The American ruling class “experiments” with eliminating unemployment benefits for millions of workers

Jacob Crosse

Governors in 25 US states have already eliminated or will soon begin eliminating pandemic related supplemental unemployment benefits, depriving some four million jobless workers of $22 billion in additional assistance according to the Century Foundation.

Homeless campers in Seattle. (David Lee, Flickr Creative Commons)

The elimination of the $300 a week federal unemployment benefits began this past Saturday in Mississippi, Missouri, Iowa and Alaska. The other 21 states are set to remove the assistance by July 10. Twenty-one out of the 25 states, including Maryland, Texas and Tennessee, will be ending all pandemic related program, such as Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (for “gig workers”) and the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program.

The states taking these drastic actions are led by Republican governors. The policy, however, is bipartisan. Last month, President Joe Biden signaled his support for the ending of benefits by allowing the resumption of work-search related requirements. He also stated his support for letting federal unemployment benefits expire for the entire country on September 6, in less than three months.

This was followed by a statement from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on June 4 in which she stated that Republican governors “have every right” to “not accept” the federal benefit, adding, “That’s OK.”

In the capitalist press, the move to eliminate unemployment support for millions of workers and their families has been described as an “experiment.” NBC News declared on June 11: “It’s the beginning of a bold, mass, social and economic experiment to see if turning off federal unemployment benefits early for half the country will prod people in those states back to work.”

This “bold experiment” will mean, in practice, throwing millions of people into poverty and destitution while facilitating the further spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

Take, for example, Mississippi, where less than 29 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated and where roughly 70,000 unemployed workers were cut off from unemployment payments Saturday. Nearly 15 percent of adults in Mississippi surveyed by the US Census Bureau last month reported “sometimes or often” not having enough food to eat in the last seven days. In addition, nearly 37 percent of adults said it has been “somewhat or very difficult” to pay for usual household expenses in the last week.

The conditions in Mississippi are repeated throughout the country. The slashing of federal benefits will be catastrophic for jobless workers and their families, many of whom are unable to find work for health reasons, lack of child care or livable wages.

There are two, interrelated motivations driving the cutoff of unemployment benefits.

First, there is the imperative of the ruling class to get workers back on the job, even as the pandemic continues to claim hundreds of lives every day and dangerous new strains, such as the Delta variant, are spreading rapidly. The ruling class, with the Biden administration at its head, has proclaimed the pandemic “over.”

Supplemental federal unemployment benefits of $600 a week were included in the CARES Act, which was passed in late March 2020. The temporary assistance provided to those devastated by the economic impact of the pandemic was intended as a stopgap measure and a cover for the act’s main purpose: the multitrillion bailout of Wall Street.

Once this massive handout to the rich became law, the demands for workers to get back on the job began, coupled with bipartisan denunciations of the $600-a-week subsidy for creating a “disincentive” to work. The program was allowed to expire in July 2020 and was later replaced under Trump by a temporary program paying half as much, $300 a week. The $300 a week supplement was again extended in March of this year, under Biden, providing benefits through September.

The unanimous agreement within the ruling class that all benefits must come to an end coincides with the Biden administration’s campaign to remove all remaining restrictions on the spread of the virus.

The decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to eliminate mask mandates and reduced social distancing guidelines last month has been followed by the release of the Labor Department’s workplace safety guidelines that only apply to health care facilities. The rest of the working class will be left defenseless at workplaces that will not be obligated by law to enact basic safety measures, such as mandatory mask-wearing, social distancing or requirements to inform workers when they may have been exposed to the virus.

Second, the ruling class is concerned that the relative shortage of labor in some industries is contributing to rising wages. “The Fed could be facing a jobs headache in its inflation fight,” wrote CNBC last week. “The longer it takes to get people back to work,” it declared, “the more employers will have to pay.”

CNBC quotes Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics: “Unfortunately, we see good reasons to think that labor participation might not return quickly to its pre-Covid level. Whatever is happening here, the Fed needs large numbers of these people to return to the labor force in the fall.”

Behind the coded language is a ruthless class logic. The ruling class wants to create pressure for lower wages by forcing millions of workers to accept poverty-level jobs, under dangerous conditions, by cutting off unemployment benefits.

As for inflation, the ruling class is not concerned with “inflation” in general, but with demands by workers for increased wages in line with soaring costs of consumer goods. This would cut into corporate profits.

Over the past year, there has been a massive inflation in prices of nearly every financial asset, driven by the limitless infusion of money from the Federal Reserve into the stock markets. This has produced a corresponding growth in the wealth of the oligarchy, with the wealth of global billionaires skyrocketing from $8 trillion to $13.1 trillion. Just the increase in wealth for the oligarchy during this period is 227 times more than the cost of the federal unemployment benefits that are being cut off.

While there are daily articles bemoaning the fact that some jobless workers are able to survive on the meager benefits provided, no one in the capitalist press is suggesting that the spigot to Wall Street be shut off. This is an “experiment” that they are not interested in carrying out.

The ruling class’s “experiment” with its homicidal herd immunity policy has led to the deaths of more than 600,000 people in the US. Now, the cutoff of unemployment assistance will mean social devastation for millions. In both cases the reality of capitalism and the consequences of the subordination of society to the interests of the financial oligarchy is exposed.

The cutoff of unemployment benefits will fuel mounting opposition in the working class. The ongoing strikes of workers at Volvo in Virginia, ATI steelworkers in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts nurses are initial expressions of a developing explosion. These struggles must be expanded and taken out of the hands of the corporatist trade unions, which have worked systematically for decades to suppress working class opposition to the policies of the ruling elite.

Why Fox News Claims ‘They’ are Destroying ‘White Culture’

Thom Hartmann

I’m struggling to explain why a Fox News host would say to the American people, “they’re trying to take down the white culture!”

But first, let me back up.

Democracies don’t turn into fascist oligarchies by being invaded or losing wars. It always happens from within, and is always driven by an alliance between demagogic, populist politicians and some of the very wealthiest people in society.

Step one for these right wing politicians and the morbidly rich who support them is to pit one group of people within the nation against others: Marginalize and demonize minorities, deny them access to the levers of democratic power while openly attacking them for trying to usurp the privileges and prerequisites of the majority.

It’s played out this way in every democratic country that has fallen to tyranny. It’s how it happened in the 1930s in Italy, Germany, Japan and Spain, and today in Hungary, Poland, Egypt, Russia, The Philippines, and Turkey, among others.

And now Republicans and the oligarchs aligned with them are trying to pull it off here in the United States.

As German industrialist Fritz Thyssen writes in his apologetic book I Paid Hitler, he pressured German President von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor, and then lobbied the Association of German Industrialists, that country’s and era’s version of the US Chamber of Commerce, to donate 3 million Reichsmarks to the Nazi Party for the 1933 election. It brought Hitler to power.

Hitler’s sales pitch to the German people was that Jews and socialists had “stabbed Germany in the back” by secretly participating in negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I. The Treaty imposed punitive conditions on the country, producing widespread poverty and an economic crisis.

Hitler blamed that crisis on German minorities and Germany’s second largest political party, and the German people believed him. Once the Nazis took power, they changed election laws in such a way that they would never again lose.

Republicans and rightwing billionaires, of course, are trying to do the same thing right now in America.

Standing against them is the Democratic Party, although the Fritz Thyssens of today’s America, billionaire members of the Koch network, are doing everything they can to prevent Democrats from ensuring fair and honest elections in 2022 and 2024 by buying off Joe Manchin and others.

Those Republican voter suppression and voter nullification laws being passed by state after state are essential to their final take-down of the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, the billionaire Murdoch family’s Fox News is working as hard as it can to make Black people and Democrats 2021’s version of Hitler’s 1933 Jews and Socialists.

Their top-rated morning show, Fox & Friends, wandered into a discussion Wednesday about white people being “marginalized” by the possibility of our public schools teaching the actual racial history of America.

“[T]hey are not only trying to raise up minorities and make sure the playing field is even,” Brian Kilmeade said, “they’re trying to take down the white culture!”

Kilmeade, in full rant mode, went on, “Why are we being marginalized on a daily basis…? And it’s not even subtle! It’s actually out there! It is written in black-and-white!”

This is not America’s first brush with oligarchic fascism, as I lay out in my newest book, The Hidden History of American Oligarchy. President Franklin Roosevelt and Vice President Henry Wallace struggled with it in the 1940s with Charles Lindberg’s America First movement.

In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, “write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?”

Vice President Wallace’s answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan.

“The really dangerous American fascists,” Wallace wrote, “are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way.”

As if he had a time machine and could see the “conservative” media landscape today, Wallace continued, “The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.”

History is screaming warnings at us. Will America listen?

Evil Quad Of Pakistan

Syed Ehtisham

My submission is that the Feudal system, Army, Bureaucrats and Mullahs constitute the Evil Quad of Pakistan.

What do we mean by feudalism? It has several facets-moral and ethical values, political and economic system ,market economy integrating with it etc.

In my view all the above are a composite whole. Moral and ethical values get far more exposure as they result in cruel and medieval violation of Human Rights.

A typically sad story of “vani” was posted recently. A person was killed. The murderer was convicted and sentenced to death by the sessions court. An appeal was filed in High Court. But a compromise was reached by the parties. The murderer was required to pay the family of the victim blood money. He did not have it. The village punchayat decided that five girls from the extended family of the convicted murderer-all under ten at the time-be married off to boys from the victims extended family. The girls are now educated, the boys remain country bumpkins, and the girls refuse to live with the “spouses” they were “nikahified” to when they were babies. One cleric says that the Nikahs are not valid. But the victim’s family asserts their right under the “vani” scheme and the grooms, to bring the point home as it were, shot and injured two brothers of the girls. They presumably did not shoot to kill as they would, in turn, have to provide vani girls.

This story is very instructive and presents so many socially accepted norms of the society.

First, the High Court had to surrender its jurisdiction under the Law of Qisas. The murder was deemed an offence against a family and not the state. This would logically open the way, if a rich person was so inclined, to murder a poor person and reach a compromise to pay a bit of his ill gotten wealth. There is little chance that the compromise will be turned down. People when they are starving, in a State with negligible social supports, sell their daughters into concubinage. All the rich person has to do is to take care not to kill a person from an affluent family.
Second, we face the concept of the female human as commodity. Her body is for a punchayat to sell/barter or mortgage even under age girls. To my mind this is a greater atrocity than a punchayat ordained rape. In the latter case the victims are at least adults, not babies.

Third, babies can be legally wedded under parental/guardian consent.

Fourth, a cleric says that the nikah is not valid. This is a peculiarly “Islamic” fuddle. There should, one would have thought, be no controversy on such a basic legal contract as a Nikah.

One could write a book on the moral turpitude of the feudal society, and people have done so, but parade of naked women through a village bazaar, first night of a bride in the chieftain’s bed (not the husband), “Honor” killing, wedding to the Quran, bedding peasant’s wives routinely, forcing school teachers to leave the village lest the children be infected by the literacy virus, serfdom, bonded labor, feudal jails are a few illustrative examples.

Now let us move on to economic impact of feudalism. Land is not scientifically utilized. With out ownership rights the tiller does not have an incentive to do his best. He is likely to be dispossessed any way, if he can not come up with his over lord’s share, as it would inevitably happen from time to time. An independent small farmers’ share of water is routinely usurped if the big man’s lands do not get enough of it.

But the biggest albatross is the instinctive resistance of large estate holders to modern farming techniques. They are apprehensive ,and correctly so, that the advent of modern technology, though it gave them enhanced revenues, would sound the death knell of their privileges. They love their place in hierarchy, and rightly so from their perspective, their demi-god status, which no amount of money can offer.

And privilege's gave monetary dividend too. Agricultural income was tax exempt!!. They now pay a nominal tax. Buying barren land was a standard measure of tax evasion. I know a lot of doctors in Karachi who did that.
Inter related with their prerogatives is their sway over the local bureaucrats and the police. Vast majority of their crimes are not registered by the police, that is, if the victim dare approach the police station. If a dare-devil does, he is likely to have his mud hut ransacked and his women folk abducted.

They get away with murder, and weddings to the Quran to keep the property in the family(in country head of PPP has two sisters so married).

This ,incidentally, works at the national level as well. Bhutto pointedly asked a recalcitrant High Court judge if his daughter still went to college.

The local Deputy Commisioner (now DCO) will back them up. It is a symbiotic relationship. The feudal will protect them by virtue of his seat in the parliament.

Election in rural constituencies, 80% of the whole lot, is a farce. Peasants are told off to vote for one or the other faction of feudal. It is a veritable musical chairs. Parliamentary seats are inherited. All political parties are patronized. It is a family affair. The most notable example is Abida Husain in ML, and her husband Fakhre-Imam in PPP.

The “Civic” society lost all legitimacy and claim on public support when political parties, feudal and their hangers on, aided and abetted the bureaucratic subversion of the political process. They let Ghulam Muhammad, and later Iskander Mirza get away with unconstitutional acts. I recall a story of a wadera taking off the shoes of Ghulam Muhammad, while on a cruise on GM barrage. He was a minister a few days later.

High Judiciary gave them a legal fig leaf when the Supreme court decided not to take up his dissolution of the Constituent Assembly.

When the writing was clear on the wall that the scheduled 1958 elections will bring professional bourgeoise to power, they conspired with the army to install military rule. Ayub was given a legal fig leaf too.

I must mention the structural difference between East and West Pakistan. The feudal in the East were mostly Hindus. They left for India. Professional bourgeoise got a chance to dominate the political process. It is a little known fact that feudalism was abolished in East Pakistan about the same time as it was in India.

When Bhutto, whatever his other faults, and there were many, was able to establish civilian supremacy, the politicians openly encouraged the army to over throw him. His erstwhile sycophants, like the proverbial jackals, hid in the bushes when he was subjected to judicial murder.

They collaborated with Zia in all ways, joining his cabinet, giving retroactive parliamentary sanction for all he violations of the law, and taking part in non-party elections. Fakhr-e-Imam was for a while central assembly speaker. They aided and abetted him in passage of abnoxious Huddod and other laws. Post Zia, during the ten year civilian interregnum they did not repeal the laws.

They kow-towed to the army chief Kakar when he forced the PM and President both to resign.

They all serve in the Government of the Ghazi of Kargil, Mullah, ML, PPP, and bureaucrats, feudal the whole lot. The ones outside are those the Ghazi did not deign to pick up.

For all his high “falutin” progressive views Aitazaz Ahsan and many other like him do not hesitate in working with the champions of Quran weddings, and spreading the red carpet for the reincarnation of Elizabeth I (when she was PM, Benazir acted the part. Now she is Queen Mary of Scotts. There is a minor difference though, neither of the royal ladies was an embezzler).

They courted fascist organizations like MQM in their quest for offices.

Perhaps the worst exhibition of power hunger and self abasement was the pilgrimage of Benazir to Army GHQ to seek General Aslam Beg’s blessings to be allowed to become PM. He was a collaborator of her father’s assassins'. Contrast her behavior with that of Hasina of BD whose father had also been killed by the Army. She had the army officers tried in a court of law.

Aslam Beg once went to the Supreme Court, and loudly proclaimed that yes, he had diverted hundreds of millions of Government funds to finance candidates and walked away!! The justices gave not a whimper of protest.
Only a few honest and intrepid souls like Abid Manto, resisted the embellishments of power.

And Asma Jahangir and her ilk, would have us root for the pansies who masquerade as politicos in Pakistan!!
Feudal have undergone tremendous change in post colonial dispensation. They have broken their proverbial chains. They do not give a good God ,,, to law any more.

European feudalism took on the Royalty. The common man was relatively empowered in the process. Our Royals were overtaken by the western bourgeoise. Our feudal never got the chance to follow that path.
I should not have to define abolition of feudal system. We have the examples of India and the then East Pakistan. Roughly, the feudal were allowed to keep only the land they themselves cultivated, not share cropped, with a ceiling on canal and rain dependent land. They were left with fruit orchards they worked themselves, again with a ceiling. There were limits on other holdings as well.

India did it because Indian National congress was controlled by the Indian bourgeoise. East Pakistan got away with it because their feudal were Hindus. Pakistan (West)went through the motions, with out achieving any thing twice, in Ayub and Bhutto days.

Acquisition of vast land holdings by civil/military establishments is an interesting study. If you ask your security guard to intervene in your family disputes, he will eventually take over your holdings. The triad of feudal, bureaucrats and Mullahs asked the army ,time and again, to get rid of one bunch of civilians or another.
The quad constitutes the van guard of the society in Pakistan.

Ayub Khan retired the generals from the army on appointment to the cabinet or governorships. His officers learnt graft from the civilians. His son became an industrial magnate over night. Coveted lands were allotted to a select few. Army commission started taking precedence over superior civil services. Indian army officers were green with envy.

But the corruption was limited to a tiny percentage of officers.

Come Zia, he introduced officers, brigadier and above, still in uniform to higher level civilian jobs. He turned a blind eye- it was not too difficult for him, he was cross eyed-to the Generals who were raking it in, in drug and arms trade. Land allotment continued. Army went into commerce and industry in a big way.

Now the army are trying to dispossess farmers in Sargodha and many other places in the Punjab.

The Ghazi has placed even junior officers in civilian jobs.

A clear case of collusion between the army and the feudals/bureaucrats/mullahs can be made out. Army got land, industries and commerce as a pay off for protecting the vested interests.

Asma is supposed to have emphasized the difference between Islam, Islamists and fundamentalists'. This is parsing. She could do it with finesse, if she got a lesson or two from the greatest living exponent of the art, good old Bill Clinton.

She should get credit for refusing to visit Guantamo Bay unless she could interview the prisoners' with out security guards around. UN personnel have turned down similar invitations. That adds to her credibility, and that may have been the point.

NGO’s and Human Right’s organizations in the third world are beholden to the Imperium for funds and patronage. They are allowed to criticize their Governments and do cosmetic work. They make a decent living, and would be hard put to making ends meet if the largesse was with drawn. They, like the main stream media in the West and East, do not have to be told in so many words, the boundaries they might not cross. They are truly house broken. They would not participate in any movement aimed at structural change. They would not call for abolition of feudalism. They would not support a militant trade union.

They would sob when a woman’s honor was violated. They would exhibit her in international forums. They would rail against a minor cog in the machine. But they would shy away from raising a finger against the core evil as Asma did.

It is of course a complex problem and mind boggling in scope. The evil quad-Feudal, Army, Bureaucrats and the junior hanger on, the Mullahs are entrenched in Pakistan. Population is exploding. No amount of development, even if the Government were honest, could hope to cope with increase in numbers. Half hearted family planning campaigns are launched once in while but are hastily withdrawn at the first protest from the Mullahs. Illiteracy levels are actually on the rise. Subterfuges are utilized to claim increase in the number of the literate. Any one who can painstakingly scribble his/her name is included in the ranks. Standard of education is so low that university graduates are hard put to write a simple job application. Water supply is totally inadequate. The military have taken over the supply in all major cities, and they charge a hefty price. Air pollution is such that a visitor can not tolerate it during rush hours in Karachi and Lahore. Policemen wear masks. There is a medical condition in which persons exposed to polluted air for long have difficulty breathing clean air. City dwellers in Pakistan hate going out of town. Joblessness has reached alarming proportions. Frustrated youth join the ranks of robbers and zealots. Health care has deteriorated so that basic services have to be bought, or gone without. Graft and corruption have reached such heights that it is virtually impossible to get any thing done with out paying a bribe. Long gone are the days when dishonest money was a matter of shame. Now it is flaunted. Cost of living is such that the vast majority of people just subsist. IMF and world Bank dictate privatization, so basic food will soon get beyond the reach of the common man. Infra- structure, roads , bridges, railway system, electric supply, canals, ports, drainage system, all have been allowed to deteriorate. Clifton in Karachi, a posh area is rendered impassable for days after an inch or two of rain. There are some show case roads like the motorway and the super highway. But most city roads are full of pot holes or worse.
The problem is immense and the sob sisters, agents provocateurs', all would have us worked up at one component of the evil quad, the quasi-military dispensation. They are perhaps worried about their kin getting lesser proportion of the loot.

We, of course, do not have an equitable and civil society. How could we? Distributive justice is an illusion. With the evil quad functioning as the vanguard of the society, how can it be otherwise?

Scarce resources, from day one, have been wasted on buying arms. They have not enhanced the country’s security. Kashmir(with out going into the merits of the case) is still firmly in the grip of India. Insurgency in Indian controlled Kashmir could not survive with out infiltration of saboteurs from Pakistan. It would be as peaceful as the Indian Punjab where insurgency subsided after Benazir withdrew support from Khalistanis. No Kashmiri in his proper senses would opt for Pakistan any way. They have seen the fate of the country men. Neither country would countenance independence of the region. India pretends that it is a matter of secular principles. Pakistan bases its claim on religious affiliation. The actual prize is the water source.

The vaunted bravery of Pakistani soldiers came to nought in East Pakistan. The commanding General had his epaulets torn off by his opposite number in the Indian Army in full glare of international TV camera lights. A Japanese officer would have committed Hara Kiri. The Pakistani officer socialized, wined and dined with the victors the same evening.

The Ghazi of Kargil managed to surprise the Indians. He had tactical advantage. The PM, stupid that he was ,lauded the bravery of “our martyrs and Ghazis”. But when the going got rough, he had to hasten to Clinton, with tail between legs, to beg for rescue of the country.

The Ghazi cried foul and used it as a pretext to throw the man out.

The much bally hoed efficiency of the army has been exposed recently.. Witness their disarray in earthquake relief.
That India wants to take over the country is a totally fraudulent concept, exceeding the lies and fabrication of Iraq and WMDs. If India wanted to take over, all Indra Gandhi had to do was to tell her Generals to walk into Lahore in 1971. Pakistan army, never any good except at subjugating unarmed civilians, was in shambles.

I can not vouch for the veracity of the statement, it seems to stand to reason, but a high Indian retired security official told me that in 1971, Indra did want to fulfil the dream of her father- of an undivided India. Her Generals were also gung ho. But she was quizzed by the right wingers in her party, if she really wanted to add to the already considerable number of Muslims in India. With the Muslims of Pakistan in its fold, Indian population adhering to the faith would be 35% of the total. A united and determined 30% can control the central legislature. With 15% of the population, Muslims are the deciding vote on 200 of the 565 seats in the Indian parliament. Congress wins if Muslims support it. They lose when Muslims sit out an election.

Indra quietly subsided.

Canada sits next door to the US behemoth. It does not strive to go down the self destruct path of competing with the giant neighbor. Why can’t Pakistan? Why can’t the country utilize its resources for economic development which will impart it stability? It is among the lowest rank of underdeveloped countries in social services expenditure.
NGO’s and Human Right workers, even if their primary loyalty was to the country, have but the substance of straws in a hurricane. For structural change, I can see no alternative to a grass roots radical movement comprising Industrial workers, Peasants, Serfs, Landless laborers, Petty bourgeoise, Lower grade Government officials and Teachers led by Progressives in the vanguard. It is incumbent on all the honest intellectuals to join the movement. The Government will come down hard on them, but they will prevail in the end. The honest among the do gooders are frittering away their energy, wasting their time, and impeding the historical purpose.

Why Pakistan is reluctant to host US military bases?

Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Pakistani officials have privately begun confirming a secret visit to Islamabad of CIA Director William Burns and are suggesting that he was firmly told that Pakistan would not host the spy agency’s drone bases on its territory, according to the daily Dawn.

This comes after New York Times in an article published on June 6 claimed that Mr Burns had travelled to Pakistan for meetings with Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and ISI Director General Lt Gen Faiz Hamid to explore the possibility of counterterrorism cooperation between the two sides.

The Central Intelligence Agency is said to be looking for bases around Afghanistan from where it could gather intelligence on Afghanistan and execute counterterrorism strikes after the completion of troop withdrawal from there, the Dawn said.

The purpose of quietly sharing of information by the Pakistani officials with select journalists at this stage apparently looked to dispel the impression that the two sides were engaged in negotiations on hosting of US drone bases by Pakistan.

New York Times article had at one point said that American officials believed that Pakistan wanted to allow the US to access a base. But, it indicated that Pakistani officials were setting very stringent conditions.

“In discussions between American and Pakistani officials, the Pakistanis have demanded a variety of restrictions in exchange for the use of a base in the country, and they have effectively required that they sign off on any targets that either the CIA or the military would want to hit inside Afghanistan, according to three Americans familiar with the discussions,” as per the NYT article.

Dawn quoted officials  as saying that the CIA chief wanted to meet Prime Minister Imran Khan, but was plainly told that only counterpart meeting between heads of government of the two countries was possible.

The officials further said the CIA chief was categorically conveyed that no US operation would be allowed from Pakistani territory. They rather suggested to have asked the Americans to hand over the drones to them for carrying out the strikes against terrorist targets.

Three factors

There are three factors that will account for Pakistan’s perseverance and inflexibility on extending basing rights to the United States, according to Dr. Syed Ali Zia Jaffery of the Diplomat.

First, the consistency with which Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has vociferously opposed his country’s past dealings with Washington has left little room for his government to acquiesce to U.S. requests. Before coming into power, Khan was a staunch critic of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, even launching a campaign against them.

Second, Pakistan aiding the United States in its efforts to keep an eye on the Taliban would likely vitiate the country’s ties with the powerful Afghan group. Pakistan can ill-afford to attenuate its relationship with the Taliban because it is becoming abundantly clear that they are the most dominant player in the Afghan political landscape.

Having already warned Afghanistan’s neighbors against making the historic mistake of allowing the U.S. to operate military bases, the Taliban would certainly not welcome Pakistan taking such a step. They could accuse Pakistan of wilting under U.S. pressure.

Third, Pakistan allowing the U.S. to use military bases for carrying out combat missions will likely be a cause of concern for two of Pakistan’s neighbors: China and Iran. That both countries are adversaries of the United States is all the more troubling. Washington has termed Beijing the biggest threat to U.S. national security.

Coupled with the U.S. aversion to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), this mean that should Pakistan allow U.S. forces to operate out of its territory, Washington would almost certainly use that advantage to keep tabs on CPEC, which is expected to expand and gain momentum. Both Pakistan and China would not like to see the U.S. physically lurking around CPEC hotspots, including the critical Gwadar port.

Other than China, Iran will also be directly affected if Pakistan were to let the U.S. ensconce itself in close proximity to that country, Dr. Syed Ali Zia Jaffery,  a strategic affairs and foreign policy analyst, concluded.

Airspace access

Pakistan has allowed the US military to use its airspace and given ground access so that it can support its presence in Afghanistan, a Pentagon official said last month.

David F. Helvey, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Affairs, told the US Senate Armed Services Committee last month that the United States would continue its conversation with Pakistan because it had a critical role in restoring peace to Afghanistan.

The official was replying to a question from Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, who asked him to “outline your assessment of Pakistan, and particularly of Pakistani intelligence agencies, and the role you expect them to play in our future”.

“Pakistan has played an important role in Afghanistan. They supported the Afghan peace process. Pakistan also has allowed us to have over-flight and access to be able to support our military presence in Afghanistan,” Mr Helvey said.

“We will continue our conversations with Pakistan because their support and contribution to the future of Afghanistan, to future peace in Afghanistan, is going to be critical,” he added.

Diplomatic sources in Washington told Dawn that Pakistan had always allowed over-flights and ground access to the US to facilitate its military presence in Afghanistan and would continue to do so.

Muslims: The misunderstood community

Nadeem Khan

Adjectives such as intolerant, rigid, and incompatible are often associated with Islam. It has been part of usual propaganda carried without context, with vested political motives, and half-baked assertions. It is more viewed in the west and an increasing number of other places as a religion more inclined towards violence and critical of modern civilization. Many authors have argued in their writings as a faith spread by the sword and has bloody borders. It provides an opportunity to us truly investigate it from a historical perspective and through original sources.

It will be desirable to carefully study and sequentially investigate the most common make-beliefs that most people have about Islam and Muslims as a community.

Some common make beliefs are as follows -:

1. Islam is exclusive as it claims it is the only valid religion-

It is the most common and often trumpeted assertion without any logical basis. It gets amplified in manipulated T.V. debates that have the sole purpose of organizing hate for political gains. Islam is a monotheistic Semitic faith. It is the only faith that makes it necessary for every Muslim to believe in Prophet Isa (Jesus Christ) PBUH and Prophet Moses PBUH as the mightiest messengers of Almighty Allah SWT. It can well be ascertained in the Quranic verse (2:136).

Quran also states in unequivocal terms that a prophet had been sent for every nation with reference being Quraan (16:36). So, therefore, when it is for everybody, there is no reason for it to be exclusive.

There is a Hadith (sayings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) with reference being Sahih Bukhari Hadith:438, which states that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said that the whole world is a musallah (Muslim prayer mat) for him. All would agree that there cannot be a more inclusive statement than this.

As far as validity is concerned, every follower of every religion assumes his faith to be most valid. Else, there is no reason for them to follow that faith. It holds for Muslims as well as for others.

2. Islam promotes forced conversions.

It is also an old accusation turned into a gradual belief that Islam spread by forced conversions. It is totally incorrect and must be addressed in two ways which are as follows-:

Quranic references

There are ample references which state that Islam strictly urges the followers to refrain from forced conversion.

Most notable being Quran 2:256, “Let there be no compulsion in religion.”

A historical and logical reason

Even in their rule, if forced conversion to Islam was the state policy, why would Muslim majority areas be scattered all over and not in geographical continuity, although Muslim rule was all over. Historian De Lacy O’Leary, in the book “Islam at the crossroad,” says, “History makes it clear, however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of the sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myths that historians have ever repeated.”

Non-Muslims in Gulf countries account for 5-10% of the population, although Muslims enjoy political power in that region for the last 14 centuries. As per the Pew Research Study Centre figures, Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe and the western world, all though nowhere in those regions Muslims ever enjoyed political power. Muslim rulers have been compassionate most of the time whenever they went to new lands. The best example was that of Jerusalem; when Saladin took the city in 1187, every Christian soul remained unharmed, although when the crusaders had taken the city in 1099, not a single Muslim soul was left alive.

3. Islam is unjust to women.

It is the most prevalent misconception that Islam is highly unjust towards women. It provides an opportunity to examine it critically. The most common way to determine it is in terms of rights and responsibilities.

Equality is the cornerstone as far Islamic teachings are concerned. An important verse in the Qur’an reads, “The men believers and the women believers are responsible for each other. They enjoin the good and forbid the evil, they observe prayers and give charitable alms and obey God and his Prophet.” (Qur’an, 9:71). It observes that men and women have equal responsibilities as far as following Islamic teachings are concerned.

Women have the right to inherit their parent’s property, have the right to say ‘no’ to a marriage, and can go for voluntary divorce (khula) if needed under specific circumstances. All clearly defined inheritance laws are mentioned under Surah Nisa of Quraan.

As far as permission to a Muslim man to have up to four wives is concerned, it is allowed with a number of conditions, including the ability to provide resource and emotional justice to all four wives. Quranic reference for the same is Surah 4 verse 2. In addition, this provision often provides an option for widows to get remarried and their children to be brought up well.

4. Muslims cannot have a national identity.

Like most of the other religions, Muslims also have a multidimensional identity. One is related to the country they live in, which comes from surrounding culture and its practices. Secondly, it is the association towards the place which has their holy sites. Lastly, Pan Islamism can be defined as their resonance towards their coreligionists in any part of the world. But the question arises isn’t this true with every religion?

This emotional connection is standard in all communities. For instance, a Hindu living in Fiji will have an emotional attachment towards Hindu religious sites in India. Similarly, Christians anywhere in the world will have an emotional connection with the Vatican or Bethlehem. Arab is an ethnolinguistic term, primarily identifying those people who speak Arabic as their mother tongue.

Moreover, if religion is responsible for national aspirations, then more Muslims are non-Arabs than Arabs. The country with the highest Muslim population is Indonesia. The highest concentration of Muslims is in South Asia. Even Persia, which lies adjacent to Arabia, has different cultures and national aspirations than Arabs despite the same religion. Persians think their culture is superior to that of Arabs. For Indian Muslims, even during the Mughal rule, Arabic was never a language of administration and was confined to Islamic scriptures.

5. Islam promotes tribal mentality and racism.

It is another misconception that often gets promoted for vested reasons. The last sermon of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) gives us an insight against this where he mentions equality. He stated there is no superiority of rich over poor, white over black, Arab over non-Arab in any way except piety and good action.

Hazrat Bilal (R.A.) was a black slave who embraced Islam in initial days. He was given the status of the first muezzin (one who says azaan (call for prayer)) of Islam. Bilal later married an Arab woman from a respectable tribe – unthinkable for an enslaved African in the pre-Islamic period.

A better understanding can be obtained if the above-stated points are read without any intention to contradict or believe but as food for thought for critical evaluation. Present-day politics of right-wingers try to portray everything under the sun as a struggle between perceived fiercely excited Muslims and proverbially timid others. It is to be acknowledged in no uncertain terms that all communities have enjoyed an excellent relationship for centuries. In today’s world, no country can be a global leader with a strong economy if a particular section feels unwanted and its potential is left underdeveloped and unexplored.

Sri Lankan unions maintain deathly silence over criminalisation of industrial action

K. Ratnayake

Two weeks ago, on May 27, Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapakse used the Essential Public Services Act (EPSA) to ban industrial action in the port, petroleum, gas, railway and bus transport sectors, as well as district-level government administrative offices, state banks, insurance and customs-related services.

On June 2, he issued another decree adding the health service, state consumer goods distributions institutions and all government offices at nine Provincial Councils to the EPSA.

Nuwara Eliya hospital workers protest [Credit: K. Kishanthan]

Workers striking or taking any form of industrial action in these sectors face “rigorous imprisonment up to two to five years and a fine of 2,000 to 5,000 rupees or both” following a summary trial before a magistrate. Those found guilty will be blacklisted from any future employment and can have their movable and immovable property seized.

Anyone “inducing or inciting or encouraging” industrial action through “any physical act or by any speech or writing” will similarly be punished, an explicit assault on the constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of expression and speech. Rajapakse’s anti-democratic measure is not just a direct attack on the nearly one million employees that have been targeted, but a threat to the entire working class.

Despite the far-reaching character of this assault, not a single trade union has explained the gravity of these decrees to its members or demanded the immediate withdrawal of the measures, let alone called for union members to politically prepare to defend their rights. The deadly silence of virtually all Sri Lankan unions is tacit approval of these reactionary laws.

The Village Officers Union responded immediately to Rajapakse’s May 27 decree by cancelling a planned strike of its 12,000 members the following day. It said nothing about the government measures. Bureaucrats from a union front of teachers, postal workers and a section of the health service, issued a perfunctory statement voicing their “regret” over the bans.

Kandy Hospital workers demonstrate [WSWS Media]

The Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA), a pro-government union, sent a letter to Rajapakse raising its “concerns.” The industrial bans, it declared, “would lead to a crisis situation” and “opportunist groups would use it [EPSA] for ulterior motivations.”

In other words, the union’s concern was not the repressive laws but the “crisis situation” facing the government when confronted by the eruption of mass working-class opposition.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its continuation over the past 18 months has intensified the crisis of global capitalism to an intensity not seen since World War II.

The Sri Lankan government and the ruling elite waited until March 20 last year before imposing any lockdown measures and then, in mid-April, ordered a reopening of the economy in response to big business demands. In line with his global counterparts, Rajapakse declared that the people had to live with the “new normal”—the criminal policy of “herd immunity” that prioritises profits over human lives.

The Sri Lankan unions fully supported last year’s reopening of factories and other institutions. An April 2020 letter sent to Rajapakse by six unions, including the Free Trade Zones and General Services Employees Union and the Ceylon Mercantile Employees Union, declared that the reopenings were necessary to “sustain the economy.” The letter appealed to the president to take advantage of the unions’ “experience” in how to run the factories.

Union officials then met with the labour minister and representatives of the National Labour Advisory Council (NLAC), discussing the difficulties facing employers and how wage and job cuts could be used to address these problems.

Last November, the Sri Lankan unions kept their mouths shut when Rajapakse imposed an essential services order on port workers, banning strikes and any other industrial action.

The unions’ response to the government’s latest essential services measures, marks a new stage in their collaboration with the government and employers. It is further proof that the unions are tools of big business and the capitalist state.

The official opposition parties have not uttered a word on Rajapakse’s measures.

Ampara health workers demand COVID-19 safety measures [Source: Facebook]

The Samagi Jana Balawegaya, the United National Party-led alliance, is urging the government to hold an “all-party conference” and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is calling for a broad “mechanism” to deal with the pandemic. The Tamil National Alliance has called for health emergency laws because of the coronavirus crisis. Notwithstanding minor tactical differences, these parties are in a de-facto coalition with the government.

Likewise, the pseudo-left Frontline Socialist Party is silent about Rajapakse’s strike bans. Last month it wrote to the president, prime minister and the army commander heading the COVID-19 prevention task force, advising them that they needed a program to curb the pandemic.

President Rajapakse is determined that workers and the poor must pay for the escalating crisis of Sri Lankan capitalism. The government’s criminal policies have seen the daily death toll rise to about 100 deaths, with infections averaging 3,000, figures that are deliberately understated.

Despite the surge in COVID-19 infections over the past two months, Rajapakse last week ordered provincial governors and district administrative heads to make sure that factories and projects keep operating and not be immediately shut down “when an infected person is detected.”

Addressing a Ceylon Chamber of Commerce forum, Rajapakse declared last week: “The government of Sri Lanka is proactive and pro-business… We will look very favourably upon investment” and provide “policy stability.”

Rajapakse’s essential services strike ban is a clear message to international investors that his government will ruthlessly suppress the class struggles and defend their profits. It also constitutes another stage in his moves towards a presidential dictatorship.

Since coming to power Rajapakse has placed in-service and retired generals to key administrative posts. In April, he appointed armed forces officers as coordinators in the country’s 25 districts, placing soldiers on standby in the name of maintaining “law and order.”

Like the ruling classes in every country, the Rajapakse government and the capitalist class are terrified by the emerging class struggles challenging the devastating conditions produced by the pandemic.

Sri Lankan health workers continue to defy the government’s strike bans, taking action to demand health and safety measures, job security and improved allowances. On Wednesday, another section of health workers began holding lunch-hour protests. On the same day, daily-paid health workers demonstrated, and yesterday tens of thousands of health staff held a five-hour national walkout.

These protests are an indication of the rising social opposition among public sector workers and in the private sector workforce.

As the WSWS Perspective on June 7 noted: “The government has not, as of yet, sought to deploy its new draconian powers against public sector workers.… But a headlong confrontation between the Sri Lankan ruling class and its state apparatus, on the one hand, and the working class and oppressed rural toilers, on the other, is on the order of the day.”

Reopening continues in France while danger of resurgence of coronavirus remains high

Jacques Valentin

The French government is proceeding with its schedule to reopen and end coronavirus lockdown restrictions by the end of June. It is being driven solely by a concern for the resumption of economic and tourist activity, indifferent to the significant circulation of the virus and appearance of more deadly variants, such as the Delta variant first identified in India. The present situation is not unlike the end of the second lockdown at the end of 2020. The relaxation of precautionary measures allowed the UK variant to spread massively at the beginning of 2021.

On Wednesday evening, the daily curfew was extended by two hours to 11:00 p.m., and restaurants and bars reopened terraces to 100 percent capacity, with indoor venues kept at 50 percent. Museums, cinemas and theatres can also accommodate more people. Sports activities have resumed indoors and outdoors, with some restrictions; spectators are once again being invited into sports stadiums. A coronavirus pass will be used for events of more than 1,000 people, which will also facilitate the entry of tourists.

Labour Minister Elizabeth Borne told Le Parisien that the “constraints of 100 per cent working from home will be ended.” In the private sector, employers supported by the unions can now do more or less what they want: “We are giving the hand back to employers and employees so that they can determine the appropriate number of days” per week at workplaces. Only 100 percent on-site “would violate the protocol.” In the civil service, “the number of days from home will be dropped to three.”

French President Emmanuel Macron shares a drink with shopkeepers during a visit to mark the reopening of cultural activities after closures during the Covid-19 pandemic, in Nevers, central France, Friday, May 21, 2021. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, Pool)

Having deliberately allowed the virus to spread in schools in 2020 and 2021, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer was compelled to announce limited measures to slow the spread of the virus when schools reopened after the holiday break. Classes are to close when a single case is detected, and schools are closed when several classes are detected. The latest monitoring figures indicate that just over 5,000 classrooms have been closed, and approximately 1,000 teachers and over 11,000 students have been infected over the past seven days. There has been no significant downward trend in recent weeks, as in the rest of the population.

For the general population, the number of daily cases has only declined below 7,000 on June 6. The devastation caused by the epidemic in terms of human lives is illustrated by the fact that the seven-day average of daily deaths only fell below 100 on June 3. This is the first time that an average of less than 100 people have died per day since October 18, 2020. France surpassed the milestone of 110,000 deaths on June 7.

Reviewing the development in the circulation of the virus since the beginning of the year, it is possible to identify the second and third peaks of the waves of the virus. But in terms of daily deaths, the policy pursued by Macron, disregarding scientific advice, of allowing the virus to circulate, imposing lockdowns extremely late and only partially, and ending lockdowns far too early, has resulted in a single wave of deaths that began in September 2020 and continues to this day.

The prestigious medical journal BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal ) wrote twice, in February and June, that the UK government’s response to the pandemic could be described as “social murder.” Such a characterisation applies no less to the French government’s policy.

As of June 4, 2,571 people were in intensive care, and 14,801 coronavirus patients were in hospital. The occupancy rate of intensive care beds is at approximately 50 percent, with significant differences between regions. The occupancy rate is significantly higher in the Île-de-France region surrounding Paris and in the north.

More than 13.6 million people are fully vaccinated, or just over 20 percent of the population, and approximately 28 million are partially vaccinated. Vaccination eligibility was expanded to all adults on May 31. From June 15, it will be open to adolescents aged 12 to 18.

The desire to “make numbers” in the vaccination drive is beginning to conflict with the need to protect the oldest and most vulnerable sectors as a priority. Thus, counting full and partial vaccinations, a plateau seems to have been reached of 82 percent vaccination for those aged over 75, and 81.5 percent of those aged 65-74. Many older people have difficulty accessing vaccination, even when they want to.

Similarly, vaccination is poorly prioritised for at-risk groups who have had access to it since May 1. Overweight people, who are particularly vulnerable to coronavirus, are less than 50 percent vaccinated. This is due to the lack of individualised support for the vaccination policy because of a lack of resources.

The virus reproduction rate (R0), which had fallen to a low of 0.75, has risen to between 0.8 and 0.9 since mid-May. This means that the virus is receding, but more slowly than before. A rate of over 1 indicates exponential expansion. Moreover, the situation is contrasted between regions and between departments.

Government spokesman Gabriel Attal announced on June 2 that there were “warning signs,” particularly in New Aquitaine and Occitania, where the reproduction rate had “risen above 1, which means that the epidemic is gaining ground again.” This resurgence was very marked in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, but also in Charente-Maritime, Lot-et-Garonne, Charente, Landes and Gironde.

In addition, the Delta variant initially identified in India in April, which is also spreading rapidly in England, has also appeared in several departments, including Landes, where there are “around 50 patients,” according to the regional health agency. About 100 cases have been confirmed in France, some of unknown origin.

On Saturday, the regional health agency of the Grand Est region announced that it had detected a “cluster of the Delta (referred to as Indian) variant” in the Superior Academy of the Arts of the Rhin, located in Strasbourg. Four cases have already been identified, with 43 contact cases.

Thus, the variant is already circulating significantly without detection. The authorities and most of the media are providing reassurances about the Delta variant, or avoiding the subject altogether, to make people believe that the situation is under control.

The real situation is indicated by the developments in the UK. There are already more cases of the Indian variant there than of the British variant (Alpha), which is already known to be more contagious than the original strain of coronavirus it replaced. Infections and deaths from the Delta variant are steadily increasing from an initial small number of infections.

According to Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London, the new variant is somewhere between 30 and 100 percent—likely approximately 60 percent—more transmissible than the Alpha variant.

According to a study by Public Health England, the Indian variant could lead to an increase in hospital admissions. After analysing nearly 38,000 sequences of the virus, the researchers estimate that the Delta variant has a 2.61 percent higher risk of hospitalisation than the Alpha variant.

Finally, the Delta variant is one of the variants that has an increased ability to bypass the immune system, so people who have not completed the vaccination schedule could be affected and participate in the spread of the virus.

With only 20 percent of the population fully vaccinated and with the acceleration of the reopening campaign, the potential for the spread of the dominant Alpha strain and the new Delta strain is significant.

As with the arrival of the Alpha strain at Christmas, Macron and his government are sweeping aside the science and pursuing a health policy that risks a fourth wave of contagions by the summer.