Our Unique Planet Earth

 Peter Van Els

We’ve all done it at one point: look up at the stars and wonder about the meaning of it all. Is the universe infinite? Is there life on other planets? Is someone looking back at us, right now, somewhere out there in the inconceivable vastness of space? How small, how fragile must the world seem to him -,- Little more than a tiny speck of light.

It makes you realize how precious our planet is, this dust ball, this oasis in -the- vast barren -space-. Isn’t it wonderful that life exists on this insignificant rock, in -the- dark and empty void?

According to scientists, the universe came into existence with the Big Bang (13.7 billion years ago) and our Earth, together with our solar system, was formed some 4.56 billion years ago. The first humans appeared about 200,000 year ago.

Such a short period of life lives mankind here and the individual, You and I are .-here only momentarily.-

To me it is -natural- that there is other life and that the creation story and evolution go together, hand in hand, because what does one day mean in God’s name, when God or the Holy Spirit has been attended here from the beginning?

The complex structure of our magnificent planet, the incredible beauty and rarity of life, is both beautiful and frightening to behold. Had the primordial soup lacked but one ingredient, we wouldn’t be here. Brief though it may be, life – intelligent life – truly is a miracle. The realization is enough to make you. humble.

And yet, when we take an honest look at the intelligent life on this planet, ‘humble’ isn’t the first word than comes to mind. Far from it. Even though our brightest scientists continue to show us how fragile life is, how brittle and delicate the natural balance of nature, we continue to disregard it. We are displaying a pride and arrogance that is truly baffling.

Great Threats

Today, our Earth is being tormented by huge natural disasters, but its biggest disaster is undoubtedly mankind. We truly are our own biblical plague. In spite of gained wisdom and experience, we continue to be governed by megalomaniacs and narcissists. Shortsighted leaders, driven by greed and power, run this planet into the ground and persist in denying the disastrous effects we have on the Earth. In spite of overwhelming scientific evidence, President Donald Trump denies that climate change is caused by environmental pollution, caused by Man and his need for power.

Climate change now causes earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and hurricanes. The Polar icecaps are melting rapidly and we will have to take serious countermeasures to protect Earth from annihilation. Numerous animals, forests and plants are threatened by extinction and countless animals, forests and plants are extinct. And to think that the extinction of bees alone is enough to cause catastrophic environmental changes, affecting the entire ecosystem.

Everywhere there is corruption and fraud. The more power we gain, the higher our arrogance soars. Our intolerance for each other, and for each other’s beliefs, is staggering and disparaging. The resulting wars have brought us to the brink of destruction countless times, and yet we cannot seem to learn from the past.

Imminent mass destruction

Our propensity for self-destruction has never been more prevalent as in the recent past, with the advent of nuclear weapons. The Military Industrial Complex is ever-present, its many lobbyists seemingly having unlimited access to the world’s leaders. Escalation almost seems a matter of time.

In 2015, $ 1700 billion was spent on weaponry and this amount will be overcome many times this year. What can be done?

Homo Sapiens belongs to the animal species, but there is a significant difference. Human beings have reason, kindness and the ability to learn and develop. I choose to believe that the majority of people are good, loving and selfless, and therefore there is hope. But what we need to do is rethink our priorities and open our eyes and look at the way we affect our planet.

Man is a social being. We need each other. We cannot survive alone. Together, we can evolve into a selfless creature, a loving person, and unto a higher consciousness. Let’s put our ability to change for the good into practice and convey the many talents that we have acquired as human beings. We have it within ourselves to open up to each other without losing our individuality.

The golden rule is simple: Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.

When we learn to live by this rule, then there is the possibility for real change, in favor of our beloved, unique Planet Earth.

The Meaning Of The U.S. Constitution’s 2nd Amendment

 Eric Zuesse

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was written into the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in 1787 as the replacement-Constitution for this country, replacing the prior Articles of Confederation, which had bound the United States together as the nation’s first Constitution. We Americans live under America’s second Constitution, but the terms-of-reference in it are the same as for the document it replaced — the Articles of Confederation.

The 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is very brief, and states, in its entirety: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The Articles of Confederation had said: “… every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of field pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage.”

However, John Adams and others were disturbed to note that the “arms” in those “public stores” were insufficient; and, so, the drafters of the Constitution decided to allow the active members of each of any given state’s “well-regulated and disciplined militia” to use in his public official capacity within the militia, his own (privately held) “arms.” For example, Adams wrote to his wife, on 26 August 1777, “The militia are turning out with great alacrity both in Maryland and Pennsylvania. They are distressed for want of arms. Many have none, we shall rake and scrape enough to do Howe’s business, by favor of the Heaven.” What this meant regarding any possible foreign invaders who might want to invade and conquer the new nation, was dire for this new nation.

As the excellent Wikipedia article on this matter states: “A major concern of the various delegates during the constitutional debates over the Constitution and the Second Amendment to the Constitution revolved around the issue of transferring militia power held by the States (under the existing Articles of Confederation) to Federal control.”

The Second Amendment exists within that context — transferring, from purely local state-government control, to additional national U.S. government control, the existing, purely state-government “well-regulated and disciplined militia,” and doing it in such a way as to conscript, for this purpose, not only (as the Militia Act of 1792 was to express this matter formally) “each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted)” but also those persons’ privately owned weaponry, or “arms.” The government was desperate for adequate armament, in order to be able to defend itself against any foreign invader, such as soon occurred in the War of 1812 when Britain invaded in order to re-subjugate the American people. And, the 2nd Amendment was therefore felt to be necessary, for those times.

Only government-controlled militias are referred to in the Second Amendment. This was a matter of protecting the government, not of providing self-appointed people the means with which to overthrow it. It was a matter of protecting democracy. Never were the militias private armies. Government control over them was always presumed when the term “militia” was being used in any legal sense. The NRA, Antonin Scalia, and others, have lied to deceive the American public to the contrary, but they all know the truth, because it’s right there, in the documents themselves, and stated very clearly.

My article “Las Vegas Massacre Proves 2nd Amendment Must Be Abolished” explains how it came to be that the liars have succeeded in changing the meaning of the Second Amendment so radically that, now, the “2nd Amendment Must Be Abolished.” What that sniper did in Las Vegas, on 1 October 2017, has transformed the American debate about “guns,” in such a fundamental way, so that, either the 2nd Amendment is to be repealed, “or else any entertainment-event or other event that attracts a mass of people, is an open invitation to anyone who wants to commit mass-murder — that the only access the law (the government) has in order to deal with such attacks is after-the-fact, once all of those murders and injuries have already been perpetrated. Nothing can be done in advance, so as to prevent any such attack.” Is a continuance of this situation tolerable to the American people? Or, instead, should the gun-question here now become: When is the 2nd Amendment to be repealed — how soon can it be done?

After that question becomes answered, the American people can begin to debate publicly the entire problem of identifying whom the deceivers had been, who had brought this nation to such a desperate situation, as this certainly now is. It can be a truth-and-reconciliation commission approach, or else a truth-and-punishment approach, but it will have to be done, in either case, so that this nation can move forward to a better future, no longer one that’s based on such horrendous lies, as have been perpetrated in this matter.

There can be no question, as to whether internationally the U.S. is extraordinary, or perhaps even unique, in its sufferance of such powerfully effective deceit, because the U.S. stands alone internationally, in its being in this situation. That, too, is proven clearly by the relevant evidence, which shows that the U.S. stands alone at the top among all nations in “Guns per 100 people”, and, also (except for the sole outlier, Mexico, which has both a relatively low gun-ownership and the world’s absolute highest “gun deaths per 100k people) has the world’s highest “Gun deaths per 100k people” (after the number-one and total outlier, Mexico).

Clearly, America’s liars, in this case, have loads of innocent blood on their hands. The question now is whether the victims, both of the lies, and of the resulting multitude of injuries and deaths, will strike back, by rejecting the lies, and the liars. The only way to start that process, is by passing a new (and remarkably brief) U.S. Constitutional Amendment (of which we’ve now got 27): “The 2nd Amendment is hereby repealed.” That would be the start, of a very constructive process: restoring American democracy.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in 2008, poisoned the 2nd Amendment; and, as a consequence, the archaic and perennially contentious 2nd Amendment must now be annulled, so as to cleanse the U.S. Constitution of that long-archaic and counter-productive, but now outright toxic, part.

It was already gangrenous.

Now it must be removed entirely.

The Face of Surveillance: Malcolm Turnbull’s Recognition Database

Binoy Kampmark

Never miss an opportunity in the security business.  A massacre in Las Vegas has sent its tremors through the establishments, and made its way across the Pacific into the corridors of Canberra and the Prime Minister’s office.  Australia’s Malcolm Turnbull is very keen to make hay out of blood, and has suggested another broadening of the security state: the creation of a national facial recognition data base.

It stands to reason.  Energy policy is in a state of free fall.  The government’s broadband network policy has proven disastrous, uneven, inefficient and costly. Australia is falling back in the ranks, a point that Turnbull dismisses as “rubbish statistics” (importantly showing that President Donald Trump is not the only purveyor of fanciful figures).

The Turnbull government is also in the electoral doldrums, struggling to keep up with a Labor opposition which has shown signs of breaking away into a canter.  The only thing keeping this government in scourers and saucepans is the prospect that Turnbull is the more popular choice of prime minister.

Enter, then, the prism of the national interest, the chances afforded to his political survival by the safety industrial complex.  Turnbull, a figure who, when in the law, stressed the importance of various liberties, is attempting to convince all the governments of Australia that terrorism suspects can be detained for periods of up to 14 days without charge.  Lazy law enforcement officials, rejoice.

Tagged to that agenda, one he wishes to run by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in Canberra, is the fanciful need for a national facial recognition database.  This dystopian fantasy of an information heavy, centralised database is one Australians have historically have opposed with admirable scepticism.  It has been something that Anglophone countries have tended to cast a disapproving look upon, a feature of a civilization suspicious of intrusions made by the executive.

In the 1980s, the Australia Card was suggested as an administrative measure of convenience, but deemed by critics to be the first steps in the creation of a national surveillance system that would stretch, extend, and ultimately enlarge the powers of the state.

As law academic Graham Greenleaf would argue in 1987, the Australia Card Bill 1986 would “go beyond being a mere identification system, which the Government claims it is, and will establish the most powerful location system in Australia, and a prototype data surveillance system.”

Had it been implemented, the card system would have applied to people of all ages, and, while not being compulsory, would have made it impossible, in Greenleaf’s sombre words, “for anyone to exist in Australian society without it”.  Receipt of pay would not have been taxed at the required rate; receiving health insurance and social security payments would have been impossible.

Importantly, the bill was rejected twice in the Australian senate, generating the grounds for a move by the Hawke government to take Australia to the polls.  It proved so unnerving to the senses of the public that the then prime minister quietly shelved it.  The civil libertarians had won.

Times have darkened.  In Australia, civil libertarianism is in quiet retreat, and the defenders of Big Brother chant with approval.  Security and fear are garlanded and worshipped.  Criticisms of the authoritarian bugbear are being treated with varying degrees of disdain and scorn.

Turnbull prefers to offer a chilling vision: “Imagine the power of being able to identify, to be looking out for and identify a person suspected in being involved in terrorist activities walking into an airport, walking into a sporting stadium.” It’s always good to imagine, to identify the citizen, to pretend that precision is the order of the day.

Concerns that this data base might be vulnerable to intrusive hacks and enterprising data pinchers is not a concern for the man in Canberra. This is the prime minister who presided over the creation of a data retention scheme on communications, a step deemed inimical in certain parts of the world to liberties (The European Court of Justice certainly thought so in 2016.)

“You can’t allow the risk of hacking to prevent you from doing everything to keep Australians safe”.  Safety is truly in the eye of the plodding beholder, and such a system risks entrenching a state of insecurity.

The operating rationale here is contempt for privacy, or that the Australian citizen could even care.  That’s the nub of Turnbull’s argument: the state is abolishing an undervalued, near irrelevant concept for the sake of security.  “I don’t know if you’ve checked your Facebook page lately,” he chided journalists on Wednesday, “but people put an enormous amount of their own data up in the public domain.” Yet another dangerous authoritarian argument for the books.

Over three decades have passed since the failure of the Australia Card. But Turnbull won’t be concerned.  The age of fear has been normalised, and those in the business of harnessing and marketing it see opportunities rather than concerns.  As Channel Nine’s Sonia Kruger, co-host of the cerebrally light Today Show Extra exclaimed: “I like it. I do.  Bring it on. Big Brother, bring it on.”

The Great October Revolution

Farooque Chowdhury

The Great October Revolution in Russia changed the world forever. Since November 7, 1917, a century, the world has ceased to be the same: the world is no more under absolute control of the world capital all the time, the world can’t be absolutely dictated by the world imperialism all the time, the world can’t be compelled to carry the yoke of exploitation all the time, remnants of old order don’t feel assured of its existence any more.

The world capital and the world imperialism never went unchallenged since November 7, 1917; and at times, many in numbers, it had to bow down unceremoniously. Since November 7, 1917, many times, the world witnessed labor’s victorious march forward on the world stage, on the stage of politics. Since November 7, 1917, the world labor achieved many advances in the history of humanity that no other class has ever achieved in terms of quantity and quality.

Conflict for liberation

About 12 years before the revolution Maxim Gorky mentioned a world-wide contradiction while discussing the developing revolution:

“The conflict against the mean oppression of poverty is a conflict for the liberation of the world from that net of coarse contradictions in which all men are fiercely and impotently struggling.” (“Letter on the Russian Revolution”, January 1, 1906, January 27, 1906, Justice)

The Great October Revolution was part of that “conflict against the mean oppression of poverty”, was part of that “conflict for the liberation of the world” as it shattered the system of oppression in Russia, and called upon all to rise against exploitation and oppression in respective lands.

Gorky pointed out the noble position the exploited hold, which is often missed:

“[Y]our weapon is the sharp sword of truth, that of your enemies the crooked needle of falsehood. Dazzled by the glitter of gold, they slavishly trust in its might, and do not perceive with what steadily increasing brightness burns the great ideal of the union of all men in one comrade-family of free workers. Socialism, the religion of liberty, equality and fraternity, is as unintelligible to them as is music to a man who is deaf and dumb, or poetry to an idiot. When they see the mighty march of the masses of the people toward freedom and light, dreading a disturbance of their peace, trembling for their position as lords of life, they hide the truth even from one another and console themselves with the spectral hope of defeating justice. They slanderously describe the proletariat as a dark mass of hungry beasts whose one desire is to gorge large quantities of food and who are ready for the sake of a good hunk of bread to destroy everything with which they cannot fill their maw.” (ibid.)

The noble position of the exploited consists of truth, union of all men, socialism, freedom, light and justice. The position does neither nourish nor patronize any supremacist, racist idea – a progressive position on a world-scale. It’s a humane dream, a humane aspiration. The revolution began materializing this dream, began realizing this aspiration.

While depicting the Russian reality and a course of development of the reality Gorky wrote:

“In Russia a revolution is bursting into flame, and they [enemies of the proletariat] slander utterly the Russian proletariat, representing the workman as a mere unconscious elemental force, a barbarous horde, ready to destroy, to wipe out completely all that exists, and incapable of creating anything but anarchy.” (ibid.)

The revolution’s class position is clear: Of the proletariat, of the working people, of the majority. Its political aim was unambiguous:

“The Russian proletariat is struggling consciously for the political freedom it urgently needs”. (ibid.)

No people can successfully organize struggle to radically re-organize economic system favorable to it without political freedom. The Russian proletariat unfurled the standard of political freedom, and organized the revolution to materialize the political aim, which showed the path to millions around the world.

Anti-people forces, forces of reaction regularly fail to fathom reality. The philosophy it uphold, the world view it use to look at developments create the failure. This happened in Russia. Gorky describes:

“‘The proletariat is beaten, the revolution is stamped out,’ shrieks our reactionary press in malignant delight. Such delight is premature. The proletariat is not beaten. Although it has suffered loss. The revolution is strengthened with new hopes and during these days its ranks have been immensely increased. The revolution has gained a great moral victory over the bourgeoisie”. (ibid.)

The Great October Revolution achieved moral victory over the bourgeoisie, its class enemy. And, moral victory is not gained through preaching of hatred, supremacy, and call for subduing all. Moral victory is not gained by not condemning the system of exploitation, by not condemning the exploitative property relations as exploitative property relations are permanent obstacle to the development of a humane society. The revolution practically showed this fact.

The revolution’s path was certain, which led Gorky to write:

“The Russian proletariat is marching towards certain victory, for in Russia it alone is spiritually strong, it alone has faith in itself, to it alone belongs the future.” (ibid.)

The revolution was not only limited to smashing the system of exploitation. It was wider. It was deeper. Gorky writes:

“[T]he Russian revolution is a cultural and constructive movement, the only movement capable of saving Russia from political dissolution. I declare that the bourgeoisie is impotent and incapable of constructive political work”. (ibid.)

Classes organizing a revolution for changes in political power and economic system are to rationalize its task by presenting evidence that its opposing classes are defending status quo, which is backward and impotent, is incapable to move to the path of progress. The proletariat in Russia successfully carried on this task.

Gorky, at the conclusion of his letter, echoed the proletariat’s position, which is free from all forms of sectarianism:

“Long live […] the proletariat as it goes forth to renew the whole world. Long live the working men of all lands who by the strength of their hands have built up the wealth of nations and are now laboring to create it new life! [….]

“[T]hey [the fighters and the workers of all lands] […] have faith in the victory of truth, the victory of justice! Long live humanity fraternally united in the great ideals of equality and freedom!” (ibid.)

The revolution began its journey to renew the whole world as it stood for fraternity among all peoples of all lands. It called upon all the toilers in all lands to unite trampling all forms of segregation. It stood for equality and freedom. This position made the revolution nobler than all noble revolutions. And, the proletariat in Russia organized this noble revolution that challenged all ideologies and practices based on exploitative property relations. This enabled the revolution to impact on a world-scale. The revolution became the yardstick: Which side you are on. (Pete Seeger)

A bold purge

The proclamations the revolution made and the actions it initiated since the moment it assumed power stand as evidence of its noble position: Cease all hostilities, fraternity among all peoples of and democratic peace to all lands, land to the tiller, liberate labor, bread for all. Decisive phase of the revolution began by opposing imperialist war – the World War I. It dethroned all exploitative forces while it ennobled the toilers. The constitutional and legal arrangements it made declared dominance of the working classes.

So, Lenin, on the fourth anniversary of the revolution, said: “And, we can justifiably pride ourselves on having carried out that purge [“destroy the survivals of medievalism”, “sweep them away completely”, “purge Russia of this barbarism”] with greater determination and much more rapidly, boldly and successfully, and, from the point of view of its effect on the masses, much more widely and deeply, than the great French Revolution over one hundred and twenty-five years ago. (“Fourth Anniversary of the October Revolution”, Collected Works, vol. 33, Progress Publishers, Moscow, erstwhile USSR, 1976)

Nikolai Bukharin cited the proletariat’s political power derived through the revolution:

“Our enemies, whoever they be, whether representatives of predatory imperialism, agents of the reformist internationals, representatives of the big bourgeoisie or landowners, or of the petty-bourgeois cliques, are all compelled to recognise the magnitude and significance of this historical fact that the working class has been in power for the space of ten years.

“Our November revolution stands at the threshold of a new world-historical epoch of humanity because it overturned and reversed the old social pyramid, putting in power the most oppressed, most exploited and, at the same time, most revolutionary class known to history, viz., the proletariat.” (“The World Revolution and the U.S.S.R.”, The Labour Monthly, vol. 9, no. 11, November 1927)

Revolutions and risings followed the Great October Revolution, which were cited by Bukharin: March, 1917 — the bourgeois democratic revolution in Russia; November, 1917 — the proletarian revolution in Russia; March, 1918 — the workers’ revolution in Finland; November, 1918 — revolution in Germany and in Austria; March, 1919 — revolution in Hungary; January, 1920 — revolution in Turkey; September, 1920 — revolutionary seizure of the factories by the workers of Italy; March, 1921 — the March “rising” in Germany; September, 1923 — revolution in Bulgaria; Autumn, 1923 — semi-revolution of the German proletariat; December, 1924 — the rising in Estonia; April, 1925 — the rising in Morocco; August, 1925 — the rising in Syria; May, 1926 — the General Strike in Britain; 1926 – the rising in Indonesia; 1927 — the rising in Vienna. He added: “[W]e must mention the Chinese revolution, continuing through many years, and now passing through an extremely acute phrase.” The Chinese revolution was identified by Bukharin as of “a factor of colossal significance”. In the colonized Indian sub-continent, the nascent labor was waging a series of battles against capital during those years. Thousands and thousands of industrial workers participated in waves of hundreds of strikes. The land witnessed: (1) at least one strike stopped an entire industry; (2) the labor’s  enthusiastic participation in a political strike at least in a city, and the labor carrying on a general strike in the city although its bourgeois leadership tried to keep away the labor from the political move; (3) an entire province coming to a standstill by a solidarity strike by workers from many branches of industries; (4) workers’ city-wide clashes with police and army in Kolkata, one of the largest cities in the sub-continent, twice. (Farooque Chowdhury, Upamahaadeshe Srameek Aandoloner Kaalpanjee (Notes on Labor Movement in the Indian Subcontinent), 2015) Latin America organized many revolts and struggles against imperialism. In the US, there was the Seattle General Strike, the first general strike in the country’s history, in February 1919 paralyzing the port city for six days. It was followed by massive strikes in the country’s steel, coal, and meatpacking industries and a dozen cities faced threat of civil unrest. The steel and coal strikes in 1919 in the US shook the country and showed the labor’s power. There was the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921, the largest labor uprising in the US history and one of the largest, best-organized, and most well-armed labor risings since the American Civil War. For five days in late August and early September in Logan County, West Virginia, around 10,000 armed coal miners confronted 3,000 armed lawmen and strikebreakers. The battle was pushed down after intervention by the army. These, and innumerable labor/people-actions, ultimately political in nature/having political implication, around the globe were influenced/impacted/educated/encouraged by the Great October Revolution.

Bukharin inferred on the basis of the facts:

“[T]he international revolution is something actually in progress.” (ibid.)

There’s no reason to differ from the inference.

He argued:

“It is true that there has been no victory of the international revolution in the sense that there has been no simultaneous victory of the working class in a series of countries. But whoever predicted that the world revolution would occur in this way? It is extremely probable that immediate risings are imminent in the colonial subject countries, and, while they are not proletarian revolutions, they are yet component parts of the international revolutionary process. How can it be said that there is no such thing as the international revolution when there is the victorious Socialist revolution in the U.S.S.R., and while there is the Chinese revolution, both of which are parts of the world revolution.” (ibid.)

On international revolution, Bukharin’s further argument was:

“There are many people who picture to themselves the international revolution as an occurrence which some fine day will take place simultaneously in a number of countries. This is extremely improbable and unnecessary. Comrade Lenin, even during the war and before November, 1917, insisted that it was necessary for everyone to realise that the world revolution, which would overthrow capitalism, was primarily a protracted historical process, that we were on the eve of an epoch of world revolution which would contain a whole series of proletarian revolutions, colonial risings, and national wars, arising from the combination of all the factors breaking up capitalism.

“The international revolution is then an epoch of revolutions, a long extended process.” (ibid.)

To have a comparison, Bukharin mentioned the bourgeois revolutions: in the seventeenth century in England, in the eighteenth century in France, in the middle nineteenth century a series on the Continent of Europe, and in the twentieth century in Russia. “The process of revolutionary transition from feudalism to capitalism has occupied a number of centuries”, the fact he reminded, and the fact that many bourgeois scholars prefer to forget with the motive of belittling proletariat’s historic fights and gains.

The Great October Revolution showed path to uncountable strikes, general strikes and revolts of the working classes in bourgeois economies, and almost countless peasant risings, workers’ struggles and national liberation movements and armed struggles in colonies. Many of these struggles successfully compelled the world imperialism to retreat.

These changed the world scenario forever. It was a permanent change in world power equation, which had no scope, power and possibility to reverse its flight to the yester-position: a singular rein of capital. In the newly-emerged power equation, capital and imperialism never succeeded in ignoring the labor’s political power, it never felt free from presence of the labor’s political power; rather, contrarily, time and again it had to come into compromise with and appease the labor, it had to retreat despite setbacks in many areas the proletariat emerged victorious, despite sell outs and deviations by a part of labor leadership. The Great October Revolution initiated the new labor-capital political equation on the world scale.

The exposure & mistakes

The revolution exposed bourgeois democracy and imperialism with burning examples, and set example of people power, people’s participation and people’s democracy despite flaws in the initiative as the initiative was the first in human history, as the proletariat organizing the system had no experience on such a scale and with such power and responsibility spread over a vast land mass. In terms of length of time the proletariat began organizing the initiative, it was only a few decades. On the contrary, the bourgeoisie began the job of constructing its political system/arrangement centuries ago, and yet, it’s struggling with self to make it failure-proof, to make it flawless. What are the “achievements” of the bourgeoisie in this area in contemporary period? It successfully “failed to avert” the Nazism/Fascism; and to be factual, it generated, and it had to generate Nazism/Fascism. It didn’t fail to succeed in imposing neo-colonialism on countries. What’s the reality within the systems of its nobility – the advanced/matured bourgeois democracies? Has it succeeded in separation of power, accountability and transparency, which it propagates all the time? Hasn’t its executive branch already overwhelmed the rest of its governing machine – the legislature and judicial branches? Has it succeeded in making its system corruption-free? Doesn’t it rely on country- and society-wide surveillance? Doesn’t it rely on manipulating citizens? And, doesn’t it claim that its electoral system can be manipulated by another country in its system? It doesn’t even look into the meanings of the claim: (1) the manipulating country can manipulate electoral systems of all relatively weaker advanced bourgeois democracies; (2) the manipulated advanced bourgeois democracy is not the political system that reflects citizens’ opinion; and (3) the system is so much flawed after centuries of practices that it can be manipulated. Recent nasty politicking with natural disaster in one of the advanced bourgeois democracies, and the democracy’s unpreparedness to face such disasters despite having immense material and technical resources is a stark indication of the bourgeois head and heart, bear witness to betrayals to its taxpayers. The proletariat, through the Great October Revolution, stood above these hypocrisies, childish gossips, chicaneries, failures and betrayals. The juvenile literature – the values presented before the young learners – the proletariat produced in post-revolution Russia testifies importance the proletariat puts to the issue – future of humanity.

The proletariat’s revolution in Russia formulated laws and organized governing organs on the basis of new relations it was setting up after smashing down exploitative property relations. It was the proletariat’s one of the major achievements, which impacted many societies.

The Great October Revolution showed the proletariat’s intellectual, theoretical and organizational supremacy above the bourgeoisie. The supremacy got reflected in all practical areas of life: smashing death-clutches of hunger-ignorance, medieval practices and illiteracy-absence of shelter and health care-infrastructure and public places constructed/allotted favoring the exploiters-permanent plunder of public resources-denial of political space for public participation-use of science for making profit-culture defacing humanity and for profit making-distortion in human relations-parade by Nazism/Fascism. In this task the revolution had to bear burdens imposed by history. Hostile encirclement, subversion and wars were order of the days while the proletariat was reconstructing the society it was leading. Consequently, mistakes accompanied while organizing the strides within a shorter period of time. Lenin, the leader of the revolution, admits that the first victory of the revolution was “accompanied by a series of serious reverses and mistakes on our part. [….] We are not afraid to admit our mistakes and shall examine them dispassionately in order to learn how to correct them. [….] [W]e have sustained the greatest number of reverses and have made most mistakes.” (op. cit.) Then, he explains the circumstance leading to the mistakes: “How could anyone expect that a task so new to the world could be begun without reverses and without mistakes!” (ibid.)

However, mistakes don’t dismiss significance and achievements of any revolution. Then, how do the Great October Revolution’s significance and achievements get cancelled? Can its role in humanity’s journey to progress be denied? Shall not the denial be a part of denying humanity’s history? And, the part is the most revolutionary in human journey to make life humane. “[F]or the first time in hundreds and thousands of years the promise ‘to reply’ to war between the slave-owners by a revolution of the slaves directed against all the slave-owners has been completely fulfilled – is being fulfilled despite all difficulties.” (Lenin, op. cit., emphasis in the original) Shall denial of these facts help organize further steps forward, the need for which has turned out as essential and immediate? The call of the Great October Revolution, hence, is renewed and echoed all the time as the world still bears the scourge of exploitative property relations, as the world is being threatened and trampled by imperialism, as the world still bears archaic and medieval ideas, as the world humanity and labor are still made victim of divisive and sectarian politics.

Why Are Washington’s Allies Getting Cozy To Moscow?

Nauman Sadiq

Turkey, which has the second largest army in NATO, has been cooperating with Russia in Syria against Washington’s interests since last year and has recently placed an order for the Russian-made S-400 missile system.

Similarly, the Saudi King Salman, who is on a landmark state visit to Moscow, has signed several cooperation agreements with Kremlin and has also expressed his willingness to buy S-400 missile system.

Another traditional ally of Washington in the region, Pakistan, has agreed to build a 600 mega-watt power project with Moscow’s assistance, has bought Russian helicopters and defense equipment and has held joint military exercises with Kremlin.

All three countries have been steadfast US allies since the times of the Cold War, or rather, to put it bluntly, the political establishments of these countries have acted as virtual proxies of Washington in the region and had played an important role in the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991.

In order to understand the significance of relationship between Washington and Ankara, which is a NATO member, bear in mind that the United States has been conducting air strikes against targets in Syria from the Incirlik airbase and around fifty American B-61 hydrogen bombs have also been deployed there, whose safety became a matter of real concern during the failed July 2016 coup plot against the Erdogan administration; when the commander of the Incirlik airbase, General Bekir Ercan Van, along with nine other officers were arrested for supporting the coup; movement in and out of the base was denied, power supply was cut off and the security threat level was raised to the highest state of alert, according to a report by Eric Schlosser for the New Yorker.

Similarly, in order to grasp the nature of principal-agent relationship between the United States on the one hand and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on the other, keep in mind that Washington used Gulf’s petro-dollars and Islamabad’s intelligence agencies to nurture jihadists against the former Soviet Union during the Cold War.

It is an irrefutable fact that the United States sponsors militants, but only for a limited period of time in order to achieve certain policy objectives. For instance: the United States nurtured the Afghan jihadists during the Cold War against the former Soviet Union from 1979 to 1988, but after the signing of the Geneva Accords and consequent withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, the United States withdrew its support to the Afghan jihadists.

Similarly, the United States lent its support to the militants during the Libyan and Syrian civil wars, but after achieving the policy objectives of toppling the Arab nationalist Gaddafi regime in Libya and weakening the anti-Israel Assad regime in Syria, the United States relinquished its blanket support to the militants and eventually declared a war against a faction of Sunni militants battling the Syrian government, the Islamic State, when the latter transgressed its mandate in Syria and dared to occupy Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in early 2014.

The United States regional allies in the Middle East, however, are not as subtle and experienced in Machiavellian geopolitics. Under the misconception that alliances and enmities in international politics are permanent, the Middle Eastern autocrats keep on pursuing the same belligerent policy indefinitely as laid down by the hawks in Washington for a brief period of time in order to achieve certain strategic objectives.

For example: the security establishment of Pakistan kept pursuing the policy of training and arming the Afghan and Kashmiri jihadists throughout the eighties and nineties and right up to September 2001, even after the United States withdrew its support to the jihadists’ cause in Afghanistan during the nineties after the collapse of its erstwhile archrival, the Soviet Union.

Similarly, the Muslim Brotherhood-led government of Turkey has made the same mistake of lending indiscriminate support to the Syrian militants even after the United States partial reversal of policy in Syria and the declaration of war against the Islamic State in August 2014 in order to placate the international public opinion when the graphic images and videos of Islamic State’s brutality surfaced on the social media.

Keeping up appearances in order to maintain the façade of justice and morality is indispensable in international politics and the Western powers strictly abide by this code of conduct. Their medieval client states in the Middle East, however, are not as experienced and they often keep on pursuing the same militarist policies of training and arming the militants against their regional rivals, which are untenable in the long run in a world where pacifism has generally been accepted as one of the fundamental axioms of the modern worldview.

Regarding the recent cooperation between Moscow and Ankara in the Syrian civil war, although the proximate cause of this détente seems to be the attempted coup plot against the Erdogan administration in July last year by the supporters of the US-based preacher, Fethullah Gulen, but this surprising development also sheds light on the deeper divisions between the United States and Turkey over their respective Syria policy.

After the United States reversal of “regime change” policy in Syria in August 2014 when the Islamic State overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in early 2014 and threatened the capital of another steadfast American ally, Masoud Barzani’s Erbil in the oil-rich Iraqi Kurdistan, Washington has made the Kurds the centerpiece of its policy in Syria and Iraq.

Bear in mind that the conflict in Syria and Iraq is actually a three-way conflict between the Sunni Arabs, the Shi’a Arabs and the Sunni Kurds. Although after the declaration of war against a faction of Sunni Arab militants, the Islamic State, Washington has also lent its support to the Shi’a-led government in Iraq, but the Shi’a Arabs of Iraq are not the trustworthy allies of the United States because they are under the influence of Iran.

Therefore, Washington was left with no other choice than to make the Kurds the centerpiece of its policy in Syria and Iraq after a group of Sunni Arab jihadists transgressed its mandate in Syria and overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in early 2014 from where the United States had withdrawn its troops only a couple of years ago in December 2011.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which are on the verge of liberating the Islamic State’s de facto capital, Raqqa, and are currently battling the jihadist group in a small pocket of the city between the stadium and a hospital, are nothing more than the Kurdish militias with a symbolic presence of mercenary Arab tribesmen in order to make them appear more representative and inclusive in outlook.

As far as the regional parties to the Syrian civil war are concerned, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the rest of the Gulf Arab States may not have serious reservations against this close cooperation between the United States and the Kurds in Syria and Iraq, because the Gulf Arab States tend to look at the regional conflicts from the lens of the Iranian Shi’a threat.

Turkey, on the other hand, has been more wary of the separatist Kurdish tendencies in its southeast than the Iranian Shi’a threat, and particularly now after the Kurds have held a referendum for independence in Iraq despite the international pressure against such an ill-advised move.

Finally, any radical departure from the longstanding policy of providing unequivocal support to Washington’s policy in the region by the political establishment of Turkey since the times of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is highly unlikely. But after this perfidy by Washington of lending its support to the Kurds against the Turkish proxies in Syria, it is quite plausible that the Muslim Brotherhood-led government in Turkey might try to strike a balance in its relations with the Cold War-era rivals.

Australian economy “going into a hole”

Nick Beams

Concerns are mounting that the Australian economy is about to end its record-breaking run of 26 years without a recession and that such an occurrence could trigger financial turbulence because of the rise of debt.

On Thursday, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) retail sales data recorded their largest two-month decline for seven years, in a sign families are cutting back spending in conditions of stagnant or falling real wages.

Sales fell by 0.6 percent in August, following a 0.2 percent decline in July, after predictions they would show a 0.3 gain. The August fall was the largest since March 2013. The two-month decline was the most severe since late 2010 and the first two-month back-to-back fall in almost five years.

With consumer spending accounting for around 60 percent of Australian gross domestic product (GDP), there are fears over what the fall signifies for the broader economy. Since the end of the mining boom, growth has been sustained to a considerable extent by the inflation of house prices.

Commenting on the sales data, former chief economist at the ANX bank Warren Hogan said: “We’ve got this declining trend accelerating. If this is not ‘statistical,’ if this is not a sampling error, then this is the sort of dynamic you’d see in an economy that is going into a hole.”

Reporting on the latest Morgan Stanley AlphaWise survey findings, Business Insider Australia noted: “Australian households are in a vulnerable financial position, especially those who have taken out a mortgage. And in an era of weak incomes growth, soaring energy prices and high levels of indebtedness, with the prospect of higher interest rates on the way, many intend to cut discretionary spending in anticipation of even tighter household budgets.”

In a note released this week, Morgan Stanley wrote: “In early June, we expressed the view that the Australian consumer faces a domestic cash flow and credit crunch.”

Income growth, the note commented, has not recovered, cost of living inflation was accelerating and the tightening by the banks on loans for mortgage borrowings was extending into consumer finance.

Morgan Stanley’s warnings are based on a survey it conducted in late July and early August to try to identify the financial position of households.

“Most households have minimal buffers against a shock to their income, and expect to respond to higher debt servicing costs by drawing down on savings and cutting back on expenditure,” it said.

Morgan Stanley noted that while other sectors of the economy may be able to offset some of the weakness in the economy, “the concentrated exposure of the household sector and economy to an extended housing market is posing an increasingly important structural and cyclical risk to consumer spending.”

The worsening position of the Australian economy has caught the attention of the international financial press. Two major articles published by the news service Bloomberg this week both pointed to the risks posed by extraordinarily high debt levels.

An article by Michael Heath observed that while mining profits fuelled riches for the stakeholders, they did little for the vast majority living in the cities. Wages were barely growing, households carry some of the world’s biggest debt loads and productivity gains in the economy had petered out.

Jeremy Lawson, chief economist at Aberdeen Standard Investments in Edinburgh, and a former Reserve Bank economist, commented: “Now that we don’t have the benefit of the mining boom, there’s nothing really that replaces it in terms of driving economic activity.”

The Bloomberg article noted that household debt in Australia is at a record high of 194 percent of income, compared with 104 percent in the US.

An article by financial analyst Satyajit Das began: “Australia’s record of 26 years without a recession flatters to deceive. The gaudy numbers mask serious flaws in the country’s economic model.” It was too dependent, Das wrote, on “houses and holes”—minerals that come out of the ground and at other times relying on low interest rates to boost house prices which prop up economic activity.

“Yet a significant portion of housing activity is speculative. Going by measures such as price-to-rent or price-to-disposable income, Australia’s property market looks substantially over valued,” Das concluded.

Among young workers and families, home ownership has fallen to the lowest levels on record as house prices have risen by 140 percent in the past 15 years. Sydney, where the median price for a house is over $1 million, is now ranked as one of the top two housing markets in the world and Melbourne is now the sixth most expensive city in which to buy a house.

Das noted there was a growing Australian “debt bomb.”

“Australia’s total non-financial debt is over 250 percent of GDP, up around 50 percent since 2010. Household debt is currently over 120 percent of GDP, among the highest proportions in the world.” The ratio of household debt to income (194 percent) had increased five-fold since the 1980s.

“Stagnant real incomes have contributed to the problem as have high home prices and the associated mortgage debt. Despite record-low interest rates, around 12 percent of income is now devoted to servicing all this debt. That’s a third more than in 1989–90, when interest rates neared 20 percent.”

Das pointed to the broader implications of the high debt levels, warning they increased the risk of a banking crisis sparked by rising losses on real estate loans. Australia was especially vulnerable “because of its dependence on foreign capital; foreign debt tops 50 percent of GDP, much of it borrowed by banks to cover the shortfall between loans and domestic deposits.”

Despite the official claims that Australia managed to weather the 2008 financial crisis because of its supposedly better managed financial system, that vulnerability was exposed in October 2008 when foreign funding for Australian banks dried up literally overnight. Had that continued the banks would have become bankrupt. The crisis was only alleviated when the Rudd Labor government stepped in to act as the banks’ guarantor.

Reflecting the views of the financial elites and corporate chiefs, the two authors bemoan the “toxic” Australian political culture, which has seen a succession of prime ministers in the past ten years—each lasting around two years—saying this had prevented economic “reform.”

In the inverted lexicon of present-day finance capital, “reform” no longer means an improvement in social and economic conditions for the population. Rather, it signifies deeper attacks on wages, jobs and social services, combined with tax cuts for the corporations and the wealthy to boost the bottom line at the expense of the working class.

Like their American counterparts, who seized on the 2008 crisis to drive through such “reforms” in the US economy, sections of the Australian elites are looking to a major economic and financial crisis to do the same.

The former banker Jeremy Lawson told Bloomberg: “Crisis begets reform in Australia.” When the crisis comes, he added, “you’re forced to make much more significant adjustments at the time.”

What would a “Jamaica” coalition in Germany represent?

Peter Schwarz

The formation of a new government in Germany has been delayed. Eleven days after the federal election, coalition talks have not even begun. While in the past, four to six weeks usually went by between the election and the swearing in of a new government, four years ago it took almost three months. Now it appears as though the organisation of a new government could take until Christmas or even the new year.

The most fundamental reason for the slow progress is the deep gulf between the established parties and the vast majority of the population expressed in the recent election. The so-called “people’s parties,” the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD), achieved their worst results since 1945. Behind this alienation lie the policies of militarism and social cutbacks, which have been met with stiff opposition and have produced a rapid rise in poverty.

As the SPD and Left Party have also pursued such policies, the right-wing extremist Alternative for Germany (AfD) was able to emerge as the main beneficiary of popular dissatisfaction, entering parliament as the third strongest party. As a result, and with the return of the Free Democrats (FDP), six different parliamentary groups will now be represented in the Bundestag (parliament), which presents an additional challenge to the formation of a government.

However, the chief obstacle to forming a government is the need to establish a stable regime capable of continuing the policies of militarism and social cuts, strengthening the repressive state apparatus and suppressing all opposition. All of the parties are agreed on this, including the SPD, which decided to go into opposition, and the Left Party, which is currently not needed to form a majority.

Although all the parties continue to reject an alliance with the AfD, they are going a long way toward adopting its right-wing policies. The CSU, which is urging that its “right flank” be closed, is doing this most explicitly. Saxony’s Minister President Stanislaw Tillich (CDU), justified the call for his party to shift to the right by saying, “The people want Germany to remain Germany.” Even his predecessor, Kurt Biedenkopf (CDU), accused Tillich of wanting to “end up to the right of them [the AfD].”

But each of these parties, rather than resisting the AfD and the Nazis in their ranks, who are entering parliament for the first time since Hitler’s death, are instead embracing them. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) did this very clearly in his speech on German Unity Day. “We cannot allow hostility to emerge from our differences—out of disagreements [there must be] no irreconcilability,” argued Steinmeier, who demanded a harder line on refugee policy—one of the AfD’s central demands.

It is already becoming clear that the incoming government—most likely a so-called “Jamaica” coalition (from the three parties’ colours, black, yellow and green, those of the Jamaican flag) composed of the CDU-CSU, FDP and Greens—will be the most right-wing in the history of the German Federal Republic. All proposals in relation to personnel and policy that have been made public thus far underscore this.

It is considered certain that both the Greens and FDP will insist upon leading one key ministry each. For the FDP, this is likely to be the Finance Ministry, which has been left vacant by Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble’s move to assume the post of president of the Bundestag.

With Christian Lindner, the FDP’s 38-year-old leader, an individual could assume responsibility for the federal budget who is associated more than any other with the continuation of strict austerity policies, tax cuts for the rich and opposition to financial redistribution within Europe. It is likely that the rise in the DAX, Germany’s stock exchange, above the record high of 13,000 is connected with the prospect that a party advocating the interests of big business like the FDP will probably be managing the state budget.

Lindner also advocates a hard-right stance on refugee policy. For example, he has called for “an immigration law that clearly distinguishes between permanent migration of qualified people who we will select, and humanitarian protection.” The latter should be time-restricted, according to the FDP leader, so that refugees from civil wars and their children born in Germany could be deported at a later date.

Cem Özdemir is being considered for the post of Foreign Minister. The Green politician, who completed the Atlantic Bridge’s Young Leader programme, spent time as Transatlantic fellow of the German Marshall Fund in the United States, and sat on the foreign affairs committees in the European and German parliaments, never misses an opportunity to express his opinion on foreign policy matters.

Özdemir is an outspoken proponent of German military interventions under the pretexts of humanitarian and environmental concerns. He advocates a confrontational policy towards Russia and Turkey, and backs French President Emmanuel Macron’s plans for a European Union armed to the teeth.

In an interview with Britain’s Economist, Özdemir called for Germany to have a global leadership role: “Germany has to step up and take responsibility: we are the country that must show that you can combine growth, prosperity, jobs and the fight against climate crisis.”

Özdemir accused his possible future coalition partner, Lindner, who spoke out in favour of a friendlier approach towards Russia in an interview, of spreading “Putin’s propaganda” and stoking “anti-Western resentments in German society.”

“Imagine you’re Ukrainian,” continued Özdemir. “You stood up for European values on Maidan Square. In the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 your country got rid of its nuclear weapons in return for a guarantee of its territorial integrity. And now Russia splits off Crimea and along comes Lindner and says ‘we’ll have to live with it’.”

Discussions over who should be given the Interior Ministry are also already well advanced. Consideration is being given to Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU), whose law-and-order policies go even further than the current Interior Minister, Thomas de Maizière. Herrmann is strongly in favour of more police officers, surveillance and stricter border controls. He has nothing to fear regarding objections from the Greens and FDP liberals, who also called for a massive strengthening of the police during the election campaign.

If de Maizière, a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), keeps his post, Herrmann could be considered for the post of Defence Minister. Current Defence Minister Ursula Von der Leyen has made enemies in the military because following the exposure of a right-wing terrorist cell in the army, she demanded that the traditions of Hitler’s Wehrmacht no longer be cultivated. By contrast, Herrmann would be a comrade in arms. He is a lieutenant colonel in the reserves and participated several months ago in a military exercise that tested the deployment of the armed forces domestically.

It remains an open question, however, as to whether the Jamaica coalition will be established. The SPD could have a change of heart, or the AfD—or a split from it—could still be brought into government. Even a new election is not completely out of the question. But this will do nothing to alter the right-wing character of the future government. Its programme will be determined by the global capitalist crisis and intensifying social tensions to which the ruling class has only one answer: militarism and repression.

The brutal crackdown by the Spanish government against the Catalonian independence referendum, and the support for this from the German government and European Union, shows how ruthlessly the ruling class will respond to any sign of opposition.

Trump administration limits access to birth control under ACA

Trévon Austin

The Trump administration has announced plans to revoke the federal requirement for employers to include birth control coverage in health insurance plans. The new policy would expand exemptions under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for employers who claim moral or religious objections to contraception.

Under the previous mandate, more than 55 million women employees had access to no-cost birth control. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the percentage of women employees that pay with their own money for birth control fell from 21 percent to 3 percent after contraception became a covered preventive benefit.

The new exemptions will be available to for-profit companies, nonprofit organizations and colleges and universities that provide health care to students and employees.

Hundreds of thousands of women could potentially lose access to benefits they receive at no cost. The Trump administration itself estimated that some 200 employers who have already voiced opposition to the Obama-era mandate would qualify for exemption, and that 120,000 women would be affected.

In expanding the exemption for employers, the Trump administration claims there are “dozens of programs that subsidize contraception for the low-income women” and various alternative sources for birth control exist.

The administration also cites health risks that it says are correlated with the use of certain types of contraceptives, and claims the previous mandate that required employers to cover birth control could promote “risky sexual behavior” among teenagers and young adults.

In contrast, many obstetricians and gynecologists say contraceptives have been and are generally beneficial for women's health.

Dr. Haywood L. Brown, the president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, expressed concern for consequences on women’s health. “Affordable contraception for women saves lives,” he said. “It prevents pregnancies. It improves maternal mortality. It prevents adolescent pregnancies.”

The Trump administration cites the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 law protecting religious liberty, as legal reasoning for the new mandate. The administration admits that moral objections are not protected by the law, but states: “Congress has a consistent history of supporting conscience protections for moral convictions alongside protections for religious beliefs.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the Department of Justice would take steps to protect the new policy and stated, “President Trump promised that this administration would ‘lead by example on religious liberty,’ and he is delivering on that promise.”

The new policy is expected to facilitate a large number of lawsuits. The National Women’s Law Center, a nonprofit advocacy group, has been preparing a lawsuit since last spring. Brigitte Amiri, a senior attorney for the ACLU, said, “We are preparing to see the government in court.”

In addition, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and California Attorney General Javier Becerra announced plans to file a suit against the new mandate.

Trump’s new policy is an obvious attempt to win support from religious groups and conservatives, such as Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who claimed today is “a landmark day for religious liberty.”

A group supportive of the administration’s action is the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of Roman Catholic nuns who said that being required to cover contraception would make them “morally complicit in grave sin.” The organization sued the government, despite an already existing exemption for churches and other religious employers to opt out by notifying the government.

During his 2016 presidential bid, Trump promised that he would “make absolutely certain religious orders like the Little Sisters of the Poor are not bullied by the federal government because of their religious beliefs.” At a Rose Garden ceremony in May, he told the religious order, “Your long ordeal will soon be over.”

The Trump administration’s mandate sets a dangerous precedent for working women’s health. In 2014, in the case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court ruled that the ACA violated the religious liberty of Hobby Lobby, and stated that corporations could object to the birth control coverage mandate on religious grounds. Under Trump’s mandate, corporations could deny women employees access to no-cost birth control simply based on “moral objections.”

The new policy sets a precedent for corporations to deny other health coverage to employees under conditions in which the state of women’s health in the United States is already dire. The US holds the highest maternal mortality rate among industrialized nations, and a lack of access to birth control will potentially exacerbate the problem.

The new policy goes into effect immediately.

Killings of four elite soldiers in Niger highlight vast scale of American military operations in Africa

Eddie Haywood

On Wednesday, four US Green Berets soldiers were killed in an ambush while conducting a training mission with the Nigerien military in southwestern Niger near the border with neighboring Mali. The Nigerien soldiers suffered four casualties. Two other US soldiers, along with eight Nigerien soldiers were injured in the attack.

The ambush occurred 120 miles north of the capital city Niamey, near the village of Tongo-Tongo in the remote Tillaberi region. During the course of conducting a patrol with Nigerien forces, the troops came under attack.

According to the Washington Post, the garrison of US elite troops and Nigerien forces were led into an ambush by Malian Islamist militants affiliated with Al-Qaeda who crossed the border into Niger. The remote region has been an area of frequent raids by Islamist militants targeting Nigerien garrisons and checkpoints.

The official claim that US troops practice “non-engagement” with hostile forces, and are only providing training and sharing intelligence with the Nigerien military, has been exposed as a lie by this latest incident. It is clear that the US soldiers were carrying out an offensive operation, since the elite troops were patrolling with Nigerien forces deep into a hostile region.

The deployment of troops to Niger is an element of Washington’s “scramble for Africa,” which was commenced by Obama and is being continued under Trump. In occupying the Sahel region, soldiers under the command of AFRICOM have also been stationed in neighboring Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Nigeria.

Measuring the vast dimension of US military operations, General Donald Bolduc, head of US Special Operations for AFRICOM, recently reported that there are over 100 active US special operations missions at any given moment across the African continent.

The exact number of elite US forces deployed in Niger is unknown, but it is reported to be at least several dozen. The cumulative numbers deployed across the Sahel and surrounding region number in the hundreds. These forces occupy numerous outposts in Niger and the Lake Chad region, with some 250 US military service personnel deployed to a military base in Garoua, Cameroon. Dozens of special forces soldiers have been deployed to neighboring Nigeria last year.

Underscoring the scope of US military activity across Africa is Flintlock, an annual military exercise conducted by AFRICOM and the military forces of several Sahel countries, including Niger, as well as forces from Canada, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The military exercises began in 2005.

Flintlock is just one of the numerous military exercises conducted in recent years across the continent. The nature and scale of warfare scenarios the exercises conjure up, comprising aircraft and ground combat exercises, crowd control, mass bombardment and urban warfare, makes clear that Washington is preparing for much larger wars in Africa.

The backdrop to Washington’s hostile presence in the Sahel is the joint US and French-led war conducted in neighboring Mali, and the imperialist US/NATO bombing and destruction of Libya in 2011.

Under US-French leadership, the Nigerien forces have been conducting offensive missions against Malian Islamist militants since 2014, under the guise of the G5 Sahel, a proxy army comprised of forces from nations in the Sahel region. In addition to Niger, the G5 Sahel includes Chad, Mauritania, and Burkina Faso.

The roots of the war in Mali flow from the fallout of the US-backed NATO regime change operation against neighboring Libya, in which the US/NATO nexus armed and trained Islamist fighters to carry out its dirty operation of capturing and assassinating Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Spilling forth from the complete breakdown of Libyan society brought by US/NATO bombardment, the Islamist forces scattered to various parts of Northern Africa and the Middle East, including the Sahel region.

Starting in 2012 with the Tuareg rebellion in Northern Mali after a coup ousted Mali President Amadou Toure, the Tuareg rebels took advantage of the diversionary chaos the coup afforded. The rebels advanced deeper into Mali’s interior and began taking control of territory and cities formerly held by government forces.

In early 2013, France, with Washington’s backing, deployed troops to Mali to neutralize the rebel militias. In exchange for deploying its military forces, France extracted agreements from the new Malian government for establishing French bases to host a permanent contingent of French troops.

After the joint US-French effort stabilized the government in Bamako, France supported the installation of the current president of Mali, Ibrahim Keïta, a figure with a long history in Mali politics who resided in Paris, where he obtained his education.

Niger is seen as an integral component of American military operations in West Africa with AFRICOM’s Niamey base conducting drone flights across the region. The construction of a new drone facility in Agadez, a city in central Niger, constitutes an expansion of the United States’ drone capability in the Sahel with further flight range and duration.

The US military outposts in Niger are part of an extensive network of such bases reaching into nearly every corner of the African continent. Over 60 bases dot the African continent, highlighting Washington’s determined effort to establish US dominance over Africa’s vast economic resources by force. The Sahel region alone possesses trillions of dollars of mineral wealth, as well as holding significant gas and oil reserves.

The US military forces arrayed across the Sahel underscore the reckless imperialist ambition behind Washington’s geopolitical strategy for the region, that in its drive for military domination it runs the risk of sparking a conflict with its rivals that could lead to all-out war on the continent.

A significant part of the equation in the new “scramble for Africa” is Washington’s aim to neutralize China. In the last decade, Beijing has increased its economic influence across the continent, drawing up investment deals signed with various African governments for the rights of resource extraction and development, including minerals, oil, and gas.