China Rising or Leveling Off?

Tom Clifford

Beijing.

High-ranking personnel ousted, doubting allies, indications of global withdrawal, rising nationalism and populism. Then, there’s the chaos in the White House but China, ahead of a crucial party meeting, has problems not entirely removed from the Trump administration.

The party leader in Chongqing, Sun Zhengcai, a man tipped for the presidency and responsible for one of the world’s biggest cities, was axed from his position in July for disciplinary reasons, a catch-all phrase that basically indicates falling foul of the party hierarchy.  It seems to come with the territory. Literally. The investigation into Sun, a former sitting Politburo member, a key leadership body in the Communist Party, is reminiscent of the downfall in 2012 of another Chongqing chief, Bo Xilai, later sentenced to life in prison for corruption and abuse of power.

The party congress, at a date to be announced but probably in late October, will see many of the 25 members of the Politburo replaced as Xi heads into the second half of his term in power. Most of the seven members of the supreme Politburo Standing Committee – not Xi and Premier Li Keqiang – are also scheduled to retire. There had been murmurings among the Beijing chatterati that Li’s position was less than ironclad but he seems to be back in favor.

Xi and Li have different priorities. Xi places the party above economics. When he came to power five years ago he demanded that the party elite read the Old Regime and the French Revolution written in 1856 by Alexis de Toucqueville. Li believes a buoyant economy is the best guarantor of the party’s hold on power.

Xi is ruthless.  In January 2016 he stood with Sun in Chongqing and praised port and railway projects in the city that formed part of the infrastructure for Xi’s initiative for a new Silk Road trading route to Europe. “This place is very promising,” he said. In Xi’s China, no one knows how safe or insecure their position is.

In foreign policy, all is not going to plan. Indian troops have occupied a rocky scrubland of Chinese territory and remain despite dire warnings from Beijing and accusing the troops of occupying Chinese territory. The standoff began on 16 June when Indian soldiers crossed into Bhutanese territory to block Chinese soldiers from upgrading a road that Beijing says is within its borders, but which Bhutanese leaders claim belongs to them.

Bhutan sought assistance from Delhi. This was a natural thing to do for the small Himalayan kingdom with close military and economic ties to India. The standoff will probably be resolved before Indian prime minister Narendra Modi arrives in China for a BRICS summit in September. Still, questions are being asked, not least in Pakistan which is looking on nervously and wandering why China, its key ally, is not acting more assertively. North Korea, a country so close to China that its relationship has been likened to teeth and gums, has been told by Beijing that if it initiates hostilities with the US it is on its own. This is a huge foreign policy reset for China as it reduces its commitment to a country once considered its brother in arms.

The Great Wall car company taking over Fiat Chrysler’s Jeep brand? It may happen or it could be an exercise in testing the waters. It comes against a backdrop where major Chinese companies have been told to cut back on global mergers and acquisitions after originally been given the green light to carry out such deals. Communism has always been tinged with nationalism but never more so than under  Xi who realizes that the appeal of the party will be diluted by a slowing economy and outflows of capital through mergers and acquisitions ultimately come at a cost for the domestic economy. China rising? Maybe China leveling off as the party decides on its leadership for the next five years at the congress that will assemble some 2,300 delegates from China’s ruling elite. All of the major decisions will have been worked out months in advance.

This year’s event will be the 19th Party Congress and marks the halfway point of Xi’s expected tenure. Or maybe not.

The week-long event begins with a speech by Xi laying out the party’s vision. On the very last day, the new politburo standing committee line-up will be revealed when the seven men, they will be men, walk on stage to applause.

In the wake of the financial crisis, Chinese authorities unleashed a lending spree that more than quadrupled total debt to $28tn at the end of 2016 . The IMF issued a  warning that China’s “credit efficiency” had deteriorated sharply over the past decade, with ever larger amounts of money needed to generate the same amount of growth. “In 2008, new credit of about Rmb6.5tn (approx $1 trillion) was needed to raise nominal GDP by Rmb5tn,” the fund said. “In 2016 it took Rmb20tn in new credit.”

In the runup to the congress the rate of lending has slowed but is still growing. The issue will have to be tackled more effectively once the congress is over. However,  Xi, primarily, wants to cement his leadership by placing allies in key positions at the congress.  This will also provide a buffer when he steps down in five years from the volatility of Chinese politics. It could also ease his way to serving a third term, unprecedented but not illegal or being the power behind the throne, making politics in this fascinating country even more opaque.

Sex Robots: The Sad Future of Sexual Fantasy

David Rosen

Yes, sex robots are emerging as the new, next-gen high-tech form of erotic indulgence.  Put aside the traditional dildo or innovative vibrator, forget about online porn or even immersive 3D VR porn — they’re so yesterday.  And good-bye to the living, sexual human other.  Who needs all that erotic stuff if you can play with a full-size (female) sex robot who fulfills all one’s (a guy’s) commands?

In July, the Netherland’s-based Foundation for Responsible Robotics (FRR) released a revealing study, Our Sexual Future With Robots, that explores what the authors identify as the “significant issues that we may have to deal with in the foreseeable future over the next 5 to 10 years.”

The study warns, “Now companies are developing robots for sexual gratification. But a robot designed for sex may have different impacts when compared with other sex aids. Those currently being developed are essentially pornographic representations of the human body – mostly female.”  It argues, “Such representations combined with human anthropomorphism may lead many to perceive robots as a new ontological category that exists in a fantasy between the living and the inanimate.”

The current generation of actual or proposed sex robots promote the exaggerated representation of female types and the endless fulfillment of conventional male sexual fantasy.  One should expect no less in our patriarchal, hetero-sexist culture. Sex robots are being featured in innumerable website graphics, whether involving a news story, corporate branding or a product promotional-advertising campaign.  These sex robots appear to be overwhelming female, white, young and adhere to conventional hyper-sexed body-image stereotypes. (One manufacturer offers male dolls.)

Over the years, artificial female sex characters have been cast as cyborgs in movies and TV shows.  Over the last four decades, these works have included the following — Stepford Wives (1975), Battlestar Gallactica (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Austin Powers (1997), Ex Machina (2015) and Humans (2015; based on Swedish sci-fi series, Äkta Människor [Real Humans], 2012).  They provide the creative pallet for today’s high-tech sex-preneurs.

Sex robots are replacing yesterday’s old-fashion blow-up sex dolls.  Robots are distinguished by silicon skin that is warm to the touch as well customized eye color, personalized nipple shape, the ability to speak and AI responses like shyness.  More compelling, they offer a variety of quasi-human forms of sex!

A host of tech companies are jumping onto the sex-robot bandwagon. True Companion, of Wayne, NJ, promotes Roxxxy Gold robots that allow the (male) user to pre-program its personalities, including “Frigid Farrah” (i.e., resistant) and “Wild Wendy” (i.e., adventurous).

Silicon Samantha was developed by Sergi Santos, a Barcelona, Spain, engineer.  He says his doll is covered in sensors that respond to human touch and can switch between “family” and “sexy” mode.  It is reported to have a functional vagina and mouth.

Abyss Creations, of San Marcos, CA, offers Realdoll represented by “Harmony.”  This female-characterized thing sits attentively, dressed in a suggestive white leotard, her chest thrust forward and her slim thighs expectant.  The company offers 18 different female body types and two male figures.  Each can be customized with different genitalia and variety of faces. Standard dolls start at $6,500 and, with more specific attributes, can run to $12,000.

Abyss’s CEO, Matt McMullen, noted, “We are developing the Harmony AI system to add a new layer to the relationships people can have with a Realdoll.”  He admitted, “Many of our clients rely on their imaginations to a great degree to impose imagined personalities on their dolls. With the Harmony AI, they will be able to actually create these personalities instead of having to imagine them. They will be able to talk to their dolls, and the AI will learn about them over time through these interactions, thus creating an alternative form of relationship.” He added, “The scope of conversations possible with the AI is quite diverse, and not limited to sexual subject matter.”

Earlier this year, a sex-robot bordello opened in an apartment in downtown Barcelona.  For $127/US per hour, one (male) could have a romantic rendezvous with one of four big-breasted Lumi Dolls – European Kati, blond with big lips and piercing green eyes, Asian Lili, African Leiza and blue-haired Aki, modeled after Japanese anime who wears her blue hair in ponytails. The robots can be dressed to the customer’s request and wait in the position the customer desires.  According to bordello’s management, the robots were “properly disinfected with special antibacterial soaps before and after use.”  The futuristic whore house lasted one month.

The introduction of sex robots has begun to spark critical reaction. Journalists and opinion writers in the U.S., U.K. and Australia have begun to raise alarms.  Like warnings raised earlier about online porn and VR sex, much of the criticism focuses on the sexism in both the promotion of female robots and the presentation of the female types as stereotypically passive, accommodating to the most conventional male fantasy.

Last September, two European academics — Kathleen Richardson, a “robot ethicist” at England’s Montfort University, and Erik Billing of Sweden’s University of Skövde — launched the Campaign Against Sex Robots.  They warn that the introduction of “machines in the form of women or children for use as sex objects, substitutes for human partners or prostituted persons.”  Going further, they argue “these kinds of robots are potentially harmful and will contribute to inequalities in society.”

Sex robots are emerging as a new product line of the sexual marketplace, the latest expression of future-sex.   A half-century ago, Herbert Marcuse identified future-sex as a form of “repressive de-sublimation.”  The more sex is integrated into the market economy, the less it functions as a revolutionary force of personal and social change.

In his 1964 reflection, One-Dimensional Man, Marcuse worried, “In this society, the productive apparatus tends to become totalitarian to the extent to which it determines not only the socially needed occupations, skills, and attitudes, but also individual needs and aspirations.” He goes on to identify an as-yet unacknowledged tendency of capitalism, “It thus obliterates the opposition between the private and public existence, between individual and social needs.  Technology serves to institute new, more effective, and more pleasant forms of social control and social cohesion.”

Under the conditions of repressive de-sublimation, the full scope of libidinous, erotic experience is systematically focused, disciplined.  As this happens, the power of immediate experience overwhelms that of a more traditional, mediated existence. As Marcuse warned, “The environment from which the individual could obtain pleasure – which he could cathect as gratifying almost as an extended zone of the body – has been rigidly reduced.  Consequently, the ‘universe’ of libidinous cathexis is likewise reduced.  The effect is a localization and contraction of libido, the reduction of erotic to sexual experience and satisfaction.”

Cyborg sex may be the 21^st century’s contribution to what Susan Sontag once identified as “the pornographic imagination.”  Sadly, it more than likely foretells the sad future of erotic phantasy and the further disciplining of sexual pleasure.

The Rise of the Robots and the End of Capitalism?

DAN CORJESCU

Recently, there has been much speculation concerning automation and its anticipated effects on human life. This philosophical essay seeks to broaden, as much as possible, the ongoing surge of supposition. It will seek to contextualize the impending “rise of the robots” within a broader framework that includes potential future advances in genetics, industry, space, and science in general. Furthermore, it will seek to understand these trends with reference to some philosophical ideas that have been provided to us by Marx and, to a lesser extent, Hegel.

To begin with: let us ask two rhetorical questions. Did the car, airplane, nuclear power, the internet, and the computer end work as such or did it transform it? Secondly, can we consider these technological breakthroughs to have been in the profoundest sense of the word “revolutionary”? I think, without much undo reflection, that the answer to both these questions should be in the affirmative. Yes, in the Twentieth century, the nature of work was qualitatively transformed.

It is without question that these machines/processes dramatically increased the productive powers of the human race. They helped to significantly contribute to a dramatic rise in the standard of living of millions of people throughout the world, although certainly not all of them. And they did this within the social, political, economic system known as liberal-world capitalism.

Ever since Marx we have known that this global social system of production is crucially sustained by the nexus of science and industry. Marx also taught us that the increase of productive powers and the technical advances that they would necessitate would inevitably lead to a qualitative change in the social relations of production. Indeed, he famously prophesied a world revolution that would effectively accomplish this task of leading mankind from the historically less developed stage of capitalism to its more fully formed next stage: socialism with the final stage, communism, to occur much later.

Marx wrote very little about communism and about the paths that mankind would take to reach it since true to his Hegelian heritage there was no hint of the material bases necessary for such speculation. In contrast to the Nineteenth century however, I will argue that we are approaching a world which material basis is fast coalescing into a possible suggestion, if not of world socialism per se, then of a next highly significant stage of capitalism.

At this point we should remind ourselves that the moral end point of Marxism was the liberation of man from drudgery, from work which did not enhance his own self, but not a total liberation from work itself. Marx would certainly take a dim view, if he were alive today, of those who interpret the coming of socialism as a liberation from work. In fact, what Marx envisioned was not a world where work was abolished but where meaningful activity flourished. Man, at least according to Marx, was not meant to sit idly at home receiving a dole from an administrative state as some today would seem to interpret him.

It has been more than a century and a half since Marx wrote his famous manifesto. Since that time, capitalism has suffered major crises and undergone significant transformations but has not, in no sense, waned in overall importance. In fact, it has increased its sway and effect over the whole world in ways far more entrenched than was evident even in the classical free market era of the Nineteenth century. This, too, Marx anticipated. According to Marx, capitalism was not to begin its final transformation into socialism until it had spread to every part of the globe, until it had transformed literally every traditional society and commodified it.

It would not be too incendiary I think to say that perhaps we have reached the point of capitalism’s supreme earthly reach. The world has been subsumed under its systemic organization and concomitant totalizing ideology. As Francis Fukuyama famously put it, echoing as he was the thought of Kojeve, liberal-capitalism strode the world as a colossus and still does. Again, this would not have come as a surprise to Marx.

Some of the interesting questions now facing us, I think, from a neo-Marxist perspective is: will capitalism transform itself into socialism spontaneously without revolution? Without a period of the dictatorship of the proletariat? Will this transformation be, as Marx expected it would be, a hybrid of the old and new system?

To attempt to answer these questions, we should first make it clear that the forces of production and the scientific manipulation of life continues apace. For example, in genetics, it would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that we stand at the threshold of the transformation of the human genome itself. Man not only making his own social and political destiny. But man making his very own self. This, too, I think would not have surprised Marx in that he saw the inner logic of man taking control over his own life; so taking control in a fundamental, rational way of his own body would be a natural next step; however fraught with potential danger. The impending genetic revolution will, as no political/social revolution before it, possibly change the very nature of what it means to be human.

Secondly, although much derided as the perennial “future source” of unlimited energy that never comes, fusion, is now closer than ever. It’s eventual realization, a hope which governments have invested billions in, will bring the costs of energy down to radically low levels. This inevitably will have vast freeing cost effects on the productivity and possibilities available to human life in general.

Thirdly, some of the richest men in the world are competing to provide for the next step in space travel: asteroid mining and space tourism. They are rapidly approaching the necessary technological innovations, such as cheap reusable rockets, to make their seemingly science fiction like dreams become the stuff of reality. With the eventual creation of cheaper rockets and the requisite space infrastructure, capitalism will have reached an eventful phase in its development: it’s expansion, manipulation, and creation of multiple new markets beyond this planet. Yet, again, science and the capitalist system that uses it would have expanded into a new phase the end of which would be, perhaps, far into the future.

What I am arguing here is that the imminent triple “revolutions” in genetics, energy, and space travel will usher in a new stage in the development of capitalism. It will, in all probability not usher in a new age of social relations relative to production; since after all; capitalism through such innovations would drastically enhance its material basis and thus scope for action.

Thus, the “rise of the robots” is a false specter haunting the contemporary imagination. Robotization, not any more than genetic engineering, or fusion energy, or asteroid mining or even quantum computers will not do away with work per se; quite the contrary it will, as it has always done, radically revolutionize its nature. New types of work will be created to meet new material conditions. To be sure, the new work will require more education and more skills but that is a good thing. Dull work, “meaningless” work, dehumanizing work will more rapidly than gradually become a thing of the past. In fact, we can view this transformation as revealing a fundamental trend inherent in capitalism and the general scientific organization and basis of society. An ever more complex society requiring ever more skilled and informed workers. A world where instead of working as it were on the outside of things we are working more from within their centers.

What do I mean exactly by this last sentence? I want to say that as society, through capitalistic structure and endeavor, becomes ever more complicated it will require not only a more highly skilled work force but a more self-satisfied one. This is already happening in many Western countries were satisfaction garnered from ones labor stands high on the list for reasons to work at all. People increasingly demand to be challenged and satisfied by their work. This is a demand which springs from the ever growing complexity of capitalism itself.

Thus I think that those leftists, and some even on the right, who believe that man and his work will soon become redundant are wrong. Those who call for a guaranteed living wage I think are fundamentally misguided about Marx’s ideas about work. Work, as Aristotle, Hegel, and of course Marx rightly believed was crucial to the development of the human personality. The goal was not to be free from it entirely; but “only” not alienated by it. To work hard and gain personal satisfaction therefrom would have been thoroughly encouraged by Marx and Engels. Those on the left who offer a vision of state subsidized indolence would actually be the purveyors of a dim world of desperation, alienation, and asociality.. Indeed, everything must be done to enhance the skills and perspectives of future workers to meet the challenges of an advanced capitalist society where the chance for new avenues of production and thus new and more creatively satisfying work will be possible.

Here we are also offered a chance to reinterpret the Marxist vision of a world moving away from capitalism through the total realization of its inner possibilities to a world moving ever closer to a “socialism of self-satisfaction” where increasingly people would move into more complex, creative occupations that would require the use of the total human being rather than just the dullest part of her.  Thus, I have argued that technological progress is not the enemy. Premature intellectual defeatism and with it the discounting of the possibility of human beings being able to rise to the challenges of the new is the real threat that we now face.

The Predictable Casualities of Counterterrorism

Ben Debney

Julian Cadman, the 7-year old Australian killed in last weeks’ terror attack in Barcelona, was a predictable casuality. Western political leaders can rise above the cycles of violence that produce such attacks anytime they like, but choose not to, essentially guaranteeing an endless stream of victims.

Such victims are then used to justify further military and counterterrorist responses of the kind that produce more terrorists and more terror attacks. The regret expressed by policymakers in the west who bemoan each wave of victims while doing nothing to address the causes is profoundly dishonest.

The fundamental purpose of terrorism is to spread fear, to paralyse the regular functioning of society and to divide it amongst itself by breeding paranoia. If political leaders do not prevent this paralysis and paranoia from overtaking dispassionate judgement, terrorism achieves its goal.

In the sixteen or so years since the 9/11 attacks, western political leaders have done nothing but tell the world to be afraid of terrorists. The mainstream western media has done nothing but carry on about the dire perils of terrorism, like the world’s largest PR service for terrorists everywhere.

Not only does the amount of scare mongering that surrounds terrorism allow it to achieve its goals, it acts as one big advertisement to potential recruits everywhere that terrorism works. Look at how effective terrorism is, says this media hype, the west is beside itself with fear and loathing.

In the west, counterterrorism narratives tend heavily to assume that terrorists are fundamentally evil, and that as such cannot be understood as actors following a rationale that can be studied, analysed and altered. This prevents us from being proactive in understanding what motivates terrorists.

We do not need to agree with terrorism to try to understand what drives them. The willingness to try to understand another other point of view, regardless of the savagery or brutality of the person holding it, is a strength. It allows us to understand who we are dealing with.

In the case of Nazi ideology, we don’t need to subscribe to white supremacism to know that Hitler developed his racial theories as a way of taking his problems out on other people. Rather than accept responsibility for himself as an adult and as a social actor, Hitler blamed his own personal, economic and social misery on people who had control over neither his emotions or over government policy.

So too in the case of other kinds of extremists. We don’t need to subscribe to extremism to try to understand what drives people to it. Oftentimes it is mentioned that Islamic extremists are upset about the treatment of Muslims and Arabic peoples. Is this an unfair or irrational concern?

Hardly. It may not be unfair or irrational, but such concerns are problematic for the west because they oblige us to consider our own role in the situation. There are no prizes for guessing why western political leaders might not be in a hurry to look themselves in the mirror. We who live with the wisdom of neoliberal policy on the domestic front can certainly attest to this fact.

Muslims and Arabic peoples do often find themselves under far less than ideal living conditions thanks directly or indirectly to the policies of Western political elites. The Israel-Palestine conflict especially is the elephant in the room whenever someone pontificates about superior western values. Abu Ghraib. The destruction of Iraq. We do well to remember there was no ISIS previous to 2003.

The fact of the matter is that the conflict over terrorism is not much different to the conflict over the single plastic spade in the kindergarten sandpit between two children who can’t share. The child who wants the spade hits the one who has it, and takes it, and makes up a sob story for the adult who rushes to the wails of the aggrieved party about how the other stole it and forced him to violence.

The difference in principle between that situation and mainstream counterterrorism narratives is negligible. Someone stole our spade and now we must extract righteous vengeance. Besides enabling more of this same, a war between Islam and the west was exactly what Bin Laden wanted.

For their part, political leaders in the west still want to give it to him even in death, because oil, and a because a continuing source of stupendous profits for the armament industry, and because the petrodollar regime upon which the artificial value of the US dollar now depends.

That these mean suffering for many in the Arab and Muslim worlds, especially as the petrodollar system depends on the continued cooperation of terrorist states of Israel and Saudi Arabia, with their extremist ideologies of Zionism and Wahabiism underwriting settler colonialism, aggressive militarism and habitual disregard for human rights, is a most regrettable given.

It is therefore the reckless commitment of Western elites to oil, and the armaments industry, and the petrodollar that is now the major cause of terrorist attacks in the west. It is the patent disingenuousness of Western elites in the face of these known facts that guarantees the continuance of bloody atrocities such as those visited lately on Barcelona, the latest in a long list.

If terrorism persists, the war on terrorism was lost. If society has closed ranks and is terrified of outsiders, then the terrorists have won. In the face of these facts, tough talk rings hollow, as does the scare mongering about predictable consequences when Western elites persistently prove themselves incapable of rising above the logic of their purported adversaries. From the margins they all look alike.

If we can see something terrible coming, we can at least try to stop it from happening. If we can at least try to stop something terrible from happening and don’t, we’re complicit. We can see future atrocities coming, because we can see the vicious cycles of blame and retribution that give rise to them. As long as we fail to rise above those vicious cycles, and in fact feed them in the name of short term political expediency, death at the hands of forseeable violence will remain our legacy for many more Julian Cadmans to come.

Sri Lankan president sacks justice minister

K.Ratnayake 

President Maithripala Sirisena on Wednesday sacked Wijedasa Rajapakse as justice and Buddhist affairs minister, following demands from the United National Party (UNP), the main partner in the “unity government.” Wijedasa, a leading UNP member, was originally selected for the ministerial position by his party.

Last week, a UNP working committee headed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe passed a resolution calling for Wijedasa’s removal. He was accused of failing to introduce new anti-bribery and corruption laws and delaying action and criminal cases against people engaged in such activity.

Although not mentioned in the resolution, Wijedasa had been denounced publicly by leading government members for delaying action against the former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse and key members of his regime.

Wijedasa Rajapakse’s dismissal is a calculated move by the Sirisensa-Wickremisinghe government to posture as opponents of corruption and undermine supporters of Mahinda Rajapakse and other opponents. Under the bogus banner of “fighting corruption,” the government is attempting to strengthen its hand, while imposing harsher social austerity measures against workers and the poor.

Wijedasa Rajapakse was previously a Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) MP but joined the UNP and backed Sirisena’s presidential election campaign in January 2015, which formed part of a US-led regime-change operation. He was appointed minister of justice and Buddhist affairs after parliamentary elections later that year. Wijedasa has close connections with the reactionary Buddhist hierarchy and sympathises with fascistic groups, such as Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Brigade) and Ravana Balakaya (King Ravana’s Brigade).

The UNP’s political hierarchy was also angry over Wijedasa’s public criticism of the government’s decision to lease the Hambantota Harbour project to a Chinese company. After originally supporting the deal, Wijedasa changed his mind, declaring that the government was selling public assets to foreign countries and that he would campaign for the abrogation of the agreement.

The recent forced resignation of Foreign Minister Karunanayake, over financial dealings with a man accused of a massive bond scam, has deepened the crisis of the politically-discredited government. Leading UNP members, including Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne, claim that the attorney-general’s department, with Wijedasa’s help, is delaying corruption cases against Mahinda Rajapakse and his associates. Wijedasa was also accused of having dealings with the Rajapakse-led opposition group.

Amid this deepening crisis, an August 15 cabinet meeting presided over by Sirisena discussed how it could “speed up” corruption cases against former government officials. The cabinet meeting discussed the possibility of establishing “High Courts” expressly devoted to corruption and criminal cases.

Law and Order Minister Sagala Ratnayake said there had been 87 corruption investigations, but only 12 resulted in legal action. He also claimed it was not necessary to amend the constitution to increase the number of High Courts. “If the attorney-general and the chief justice can agree to this, it can be done,” he declared. “This will clear up the doubts people have as to when the thieves will be caught.”

Senaratne’s claims on the constitutionality of these actions are false—the judiciary and the attorney-general have never had this power. The cabinet’s anti-democratic moves are seeking to take closer control of the judiciary, for the government’s political needs.

The government, which is attempting to mount an anti-corruption propaganda campaign, appears to be moving toward legal action against former President Rajapakse and his cabal, including former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse and other family members.

Rajapakse is directly challenging the government and has threatened to topple the regime. Seeking to cash in on the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration’s anti-democratic actions, Rajapakse and a group of SLFP parliamentarians are posing as defenders of democratic and social rights. The former president has called on SLFP parliamentarians backing Sirisena to withdraw their support from the UNP-SLFP “unity government.”

Sirisena came to power in 2015 with the assistance of various pseudo-left groups, NGOs, academics and intellectuals. Exploiting the mass opposition against the Rajapakse government’s anti-Tamil war and attacks on living conditions and democratic rights, this layer claimed Sirisena would establish “good-governance” and improve living conditions.

Nearly three years on, the government is ruthlessly implementing International Monetary Fund (IMF) austerity measures and unleashing the police and military on protesting workers and the rural poor. Moreover, it has decisively shifted foreign policy to favour US imperialism. The Washington-orchestrated regime change that brought Sirisena to office sought to end Colombo’s close relations with Beijing and bring Sri Lanka fully into line with Washington’s political and military operations against China.

The media is highlighting the government’s “anti-corruption drive.” Last weekend’s Sunday Times ran a lengthy piece entitled, “Major corruption cases: Wheels of justice begin to grind following President’s outburst.” The article was a reference to Sirisena’s earlier remarks about corruption case delays. Other sections of the press are sensationalising Wijedasa’s removal, while covering up the repressive measures being prepared by the government.

The main target of the government’s measures is the working class and the poor, who are increasingly coming into struggles. Last week, thousands of rural poor protested at an area administrative office against reductions in the Samurdhi program. Cuts in this limited welfare allowance were demanded by the IMF. Facing this mass opposition, Social Empowerment Minister S.B. Dissanayake was forced to announce that the welfare cuts would be withdrawn.

Today the government will table a new Inland Revenue Bill, imposing taxes on broad sections of the population, including workers, pensioners, professionals and small entrepreneurs, while reducing taxes for big business. There is growing opposition to this bill among workers.

In implementing these attacks the government is being supported by the pseudo-left Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP) and other groups, including the National Movement for Social Justice and Purawesi Balaya (Citizen’s Power), and the trade unions. Before the recent cabinet meeting, these formations held a recent public meeting in Colombo calling for the establishment of special anti-corruption courts.

Addressing the meeting, Dambara Amila, a Buddhist monk who supports the government, declared: “Set up special courts, hear cases against Rajapakse’s day and night and put them in the jail.” NSSP leader Wickremabahu Karunaratne boasted to the media later that five government minsters attended the meeting to voice their enthusiasm about the campaign.

Last month, the same groups backed the government’s attacks on students who protested against the privatisation of education and the deployment of military troops to suppress an oil workers’ strike.

Confronted with a deepening financial crisis, the government is using the fake left, the trade unions and the NGOs to help impose social austerity and prepare the political and legal framework for dictatorial forms of rule. This is the content of the government’s so-called anti-corruption campaign.

Working class youth priced out of higher education in UK

Alice Summers

Young people from the wealthiest areas in the UK are far more likely to go to university than their disadvantaged peers from the poorest parts of the country.

On average, in the most disadvantaged 10 percent of postcodes, barely one in five young people go to university. This compares to half of sixth-form students in the wealthiest 10 percent.

In the worst cases, in some areas of the UK, such as in poorer parts of Derbyshire, the figure drops to only 1 in 20. In the richest areas of Buckinghamshire, more than 80 percent of young people progress to higher education, 18 times as many as in the most deprived area.

The figures come from a study, “Beyond Access: Getting to University and Succeeding There,” by educational charity Teach First . Global financial services company Credit Suisse partnered the charity in preparing the report. It provides further confirmation of the fact that social and economic background continue to be the overriding determinants in a child’s educational and career opportunities.

Noting the vast inequalities in the educational system, the Teach First report stated that “[no] route should be easier to achieve simply because of your background or how much money your parents earn. …

“Yet today, young people from low income families repeatedly find doors closed and paths blocked to them at every stage of their lives. They are less likely to go to schools rated outstanding, less likely to get five good GCSEs and less likely to progress to higher education, employment or training.”

In fact, as a previous Teach First report revealed, poor pupils are less than half as likely to go to an outstanding school as their richer peers. Only 18 percent of children from the most deprived 20 percent of families attend these institutions. By way of comparison, fully 43 percent of pupils at schools rated as “outstanding” by Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills), the regulatory government body, come from the wealthiest 20 percent of families.

In addition, only one in three disadvantaged pupils achieves five GCSEs at grades A*-C, roughly half the rate of their richer peers. As the Teach First report noted, for many working class children from poorer areas, “the path to university is closed before they have even had the chance to consider it.”

In a poll conducted by the social mobility charity, the Sutton Trust , 44 percent of children who did not plan to go to university said that their main reason for this was that they did not think they would be able to get good enough grades.

The Sutton Trust quizzed children between 11 and 16 years old, finding that the number of secondary school pupils in England and Wales who are expecting to go to university has been declining since 2009. While a high of 81 percent of secondary school children hoped to progress to higher education in 2013, this fell to 79 percent in 2015, 77 percent last year and to an eight-year low of 74 percent this year.

While worries about grades were an important factor for many children, by far the most important reasons for not planning on going to university were fears about finances. Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of the 11-to-16-year-olds polled, who did not expect to progress to higher education, cited reasons such as wanting to start earning money as soon as possible or concerns over debt.

With tuition fees of £9,250 a year at most universities and the scrapping of maintenance grants for many students, young people from the poorest families can expect to incur debts of as much as £57,000 by the time they graduate.

Even among those young people who do plan to attend higher education institutions, more than half (51 percent) said that they were worried about the financial burden this will impose, compared to 47 percent last year.

A survey of 18-to-25-year-olds conducted by pollster ComRes for Teach First found that almost half (47 percent) of the most disadvantaged young people who did not progress to higher education said they felt like they had missed out. Thirty-seven percent felt their career opportunities would be limited by their lack of a degree, while 27 percent of disadvantaged young people felt they had missed out on social opportunities and 17 percent on both.

Teach First explained that in addition to prohibitive factors such as grades and finances, young people from poorer backgrounds are less likely to go on to university as they often do not receive the support and advice on higher education that their wealthier peers—with greater access to school careers and employability services—take for granted.

The research showed that even when disadvantaged students are able to defeat the odds and manage to get a high-quality education, obtain the necessary grades and get the support required to make informed decisions, barriers to completing their university degree are still placed before them. Poorer students are significantly more likely to drop out of university in their first year than their wealthier peers.

According to the Office of Fair Access, in the 2014-2015 academic year, 8.8 percent of full-time undergraduates below the age of 21 coming from disadvantaged backgrounds did not continue with their studies beyond their first year. By contrast, in the same period, fewer than 5 percent of wealthy students dropped out of university.

Polls conducted by Teach First showed that two-fifths (40 percent) of disadvantaged students currently studying at university have considered dropping out. Poorer students are more likely to feel isolated and nervous in an unfamiliar setting, the report stated, with dropout rates for disadvantaged students at their highest levels in five years.

Worries about not having enough money are one of the factors causing students the most stress. The survey found that 44 percent of all students said this caused them stress in their first year. Among disadvantaged students, nearly a third (31 percent) found it difficult to keep up with their academic studies alongside paid work, compared to 20 percent of the wealthiest students.

Nearly half (47 percent) of poorer students said that keeping up with academic work caused them stress.

Figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency published in May of this year revealed that a record 1,180 students dropped out of university in 2014-2015, due to mental health problems such as anxiety. This has more than trebled since 2009-2010—in the aftermath of the global financial crash—when 380 students were forced to leave university for this reason.

While documenting the enormous obstacles placed before working class youth, the survey offers no remedy.

Various proposals offered up by Teach First/Credit Suisse in no way deal with the fundamental issues underlying the university “wealth gap”—the stranglehold of the profit system over all aspects of economic life and the drive by the ruling elite to do away with social rights won by the working class in decades of struggle—including the right to higher education.

Teach First/Credit Suisse fully accept that the poorest sections of society are disadvantaged and offer a few mild palliatives, such as the need to attract the country’s best graduates to become teachers—especially to work in the disadvantaged communities that currently struggle to recruit. It states, “The UK government should forgive a proportion [not all] of students’ loans for those who commit to teaching in areas of greatest educational need. …”

In the foreword, report author Alex Burr states that “2017 is Teach First’s 15th anniversary and we are doing everything we can to focus our efforts on addressing these issues through a year of action, campaigning and mobilisation to help every young person achieve their seemingly impossible dreams.”

The fact that access to higher education is now described in terms of an “impossible dream” for those from poor backgrounds is an indictment of the ruling capitalist elite and its political representatives.

Berlin intensifies agitation against Turkey

Johannes Stern

Foreign policy relations between Berlin and Ankara have reached a new low amid hysterical denunciations of the Turkish government by German politicians.

On Tuesday, Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Foreign Minister Roderich Kiesewetter questioned Turkey’s NATO membership, and called for sanctions against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family. “For example, I see the lever that we can freeze the foreign assets of the Erdogan clan,” Kiesewetter told broadcaster Berlin-Brandenburg. “On the other hand, we are freezing the foreign assets of Russian oligarchs, but are not doing anything regarding Turkey.”

Social Democratic Party (SPD) parliamentary party chief Thomas Oppermann went even further in the Passauer Neuen Presse on Monday. He accused Erdogan of the destruction of democracy and the rule of law in Turkey, and threatened: “If one employed his political methods in Germany, he would not be at the head of the government but in prison.”

Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and Justice Minister Heiko Maas (both SPD) published a joint guest contribution in Spiegel Online on Tuesday under the headline: “There is no place for Erdogan’s cultural battle in Germany.” In it, they speak of “a massive threat to our free democratic state” by Erdogan, and plead for stronger control of Turkish clubs and mosques in Germany.

Earlier, Gabriel had called the Turkish President’s call to Turkish voters in Germany not to vote for the SPD, the CDU or the Greens, an “intervention in the sovereignty” of Germany and personally blamed Erdogan for an alleged assault on his wife. “Some obviously feel motivated about the way Erdogan does this and try to pester and harass my wife.”

The Left Party is even more aggressive. Its spokeswoman for international relations, Sevim Dagdelen, said: “The federal government must take the initiative to exclude Turkey from the Interpol Convention. Erdogan is consciously violating the Interpol Convention and is abusing Interpol to be able to prosecute [his] political critics abroad.” In general, “the government should adopt clear lines towards Erdogan. Any further appeasement and restraint only endangers the security of German citizens.”

Who does Gabriel, Dagdelen and Co. want to impress with their hysterical agitation against Turkey? Clearly, the conservative Erdogan government is acting arbitrarily against oppositionists and journalists, and is setting up an authoritarian regime in Turkey. But in Germany, it is not the Turkish president who is attacking the “free democratic” state, but the German government itself. The German government also has no scruples when it comes to censoring the Internet, abrogating fundamental rights, and using brutal violence against journalists and demonstrators. This was recently shown by the G20 summit in Hamburg.

The German government’s criticism of the arrest of the writer Dogan Akhanli by Interpol in Spain as a result of a Turkish arrest warrant is also particularly hypocritical. The German government has gone much further in the past. In June 2015, it arrested the international journalist Ahmed Mansour at Berlin-Tegel Airport. Mansour had not violated German, European or international law, yet he was sought by Interpol. The only thing against him was an arrest warrant from the bloodthirsty military dictatorship in Egypt, with which Berlin works very closely.

The aggressive campaign against Turkey has nothing to do with the defence of human rights in Turkey or Germany, but is aimed at securing the foreign policy goals of the German ruling elite. Even before the failed Turkish coup in mid-July 2016—which enjoyed the silent support of sections of ruling circles in the USA and Germany—Berlin had systematically undermined relations with Turkey. In June 2016, the Bundestag (federal parliament) adopted a resolution describing the mass murder of up to 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as a genocide. At the time, Erdogan warned of “damage to the diplomatic, economic, political, and military relations between the two countries.”

Since then, the German government has further heightened the conflict with Ankara. Before the Turkish constitutional referendum in April, the German authorities imposed a ban on Turkish government members travelling to speak at meetings in several German cities and openly supported the Turkish opposition. In June, the Bundestag decided by a large majority to transfer Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) units from the Incirlik air force base in Turkey to the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, after Ankara repeatedly banned members of the Bundestag from visiting German soldiers stationed in Incirlik.

About a month ago, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel announced that policy towards Turkey would take a new direction. “It cannot go on like this. We cannot continue as before,” declared the Social Democrat, questioning, among other things, the EU’s pre-accession aid to Turkey and negotiations on the extension of the customs union. “We will now have to look at how we are adapting our policy towards Turkey in relation to the aggravated situation,” he said.

Four weeks before the Bundestag election, all the establishment parties are agitating against the predominantly Muslim Turkey in order to split the working class and appeal to right-wing layers. Significantly, some of the foulest rabble-rousers come from the ranks of the SPD, the Left Party and the Greens. With their calls for a strong state, Gabriel, Dagdelen and Co. are reacting to the fundamental crisis of capitalism and the growing resistance to exploitation and war.

Moreover, behind the aggressive confrontation with Ankara lie military and geopolitical conflicts. As a component of German imperialism’s offensive in the Middle East, the Bundeswehr has armed and trained Peschmerga units—the armed forces of the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan (ARK)—in northern Iraq since the summer of 2014. The ARK announced an independence referendum for 25 September 2017, which was strongly criticized by the Turkish government. Ankara wants to prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdish state under all circumstances, criticizes Western support for the Kurds and threatens a new military operation in Syria and Iraq.

German imperialism fears not only a Turkish attack on its Kurdish allies, but also considers Ankara’s new orientation towards Russia and China a threat to its own economic and geo-strategic interests in the region.

According to a recent paper issued by the Federal Academy of Security Policy, entitled “Can Turkey play the Shanghai card?”, the “alarm bells should shrill in the face of the Turkish charm campaign offensive towards the SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organization]. Turkey still has a high strategic value for Europeans and Americans in dealing with a variety of regional security policy challenges.” Now, “Turkish aspirations towards a strategic reorientation could further reduce the need for positive relations with Brussels.”

Maternal mortality highest among industrialized nations

Trévon Austin 

An estimated 700 to 900 women die in the US every year from pregnancy- and childbirth-related causes, the highest rate among industrialized nations. Another 65,000 nearly die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

A study released last week published in MCN: The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing indicates that postpartum nurses are not being properly educated on the dangers mothers face after giving birth. Lacking sufficient education, the nurses are unable to play the critical role in identifying potential warning signs of postpartum complications and taking precautionary measures.

A recent CDC Foundation analysis of data from four states found that close to 60 percent of maternal deaths were preventable. By failing to properly alert mothers to postpartum risks, nurses may be missing an opportunity to reduce the abysmal maternal mortality rate.

MCN researchers surveyed 372 postpartum nurses around the United States. According to the study, only 15 percent of respondents were aware of the current maternal mortality rate and 12 percent accurately reported the correct percentage of deaths occurring during the postpartum period. Eighty-eight percent of nurses could not identify the three leading causes of maternal mortality: postpartum bleeding (15 percent), complications from unsafe abortion (15 percent), and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (10 percent).

On the day that mothers were discharged, 67 percent of respondents reported spending less than 10 minutes focusing on potential warning signs, such as painful swelling, headaches, heavy bleeding and breathing problems that could indicate potentially life-threatening complications. Furthermore, 19 percent of nurses believed maternal mortality was declining. “If [nurses] aren’t aware that there’s been a rise in maternal mortality, then it makes it less urgent to explain to women what the warning signs are,” says study co-author Debra Bingham, who heads the Institute for Perinatal Quality Improvement and teaches at the University of Maryland School of Nursing.

The importance of postpartum education is stressed by both experts and the nurses surveyed. The data reported that 95 percent of RNs reported a correlation between postpartum education and mortality. However, only 72 percent strongly agreed it was their responsibility to provide this education. Nurse respondents who were over the age of 40 were significantly more likely to report feeling very competent when providing education on all the postpartum complication variables measured, indicating a decline in the quality of education for nurses.

This post-delivery education is particularly important because a mother typically doesn’t see a doctor for four to six weeks after she leaves the hospital. A statement from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says that up to 40 percent of new mothers, overwhelmed with caring for an infant and often lacking in maternity leave, child care, transportation and other kinds of support, never go back for their follow-up appointments.

This revelation is obviously correlated with the decline in access to adequate health care for all Americans. Approximately 11.3 percent of adults in the US are without any form of health care. Throughout the United States, researchers have pointed to heart problems and other chronic medical conditions such as diabetes, to explain the rise in pregnancy-related deaths. The rise in these conditions coincides with a decline in the quality of health care and its accessibility, especially among low-income families.

This trend is reflected in Texas, the state with the highest maternal mortality rate and the highest uninsured rate in the United States. In the previous legislative session, Texas lawmakers rejected a federally-funded expansion of Medicaid that would have covered 1.1 million more Texans. More than half of all births in Texas are covered by Medicaid, indicating the irresponsible and disastrous nature of lawmakers’ decision to defund Medicaid, but increase funds for border patrol.

Actions of the Trump administration and Congress will only exacerbate this situation. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the president is preparing to roll back an Obamacare rule requiring all employers to provide insurance coverage of all contraceptive methods without co-pays.

German president in Estonia: Historical revisionism to justify militarism

Peter Schwarz 

In a speech in Estonia on the 78th anniversary of the Hitler-Stalin pact, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Social Democratic Party, SPD) sought to whip up nationalist resentments against Russia.

The German president is currently paying an official visit to the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. His first stop was the Estonian capital, Tallinn, where he gave a presentation on August 23 titled “Germany and Estonia—a changing history, a common future” at the Academy of Sciences. On that day in 1939, the German and Soviet foreign ministers, Ribbentrop and Molotov, signed the German-Soviet non-aggression pact. The pact gave Nazi Germany a green light for its invasion of Poland and led to the eventual incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union.

Steinmeier used the anniversary to threaten Russia and boost Estonian nationalism, which draws directly from the traditions of the Nazis.

Addressing Moscow, he warned that Berlin would never “recognise the illegal annexation of the Crimea” nor “accept covert interference through hybrid means or deliberate disinformation,” as has supposedly taken place in Estonia. Steinmeier accused the Russian leadership of “deliberately defining their country’s image as different from, or even in hostility to us in the West.”

He then falsely presented Estonia and the other Baltic states as havens of freedom and justice. “The very first message echoing here in Tallinn is the power of freedom—a force which no inhuman ideology or totalitarian rule can restrain in the long term,” he gushed.

Steinmeier knows very well this is not true. As is the case across Eastern Europe, where Stalinist regimes collapsed or were overthrown between 1989-91, there has been no flourishing of democracy and prosperity in the Baltic states. Instead, power was shared between competing capitalist cliques, whose interpretation of “freedom” is the unrestrained exploitation of the working class. They have maintained power primarily by fomenting nationalism and racism.

In Estonia, for example, the Russian minority, which accounts for more than one quarter of the country’s 1.3 million inhabitants, is subject to systematic discrimination. About half of the minority lack an Estonian passport and can only acquire one by completing a difficult Estonian language test, which is particularly hard for the elderly. Income and career prospects for the Russian minority are correspondingly lower.

Economic growth, based on low wages, meagre social benefits and limited workers’ rights, benefits only a small minority. The average income of a full-time employee is one-third of that in Germany, and unemployment is relatively high, officially 7 percent. Around 100,000 Estonians work abroad due to lack of work at home.

Nevertheless—or precisely for this reason—Steinmeier praised Estonia as a role model for the European Union. “Many people in Germany are grateful for the fresh European wind that blows over the Baltic Sea from the Baltic states at a time when some Europeans are turning away from unification and its values,” he said.

Steinmeier’s accusation directed at the Russian leadership of “defining their country’s image” in opposition to another is much more true of ruling circles in Estonia, which campaign in a hysterical manner against Russia. They go so far as to glorify the Nazis and their collaborators. In 2012 the Estonian parliament adopted a resolution honouring the voluntary Estonian members of Hitler’s Waffen-SS as “freedom fighters” and “fighters against the communist dictatorship.”

Some 80,000 Estonians had joined the Nazis in World War II in order to fight the Red Army. August 28, the day on which the Waffen-SS recruited members of the Estonian Defence League in 1942, is a national holiday, celebrated every year with marches. Neo-Nazis take part, including those travelling from abroad, while leading politicians send their greetings. There is no corresponding tribute for the 30,000 Estonians who fought in the Red Army against the Nazis.

The Hitler-Stalin Pact is used to argue that the Baltic states were more oppressed and persecuted by the Soviet regime than by the Nazis. “August 23 has long since been a day of anti-Russian emotions at this historical intersection between East and West,” the correspondent of the Süddeutsche Zeitung writes from Tallinn. “The memory of communism times is more alive than the German occupation.”

Steinmeier exploits this historical revisionism to justify the return of German militarism. The argument that the Soviet regime was worse than the Nazi regime and National Socialism, as a justified reaction to the crimes of “Bolshevism”, has long been a weapon in the hands of right-wing extremist historians, from Ernst Nolte to Jorg Baberowski.

Stalin’s pact with Hitler was undoubtedly criminal, delivering a severe blow to dedicated Communists and anti-fascists all over the world and undermining their fighting morale. But this does not mean that Hitler and Stalin pursued the same goals or, as Steinmeier in Tallinn put it, “made East Central Europe their prey.”

Hitler represented German imperialism, whose hunger for markets, raw materials and “living space” in the East could only be satisfied by violent expansion. For Hitler, the pact with Stalin was a tactical measure to gain time for his war plans against England and France, and then attack the Soviet Union.

For his part, Stalin represented the interests of a privileged bureaucracy which had usurped Soviet power from the working class. The bureaucracy feared, above all, uprisings by workers across the globe, which would inspire Soviet workers to take similar action, thereby threatening the rule of the clique in Moscow. It was incapable of defending the Soviet Union, as Lenin and Trotsky had done, by mobilising the international working class. Instead, it relied on alliances with various imperialist powers.

Two important events preceded the Hitler-Stalin pact: Stalin’s Terror of 1937-1938, which decapitated the leadership of the Red Army and the Communist Party and rendered the Soviet Union virtually defenceless; and the Munich Agreement of 1938, with which Great Britain and France delivered Czechoslovakia on a plate to Hitler. Stalin concluded he could no longer rely on London and Paris. Moscow had sought to strike an alliance with Great Britain and France to the end, but they were merely playing for time until Stalin finally struck his deal with Hitler. Despite the cynicism, brutality, and recklessness with which it was carried out, Moscow’s pact had essentially a defensive character.

Hitler was able to fulfil his historical mission by taking the path to war. In his article “The Twin Stars: Hitler-Stalin”, Leon Trotsky wrote in 1939: “A victorious offensive war would secure the economic future of German capitalism and, along with this, the National Socialist regime. It is different with Stalin. He cannot wage an offensive war with any hope of victory. … No one knows this better than Stalin. The fundamental thought of his foreign policy is to escape a major war.” ( Writings of Leon Trotsky 1939-40, Pathfinder Press, p. 115).

In a section of his speech in Tallinn, Steinmeier indicated the real reason for his visit. He expressed his pleasure with his Estonian hosts who “appreciate our cooperation and seek to collaborate with us on the existential questions of security and defence.”

Germany, the US and NATO use the right-wing, anti-Russian regimes in Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius and Warsaw to encircle Russia militarily. A large proportion of the 4,000 NATO soldiers permanently deployed on the Russian border as the vanguard of a 40,000-strong rapid deployment force, are stationed in the Baltic states, with their combined population of just 6 million. Steinmeier is due to visit NATO troops in Rukla, Lithuania, on Friday.

In September 2014 US President Obama gave an assurance that NATO would provide Estonia military assistance in any conflict with Russia. Steinmeier has now echoed that call. “I assure people in Estonia: their security is our security,” he said. This means that in the event of a provocation by the right-wing government of the tiny state, Germany will be plunged into a war capable of transforming Europe into a nuclear battlefield.

It is not the first time that Steinmeier has worked with Nazi apologists to advance German militarism. In 2014 he was intensively involved in the preparation of the coup in Ukraine, which toppled the president-elect Viktor Yanukovych and brought the pro-Western oligarch Poroshenko to power. Steinmeier’s Ukrainian allies at that time included the leader of the fascist Swoboda party, Oleh Tyahnybok. Yanukovych was forced to flee the country by armed fascist militias who drew on the tradition of Nazi collaborators in Ukraine during WWII.

Shortly before the putsch in Kiev Steinmeier had proclaimed the “end of military restraint” at the Munich Security Conference. Germany is “too big and too important” to stand on the world’s side lines, he said.

Steinmeier’s recent trip to Estonia confirms that the return of German militarism is inextricably linked to the revival of the vilest traditions of German history.