Supreme Court fight deepens political crisis surrounding US elections

Patrick Martin

The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the senior Democratic Party-aligned member of the Supreme Court, has exacerbated political conflicts in the United States, with President Trump and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell threatening to fill the vacancy with an ultra-right nominee before the November 3 election.

Trump announced Saturday that he would nominate a female jurist to the open seat on the Supreme Court, citing as possible choices two ultra-right Catholics who are well-known opponents of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion: Judge Amy Coney Barrett of Indiana and Judge Barbara Lagoa of Florida, a Cuban-American.

White House officials indicated that a nomination could come with extraordinary speed, as soon as Wednesday, in order to meet a timeline for hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee and a Senate debate and confirmation vote before Election Day.

Democrats complained of the blatant political cynicism of McConnell, who blocked even a hearing in 2016 on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy created by the sudden death of the leader of the right-wing bloc on the high court, Antonin Scalia.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky walks to the Senate floor, September 14, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Four years ago, McConnell bloviated about the American people having the right to decide on filling the court vacancy through their votes in the presidential election, which was nine months away. Now, with only six weeks before Election Day, and after early and mail-in voting has already begun, he is pushing for immediate Senate confirmation of a Trump nominee, the people be damned.

There are several considerations involved in the drive to fill the Ginsburg vacancy as quickly as possible. Trump and McConnell calculate that the prospect of assuring a 6-3 ultra-right majority on the court, likely sufficient to reverse the Roe v. Wade decision, could mobilize Christian fundamentalist voters behind a Republican election campaign that has been flagging.

Trump trails Democrat Joe Biden in most polls, nationally and in the key “battleground” states that will decide the contest in the Electoral College. Wall Street and much of corporate America have thrown their support to Biden, who has raised far more campaign cash than Trump and is dominating the airways just as early voting begins in many states.

Senate Republicans are also in danger of losing their narrow three-vote majority in the upper house, with Republican incumbents trailing in the polls in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina and Maine, and only narrowly ahead in a half-dozen other states, while only one Democrat, in Alabama, is in serious danger.

The makeup of the high court could play a major role in deciding disputes arising from the election itself. A 6-3 right-wing majority would be a far more favorable arena for Trump if he challenges mail-in ballots or makes some other legal effort, modeled on the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision, to shut down vote-counting and have himself declared the winner.

There have already been more than 200 federal lawsuits filed over various aspects of the election in 45 states, and it is widely expected that some of these issues will reach the Supreme Court for decision before November 3. “We cannot let Election Day come and go and with a 4-4 court,” said Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. “We risk a constitutional crisis.”

In addition, just two weeks after the election, the Supreme Court is to hear a challenge to the Affordable Care Act brought by a group of Republican state attorneys general. If Ginsburg is replaced by a conservative justice, the 5-4 decision that upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare in 2012 could well be overturned.

The reactionary and anti-democratic character of the Trump-McConnell effort to establish unchallenged right-wing domination of the Supreme Court has produced widespread popular outrage. Thousands of people flocked to Capitol Hill in Washington to pay their respects to Ginsburg, and opinion polls show overwhelming public opposition to Trump nominating someone for a lifetime position on the court on the eve of an election where he could well be voted out of office.

The response of the Democratic Party leadership in Washington, however, is a combination of cowardice and impotence. They shake their fists at Trump, but they are far more afraid of the consequences of any direct appeal to popular hostility to this hated right-wing government.

This attitude found expression in an unusual Sunday night press conference by Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The “senator from Wall Street,” as Schumer is known, and the professed democratic-socialist Ocasio-Cortez had never before made common cause.

They came together to denounce McConnell’s plan to hold a confirmation vote on Trump’s nominee to fill the Ginsburg vacancy, warning of a massive threat to the basic rights of the American people. Trump would appoint a justice committed to overturning reproductive rights, labor rights, civil rights, voting rights, the rights of LGBTQ people, including gay marriage, and turn the clock back, they declared.

All this is perfectly true, but what the two Democrats actually proposed to do about it was … nothing. They urged those watching to call, write and email their senators, particularly Republican senators in contested states.

McConnell commands a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and two Republicans have already announced their opposition to a confirmation vote before the election. “We only need two more senators,” Schumer said. “We need to tell Mitch McConnell he is playing with fire,” Ocasio-Cortez added.

“If Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans move forward with this, then nothing is off the table for next year,” Schumer said. “Nothing is off the table.” This bluster is revealing. Schumer threatens consequences in 2021, effectively conceding that nothing can be done before the election and the installation of a new Congress and president, except to appeal to a handful of “persuadable” Republican senators.

If the Democrats issued a call for a mass demonstration in Washington to oppose the Trump-McConnell effort to fill the Supreme Court vacancy on the eve of the election, they know very well that masses of people would turn out. That is, of course, exactly why they don’t do it. They are far more afraid of the social forces that would be unleashed by such an appeal than of any attacks Trump and the Republicans make on the democratic rights of working people.

Particularly significant is the subservient role of Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, who has been glorified by the pseudo-left groups as proof that their policy of pushing the Democratic Party to the left can transform this right-wing capitalist party into an instrument for progressive social change.

One reporter asked Ocasio-Cortez about impeaching Trump a second time in an effort to block the Senate confirmation vote (under Senate rules, an impeachment vote by the House forces a Senate trial that takes precedence over all other business). She replied meekly that impeachment is “up to the Democratic leadership,” i.e., Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, both die-hard defenders of big business and the US political establishment.

The performance of the Democrats has been so pathetic that even one of their usual media acolytes, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, was aghast. He commented Sunday night that even if the Democrats win control of the Senate and take the White House, the question is, “will they still be McConnell’s patsies?” That has been their role since Trump took office, he conceded.

The enumeration by Schumer and Ocasio-Cortez of the rights that would be endangered if Trump is allowed to proceed with his third nomination of a Supreme Court justice only underscores the extremely attenuated character of American democracy. How is it possible that the rights of tens of millions of people—workers, blacks, gays, women, immigrants—can be threatened by one judge, or two senators, or even a president?

These rights were won in struggles carried out over many decades and involving millions upon millions of working people. Yet now, the Democrats admit, they hang by a thread.

The blatant effort by Trump and McConnell to rig the Supreme Court underscores the fraudulent character of American democracy. Trump himself occupies the White House only because of the anti-democratic Electoral College system, having lost the popular vote by more than three million.

The Senate is itself thoroughly anti-democratic, with California (population nearly 40 million) and Wyoming (population under 600,000) having two senators apiece. McConnell’s Republicans hold a 53-47 majority, but Republican senators represent barely 40 percent of the US population.

And then there is the Supreme Court itself: nine unelected justices, holding seats for life, all from upper-class Ivy League colleges, all chosen through a process that insures that every single one is a die-hard defender of the capitalist system and American imperialism.

The intensity of the conflict raging within the US ruling elite, and the open attacks on democratic principles and constitutional legality by Trump in particular, have led even bourgeois media commentators to express concern. Thus Dan Balz of the Washington Post wrote Sunday: “Depending on the outcome of the election and of the resolution of who fills the Ginsburg seat, the battle could easily expand to an even more charged debate over whether the high court speaks for and represents the views of a majority of Americans or even whether the democratic system of government more broadly has become undemocratic.”

Underlying the disintegration of American democracy is the deepening social crisis. Tens of millions are out of work as a result of the pandemic, which has infected seven million and killed 200,000 Americans. One million people face foreclosure imminently. Millions have been cut off from federal extended unemployment benefits and face a complete cutoff of all income support.

Neither capitalist party speaks for the working people who are the vast majority of the population. The Democrats hail the unions, the corrupt industrial police of the corporations, as though they represented working people. Trump dispenses with that pretense, offering himself as an American Führer who supposedly will uphold the interests of working people by waging economic warfare against China, Mexico and Europe.

The alternative for the working class is to fight against the real source of all the attacks on jobs, living standards and democratic rights—the capitalist profit system. This means a break with the capitalist two-party system and the building of a mass independent political movement of workers to fight for a socialist program. This is the policy advanced by the Socialist Equality Party and our 2020 presidential and vice-presidential candidates, Joseph Kishore and Norissa Santa Cruz.

WHO condemns governments’ failure to prepare for pandemic

Bryan Dyne

A report issued last week by the World Health Organization (WHO) makes clear that governments the world over were warned for years of the danger of a global pandemic with the exact characteristics of COVID-19 and did virtually nothing to prepare for or work to prevent such an outbreak.

The report was issued by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, an organization run jointly by the WHO and the World Bank to monitor international readiness to combat mass outbreaks of infectious diseases. It states at the outset: “Never before has the world been so clearly forewarned of the dangers of a devastating pandemic, nor previously had the knowledge, resources and technologies to deal with such a threat. Yet, never before has the world witnessed a pandemic of such widespread and destructive social and economic impact.”

Such warnings were issued by the WHO itself. In last year’s “A World At Risk” report, it made clear that the threat of a “rapidly spreading pandemic due to a lethal respiratory pathogen” had the potential to kill millions and cause economic devastation. The warnings were ignored by the United States and every other major power.

The consequence is a global catastrophe not seen since the world wars of the last century. By the end of this week, one million human lives will have been lost to the pandemic, a number expected to double by the start of 2021. Millions more will suffer longterm health problems caused by the disease. Hundreds of millions have already had their lives shattered by the loss of employment and the deaths of co-workers, neighbors, friends and family.

Not only were the WHO’s warnings repeatedly ignored, the report notes that the pandemic “has demonstrated the fragility of highly interconnected economies and social systems, and the fragility of trust.” The document continues: “It has exploited and exacerbated the fissures within societies and among nations. It has exploited inequalities, reminding us in no uncertain terms that there is no health security without social security. COVID-19 has taken advantage of a world in disorder.”

More accurately, the catastrophic impact of COVID-19 is the product of “a world in disorder.” The report states that the pandemic “contributed to an increase in populism, nationalism and authoritarianism” in countries around the world. The pandemic also “fueled political confrontation” and “exacerbated vulnerabilities” bound up with unprecedented levels of social inequality.

In other words, the pandemic has exposed the contradiction between the highly integrated nature of modern society and the outmoded and irrational nation-state system of capitalism.

As a result, the necessary resources needed to combat pandemics were never made available. According to the data in the document, world governments would have had to spend an additional $5 per person annually—a worldwide total of less than $40 billion each year—to adequately prepare for a pandemic. As it is, the cost of the response to the pandemic thus far is $11 trillion and counting. An additional $10 trillion is expected to be lost “as a result of school closures and a global recession,” which will be felt most heavily by the younger generation.

The report also lays out the deadly secondary effects of the pandemic. “Vaccination campaigns throughout the world have been suspended, threatening polio eradication and potentially leading to new outbreaks of preventable diseases, with their own related deaths, illnesses and long-term effects. Interrupted access to HIV, TB and malaria care threatens to cause more than a million additional deaths in 2020-2021 alone.”

Similar projections estimate that an additional 1.2 million children and 56,700 mothers worldwide will likely die in the next six months because of disruptions in maternity care and food supplies.

And there is no end in sight. More than seven million people have been infected in the United States alone and 204,000 have died. The number of new cases in Spain, France and the Netherlands, which had largely suppressed the pandemic during May, June and parts of July, has surged to levels at or above their highs in May or April. Even Italy, the world epicenter of the pandemic in early spring, is experiencing a resurgence of infections, with nearly 1,500 new cases reported each day. Cases and deaths in India, Brazil and Mexico continue to skyrocket.

The new eruption of the pandemic in Europe is directly related to the lifting of social distancing restrictions and reopening of nonessential industries and schools—as predicted and warned against by scientists and medical experts.

That so much death and suffering continues to occur, however, cannot be attributed simply to a lack of “good governance,” as the report implies. Every capitalist government is pursuing—implicitly and increasingly explicitly—a policy of “herd immunity,” i.e., deliberately allowing the virus to infect the population, regardless the cost in human lives.

The fact that this homicidal policy is common to all the major governments of the world gives the lie to attempts to attribute the criminal and incompetent response to the virus to the subjective traits of individual leaders such as Donald Trump. Trump and other fascistic leaders, such as Modi in India and Bolsonaro in Brazil, personify most openly the criminal character of the corporate-financial oligarchies that rule the world. Their coming to power expresses the descent of capitalism as a world system into barbarism and war.

The rational, humane and scientific policies, the financial resources, and the international coordination required to contain and eradicate the virus cut across the economic interests of the billionaires who dictate the policies of governments. From the outset, they have acted to protect and expand their stock portfolios, marshaling trillions of dollars in corporate bailouts, at the cost potentially of millions of lives.

“To overcome the health crisis, we must learn to live with the virus,” French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted last month. “It is likely that practically all children, one way or another, will be infected with coronavirus,” declared the regional premier of Madrid, Spain last Wednesday. This in a country that has seen its daily infections rise from 300 in June to 30,000 on Sunday.

President Donald Trump was most explicit when he said during a televised town hall event last week, “you’ll develop herd mentality,” catching himself before saying “herd immunity.” He continued, “Like a herd mentality. It’s going to be—it’s going to be herd-developed, and that’s going to happen.” As a result, he said, the pandemic will “disappear.”

Even by the most conservative estimates, such a policy will ultimately lead in the coming years to more than 23 million deaths globally from COVID-19. More pessimistic projections warn that up to 71 million people will have to die for “herd immunity” to the coronavirus to develop in the world’s population. And this does not take into account reinfection, which has already been documented.

Every effort must be made to prevent such an apocalyptic scenario. Above all else, the deciding factor will be, as the World Health Organization states, “political leadership.” Not, however, the political leadership of capitalist governments, but rather the political leadership of the working class.

The working class must be clear that it is not a question of appealing to the governments and financial institutions that were warned and still allowed the pandemic to occur.

The catastrophic failure to contain the pandemic is the outcome of a social system that prioritizes private profit over human life. The $40 billion a year needed to prevent a pandemic was deemed too expensive, even as military budgets and corporate bailouts soared all over the world.

Working people must demand the allocation of all the material and scientific resources needed to locate and stamp out the disease. This requires a struggle against the entire capitalist framework.

The growing opposition of workers to the deadly back-to-work drive, expressed in strikes and protests by teachers, autoworkers, bus drivers and many other sections of the working class internationally, must be transformed into a class conscious, independent political movement of workers of all countries, fighting to put an end to capitalism and establish socialism.

India-China Situation Aggravates

Haider Abbas

The two world largest armies and unarguably the Asian largest economy and the third largest economy China and India seem determined to undermine each other in this seemingly uneasy scenario which tends to build around these two countries.  There is an uneasy chill in the mountains as both the nations are into building their ‘military-build-ups’ to outdo each other, and latest to add to the already heated-up’ situation is the clash over the claim from India on the number of casualties from the Chinese side when the Galwan valley clash took place on June 15, 2020, as since then perhaps, instead of any slowdown there is an ‘upping the ante’ in the air.

The India’s external affairs minister Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi meeting on the sidelines of SCO, Moscow on September 10, 2020 had released a ‘joint-statement’ which had kindled hopes of de-escalation but it was instead ascribed by The Global Times, China’s state affiliated newspaper  as  ‘paper-talk’, is now clearly turning out to be so, as instead of any de-escalation on the China-India border standoff, which has begun since May 2020, and which has seen three flashpoint as yet, i.e. June 15, August 29 and September 7, 2020, in which India lost 20 of its soldiers , both sides having fired 100 rounds each, there does not seem to be any moment which may suggest the situation to have mellowed down even if that by bits. On the contrary another war of words seem to have got broken over the number of casualties from the Chinese side, on June 15, 2020 as claimed by the Indian side.

The Chinese newspaper The Global Times, which is considered as mouthpiece of the Chinese government in an article India lies about casualties in border clash with China on September 17, 2020, has taken an exception to India’s defence minister Rajnath Singh statement in parliament that Indian army inflicted heavy casualties on the Chinese army during the June 15, 2020 clash. ‘ Such rhetoric is aimed at inspiring Indian nationalist forces ( it is obviously done why get irked over it) as ‘according to the information from people familiar with the situation from the Chinese side, the number of Chinese soldiers who sacrificed their lives ( not life, which means more than one) during the conflict was far less than the number of India’s’.

The article by Editor-in-Chief gives details of the two flashpoints as such. ‘Based on what I know, a few officers and soldiers of the Chinese army went to the border area (with) the Indian troops for negotiation( June 15, 2020), but the Indian army attacked them without any warning, leading to the clash. At the start of the skirmish, the Chinese soldiers were outnumbered, but some of them fought to their last breath, and no one was captured by the Indian army. After the Chinese army began to counterattack, (it had) some (Indian soldiers) rolling down the mountains and some falling into the river. Quite a number of Indian soldiers surrendered to the PLA, and were captured’.  The article further tells that ‘in the latest conflict near the Pangong Tso Lake (August 29,2020), Indian troops “preempted” PLA’s activity (meaning they illegally trespassed the border), and showcased that they had gained an advantage by occupying highlands and throwing stones at the PLA. But based on what I know, PLA soldiers disregarded the Indian threats and drove away the Indian troops from the highlands. The Chinese army has gained advantageous positions at many points in the standoff. The article now turns to warning ‘The PLA can launch a heavy counterattack at the Indian army’s new provocation at any time, and Chinese people believe that the PLA will never be gentle to the provocative Indian troops in the future’.  Going by the stated Chinese position in this article is there as counterattack coming on India as China has been instigated by Rajnath Singh claim of heavy-Chinese casualties? The stated position in India, dished out through various media outlets, however,  is  that China lost between 45-50 soldiers on June 15, 2020. In China there is no tradition of declaring the number of casualties.

Things are now reaching to a new low and much to the disadvantage of India as India’s very respectable defence analyst Pravin Sawhney has put it, on his twitter on September 18, 2020, that China is not to relent on Ladakh anymore as it has set it eyes on Arunachal Pradesh now.  India has already acceded to the previous 1959 position, as China has disregarded the agreed-upon 1993 LAC, which had been elaborated well by Pravin Sawhney in his article published in The Wire in which it was debated that Chinese consider the LAC as what had been decided between JL Nehru and Zhau Enlai in 1959, and which ironically, was also agreed upon in the joint-statement on September 10, 2020 as there is no reference of LAC. Hence, the clock has been (already) turned to 1959 is what I wrote in CounterCurrents on September 17, 2020.  Another article almost on the same lines, from The Wire on September 18, 2020, has been very critical of Rajnath Singh which says that the minister held-back in his speech in parliament that Chinese army has blocked the 900 sq. kms. access of India access to Depsang in Ladakh!

But, what now Pravin Sawhney (on his twitter on September 18, 2020)  highlights is that China in a renewed attempt wants to rubbish the McMahon line too, which divided China and Arunachal Pradesh and which China refers  to as South Tibet.  What is this McMahon line? ‘The McMahon Line defines a clear boundary line between India and China. This line was determined by Sir Henry McMahon, then Foreign Secretary in the Government of British India (1914). The length of this line is 890 kilometers. But China does not accept this line. This is the apple of discord between India and China’. So , accordingly, China has started to amass troops on Arunachal border as a report in IndiaToday shows on September 15, 2020, ‘The Chinese Army is now building up its troops deployment at least four locations across the border in Arunachal Pradesh. Troops build-up has been noticed in the Chinese territory opposite Arunachal Pradesh, nearly 20 km from the Indian territory. It is possible that China may try to carry out more incursions in these areas and capture some dormant locations or height. The Indian troops are fully prepared to thwart such attempts and the forces have beefed up their strength accordingly’.

India signals to meet China on its terms in Arunachal Pradesh and if the article  from IndiaToday on September 18, 2020, is to be assuaged then it gives a lead that China through its postures of avoiding the conflict is actually buying time to secretly attack India . ‘Some Chinese strategists say the Chinese govt is either avoiding conflict, or it is secretly planning a counterattack’, it says.  This perceptible article  places it all very well as to how China has tried to intimidate India to be ‘wiped-out’ and towards which India ought to take counter measures.  Another Indian hawk and defense analyst Brahma Chellaney puts it in The Hindustan Times on September 18, 2020 that India needs to shake-off  its ‘hug, then repent’ policy as  now it is clear that China ‘has trashed all those agreements with its aggression. Yet India still plays into China’s hands by clinging to the accords by agreeing recently in Moscow. Why has India repeatedly cried betrayal, not by friends, but by adversaries in whom it reposed trust? Why has Indian diplomacy rushed to believe what it wanted to believe? What makes India keep repeating the cycle of bending over backward to court a foe and then failing to see aggression coming. Why does India stay at the receiving end of its foes’ machinations? Why has it never repaid China with its own “salami slicing”?’ The article postulates to Indian establishment that ‘Beijing is using talks to consolidate its territorial gains, force India to live with the new status quo’ and which India ought to dismantle on its own.

Going by the body posturing of the two warring sides it is becoming more than apparently clear that the situation between India and China has aggravated towards more.

Confronting Collapse

Gwendolyn Hallsmith

As we pick up the pieces of the shattered economy, the route to the Great Transition becomes clear: we need to recapture and democratize money as a lever for resource allocation and collective power.

(Photo: Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

A quick survey of the GTI scenarios and the world around us will show that we slid from Conventional Worlds to Barbarization in the first three months of 2020. The threat of a Breakdown loomed amidst the economic fallout of the pandemic: over 40 million people unemployed in the US, for long food distribution lines, and homeless people put in parking lots for proper distancing. At the onset of summer, escalating violence bared the ugly teeth of Fortress World, as police across the country took violent actions against peaceful protesters and accelerationist provocateurs turned our cities into war zones.

We are in the middle of an enormous change.

Business closures, supply chain breakdowns, crumbling collateral, and vast new sovereign debt all form the winds of a perfect economic storm. Here in Vermont, the college system alone will need a bailout of $25 million, almost equal to its annual appropriation. Multiply that by all the colleges and universities in the world, and you get one small piece of the big picture. States and cities that rely on income, sales, and meals taxes are already going broke; we can add their annual budgets to the money needed for bailouts.

Homeowners, tenants, and business owners are not paying rents, mortgages, and other debts. Student loans are not being paid back. The real estate under it all is for sale, including traditional institutions like colleges, churches, and commercial centers in downtowns. All this adds up to the conditions for a monetary meltdown like none we have ever seen.

If countries retreat from international agreements as quickly as people locked down at the threat of contagion, we could see the return of hyperinflation, deflation, and/or devaluation of major world currencies like the dollar. As we pick up the pieces of the shattered economy, the route to the Great Transition becomes clear: we need to recapture and democratize money as a lever for resource allocation and collective power.

Lights in the Darkness

Amidst the ever-present threat of collapse, we need to find new ways to exchange goods and services with each other when money is scarce or unreliable. Time banks, for example, allow people to trade using time instead of money. Here in Central Vermont, the Onion River Exchange has been operating for over ten years. Such time banks have been flourishing all over the world.

The practice of business barter is not new: the Wir banking system in Switzerland, for instance, has been running a commercial barter currency for almost ninety years. It is easy for two contractors to trade with each other, but if a contractor wants to trade with someone who supplies agricultural amendments, Wir can help facilitate the transaction.

During the pandemic, mutual aid networks have blossomed all over the world. People have been pooling resources, volunteering time, and helping their neighbors through the crisis. What if these networks could be the foundation for basic income and provisioning for people without a reliance on money? Digital currency platforms like those developed by the Mutual Aid Network could help us accomplish that.

Special-purpose currencies also have an essential role to play in this rethinking of money and exchange. One of the beauties of special-purpose currencies is that we can value things according to what our community thinks are important instead of what the financial markets prefer. The arts can be supported through an arts currency; ecological practices can be supported with currencies based on carbon reductions, damage remediation, water conservation, and waste cleanup. Having different kinds of money for different kinds of transactions makes a lot more sense on a finite planet than the one-size-fits-all system we have now.

Eco-Communalism

Here in Cabot, Vermont, you can see the tiny spring flowers of Eco-communalism taking hold. Our ecovillage has weathered the storm of the pandemic largely by being far enough away from urban areas or tourist hubs. We have ramped up our food production, doubled the size of our community garden, taken on sixty new chickens, planted mushrooms, and increased our greenhouse space. We are working hard to relocalize all aspects of our lives.

We are already simultaneously in the Breakdown, Fortress World, and Eco-Communalism, depending on where and how you live. My view is that a way of life more in harmony with nature is absolutely necessary for survival. The Great Transition is not a scenario; it is an imperative. If in the time of pandemic you are doing a lot less of what you thought was your “normal” life and are constrained and frustrated, you probably need to find a different way of life, if you still can. If, like people living in ecological intentional communities, you are doing a lot more of your “normal” life, or your life hasn’t changed all that much, the Great Transition is alive and well where you are. It is a choice that is possible to make. We need a lot more people to make it.

Venezuela – A Tribute for Her Endless Pursuit of Democracy

Peter Koenig

Venezuela is again the shining light of Democracy – pushing ahead with the 6 December 2020 National Assembly (NA) elections – despite the endless challenges of covid – of sanctions, of embargos, of confiscation of foreign assets, and even of a totally illicit blockage of reserve currencies – Venezuela’s gold – naturally in the world’s protectorate of international financial fraud, The City of London.

This unique drive for democracy against all odds succeeds to a great degree thanks to President Maduro, who relentlessly resists not only the attempts against his life, but the lies and vilifications about Venezuela from most of the western world, led, of course, by the United States, followed closely by the European Union which, it seems, dominated by NATO, can’t break loose from being at Washington’s bidding.

It is sad to see European states – hands and minds still dripping of colonial blood, not being able to break the stranglehold of their genocidal past – and step onto a new plate, into a new history – fighting for justice and human rights. An example how far from this eye-opening conscientious awakening Europe is, was again demonstrated today by the EU Commission’s call to “sanction” Russia for the totally unproven Navalny poisoning, by stopping the almost completed Nord Stream 2 German-Russian gas pipeline project.

Never mind the absurdity, that Germany and the EU are punishing themselves, not only because alternative badly needed gas supplies will be considerably more expensive – and god forbid – may be coming from US fracking sources. In other words, the EU would approve of an environmental disaster. Many of EU member countries are by their Constitution barred from using fracking gas or oil.

And again, the EU vassalhood – to call it what it is – refused President Maduro’s invitation to observe the December 6 elections. Mr. Maduro went out of his way to invite all the important opinion makers to come and observe the fairness of the elections, including the UN and the Europeans. The latter prefer not to see the correctness with their own eyes, but being able to criticize what they have not seen. There is no darker blindness than that emanating from not wanting to see.

And that of course only, because the European leaders (sic) – all shoe-ins by an international deep state elite – will do whatever it takes to preserve as long as possible the unsustainable – an unfettered, neoliberal no holds barred capitalism. The WEF (World Economic Forum) calls it best: The Great Reset – the upwards reorganization of assets. After the very elite-made global covid hoax has destroyed and continues to devastate most of what was the world economy, what gave work and food to billions of people – people are dwelling in the gutters with nothing left – no health care, no shelter, no food – no hope. The latter is the killer.

Venezuela is the antidote to this western usurping approach to civilization – what’s left of it. Venezuela pursues justice and fights for equality. By the way, Venezuela is in the honorable company of Cuba, Syria, Iran, Russia and China. The US, alias the west, cannot tolerate an example of ethics in its hegemonic orbit. Western allies – united under the boots of NATO – pretend freedom is their cause, while their own people suffer from unfathomable injustice every day – poverty and famine of children is skyrocketing in the Global North, the so-called developed or industrialized world – the bankers world, the world of those who indebt the Global South into dependence, into the Global North’s neo-colonies.

Venezuela, on the contrary, aims at eradicating poverty famine and misery – and that despite her constant strangulation by Washington and their western allies, and even by some of what should be their Latin Brothers, the Lima Group, formed in August 2017 in Lima, Peru (12 members as of December 2019: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Guyana, Saint Lucia, Bolivia and Haiti).

Imagine – how much pressure these Lima Group countries are under to accuse, boycott, denigrate and speak out in international fora against their fellow Latin Americans of Venezuela. Once upon a time there was a United Latin America – united under the leadership of Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar. With the onset of the British Empire’s transatlantic move of its power center to become the United States of America, the southern part of the America’s became what recent US Presidents called “our backyard” – ready to be usurped in any way possible, mostly in the form of military dictatorships and lately by Washington-induced coups against democratically elected heads of states.

However, the spirit of Simon Bolivar, El Libertador, lives on. Together with Nicolas Maduro’s tenacious will for freedom, for autonomy, for full sovereignty for Venezuelans, their use and destiny over natural resources, may prevail and influence upcoming elections in Bolivia (October 2020), Chile (October 2020 referendum on whether a new Constitution ought to be drafted, replacing the one dating back to Pinochet), Brazil (municipal election in November 2020) and Ecuador (general elections in February 2021).

Venezuela’s overarching strength by solidarity and endless fight for justice and Human Rights, brought the opposition to its knees. The right-wing Washington supported opposition, led by self-nominated “president” Juan Guaidó, boycotted past elections, so as not to show their weakness vis-à-vis the rest of the world. Now, perhaps the real head of opposition, Henrique Capriles, is changing tactics. Realizing that the only way to have any say in the political arena of Venezuela is by participating in it, he is calling for participation in the 6 December National Assembly elections.

President Maduro has always encouraged and invited participation of the opposition in elections and will welcome their presence for the December 2020 NA elections too. Because Democracy is at the heart of Chavismo, the very socialist thought being carried forward – steadily, without wavering, by President Maduro and his Government. – Viva! Venezuela’s Democracy – a shining light for the Americas and for the world.

The Woeful Trial Of Bank Pensioners

Moin Qazi

Public banks have played a historically stellar role in financial inclusion and the development of the underserved sector. These banks have been the backbone of the government’s socio-economic agenda. State-owned banks in developing countries have to shoulder the main burden of the government’s development policies—from rural lending to infrastructure development.

But while public banks   have striven ceaselessly to bring about an economic revolution that is visible in so many improved development indices, the staff have been getting a raw deal. The government has been consistently extolling them for their commitment and zeal in translating the development agenda, but has paid little heed to their worsening service conditions. While there have been paltry raises in salaries of staff, there has been virtual stagnation in pensions for over two decades particularly when inflation has been soaring. Salaries in public banks have been far less attractive than in private banks. The only consolation is the provision of pension which has now been reduced to a measly sum by a strange and unjustifiable logic of the government. This logic doesn’t meet the test set out in several judicial pronouncements.

There may have been some black sheep in the industry which has tarnished the image of banks, but the entire fraternity must not be made to suffer for their misdeeds. The central and state governments have also been plagued by periodical scams and many unholy acts but that has never detracted us from the wonderful work of outstanding civil servants who form the bulwark of India’s adorable public administration. So is the case with the public banking sector. The staff form the bulwark of India’s robust financial administration and have always delivered on all government policies and programmes. In the absence of competitive salaries, the only tool for keeping their morale intact is by doing justice to their wage and pension package. It must be commensurate with both the volume of work and the grave risks involved in their operational roles.

Salaries, leaves and other service conditions of public sector bank employees and officers are decided by bilateral agreements once every five years. But pension does not form part of this contractual arrangement. Unlike in the case of government employees, the pension of bank retirees is not updated in line with periodical revision of salaries. Thus, the lowest grade government pensioner gets a proportional raise at every wage revision which is not so in the banking sector. In the banking sector, the retired top-grade executive has to make do with a fixed pension throughout his entire life. He may have been at the helm of affairs of a large bank, but he cannot maintain even a semblance of the living standard that was extended to him by virtue of his official position. This is certainly a highly unique form of injustice and the concerned authorities don’t appear to be in any mood to address this serious miscarriage of justice.  It has become an insidious tool for humiliating so many talented men and women, with impeccable and unblemished careers, who steered their banks with such astute leadership. Their achievement speaks of their contribution. And, sadly they find a pittance in store for them in the autumn of their life. In fact, the government is so magnanimous with its pensioners that it gives a few percentage points increase for pensioners who have completed 75 years of age. This is further enhanced in other higher age bands. All this logic is lost when the rules for bank pensioners are   laid out.

It is a well-known fact that the government’s socio-economic programmes have to make extensive use of banking conduit. It was public banks that revolutionised rural India in the social banking era of the 1970s. These banks are the one-stop shop for all financial needs of the local rural populace, including insurance, financial literacy, remittance and receipt of welfare subsidies and grants, amongst others.

The depth and outreach of the banking network in the late seventies grew at a sizzling pace on account of the enthusiastic embracement by banks of tough social and economic mandates of the government. This was at a time when the communication infrastructure in the country was abysmally weak, unlike today when mobile phones, email, SMS, Skype and zoom enable you to communicate anywhere any time.

One of the reasons adduced for ignoring the claim of bank staff for commensurate wages is India’s pile of soured loans. This bad loan crisis is only partly of the making of bankers. One must not forget that it is a classic example of how powerful and politically influential tycoons have been undermining financial norms and bank regulations to secure credit and then default on it. The huge   desperate attempts by governments to detoxify balance sheets shows how critical the crisis has become. When borrowers become insolvent, their loans are added to an existing mountain of debt. Each time it happens, banks have to make heavy write-downs, ploughing the dud loans like rotten potatoes, ultimately choking the credit line. But why bank staff should be penalised. There are separate forums which are already dealing with malfeasance of individual staff. But by such actions we are strangling the morale of staff who are driving India’s socioeconomic revolution even in the face of a pandemic like Covid-19. We all know the huge casualties public banks suffered during demonetisation.

Most big defaulters have the money to employ legal eagles who can play the judicial system—it is here where the law flounders. India has some of the most draconian laws in books, which are ineffective against powerful dodgers. We keep producing new laws when the existing ones are adequate and just need more teeth to obtain results. We show such promptness in condemning waivers for poor farmers, but we lack the courage to tame the big fishes because they have enormous clout. Politicians are equally guilty of undermining the integrity of banks. They stack the decks with populist sops using banks as spigots for burnishing their election credentials.

A moot point is that the government is ready to shoulder the additional financial burden on account of the pension revision its employees out of the revenue income, whereas banks are required to meet this liability from their profits from commercial operations. in the case of bank pensioners pension is payable with no cost either to banks or to government and such payment is out of the money, property and deferred wages of employees held in trust. Pension Funds comprise the EPF contributions which were payable every month as a component of salary to employees and deferred and detained by banks in trust for payment of pension. In the case of State Bank of India, the trustees of its Pension Fund have traditionally built an enormous corpus for meeting the pension obligations, and it is comfortably adequate to meet pension liabilities for a long future.

In public banks, the pension structure was premised exactly on the principles that were applied to Reserve Bank of India. In compliance with clause 6 and 12 the Memorandum of Settlement dated 29.10.1993 between Indian Banks’ Association and All India Bank Employees Association entered into under Industrial Disputes Act, it was specified   that the amount of pension and general conditions of pension scheme in banks shall be on the lines of the RBI Pension Scheme.

The government had at one stage refused to give in to the RBI employees’ demand for revision of pension on the lines of   government employees, pleading it would have a contingent effect, which would lead to similar demands from other public sector banks.  The financial burden of updating pension in the RBI was Rs 858 crore while the apex bank’s pension corpus was around Rs 12,000 crore. The government finally agreed because the logic was on the side of RBI employees. RBI pensioners became entitled to receive a notional rise of 10% in their salaries plus dearness allowance with each of the three wage revisions in 2002, 2007 and 2012.In the case of public banks too, the corpus available is far larger than the actual financial burden involved in payment of   pensions. But the government has not shown the same consideration. May be, the RBI clout was too strong to be overlooked.

With the government having shown both wisdom and prudence in revising the salaries of staff of RBI, one hopes it will follow suit with staff of public banks. They deserve this long-awaited recognition and acknowledgment particularly because their work involves physical and mental discomfort as well as great risks.

Behind the gleaming images of successful development revolutions is the untold saga of   grassroots staff of banks and development agencies. Development work is dirty; you have to soil your hands, and you have to live with tough elements at the lower dregs of society. Business schools don’t teach you how to fight goons; risk mitigation can’t hold water in the face of the mad frenzy of public assaults; technological gadgets can’t speak the language needed to navigate this dense thicket of vandalism. These tiny revolutions may not command great attention; but in merit, they may equal or exceed the greater and more conspicuous actions of those with more freedom and power.

When it comes to compensation, one or more issues often get mixed up. There is the talk of money buying talent but not a commitment, the development and banking sector needing a high level of commitment, and so on. This may be true, but one must not forget that a large number of competent, committed and concerned people would not venture into banking sector if it did not secure their future financially.

Extractive imperialism and resistance in Burkina Faso

Yanis Iqbal

Canadian company Tajiri Resources announced on August 20 that it had entered into an agreement with Sahara Natural Resources to begin drilling in Burkina Faso at the company’s exploration program on the Reo Gold project, located 130 kilometres west of the capital, Ouagadougou.

The initiation of a mining project, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, reflects the entrenchment of extractive imperialism, and its determination to continue exploiting the country’s workers, regardless. For example, West African gold mining company Roxgold continues to operate its Yaramoko Mine Complex, despite confirming two positive cases of COVID-19 at the site.

Industrial mining in Burkina Faso has only evolved during the past decade, with industrial gold production rising tenfold, from five tons in 2008 to more than 50 tons in 2018.

The country — which is referred to as a Gold-Endowed, African Low-Income Country (GALIC) — has 154 metric tons of gold reserves and has mainly attracted substantial investment in gold mining. During 2007–14, Burkina Faso experienced a gold rush and jumped from sixteenth- to fourth-largest gold producer on the African continent.

In 2012, an incredible 941 mining permits and licences were issued.

From 2007–10, seven gold mining companies came into operation and gold production multiplied eight-fold. In 2010, the revenue from gold exploitation represented 63.8% of total export revenues and 7.7% of GDP. Furthermore, in 2012, earnings from the exploitation of gold rose substantially from CFA440 billion to CFA806 billion.

Mining and underdevelopment

The advent of extractivism in Burkina Faso has brought little benefit to the country’s oppressed people. The Comptoir Burkinabe des Métaux Précieux (Berkinabe Precious Metals Counter) was established by Thomas Sankara’s revolutionary government in 1986, to install state monopoly on the production, transformation, export and purchase of gold. Through state regulation, the entry of private capital was greatly hindered. With the assassination of Sankara in 1987, neoliberal mining laws were instituted by the new administration, aimed at fostering the entry of foreign and private capital. This was achieved by the squeezing out of non-industrial mines and aggressive elevation of industrial exploitation financed by multinationals.

With the help of the new laws, six western mining companies started operating and all of them expatriated their profits, thereby contributing to the super-exploitation and consequent underdevelopment of Burkina Faso.

The extent of super-exploitation is indicated by the share of government income from the seven largest gold mines — only 10%. Moreover, mining areas rank among the poorest in the country and the cost of living in these mining locations is significantly higher than in other rural areas.

While talking about people displaced by extractivist operations, one NGO stated: “Their fields have been taken away. Now they have neither fields for farming activities nor jobs in the mine.

“For the local population, the mines do not have any benefit at all”.

The displacement of people due to industrial mining is expected, since it requires large amounts of land. At the local level, the land required for mining may be substantial and may result in competition with other land uses.

In Burkina Faso, subsistence agriculture based on cereal growing (sorghum, millet, maize and rice) is the predominant regional activity, employing 80% of the population. Correspondingly, farming is the most affected by mining activities, reducing food production and increasing food insecurity.

Elaborating on the deleterious impacts of mining, a report by the organisation Global Change — Local Conflicts presents an alternative analysis of extractive imperialism in the country.

Mining greatly accelerated in 2018 when exploration and exploitation permits for industrial mining were issued for almost half of the surface of the country. With this acceleration, the suffering of Burkinabes concomitantly increased.

While talking about the Perkoa zinc mine — owned by Australian company Blackthorn Resources Limited — a resident said: “This mine has made us very poor in this village.

“The area of the mine was the granary of the village and above all the basket of the housekeeper. We no longer have access to all that nature had given us.”

Similarly, a peasant from the same area stated: “The mine has sabotaged us; it promised not to tramp on our backs and today it tramples on our heads.

“The mine lacks respect for our village, when arresting and imprisoning our youth.”

A history of resistance

Neo-colonial mining has resulted in significant conflicts, as extractive corporations have found it difficult to impose underdevelopment on the people of Burkina Faso.

Freelance researcher Lila Chouli’s booklet outlines the coercive contours of extractivism in Burkina Faso.

At the Tarpako mine, operated by Canadian company High River Gold, the establishment of extractivism meant the expropriation of peasant land; destruction of traditional gold mining, the main activity of the villagers; the emergence of a water crisis; rise in the cost of living; and intense monitoring by private security guards.

Similarly, when the Kalsaka mine was established, the mining company imposed its monopoly by banning artisanal mining. In response, the traditional gold miners, deprived of their livelihood, organised themselves in an association called Nabons-Wende to defend their interests.

This was the result of the income destruction of nearly 3000 people in the area of Kalsaka, who suddenly found themselves with no existential security.

At the open-pit gold mine Essakane, located in the province of Oudalan in the north-east and owned by Canadian firm International African Mining Gold Corporation, a strike was organised by the trade union Syndicat National des Travailleurs des Mines et Carrières du Burkina from December 13–16, 2011.

The courageously protesters said: “While the ministers in charge of the mines are happy to dine with the mining bosses, they never have as much as 30 minutes to talk to the local people.

“So let the riot police come. Some of us will fall. We want to see the police shoot at us. But we also have confidence in ourselves. We are sure we will eventually overcome Essakane mine.”

Between May 2011 and December 2014, strikes also occurred against the deregulation of working hours at the Belahouro mine, run by British group Avocet Mining PLC and located about 220 kilometres north of Ouagadougou.

In the Bissa Gold mine, run by the Amsterdam-based company Nordgold at Kongoussi, 85 kilometres north of Ouagadougou, there was a powerful strike on November 1, 2014, in which 90% of the workforce participated.

The strikers demanded “wage increases, long-term contracts, the conclusion of labour contracts directly with the operating company Bissa Gold and not with intermediate personnel firms, changes in the working schedule (from a fourteen-day cycle of working days and days off to a seven-day cycle) and the admission of trade union committees.”

In 2006, the government granted a mining concession to SOMIKA, a Burkinabe company, in Yagha Province in the north-east. Residents soon complained that SOMIKA not only banned artisanal mining within, but also beyond the concession area.

In response, the company hired security guards who forcefully seized the artisanal miners’ extracted stone; physically assaulted people to check if they were carrying gold; and intimidated the artisanal miners to sell the gold they had extracted to SOMIKA below the market price.

These tensions culminated eight years later, in a protest organised by village residents and artisanal miners on October 30, 2014. The national police and SOMIKA’s security guards shot at the demonstrators. Four young demonstrators died on the spot and a fifth on the way to the hospital.

In 2013, Canadian company True Gold received a concession for an area comprising 28 villages, where artisanal mining represented an important source of income for the local population. The granting of concession was antithetical to the sentiments of the residents who, at a public consultation held as part of the environmental and social impact assessments, argued that the mine would impact health and environment; result in the loss of land for subsistence farming and as well as the loss of places and animals with cultural and spiritual significance.

Despite these explicit objections to the mine, the Burkinabe state chose to bend to the demands of Canadian extractivism.

The way forward

While extractive imperialism is negatively impacting Burkina Faso, artisanal mining also has its drawbacks.

Due to artisanal mining, children as young as six have been abandoning school to work mainly in mines where they crush stones, sieve dust, transport water and cook. In 2014, the net primary school enrollment rate for the entire nation was estimated at 64.4% for children aged 6 to 11 years of age and only 42.2% for the Sahel region, where gold mining is prevalent.

Furthermore, mining companies and artisanal miners use water resources unsustainably for the production of gold. The use of motorised pumps for transporting water to areas lacking streams, and the lowering of the groundwater table in the pits to allow access to gold-containing minerals, are some of the ecologically harmful aspects of gold mining in Burkina Faso. By using pumps, water is discharged with a high sediment content, which can reduce the quality of rivers and result in land degradation.

To build an alternative to contemporary mining practices, an eco-socialist approach needs to be adopted, whereby strong environmental controls can be implemented and ecological damage prevented. On top of this, an eco-socialist economy would also reconstitute the transnational regime of capital accumulation.

Currently, international corporate investors account for nearly 90% of Africa’s gold production. In place of corporatocracies, an eco-socialist approach would support the democratic ownership of resources and the elimination of the profit-maximising objective. It would also minimise the need for mining, by putting an end to the egregious waste of resources under capitalism, driven by obsessive consumption and the large-scale production of useless commodities.

Sankara articulated this point succinctly, when he told the first International SILVA Conference for the Protection of the Trees and Forests in Paris: “We are not against progress, but we do not want progress that is anarchic and criminally neglects the rights of others.”

In Burkina Faso, an eco-socialist struggle needs to be waged against the “anarchic” growth of capitalism that is decimating the entire country in pursuit of profit.

Trump administration continues assault on endangered species

Adria French

The Trump administration is continuing its efforts to shred important parts of the 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA), including inventing new interpretations of the legislation that are driving several species toward extinction.

The proposed changes to the ESA regulations were announced in July 2018 as part of President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 13777, directing federal agencies “to lower regulatory burdens.” This will include looser requirements on the consultation process used to prevent harm to endangered species from federal activities, a repeal on automatic blanket protections for species listed as threatened and expanded exemptions for critical habitat designations.

In the proposal, the federal agencies suggested that protections for “critical habitats” under the ESA be limited strictly to areas needed to prevent the ultimate extinction of a species. In response, environmental groups as well as 18 state attorneys general argued that such a definition would only support protecting habitats to encourage the survival of the species rather than other areas that could be made suitable through restoration. It would exclude areas that are degraded and in need of restoration which might be currently uninhabited by an endangered species but where a species could be moved after restoration was complete.

Moreover, while the ESA requires that federal agencies base their decisions to list a species as threatened or endangered, “solely on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data available,” the new rules now allow the government to bypass such considerations in favor of economic ones.

As a result, several specific species could easily go extinct soon or have recovery efforts severely set back if these rules are implemented.

Gray wolves

The gray wolf is an umbrella species, meaning it is a species that plays a critical role in maintaining the structure of an ecological community, and upon which many other species depend. The gray wolf population in Washington state is already experiencing setbacks given the lethal “management” the state wildlife agency is using and given the federal attack on removing wolves from the Endangered Species List nationwide.

Two gray wolves

On August 31, 2020, Director Aurelia Skipwith of the US Fish & Wildlife Service reported that the Trump administration plans to lift endangered species protections for gray wolves across most of the country by the end of the year. Skipwith told the Associated Press, “We’re working hard to have this done by the end of the year and I’d say it’s very imminent.”

This is a continuation of the 2019 proposal by the agency to drop the gray wolf from the endangered species list in the entire lower 48 states, exempting a small population of Mexican wolves in the Southwest. It was the latest of repeated attempts to return management authority to the states—moves that courts have repeatedly rejected after opponents filed lawsuits.

The ESA was signed into law in 1973 by President Richard Nixon. In 1974, the gray wolf became legally protected under the ESA in the lower 48 states. Individual subspecies received endangered status: eastern timber wolf, Canis lupus lycaon (present in the Western Great Lakes), and Rocky Mountain wolf, Canis lupus irremotus (present in the northern Rocky Mountains). The Mexican gray wolf, Canis lupus baileyi, was listed under the ESA in 1976. Wolves were classified as endangered under Washington state law in 1980.

Shot, trapped and poisoned to near extinction in the last century to clear the land for livestock and agribusiness, wolves in recent decades made a comeback in the western Great Lakes region and portions of the Mountain West, the total population exceeding 6,000. They have been removed from the endangered list in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and portions of Oregon, Utah and Washington state. Should the previous causes of near extinction come back into play, wolves would quickly become severely endangered once again.

In December 2011, the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW) issued its “Wolf Conservation and Management Plan” to allegedly guide “recovery” of gray wolves as they “naturally disperse.” But the plan does just the opposite of fostering recovery and natural dispersal. The plan allows lethal and non-lethal methods of controlling the naturally dispersing wolf population in Washington in the event of wolf-livestock encounters.

A revised “wolf-livestock interaction protocol” was issued by WDFW in June 2017, which reinforced lethal methods of removing wolves from their territory where livestock are grazing, regardless of whether it is on private land or federal and state public land. This protocol states that the “objective of lethal removal is to change pack behavior to reduce the potential for recurrent depredations while continuing to promote wolf recovery.”

However, killing wolves to prevent them from preying on livestock is a tactic that has been scientifically discredited numerous times by a variety of researchers. In 2014, Washington State University (WSU) researchers found that it is counter-productive to kill wolves to keep them from preying on livestock. Shooting and trapping lead to more dead sheep and cattle the following year, not fewer.

Writing in the journal PLOS ONE, WSU wildlife biologist Rob Wielgus and data analyst Kaylie Peebles say, “For each wolf killed, the odds of more livestock depredations increase significantly.”

The trend continues until 25 percent of the wolves in an area are killed. Ranchers and wildlife managers then see a “standing wave of livestock depredations,” they wrote.

Their study is the largest of its kind, analyzing 25 years of lethal control data from US Fish and Wildlife Services Interagency Annual Wolf Reports in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. The researchers found that killing one wolf increases the odds of depredations 4 percent for sheep and 5 to 6 percent for cattle. If 20 wolves are killed, livestock deaths double.

Wielgus and Peebles conclude that rate of wolf mortality “is unsustainable and cannot be carried out indefinitely if federal relisting of wolves is to be avoided.”

Despite this research, in August 2020, Kelly Susewind, the director of WDFW, authorized lethal action to kill wolves in the Wedge pack and the Leadpoint pack. On August 17, the agency shot the last two remaining members of the Wedge pack, which lived near the Canadian border in the remote Colville National Forest and was finally exterminated after ranchers claimed the wolves killed cattle grazing on both private and public land.

State officials said they had killed the last two known members of the Wedge wolf pack, after investigations showed the wolves had taken part in 16 livestock attacks on animals belonging to three different ranchers. Officials said the wolves killed four animals since May and injured 19.

The assault on the wolves was instigated by Len McIrvin, owner of the Diamond M Ranch, who leases federal land to graze his cattle. The Diamond M Ranch is a massive cattle production corporation that benefits from the eradication of an endangered species by gaining access to land previously protected. Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife has killed more wolves based on complaints from Diamond M Ranch than from any other livestock producer, including the entire Old Profanity pack last summer.

These actions have been abetted by Washington’s Democratic Governor Jay Inslee, who on September 4 directed the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission to draft new rules encouraging the department’s lethal removal of wolves involved in conflicts with livestock.

In his letter to Larry Carpenter, the chair of the Fish and Wildlife Commission, Inslee said, “The potential for future depredations and lethal control actions, under our existing framework, remains unacceptably high.

“We must move more quickly and decisively to institute practices that will avoid the repeated loss of wolves and livestock in our state.”

“Given the significant work that has been done to date on this topic, I strongly believe new rules and policies could, and should, be adopted and in place prior to the grazing season next year,” he said.

The state has lethally removed 34 wolves since 2012. Of that, 29 were killed for the same livestock owner, Diamond M, in prime wolf habitat in the Colville National Forest. This amounts to wholesale slaughter of a precarious species on behalf of agribusiness.

Governor Inslee’s decision requires the commission to start a formal rulemaking process, which includes giving notice to the public and creating an opportunity to comment on proposed rules.

Mexico borderlands migratory species

To add fuel to the fire, Trump’s border wall will most likely wipe out several severely endangered and threatened species, which are already in a precarious position. In May 2017, the Center for Biological Diversity reported that President Trump’s border wall will threaten 93 endangered and threatened species, including jaguars, ocelots, Mexican gray wolves and cactus ferruginous pygmy owls. The 1,200-mile wall will cut off migration corridors, destroy genetic diversity, decimate habitat, and add vehicles, noise and light pollution to great expanses of wild lands along the US-Mexico border.

Several sections of border wall have already been built. These areas where the wall has been constructed have had a variety of harmful effects on wildlife, including direct destruction of thousands of acres of habitat, and segregating cross-border wildlife populations like bighorn sheep and jaguars. The border wall would dissect the Cabeza Prieta, Buenos Aires and several other national wildlife refuges, along with Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Big Bend National Park and numerous other natural areas that are corridors for wildlife.

The San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge is an example of a fragile and unique habitat, which will be destroyed by the border wall. It was established in 1982 to protect the rare wetlands in the middle of the Sonoran Desert that are home to a variety of wildlife, including several species of fish that are protected by the ESA. Its spans 2,300 acres over the US-Mexico border in southeastern Arizona, close to New Mexico, and is prime habitat for hummingbirds, 75 species of butterflies, bats and, most importantly, to fish native to Rio Yaqui, which the refuge was set up to protect, as reported by the Center for Biological Diversity.

The jaguar and the Mexican wolf, the most endangered mammal on the planet, both travel across the border for hunting, denning, and seeking new territory as their populations attempt to expand. Building the border wall will very likely cause the extinction of these species, which are already hanging by a thread.

Nassau grouper

Four years ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) listed the Nassau grouper as threatened under the ESA, but the government has since failed to follow through with the safeguards that come with such status, including the designation of a critical habitat.

On September 1, the Center for Biological Diversity and two other conservation groups sued the Trump administration for failing to protect the Nassau grouper, one of the largest coral reef fish, four years after it was designated a threatened species. The large predator fish is found in warm waters off the southern coast of Florida, in the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

The complaint alleges, “Species with critical habitat designations are twice as likely to recover as species without designated critical habitat.” Even as the species is fighting for survival, the complaint avers that human activities, coupled with sea-level rise and ocean acidification, are destroying the coastal reefs, estuaries and seagrass beds where it dwells.

“Designated habitat would identify the most important areas for Nassau grouper and prevent federal activities that would destroy them,” the complaint states. “The Nassau grouper remains at risk until the Service fulfills its statutory duties to designate the critical habitat necessary to support the grouper’s survival and recovery.”

The Nassau grouper profile on the NOAA Fisheries website states the species’ population is currently at “just a fraction of its historical size.”

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act

In 2017 the Trump administration began pursuing a reinterpretation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, aimed at “saving from indiscriminate slaughter” migratory birds in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

Ratified by Congress over a century ago, the treaty banning hunting, taking or killing migratory birds was given a little-publicized reinterpretation by the Interior Department’s Solicitor Daniel Jorjani in late 2017.

Jorjani wrote a decision permitting “incidental” killings, an interpretation that suddenly removed punishment for bird deaths and devastated certain nesting areas.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and a coalition of environmental groups sued, and on August 12, 2020, US District Court Judge Valerie Caproni blocked the Trump administration’s revision of the treaty as a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

Since the change in late 2017, environmental groups have reported that the treaty’s enforcement has come to a standstill nationwide.

That has meant a lack of liability to the people and entities that allowed snowy owls to be electrocuted by uninsulated power lines in Delaware, Maryland, Tennessee and North Dakota; the avian life drowned by oil spills in Massachusetts, Idaho and Washington; and dove chicks thrown into a tree shredder by landscapers in San Diego.