fact, promoted by Perez in his official statement, that the American economy has had 75 consecutive months of job increases belies the fact that the recession resulted in the steepest job losses in decades. On top of this, the “recovery” of total employment figures since the official end of the recession in June 2009 is by far the slowest on record.

According to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the American economy took more than six years to recover all of the jobs lost as a result of the recession. The overwhelming majority of the jobs that have been created since the recession have been in low wage sectors such as the service industry.

In spite of the generally tepid character of the report, the Federal Reserve is increasingly concerned that the labor market is beginning to “tighten,” which would result in upward pressure on wages. The U.S. central bank is determined to stop such a development.

While the Fed is currently committed to a policy of a gradual rise in interest rates, a tightening jobs market could convince them to accelerate interest rate rises to prevent rising wages. This was acknowledged by the Fed following its Open Market Committee meeting last month, when it declared, “Some participants noted that if the labor market appeared to be tightening significantly more than expected, it might become necessary to adjust the Committee’s communications about the expected path of the federal funds rate, consistent with the possibility that a less gradual pace of increases would become appropriate.”

Four dead, 1,000 arrested as demonstrations continue across Mexico

Eric London

The Mexican government on Thursday declared that it would rescind its gasoline subsidy cut, as clashes at protests against the measure in recent days left four dead, dozens hurt and over 1,000 arrested.

The cut, known as the gasolinazo, will result in a 20 percent gas price hike in the coming year. Although Mexico is a leading oil producer, it imports over half its refined oil and domestic consumers pay just under $4 per gallon, more than in the United States. The gas price hike is already increasing the cost of basic consumer goods such as tortillas, further squeezing the impoverished working class and peasantry.

“Not one step back,” Interior Secretary Jose Antonio Meade said in an interview with Radio Formula yesterday. Speaking at a separate event, President Enrique Pena Nieto said, “Protesting and looting will not bring about a change in reality.”

In an official video released Thursday night, Pena made the absurd claim that “to artificially maintain lower prices would mean cutting resources from the poorest Mexicans and giving resources to those who have the most.” He said the government would have slashed funding for education and other social programs if it had decided against the cut in the gas subsidy.

His challenge to the Mexican people—“What would you have done?”—was widely denounced on social media.

On Thursday, two protesters were killed in clashes with police in Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo during a demonstration of several thousand people. That night, over 20,000 marched through the northern industrial city of Monterrey, Nueva Leon in one of the largest protests to date. A demonstration scheduled for Monday afternoon in Mexico City will serve as a major test of the protest movement’s strength.

Roadblocks were set up on highways leading to Mexico and a strike by transit workers broadened to include the city of San Juan Del Rio in Quintana Roo. The strike was also joined by some 3,000 truckers in Monterrey.

Demonstrations continued along Mexico’s northern border, where protestors blocked railroad crossings to the United States at Nogales. Protests also took place near the border with Guatemala.

Overall, the demonstrations appeared to have been more limited Thursday, in part due to the Three Kings Day holiday.

Recent days have seen a significant increase in the police presence, with 9,000 police occupying commercial centers in Mexico City and 18,000 deployed to the State of Mexico, where looting is widespread. Federal police were also deployed to Veracruz.

As of Thursday afternoon, 300 people had been arrested in Veracruz, 139 in Chiapas, 537 in the State of Mexico, 182 in Nuevo Leon, 106 in Mexico City, and dozens more elsewhere. In Chiapas, relatives of the detained clashed with Navy sailors guarding a prison and demanded medical attention for those beaten by the police.

The gasolinazo protests have begun to attract the attention of the ruling class in the United States, which until now has largely blacked out press coverage for fear the protests will generate sympathy among American workers. The intelligence-linked web site Stratfor wrote that the demonstrations were spontaneous and had “largely remained regional” and “not yet coalesced into a coordinated national movement.” Stratfor noted that taxi, truck and bus drivers had called strikes “in several states, lending weight to the demonstrations.”

“There is a risk,” the web site warned, “of violent demonstrations spiraling out of control and sparking further protests. Supply disruptions could also occur as looters attempt to hijack gasoline trucks.”

Fears in the American and Mexican ruling classes of “supply disruptions” underscore the strategic necessity of uniting Mexican and American workers. An increasingly prominent section of the Mexican ruling class, led by National Regeneration Movement (Morena) leader and former mayor of Mexico City Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), is attempting to undermine the protest movement with the twin poisons of nationalism and class collaboration.

AMLO issued another Youtube appeal yesterday afternoon in which he called for “all Mexicans to come together in the great task of national transformation.” A “rebirth of Mexico” would take place only through electing him president in the 2018 election.

“There will be opportunity for change in 2018,” he said, calling for “a new national project” to be achieved not through class division, but “agreement.”

The Mexican pseudo-left operates in the orbit of Morena, propping it up with “left” phraseology. While criticizing AMLO’s attempts to limit strikes and protests, the Pabolite Socialist Workers Movement (MTS) issued a statement Wednesday calling for “a defense of national sovereignty” and a “break with the dependence of the country on the government of Trump.” The statement calls for various trade unions and student groups to gather “to discuss a plan for national struggle” to address “the present situation in our country.”

It is impossible to address the poverty and inequality that dominates Mexican society on the basis of a nationalist perspective.

It is not due simply to its leaders’ cowardice that Mexico remains even more subservient to American banks and corporations today than in the years preceding the Mexican Revolution of 1910-20. The Stalinists and trade unions--both corporatist and independista— paved the way for the current social catastrophe by disarming the working class with nationalist demagogy and subordinating the workers to the Mexican state in the name of supporting the “progressive” section of the bourgeoisie.

This nationalist program is all the more bankrupt today under conditions where technology and transportation have bound the Mexican and American economies together more closely than ever.

A November 2016 report by the US Congressional Research Service reads: “The expansion of trade has resulted in the creation of vertical supply relationships… the flow of intermediate inputs produced in the United States and exported to Mexico and the return flow of finished products greatly increased the importance of the US-Mexico border region as a production site. US manufacturing industries, including automotive, electronics, appliances, and machinery, all rely on the assistance of Mexican manufacturers.”

United objectively in the productive process, increasingly facing the same transnational exploiters, confronting right-wing oligarchic governments on both sides of the border, the Mexican and American workers’ fates are inextricably linked. Workers on both sides of the border must emphatically reject all attempts to sow divisions and instead unite in a common struggle against Yankee imperialism and the Mexican capitalist class. The banner of this struggle is the fight for the United Socialist States of the Americas.

Intelligence report offers no evidence of Russian hacking of US election

Patrick Martin

The US intelligence report released Friday provides no evidence that Russia was responsible for hacking into the email of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The report consists of unsupported conclusions by the CIA, FBI and NSA, using the phrase “we assess” 19 times, without a single fact to demonstrate Russian involvement.

The document made public late Friday afternoon was an unclassified version of a 50-page “top secret” report delivered to President Obama Thursday, and shown to congressional leaders and to President-elect Trump on Friday morning. But according to two intelligence officials who spoke with NBC News and the Washington Post Thursday, the classified version contained “no bombshells” either.

The unclassified text does not even claim that there is evidence to support its conclusions that is withheld in the interests of security but supplied in the un-redacted document. One is left with the bare assertion: we, the intelligence community, have made a judgment, and you, the American people, must take it on faith.

The 25-page declassified version does, however, contain one revelation. Nearly half of this document is a reprint of a CIA report from December 2012, detailing the coverage provided by the Russian government-supported English-language broadcaster RT, which reported extensively on the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests and third-party campaigns in the 2012 US presidential election.

This appendix essentially suggests that anyone who questions the two-party system or opposes “corporate greed” is acting as an agent of the Russian government, an assertion that would make the witch-hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy blush.

The intelligence report is completely silent about the actual content of what was leaked by those who hacked into the DNC and Podesta emails: true information about the DNC’s efforts to sabotage the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders, and the transcripts of Clinton’s sycophantic speeches to Wall Street bankers, including Goldman Sachs.

The longer, classified version of the report was presented to President-elect Trump at a briefing Friday morning delivered by the four top officials of the US intelligence establishment: Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey, and Admiral Michael Rogers, director of the NSA.

Even before the briefing, Trump indicated his doubts in a series of tweets citing press reports that the FBI never conducted a forensic investigation into the DNC’s email server, because the DNC refused to cooperate. He also demanded a congressional investigation into the leaking of details of the classified report to NBC and the Washington Post, even before the report was delivered to himself or to Congress.

After the closed-door briefing, Trump issued a perfunctory three-paragraph statement that described the meeting as “constructive,” declared his “tremendous respect for the work and service done by the men and women” of the intelligence agencies, and called for continued vigilance against efforts by “Russia, China, other countries, outside groups” that might attempt to break into the US cyber infrastructure. He concluded by rejecting any “public discussion” of “the methods, tools and tactics we use to keep America safe,” since this would only aid “those who seek to do us harm.”

For nearly four months, the US media has raised the hue and cry over alleged Russian hacking directed against the US election campaign. On October 7, DNI Director Clapper, speaking for 17 intelligence agencies, effectively declared Russian President Vladimir Putin personally responsible for the hacking. But the factual content of this smear campaign, it is now clear, was zero.

The report released Friday actually clears Russia of any interference in the functioning of the US electoral system, making the assessment that there was no discernible impact on the technical processes of the election, where the votes are counted by local and state officials. The Department of Homeland Security, which was in contact with election officials in every state, found that that hacking was “not involved in vote tallying.”

The complete lack of factual substance has not halted the media campaign in the slightest. It continued Friday with a lead editorial by the New York Times, headlined, “Donald Trump Casts Intelligence Aside.” Like previous effusions from the Times, this editorial declared absolutely uncritical confidence in the proven liars and cut-throats who run the US intelligence apparatus.

The editorial declared that Trump “is effectively working to delegitimize institutions whose jobs involve reporting on risks, threats and facts that a president needs to keep the nation safe.” It denounced him for his supposed endorsement of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has insisted that the Russian government was not the source of the DNC and Podesta emails made public by WikiLeaks.

The Times concluded that Trump was creating problems for himself as the future commander-in-chief: “Having worked so hard to convince the American people that the intelligence community cannot be trusted, what will he tell the country when agents inform him of a clear and present danger?”

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who has the closest ties to the military-intelligence apparatus, posed the issue as Trump “siding with Russia,” instead of with the US intelligence agencies. Ignatius hailed the performance of DNI Director Clapper before the Senate Armed Services Committee, not mentioning that Clapper is a proven perjurer, having delivered sworn testimony to Congress denying widespread NSA spying only three months before the Snowden revelations.

The very fact that the incoming Trump administration has largely rejected the “Russian hacking” claims, despite the universal support for them in the media, is an indication that behind the scenes a furious struggle is raging within the ruling elite over foreign and military policy.

Trump aides have sought to deflect the claims of Russian hacking with suggestions that China may have been responsible, or is in any case an equally dangerous cyber-warfare foe. This reflects the orientation of the Trump administration to targeting China rather than Russia as the principal antagonist of American imperialism, at least for the immediate future.

What is the logical outcome of the campaign over “Russian hacking” in the elections? What are the implications of the incessant charges, by the Obama administration, congressional Democrats and many congressional Republicans, that Russia has committed “an act of war” against the United States? Are those leading this campaign prepared to go to war with Russia? Given that Russia and the US possess, between them, 95 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, how far would such a war go? How many hundreds of millions of people would die?

The American media and the political establishment refuse to pose these questions publicly, but there is little doubt that in specialized think tanks where the ruling elite and its military-intelligence apparatus work out their strategy, these questions are under intense discussion. The American people are in danger of being dragged into a mounting confrontation that leads step-by-step to war with a nuclear-armed Russia.