Thirty Years of a Unified Germany

Victor Grossman

This Saturday many Germans, party leaders and media pundits above all, will recall October 3, 1990, when their dreams of a unified Germany became reality. May they celebrate, with speeches, fireworks, bockwurst and beer and vibrant voices, resounding  tutti with the “Deutschland über alles” anthem, sung since that date thirty years ago from the western Rhine to the eastern Oder!

That day brought joy to many good people, and many remain joyful. But few can ignore the facts; neither Germany nor the world have lived up to all past expectations, while many worry about what lies ahead. Even pagans like me may turn to the Christian Bible; its final chapter warns of four “Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, whose fierce mounts were symbols of “plague, famine, conquest by the sword and wild beasts”. Can modern echoes of those equine hoofbeats jar the harmony of the intoned anthems?

The virus plague now besetting the world is causing more harm than any in the past hundred years. How long will it dominate our lives? Germany, blameless and till now spared its worst effects, may now be facing a worse “second wave”.

As for famine, its ravages have never been fully absent. But here too Germany has been spared for nearly 75 years; since unification in 1990 it has been less its victim than its cause. Despite amazing advances in machinery for tilling soil, for planting, reaping and processing, men of power and wealth have twisted blessings into curses. Seed genetics is impoverishing variety and impelling monoculture: family farming is replaced by giant livestock factories; poorer countries are stuffed with imports of machine-wrapped white bread or plucked chicken and turkey parts; shrimp farms replace ravaged mangrove swamps and mass fishing for de-boned exports empties or sullies the high seas; heat and gases emitted by mills, factories and heavy, high-speed vehicles fog the skies. Small marginal farms become empty and arid, their displaced owners forced into hungry slums – or death-dealing escape routes through Mexican or Saharan deserts and Mediterranean storms. Too often they then find hardest low-paid toil or hunger for themselves, also providing grist for xenophobic hatred while the smug culprits enjoy their flowered mansions, high-rise penthouses, their yachts and private jets.

Menacing as this apocalyptic nightmare is becoming, a far worse one surpasses it – one which has received far too little attention. It is the curse symbolized in Biblical years by the sword. But spears or swords of old – though cruel, unjust and bloody – required personal strength and often courage. Neither are needed for today’s missiles and drones.  A single unmanned drone, guided from Nevada and Ramstein, can decimate wedding festivities in Afghanistan. Two single bombs alone killed over 100,000 human beings in the horrible crimes called Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Far more powerful ones, carried by a bomber now waiting in line in Büchel and unleashed by a single spark from a modern apocalyptic hoof, can mean – within minutes – that all talk of fields, forests, famine or viruses becomes forever irrelevant.

What about the fourth Biblical menace – wild beasts? Species considered fearful then are now less dangerous than endangered! And yet an analogous but far worse danger now faces us; Nazis, fascists, wild, brutal mobs. Definitions and character vary; US traditions trace back to the genocide of Native Americans and slavery. In Germany –  to twelve years of terror from 1933 till 1945.

It was often treated as a big surprise when buildings were defaced and set on fire and people attacked or even killed. Authorities announced their shock – again – at finding police forces infected by whole cultures of Nazi bacteria. Forty cops in Essen and Mülheim swapped bloody racist internet messages; in Hesse, death threats to LINKE leaders and others were based on information available only in police files; smeared swastikas on homes, mailboxes stuffed with filth and several burnt-out cars in a Berlin borough escaped countermeasures or arrests for years; now we read that some cops and at least one district attorney were themselves fascists. Whole nests of Nazi-lovers in elite army units were discovered, some with caches of stolen weapons. Almost weekly, marches and rallies sport clothing and tattoos which defy taboos with logos like “Adlf Htlr”or “88” (the 8th letter in the alphabet is “H”, as in “Heil Hitler”) – and are protected by the cops. A legal party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), voicing similar views a bit more subtly, often receives “objective” media opportunities to spread its views, while some politicians in the top-polling “Christian Democratic Union” hint shyly at the possibility, if it prove necessary to gain a majority, of forming coalitions with the AfD.    

Many tend to equate fascism only with Hitler, the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. Recent attacks on Jews strengthened this view, though attacks on Muslims and all people of color may be slowly enlarging this perception. For,  when opposing such modern “wild beasts”, it is proper to recall that in Mussolini’s Italy, where the term fascism originated, Jews were fewer and hardly important. Even in Hitler’s Germany, fascism’s main target was the political Left, and above all a militant working class. Among the first to be arrested, tortured and executed were always the Communists,  then left-wing  Socialists and any who sympathized and joined with either one.  The oppression and then mass murder of Jews and of Roma (“Gypsies”) or Slavs, though partly based on deeply-rooted bigotry and hatred of men like Hitler, were begun basically as devices to divert working people into hating minorities, the “others”, instead of their genuine enemies in executive offices, mansions and at all steering wheels of power. While mourning the six million Jewish victims of fascism it is also proper to mourn other peoples who were massacred, of whom the largest number were the 27 million people of many USSR nationalities. And to remember, too, that when Soviet soldiers were captured, two categories were killed immediately: the Jews and Communist Party officers and commissars.

In the 1930’s the ravages of the Great Depression caused such misery in Germany that those in wealth and power became fearful; if Communists and Social Democrats could overcome their mutual mistrust and hostility they could form a powerful majority, cut their giant sources of profit and stymie hopes of renewed world power and expansion. That is the main reason they turned to Hitler’s party, some with distaste, others with enthusiasm, but all determined to prevent any turn to the left.

This explains why the heirs of those forces, often with the same names, factories and logos, used every tool in their well-stocked political, PR and economic toolkits to destroy the GDR – in the glittering name of freedom, democracy and German unity (plus effective added enticements like Volkswagens or Opels, unlimited  globe-wide travel and even fine yellow, but hitherto rare, bananas.)

Despite all its weaknesses and blunders, its aged, often limited leaders and their sycophants, despite its modest consumer-goods assortment (compared to favored,  super-wealthy West Germany), it had achieved social achievements and conditions for women, for children and most working people which were perhaps unsurpassed anywhere. Might another earnest economic crisis in the West cause too many to make comparisons in a new light? The economic giants and their politicians were determined to play it safe, and to regain lost factories and estates while eliminating the barrier the stubborn little GDR represented to unashamed expansion and warfare. They achieved their goal.

But, though greatly lessened, those dangers could again build up, even in a united, uniformly capitalist Germany. Pay levels are already low, job security is weak, and strikes are too frequent. Once again it is wise to plan for an unpredictable future.  Crude Nazi types are unpleasant and give Germany a bad, all too reminiscent name. But just in case – a reserve option is always wise.

Ever since the Federal Republic was founded (and totally contrary to East German  policy),  old Nazis, among them brutal SA Storm Troopers, officers of SS killer battalions and secret Gestapo men were permitted to staff the equivalents of the FBI, the CIA and a variety of police forces, often up to the very top. As they died out those traditions were maintained by enthusiastic apprentices. Their number is a dark secret while new generations of authorities, even the majority who are not themselves fascists, prefer to castigate and control “Islamic terrorists” and, always, their basic and eternal enemy – the left. As for the danger on the right – they almost always look the other way.

I, however, am unable to look the other way; I oppose all four apocalyptic dangers. I shall therefore not join the rejoicing (but hopefully face-masked, properly distanced) crowds at Brandenburg Gate.

Military Bases on the Moon: U.S. Plans to Weaponize the Earth’s Satellite

T. J. Coles

In July, Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of Roscosmos, cited the U.S. “retreat from principles of cooperation and mutual support” to justify Russia’s refusal to join the latest U.S. space initiative: to build lunar bases. Rogozin was likely referring to the U.S. refusal to renew the Intermediate-range Forces Treaty and its intention to back out of the Open Skies Treaty.

Russia responded by declaring that Venus is a “Russian planet.” The U.S. continues to reject Sino-Russian efforts to strengthen the Outer Space Treaty 1967, to prohibit the weaponization of space. Doing so would interfere with U.S. plans for “full spectrum dominance.”

MOON LANDING 2.0

Last week on 22 September, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) signed a memorandum with the Department of Defense (DOD). The signers were NASA’s administrator, Jim Bridenstine, and the U.S. Space Force Chief of Operations General, John Raymond.

The signing of the memo took place in the broader context of NASA’s Artemis program. In December 2017, Donald Trump signed the Presidential Memorandum on Reinvigorating America’s Human Space Exploration Program. It was an update of Obama’s space policy, adding that the U.S. will: “Lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities.”

NASA’s Artemis program oversees the U.S. mission to exploit the moon, including the construction of the Artemis Base Camp at the lunar South Pole, probably near the Shackleton Crater. This will serve as a forerunner to building a base on Mars. It “builds on a half-century of experience and preparation to establish a robust human-robotic presence on and around the Moon,” says NASA. Artemis includes a Space Launch System and the Orion spacecraft. These operations will enable “U.S. commercial companies and international partners to further contribute to the exploration and development of the Moon.”

International partners, at present, include Canada, Japan, and the EU. Though, as we shall see, weaponization and competition remain serious threats to international peace and human survival. Other elements of the program include a Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO), which Artemis hopes to finalize by 2023. The international efforts include deploying “science payloads” and CubeSats, as well as refueling the Gateway: an orbiting lunar outpost.

WEAPONIZED MOON

Contracts for the Human Landing System (HLS) have gone to Blue Origin, Dynetics (Leidos), and SpaceX. The HLS team includes Draper, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. Draper will provide avionics, guidance, navigation, and software. The Integrated Lander Vehicle will launch on United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan heavy-lift rocket. Maxar Technologies will develop the PPE. HALO is an initial crew cabin for astronauts visiting the Gateway and will likely be built by Northrop. Pressurized and unpressurized cargo, including space instruments and food, will be delivered by SpaceX.

The recent NASA-DOD memorandum of understanding references the proposed lunar base and says that NASA and the Space Force “reaffirm and continue their rich legacy of collaboration in space launch, in-space operations, and space research activities, all of which contribute to the Parties’ separate and distinct civil and defense endeavors”—the latter are classified. The Space Force will act as the NASA’s guarantor. Space Force’s responsibilities “include developing military space systems and doctrine, as well as presenting space forces to support the warfighting Combatant Commands.” The memo reiterates common NASA-DOD interests.

The memo also seeks to establish a Foundation for Broad Collaboration. General Raymond says: “A secure, stable, and accessible space domain underpins our nation’s security, prosperity and scientific achievement. Space Force looks forward to future collaboration, as NASA pushes farther into the universe for the benefit of all.” The Space Force states that it “will secure the peaceful use of space, free for any who seek to expand their understanding of the universe, by organizing, training and equipping forces to protect U.S. and allied interests in space.” “Peace” means U.S. dominance unimpeded by commercial rivals, like China, India, and Russia.

NASA AS STIMULUS FOR HI-TECH

As the BBC acknowledges: “Many practical products developed by NASA during the Apollo years are well known: cordless drills, PV (solar) panels, freeze-dried food, thermal insulation material, heat coatings and so on.” Having learned their craft at the Fairchild Semiconductor company, NASA scientists formed Intel, which later worked on personal computers with Microsoft. The so-called Apollo Effect, in reference to the first moon landing, indirectly and reportedly inspired Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with creating the World Wide Web, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Elon Musk of SpaceX, which is now contracted to work on the latest program.

NASA says of the future that taxpayer dollars will fund research and development for corporate, hi-tech innovation: “Space Technology investments will stimulate the economy and build our Nation’s global economic competitiveness through the creation of new products and services, new business and industries, and high-quality, sustainable jobs,” like those above. It notes more broadly:

“Knowledge provided by weather and navigational spacecraft, efficiency improvements in both ground and air transportation, super computers, solar- and wind-generated energy, the cameras found in many of today’s cell phones, improved biomedical applications including advanced medical imaging and even more nutritious infant formula, as well as the protective gear that keeps our military, firefighters and police safe, have all benefitted from our nation’s investments in aerospace technology.”

Colonel Eric Felt, Director of the Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate, says: “The space renaissance happening on the commercial side is fantastic, there is innovation we can use.” Felt also notes the link between civilian-commercial and military technology: “We have limited funding in our budget for science and technology … We have to leverage dual-use technologies”—which means weaponized civilian and commercial products.

CONCLUSION

As pundits analyze what was arguably the lowest point of U.S. electoral politics in the mont of September, namely the “debate” between The Donald and Creepy Joe, Sky News reports on the Space Command’s first foreign deployment to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar: “Their mission is to confront new threats in the region from Iran’s missile programme – as well as attempts to jam, hack and blind satellites.” Confront threats means maintain dominance.

The Space Force has also seen the transfer of Air Force personnel to the Marine Expeditionary Unit, indicating that the Force will integrate into all levels of the U.S. military, realizing the U.S. elite dream of “full spectrum dominance.”

Police Violence: Institutionalized Terrorism

David Rosen

The list of Americans killed by the police this year continues to increase with no end in sight. Many are familiar with the sad stories involving Breonna Taylor, Tyree Davis, Daniel Prude, Rayshard Brooks, Sean Monterrosa and Michael Forest Reinoehl. As of Sept 6, 2020, the police had killed 781 people; Wikipedia offers detailed profiles of many of these killings.

Last year, police killed 1,004 people and, as a recent Harvard study found, between 2013 and 2017, 5,400 were killed by the police. Going further, it found that “Black people were on average three times more likely to be killed by police than white people. Of the total fatalities, 2,353 (42.83%) of those killed were white and 1,487 (27.07%) were Black.”

The findings of the Harvard study are compounding by a recent report from the National Bureau of Economic Research. “Based on information from more than two million 911 calls in two US cities,” it noted, “ … white officers dispatched to Black neighbourhoods fired their guns five times as often as Black officers dispatched for similar calls to the same neighbourhood.”

The ACLU offers a sobering assessment of this situation in “The Other Epidemic: Fatal Police Shootings in the Time of COVID-19.” It warns:

The report finds fatal shootings by police are so routine that, even during a national pandemic, with far fewer people traveling outside of their homes and police departments reducing contact with the public so as not to spread the virus, police have continued to fatally shoot people at the same rate so far in 2020 as they did in the same period from 2015 to 2019.

It confirms the Harvard findings, noting that “approximately 46 percent of fatal police shootings kill white people, who account for roughly 60 percent of the U.S. population. Another 24 percent of fatal police shootings kill Black people, who account for about 13 percent of the U.S. population.”

***

Killings are but one – and the most extreme – expression of the violence that are an endemic feature of American policing. The Dept. of Justice identifies five levels of “officer response.” They are:

Officer Presence: No force is necessary. The mere presence of an officer is suitable to deter crime or diffuse a situation. Considered the best way to resolve a situation.

Verbalization: Force is not physical. Officers use calm, nonthreatening commands, e.g., “Let me see your identification and registration.” May increase volume and shorten commands in an attempt to gain compliance (“stop” or “don’t move”).

Empty-Hand Control: Officers use bodily force to gain control of a situation. There are soft techniques (grabs, holds, joint locks) and hard techniques (punches and kicks) used to restrain an individual.

Less-Lethal Methods: Officers use less-lethal technologies to gain control of a situation. These can be in the form of blunt impact such as using a baton or projectile to immobilize a combative person. Chemical: chemical sprays or projectiles embedded with chemicals to restrain an individual (e.g., pepper spray). Conducted Energy Devices (CEDs): These devices discharge a high-voltage, low- amperage jolt of electricity at a distance (e.g., Tasers), officers may use conducted energy devices to immobilize an individual.

Lethal Force: Officers use lethal weapons to gain control of a situation. This is the last and most severe response in the continuum and should only be used if a suspect poses a serious threat to the officer or another individual.

Most illuminating, key words in each level of “response” suggest implicit violence at the root of police enforcement: “deter,” “commands,” “force,” “control” and “threat.” None of these “responses” ostensibly involve violence but each can be infused with malice aforethought. In each response, violence could be either directly expressed or implied.

Excessive force is an endemic feature of police practice. In a series of reports by the DoJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Contracts between Police and the Public,” for 2008 (released in 2011) and 2015 (released in 2018), police violence is detailed. Excessive use-of-force involved being pushed or grabbed, kicked or hit, sprayed chemical/pepper spray, electroshock weapon (stun gun), pointed gun, threatened force, shouted at resident and cursed at resident.

For 2008, it noted that approximately 1.4 percent of Americans who had contact with the police experience some level of use of force from police officers. Making matters worse, of those who did have force used against them, 74 percent felt that the force was excessive.

For 2015, it reported that “an estimated 21% of U.S. residents age 16 or older — about 53.5 million persons — had experienced some type of contact with the police during the prior 12 months.” It then noted, “this was down from 26% of residents in 2011.” It found that nearly half – 48.4 percent – experienced “recent police-initiated contact.” It details this as follows:

The majority of those who experienced the threat of force (84%) perceived the action to be excessive, as did most of those who were pushed, grabbed, hit, or kicked (78%), or had a gun pointed at them (65%). Handcuffing was the least-likely police action for residents to perceive as excessive (28%)

These assessments have to be looked at skeptically. The actual level or amount of violence committed by law-enforcement officials is unknowable because the police – and government agencies at every level that oversee them – don’t want Americans to know the actual violence.

In a 2018, United States Commission on Civil Rights reported, in “Police Use of Force,” that “the Department of Justice surveys every law enforcement agency in the country to collect data on the use of force, but not all such agencies offer data of the DOJ …” It went on to assert: “Not only is the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data incomplete, but studies have shown that it may also be selectively reported.”

Nevertheless, police officers can be exposed to more potential traumatic events than the general population. Such events including natural disasters, rape, horrific accidents, suicides and vicious assaults. But they can also involve “contempt of cop,” bullying and “duty-related shootings.” Incidents that met the FBI Uniform Crime Report definition of violent crime made up only around 1 percent of calls for service.

Officer.com – which promotes itself as “Law Enforcement’s leading source for News …” – reports based on an uncited source: “… a recent study on police use of force indicated that force was used in just 1 of 1,167 cases. Less than 1 in 1,100 calls for service, and less than 1 in 120 criminal arrests resulted in police use of force.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics finds that in 2017 about 13 per 100,000 police officers died on the job. This pales against the death rate of farmers (24 deaths per 100,000), truck drivers (26.9), and trash collectors (34.9).

***

According to Vox, there are more than 600,000 police officers in more than 12,000 local police agencies operating throughout the country. It notes, “the officer corps has gotten more diverse over the years, with women, people of color, and LGBTQ officers making up a growing share of the profession. “

However, it warns, “the officer corps remains overwhelmingly white, male, and straight.”

Police are hired disproportionately from the military, trained in military-style academies that focus largely on the deployment of force and equipped with lethal weapons at all times.

Many within American law enforcement see their role as the embodiment of the “warrior” culture. Many believe that police work is inherently violent, and that officers are the last opportunity for law and order in an increasingly dangerous society. In this world, police are alone, even reviled by the public — their actions misunderstood and the threats they face underappreciated.

Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, a Louisville police officer who was shot during the raid at Breonna Taylor’s apartment, allegedly wrote to his fellow officers: “YOU ARE LOVED AND SUPPORTED by most of the community. Now go be the Warriors you are, but please be safe! None of these ‘peaceful’ protesters are worth your career or freedom.”

In 1997, the Dept. of Defense introduced 1033 program has given $7.4 billion worth of military-grade surplus equipment to U.S. law enforcement agencies. More than 8,000 law enforcement agencies are enrolled in the program. The equipment that’s been off-loaded from the military to local authorities includes office equipment, clothing, tools and radios as well as what is known as “controlled equipment” like rifles and armored vehicles.

One of the most peculiar features of the 1033 program is that the DoD does not provide training to those who receive controlled equipment. Rather, each agency must train and certify itself.

To meet this challenge, a host police consulting firms have emerged to fill the void. Among them are RealWorld Tactical, Blue Shield Tactical Systems,

Precision Rifle Workshop, Dynamic Solutions Training Group and Security Systems International. As one report notes, they “charge departments thousands of dollars to teach tactics more suited for war than for civil society.”

To expect fundamental changes in policing, the militarized or warrior culture – one underwritten by a bloated military-industrial complex – must be ended. And this is, sadly, not being considered.

Lifecycle approach: A panacea for population ageing and gender equality

Shobha Shukla

The world celebrated International Day of Older Persons on 1st of October. Sri Lanka also celebrates its Children’s Day on the same day. What a beautiful coincidence, even though perhaps purely by chance (and not by design). Indeed, this celebration of the young and old age alike is a symbolic representation of the lifecycle approach and intergenerational engagement that is crucial for addressing some of the challenges of population ageing or longevity.

While e-launching “The social policies catalogue on population ageing: A rapid scoping review” developed by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Asia Pacific, its Director, Bjorn Andersson, reiterated that the solutions to the challenges faced by the ageing populations in the region must be grounded in a life-cycle and inter-generational approach, with gender equality and social inclusion at its core, and optimal sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights for women and girls as its key components.

Andersson said that there is no country in the Asia Pacific region that has a single policy addressing all aspects of the dynamic population transition. Many policies on population ageing do not include intergenerational engagement, while others lack social inclusion components to enable full and meaningful participation of older persons in society.

The social policies catalogue on population ageing seeks to systemically identify and collate available social policies on population ageing on a global scale. Andersson hoped that the catalogue, which seeks to systematically identify and collate available social policies on population ageing, will enable governments to help strategise and strengthen policies that reflect the needs of older persons and promote healthy ageing.

This would requires:

• strengthening of health systems to promote healthy life styles throughout the life course to reduce risks of NCDs and ensure equal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights SRHR;
• strengthening social policies, including social protection, so that all individuals can attain an education and decent work and have access to social safety nets like childcare and pension schemes; and
• eliminating all forms of discrimination against older persons through promotion of social inclusion, including intergenerational solidarity and age friendly environments to transform society positively towards ageing.

Decadent gender roles are biggest bane for the older women

Illiteracy and society’s clinging to decadent gender specific roles is the biggest bane of the elderly women, especially in countries of South and South-East Asia. Despite the reality that COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the “fiction that unpaid care work isn’t work” (said Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General) , women even if educated, are expected to be engaged in unpaid work as carers of the family. In patriarchal societies, like India, there is hardly any help coming from the male members of the family, even in the so-called modern households. So their participation in the workforce takes a backseat and they are economically dependent on the menfolk. So they have no money of their own and hence no personal security net or social protection in their old age. Moreover, as biologically women tend to live longer than men, this longevity simply abets their financial as well as health problems.

Professor Tengku Aizan Hamid of Malaysian Research Institute on Ageing (MyAgeing) and Director of the Institute of Gerontology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, said that as childcare is very expensive in Malaysia, even educated women find it more economical to stay out of the workforce rather than put their children in daycare. According to her there is a need to look at social protection aspects in terms of lifecycle perspective of providing for women, and stereotype gender roles should not override or determine their workforce participation.

While speaking at an online session of 10th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights (APCRSHR10), Krishna Murari Gautam, Chairperson of Ageing Nepal (Ageing Nepal was awarded the coveted UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize last month), made a fervent plea for the lifecycle approach to address and incorporate health, education, and training.

All these three components (of health, education and training) are an integral part of every stage of human life. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle throughout the lifecycle, starting from childhood is essential for healthy ageing and for keeping many illnesses at bay. Education stands everyone in good stead – not only in terms of making one more employment worthy, but also for expanding the ability to think rationally and act without prejudice. Training and updating oneself with the latest technology will not only reduce the generation gap, but also help in social inclusion and improve the coping mechanisms of the senior citizens. And yes, let us also give a thought to celebrating Children’s Day and the Day of the Older Persons together in a participatory manner.

1st of October 2020 was also the start of the “Decade of Healthy Ageing”, a World Health Organization (WHO) supported UN initiative to “bring together governments, civil society, international agencies, professionals, academia, the media, and the private sector for ten years of concerted, catalytic and collaborative action to improve the lives of older people, their families, and the communities in which they live.”

Majoritarianism And Deviance From The Indian Constitution

Lipika Ravichandran

Unity in independent India being diverse and plural nation was a dream come true. We have survived and proved as a truly democratic republic state until recent times with minimal flaws. This was made possible by a more accommodative and flexible conflict resolution mechanism in the form of a colossal constitution. The present majoritarian regime manoeuvres the crevasses existing in our bulkiest written constitution towards its agenda, which has led to crumbling of the constitution. This has jeopardised the inherent core constitutional democratic values, which is the soul of the living document. It is evident through the latest Democracy Index released by the Economic Intelligence Unit in which India has dropped 10 places and retained its status as a “flawed democracy”. The rhetoric of Right-wing populism, “Acche Din” and creation of “New India”, has captivated human emotions, aspirations and hopes, which resulted in a majoritarian government after 1984. Today, more than being an inclusive democracy, India is moving in the direction of spectacular politics and heroic representation.

In recent times, the constitution is made to work anti-thetical to the original intent of the constitutional framers. Though it has been widely debated that the Indian constitution is a carbon copy of the Government of India Act 1935, the constitution-makers with much deliberations and debates have framed a more flexible document than a rigid one keeping in mind the diversity and the plurality of the nation. As being a fluid document, in the initial decades of independence, it was subjected to various interpretations and conflicts amongst three pillars of Indian polity – Executive, Legislature and Judiciary. Through various judicial interpretations, the implicit core constitutional values were put forth in front of the public eye. The volatile decade of 1970’s further embellished the constitution, through judicial pronouncements and constitutional amendments. The watershed judgement of 1973 Kesavananda Bharati case led to the ‘Doctrine of Basic Structure of the Constitution’, which limited the amending powers of the constitution, in turn, gave way for judicial review. This timely intervention of the judiciary to protect the eminence of our constitution was heralded and a balance was restored. Thus, the Supreme Court of India is aptly called as the guardian of our constitution. This makes us ponder over the present functioning of the Judiciary and the relation between the judiciary and the parliamentary executive.

The constitutional feature of synthesis between the parliamentary sovereignty and judicial supremacy has been lately compromised and the judiciary is widely accused of working in collaboration with the executive. The healthy clash between the judiciary and the parliamentary executive has ceased to exist. One such episode is the silence maintained by the judiciary when the executive abolished the article 370 and 35A, by which the temporary and the special status conferred to Jammu and Kashmir was nullified. It’s been more than a year since the annulment of article 370, till today the rights and liberties of people of Kashmir are in dismay.  The judiciary has not proactively safeguarded their basic fundamental rights through judicial review and judicial activism. This has led to a dilution of checks and balances between judiciary and executive.

Implicit concept of Federalism of Indian polity, safeguarding diverse cultural and socio-economic aspirations which is key to Indian democracy and constitutionalism, has been hit hard. Majoritarian nationalism that we witness today has heavily altered the federal structure of the Indian state and is trying hard to move towards homogeneous “One Nation”. Indian constitution has guaranteed a federal structure with a strong centre, which necessarily doesn’t mean weak states. India is a quasi-federal state and the tool of cooperative federalism effects in the smooth functioning of the centre-states relations. There is continuous chaos between the states and centre in regard to fiscal federalism. The recent example was seen in the centre denying the allocation of GST compensatory cess to the States citing pandemic situation as an ‘act of God’ and have asked the states to raise its funds through debt instruments. Already debt struck state fighting the pandemic with its own resources finds it to be ‘rubbing salt in the wound’. Center shouldn’t act as a Big brother rather work in a cooperative and conducive manner.

Governor as being an agent of the centre using his discretionary powers disrupts the coalition politics of non-BJP parties in government formation. This is witnessed in the states of Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh in 2018 state assembly elections, which shows an authoritative majoritarian regime undermining the constitutional ethos. Another pertinent disruption of the federal structure is Hindutva politics being non-accommodative and wanting for a cultural homogenisation. This is evident in the recently formed 16 member expert committee, appointed by the Union Ministry of Culture, to conduct a holistic study of the origin and evolution of Indian culture during the past 12 millennia and its interface with other cultures of the world, which don’t have representation from Dalits, Minorities or even any from the northeast and the southern states. Combative federalism is not the solution rather there should be competitive and coordinated federalism.

Each one of us must be reminded of the crippling images of the migrants who had nothing except for the hunger walking miles and miles. How erroneous was it to have a short session of parliament without a question hour? Parliament is considered sacred and a temple of democracy, where there are continuous deliberations and reconsiderations. Healthy debates and clashes in the parliament gives way to a holistic democratic and a representative functioning of the government. The absolute majority enjoyed by the ruling government takes the advantage of absolutism and majoritarianism by undermining various legislative procedures.  In recent times there is a procedural lapse in the passing of important bills like the Farmers Bill, Labour bill which would serve the interests of the corporates and move towards a misplacement of priorities in the current times. It seems as if everything is alright so no one should dare question the leader. It is noted that 7 bills were passed in 4 hours with a voice vote. This has led to subvergence of democratic values. In this unprecedented time, it was very important to have heard and discussed varied voices. Time is ripe now to look deep into the economics and various social developmental indicators. From declining GVA, the unemployment rate at its highest, to the distress of farmers and migrant labourers. This should be an awakening call to restore the intrinsic value of parliamentary democracy.

The archaic colonial-era sedition law, section 124A of IPC, is used to silence the right to dissent guaranteed under article 19. Not agreeing to certain ideas and notions of majoritarianism is not necessarily being “Anti National” or amounts to hate speech. Dissent in the form of opposition and disagreements are a necessary tool to thrive for betterment of the nation. In the name of public order and national security one cannot curtail the political and civil liberties of an individual or an organisation. Free speech vocalising minority religious views cannot be subject to sedition. Vigilantism and a police state are not what a democracy should witness. Hindu nationalism has overpowered the secular politics in terms of lynching, Citizenship Amendment  Act 2019, which has explicitly and overtly mentions religion as a criterion for citizenship is a purported error made by the majoritarian nationalist state. The final blow to it was seen when our prime minister laid the foundation for Ayodhya Temple. Linking politics with religion and the idea of one nation, one religion or one language is a serious threat to our constitution. Homogenization won’t look, feel, hear, taste or smell delightful. Saffronising a multi-coloured nation will be a peril. Existence of multiple identities is surely a blessing in disguise. Creating an identity or the government imposing an identity won’t let the citizens thrive or experience the life to the fullest.

Constitution of India is considered as a living document, which is meant to be amended according to the changing needs of our society without tearing down the soul of the constitution. To keep it alive and vibrant it is important to interpret the provisions of the constitution well, so that we can cherish the multiplicity of  India  The contestations and aspiration of the masses in the age of neoliberalism should be well-coordinated and accommodate in the different levels of socio-political functioning of the government.

America’s Dark Side in the Age of Trump

William Astore

What pops into your head when you hear the number 1,000 in a political-military context? Having studied German military history, I immediately think of Adolf Hitler’s confident boast that his Third Reich would last a thousand years. In reality, of course, a devastating world war brought that Reich down in a mere 12 years. Only recently, however, such boasts popped up again in the dark dreams of Donald Trump. If Iran dared to attack the United States, Trump tweeted and then repeated on Fox & Friends, the U.S. would strike back with “1,000 times greater force.”

Think about that for a moment. If such typical Trumpian red-meat rhetoric were to become reality, you would be talking about a monumental war crime in its disproportionality. If, say, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard shot a missile at an American base in the region and killed 10 U.S. military personnel, Trump is saying that, in response, he’d then seek to kill 10,000 Iranians — an act that would recall Nazi reprisals in World War II when entire villages like Lidice were destroyed because one prominent Nazi official had been killed. Back then, Americans knew that such murderous behavior was evil. So why do so many of us no longer flinch at such madness?

If references to “evil” seem inappropriate to you, keep in mind that I was raised Catholic and one idea the priests and nuns firmly implanted in me then was the presence of evil in our world — and in me as a microcosm of that world. It’s a moral imperative — so they taught me — to fight evil by denying it, as much as humanly possible, a place in our lives, even turning the other cheek to avoid giving offense to our brothers and sisters. Christ, after all, didn’t teach us to whip someone 1,000 times if they struck you once.

Speaking of large numbers, I still recall Christ’s teaching on forgiveness. How many times, he asked, should we forgive those who offend us? Seven times, perhaps? No, seventy times seven. He didn’t, of course, mean 490 acts of forgiveness. Through that hyperbolic number, Christ was saying that forgiveness must be large and generous, as boundless as we imperfect humans can make it.

Trump loves hyperbolic numbers, but his are plainly in the service of boundless revenge, not forgiveness. His catechism is one of intimidation and, if that fails, retribution. It doesn’t matter if it takes the form of mass destruction and death (including, in the case of Americans, death by coronavirus). By announcing such goals so openly, of course, he turns the rest of us into his accomplices. Passively or actively, if we do nothing, we accept the possibility of mass murder in the service of Trump’s dark dreams of smiting those who would dare strike at his version of America.

It’s easy to dismiss his threats as nothing more than red meat to his base, but they are also distinctly anti-Christian. The saddest thing, however, is that they are, unfortunately, not at all un-American, as any quick survey of this country’s record of wanton destructiveness in war would show.

So while I do reject all Trump’s murderous words and empty promises, I find them strangely unexceptional and unnervingly all-American. Indeed, my own guess is that he’s won such a boisterous following in this country precisely because he does so visibly, so thunderously, so bigly embody its darkest dreams of destruction, which have all too often become reality when visited upon recalcitrant peoples who refused to bend to our will.

Destruction as Salvation

Americans today are sold an image of war as almost antiseptic — hardly surprising given our distance and detachment from this country’s “forever wars.” But as history reminds us, real war isn’t like that. It never was, not when colonists were killing Native Americans in vast numbers; nor when we were busy killing our fellow Americans in our Civil War; nor when U.S. troops were ruthlessly putting down the Filipino insurrection in the early twentieth century; nor when our air force firebombed Dresden, Tokyo, and so many other cities in World War II and later nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki; nor when North Korea was flattened by bombing in the early 1950s; nor when Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos were bludgeoned by bombs, napalm, and Agent Orange in the 1960s and early 1970s; nor when Iraqis were killed by the tens of thousands during the first Gulf war of 1990-1991.

And that, of course, is only a partial and selective accounting of the wanton carnage overseen by past presidents. In reality, Americans have never been shy about killing on a mass scale in the alleged cause of righteousness and democracy.

In that sense, Trump’s rhetoric of mass destruction is truly nothing new under the sun (except perhaps in its pure blustering bravado); Trump, that is, just salivates more openly at the prospect of inflicting pain on a mass scale on peoples he doesn’t like. And even that isn’t as new as you might imagine.

In this century, Republicans have been especially keen to share their dreams of massively bombing others. On the campaign trail in 2007, to the tune of the Beach Boys’ cover “Barbara Ann,” Senator (and former bomber pilot and Vietnam POW) John McCain smirkingly sang of bombing Iran. (“Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran!”) Similarly, during the Republican presidential debates of 2016, Senator Ted Cruz boasted of wanting to “utterly destroy” the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq by carpet-bombing its territory and, in doing so, making the desert sand “glow in the dark.” The implication was, of course, that as president he’d happily use nuclear weapons in the Middle East. (Talk about all options being on the table!)

Alarming? Yes! Very American? USA #1!

Consider two examples from the nuclear era, then and now. In the depth of the Cold War years, in response to a possible Soviet nuclear attack, this country’s war plans envisioned a simultaneous assault on the Soviet Union and China that military planners estimated would, in the end, kill 600 million people. That would have been the equivalent of 100 Holocausts, notes Pentagon whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who was privy to those plans.

Whether China had joined or even known about the Soviet attack didn’t matter. As communists, they were guilty by association and so to be obliterated anyway. Ellsberg notes that only one man present at the briefing where this “plan” was presented objected to such a mindless act of mass murder, David Shoup, a Marine general and Medal of Honor winner who would later similarly object to the Vietnam War.

Fast forward to today and our even more potentially planet-ending nuclear forces are still being “modernized” to the tune of $1.7 trillion over the coming decades. Any Ohio-class SSBN nuclear submarine in the Navy’s inventory, for example, could potentially kill millions of people with its 24 Trident II ballistic missiles (each carrying as many as eight nuclear warheads, each warhead with roughly six times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb). While such vessels are officially meant to “deter” nuclear war, they are, of course, ultimately built to fight one. Each is a submerged holocaust waiting to be unleashed.

Rarely, if ever, do we think about what those subs truly represent, historically speaking. Meanwhile, the Pentagon continues to “invest” (as the military likes to say) in ever-newer generations of nuclear-capable bombers and land-based missiles, promising a holocaust of planetary proportions if ever used. To grasp what an actual nuclear war would mean, you would have to update an old saying: one death is a tragedy; several billion is a statistic.

Aggravating such essential collective madness in this moment (and the president’s fiery and furious fascination with such weaponry) is Trump’s recent cynical call for what might be thought of as the nuking of our history: the installation of a truly “patriotic” education in our schools (in other words, a history that would obliterate everything but his version of American greatness). That would, of course, include not just the legacy of slavery and other dark chapters in our past, but our continued willingness to build weaponry that has the instant capacity to end it all in a matter of hours.

As a history professor, I can tell you that such a version of our past would be totally antithetical to sound learning in this or any world. History must, by definition, be critical of the world we’ve created. It must be tough-minded and grapple with our actions (and inactions), crimes and all, if we are ever to grow morally stronger as a country or a people.

History that only focuses on the supposedly good bits, however defined, is like your annoying friend’s Facebook page — the one that shows photo after photo of smiling faces, gourmet meals, exclusive parties, puppies, ice cream, and rainbows, that features a flurry of status updates reducible to “I’m having the time of my life.” We know perfectly well, of course, that no one’s life is really like that — and neither is any country’s history.

History should, of course, be about understanding ourselves as we really are, our strengths and weaknesses, triumphs, tragedies, and transgressions. It would even have to include an honest accounting of how this country got one Donald J. Trump, a failed casino owner and celebrity pitchman, as president at a moment when most of its leaders were still claiming that it was the most exceptional country in the history of the universe. I’ll give you a hint: we got him because he represented a side of America that was indeed exceptional, just not in any way that was ever morally just or democratically sound.

Jingoistic history says, “My country, right or wrong, but my country.” Trump wants to push this a goosestep further to “My country and my leader, always right.” That’s fascism, not “patriotic” history, and we need to recognize that and reject it.

Learning without Flinching from History

The United States has been the imperial power of record on this planet since World War II. Lately, the economic and moral aspects of that power have waned, even as our military power remains supreme (though without being able to win anything whatsoever). That should tell you something about America. We’re still a “SmackDown” country, to borrow a term from professional wrestling, in a world that’s increasingly being smacked down anyway.

Harold Pinter, the British playwright, caught this country’s imperial spirit well in his Nobel Prize lecture in 2005. America, he said then, has committed crimes that “have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”

Anyone with a knowledge of our history knows that there was truth indeed in what Pinter said 15 years ago. He noticed how this country’s leaders wielded language “to keep thought at bay.” Like George Orwell before him, Pinter was at pains to use plain language about war, noting how the Americans and British had “brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call[ed] it bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East.”

The point here was not simply to bash America. It was to get us to think about our actions in genuine historical terms. A decade and a half ago, Pinter threw down a challenge, and even if you disagreed with him, or maybe especially if you did so, you need the intellectual tools and command of the facts to grapple with that critique. It should never be enough simply to shout “USA! USA!” in an ever-louder fashion and hope it will drown out not only critics and dissenters but reality itself — and perhaps even your own secret doubts.

And we should have such doubts. We should be ready to dissent. We should recognize, as America’s current attorney general most distinctly does not, that dissenters are often the truest patriots of all, even if they are also often the loneliest ones. We should especially have doubts about a leader who threatens to bring violence against another country 1,000 times greater than anything that country could visit upon us.

I don’t need the Catholic Church, or even Christ in the New Testament, to tell me that such thinking is wrong in a Washington that now seems to be offering a carnivorous taste of what a future American autocracy could be like. I just need to recall the wise words of my Polish mother-in-law: “Have a heart, if you’ve got a heart.”

Have a heart, America. Reject American carnage in all its forms.

Cleveland-Cliffs announces takeover of ArcelorMittal’s US operations

Jessica Goldstein

On Monday, Ohio-based mining corporation Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. announced its plans to purchase the US manufacturing operations of Luxembourg-based steel giant ArcelorMittal for $1.4 billion. The deal will position Cleveland-Cliffs as the top producer of flat-rolled steel and iron ore pellet in North America, provide a windfall for both corporations and intensify the restructuring of the global steel industry.

The deal will merge high-volume steel production with Cliffs’s significant reserves of iron ore feedstock in the northern US under a single company that is expected to employ about 25,000 in total. Cliffs is the largest iron ore pellet producer in North America. It has supplied iron ore to ArcelorMittal USA and other steel manufacturers throughout the world. Through the deal, it will acquire 14 plants that make steel or roll and coat it; three coal-coking plants; and two iron-ore mining operations from ArcelorMittal.

Worker with steel coils (source: ArcelorMittal media)

Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves (net worth estimated $37.7 million) boasted that the corporation was in a position to carry out the large acquisition because “steel rebounded after the auto restart” in May. In March, autoworkers worldwide shut down the global auto industry after they carried out wildcat action in protest against unsafe working conditions as the COVID-19 pandemic was rapidly spreading. Politicians and businesses worldwide collaborated with the unions in each country where production stopped in order to herd workers back into unsafe plants by the late spring.

ArcelorMittal regained the world’s top steel producer position after having briefly been outpaced by China’s Baowu Group early this year. Although the sale of its North American operations, concentrated in the Great Lakes region of the US, will further undermine this position, CEO Lakshmi Mittal declared that the sale “is a strategic repositioning of our assets, but not a strategic repositioning of our market presence.”

Mittal had considered the sale of the corporation’s US operations since 2019, reasoning that these facilities were not as competitive as US-based corporations, which could use their own iron ore supplies, a necessary component of the manufacture of raw steel, at a much lower cost. Cleveland-Cliffs owns and operates four iron ore mines in Michigan and Minnesota. ArcelorMittal has some mining operations in the US but the bulk of its mines are overseas in Brazil, Bosnia, Canada, Kazakhstan, Liberia, Mexico and Ukraine, mainly countries where labor is cheaper.

Both corporations are eager to profit from the deal. According to the website MarketScreener, Cleveland-Cliffs stock rose 10 percent to $6.48 on Monday after announcing the planned purchase. About one-third of the $1.4 billion buyout will be paid in cash by Cliffs and the remaining two-thirds will be paid for in Cliffs stock. ArcelorMittal will hold a 16 percent stake in Cliffs as result of the deal and it will hand over $500 million to shareholders in share buybacks.

The details of the sale point toward coming attacks on the living standards of the working class. These will be carried out with the collaboration of the United Steelworkers union (USW), which negotiates labor agreements covering the two corporations’ combined US hourly workforce of over 15,000 workers.

USW District 7 Director Mike Millsap told the Chicago Tribune Tuesday, “We (USW) have bargained with Cleveland-Cliffs. They bought AK Steel a while back. Overall, our relationship has been very good.”

Goncalves echoed Millsap’s statements. “We are creating an exceptional company, based on great people and supported by our existing strong relationship with the United Steelworkers, the United Auto Workers and the Machinists unions,” he said in a statement announcing the deal.

In 2018, USW pushed through a concessions contract with Cleveland-Cliffs, which eroded wages and increased the burden of health care costs for workers. Goncalves welcomed the collaboration of the union and boasted at the time that the contract “provides Cliffs a competitive cost structure for future success.”

In 2019, Cliffs moved to buy AK Steel, the last remaining electrical steel producer (for power transformers and motors) in the US in an initial stock deal worth $1.1 billion. Cliffs then fully acquired its operations in a nearly $3 billion deal in March 2020.

Before the combined deal was finalized this year, Goncalves lobbied the Trump administration to include electrical steel laminated cores in the products subject to the administration’s 25 percent tariffs on imported steel. Goncalves sent the appeal directly to US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. Ross was one of the masterminds behind the justification of the Trump administration’s bevy of import tariffs as a “national security” measure, which sparked a trade war when they were implemented in stages beginning in March 2018.

Goncalves threatened the closure of two AK Steel mills where workers produce grain-oriented electrical steel for transformers, one in Butler, Pennsylvania, and the other Zanesville, Ohio. These moves would have put 1,600 workers out of a job.

Goncalves’ ruthless actions were supported by a bipartisan group of Pennsylvania lawmakers who wrote a letter in late April to Trump urging that he expand the tariffs. In May, Ross announced that the Department of Commerce would begin an investigation into the complaints of Goncalves and the legislators “to determine the effects on national security.”

The USW, under former president Leo Gerard, endorsed the Trump administration’s trade war measures aimed mainly at the Chinese metals industry. The USW also heaped praised on the nomination of Wilbur Ross as Secretary of Commerce, falsely proclaiming to workers that both would protect jobs.

A billionaire, Ross made a fortune as an asset stripper through buying steel companies in or near bankruptcy beginning in 2002. He consolidated struggling companies, including Weirton, Bethlehem and LTV Corp. into the International Steel Group (ISG). Ross increased his initial investments by twelve-fold by robbing workers of their pensions and retiree health care benefits, with the full collusion of the USW, cutting the lives of thousands of retirees short for his personal wealth, and by neglecting environmental and worker health and safety measures.

Ross himself has a history with Lakshmi Mittal (net worth $10.3 billion), CEO of ArcelorMittal. Ross sold ISG to Mittal in 2004 while he was CEO of Mittal Steel, ArcelorMittal’s predecessor. The acquisition of ISG made Mittal Steel the world’s largest steel producer. In 2006, it expanded further to become ArcelorMittal after merging with giant European steelmaker Arcelor.

The United Steelworkers continues to spew out vile nationalism while it colludes with the steel executives to force workers to accept wage and benefit cuts and worse working conditions. The USW has welcomed the takeover by Cliffs and postured against ArcelorMittal on a nationalist platform. Millsap inferred that Mittal’s location abroad was the reason why the union could not win concessions for workers, saying, “The fact that it’s a US company will help. It’s hard to deal with someone when they’re in London.”

Such an inference is a lie. Whether or not a corporation is based in the US or a different country, the ruling class gains its wealth from the exploitation of workers and lowering of wages throughout the world. In one round of concessions contracts after the next, the union leaders have told workers that their sacrifices are necessary to keep the companies “competitive,” claiming this would defend their jobs. Over the last four decades, this has led to the destruction of hundreds of thousands of steelworkers’ jobs and the decimation of mill towns in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and other states.

Most recently, the USW did nothing to oppose the planned layoffs of over 1,000 workers at ArcelorMittal and more than 2,000 workers at Pittsburgh-based US Steel, as well as the closure of two of Cleveland-Cliffs’ mines.

In the 2018 contract talks, the union worked hand-in-hand with corporate management to isolate workers at Cleveland-Cliffs from 31,000 of their brothers and sisters at US Steel and ArcelorMittal, though they worked in the mines which provided raw material to the mills. While keeping workers in the dark throughout negotiations, the USW ignored the unanimous strike vote by ArcelorMittal and US Steel workers and then imposed a concessions contract, which effectively stripped job protections for all workers and guaranteed no benefits to new hires.

Neither have the tariffs benefited anyone but the corporate oligarchs who control the steel corporations. After tariffs were unleashed in early 2018, US-made steel prices rose and provided an increase in revenue briefly until the demand dried up due to high costs and the effects of retaliatory tariffs. Steel prices and output fell, and workers were forced to bear the brunt of the trade war fallout through cuts to safety, layoffs and plant closures throughout the US.

The sale of ArcelorMittal USA to Cleveland-Cliffs is the latest step toward the restructuring of the steel industry worldwide. In the US, over 50,000 steelworkers have lost their jobs since 2000, yet the corporations continue to reap billions in profits and keep productivity levels high. A 2016 report on the US steel industry by the Department of Commerce noted, “In 2015, one employee accounted for approximately 1,000 net tons of raw steel production, an increase of 20 percent” since 2000.

Cleveland-Cliffs will be under intensified pressure to shift toward electric furnace production, like its competitor US Steel in the raw steel market. The two steelmakers’ profits are threatened by Nucor, the largest steelmaker in the US, and Steel Dynamics, which use newer electric furnaces that operate more efficiently with fewer workers than older blast furnaces. In 2019, US Steel bought a stake in electric furnace steelmaker Big River Steel for $700 million with the option to buy the rest of the Arkansas-based company by 2023.

The deal also reveals the intensifying nationalist orientation of the US ruling elite in the time of economic crisis sharpened by the pandemic. The US ruling class, represented by both Republicans and Democrats, is seeking to take aim against China and implement austerity measures at home to offset its financial and political crisis.

The ramping up of trade war measures in the metals industry will serve to accelerate the US drive toward military war with China. The USW, like the steel bosses, has welcomed Trump’s trade war measures with open arms in spite of the destruction of jobs of thousands of workers, only criticizing him when he does not go far enough. The USW is now supporting Democratic nominee Joe Biden whose program of economic nationalism promises to be just as or even more aggressive than Trump’s.

There is no way forward for the working class through the nationalist program of austerity, trade war and military war. Steelworkers must break from the corrupt USW, which seeks to tie their interests to the same corporations that exploit them. To prepare for the coming attacks on their jobs and living standards, steelworkers in the US must form their own organizations, rank-and-file factory committees, to put forward and fight for their own demands.

Workers must reject all forms of nationalism and fight to link their struggles with those of steel and mine workers in China, Europe, Latin America and throughout the world in a fight against capitalism and for transformation of the giant metal and mining corporations into public utilities under the democratic control and collective ownership of the working class around the world.