If Poverty is a Moral Issue, Then the U.S. is Bankrupt

Sonali Kolhatkar

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Newspaper headlines are warning of rising inflation and the possibility that voters will respond to it by punishing Democrats in the midterm elections this fall. But there are few, if any, headlines about the enormous numbers of Americans who are low-income and poor—a travesty in one of the world’s wealthiest nations.

The problem of poverty is marked by several factors, the first of which is a deeply flawed government indicator of who qualifies as poor. Measured by the federal poverty line, about 37 million Americans live below the poverty line—that’s about 11 percent of the population.

But this leaves out many millions more Americans who live one emergency expense away from poverty. The Poor People’s Campaign (PPC): A National Call for Moral Revival relies on economic calculations showing that 140 million Americans—which is more than 40 percent of the population—are poor or low-income.

The second factor is mainstream media coverage that routinely skews in favor of wealthy elites by downplaying the extent of poverty. For example, when President Joe Biden cited the PPC’s estimate in an address in June 2019, the Washington Post engaged in a lengthy fact-checking investigation, interviewing numerous analysts who nitpicked over the difference between “poor” and “low-income” people, saying, “The two terms sound alike, but they describe different economic conditions.”

A third obstacle is corporate greed and how wealthy elites are vacuuming up every dollar they can into their own pockets, taking advantage of an economic system they helped to build in order to benefit themselves. For example, the investment giant Morgan Stanley released a report recently complaining about how rising wages were eating into corporate profits.

But of course, any wage increases are dampened by inflation rates rising much faster. This is a decades-long trend, not a new phenomenon, as any honest economist would explain.

But now that inflation is rising faster than it was before, media pundits and news outlets suggest that the fault lies with Americans earning higher wages and spending too much money.

There is evidence to the contrary—that inflation is rising because of bloated corporate profits, not an increase in wages and consumer spending—a point that the corporate media has failed to elevate or investigate with the same enthusiasm with which it has decided poverty is not a serious national problem.

When Biden was running for president, he addressed the PPC in September 2020, affirming the moral necessity of eradicating poverty and promising to do what he could to end it. The message was consistent with his platform to “Build Back Better,” a slogan that became the name of his ambitious anti-poverty legislation.

In December 2020, after it was clear that Biden had won the election, his transition team reached out to the PPC for a meeting and discussed a list of 14 policies that the organization laid out for his first 100 days in office that included COVID-19 relief for low-income Americans, guaranteed health care for all, a $15 per hour federal minimum wage, and more.

In June 2021, once he was elected, Biden once more reached out to the PPC with a recorded message for the PPC ahead of its annual national gathering affirming his alignment with its goals.

But in spite of Biden’s numerous nods to the PPC and its agenda to eradicate poverty, few, if any, of the organization’s demands have been met. Biden’s Build Back Better bill is languishing, stymied by the stubborn refusal of two corporate Democrats, Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), to support most of their party’s progressive legislative proposals.

Bishop William Barber II and Rev. Liz Theoharis, the PPC’s co-chairs, recently wrote a letter to Biden requesting another meeting with the White House ahead of their June 18 March on Washington.

In their letter, the two progressive leaders reminded Biden that when he addressed their gathering as a candidate running for office, he “promised that ending poverty would be more than an aspiration.”

According to Barber and Theoharis’ letter, it’s not enough to aspire to enacting anti-poverty measures. They wrote, “We have offered a moral narrative that refuses to accept the lies of scarcity or partisan gridlock as excuses for taking action. We are determined to change the conversation about what is possible, so that we can ensure all of our justice, here and now.”

It’s a call for the president to engage directly with what matters most: not economic phenomena like inflation, not politics and the midterms, but that which impacts more than 40 percent of the nation’s population—poverty and financial precarity.

Rev. Theoharis told me in a recent interview that Biden had made a “commitment to ending poverty, not managing, not ameliorating, to actually looking at the policies that could lift people up.” Still, Theoharis said, “we’ve been pushing and will continue to push Congress because we know that those two Democratic senators [Sinema and Manchin] and 49 Republican senators have stood against living-wage jobs and voting rights.”

Among the anti-poverty measures that the Build Back Better bill would have enacted was the renewal of an expanded child tax credit. During the brief time that an increased child tax credit was in effect, it helped to push millions of American families out of poverty.

Theoharis said that the challenge of making headway on poverty lies in the question of, “how can the president be able to use the microphone that he has to turn it toward poor and low-income people, low-wage workers?” In other words, how can Biden use his bully pulpit to pressure the media and congressional lawmakers into taking seriously the needs of 140 million Americans?

“Any nation that has 43 percent of its population living in poverty or one couple-hundred-dollar emergency away… from absolute economic ruin is an impoverished democracy,” said Theoharis. The PPC has for years been trying to shift the culture and the national conversation away from the pro-business mentality that measures economic health by stock prices and Wall Street’s profits rather than by whether or not most Americans are financially stable.

But Morgan Stanley had it right when it pitted corporate profits against rising wages. There cannot be both rising profits and rising wages. Corporate profits depend on keeping wages low. In order to lift most Americans out of poverty, we need higher wages that will necessarily cut into corporate profits. If Wall Street sees such logic as class warfare, so be it, for Wall Street has been waging just such warfare on the American people for far too long.

“What happens when you actually provide for the people, when you actually ensure that people are making living wages and have housing, is that that actually saves the nation, both spiritually and morally,” said Theoharis, reminding us that what matters much more than the unquenchable thirst of a handful of wealthy elites is the well-being of all Americans.

Somalia pushed closer to famine by US/NATO sanctions on Russia, international speculation and drought

Jean Shaoul

Last week, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia Adam Abdel Mawla warned that Somalia was “on the brink of a deadly famine that could kill hundreds of thousands.” He said that 213,000 people face starvation by next September as global food prices hover near record highs and drought worsens.

The price of imported foodstuffs in Somalia has reached record levels, jumping by up to 160 percent. The price of a kilo of rice has more than doubled, rising from $0.75 to $2, while three litres of cooking oil has gone from $4.50 to $9.50, making it impossible for people in one of the world’s poorest countries—it’s GDP is just $7 billion, and more than 70 percent of the population live on less than $1.90 a day—to feed themselves and their families.

Mawla said that some 7.1 million of the country’s 16 million population face catastrophic levels of food insecurity and disease. Nearly one third of the country’s population are hungry. About 1.5 million children under five are suffering from acute malnutrition. At least 448 children have died since January. Many more are malnourished, with scaly skin and hair that has lost its natural colour, while others are sick with illnesses such as measles and cholera.

These appalling numbers are nearly three times the levels expected just two months ago, according to a joint statement issued by the various UN humanitarian agencies: the World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Young girls line up at a feeding centre in Mogadishu (UN Photo/Tobin Jones) [Photo by UN Photo/Tobin Jones / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]

This latest disaster to affect the war-torn country comes 11 years after the famine of 2011 fueled by soaring food prices in 2008 that killed around 250,000 people in Somalia, half of whom were children under the age of six. Now once again, the Somali people are the collateral damage of the crisis of the global economic system.

Skyrocketing food, fertiliser and fuel prices have been driven by the billions of dollars poured into the world’s stock markets, the failure of governments around the world to pursue a coronavirus elimination policy and thereby prolonging the pandemic and disrupting food supply chains, and the US/NATO sanctions on Russia that have included banning the country from the SWIFT money transfer system.

As the US Federal Reserve and other central banks raise interest rates to choke off inflation and increase the value of their currencies, investors are moving funds away from the world’s low and middle-income countries, in turn pushing down the value of their currencies and making their imports more expensive, while tighter credit is increasing borrowing costs for heavily indebted governments.

At the same time, financial speculation is driving food prices ever higher, with a Lighthouse Reports investigation, The Hunger Profiteers, concluding that in April speculators were responsible for 72 percent of the buying activity on the Paris wheat market, up from 25 percent before the pandemic.

These external pressures have exacerbated the impact of the Horn of Africa’s extreme weather events, some linked to climate change, that have brought flash floods, cyclones, rising temperatures, a devastating locust infestation and now the worst drought in 40 years. Up to 20 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia face the risk of starvation by the end of this year, according to the World Food Programme. Somalia, which like 14 other African countries imports over half of its food, has been particularly badly affected.

Four consecutive rainy seasons have been dry, amid unprecedentedly high temperatures. When the rains did come—October to December 2019 saw the wettest period—they were torrential and short-lived, causing flooding and breeding swarms of locusts. The drought drove 3.4 million people from their homes in Somalia in search of food as their crops failed and around three million livestock—up to 30 percent according to the FAO—perished, nothing short of a disaster in a largely pastoral country where families rely on their herds for meat, milk and trade.

A further 850,000 people have been driven from their homes since the beginning of the year, with increasingly desperate families fleeing the drought-stricken areas and making their way on foot or on donkeys to emergency centres, healthcare facilities and camps in towns and cities, including the largest on the outskirts of the capital, Mogadishu, that likewise struggle to afford food.

Somalia’s 2,400 settlement camps for internal migrants, now home to around one fifth of Somalia’s population, are overcrowded and chronically short of resources, with many residents living in makeshift shelters consisting of just plastic sheeting and poles. More than a few are on the point of death.

Climate experts expect that this October to December’s rainy season may well fail, pushing the drought into 2023. It means that with supply routes cut and local harvests wiped out by the drought, there is simply no prospect of affordable food and other basic commodities.

The drought follows decades of conflict that started in 1992 after the overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre when the US intervened, under the pretext of protecting United Nations aid workers, to establish US control over the region after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Somalia occupies a strategic position straddling both the Indian Ocean and the entrance to the Red Sea through which around $700 billion in maritime shipping passes every year, encompassing nearly all trade between Europe and Asia, including from Washington’s arch-rival China. While the US was forced to withdraw after the “Black Hawk Down” incident in 1993, it continued its operations covertly through proxies.

In 2007, Washington resumed its military operations after the emergence of the Al-Shabab movement that now controls much of the southern part of the country, and since then has launched repeated airstrikes, including targeted drone strikes and missiles launched from naval ships, alongside special forces raids. Last month, President Biden approved the deployment of nearly 500 US troops in Somalia.

US operations have served only to intensify the conflict, compound the suffering of the Somali people and decimate the financial resources of its barely functioning, corrupt government. The newly installed regime, headed by Washington’s man in Mogadishu President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, has no political or popular legitimacy. Heavily indebted and beholden to the International Monetary Fund, it struggles to pay its workers on time and has no plans to manage the crisis.

Despite the gravity of the crisis, the US, other major powers and financial institutions have ignored the UN’s humanitarian appeal as they turn their attention and resources to the war in Ukraine. They have pledged only about 18 percent of the $1.46 billion needed for the Somali people, forcing the UN to cut its rations to those in dire need of aid. The amount needed pales into insignificance beside the imperialists’ expenditure on war and militarism that they like to justify in the name of humanitarianism. The US Pentagon alone spends more in one week than the amount sought by the UN agencies for Somalia.

So great is the threat of hunger, not just in Somalia and the Horn but across Africa, that President Macky Sall of Senegal, the head of the African Union, called for the lifting of restrictions on exports of Russian wheat and fertilizer. Speaking at a joint press conference in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Sall said that Western sanctions on Russia had compounded Africa’s lack of access to grain.

While the UN’s General Assembly voted in March to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the African continent was far less supportive of the US/NATO position: only 28 of Africa’s 54 countries supported the resolution, while 17 abstained, eight failed to vote and one voted against the resolution, reflecting Russia’s longstanding ties to many African countries, its position as Africa’s largest supplier of arms and their efforts to evade the suffocating clutches of the imperialist powers.

Last-minute ruling prevents UK government deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda

Robert Stevens

The Johnson government has pledged to enforce its brutal policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda after being prevented from launching its first flight on Tuesday evening.

After a legal challenge, seven people sat on the runway of Boscombe Down Air Base in Wiltshire in a Boeing 767 were told they would not be deported and to leave the plane.

The flight was stopped by an intervention by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) over legal issues surrounding one of the people on board—a 54-year-old Iraqi man, K.N., who was a victim of torture, and who arrived in the UK by boat in May. The court ruled “that the applicant should not be removed until the expiry of a period of three weeks following the delivery of the final domestic decision in the ongoing judicial review proceedings.”

K.N. had been served a removal notice on June 6 and had his appeals denied by the UK High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. The ECHR decision provided a legal basis for the remaining six to appeal for their removal orders to be discarded, leading to two further injunctions by the ECHR and three successful challenges at the UK Court of Appeal.

Protesters stand outside the High Court where a ruling on Rwanda deportation flights took place, in London. June 13, 2022. [AP Photo/Alastair Grant]

The judicial review specified in the ECHR ruling was granted by the High Court in London last Friday and will take place in late July. It was brought by the Care4Calais migrant advocacy group, organisations including the Public and Commercial Services Union and Detention Action, and four asylum seekers scheduled to be on Tuesday’s flight.

They argue the Rwanda policy is illegal on multiple grounds. Care4Calais explained, “These… include, but are not limited to: the vires or legal authority of the Home Secretary to carry out the removals; the rationality of the Secretary of State’s conclusion that Rwanda is generally a ‘safe third country’; the adequacy of provision for malaria prevention; and compliance with the Human Rights Act.”

The ECHR is overseen by the European Convention on Human Rights, of which the UK is a founding member. Britain’s departure from the European Union (EU) did not affect its membership of this body, separate from the EU and its own European Court of Justice.

Johnson’s Conservative Party MPs responded to Tuesday’s ruling with frothing hostility. The prime minister warned that night that Britain may withdraw from European Convention on Human Rights. A Downing Street press spokesperson confirmed Wednesday, “We are keeping all options on the table including any further legal reforms that may be necessary.”

That this is considered is a milestone in the British ruling class’s rapid dispensing of democratic norms and repudiation of international law. The European Convention on Human Rights was set-up after the Second World War on the initiative of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who envisaged a “Charter of Human Rights”. Established by the Council of Europe—a body founded in London—it was drafted mainly by British lawyers, with the Financial Times noting this week that they “based it on the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

Signed in Rome on November 4, 1950, Britain was the first signatory to the Convention, which came into force on September 3, 1953. Its governing court was established January 21, 1959.

After announcing the Rwanda deportation policy in April, Johnson told the Daily Mail in May—in an intervention designed to throw “red meat” policies to his right-wing base and shore up his leadership—that 50 people had been given “notices of intent” to be flown to the East African country within two weeks. Johnson pledged then that the government would “dig in for the fight… We’ve got a huge flowchart of things we have to do to deal with… the Leftie lawyers.”

As it became clear on Monday that a number of those served with notices had successfully challenged their removal orders, leading Tory Brexiteer Peter Bone said in Parliament, “We hear that a number of the people who were to be on the flight to Rwanda tomorrow have somehow—miraculously—got some leftie lawyer to intervene and stop it. May I suggest… that instead of booking 50 people on to each flight to Rwanda, he books 250 people so that, when half the people are stopped from travelling, we would still have a full flight? Come on—get on and send them.”

The response to the ruling has been even more demented. On the WhatsApp group of “Common Sense Conservatives”, which represents at least 72 backbench right-wingers, one message immediately following the ECHR intervention read, “It’s time we kicked these bastards into touch. For once I won’t apologise for my French.”

Speaking in Parliament Wednesday, Home Secretary Priti Patel said the next flight to Rwanda was already being planned and that the government “will not be put off by the inevitable last-minute legal challenges, and nor will we allow mobs to block removals.” She attacked the “opaque nature” of the ECHR ruling made by an “out-of-hours judge in… Strasbourg”. Patel proclaimed the ECHR had not declared the Rwanda policy illegal, concealing the fact it has required to the government to prove the legality of its policy before any flights can be allowed.

A swathe of Tory MPs are calling for the government to just ignore the ruling with one telling the Mail that “ECHR decisions, unlike the European Court of Justice, do not have direct effect so can simply be overridden. 

“When our own courts accept something is legal we should not allow an oddly constituted international court to overrule the democratic process. We should assert Parliamentary sovereignty.”

Among those making this demand is the Tory’s Daily Telegraph house organ. It warned in Wednesday’s editorial that “Boris Johnson’s flagship migration policy risks becoming a fiasco”, concluding “It is all very well blaming the lawyers, but if there are legal impediments to the proper operation of ministers’ desired approach, including the role of overseas courts, the Government has it within its power to address them. Perhaps it ought to do so…”

Johnson is already planning to ditch the 1998 Human Rights Act, which requires UK courts to “take account” of ECHR rulings and case law. It would be replaced by a Bill of Rights scrapping this requirement.

Johnson and Patel can carry out their agenda because its faces no opposition in principle in parliament. The initial response of Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper to the ECHR ruling was a complaint that the government’s policy “isn’t workable” and “won’t tackle criminal gangs”—a line that Patel herself has used to justify the policy. The policy was also too expensive, she said, as “they still paid Rwanda £120m and hired a jet that hasn’t taken off”. Cooper told MPs on Wednesday that the Rwanda flight “shambles” was “putting our country to shame”.

Even such carefully limited opposition is raised only to gloss over the fact that Labour has no real differences with the Tories’ anti-immigration agenda. The Mail trumpeted that “while Ms Cooper was on her feet, a spokesman for [Labour leader] Sir Keir Starmer repeatedly refused to confirm it would scrap the hardline policy if the party won the next election.”

In the population, however, there is massive opposition to the Rwanda policy and scapegoating of immigrants and asylum seekers generally. Patel’s denunciation of “mobs” who “block removals” was an angry reference to the hundreds of people who protested in Peckham, south London only last Saturday, gathering in the street to block a police van attempting to take away a man arrested in an immigration raid. This is the third such spontaneous event in the space of a year after another in Hackney, London last month and an earlier popular intervention in Glasgow.

Germany’s Supreme Court strengthens far-right Alternative for Germany

Peter Schwarz

On Wednesday, Germany’s Supreme Court handed down a ruling in favour of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) that amounts to a carte blanche for future government participation by the far-right party.

The AfD had sued then-Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU, Christian Democratic Union) for publicly criticising the election of Liberal Democratic Party (FDP) politician Thomas Kemmerich as Thuringia’s state premier with the help of the AfD’s votes in February 2020.

Kemmerich, whose party had only five seats in the state parliament, was elected state premier of the eastern German state on February 5, 2020 by a three-party alliance of AfD, CDU and FDP in a surprise coup. Of the 45 votes for Kemmerich, 22 came from the AfD, which is led in Thuringia by neo-Nazi Björn Höcke.

Scene from the Thuringia parliament: Thomas Kemmerich (FDP) front left); behind him, Björn Höcke of the neo-Nazi AfD; on the far right, Left Party leader Bodo Ramelow. (Source Sandro Halank/Wikimedia)

For the first time since the end of the Third Reich, a prime minister was thus elected in a German state with the votes of a right-wing, fascist party. This triggered a storm of indignation nationwide and internationally. Merkel, who was on a foreign trip to South Africa, felt compelled to react publicly.

At a press conference with the South African president, she condemned Kemmerich’s election in a “preliminary remark for domestic political reasons.” She spoke of a “unique event” that had broken with the basic convictions of the CDU and of herself “that no majorities are to be won with the help of the AfD.” This was “unforgivable” and had to be “reversed.” His election was “a bad day for democracy.”

Three days later, Kemmerich resigned after the Thuringia CDU and the federal FDP, which had originally supported his election, withdrew their support.

Now, at the request of the AfD, the Supreme Court has ruled that Merkel’s public statement and its publication on the Chancellery’s official website violated the “right to equal opportunities for political parties” enshrined in Article 21 of the constitution. It ordered the state to reimburse the AfD for its legal costs.

Formally, the court justified its ruling in favour of the AfD on the grounds that Merkel had made her statements “in an official capacity” and not as a CDU politician or private individual. State organs—and thus also ministers and chancellors—were obliged to observe “neutrality in the political battle of opinions” and may not use “the means and opportunities associated with the office of government” for political purposes.

“Accordingly, a statement by a federal minister taking sides in the political battle of opinions violates the principle of equal opportunity of the parties and violates the integrity of the free and open process of the formation of political objectives from the people to the organs of the state,” reads the official press release explaining the ruling.

But this is legal hair-splitting, as is evident from a minority opinion by Judge Astrid Wallrabenstein. Wallrabenstein is one of three members of the eight-member Second Senate of the Supreme Court who did not support the ruling—a conflict of opinion that is rather unusual in the history of the court.

Wallrabenstein points out that government work in a party democracy is always shaped by party politics. The danger that the process of forming political objectives could be undermined is “justified precisely by the appearance of neutrality of government action.” A duty of neutrality existed only in the use of state resources, but not “in the self-representation of government activity.”

If one reads the reasoning of the judgement more closely, it becomes clear that the majority of the court meant to give carte blanche to the AfD. The ruling explicitly accuses Merkel of ruling out government alliances with the far-right party—at least for the time being.

Thus, the official press release on the ruling states that Merkel’s statement contains “negative qualifications” of the AfD. It was “not limited to an assessment of the election of the Thuringia state premier and the behaviour of the CDU members of the state parliament in this regard,” but also contained “a fundamental statement on how to deal with the applicant [the AfD] and on its position in the democratic spectrum.”

“The statement that the prime ministerial election broke with the ‘basic conviction’ that no majorities could be formed with ‘the AfD,’” the court said, “qualifies the applicant overall as a party with which any (parliamentary) cooperation is ruled out from the outset.” This assessment is reinforced by the fact that Merkel “described the process as ‘unforgivable’ and demanded that its outcome be reversed.”

And further: “By finally stating that the prime ministerial election in Thuringia was ‘a bad day for democracy,’ she made it clear that she considers the applicant’s [the AfD’s] participation in the formation of parliamentary majorities to be generally detrimental to democracy, and implicitly made an overall negative value judgement about the applicant’s ability to form coalitions and cooperate in the democratic polity.”

This was an “encroachment on the right to equal participation in the process of political decision-making.” Merkel had thus “exceeded the substantive limits of her authority to express herself, as stipulated by the neutrality requirement.” She had “taken sides against the AfD by excluding it from the circle of parties capable of forming coalitions and cooperating in the democratic spectrum.”

These words leave nothing to be desired in terms of clarity. A politician who, in an official capacity, speaks out against cooperation with a party that trivialises the Nazi dictatorship, stirs up xenophobia and is linked to a dense network of violent neo-Nazis is violating the constitution!

The Supreme Court goes even further. It concedes that in certain cases—if the “ability to act and stability of the federal government” or the “reputation of and confidence in the Federal Republic of Germany in the community of states” were threatened—the neutrality requirement does not apply. The Court added, this was not the case when Kemmerich was elected with the votes of the AfD.

The stability of the federal government, at that time a grand coalition of the CDU/CSU and SPD, had not been threatened because the Thuringian CDU’s closing of ranks with the right-wing extremists had already been condemned by other CDU politicians, such as the then party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the ruling found. And “that the election of the Minister President in Thuringia was capable of shaking the reputation of or confidence in the Federal Republic of Germany to a relevant extent, limiting its ability to act in foreign policy, was not evident,” the court states succinctly.

The WSWS has shown for years that the AfD owed its rise primarily to the policies of the other establishment parties and support from the state apparatus. It was the policy of social cuts and anti-immigration clamp-downs, pursued by all parties from the FDP to the Left Party, that made the AfD strong in the first place. The then head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (as Germany’s secret service is called), Hans-Georg Maassen, advised the AfD in private talks on how to avoid coming under surveillance by the agency.

When the AfD entered the Bundestag (federal parliament) in autumn 2017 with 92 deputies, all the other parties worked with it. By joining the grand coalition, the SPD made the AfD leader of the opposition for a legislative period. It was represented in all parliamentary committees and in this way was systematically integrated into the work of government.

After Kemmerich’s election as Minister President of Thuringia, the WSWS wrote, “The decision of the two parties [CDU and FDP] to form a ruling majority with the aid of the AfD is a historic turning point. It confirms that the ruling class in Germany is once again resorting to fascistic and authoritarian methods to implement its policies of social inequality and militarism in the face of broad popular opposition.”

Meanwhile, the AfD is in deep crisis. It has massively lost votes in the last three state elections. In Schleswig-Holstein, it has even been kicked out of a state parliament for the first time. Thousands of members have left, including long-time co-chair Jörg Meuthen. The fascist wing around Björn Höcke increasingly dominates the party.

Against this background, the ruling by the Supreme Court is an attempt to give the neo-Nazi party a new boost. AfD leader Tino Chrupalla, himself a representative of its far-right wing, cheered, “It’s a good day for democracy.” Merkel, he said, had blatantly violated the AfD’s rights and the constitution with her remarks.

The AfD is needed by the ruling class to counter the growing radicalisation of workers and young people against militarism, war and the consequences of inflation and social cuts, and to intimidate the working class.

Heat wave affecting 100 million people as extreme weather extends across United States

Bryan Dyne

One million people in the US Midwest, South and Southwest are currently suffering under a sweltering heat wave, one of the many extreme weather events that have happened across the country in the past few days. The National Weather Service has issued various heat advisories for cities and regions across the country, warning of sustained temperatures higher than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (about 38 degrees Celsius).

In cities including Chicago and Detroit, the National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning, noting that the heat index would rise to 105 degrees. In Denver, the temperature reached 100 degrees, a record for the city at this time of year, and the heat index reached 107 degrees in North Carolina. In Tucson, Arizona, temperatures reached as high as 111 degrees after warnings that the temperature could rise as high as 115 degrees.

At these temperatures, it is dangerous for anybody to be outside for any amount of time as the temperature and humidity can produce rapid heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Heat waves kill more people than any other extreme weather event every year and killed 1,577 people in the US last year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a 56 percent increase from 2018. There have been as of this writing no reported deaths from the ongoing heat wave.

The current extreme temperatures are up to 30 degrees above normal for this time of year, caused by a shift in the jet stream that brought an immense amount of warm air over a majority of the country. The “heat dome” began in the western part of the country at the end of last week and has since moved and expanded east and north. High temperatures are expected to persist in parts of the country for at least the rest of the week, particularly in the Southwest.

High heat and winds have also produced numerous early-season wildfires in Arizona, New Mexico and Alaska. There are currently 38 active large fires, according to the National Interagency Fire Center: six in Arizona, six in New Mexico, three in California and 23 in Alaska. Fires in the US to date have burned 2.8 million acres, nearly three times as much as they had to this date in 2021 and more than twice the average. The amount of fires and the acres burned so far this year exceed any amount in the past 10 years, including the explosive fire seasons in 2017 and 2018.

At the same time, numerous storms have ripped through many of the same areas now experiencing the heat wave. In Chicago, for example, 85 mph winds, tornado-like conditions and hail left at least 44,000 people without power on Monday. Similarly powerful storms knocked out power in Western Michigan and Ohio, leaving tens of thousands without power to cool and protect themselves from the stifling temperatures.

The storm systems also struck elsewhere in the country. One of the worst tragedies caused by these events was the death of 10-year-old Muhammad Arman bin Rashidula in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. First responders have confirmed that the child died after being swept into a drainage ditch during a flash flood on Monday. Witness reports indicate that he slipped into a drainage ditch leading into the Kinnickinnic River.

Two adults that attempted to rescue him are missing and presumed dead. According to the city’s fire department, they are the child’s father and a neighbor, who entered the river in an attempt to rescue him. All three were reportedly taken by the currents caused by the day’s heavy rains and dragged at least two miles. Search efforts by first responders and local residents are ongoing to locate the father and neighbor as water levels and strong currents have receded.

A section of Yellowstone National Park's northeast entrance road was completely washed out. (Credit: National Parks Service/Jacob W. Frank)

Record flooding has also occurred in Yellowstone National Park in northwestern Wyoming and southern Montana. Helicopter footage taken by the National Parks Service shows that high water levels eroded and collapsed many parts of the road that makes up the park’s northern entrance. Numerous bridges in the park, as well as lodging for some of the park’s hundreds of workers, were also swept away in the current.

Other roads also suffered significant damage, some from erosion and others from mud and rock slides caused by the heavy rainfall. The entire park was closed on Tuesday, and its visitors—from those visiting the main attractions, such as the Old Faithful geyser to those camping in Yellowstone’s back country—were evacuated. The park remains closed, and over the next few weeks, visitors have been warned to check updates and possibly modify their travel plans. In addition, the northern entrance will remain closed for repairs for at least the remainder of the year.

At the same time, numerous towns in southern Montana suffered massive flood damage. The unincorporated community of Gardiner, just outside Yellowstone’s northern entrance, was isolated after flooding destroyed bridges and washed out every road leading into and out of the town. While a road was cleared by crews Tuesday for local traffic and rescue crews, steady power and potable water remain a critical issue. Damage to other highways in the area also left people stranded in similar situations in Mammoth and Cooke City.

In other parts of Montana, residents were forced to evacuate as flash floods caused by warm rainfall falling on late season snowpack destroyed significant parts of Red Lodge and Livingston. And in Billings, a 500-year flooding event forced the city’s water plant to shut down, leaving the city with “between a day to a day-and-a-half of water supply,” according to the city government. It is estimated that it will be weeks, possibly months, before the areas affected will be fully restored.

There is also a possibility of further flooding. “Plan on highs in the 60s to 70s in the higher elevations [Friday and Saturday], which should melt much of the remaining snowpack and lead to additional river rises,” the National Weather Service warned Tuesday.

That so many dangerous extreme weather events have happened at the same time is a direct result of man-made climate change. The dynamics of the jet stream have been linked to global warming, which in turn creates heat domes in the summer and “polar vortexes” in the winter. The sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change demonstrated that extreme weather—from wildfires, to more intense storms, flash floods and harsh winter storms—are caused by rising global average temperatures induced by capitalist industrial and agricultural activity.

As losses mount in war with Russia, US floods Ukraine with weapons

Andre Damon

With the Ukrainian military losing territory and taking hundreds of casualties every day, the United States has made clear that it will only intensify its involvement in the war.

In a press briefing Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley said the United States would provide another $1 billion in weapons to Ukraine, including additional long-range missile systems.

The two officials explained that not only are high-end US weapons systems being funneled into Ukraine, but hundreds of Ukrainian forces are being directly trained by the US.

Milley made clear that the US military is training long-range missile crews by the platoon in Germany and added, “By the end of this month, we will transfer HIMARs systems, ammunition and trained crews for operational use in the defense of Ukraine.”

U.S. Secretary for Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, left, and U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley participate in a media conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, June 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Olivier Matthys)

Explaining the significant scale of US training of Ukrainian forces, Milley said, “To date, we have trained 420 Ukrainians on the M777 howitzer, 300 Ukrainians on the self-propelled M109 [howitzer], 129 on the M113 armored personnel carrier, 100 on unmanned aerial systems, and 60 most recently graduated today on the [High Mobility Artillery Rocket System].”

Milley and Austin were speaking at a joint meeting of over 50 countries participating in the US-led war against Russia known as the Defense Contact Group.

At the news conference after the meeting, Austin said the latest weapons package would include “multiple launch rocket system munitions, 18 more 155 mm M777 towed howitzers and the tactical vehicles to tow them, and 36,000 rounds of 155 mm ammunition.”

He added, “This package also includes $650 million in Ukraine security assistance initiative funds that will help Ukraine defend itself with two additional Harpoon Coastal Defense Systems and thousands of secure radios, night vision devices, thermal sights and other optics.”

Austin said Germany would provide three multiple-launch rocket systems and guided MLRS munitions to Ukraine and that “Slovakia announced a significant donation of MI-series helicopters and urgently needed rocket ammunition.”

In the face of questions by reporters on whether US weapons shipments were sufficient to turn the tide of the war, Milley boasted that the US and its allies had delivered nearly 100,000 anti-tank systems, “That’s more than there are tanks in the world.

“They asked for 200 tanks; they got 237 tanks,” he continued. “They asked for 100 infantry fighting vehicles; they got over 300. We’ve delivered, roughly speaking, 1,600 or so air defense systems and about 60,000 air defense rounds.”

He added, “We have also provided over 1,500 Stingers, more than 700 Switchblade tactical unmanned aerial systems, 20 Mi-17 and thousands of small arms and hundreds of thousands of small arms ammunition.”

But while talking up the US weapons shipments into Ukraine, the generals could not deny the objective military setbacks the US proxy conflict was experiencing. Asked by a reporter to comment on media reports that “Ukraine is taking 100 killed and 100 or 200 or 300 wounded per day,” Milley replied, “I would say those are in the ballpark of our assessments.”

Milley admitted, “In terms of artillery, they do outnumber, they out-gun and out-range.” He added, “[t]he Russians do outnumber—in terms of artillery, they outnumber the Ukrainians. The estimate varies, some say four, five, six to one, others say 10, 15 to one, others say 20 to one.”

He further acknowledged the disastrous impact of the war on the Ukrainian population, noting that, “according to public estimates, some 20,000 Ukrainians civilians have been killed,” and that 7 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced with 6 million made refugees.

The US announcement of more weapon deliveries and military training for Ukraine came after a series of warnings of the setbacks facing the war effort. 

In a front-page article entitled “A Link to Besieged Ukrainians Is Cut, as Allies Question Strategy” by Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Eric Schmitt, the New York Times wrote, “Ukraine has been largely reduced to harrying the better-equipped invader, making each patch of ground as bloody for it to win as possible, but failing in recent weeks to secure any decisive victories, and losing many of its own soldiers and citizens in the process.

“Some Western officials say Mr. Zelensky may not have a viable strategy to win the war. The Ukrainians have had some success fighting at relatively close ranges, and the Russians have countered by relying on their immense advantage in longer-range artillery and missiles, pounding cities and towns to rubble before sending in troops.

“But a war of attrition—Ukraine has been losing as many as 200 soldiers a day in the fighting—favors Russia for the simple reason that it has more soldiers to lose. … [t]he remarkable initial unity in response to Russia’s invasion seems to be fraying among the Western allies who have shipped weapons to Ukraine and imposed a broad array of financial sanctions on Russia.”

Despite such warnings, the United States is stepping up its involvement in the war, with no end in sight, at a massive cost to the American population and Ukrainian and Russian lives.

And media pundits continue to demand further escalation. In a column entitled “Five Blunt Truths About the War in Ukraine,” Times columnist Bret Stephens demanded that the United States take “calculated risks,” including, “to challenge the Russian maritime blockade of Odesa by escorting cargo ships to and from the port,” despite the fact that this “could result in close encounters between NATO and Russian warships,” i.e., a naval battle.

In all of these discussions among media and foreign policy pundists, US involvement in the war in Ukraine is placed within the framework of a looming US war with China. Stephens concludes, “But if the war ends with Putin comfortably in power and Russia in possession of a fifth of Ukraine, then Beijing will draw the lesson that aggression works. And we will have a fight over Taiwan—with its overwhelming human and economic toll—much sooner than we think.”

A column in the Wall Street Journal made exactly the same point: “If Ukraine is ultimately defeated, the lesson for America’s adversaries, China most important, will be clear: If you stick with it over the long term, the U.S. won’t take the tough, costly measures required to win.”

In other words, the United States has massively invested not only money and weapons but also its political and military credibility against other adversaries in the outcome of the proxy war in Ukraine with Russia. Every military setback by Ukraine’s army and paramilitary forces on the battlefield only intensifies pressure for greater and more direct US military involvement, making the situation all the more dangerous.

Fed hikes interest rate to crush wage demands

Nick Beams

The US Federal Reserve has raised its base interest rate by 0.75 percentage points (75 basis points) with the aim of hitting wage demands by workers battling against the highest inflation in four decades.

The increase was in line with market expectations following an article in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, based on a leak, that the large hike was under consideration after it had been specifically ruled out at the Fed’s previous meeting of its policy-making committee in May.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies before the Senate Banking Committee hearing, Thursday, March 3, 2022 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Tom Williams, Pool via AP)

In his opening remarks to the press conference at the conclusion of the two-day Fed meeting yesterday, chair Jerome Powell sought to give the impression the central bank was in control despite the about turn.

He said the Fed understood the hardship high inflation was causing and was moving expeditiously to bring it back down. “We have both the tools we need and the resolve it will take to restore price stability on behalf of American families and businesses.”

But this assertion was contradicted in the statement of the Federal Open Market Committee announcing the monetary policy. It removed a sentence in the May statement which said officials expected inflation to return to 2 percent and the labour market would remain strong as it increased interest rates.

Asked about the excision, Powell said it reflected the sense that the Fed could not reduce inflation to 2 percent by itself and was not accurate.

This admission served to highlight that the Fed’s latest decision is not about reducing inflation—the result of supply side constrictions flowing from the COVID-19 pandemic, the pumping of trillions of dollars into the financial system over the past decade and a half and the NATO proxy war against Russia—but is aimed at suppressing wage demands.

Powell repeated remarks, made on many previous occasions, that the labour market was “very tight.”

He indicated that the impetus for the decision to lift rates by 75 basis points—the biggest single hike since 1994—resulted from two reports at the end of last week.

The confidence survey compiled by the University of Michigan indicated consumer sentiment had fallen to its lowest level on record on the back of concerns inflation was becoming anchored and the report last Friday it had jumped to 8.6 percent in May.

The decision, comments by Powell, and projections by Fed officials on growth rates make it clear the central bank intends to try to crush this movement by slowing economic growth and pushing the economy into a recession if that proves necessary.

When inflation began to rise in 2021, Powell and other Fed officials maintained it was “transitory.” Now this fiction is being replaced by one equally as bogus, that there is the possibility of a so-called “soft landing.”

But, as former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers has insisted, interest rates are a blunt instrument, and incapable producing a smooth glide path.

Even Powell was forced to backtrack somewhat, saying the path to a soft landing without a recession “is not getting any easier” as it was becoming clear that “many factors that we don’t control are going to play a very significant role in deciding whether it’s possible or not.”

But the use of the blunt instrument of interest rate hikes had to continue regardless.

“The worst mistake we can make would be to fail, which is not an option. We have to restore price stability,” he said.

That is, wages are the key target and, as Powell put in his opening statement, “supply and demand conditions in the labour market” need to “come into better balance.”

He noted that at present there were two job vacancies for every person seeking employment and the goal was to restore the conditions prior to the pandemic. This was a situation in which real wages were in continual decline.

There are already indications of lower growth. Powell noted that growth in fixed business investment is slowing and “activity in the housing sector looks to be softening.” He maintained that consumer spending remained strong, but the latest reports indicate that retail sales are starting to move down because consumers have less disposable income to spend in the face of the rising costs of gasoline and other essential items.

In their projections on the economy, Fed officials forecast lower growth. Their median prediction was for growth to slow to 1.7 percent by the end of this year and to stay at that level in 2023. This compares with their previous forecast in March of 2 percent growth over the next two years.

Projections by officials on interest rates—the so-called “dot plot”—reveal a sharp rise in the Fed rate.

The median projection would lift the Fed’s base rate to around 3.38 percent by the end of year, meaning there will be further increases totaling 1.75 percentage points over the next four meetings. Back in March, the projection for the end of the year was for a base rate of around 1.88 percent. Officials also expect the unemployment rate to rise from its present level of 3.6 percent to 4.1 percent by 2024.

Announcing the decision, Powell said he did not expect moves of this size to be common and added that the decision at the Fed’s July meeting “could well be about a decision between 50 and 75” basis points.

This was intended as a reassurance to the markets that rises as high as a full 1 percentage point, which have been mooted in some quarters, were not under consideration. Wall Street duly responded with all three major indexes—the Dow, S&P 500, and the NASDAQ—finishing up for the day.

But there was a similar response in May when Powell said a 75-basis point rise was “not something the committee was actively considering” only to fall sharply the following day.

Besides its impact in the US, the latest Fed decision will have far-reaching international ramifications, putting additional pressure on all central banks to continue and even accelerate the interest rate hikes they have already begun in response to the global inflationary upsurge.

This week, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Philp Lowe, warned that more interest rate hikes were in the pipeline, following a rise of 0.5 percentage points earlier this month. It was “unclear at the moment” how much further they would need to rise to reach the target of 2 percent inflation, with Lowe forecasting that inflation could rise from its present level of 5.1 percent to 7 percent.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is also facing a series of problems. As the Fed delivered its rate hike, it held an emergency meeting seeking to counter fears that it is on the verge of another debt crisis as it begins to lift interest rates in July and stops buying more bonds.

The decision to call the meeting came only a week after the ECB’s governing council had met to set its monetary policy and was the first such gathering since the March 2020 financial crisis at the start of the pandemic.

The central concern is so-called “fragmentation” in which the interest rates on the sovereign bonds of the more indebted southern members of the euro zone move sharply above rates on German bonds.

The difference between the interest rates on Italian and Spanish bonds and German debt has risen to levels not seen since the start of the pandemic. The fear is that if this continues it will lead to a crisis for the single currency as occurred in 2012.

Announcing the meeting, the ECB said the pandemic had left “lasting vulnerabilities in the euro area economy.” It said it would speed up work on developing a new instrument to deal with the surging borrowing costs for the weaker economies but provided no detail of what that would involve.