Sixty-five years of the Bundeswehr: German president appeals for militarism, rearmament and war

Johannes Stern

Germany’s ruling class is using the 65th anniversary of the German army (Bundeswehr) to intensify its aggressive push for a return to militarism. In an interview on the public broadcaster ARD’s Morgenmagazin show, Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer called for a major increase in military spending in spite of the coronavirus pandemic. The media is stepping up its propaganda for militarism and war, and representatives of all parliamentary parties released official statements declaring their full support for the army.

In his speech to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Bundeswehr’s founding, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier sought to cover up the militarist roots and war-like character of the army, and portray it as a guarantor of freedom, democracy and peace. But his claim that the Bundeswher has nothing to do with “the unwholesome role of German militarism” and the criminal record of the Wehrmacht is just as dishonest today as it was 65 years ago.

At its founding on November 12, 1955, the Bundeswehr was called New Wehrmacht, and for good reason. It was only renamed in 1956. All of the 44 generals and admirals sworn in by 1957 came from Hitler’s Wehrmacht, above all from the general staff of the army. Of the 14,900 professional soldiers who made up the officers corps in 1959, there were 12,360 Wehrmacht officers, 300 of whom came from the leadership of the SS.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier delivers his speech to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the German army at the Bellevue palace in Berlin (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

The ruling class attempted for an extended period to conceal this continuity. However, ever since the federal government announced the end of military restraint at the Munich Security Conference in 2014, the grizzly traditions of the German ruling elite and its military have emerged ever more clearly. As was the case during the German Empire and under the Nazis, the military is to be made the centrepiece of society and the Bundeswehr transformed into a war machine capable of defending German imperialist interests around the world.

Steinmeier’s speech left no doubt about this. The Bundeswehr “expresses our will to defend ourselves and is an important instrument in our ability to do so,” Steinmeier declared. “Despite all the changes over the past decades, the Bundeswehr will remain essential for our country in the future.” He proceeded to explain what he meant by this: war abroad and major military deployments domestically.

“Never before has the Bundeswehr had to shoulder such wide-ranging responsibility in the form of solidarity with our allies in Central and Eastern Europe, overseas deployments from the Balkans to Afghanistan and Mali and from Iraq to the Indian Ocean, and defence, including in cyberspace, and support in national crises, as is the case now in the pandemic,” stated Steinmeier.

Steinmeier already played a central role in reviving German militarism as foreign minister. At the 2014 Munich Security Conference, he remarked that Germany is too large and too strong economically merely to “comment on world politics from the sidelines.” He now considers it his task to push ahead with the drive to war and impose this policy against the widespread opposition among the population.

“[E]ven under President Biden, Europe will not be as important to the US as it used to be,” added Steinmeier. “With regard to security policy, I see our country as having a dual responsibility.” He meant by this the development of an independent great power policy for Europe under German leadership, and a stronger role for Berlin within NATO. “For Germany, the development of an EU capable of taking action in defence policy is as pressing as the expansion of the European pillar of NATO,” continued Steinmeier. Germany must “do everything to make Europe strong.”

To finance these policies, the grand coalition plans to hike the military budget, which was already increased last year by 10 percent. “This will cost more,” Steinmeier acknowledged. Soldiers “have a right to be equipped with the best possible kit this country can provide them, equipment that provides them with the best possible protection and enables them to fulfil the mission defined by the political sphere.”

The mission is essentially the same as it was under the German emperor and the Nazi dictatorship: the military enforcement of the economic and geostrategic interests of German imperialism around the world. The propaganda to justify this runs thus: “We need the Bundeswehr because Germany must assume responsibility for its own security, because we have taken on responsibility for our neighbours and allies, just as they take on responsibility for our security; because the world around us is changing, and not always in the way we would like …”

The ruling class is well aware that after two catastrophic world wars during the last century, the return of militarism and war is widely opposed by the population. “War, combat, courage, injuries, trauma, death, armed Germans, let alone Germans fighting in other countries—these are topics we prefer to sweep under the carpet. We do not like to talk about these things, and when we do, it is usually to express criticism,” complained Steinmeier, before adding threateningly of “a mutual lack of comprehension between soldiers and society. We cannot simply accept this state of affairs.”

Steinmeier and the ruling class are demanding that the entire population identify with militarism. The experiences of “soldiers who … served in combat, where they were wounded physically or psychologically … form part of our experiences. Their battles are our battles, even if indeed because peace prevails here in Germany,” stated Steinmeier. “This is not merely something we can expect of our society. It should also be important to our society. Society owes you this empathy and interest.”

The implications of this are clear. As on the eve of World War I and World War II, all opposition to war should be criminalised. Instead, the cult of soldiers and heroes should be revived. Steinmeier recalled how he participated as foreign minister in 2007 in a ceremony to honour three German soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan. “I never met any of these three men,” he said. “But I stood before their coffins in Kunduz, where two of their comrades stood guard of honour. … It is the duty of us all to remember them with respect and gratitude.”

Steinmeier’s speech is a warning. He may distance himself in words from the Wehrmacht and the Nazis. However, the content of what he says and does shows that the ruling elite stands in these very same traditions and is responding to the deepening crisis of capitalism and mounting opposition from the working class by turning to militarism and fascism, just as it did during the 1930s.

Already after the entry of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) into parliament in September 2017, Steinmeier used his speech to mark German Unity Day to promote political cooperation with the right-wing extremists. Then, in late November 2017, he invited the leaders of the AfD at the time, Alexander Gaulland and Alice Weidel, to Bellevue Palace for talks. The militarisation and drive to war he has now proclaimed at the same location will further strengthen the fascist forces, including those within the Bundeswehr, not weaken them.

Peruvian government falls after two killed in anti-impeachment protests

Cesar Uco & Bill Van Auken

Less than one week after being sworn in as successor to Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra, impeached in what amounted to a parliamentary coup, the former president of the Congress, Manuel Merino, was forced to resign Sunday.

Demands for Merino to step down as president mounted amid overwhelming popular outrage over the bloody assault on peaceful demonstrators in Lima on Saturday in which two were killed and over 100 wounded. Over 40 youth have been reported missing. The slain protesters identified thus far are two university students, Jack Brian Pintado Sánchez, 22, and Jordan Inti Sotelo Camargo, 24.

Police have repeatedly attacked peaceful protests with tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets, while it is widely reported that live ammunition has also been used.

A caravan of demonstrators on motorcycles ride after interim President Manuel Merino resigned his post, in Lima, Peru, Sunday, Nov. 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Pressure mounted on Merino after the resignation of an overwhelming majority of his extreme right-wing cabinet. Media reports said that 13 cabinet members, who had been named only last Thursday, had quit. Among those who resigned was the interior minister and ex-police general, Gastón Rodriguez, who had defended the police rampage as an act of self defense. Another of the resigning ministers had made the absurd suggestion that the massive demonstrations were not spontaneous, but rather had been organized by remnants of the Maoist guerrilla movement, Sendero Luminoso.

Right-wing figures such as Peruvian novelist and former presidential candidate Mario Vargas Llosa and Kiko Fujimori, the leader of Fuerza Popular and daughter of the ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori, jailed for his role in death squad massacres and wholesale corruption, also called for Merino to step down, as did the main employers’ association, CONFIEP.

Merino announced his resignation after the Congress gave him an ultimatum that, unless he did so, it would convene within hours to vote to remove him from office.

Who will succeed the exceedingly brief reign of Peru’s interim president is still unclear. Vizcarra is banking on a decision by the country’s Constitutional Tribunal to put him back in office. It is to issue a decision on the use by Congress of an obscure part of the 1993 Constitution that allows the removal of a president on the grounds of “permanent moral incapacity.”

The clause is widely interpreted as referring to a mental or physical inability to serve as president. In Vizcarra’s case, however, it was invoked on the pretext of allegations that he took hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes for awarding construction contracts when he was the governor of the southern mining region of Moquegua.

The charges are entirely plausible. Virtually every living ex-Peruvian president has been implicated in the massive bribery and kickback scandal involving public works contracts awarded to the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht and its Peruvian partners. For that matter, more than half of the 105 congress members voting for Vizcarra’s impeachment are facing similar charges.

Mass protest in Plaza San Martin in Lima

In Vizcarra’s case, however, the allegations are just that: statements given by defendants seeking plea bargains that have not even been investigated, much less adjudicated. One of the main issues underlying the push to oust Vizcarra was his support for stripping legislators of their immunity from prosecution.

In the vote on impeachment, congress members also delivered demagogic speeches denouncing Vizcarra for the catastrophic handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying they were casting their votes in the name of the dead. With 934,899 cases and 35,177 dead, Peru has the highest per capita mortality rate in the world, double that of the US and Brazil.

The protests were driven not by support for Vizcarra, who accepted his impeachment with barely a whimper, but by hatred for the corrupt Congress and the entire political setup in Peru. This was laid bare by the coup-like impeachment, which took place just five months before scheduled presidential elections.

Under the Constitution, Merino’s successor as the president of the Congress should succeed him. A member of the Alianza para el Progreso (APP), which played the key role in swinging congressional support to the parliamentary coup, he is not seen as viable in the face of the masses in the streets.

While the majority of the pseudo-left front, Frente Amplio, in the Congress voted in favor of the impeachment that brought Merino’s short-lived regime to power, its leading legislator, Rocío Silva Santisteban, has now been named as the new the head of the leadership of the Congress—and potentially the next president. This is a patent attempt to lend a “left” face to the political maneuvers of the Peruvian bourgeoisie.

Verónika Mendoza, another pseudo-left politician who is seeking a presidential nomination, denounced Vizcarra for seeking to return to office after failing to resist the impeachment but offered no alternative outside of the call for a new constitution. Mendoza was booed and driven out of a mass demonstration in the city of Cusco, where she was justifiably seen as another member of the hated political establishment.

In the last week, Peru has seen some of the largest demonstrations in its history with a national march organized last Thursday and a second one, bloodily repressed, on Saturday. Hundreds of thousands of youth chanting “Merino out” and “They messed with the wrong generation” have poured into the streets throughout the country.

A protester in Lima.

The main demonstration Thursday took place in Lima. Youth flooded the capital’s central San Martin square, marching for miles from upper-middle class districts such as Miraflores, as well as from the northern and southern cones, the impoverished districts where millions of working class families live. Groups of students from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM) joined in the protest.

“We are manifesting our feelings,” Marcelo, one of the marchers told the World Socialist Web Site. “Our politicians are corrupt and unqualified. It is inconceivable that Congress would vote for the impeachment when we are in a huge health crisis. They know that, but they care more about what is in their pockets. What we want is money for health and education.”

An older worker who joined the protest told the WSWS: “I worked at the Crillon Hotel until it closed in 1999. Now I live off my pension which is a miserable 1,000 soles (US$ 300). In addition, I have a sick daughter. I do not know what to do. The judiciary doesn’t work. About socialism, I think it would be right to provide health care and education for all. Also, a salary that allows for a decent life.”

Paul, a student from Northern Private University, said: “I am against the state of emergency. Vizcarra should have finished his term. And then he can be judged on whether he received bribes from the Brazilians. It’s good to go out on the streets so that they listen to us, but then what? I can’t find an answer. I know that capitalism is destroying us.”

Demonstrations also took place in cities across the country, from Tacna near the southern border with Chile, to Chiclayo and Trujillo in the north.

In a statement dripping with hypocrisy, the US State Department congratulated Merino, shortly before his resignation, for saying he would allow the Peruvian elections to take place in April along with a “successful democratic transition to a new administration.” It further declared that Peruvians should enjoy the “right to democracy,” including “the right to peacefully protest.” This, from a US government that has unleashed militarized police against protests and seeks to nullify the results of a presidential election!

The militancy of the youth who have taken to the streets has its roots in the insoluble crisis of Peruvian capitalism, which has been sharply accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the worst mortality rate, Peru is facing the largest drop in gross domestic product of any major economy, with a 30 percent fall from the previous year and nearly half of the formal sector in urban areas becoming unemployed. Poverty has deepened sharply for the 72 percent of workers in the informal sector.

These are the conditions underlying the protracted crisis of rule within Peru’s venal capitalist oligarchy. It has taken the form of an internecine conflict between the executive and the legislature, with the military playing the role of final arbiter.

At the end of September 2019, Vizcarra shut down the Congress, with the explicit support of the Armed Forces, and ruled for months by decree. Last week, the military shifted its allegiance after meeting with Merino, backing the parliamentary coup.

If the military and the ruling class as a whole are pulling back from the coup, it is out of fear that the mass protests will become uncontrollable, sparking a broad social struggle by the working class and the most oppressed layers of the population.

Under conditions in which they are conducting a back-to-work drive in the face of continuing mass COVID-19 deaths, both the Peruvian ruling class and the transnational mining corporations are anxious to quell the political crisis with the assistance of pseudo-left forces. They know full well that their policies will require repressive measures against Peruvian workers.

Large COVID-19 outbreak in Xinjiang, China

Jerry Zhang

On October 24, Chinese authorities suddenly announced a lockdown of the city of Kashgar in Xinjiang, due to an outbreak of COVID-19, without releasing any details. From 4 p.m. onward, a large number of flights at Kashgar Airport were cancelled and the highways were closed. The lack of information caused a degree of panic among the population.

By early October 25, the official report was of a single coronavirus infection in Shufu County, Kashgar Prefecture. In the afternoon, however, after the disease control department began testing, 137 people were found to be positive.

On October 26, four townships in Kashgar were declared high-risk areas. Two days later, 183 people had tested positive: 45 people were symptomatic, including three severe cases, and another 138 were found to be asymptomatic.

People wearing masks in China [Credit: AP Photo/Kin Cheung]

By November 5, there had been nearly 400 cases of COVID-19 infection in Kashgar, including 78 confirmed cases with symptoms, seven severe cases, and 318 asymptomatic infections.

After the state-owned media downplayed the severity of the outbreak, the Xinjiang government held a video meeting on November 5. Chen Quanguo, Xinjiang secretary for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), admitted that the outbreak in Kashgar and nearby Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture was still severe, and the task of prevention and control remained difficult.

According to several media reports, the source of the outbreak was a local factory in Kashgar, and most of the infections detected so far were related to the factory. Both the parents of the first infected person worked in the factory—a sweatshop engaged in making garments. Most of the workers come from poor towns and counties in Kashgar. Samples taken from the factory’s workshop, warehouse and toilets have tested positive for COVID-19.

As of November 14, the official data showed 25 confirmed symptomatic cases and 187 asymptomatic infections in Xinjiang. The following day, weeks after the outbreak was first announced, authorities finally rated some areas near the factory as low-risk areas.

The outbreak in Kashgar underscores the fact that, although China officially resumed production and economic activities as early as six months ago, the risk of further flare-ups still exists.

In June, hundreds of infections were discovered at the Xinfadi wholesale market in Beijing. The following month, a third wave of infections broke out in Urumqi in Xinjiang. The entire province was blocked off for two months, and it was not completely opened until September.

In early October, 13 cases were discovered in the coastal city of Qingdao, which is one of the most popular tourist destinations in China. The infections were of particular concern as it was a public holiday and there were large numbers of visitors to the city. Some evidence points to the infections being caused by contact with the packaging of imported frozen seafood.

An official report from Shanghai on November 10 also found that the outer packaging of a batch of frozen beef from Argentina tested positive for COVID-19. On November 13, the Zhengzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention discovered a batch of frozen pork, also from Argentina, that tested positive. China is the main buyer of Argentinian beef and had been seeking to sign an agreement worth $US3.5 billion that would make Argentina its largest pork supplier.

The ability of COVID-19 to be transmitted via frozen food, if proven, underscores the fact that China’s strict control of international travel and its mass testing are no guarantee against outbreaks. The pandemic is a global issue that cannot be resolved on a parochial national basis by locking down borders. Nowhere is safe in a world of globalised production.

The repeated flare-ups of coronavirus in different regions also point to the fact that working-class communities are the most vulnerable. The factory dormitories and residential areas are overcrowded and there is a lack of sanitation and protective equipment. Compounding the risk is the state-owned media’s continuous downplay of the pandemic to justify the lifting of prevention and control methods in order to ensure a return to work.

Over the past year as COVID-19 emerged, China’s economy has been severely affected, with a huge 2020 first quarter contraction of 6.8 percent. While the official growth figure for the third quarter [July-September] rose to 4.9 percent, this is well short of the 8 percent that the CCP regime previously maintained was necessary to prevent widespread unemployment.

Moreover, any resumption of economic benefits has only exacerbated social inequalities. The country’s billionaires are expanding their wealth during the pandemic, while the working class has been hard hit. Workers have not only suffered from the virus but their economic situation has become more precarious, with mounting unemployment, wage cuts and unpaid wages. Workers have received virtually no support or assistance to alleviate their deteriorating living conditions.

Currently, winter is approaching in China, and in many parts of the country the temperature has dropped sharply. According to medical experts, this heightens the danger of new coronavirus surges.

Migrant workers demand right to return to their homes in New Zealand

Tom Peters

Thousands of migrant workers who lived and worked in New Zealand have been trapped outside the country since the borders were closed in March. Unable to return to their jobs and their lives, many are facing severe financial distress and some have been separated from their partners and other family members.

The Labour Party-led government’s cruel treatment of migrant workers exposes the media propaganda in New Zealand and internationally portraying Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as the embodiment of kindness and compassion. In reality, Labour and its former coalition partner, the right-wing nationalist NZ First, have sought to scapegoat migrants for the worsening social crisis.

Thousands of migrants still in New Zealand, who have lost their jobs due to the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic, have been denied access to unemployment benefits. Former Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, the NZ First leader, told them to “go home” because the system would not support them, despite the government giving tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to businesses.

Migrants protest in Sangrur, India, calling on the New Zealand government to allow them to return (Source: NZ Temporary Visa Holders Stuck Offshore, Facebook group).

Meanwhile, nearly 30,000 people who have applied for residency have faced delays of a year or more due to a deliberate slowdown of visa processing by Immigration New Zealand. Many now fear they may not be allowed to stay in the country.

In the lead-up to the October 17 election, which saw Labour return to office with an overall majority of the votes, the major parties and the media maintained a virtual silence on the fate of migrants. Immigration policy was not discussed in the four televised debates between Ardern and National Party leader Judith Collins.

In a sign of the continuing brutal treatment of migrants, the New Zealand Herald reported on October 28 that Minister for Immigration Kris Faafoi had denied residency to Sanaul Elahi, who was injured during the fascist terrorist attack in Christchurch on March 15, 2019. This was despite a recommendation from the ministry’s own Immigration and Protection Tribunal that Elahi and his family should be allowed to stay in the country. Elahi originally moved to New Zealand in 2015 and had been working as a halal butcher.

A petition recently submitted to the New Zealand parliament urged the government to “to allow migrants with current New Zealand visas who are stuck offshore to either re-enter the country, or extend their visas.”

It stated: “Thousands of us are ordinarily residents and have spent almost a year away from home, jobs and in some cases our partners and kids. New Zealand is our home. Our lives are there, as are our families, jobs, careers, homes and friends. Please let hard working people return home. It’s been a long time without access to our belongings.” The petition so far has about 1,700 signatures.

Migrants have also held demonstrations, both in New Zealand and internationally, against the Ardern government’s policies. On Tuesday, migrants will rally in New Delhi to demand that “all workers normally resident in New Zealand, be allowed to return the same as citizens.”

NZ citizens are allowed to return and must spend two weeks in hotels that have been repurposed as quarantine facilities.

The World Socialist Web Site recently spoke with Belu, who had lived in New Zealand for six years. She and her husband, and their baby, had travelled to her family’s home in Argentina to get married when New Zealand closed its border. Belu has been separated from her husband, who is from India and was unable to stay in Argentina due to its visa regulations.

“We started our life, our family in New Zealand and then with no notice, we can’t go home,” she said. “It’s very tough because in this country or in India we have to start again from zero… It’s the middle of a crisis, we don’t have a house, we don’t have our belongings, we don’t have anything.” The couple was still paying $600 a week rent for their house in New Zealand, and had received some assistance from their employer thanks to the government’s temporary wage subsidy scheme, until it expired in September.

Belu believed that the government “don’t want to lose votes. If they say: all the immigrants can come back, all the Kiwis who don’t want immigrants or don’t know the situation will not vote for them. I don’t understand why the media never asks [the government] about it. It’s a very big thing. We are thousands, with our families.”

She said her employer was “desperate” because “they see the job’s there to be done and nobody to do it. So why if they need me so much can’t I come back?” She explained that she was extremely stressed. “I haven’t slept eight hours for the last eight months. Thank god I have my mum with me and my baby, because otherwise I don’t know how other people do it.”

The WSWS also spoke with Swarna, who is currently stuck in India, unable to return to her home in Auckland. Like many others, she had been given a large amount of money by her parents to study and work in New Zealand, which she had been repaying through remittances. “My parents are both retired now, they are unable to pay the money,” she said. “Any moment the bank will start sending me letters. They can take away my home, the only home I have in India.”

Swarna had been in New Zealand for two years when the pandemic hit; she had been working as a security guard and in a public hospital, sometimes up to a total of 72 hours a week. “[Migrant workers] don’t eat properly, we don’t sleep properly, we just work like a dog… we are just working, working, working,” she explained.

She had to return to India to visit her mother, who was seriously ill, just before NZ shut its borders in March. Swarna had applied for an exemption from Immigration New Zealand (INZ) to return to New Zealand, but was rejected with no explanation.

Swarna described the government’s “exemption” criteria—supposedly allowing some migrants to return—as “nonsense” since the vast majority were rejected, despite being legally entitled to be in New Zealand.

She said: “Overnight my life just changed and it changed so badly. I have nothing here because I have my life in New Zealand. My parents are going into depression, my mum cried saying: you should not have come. I honestly want to see Jacinda Ardern face to face. I’m that angry with her. I have not done anything wrong. She is the one who has, in the name of COVID, in the name of the election.”

Swarna explained that there were many others in similar situations. “We are not the ones who brought COVID… we are being punished. I know a boy who came to attempt suicide a few months back. He ate so many sleeping pills, he was rushed to hospital.” Swarna urged the NZ government: “Let people in who are eligible to come in. Let them start their lives! [Ardern] has just stopped our lives, she is controlling our lives for eight months.”

Closure of Louisiana’s Shell Convent Refinery will impact 1,100 jobs and create economic hardship

James Langley

On November 5, oil giant Shell announced that it will be shutting down the Convent Refinery in Saint James Parish, Louisiana, after failing to find a buyer for the massive complex. The refinery is located on 4,400 acres of land between Ascension and St. James parishes and is expected to begin the shutdown process starting in mid-November.

As of now Shell is continuing to seek a buyer for the idled refinery, which can process up to 240,000 barrels of crude oil a day and employs over 1,100 workers, including 400 contract workers, making the operation a key part of the local economy.

The news of the closure comes after a $500 million investment in 2015 by the previous owner of the refinery, Motiva, to connect the Convent Refinery to the Norco Refinery down river by a pipeline, integrating their productive capacities and creating the Louisiana Refining System. Then CEO of Motiva, Dan Romasko, boasted that the Louisiana Refining System would have a crude capacity of more than 500,000 barrels per day, making it one of the five largest North American refineries.

After sharp contractions in the demand for oil due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on energy use by both private business and individuals, Shell has decided that the refinery is no longer financially viable. Shell spokesperson Curtis Smith stated in the announcement: “Despite efforts to sell the asset, a viable buyer was never identified. After looking at all aspects of our business, including financial performance, we made the difficult decision to shut down the site.”

Though the decision was sparked by the pandemic, Shell and other oil companies have long been preparing for large-scale restructuring measures. In fact, Shell is planning on consolidating its assets into just six energy and chemical parks internationally.

The Norco Refinery in conjunction with Shell’s chemical complex in Geismar in Ascension Parish is one of the six sites. The other sites are in Deer Park, Texas; The Netherlands; Singapore; Germany; and Canada. Other refineries under review for potential sale or closure include Puget Sound, Washington, and Mobile, Alabama, along with others in Canada and Denmark. The fate of those refineries has not been decided yet, according to the company. The international scope of such restructuring measures means they will impact workers all across the globe.

The turn by Shell toward consolidating its business, as well as to focus on the integration of its remaining assets to allow the production of more chemically based products such as biofuel, hydrogen and synthetic fuels, is due to major changes in the financial viability of shale well drilling. The overall decline in the productivity of shale, as well as the future focus on lower carbon sources of energy, means the continued reliance on financialization to fuel the industry’s rapid growth is no longer feasible. Rapid shale well production decline rates mean more drilling, higher debt and smaller profits, making many companies reconsider their outlook on shale oil in future markets.

The closure of the Convent Refinery, the largest taxpaying facility in St. James Parish, will greatly affect the economic well-being of surrounding communities, with the loss of 1,100 jobs and associated tax revenue. The population of the Parish was 21,151 in 2018, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), and the poverty rate was 16.7 percent. In 2017, 3,911 residents received benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, due to food insecurity. These were the numbers before the pandemic hit.

St. James Parish resident Pete Dufresne, in an interview on WAFB9 local news, commented on the refinery’s closing, saying, “Since 1967, this refinery has provided economic impact to St. James Parish operating under several different companies over the years. The facility has consistently been the largest taxpayer in St. James Parish, therefore its consolidation will certainly have an impact on our community and the supporting businesses who rely on industry.”

Though the Convent Refinery is organized by the United Steel Workers (USW), the local branch has been unavailable for contact by the media and has not published any statement on the shutdown. In the spring of 2015 workers at the Convent Refinery joined in the month-and-half-long strike by over 30,000 oil workers across the United States. During that time, the USW bureaucracy actively worked to sabotage the strike every step of the way, calling out only a portion of the refineries organized by the union in Louisiana and campaiging for workers to get back on the job.

The strike was ultimately sold out by the UAW, with nothing being done to address the decline of living standards for workers or the grave concern of workers over job safety. In the end, the only meausure adopted was the formation of joint union-management safety committees that, while providing cushy posts for union officials, did nothing to implement or enforce real safety measures.

As US COVID-19 cases top 11 million, Biden aides reject new lockdown to save lives

Patrick Martin

The United States passed 11 million coronavirus cases Sunday, according to the most widely used tracker, from Johns Hopkins University. The grim milestone came amid warnings from public health authorities that the death toll, now nearing 250,000, could hit half a million by the spring.

In state after state, governors have been compelled to issue emergency orders for the partial or complete shutdown of bars, restaurants, gyms and other facilities where people congregate. Michigan shut down all high school sports for three weeks and issued the strongest warnings against large gatherings over the Thanksgiving holiday.

One sphere, however, was entirely exempt from such restrictions: major corporate workplaces, including factories, warehouses and office buildings, where hundreds or thousands of workers are crammed together in defiance of social distancing and other public health considerations.

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden meets with residents of Kenosha at Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha, Wis., Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

The scale of the pandemic is far greater than it was last spring. According to Johns Hopkins, 45 states showed week-to-week increases in the number of infections, in contrast to the handful of states worst hit in March and April and the band of states across the South and Southwest that were the focal point during the summer. Every region of the country is affected, although the worst-hit states are now in the northern plains and upper Midwest—the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, as well as Michigan.

The most dangerous aspect of the new upsurge is the strain being placed on health care facilities. According to the COVID Tracking Project, there were a record 69,455 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 on Saturday, with the figure expected to hit 70,000 within days.

In many areas, some urban, some rural, every available hospital bed has been filled with a coronavirus patient. As cases mount, necessary facilities will become unavailable and patients will begin dying in hallways, in emergency rooms, in ambulances and in their homes.

All these strains will be compounded by the onset of the annual influenza season, which caused about 400,000 hospitalizations and 22,000 deaths last year.

The response of the Trump administration to the pandemic has been one of willful neglect, now openly proclaimed as the program of “herd immunity,” allowing the infection to run wild through the population while rejecting any public health measures that would impact corporate profits.

Trump himself has not attended a meeting of his White House Coronavirus Task Force in five months, Admiral Brett Giroir, a member of the task force, confirmed in a television interview Sunday. That indifference and callousness is the most important single reason for Trump’s defeat in the November 3 presidential election by Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

But Biden is no more willing to impose burdens on corporate America than Trump. The members of his coronavirus task force, established last week, have made it clear that Biden rejects a lockdown of the economy, the only action that would prevent a winter of devastating death and illness while work on the development, production and distribution of a vaccine continued.

This posture is especially criminal given the enormous progress being made in vaccine development, beginning with Pfizer’s announcement that its vaccine has proven 90 percent effective in third-stage trials involving 40,000 volunteers. Any COVID-19 deaths that take place during the months between development of the vaccine and its widespread distribution are the sole responsibility of those public officials and corporate bosses who are forcing millions to go to work despite the evidence that large workplaces are central points of infection in the pandemic.

The Biden aides who appeared on the television talk shows Sunday gave uniform, consistent answers about coronavirus policy, clearly coordinated with the candidate: there will be no new lockdown; those who become infected bear responsibility for failing to wear masks, socially distance, and wash their hands; no new resources to pay for coronavirus-related economic dislocation will be available unless there is bipartisan congressional support; there is nothing Biden can do about the pandemic until he becomes president on January 20, 2021.

Even that is open to question as Trump refuses to concede and continues plotting to nullify the election results.

Former surgeon general Vivek Murthy, co-chair of the Biden coronavirus task force, appeared on “Fox News Sunday” and also gave an interview to National Public Radio. In both, he blamed the population, not the corporations and government, for the resurgence of COVID-19, citing what he called “pandemic fatigue.”

“People are letting down their guard in terms of social gatherings,” he said, citing dinner parties and other small-scale events. He said nothing about factories and warehouses where hundreds or thousands work side-by-side with barely a pretense of social distancing.

He called for a focus on “expanding testing capacity and our contact tracing force.” That is all well and good, but these measures do not prevent the spread of the virus, they only detect it.

He called for “evidence-based guidance for schools, businesses, and faith organizations,” language that presumes that schools and workplaces will stay open, and churches will hold services, regardless of a deadly pandemic.

When his Fox interviewer pressed him on Biden’s attitude to a lockdown, Murthy replied, “This is a measure of last resort,” adding, “If we just lock down, we’re going to exacerbate pandemic fatigue. We need to approach this with a scalpel rather than with the blunt force of an axe.”

Dr. Atul Gawande, another member of the Biden task force, appeared on ABC’s “This Week” program. He was asked directly about the possibility of a lockdown and he responded bluntly, “We are not in support of a nationwide lockdown and believe there is not a scenario unless—there simply isn’t a scenario because we can get this under control.”

He went on to call for “targeted measures building on mask-wearing to include widespread testing, to include dialing up and down capacity restrictions, and those measures need to happen on a more localized basis.”

Another task force member, Dr. Michael Osterholm, appeared on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” He forthrightly warned that in the interval between the development of a vaccine and its widespread distribution, a matter of months, “we are in a very dangerous period, the most dangerous public health period since 1918,” when a global influenza pandemic killed 50 million people worldwide.

Vaccines would provide the fundamental change, he said, but until they were widely available it was necessary to do everything possible to save lives, regardless of the cost. Osterholm had previously called for a nationwide lockdown, with workers and small businessmen compensated for lost wages and revenues.

On Sunday, he concluded: “You know, my worst fear is what we saw happen in other countries, where people were dying on the streets. People literally were dying in the waiting room of emergency rooms after spending 10 hours just waiting to be seen. That’s going to start happening.

“The media will start reporting it and we will see the breadth and the depth of this tragedy. That, I hope, will not be the way that we finally decide to reduce our risk, this idea of swapping air. We’ve got to stop doing that. And so, I think it is the health care system’s breaking, literally breaking, that will unfortunately bring us to a sense of reality of what we must do in the short term.”

The Biden campaign had previously disavowed Dr. Osterholm’s earlier statement calling for a four-to-six-week lockdown to save lives, and he had been compelled to publicly distance this call from his work for the Biden transition. But the campaign was clearly aware that the doctor was to appear on “Meet the Press” and likely to deviate from Biden’s strict anti-lockdown, pro-corporate position.

So, Ron Klain, newly designated as Biden’s White House chief of staff, was made available to appear on the program immediately after Osterholm, almost as a rebuttal witness.

Klain made it clear that Biden would call only for a national mask mandate, not a lockdown. When interviewer Chuck Todd asked him about Osterholm’s declaration that those affected economically by a lockdown had to be compensated for their lost wages and income, Klain made only a vague reference to bipartisan congressional action during the current lame-duck session, before Biden is slated to become president.

Quebec Solidaire embraces the ruling elite’s criminal “herd immunity” policy

Louis Girard

— “There were no outbreaks in cinemas. There are more than 100 cases at the Olymel [slaughterhouse]. Why is Olymel open while cinemas are closed?”

— “There are outbreaks at schools, but schools remain open. There are no outbreaks in museums, but museums are closed.”

— “Winter is coming. Can we imagine opening up heated terraces? It is happening elsewhere, in other Nordic countries.”

These comments have been made in the midst of a resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic in Canada, and under conditions where Quebec, with more than 6,600 deaths, has one of the highest COVID-19 death rates in the world (> 775 per million inhabitants).

Their meaning is clear: it is not enough for the government to keep most businesses open and to order public school students to physically attend class. It must follow through on its policy of letting the virus wreak havoc on the population so as not to interfere with corporate profit-making, and lift all restrictions on cinemas, museums and restaurants. The example to follow is that of “Nordic” Sweden, where the authorities officially adopted a laissez-faire attitude in the name of “herd immunity,” leading to a per capita death rate nine times higher than that of neighbouring Finland.

QS's two official spokespersons, Manon Massé (left) and Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois (right). (Photo credit: Quebec Solidaire)

The quotes reproduced above do not come from anti-mask activists and other coronavirus deniers linked to the extreme right. Nor are they remarks of business leaders spearheading the ruinous back-to-work, back-to-school campaign that has led to the current cross-Canada surge in COVID-19 cases. Rather, they were made by the two co-leaders of Quebec Solidaire—Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois (the author of the first two quotes) and Manon Massé (the third quote)—at a recent press conference.

With these statements, Quebec Solidaire (QS) is not just defending and supporting the right-wing CAQ (Coalition Avenir Québec) provincial government’s disastrous handling of the pandemic, as it has repeatedly done since last March. QS is emerging as among the most brazen promoters of the ruling class’ criminal “herd immunity” policy.

Although generally not openly proclaimed, this policy is being implemented by American and European leaders and by Canada’s political establishment —most notably Justin Trudeau’s federal Liberal government, Francois Legault’s CAQ government, and Ontario’s Conservative government. It prioritizes profits over human health and lives.

In Canada, it was Legault’s government, with the backing of QS, that took the lead in the campaign for a premature return to work, when it sought as early as last April to reopen Quebec’s schools. Since September, Legault and his CAQ, the hard-right governments of Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, and British Columbia’s NDP regime have stubbornly persisted with the reopening of schools and businesses even as COVID-19 cases have soared, and workplaces and schools have emerged as major vectors for the virus’ transmission.

For their part, sections of the mainstream media, led by the Toronto Sun, have enthusiastically echoed the pseudo-scientific call for “herd immunity” made by right-wing scientists in the Great Barrington Declaration.

“Much of Canada is now barreling down the Barrington Highway,” warned the Globe and Mail ’s award-winning, senior health reporter last week. “In their words and (in)actions,” continued André Picard, governments “have embraced an approach … that profits matter more than people, that we should let the coronavirus run wild and, if the vulnerable die in service of economic growth, so be it.”

This reckless approach is leading inexorably to a surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths. Since schools reopened at the end of August, cases nationwide have more than doubled, rising from 129,000 to more than 295,000. Government projections show that within a matter of weeks Canada could be recording 10,000 or more new infections per day, which would quickly result in hospitals being overrun with sick and dying patients.

A large majority of Canadians—70 percent, according to a poll conducted last month—support the closure of non-essential businesses to halt the pandemic’s “second wave.” Quebec Solidaire, however, is calling for the opposite.

A party of the privileged upper-middle class, QS is opposed to mobilizing working people to fight for the elementary health measures required to halt the pandemic’s spread–from closing all schools and non-essential businesses, to pouring massive state resources into systematic testing, contact-tracing and refurbishing a public health system ravaged by decades of capitalist austerity. For QS, it is likewise unthinkable that workers laid off or forced to shelter at home during the pandemic be compensated for all income losses, while the virus is brought under control.

This is because such steps would adversely impact the profitability of Quebec and Canadian capitalism, which underpins the privileges of the social layer for whom Quebec Solidaire speaks, and because they live in trepidation of the growth in class struggle that would be needed to compel implementation of the requisite measures to protect the population from the pandemic and its economic fallout.

In the twisted pro-capitalist logic of the QS leaders, dozens of cases and one death in a slaughterhouse, and outbreaks at hundreds of schools, become reasons for a further easing of lockdown measures—not the other way around.

This apology for “herd immunity” comes after the QS leadership was criticized by party activists at a September conference for their conciliatory and complacent attitude towards François Legault, an ex-big business CEO, and his right-wing, “Quebec First” CAQ government. But, whether some members like it or not, QS views the pandemic as a golden opportunity to integrate itself even more fully into the political establishment, as evidenced by its defense of Legault’s disastrous handling of the pandemic and it advocacy of “herd immunity.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, QS has promoted the official lie that Legault and the entire Canadian ruling class were “surprised” by the pandemic, and that such an event was unforeseeable. In reality, many warnings were issued by the scientific community and government institutions long before 2020, including in Canada after the SARS outbreak of 2002-2003. The World Health Organization (WHO) was warning of the immense dangers posed by the coronavirus in mid-January. Yet it was only on March 10 that the Trudeau government even asked the provinces to check for possible shortages of ventilators, PPE (personal protective equipment), and other vital equipment.

Quebec Solidaire joined the corporate media, the New Democratic Party and the unions in covering up the vast sums (more than $650 billion) the Trudeau government and Bank of Canada poured into the banks, big business, and financial markets at the beginning of the lockdown in March to bail out the rich and super-rich. And QS has regularly reiterated its “faith,” to use Massé’s words, in Quebec’s Public Health agency and its director, Horacio Arruda, who has served as Legaualt’s right-hand man throughout the pandemic.

A serious response to the health crisis requires the rejection of the social principle defended by Arruda, his political boss Legault, Prime Minister Trudeau, and the entire Canadian ruling elite—the primacy of profit over human life. It also demands coordinated measures at the international level, in close cooperation with scientific experts from around the world—an initiative diametrically opposed to the Quebec nationalism and parochialism that animates all of Quebec Solidaire’s politics and actions.

Defeating the pandemic requires the independent political mobilization of the international working class, which produces society’s wealth, including health care and the equipment essential to the functioning of modern society. If these resources are to be used rationally in the interests of working people, rather than deployed to produce private profit and increase the already gargantuan wealth of the 1 percent, they must be placed under public ownership and the democratic control of the working class as the result of a revolutionary struggle against capitalism and the establishment of workers power.

Quebec Solidaire has no plan to curb the pandemic. Faced with a global pandemic that has revealed the full extent of the economic, social and moral bankruptcy of capitalist society, QS seeks to hide fundamental class divisions by promoting the reactionary myth of “national unity,” thereby helping bind working people to big business and the capitalist state. “If we want to defeat the virus,” said the QS legislator Nadeau-Dubois, “we need a social contract between the people and the government.” The same call for “national unity” would be used in an independent Quebec, of which QS is an ardent promoter, to subordinate workers to the Quebec ruling class and impose austerity and militarism.

Quebec Solidaire’s support for “herd immunity,” for allowing the pandemic to run rampant, infect masses of people and inflict mass fatalities, is in keeping with the political line advanced by its international sister parties.

In Spain, Podemos is the junior partner in a Socialist Party-led government that has enforced a criminal policy of reopening all sectors of the economy and schools. The result is that Spain has among the highest numbers of infections and deaths in Western Europe. In Germany, leading Left Party politicians have declared their support for the “Swedish model,” i.e., a rejection of all lockdown measures in favour of letting the virus rip through the population. Bodo Ramelow, the Left Party minister president in the state of Thuringia, recently dismissed the threat posed by the virus, claiming that it does not represent a greater danger than a normal lung infection.

In September, Jacobin, the semi-official organ of the Democratic Socialists of America, with which QS has fraternal ties, published an interview article that advocated the adoption of the Swedish “herd immunity” policy. One of the two epidemiologists featured in the Jacobin article, Harvard University Professor Martin Kulldorff, subsequently helped co-author the Great Barrington Declaration, and in early October was invited to the White House to confer with Trump officials responsible for America’s COVID-19 response.

These experiences are a serious warning to working people. QS now lends support to the right-wing CAQ government and urges that its criminal “herd immunity” policy be expanded still further. Were QS to be successful in following Podemos’ path, and secure a direct role in government, it would be no less ruthless in attacking the working class.

A Dedicated Obsession: Washington’s Continuing Iran Sanctions Regime

Binoy Kampmark

One dogma that is likely to persist in US foreign policy during a Biden presidency will be the sanctions regime adopted towards Iran.  Every messianic state craves clearly scripted enemies, and the demonology about the Islamic Republic is not going to go begging.  Elliot Abrahams, the current US special representative for Iran, told Associated Press on November 12 that, “Even if you went back to the (nuclear deal) and even if the Iranians were willing to return … this newly enriched uranium, you would not have solved these fundamental questions of whether Iran is going to be permitted to violate long-term commitments it has made to the world community.”

It is worth pointing out that it was President Donald Trump who proved so itchy to renege on the nuclear deal to begin with.  In May 2018, his administration formally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the long negotiated harvest of the Obama administration in July 2015.  Over the course of 120 days, it re-imposed all previously lifted economic sanctions, including “secondary sanctions” on non-US entities conducting financial or commercial transactions with Iran. A unilateral shredding of Washington’s own undertakings was made while still expecting the mullahs to continue in sweet compliance.

The less than compliant response from Tehran has not made this one of Trump’s finer moments: an abandonment of nuclear limits marked out by the agreement; a resumption of the nuclear program; an increasingly emboldened stance in the Middle East.  According to UN inspectors, Iran’s enriched stockpile currently lies at 2,440 kilograms.  Under the deal, it would have been under 300 kilograms.  All of this took place despite the precipitous fall in oil exports, a decline in currency value and a steep rise in inflation.

Even before the pandemic, human rights organisations were already warning about the broader health implications of a brutal sanctions regime.  As Human Rights Watch explained in an October 2019 report, the consequences of such sanctions “pose a serious threat to Iranians’ right to health and access to essential medicines – and has almost certainly contributed to documented shortages – ranging from a lack of critical drugs for epilepsy patients to limited chemotherapy medications for Iranians with cancer.”

The US State Department and the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control continue to maintain that humanitarian goods, which also covers medicine and medical supplies, are exempt in the sanctions policy.  A rosily inaccurate picture, given the imposition of sanctions on 18 Iranian banks including those entities engaged in financing foods and medicines.  To this comes the added complication of what the US considers “dual use” items: hazmat suits, face shields, oxygen generators, air filters.  Decisions to grant exemptions, the purview of bureaucrats, are tardily made.

The advent of the novel coronavirus pandemic inspired a ghoulish train of thought in the Trump administration.  Easing sanctions to better enable Iran to cope with COVID-19 was never entertained.  Instead, as Djavad Salehi-Isfahani of the Brookings Institute observed, “the US piled on more sanctions, and chose to ignore calls from world leaders, former US diplomats, and the United Nations to ease sanctions.”  Such a bloodthirsty sentiment was captured by the Wall Street Journal in March 2020, whose editors decided that sanctions should continue, despite Iran becoming a pandemic hotspot.  “If American sanctions were the culprit, it might be reasonable to consider lifting them.  But the regime’s incompetence and self-interest are to blame.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif thought differently of it, accusing the US of “medical terrorism” in blunting Tehran’s efforts to access financial resources during the COVID-19 crisis.  Hadi Yazdani, a physician and a member of the reformist Union of Islamic People Party, sports a more nuanced view: US sanctions have well hobbled the government’s pandemic policy, but so has inefficiency and habitual bureaucratic mismanagement.

The dedicatedly nasty sanctions regime encouraged and enforced by the United States is now frustrating efforts in the country to make advance payment to the COVAX facility, created to assist in providing future COVID-19 vaccines to more indigent states.  This will become more pressing, given rising death tolls.  (On November 13, 461 were reported in the state media.)

The rate of COVID-19 infections is also scorching: 11,737 cases over 24 hours from Friday, according to Sima Sadat Lari, a health ministry spokeswoman who has become the regular herald of doom.  She also admitted that various questions on the vaccines remained unanswered, notably in terms of “how effective the vaccine is and for what groups it is more effective.”

During the transition period in US politics, we can expect the Trump administration to be particularly testy about modifying its position on sanctions.  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continues to busy himself with blacklisting Iranian entities.  The Treasury Department, for instance, recently placed a supply chain network on the list, claiming it “facilitated the procurement of sensitive goods, including US-origin electronic components” for an Iranian entity linked to the production of “military communication systems, avionics, information technology, electronic warfare, and missile launchers.”

Pompeo – and in this, he has a few devotees- argues that a return to the nuclear deal would be dotty and dangerous.  “It’s a crazy idea to think that you’re going to get back into a deal that permitted a clean pathway for the Iranians to have a nuclear weapon by which they could terrorize the entire world.”  President-elect Joe Biden, for his part, insists that Iran “must return to strict compliance with the deal.  If it does so, I would rejoin the agreement and use our renewed commitment to diplomacy to work with our allies to strengthen and extend it, while more effectively pushing back against Iran’s other destabilizing activities.”

The statements of the president-elect suggest nothing comforting to health specialists and policy makers bearing witness to the suffering caused by sanctions.  Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy might be abandoned in name, but will continue exerting a haunting influence.  The hawks in the Republican Party will be sharpening their talons, ever watchful of any softening towards Tehran.