Launched in 2015, Foundry is YouTube Music’s global artist development programme serving the independent music community and allowing artists access to resources to help them thrive on YouTube and build careers on their own terms.
Last year, YouTube Music selected Nigerian singer Bella Shmurda and 26 other musicians from 14 countries. The singer joined fellow Nigerians Rema and Tems who have participated in the programme in the past.
“Foundry celebrates artists, their courage and reduces barriers to entry,” YouTube said. “This group of artists are driving their careers forward as independents, building communities that allow them the freedom to grow on their own terms. We are so proud to spotlight and play a part in developing indie talent, and will continue supporting these artists every step of the way.”
Foundry alumni include more than 150 artists from 15 countries, such as English singer Dua Lipa, South Korean pop rocker Sam Kim, Norwegian pop singer-songwriter Girl in Red, French rapper Lean Chihiro, Japanese artist Sanari and Haitian DJ and producer Michael Brun.
What Type of Scholarship is this?
Grants
Who can apply for Youtube Foundry?
If you are a developing independent artist who will be distributing official music to YouTube during the Foundry Class of 2022 term (July 2022 – December 2022), then we’d love for you to apply. Artists can be considered independent when they drive their careers forward on their own behalf, and work with indie labels and distribution partners. Artists signed directly to major labels are not eligible for Foundry.
How are Applicants Selected?
We hope to inform artists selected for the Class of 2022 by no later than July. Applicants will be told that their application has been successful via email. If you are not selected for funding, don’t fret! This is an ongoing program, so there will be more opportunities to apply to participate in the program in years to come.
Which Countries are Eligible?
Global
How Many Grants will be Given?
Not specified
What is the Benefit of Youtube Foundry?
Selected Foundry artists will receive dedicated support from a YouTube partner manager, seed funding invested into the development of their channels, marketing and promotion opportunities, and access to new product features.
How to Apply for Youtube Foundry:
APPLY BELOW
It is important to go through all application requirements before applying.
Most of us want our tax dollars to be wisely used — especially around tax time.
You’ve probably heard a lot about corporations not paying taxes. Last year, individuals like you contributed six times more in income tax than corporations did.
But have you heard about how many of your tax dollars then end up in corporate pockets? It’s a lot — especially for corporations that contract with the Pentagon. They collect nearly half of all military spending.
The average taxpayer contributed about $2,000 to the military last year, according to a breakdown my colleagues and I prepared for the Institute for Policy Studies. More than $900 of that went to corporate military contractors.
In 2020, the largest Pentagon contractor, Lockheed Martin, took in $75 billion from taxpayers — and paid its CEO more than $23 million.
Unfortunately, this spending isn’t buying us a more secure world.
Last year, Congress added $25 billion the Pentagon didn’t ask for to its already gargantuan budget. Lawmakers even refused to let military leaders retire weapons systems they couldn’t use anymore. The extra money favored top military contractors that gave campaign money to a group of lawmakers, who refused to comment on it. Then there’s simple price-gouging.
There’s the infamous case of TransDigm, a Pentagon contractor that charged the government $4,361 for a metal pin that should’ve cost $46 — and then refused to share cost data. Congress recently asked TransDigm to repay some of its misbegotten profits, but the Pentagon hasn’t cut off its business.
Somewhere between price-gouging and incompetence lies the F-35 jet fighter, an embarrassment the late Senator John McCain, a Pentagon booster, called “a scandal and a tragedy.”
Among the most expensive weapons systems ever, the F-35 has numerous failings. It’s spontaneously caught fire at least three times — hardly the outcome you’d expect for the top Pentagon contractor’s flagship program. The Pentagon has reduced its request for new F-35s this year by about a third, but Congress may reject that too.
Most serious of all, there’s the problem of U.S. weapons feeding conflicts in ways the Pentagon didn’t foresee, but probably should have.
When U.S. ground troops left Afghanistan, they left behind a huge array of military equipment, from armored vehicles to aircraft, that could now be in Taliban hands. The U.S. also left weapons in Iraq that fell into the hands of ISIS, including guns and an anti-tank missile.
Even weapons we sold to so-called allies like Saudi Arabia have ended up going to people affiliated with groups like al Qaeda.
Military weapons also end up on city streets at home. Over the years, civilian law agencies have received guns, armored vehicles, and even grenade launchers from the military, turning local police into near-military organizations.
Records also show that the Pentagon has lost hundreds of weapons which may have been stolen, including grenade launchers and rocket launchers. Some of these weapons have been used in crimes.
Taxpayers shouldn’t be spending $900 apiece for these outcomes. My team at the Institute for Policy Studies and others have demonstratedways to cut up to $350 billion per year from the Pentagon budget, including what we spend on weapons contractors, without compromising our safety.
Even better, we could then put some of that money elsewhere.
Compared to the $900 for Pentagon contractors, the average taxpayer contributed only about $27 to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, $171 to K-12 education, and barely $5 to renewable energy.
How much more could we get if we invested even a fraction of what we spend on military contractors for these dire needs.
Most Americans support shifting Pentagon funds to pay for domestic needs. Instead of making Americans fork over another $900 to corporate military contractors this year, Congress should put our dollars to better use.
A report by the UK government’s education inspectorate Ofsted describes a worrying regression in the development of younger children during the past two years.
This developmental delay is not surprising, considering the disruption caused to education by the Johnson government’s failure to respond to the pandemic scientifically with a zero-COVID strategy. Its “let it rip” policy has instead led to the development of new, more transmissible variants of SARS-CoV 2, and wave upon wave of infections, causing chaos in schools with COVID-related staff shortages and pupil absences.
Primary school pupils return to a school in Bournemouth, England on Monday September 6, 2021 (WSWS Media)
The disruption is robbing children, particularly those who attend state schools and pre-school settings, of their basic right to learn in a safe environment.
Ofsted’s report, “Education recovery in early years providers: spring 2022”, is based on interviews with 70 early years providers, including 38 childminders and 32 nurseries, as well as discussions with early years inspectors, between January 17 and February 4, 2022. The authors state the report is neither “conclusive” nor “representative” as it was based on a small sample, but it nevertheless raises serious concerns.
Those interviewed reported, “babies have struggled to respond to basic facial expressions,” due to reduced contact time with adults. Some noticed delays in physical development and motor skills, especially if children lived in homes without a garden for outside play. Delays in crawling and walking were observed, as well as obesity.
“[D]elays in speech and language progress” were also noted. Children’s vocabulary was more limited than would be expected, and this adversely affected socialising. Some providers noticed toddlers and pre-school children needed extra support with sharing and taking turns. “Some children had regressed in independence and in self-care skills,” such as putting on their own coat, going to the toilet or blowing their nose.
More children were referred for speech therapy. Ofsted said, “… parents who could do so had paid for private speech and language therapists… Those who could not afford this have faced longer waiting times, of up to 9 months in some local authorities.”
Prevalence of the virus among staff or child minders disrupted provision, compounding insecurity felt by children, many of whom may have tragically lost a caregiver or grandparent.
The report concludes that “more children may not be ready for school by age 4.”
Over the years, privatisation pursued by successive Conservative and Labour governments encroached heavily on Early Years provision, leaving these services fragile and expensive outside of a school setting. The report notes, “Some providers are concerned about their long-term sustainability given the fluctuations in the number of children on roll”.
Ofsted is employed by the government to promote its policies in education. The report therefore places no blame for this state of affairs where it belongs, with the Tory government and its Labour and trade union backers. Neither does it use the findings to condemn the insane lifting of all mitigations measures to curb the spread of the virus.
Speaking to the BBC, Ofsted's chief inspector of schools, Amanda Spielman, said, “We found a number of concerning things—still knock on from the pandemic and lockdown more generally.” For Spielman, public health lockdowns, demanded by teachers, parents and the working class, are part of the problem, not the fact that the government lifted them prematurely before the virus was suppressed.
Latest government advice will maximise the spread of the virus. Since twice weekly mandatory tests for school children ended February 21, the government writes, “Children and young people with mild symptoms such as a runny nose, sore throat or slight cough, who are otherwise well can continue to attend their education setting.” Only if they have a high temperature should they stay home.
The availability of free lateral flow tests ended April 1. Their purchase will be an added burden on working class families, who over the next months will have to choose whether to heat or eat as energy and food prices soar. Free testing in special schools also ended on that date, leaving the clinically vulnerable with absolutely no protection. Children are not advised to take a test unless directed by a health professional.
Those who do manage to test and find that they are positive are advised to stay off school and self-isolate at home for just three days “if they can”, while adults should try to self-isolate for five days, avoiding the clinically vulnerable for 10 days. Employees with symptoms should work at home “if at all possible”—not possible for most workers. Anyone living with someone who has tested positive is advised to go to work or school, but to avoid older and vulnerable people, who will become permanent prisoners in their own home with the virus prevalence sky high.
In response, joint general secretary of the National Education Union Mary Bousted said, “This confusing guidance is a recipe for even more chaos and will make managing cases and preventing disruption even harder than it already is… We have repeatedly urged the Government to continue with free testing… including in all education settings… these calls have been ignored.”
Throughout the pandemic, the education unions have been in lockstep with government policy of herding children into unsafe classrooms, promoting the fiction that schools could be made safe before the virus is suppressed, if only the government would listen and provide mitigation measures. They have allowed schools to become major vectors for viral spread during the pandemic.
Professor Paul Elliot, of Imperial College London’s soon-to-be-axed REACT-1 COVID study told BBC Radio 4’s Today the highest case rates are currently among primary school children, at nine percent—almost one in 10 infected. At the same time, vaccines are only now being rolled out for 5-11-year-olds, and that at a slow pace.
The National Association of Headteachers and Association of College and School Leaders unions recently wrote to Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi requesting the government immediately reinstate testing in schools. The letter condemned the government’s “lack of concern and support” as schools were suffering a higher rate of staff absenteeism “than at any previous point during the pandemic.”
But the unions, as they have done from day one of the pandemic, raise such concerns from the standpoint that schools must stay open no matter what, so as not to disrupt the economy. The letter continued, “Failing to control the transmission of Covid in schools and colleges is making it increasingly difficult for leaders to keep their settings open, and to ensure pupils receive a high-quality education when they are there.”
Latest attendance figures estimate 179,000 absences for COVID related reasons on March 31, 23,000 less than on March 17 since schools stopped testing on-site. However, on the same date, attendance actually fell to 88.6 percent. The number of schools in England self-reporting COVID cases from March 28 to April 4 were 488 primary schools, 132 secondary schools, 12 combined schools, and seven early years settings nurseries (figures compiled by SafeEdForAll member Daniella Modos -Cutter).
The government has responded to this mayhem by ending its collection and bi-monthly publication of schools’ data on the number of pupil absences due to COVID!
Ofsted’s report will be cynically used to blackmail the public into accepting that children must attend packed schools, regardless of the dangers. The real conclusion to be drawn is that the policy of “herd immunity” and mass infection has been a disaster on all fronts, killing 169 children (according to figures compiled by SafeEdForAll member @tigresseleanor, April 6) and at least 570 staff, debilitating thousands more, and setting back millions with the inevitable disruption caused by waves of infection and illness. The only solution is a democratically and scientifically implemented policy of Zero-COVID.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel yesterday announced the details of their plan to “offshore” the processing of asylum seekers.
Building on their already draconian immigration system, most refugees and asylum seekers who are able to make it to Britain now stand no chance of receiving refuge. They will, within days of arriving, be flown 4,000 miles away to landlocked Rwanda in central Africa.
UK Home Secretary, Priti Patel, and Rwandan Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Co-Operation, Vincent Biruta sign the Migration and Economic Development Partnership (Credit Priti Patel/Twitter)
The Home Office said that those deemed to have arrived illegally will be refused asylum and detained in a former military base before being flown out on a “one way ticket” to Rwanda. The Daily Mail noted, “Once in Rwanda they will no longer be under the UK’s jurisdiction and subject to that country's refugee rules, with no legal right to return to Britain.” If deemed by Rwanda not to have a legitimate asylum claim, they will be deported back to their home country. If found to have a valid claim, they will be allowed to stay in Rwanda for five years.
There is no limit to the number of refugees that can be sent to Rwanda, with Johnson boasting in his speech that the “deal we have done is uncapped and Rwanda will have the capacity to resettle tens of thousands of people in the years ahead.”
The offshoring system was pioneered by Australia, which began detaining asylum seekers in detention centres on the tiny Micronesia island country Nauru, and Manus Island in 2001. Thousands have been detained, with Australia making the operation permanent, despite a staggering $12 billion being spent in just the eight years to 2021.
A central aim of the Rwandan deal is to deter any migrants and refugees headed for Britain, with the threat of being shipped to one of the poorest countries in the world.
Even before the first refugee is booted out of the country, Johnson has placed the Ministry of Defence in charge of policing the English Channel and detaining those attempting to land in Britain on dinghies and other flimsy vessels.
Johnson said that to “identify, intercept and investigate these boats, from today the Royal Navy will take over operational command from Border Force in the Channel, taking primacy for our operational response at sea… with the aim that no boat makes it to the UK undetected.”
The Telegraph reported a government source threatening, “You are going to be met by the Army. They will drive you to the airport and send you straight to Rwanda. That is where you are going to end up in the hope that would be enough to deter migrants.”
Rwanda has one of the most appalling human rights records on the planet. It is less than two decades since a war waged by an ethnic Hutu regime backed by France saw the extermination of between 800,000 and one million people, mainly from the country’s Tutsi ethnic minority.
Human Rights Watch says of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front that it “continues to target those perceived as a threat to the government. Several high-profile critics have been arrested or threatened and authorities regularly fail to conduct credible investigations into cases of enforced disappearances and suspicious deaths of government opponents. Arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, and torture in official and unofficial detention facilities is commonplace, and fair trial standards are routinely flouted in many sensitive political cases, in which security-related charges are often used to prosecute prominent government critics.”
The scheme has been at least three years in the planning, with Patel making it her flagship policy to stop a few thousand people arriving annually via the dangerous English Channel route from claiming asylum in Britain. It is the basis of her Nationality and Borders Bill now passing through parliament that shreds the basic tenets of the 1951 Refugee Convention, requiring signatory countries to offer asylum to those fleeing war or persecution.
There were initial discussions within the Home Office about moving migrants to decommissioned oil platforms in the North Sea and old ferries off the UK coastline for processing. A host of countries and locations were considered for offshoring including Albania, Gibraltar, the Isle of Wight and another African state, Ghana. Sending refugees to the inhospitable volcanic Ascension Island, over 4,000 miles way in the South Atlantic Ocean, was also mooted.
Britain intends to offshore its anti-refugee policy on the cheap, with Rwanda receiving only around £120 million over five years as part of the deal. The poverty-stricken, war-torn country already accommodates 130,000 refugees. The BBC, which has “seen accommodation the asylum seekers would be housed in,” reported it is “thought to have enough space for about 100 people at a time and to process up to 500 a year.”
None of this matters to Britain. Johnson gave notice of a round-up of migrants who will be immediately deported, warning “from today, our new Migration and Economic Development Partnership will mean that anyone entering the UK illegally— as well as those who have arrived illegally since January 1st— may now be relocated to Rwanda.”
In total, another half a billion pounds will be spent in escalating the repression of men, woman and children fleeing homelands devastated by imperialist wars and proxy wars supported by the UK, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Sudan.
The Royal Navy, said Johnson, “will be supported with £50 million of new funding for new boats, aerial surveillance and military personnel in addition to the existing taskforce of patrol vessels, Wildcat helicopters, search and rescue aircraft, drones and remotely piloted aircraft.”
“People who do make it to the UK will be taken not to hotels at vast public expense, rather they will be housed in accommodation centres like those in Greece, with the first of these to open shortly. At the same time, we are expanding our immigration detention facilities, to assist with the removal of those with no right to remain in the UK.”
Patel visited Greece last year to examine its anti-immigration infrastructure, declaring herself in awe of the repressive system in place, including a soon to be operational detention camp on the island of Samos.
No-one will be spared. The Times reported Thursday that it understood from a briefing the Rwanda policy would apply only to male migrants, but by the afternoon Sky News reported, “It’s been indicated that children and minors won’t be included, with some earlier briefing that it would be only single men, but we are told that’s not necessarily correct.”
The Rwanda deal was announced now, despite being in place for weeks, in an attempt to shore up Johnson’s support among his party’s right-wing base. But this could end up helping Patel as a potential challenger, given that both Johnson and his Chancellor Rishi Sunak received fines from the Metropolitan Police this week for participating in illegal parties during the pandemic. She has announced the ultimate “red meat” policy for the frothing right-wing layers in the Tory ranks. Bill Wiggin MP said of his desired immigration policy, “We want Ukrainians, we want Qataris, we don’t want people in rubber boats.”
Johnson appeals to these forces by declaring the initiative was “made possible by Brexit freedoms” he had secured. His government is prepared to fight any legal challenge by what he called a “formidable army of politically-motivated lawyers”.
The opposition Labour Party has no principled difference with the vicious persecution of migrants and refugees. Leader Sir Keir Starmer centred his opposition to the Rwanda deal on the criticism that it would be too expensive and is “unworkable”. Arch Blairite Chris Bryant tweeted, “Rwanda plan will cost more than putting them up in the Ritz.”
Svitzer, Australia’s largest tugboat operator, is proceeding with a campaign to slash wages and conditions in a new enterprise agreement (EA) covering at least 540 workers. In a move intended to intimidate workers into accepting the rotten deal, the company has applied to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) to have the existing EA terminated, which would force workers onto the minimum wage industrial award.
Svitzer tugs at Swanson Dock in Melbourne [Image: Svitzer media YouTube]
The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), the Australia Maritime Officers Union (AMOU) and the Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers (AIMPE) have been entirely complicit in the company attacks throughout the protracted dispute. While workers have overwhelmingly voted against the regressive offer and demanded strikes, the unions have confined workers’ opposition to limited industrial action, minimising disruption to operations and profits.
The attack on Australian tugboat workers is part of a global offensive by Svitzer, a subsidiary of the Danish-owned Maersk International shipping group, which recorded profits last year of $24 billion.
Svitzer workers at Teesport in the UK have held two strikes since the beginning of March, after their wages were frozen in October 2021. Rather than make an appeal to broader sections of workers, Unite, the union covering the tugboat workers, called for shipping companies to boycott the port. Unite this week shut down a third strike planned for the Easter long weekend. The union claims the company has proposed an improved deal, but has not published details of the new offer.
In the Netherlands, Svitzer has established a new company that is refusing to enter into collective bargaining with the existing workforce. Svitzer carried out a similar operation in 2020 at Geelong, Victoria, smashing collective bargaining by making all workers redundant and replacing them with a new workforce on individual agreements.
The international assault by Svitzer demands an international response. Every successful attack by the company, wherever it occurs, will become a blueprint to be followed around the world. Workers at Svitzer, and throughout the international maritime industry must take up a unified struggle for secure jobs and genuine wage increases.
This is impossible within the nationalist, pro-capitalist framework of the trade unions, which function as an industrial police force, enforcing the demands of management for ever-increasing cuts to working-class jobs, pay and conditions.
Workers must take matters into their own hands, and form new organisations of struggle, rank-and-file committees, completely independent of the unions. Through a network of such committees, Svitzer workers in Australia can link up with their counterparts around the world and start to plan and discuss a global response to the deepening assault.
In Australia and globally, unions have met the company’s attempts to slash wages and conditions by shutting down strikes, promoting illusions in the anti-worker industrial courts and attempting to divert workers’ struggles into appeals to the “moral values” of Svitzer and its parent company.
Last month, Svitzer global CEO, Kasper Friis Nilaus, visited Melbourne for discussions with local management. MUA national secretary Paddy Crumlin published a statement saying Nilaus’ refusal to meet with the union “sullies the reputation of Maersk.” The union is promoting an online petition penned by the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), of which Crumlin is president. It pleads for Svitzer “to live up to Maersk Group’s values, recognise tug workers’ efforts, and engage with our unions.”
The reality is, like any other capitalist institution, the only “values” Svitzer or Maersk are concerned with are those listed in the finance pages. The unions’ moral appeal is a dead end, designed to divert workers’ anger and suppress their demands for a genuine industrial fight.
The agreement that Svitzer is determined to ram through in Australia contains pay increases of just 1.5 percent per annum this year and next, well below the nominal inflation rate of 3.5 percent, and a wage cut in real terms. Moreover, as the current EA expired in 2019, workers did not receive a pay rise in 2020 or 2021. Svitzer is also seeking sweeping changes to working conditions, including reductions to manning levels and increased workplace flexibility through the use of casual labour.
The ongoing dispute takes place in the context of an inquiry by the federal government’s Productivity Commission into Australia’s maritime logistics system. In its submission to the inquiry, Svitzer complained of “overt and covert industrial action” and said the “significant reduction in productivity in Australia compared to Europe highlights our inability to flex our crew costs in line with reduced activity levels, as a result of the inherent restrictions within our current enterprise agreement.”
In other words, the company is demanding further restrictions on the rights of workers to strike, in order to remove any impediment to its plans to slash full-time staff and vastly increase its use of casual and contract labour.
Peak industry body Shipping Australia, in its submission, called for a change to the Fair Work Act to increase the notice period for protected industrial action from 3 days to 64 days. In response to this frontal assault on the right to strike, MUA assistant national secretary Jamie Newlyn told the Australian the move was unnecessary, pointing to the “record volumes and record productivity” at the ports, effectively boasting of the union’s role in giving companies exactly what they wanted.
Australia already has the most restrictive workplace laws in the OECD. The most significant measures restricting workers’ rights were passed under Labor governments with the backing of the trade unions, including the Fair Work Act implemented by the Rudd Labor government in 2008. This has led to the lowest level of strike activity since records began over 100 years ago.
Fair Work followed on from the critical role played by the Hawke-Keating Labor governments and the unions in the 1980s, with the Prices and Incomes Accords. The purpose of the Accords was to slash wages, allow for massive restructuring of working conditions and destroy all independent forms of workers’ organisation. This has resulted in heightened financial insecurity for Australian workers, who face some of the highest housing costs in the world and whose wages continue to decline in real terms. The recent increase in global inflation and interest rates is also expressed in Australia and is thrusting growing numbers of workers into the class struggle.
The overwhelming votes by Svitzer workers against the company’s offers and for strike action reflect the growing opposition of the workers. Tugboat workers at the ports serve a critical function in the modern economy and are in a powerful position to wage a genuine fight for improved wages and conditions and to win the support of major sections of the working class.
Allegations of financial mismanagement among supposed leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM)—as well as questions surrounding the true character of the organization—continue to unfold following a recent New York Magazine report revealing the group purchased a $6 million luxury home in southern California with money that had been donated to the BLMGNF (Black Lives Matter Global Network Fund, the official title of the only actual national organization).
Patrisse Cullors speaking in Tottenham, north London as part of the Ferguson Solidarity Tour, January 2015.
According to the report, BLMGNF bought the 6,500 square-foot property, complete with seven bedrooms and bathrooms, a sound stage and music studio, a pool, and parking for almost 20 cars, in October 2020, to serve as a “safehouse” and headquarters for BLM leadership to create social media content. Last June, three BLM leaders—Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Melina Abdullah—recorded a video outside the property while marking the first anniversary of George Floyd’s murder.
The report has further fueled questions about BLM’s finances barely a year after it released the first look into its finances. The foundation said it collected over $90 million in 2020 alone and committed $21.7 million in funding to various BLM chapters and grassroots organizations. With its operating budget set at $8.4 million, more than $60 million was unaccounted for.
BLM released an official statement defending the purchase of the mansion while simultaneously performing damage control, promising to “provide clarity” and to increase “transparency and accountability.”
“Despite past efforts, BLMGNF recognizes that there is more work to do to increase transparency and ensure transitions in leadership are clear,” said a tweet from the official BLM account. “We are redoubling our efforts to provide clarity about BLMGNF’s work. In the coming weeks, we will unveil new initiatives to increase transparency and accountability, and to continue reshaping what radical philanthropy looks like for Black people.”
BLM sought to justify the purchase of the California mansion, which they call the “Creator House,” by arguing that it was made to encourage “Black creativity” which is “necessary and vital to Black survival.”
“That’s why Creator’s House was purchased—to provide a space for Black folks to share their gifts with the world and hone their craft as they see fit, under the conditions that work best for them and outside systems of oppression in creative industries.”
Patrisse Cullors, co-founder and former executive director of BLMGNF, and Melina Abdullah, co-director of BLM Grassroots, spoke to reporters Monday in a closed roundtable discussion, according to NBC News, where the pair dismissed recent allegations as media attacks and “misinformation.” Cullors and Abdullah claimed that the purchase of the multimillion dollar property was out of concern for the leaders’ safety.
“Almost immediately upon closing, the attacks on me, and BLM, which also means Melina and others, escalated,” Cullors said. She also claimed that she stayed at the home for four nights while the FBI investigated a death threat against her. “So we did use the campus as a haven, as a safe place. That derailed an announcement strategy. Conditions changed, and that’s it.”
Chelsea Fuller, who moderated the discussion, said BLM’s current leadership declined to be part of the discussion and a spokesperson for the organization said that “the Foundation intends to do its own media in the near future.” Cullors officially stepped down as executive director a year ago and it is currently unclear who is in control of the organization and its tens of millions of dollars in donations.
The cash for the purchase came from $66.5 million that had just come in to BLMGNF from donor contributions. Pascall then quickly resold to a Delaware-based LLC, a maneuver that concealed the actual final owner of the property, who remains unidentified.
Last week’s revelations are just the most recent in a long line of allegations that expose the fraudulent nature of BLMGNF. Rather than being a genuine hub of expression for the mass opposition to police brutality, the group speaks for privileged sections of the middle class seeking to cash in on the promotion of racial politics to advance their own positions within the state and corporate America.
The Democratic Party and corporate media have incessantly promoted illusions in racial identity politics as part of an effort to promote racial divisions and obscure common class interests of all workers, including in the fight against police violence.
After the eruption of mass multi-racial protests against police violence triggered by George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, the Democratic Party and its pseudo-left allies worked to redirect popular opposition to police violence into racialist identity politics while promoting illusions that the police can be reformed.
The Russian Socialist Movement (RSM), and the Ukrainian group Sotsialnyi rukh (Social Movement, SR), a SYRIZA-style formation, published a joint statement on the Pabloite International Viewpoint website that calls for an escalation of NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.
The statement, “Against Russian Imperialism,” is explicitly addressed against anyone refusing to line up behind US imperialism in the conflict with Russia over Ukraine.
Demonstrators shout slogans during an action against Russia’s attack on Ukraine in St. Petersburg, Russia, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
“It is Putin, not NATO, who is waging war on Ukraine,” it declares. “That is why it is essential to shift our focus from Western imperialism to Putin’s aggressive imperialism, which has an ideological and political basis in addition to an economic one.”
This statement turns reality on its head.
While the RSM and SR proclaim that “Putin’s aggression is hard to explain rationally,” it was, in fact, deliberately provoked by decades of NATO expansion to Russia’s borders and, in particular, the heavy intervention of imperialism in Ukraine.
In 2014, the US backed the overthrow of the Yanukovich government that had rejected an association agreement with the European Union. The RSM supported the coup at the time and even justified collaboration with the neo-fascist forces that played the principal role in carrying it out.
Since then, Ukraine was built up as an attack dog against Russia. The country’s military was massively expanded and armed with NATO weapons. The new military strategy adopted by the Kiev government in March 2021 left no doubt that this military build-up was in preparation for war with Russia: it openly proclaimed that “retaking” the Black Sea peninsula Crimea and the Donbas was the military objective of Kiev. Throughout 2021, the US and NATO did everything to bolster these reckless provocations, openly backing the “Crimean platform” and staging one major NATO exercise on Russia’s border after another.
Against this background, the invasion of Ukraine by the Putin regime can be explained: it is a desperate and bankrupt attempt to defend the national interests of the Russian oligarchy and somehow force the imperialist powers to the bargaining table.
One can oppose the invasion and the Putin regime without lining up behind US imperialism, from the standpoint of revolutionary internationalism, fighting to unify workers in Russia, Ukraine, across Europe and the US in a joint struggle against imperialist war and for the overthrow of capitalism.
It is precisely against this genuinely left-wing opposition to the war that the statement by the RSM and SR is written.
The Pabloites effectively express support for NATO’s military build-up against Russia. Their statement explicitly rejects calls “to demilitarize Eastern Europe,” as “naïve” because this would “only be appeasing Putin and will make Eastern European countries vulnerable to Putin’s aggression. Discourse about NATO expansion obscures Putin’s desire to divide the spheres of influence in Europe between the US and Russia.”
In other words, the position of the RSM and SR is not only that Eastern Europe should remain a massive military base of operations for the NATO powers, above all the US, but the division of the region into “spheres of influence” should be resolved in favour of NATO.
The statement also provides a cover for the fascist shock troops of imperialism in the region. It describes the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which openly places itself in the tradition of Nazi collaborationist, Ukrainian nationalist forces as “a problem,” but then, absurdly, claims that “unlike in 2014, the far right is not playing a prominent role in today’s war, which has become a people’s war.”
This is an outright lie. The neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and similar far-right paramilitary formations—which, as of 2020, constituted 100,000 troops or about 40 percent of Ukraine’s armed forces— are central to the military and political operations of imperialism and the Kiev regime.
The Azov Battalion, now fully integrated into the army, forms the backbone of Ukraine’s military operation against Russia’s forces in Mariupol, a city of key strategic importance. Members of the Azov Battalion were among the first to enter Bucha near Kiev. Their commanders are being awarded orders of “heroes of Ukraine” by the government, and President Zelensky recently even invited a member of Azov to accompany him on his official trip to Greece.
Moreover, with open state backing, the Azov Battalion is recruiting far-right forces from all over the world who are using the war in Ukraine as a training ground where they can network and get combat experience with advanced NATO weapons’ systems.
The RSM and SR not only cover up this process, they even argue for its escalation.
Their statement explicitly calls for more NATO weapons for Ukraine—many of which are ending up in the hands of fascist formations like the Azov Battalion. To the Pabloites, the over $2.6 billion of NATO weapons delivered by the White House alone since the war began are not enough.
Claiming that the EU had already delivered weapons to Russia in the past, they write, “The discussion about whether weapons sent to the region end up in the right or wrong hands sounds a bit belated. They are already in bad hands, and EU countries would only be righting their earlier wrongs by providing weapons to Ukraine.”
In other words, the Pabloites’ “opposition” to “Russian imperialism” translates into the demand for the EU and NATO to deliver more weapons into the “better hands” of Ukraine’s military and fascist forces.
The statement also singles out as a specific demand the provision to Ukraine of “air defence systems”—that is, advanced weaponry capable of shooting down Russian aircraft. This demand, which was published on April 9, was issued the very same weekend that the US and European powers announced that it would be doing exactly this, providing Ukraine with weapons that would allow it to strike territory within Russia. The Kremlin has long warned that it might consider such a move as direct NATO involvement in the war and respond accordingly.
In order to somehow present this right-wing tirade, which reads like a compilation of NATO talking points, as “left-wing,” the RSM and SR insist that Russia is an “imperialist” country. Making no serious attempt to justify this assessment, they only point to the “rhetoric” of the Putin regime and its nationalism. This argument has nothing in common with the Marxist understanding of imperialism and can provide the basis to designate virtually any country in the world that stands in the way of imperialism as itself “imperialist.”
While this position is both theoretically bankrupt and an act of political charlatanry, from a historical standpoint it is a logical extension of the Pabloites’ hostility to the socialist revolution of 1917 and their support for the Stalinist reaction against the revolution, which culminated in the restoration of capitalism and the destruction of the USSR in 1991.
Pabloism historically arose in the aftermath of World War II as a revisionist tendency within the Fourth International. Amidst the temporary restabilization of capitalism and the establishment of the “buffer states” by the Soviet bureaucracy in Eastern Europe, the Pabloites denied that the working class could play an independent revolutionary role and ascribed a progressive role to Stalinism.
On this basis, they advocated the liquidation of the Fourth International into the Stalinist bureaucracies and social democratic parties, claiming that the struggle for socialism could only be realized by pushing the bureaucracies “to the left.” In 1985-1991, the Pabloites lined up behind the drive of the bureaucracy toward the full restoration of capitalism, presenting this social counterrevolution as a progressive, democratic event and the realization of the “self-reform” of the bureaucracy that they had advocated.
Thirty years later, Russia’s position in the world economy is defined above all by its role as a raw material supplier to more advanced capitalist countries—the hallmark not of an “imperialist” power but of a semi-colonial country. Not content with the only limited access they were granted to Russia’s vast raw material and social resources after 1991, the imperialist powers are now seeking to completely subjugate Russia through a combination of military and economic pressure over Ukraine and regime change operation in Moscow.
Having completed their integration into imperialist and bourgeois state politics, the Pabloites now lend their full support to these operations. Far from representing anything even resembling left-wing politics, they are speaking for layers of the upper-middle class that see a future for themselves in a capitalist Ukraine and a capitalist Russia “without Putin,” that would be controlled by pro-US oligarchs and integrated into NATO. That this means not only the imperialist arming and build-up of fascist forces in Ukraine and across the world, but the very real possibility of a nuclear escalation of the conflict is not of the slightest concern to these layers.
The day after the Biden administration announced a massive expansion of US arms shipments to Ukraine, including hundreds of drones, armored vehicles and helicopters, the war took a dangerous new turn, threatening a direct military clash between NATO and Russia.
The Russian warship Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, sank. Ukraine claims that it struck the Mosvka with anti-ship missiles. The Kremlin denies these claims.
The Russian missile cruiser Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is seen anchored in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, on Sept. 11, 2008. The sip sank Thursday. (AP Photo, File)
The Russian defense ministry said the ship’s crew of approximately 500 sailors was rescued, but Konstantin Zatulin, a senior Russian lawmaker, claimed that Russian sailors died in the attack.
Boasting about the sinking of the ship, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said, “It’s a hugely important military event and the biggest defeat of the Russian Navy since World War II.” The sinking of the Moskva would be the largest warship sunk by tonnage since 1945.
Earlier, the US had announced both new military weapons deployments to Ukraine and a massive expansion of “intelligence sharing,” with the Wall Street Journal writing on Tuesday that “the moves will enable Ukraine to target Moscow’s forces in Donbas and Crimea.”
It is unclear the extent to which this “intelligence sharing” may have played a role in the sinking of the Moskva.
Following the sinking of the warship, Russia claimed that Ukrainian helicopters carried out strikes on its territory on Thursday, attacking the border village Klimovo in the Bryansk Region and leaving seven people injured.
Also on Thursday, European Union officials declared that an embargo of Russian oil imports by EU countries was in the works and would likely be adopted within a matter of weeks. The ban comes after a previously announced plan to halt the import of Russian coal.
Reports suggest that, following these developments, Russia has significantly escalated direct attacks on Kiev, with explosions and power outages reported across the city. “On the night of Friday, April 15, powerful explosions were heard in different parts of Kyiv. Electricity went out in a significant part of the Ukrainian capital,” the Russian government-controlled daily Izvestiia wrote.
Further ratcheting up tensions, the Pentagon announced on Thursday that it would provide Ukraine with “300 Switchblade Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems; 500 Javelin missiles and thousands of other anti-armor systems; 200 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers; 100 Armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles; 11 Mi-17 helicopters,” as well as land mines.
According to the Pentagon, the US has now “committed more than $3.2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration, including approximately $2.6 billion since the beginning of Russia’s unprovoked invasion on February 24.”
The announcement of a renewed expansion of arms shipments comes just after the prime minister of Finland declared that the country would seek to join NATO within a matter of weeks. In response, Russian officials have threatened a major nuclear buildup.
“If Sweden and Finland join NATO, the length of the alliance’s land borders with Russia will more than double,” said Dimitri Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council. “Naturally, these borders will have to be strengthened.”
Medvedev warned that Russia could deploy “Iskanders, hypersonics and ships with nuclear weapons” on its borders with NATO member states. Iskander missiles are capable of deploying nuclear weapons.
NATO, for its part, is already massively expanding its nuclear arsenal along its borders with Russia. Jessica Cox, director of the NATO nuclear policy directorate in Brussels, told Defense News that US NATO allies would undertake to use the “nuclear sharing mechanics” of the F-35 fighter, implying the widespread deployment of tactical nuclear weapons along NATO’s borders.
The escalation of the war follows last month’s NATO summit in which US President Joe Biden stated that Putin “cannot remain in power.”
Following the summit, Biden declared, “We must commit now to be in this fight for the long haul. We must remain unified today and tomorrow and the day after and for the years and decades to come.”
This week, Biden escalated this rhetoric against Russia yet again, declaring that the country was committing a “genocide” in Ukraine.
Amid spiraling inflation, and a raging pandemic, the Biden administration is using the war in Ukraine in a desperate effort to divert social tensions outwards and manufacture national unity on the basis of war.
The Biden administration is also seeking to use the war to impose a decisive military defeat on Russia, aiming to initiate regime change in the country in order to seize control of its vital natural resources, which the United States sees as critical for its domination of the global economy and preparations for military conflict with China.
The conflict, however, is rapidly spiraling out of control, raising the prospect of a direct clash between NATO and Russia and the first use of nuclear weapons since the Second World War—with consequences that are almost unfathomable.
