Are We About to Witness the Last Battle of the Syrian War?

Robert Fisk

Will it be the Last Battle? For three years, Idlib has been the dumping ground for all of Syria’s retreating Islamist militias, the final redoubt of every combatant who has chosen to fight on, rather than surrender to the Syrian army and the Russian air force – and to Hezbollah and, to a far smaller degree, the Iranians.

Brigadier general Suheil al-Hassan, the “Tiger” of Syrian military legend and myth – who can quote the poet Mutanabi by heart but prefers to be compared to Erwin Rommel rather than Bernard Montgomery – will surely take his “Tiger Forces” with him for the final reckoning between the Damascus regime and the Salafist-inspired and western-armed Islamists who dared to try, and very definitely failed, to destroy Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

Thanks to Donald Trump, it’s all over for the “rebels” of Syria because they have been betrayed by the Americans – surely and finally by Trump himself in those secret discussions with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, perhaps the most important of the “unknowns” of that translators-only chat – as they have by the Gulf Arabs.

Three weeks earlier, the Americans had told the rebels of southwestern Syria below the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that they were on their own, and could expect no more military assistance. Even the White Helmets, the first-responder heroes or propagandists of the rebel war (take your pick, but be sure they will soon be described as “controversial”) have been rescued with their families from the rebel lines by the Israelis and dispatched to safety in Jordan.

The Israelis are a bit miffed that they weren’t thanked by the White Helmets’ civil defence units for their humanitarian assistance – but what do they expect when they spent their time attacking Iranian, Hezbollah and Syrian forces during the war, supplying medical aid to the Nusrah Islamist fighters who came to their lines and never – ever – bombed Isis? Do the White Helmets want to be associated with Israel right now?

But the Israelis got what they really wanted: a Russian promise that the Iranians will stay far away from the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan plateau. It’s all a bit odd, since there are precious few Iranian troops in Syria – and you can forget the humbug from the Washington “experts” – but it fits in with Benjamin Netanyahu’s morbid and theatrical conviction that Iran is “a noose of terror” round Israel’s neck. In any event, Putin knows a thing or two about the Syrian war: bombs talk, but so does cash.

For why else has Putin just announced a $50bn (£38bn) dollar Russian investment in Iran’s oil and gas industry? Isn’t this simply a downpayment for Iran’s past investment in Syria’s war? A “thank you but you can go now” gift from Moscow in return for a, no doubt, triumphal march-past in Tehran of Iran’s returning “victorious” forces, back from their Islamic revolutionary duties in Syria?

After meeting Putin in the Kremlin less than two weeks ago, Ali Akbar Velayati, “Supreme Leader” Khamenei’s senior adviser on foreign affairs, agreed that their talks “focused on Russian-Iranian cooperation … as well as the situation in the region, including developments in Syria”. And there you have it. Iran’s economy is propped up, but it’s got its Syrian marching orders from Putin.

None too soon for the Iranians, no doubt. It was quite a shock for me to see the rich and wealthier middle class Iranians flooding into Belgrade this past month, bringing their cash and treasures to the west through one of the few European countries still permitting visa-free entry for the sanctioned Iranians. Cheap flights from Tehran and other Iranian cities are landing daily in Serbia, and Belgrade’s hotels are packed with Farsi-speaking guests, all set – presumably – for new lives in the west. The European Union, needless to say, is threatening the Belgrade president that if he doesn’t block the profitable Iranian “tourists”, it will end the no-visa travel which Serbian citizens enjoy in the rest of Europe.

Meanwhile the Syrian army, fighting the last no-surrender Islamist groups around Deraa, will also return to the edge of the United Nations buffer zone on Golan where it was based before the civil war began in 2011. In other words, the “Southern Front” will be resolved, leaving only the Idlib Redoubt and the city of Raqqa which remains in the hands of militias who are still loyal – if they can be expected to be much longer, given the fact that Trump is ratting on them – to the US. Putin can probably solve this problem, if he hasn’t already done so in his Trump pow-wow.

But Idlib is a bigger deal. No doubt, we shall see further Russian-sponsored “reconciliation” talks between the Syrian authorities and the rebel groups inside the province. There will be agreements, private and public, whereby those who wish to return to government-controlled territory may do so. But given the fact that Idlib contains those Islamists and their families who earlier rejected such offers in other cities – many of them were bussed from Ghouta and Yarmouk in Damascus and from Homs and other towns where they surrendered, directly to Idlib province – their future looks pretty bleak.

We all like wars to have a “final battle”, of course. Jerusalem and Baghdad – strangely enough – were the only enemy “capital” cities invaded by the Allies during the First World War. And we know that the fall of Berlin to the Russians ended the European bit of the Second World War. We’ll leave out the fall of Saigon for obvious reasons (the wrong side won), and the various Middle East “capital” conquests (Jerusalem in 1967, Beirut in 1982, Kuwait in 1990, Baghdad in 2003), because they all left bloody legacies which continue to this day.

But we should remember one thing. The Syrian army is used to pitch battles. So is the Russian air force. Certainly, Nusrah’s siege of the government-held Jisr al-Shugour military hospital in Idlib – and the massacre of many of its army defenders and their families three years ago – is unlikely to be forgotten when the last battle begins. Moscow is not going to welcome any Islamists “home” to Chechnya. And Ankara will not want to scatter Idlib’s veterans across the plains of Anatolia – especially when Erdogan is still obsessed with an attempted “Islamist” coup two years ago, tens of thousands of whose alleged supporters still languish in Turkey’s luxurious prisons.

The west is certainly not going to help. There’s the old UN donkey, I suppose, which could be led into Idlib on a “temporary” peace-keeping mission – but that will not commend itself to a Syrian president who intends to return every square kilometre of the country to the regime’s exclusive control. An even tinier dumping ground might be available if the rebels of Idlib are shunted into the northern enclave of Afrin – already largely controlled and populated by Turkey’s erstwhile friends from Isis. Certainly, the west won’t want the detritus of the Islamist army which it helped to arm. Political asylum for the White Helmets is likely to be the full extent of its generosity, along with the usual aid to refugees.

But we must also remember that those nations which have so long sought the overthrow of Assad will now be trying – ever so slowly – to reestablish some form of relationship with the regime in Damascus. French diplomats, speak it not, have been taking tourist trips in and out of Syria from Lebanon for almost a year. So have discrete envoys from other European nations. The Americans will want to play their own little role – Trump-like and weird as it may be – and there, at this critical moment, Putin will be on hand.

But what of the five million Syrian refugees whose host countries – European, of course, but also Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Egypt – would dearly love them to go “home”. And therein lies, perhaps, the clue to this “end of war”.

The Russians are ready to supply guarantees of safe passage home to refugees – what these promises are worth remains an open question when many thousands of the homeless are fearful of the regime – and Moscow’s men are reported to have already arrived in Lebanon, which hosts up to a million and a half Syrians, to chat about the logistics. Gulf Arabs – particularly Qatar – are said to be interested in financially rebuilding Syria. So if they won’t surrender militarily, can the Idlib “rebels” be bought off? Not least by the Arab nations which supported them in the first place. These are early days. But all wars come to an end. And that’s where history restarts.

Dalit women struggle in Pakistan

Sheshu Babu

As election results are almost declared, Pakistan is entering new phase of governanc under a new premier. Hindus comprise about 1.85% of Pakistan population ( wikipedia.org and as of 2010, it had fifth largest hindu population in the world. Pakistan census separates scheduled castes from the main body of hindu population who constitute a further 0.25% of national population. Thus, dalits constitute significant numbers in the population of Pakistan. More than 85% of hindus are dalits according to Chander Kumar, activist ( Pakistan dalits in peril, published 24 March 2012,countercurrents) and they have been living for over 5000 years in Pakistan.

Bad situation

Chander Kumar analysed the plight of dalits citing work done by the Royal Mandate of the Dalit Development Programme. Several members of Dalit Programme identified the problems faced by dalits in Pakistan viz caste discrimination, lack of education, technical skills, water shortage, overwhelming of the community engaged in hard labor and manual work etc.

They are also facing hardships from dominant muslim community. Both hindu upper castes and muslim majority overlook them and do not address their problems on political stage . Dalits in Pakistan remain in severe state.

Struggles with ruling community

Dalits have tried to take on patriarchy in hindu community and people of their own community as in India . Dalits had to counter Muslim domination. They are struggling to come out of the narrowminded peoples . The usual struggles in pakistan against mass tyranny from dominant muslims continued till recent times.

Dalits enter politics

Krishna Kumari became the first woman from Kohili community of hindus to be elected as a senator through Pakistan Peoples party ticket. (Pakistani Hindu senator from ‘ untouchables ‘ rejects caste by KHUNWAR KHULDUNE SHAHID, March 6, 2018, www.atimes.com). She is the second hindu woman after Ratna Bhagwan Chawla but first one from ‘dalit ‘ community. She is a human rights activist. Talking to Asia Times , she said that discrimination of dalits exist in India and not in ‘ . She abhors being labelled a dalit and insists that she would work for all hindu and muslim backward people in the area.

Though there may not be stark caste discrimination as in India, the dalits in Pakistan also face problems. Since all the hindu community is being persecuted by the rulers, differences between castes in hindus of Pakistan may remain dormant. Other senators of hindu community also condemned the tag of ‘ untouchable ‘ being labelled at her.

Meanwhile, two dalit women Radha Bheel and Lelan Lohar contested as independents candidates from Mirpur Khas district of Sindh . (This Pak elections, Hindu Dalit Women Brandish A Pencil For Rights, by AHMED SAEED and Umer Bin Ajmal, posted 24, July,18, thequaint.com ). In 2016, Bheel, alongwith some other members of dalit community started a movement called Dalit Sujaag Tehreek (DST) to highlight the conditions of backward classes.

Contrary to Krishna Kumari views, Radha Bheel feels that dalit community are being discriminated against. She says that though dalits are in a majority, tickets are given mostly to upper castes candidates. ‘……..No party focusses on the issues we are facing …’

She says. Lohar says her real fight is with feudal lords and points out that she was threatened and asked to withdraw or face grave consequences. She was married at very early age and one of her daughter died due to ill- treatment of in- laws after getting married at a young age.

There are others who filed papers for the elections. Some are contesting from general seats. Even differently abled Ansoo Kohili is aspiring. She rose to fame for starting a school at her cattle shed. ( Zulfiqar Kunbhar, posted June 12, 2018, dailytimes.com). After Sunita Parmer, five more dalit women have come forward to contest. They all are not satisfied with selection of candidates from upper castes.

Though the results may or may not reflect the victories of these women, their courage to contest should be appreciated. In a Muslim dominated country, dalit women are taking the cudgels to fight theocracy of the dominant religion as well as caste conflict in hindu community. Dalit power is becoming a potent force in Pakistan.

India Mortgaged? Forced-Fed Illness and the Neoliberal Food Regime

Colin Todhunter

Like many countries, India’s food system was essentially clean just a generation or two ago but is now being comprehensively contaminated with sugar, bad fats, synthetic additives, GMOs and pesticides under the country’s neoliberal ‘great leap forward’. The result has been a surge in obesity, diabetes and cancer incidence, while there has been no let-up in the under-nutrition of those too poor to join in the over-consumption.

Indian government data indicates that cancer showed a 5% increase in prevalence between 2012 and 2014 with the number of new cases doubling between 1990 and 2013. The incidence of cancer for some major organs in India is the highest in the world.

The increase in prevalence of diabetes is also worrying. By 2030, the number of diabetes patients in India is likely to rise to 101 million (World Health Organization estimate). The figure doubled to 63 million in 2013 from 32 million in 2000. Over 8% of the adult male population in India has diabetes. The figure is 7% for women. Almost 76,000 men and 52,000 women in the 30-69 age group in India died due to diabetes in 2015, according to the WHO.

A study in The Lancet from a couple of years ago found that India leads the world in underweight people. Some 102 million men and 101 million women are underweight, which makes the country home to over 40% of the global underweight population.

Contrast this with India’s surge in obesity. In 1975, the country had 0.4 million obese men or 1.3% of the global obese men’s population. In 2014, it was in fifth position globally with 9.8 million obese men or 3.7% of the global obese men’s population. Among women, India is globally ranked third, with 20 million obese women or 5.3% of global population.

According to India’s 2015–16 National Family Health Survey, 38% of under-5s are stunted (height is significantly low for their age). The survey also stated that 21% under-5s are significantly underweight for their height, a sign of recent acute hunger. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world; at the same time, the country is fast becoming the diabetes and heart disease capital of the world.

India’s mineral deficient soils haven’t helped. This has been made worse by Green Revolution practices. Green Revolution crops, unlike their predecessors, fail to adequately take up minerals such as iron and zinc from the soil. So even though people might consume more calories (possibly leading to obesity), their intake of these key micronutrients has fallen. A quarter of the world’s population are affected by Green Revolution iron deficiency and research indicates that the condition impairs the learning ability of more than half of India’s schoolchildren.

Many of the older crops carried dramatically higher counts of nutrients per calorie. The amount of cereal each person must therefore consume to fulfil daily dietary requirements has gone up. For instance, the iron content of millet is four times that of rice. Oats carry four times more zinc than wheat. As a result, between 1961 and 2011, the protein, zinc and iron contents of the world’s directly consumed cereals declined by 4%, 5% and 19%, respectively.

While it is true that many other factors, including pollution, poor sanitation, working and living conditions, lack of income and economic distress, lack of access to healthcare and poverty, contribute to ill health and disease, a range of conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, certain cancers and obesity, have all been linked to modern food production and diets.

‘Free trade’ and poor health

To improve health, lifestyle change is often promoted, as if poor health is a matter of individual responsibility and personal choice. This message conveniently sidesteps wider issues concerning the global capitalist food regime and how our access to food is shaped.

If we look at the North American Free Trade Agreement, we can see how the subsequent flood of cheap US processed food into Mexico adversely affected the health of ordinary people. Western ‘convenience’ (junk) food has displaced more traditional-based diets and is now readily available in every neighbourhood. Increasing rates of diabetes, obesity and other health issues have followed. This report by GRAIN describes how US agribusiness and retailers have captured the market south of the border and outlines the subsequent negative impact on the health of Mexican people. This could be what is in store for India.

Western agribusiness, food processing companies and retail concerns are gaining wider entry into India and through various strategic trade deals are looking to gain a more significant footprint within the country. The opening of the food and retail sector to more foreign direct investment and the US-India Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture (see page 13 here) have raised serious concerns about the stranglehold that transnational corporations could have on the agriculture and food sectors.

We can already see one outcome in the edible oils sector. India was virtually self-sufficient in edible oils up till the mid-1990s, using healthy practices to extract oil from for example indigenous mustard, linseed, ground nut and sesame, all of which are deeply rooted in Indian culture. Due to the unscrupulous undermining of the indigenous edible oil seeds sector  and the influx of cheap subsidised imports, some 70% of the population now consumes a narrower range of oils, not least (rain forest-destroying) palm oil and (GM) soy, processed using unhealthy solvents. To facilitate this, thousands of small-scale food oil processing enterprises were put out of business to make way for grain trader and food processor company Cargill, whose role in drawing up health and safety rules was instrumental in driving the competition out of business.

It is part of the wider push by the global industrial food processing lobby to impose standardised, less nutrient-rich products and manufacturing processes along with unhealthy fats, sugars and chemical additives – courtesy of compliant regulators and policy makers in India – in order to consolidate its grip on the country’s food base. As with the edible oils sector, it entails displacing more diverse, indigenous foodstuffs and healthy low-input food production processes, while robbing hundreds of thousands of their livelihoods.

We not only have Wal-Mart making inroads to complete the global food regime chain from seed to plate in India, but Western style fast-food outlets have already been soaring in number throughout the country. For example, Pizza Hut now operates in 46 Indian cities with 181 restaurants and 132 home delivery locations (2016). KFC is in 73 cities with 296 restaurants, a 770% increase over five years. According to a study published in the Indian Journal of Applied Research, the Indian fast food market is growing at the rate of 30-35% per annum (see this).

Heart disease, liver damage, stroke, obesity and diabetes are just some of the diseases linked to diets revolving around processed ‘convenience’ food. Frequent consumption of this food has been associated with increased body mass index as well as higher intakes of fat, sodium, added sugars and sugar-sweetened beverages and lower intakes of fruits, vegetables, fibre and milk in children, adolescents and adults.

Modern processed food also tends to have higher energy densities and poorer nutritional quality than foods prepared at home and in comparison with dietary recommendations (see this). To further appreciate just how unhealthy today’s food is, a 2015 report in the Guardian reveals the cocktails of additives, colourants and preservatives that the industry adds to our food.

Moreover, in many regions across the globe industrialised factory farming has replaced traditional livestock agriculture. For example, just 40 years ago the Philippines’ entire population was fed on native eggs and chickens produced by family farmers. Now, most of those farmers are out of business.

As world trade rules encourage nations from imposing tariffs on subsidised imported products, they are compelled to allow cheap, factory-farmed US meat into the country. These products are then sold at lower prices than domestic meat. There is therefore pressure for local producers to scale up and industrialise to compete.

Factory farms increase the risk of pathogens like E coli and salmonella that cause food-borne illness in people. Overuse of antibiotics can fuel the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the use of arsenic and growth hormones can increase the risk of cancer in people, and crowded conditions can be a breeding ground for disease.

The Modi administration’s restrictions on cow slaughter – making it difficult for many livestock farmers to operate – are regarded by some as a tool to facilitate the running down of small-scale livestock farming, paving the way for the industrialisation and corporatisation of the livestock industry.

Green Revolution, micronutrient-deficient soil and human health

We often hear unsubstantiated claims about the green revolution having saved hundreds of millions of lives, but any short-term gains in productivity have been offset. This high-input chemical-intensive model helped the drive towards greater monocropping and has resulted in less diverse diets and less nutritious foods. Its long-term impact has led to soil degradation and mineral imbalances, which in turn have adversely affected human health (see this informative report on India by botanist Stuart Newton – p.9 onward).

Adding weight to this argument, the authors of this paper from the International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development state:

“Cropping systems promoted by the green revolution have increased the food production but also resulted in reduced food-crop diversity and decreased availability of micronutrients. Micronutrient malnutrition is causing increased rates of chronic diseases (cancer, heart diseases, stroke, diabetes and osteoporosis) in many developing nations; more than 3 billion people are directly affected by the micronutrient deficiencies. Unbalanced use of mineral fertilizers and a decrease in the use of organic manure are the main causes of the nutrient deficiency in the regions where the cropping intensity is high.”

India might now be self-sufficient in various staples, but many of these foodstuffs are high calorie low nutrient, have led to the displacement of more nutritionally diverse cropping systems and have effectively mined the soil of nutrients. The importance of renowned agronomist William Albrecht, who died in 1974, should not be overlooked here and his work on healthy soils and healthy people.

In this respect, botanist Stuart Newton’s states:

“The answers to Indian agricultural productivity is not that of embracing the international, monopolistic, corporate-conglomerate promotion of chemically-dependent GM crops… India has to restore and nurture her depleted, abused soils and not harm them any further, with dubious chemical overload, which are endangering human and animal health.” (p24).

India is losing 5,334 million tonnes of soil every year due to soil erosion because of the indiscreet and excessive use of fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research reports that soil is become deficient in nutrients and fertility.

Newton provides insight into the importance of soils and their mineral compositions and links their depletion to the ‘green revolution’. In turn, these depleted soils cannot help but lead to mass malnourishment. This is quite revealing given that proponents of the Green Revolution claim it helped reduced malnutrition. Newton favours a system of agroecology, a sound understanding of soil and the eradication of poisonous chemical inputs.

Although this system is certainly gaining traction in India – there are encouraging signs for agroecological farming in places like Andhra and Karnataka – what we are also seeing is GMOs illegally creeping into the food system. Recent reports show GMOs are in commonly used food products and GM seeds are prevalent. The fear is that approval by contamination is what the GM industry has desired all along.

There are well-documented economic, environmental, ethical, social and health implications associated with GM. And unlike the Green Revolution, once the GM genie is out of the bottle, it can’t be put back in and the changes to the genetic core of the world’s food will be the legacy bequeathed to subsequent generations.

Pesticides, food and the environment

There are currently 34,000 pesticides registered for use in the US. Drinking water is often contaminated by pesticides and more babies are being born with preventable birth defects due to pesticide exposure.

Illnesses are on the rise too, including asthma, autism and learning disabilities, birth defects and reproductive dysfunction, diabetes, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases and several types of cancer. The association with pesticide exposure is becoming stronger with each new study.

In Punjab, pesticide run-offs into water sources have turned the state into a ‘cancer epicentre‘. India is one of the world’s largest users of pesticides and a profitable market for the corporations that manufacture them. Ladyfinger, cabbage, tomato and cauliflower in particular may contain dangerously high levels because farmers tend to harvest them almost immediately after spraying. Fruit and vegetables are sprayed and tampered with to make them more colourful, and harmful fungicides are sprayed on fruit to ripen them in order to rush them off to market.

Research by the School of Natural Sciences and Engineering (SNSE) at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore has indicated disturbing trends in the increased use of pesticide. In 2008, it reported that many crops for export had been rejected internationally due to high pesticide residues. Moreover, India is one of the largest users of World Health Organization (WHO) ‘Class 1A’ pesticides, which are extremely hazardous.

Research by SNSE shows farmers use a cocktail of pesticides and often use three to four times the recommended amounts. It may come as no surprise that a recent report about children in Hyderabad are consuming 10 to 40 more times pesticides in their food than kids in the US.

Forced-fed development

In 1978, T.N. Reddy predicted in the book ‘India Mortgaged’ that the country would one day open all sectors to foreign direct investment and surrender economic sovereignty to imperialist powers.

Today, the US-led West, clings to a moribund form of capitalism and has used various mechanisms in the face of economic stagnation and massive inequalities: the raiding of public budgets, the expansion of credit to consumers and governments to sustain spending and consumption, financial speculation and increased militarism.

Under the guise of globalisation, we also see an unrelenting drive to plunder what capital regards as ‘untapped markets’ in other areas of the globe. International agri-capital has been moving in on Indian food and agriculture for some time. But as an agrarian-based country underpinned by smallholder agriculture, it first needs to displace the current model before bringing India’s food and agriculture sector under its control.

Devinder Sharma describes the situation:

“India is on fast track to bring agriculture under corporate control… Amending the existing laws on land acquisition, water resources, seed, fertilizer, pesticides and food processing, the government is in overdrive to usher in contract farming and encourage organized retail. This is exactly as per the advice of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as well as the international financial institutes.”

In return for up to £90 billion in loans, in the 90s India was instructed to dismantle its state-owned seed supply system, reduce subsidies and run down public agriculture institutions and offer incentives for the growing of cash crops to earn foreign exchange. According to the World Bank’s lending report, based on data compiled up to 2015, India was easily the largest recipient of its loans in the history of the institution. To push through the programme, hundreds of millions are to be shifted out of agriculture.

Successive Indian administrations have been quite obliging. While India’s current government talks about ‘make in India’ (self-sufficiency), the reality is subservience to western capital. Agriculture is deliberately being made economically non-viable for small-scale farmers: financial distress and ‘economic liberalisation’ have resulted in between 300,000 and 400,000 farmer suicides since 1997 with millions more experiencing economic distress and over 6,000 leaving the sector each day. This lies at the root of the ongoing agrarian crisis. But it goes much further. We are witnessing not only the structural transformation of India’s rural base but an all-encompassing strategy designed to incorporate India into the US’s corporate-financial-intel architecture.

Whether it involves the displacement of indigenous food and agriculture by a model dominated by western conglomerates or it is the selling of pharmaceuticals and the expansion of private hospitals to address the health impacts of the modern junk food system (in India, the healthcare sector is projected to grow by 16% a year), either way, it’s a lose-lose situation for the population.

But it all forms part of the holy grail of neoliberalism, GDP growth. A notion based on an economic system defined by bad food and ill health, joblessness, mass surveillance, spiralling inequalities, environmental degradation, militarism and debt on one hand; on the other, by bail outs, tax havens, massive profits and subsidies for large corporations and banks.

So, what can be done? Whether we are discussing India or elsewhere, the scaling up  of agroecology based on the notion of food sovereignty offers an alternative. Much has been written on agroecology as a model of agriculture but also as a movement for political change. Part of the process involves resisting the dismantling of rural economies and indigenous agriculture and instituting a sustainable food system rooted in local communities, whereby producing for local and regional needs takes precedence over supplying distant markets.

It also entails rejecting the agenda of the WTO which subjugates local agriculture to the needs of global markets (determined by agribusiness interests). And, unlike the current system, it includes supporting healthy and culturally appropriate food, encouraging diversified food production and recognising that food is not simply another commodity to be traded or speculated on for profit.

Australia: Report reveals “Harvest Trail” exploitation of overseas workers

Hugh Peters

The federal government’s Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) last month released the preliminary findings of its Harvest Trail inquiry into the exploitation of temporary overseas workers, including backpackers and international students, by labour hire companies and agricultural businesses.

The investigation, which began in 2013, included inspections at farming enterprises across the country. The full report is not due to be released until later this year. The initial findings, however, provide a glimpse into the dire conditions facing these workers, and the widespread extent of the abuses.

Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Jennifer Crook, FWO’s assistant director in compliance and enforcement, stated that in some cases, workers had been “virtually bonded like a slave to a particular provider, on the basis they have been told they won’t have their visa extension signed unless they see out the season with them.”

In other cases, Crook said workers had been “driven to their accommodation via ATMs and asked to provide money in advance for bond, transport and accommodation costs.” She stated: “We saw backpackers being lured to regional centres by dodgy labour hire operators, treating them poorly, bullying and sexually harassing them and ripping them off to the tune of hundreds—and sometimes thousands—of dollars per person.”

Labour contractors operate with impunity. Despite employers being required to provide piecework agreements in advance, workers are regularly paid unnegotiated rates. Payments to workers are frequently made off the books without any records.

Some contractors simply refused to pay their employees. Crook said the FWO had documented cases of “contractors disappearing at the end of harvest season with hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages that haven’t been paid to sometimes hundreds of employees.”

Businesses and contractors had sought to distance themselves from any culpability by creating multiple tiers of subcontractors.

The horticulture industry, with annual revenues of $70 billion, depends heavily upon temporary migrant labourers. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences estimated that 70 percent of farmers rely on foreign labour. A separate University of Adelaide report placed the figure at 78 percent.

The FWO findings are the latest in a series of reports examining the exploitative practices in the sector.

A 2016 FWO inquiry into the wages and conditions of employees on short-term 417 visas, found that 66 percent of the 4,000 foreign workers surveyed indicated that underpayment was routine. Around 28 percent said they did not receive any payment for some, or all, of the work that they performed.

The majority of those who spoke to the FWO said they did not report mistreatment for fear of further persecution.

The Wage Theft in Australia—Findings of the National Temporary Migrant Work Survey, published last year by the Migrant Worker Justice Initiative (MWJI), similarly found that 65 percent of international students, and 59 percent of backpackers, were paid $17 per hour or less, well below the official minimum wage of $22.13. A third of backpackers and a quarter of international students earned $12.

A substantial minority were subjected to severe abuse. Some 5 percent said their employer or accommodation provider seized their passport. Another 5 percent had to pay a deposit for a job, while 6 percent indicated they were charged a potentially unlawful fee for workplace training. As many as 45,000 foreign workers were working in forced labour conditions.

Despite these reports, nothing has been done to halt the super-exploitation. The FWO, a pro-business agency, has blamed the workers’ conditions on “dodgy labour hire contractors” but the abuses are systemic.

By focusing on supposed “rogue” operators, the FWO is covering up the responsibility of successive Labor and Liberal-National governments, along with the trade unions.

The Hawke and Keating Labor governments, with the support of the unions, initiated the elimination of tens of thousands of permanent jobs in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, gutting labour protections and creating a vast reserve of casual labour.

Every government since has deepened the process. Refugees, young migrants and holiday workers have become a key component of the rural workforce, with thousands performing low-paid seasonal work.

During the early 2000s, the Liberal-National government of John Howard introduced an option for 417 visa holders to stay an extra year in Australian if they performed 88 days of “specified work” in regional areas in the first year of their visit. The visa is designed to facilitate the type of exploitation documented by the FWO.

The National Union of Workers (NUW) recently said it is seeking to unionise the agricultural sector in a bid to end the mistreatment. For years, however, the NUW and other unions have displayed indifference to the plight of foreign workers. Because of their limited financial resources, the foreign workers have not been viewed as a potential market from which the union bureaucracy can extract membership dues.

At the same time, the unions have waged xenophobic campaigns, scapegoating foreign workers for the deepening social crisis. Based on a nationalist and pro-capitalist program, the unions are implacably hostile to the fight to unite workers, foreign and native-born alike, in a common struggle for decent jobs, wages and conditions for all.

US promotes Taiwanese submarine program, stoking further tensions with China

Robert Campion

Earlier this month, Taiwanese media reported that half a dozen foreign military contractors had submitted designs for a new fleet of eight diesel-electric submarines that Taipei plans to build domestically to bolster its navy. Taiwan claims this military build-up is necessary to defend against supposed aggression from mainland China.

Companies from India and Japan, and two from Europe and the United States respectively have submitted their designs to Taiwan’s Indigenous Defence Submarine (IDS) program, initiated in December 2014. The specific companies have not been identified. The Japanese company, however, was reportedly contracted by a US firm to submit a proposal, just one indication of wider US influence in this process.

Taiwan’s Defence Ministry will work with US contractors to choose a design by March 2019 with construction slated to begin the following year. Under the IDS program, sea trials would begin in 2024 and the first submarines would be deployed in 2026. Each submarine could cost about $1 billion.

Taiwan currently operates just two, 30-year-old, combat-ready submarines, which are also set to be upgraded by a Dutch firm between 2020 and 2022 at a cost of $12.3 million. The upgrades are meant to cover the gap while the new subs are being constructed.

Edward Rehfeldt, chairman of the US-based Rehfeldt Group which assists with the development of Taiwan’s military, commented that Taiwan has “a strong navy, a strong air force,” with “very good hi-tech weapons, but basically they need submarines to protect the undersea area.” Rehfeldt declined to state whether his company was involved in the submarine project.

The growing military collaboration between Taipei and Washington is a product of the Donald Trump administration’s overall ramping up of pressure on China. In April, the US granted military contractors licences to sell submarine technology to Taiwan, including a submarine combat management system. A separate technical assistance agreement provides for the sale of sonar, modern periscopes, and weapon systems.

Last year, the US State Department also approved the sale of 46 advanced MK-48 torpedoes to Taiwan, as part of a larger $1.4 billion arms deal. The proposal to sell the torpedoes had initially been proposed in 2001 under George W. Bush, but was shelved. Similarly, the decision to sell the submarine technology to Taiwan was also the revival of a plan first proposed under Bush also in 2001.

In addition, leading Republican Senators John Cornyn, the majority whip, and James Inhofe, a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, in March called for Washington to sell F-35 fighter jets to Taiwan, which would be the first such sale to the island since 1992.

Taiwan’s Defence Minister Yen Teh-fa said in May, “The air force’s operational requirements dictate that the next generation of fighters must possess stealth characteristics, be short take-off capable and be able to fight beyond visual range. The F-35 is a fine fighter and we are seeking it.”

The chair of Taiwan’s legislative Foreign Affairs and National Defence Committee, Wang Ting-yu, stressed the need for upgrades to Taiwan’s submarines and F-16 fighter jets, which are currently underway, in order to dissuade any “improper notions” about a Chinese invasion.

“If you come for us, you will have to pay a severe price,” Wang said. “It’s like a durian or a porcupine. We won’t bite you, but if you bite us, you will be hurt all over.”

Washington has sought to bolster Taiwan’s military in other ways as well, angering Beijing in the process. Taiwan’s Defence Ministry requested the purchase of 108 US-made M1A2 Abrams battle tanks this month, and announced on July 17 that it had commissioned its first air brigade equipped with 29 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters bought from the US in 2008. Significantly, Taiwan was the first to use the latest variant of Boeing’s AH-64 Apache outside of the US.

Trump, backed by the Republican and Democratic Parties, has also undertaken a number of provocative diplomatic actions which have exacerbated tensions with Beijing over the “One China” policy that treats Beijing as the sole legitimate government of all China, including Taiwan.

These actions include the Taiwan Travel Act, signed by Trump in March, allowing high-level visits to and from Taiwan by US and Taiwanese officials. It received no opposition in the US House or Senate. The massive US military spending bill for 2019, widely backed by the Democrats and passed by the House on Thursday, also recommends the Department of Defence authorize joint military drills between Washington and Taipei while improving the “predictability” of arms sales to Taiwan.

Beijing’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang warned last week before the House vote, “If these contents are put into law, then serious damage will be done to mutual trust between China and the US, to bilateral exchanges and cooperation in many fields, and to stability across the strait.”

Taiwan, dubbed the unsinkable aircraft carrier by General Douglas MacArthur at the beginning of the Cold War, is viewed as a potential forward base of operations by the US against China—one of the reasons for Beijing’s concern over the US questioning of the “One China” policy.

Taiwan is strategically located, close to the Chinese mainland as well as flashpoints in the East China Sea and the South China Sea’s disputed islands. It also sits astride a vital trade route from the Malacca Strait to North East Asia, the world’s second largest commercial artery accounting for 80 percent of China’s oil imports. US strategists regard control over the Malacca Straits as crucial to maintaining US dominance over the region.

In another blow to the “One China” policy, the US recently granted permission to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to travel via the US cities of Houston and Los Angeles on her way to a presidential inauguration in Paraguay in August. It was reported that in both cities she will be greeted by members of the US congress.

Local councils in England selling off over 4,000 public spaces and buildings per year

Alice Summers

More than 4,000 council-owned public spaces and facilities are being sold off by local authorities each year, with the majority purchased by private developers, according to the UK local communities charity Locality .

Freedom of Information requests were submitted by the charity to all 353 councils in England in January 2018. Based on the data supplied by the 233 councils that responded, Locality’s report, titled The Great British Sell Off,revealed that 20,651 public buildings or spaces were sold off between 2012/2013 and 2016/2017—an average of 4,131 per year. The council assets sold off include sites such as public parks, libraries, swimming pools and youth centres.

The southeast of England sold the highest number of public facilities, offloading an average of 872 every year to the private sector to be used for private profit and short-term speculation.

The study also reported the number of buildings identified as surplus by local authorities over the next five years. Some 1,602 buildings in the Yorkshire and Humber region of England were identified by councils as surplus and therefore likely to be sold off—the highest figure in England—out of a total of 7,280 across the country. The report noted that this figure is almost certainly a significant underestimation of the number of sales that will actually take place.

While councils do not publish official data on the number of sell-offs or on the proportion that are purchased by private developers, the report noted that many of these public buildings and spaces are sold on the open market to the highest bidder.

Sites sold off in the last five years include the council-owned Temple Cowley swimming pool in Oxford, which was disposed of for just £3.5 million in 2014 to a property developer who plans to bulldoze the building and replace it with 48 new homes.

Other sites, such as the Hastings pier in Sussex, have been sold off to private developers for a fraction of the cost of building or rebuilding them. Luxury hotel developer Sheikh Abid Gulzar reportedly paid £50,000 for the pier after it went into administration last November, even though it had been rebuilt in 2013 with £12.4 million of lottery money. This is despite efforts from local community groups, who raised £433,000 to purchase the pier and keep it in the hands of the community.

In fact, the report notes that only around two-fifths (41 percent) of local authorities have policies in place for the community ownership of formerly council-owned assets, with the default option for most local authorities being to sell to the private sector.

Nonetheless, over the last decade, hundreds of previously council-run facilities have been passed to community groups to operate at their own expense. More than 500 of the UK’s 3,800 libraries are now run by community volunteers. Volunteers are forced to step in to keep open valued library services that would otherwise be threatened with closure due to central government and local council cuts. Almost 600 public libraries have been closed since 2010, according to the chartered institute of public finance and accountancy.

Despite the report’s focus on the benefits of community ownership as a solution to cost-cutting and closures by local councils, community-run spaces and buildings are a difficult financial and labour burden on the often unpaid and untrained community volunteers who endeavour to maintain facilities with little or no funding.

This mass sell-off comes in the context of relentless cuts to local authority budgets from central government over the last years. Central government council funding has been slashed by £11.3 billion and by 2020, according to the Local Government Association, local authorities will have lost 75 percent of the central government funding they received in 2015.

Almost half of all councils, 168, will receive no central government funding by 2019/20 and will be forced to rely exclusively on local taxes—the Business Rate and Council Tax—and local charges, which are expected to rise sharply and cover a wider range of services. According to the Local Government Association, councils face a funding gap of £5.8 billion by 2020.

However, in addition to central government cuts, both Labour- and Conservative-run local authorities are complicit in the selling-off of council assets. In Haringey, north London, the Labour-run council planned the largest transfer of local authority assets to a private developer, Lendlease, through a 50:50 partnership: the Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV). The proposal would see the transfer of council housing, schools, clinics and commercial buildings worth £2 billion to the private developer.

Since April 2016, councils have been permitted to spend the proceeds from the sale of their assets on their day-to-day operations, further incentivising the local authorities to sell.

The research noted the terrible impact that the selling-off of public spaces and buildings has on working-class communities, who often rely on them as places to meet, socialise and relax. “Importantly it is often the poorest places that are most reliant on these types of spaces,” the Locality report stated. “Losing them can have a devastating impact on local people and communities. Years of austerity and lack of investment have decimated local services and left many of the places people rely on shuttered up, under threat or falling into disrepair.”

The selling of public spaces poses significant problems for freedom of assembly. While half of councils surveyed (48.7 percent) for a report by the Heritage Lottery Fund acknowledged that they had disposed of or transferred the management or ownership of urban green spaces in the three years leading up to 2016, the problem of private ownership of previously public spaces in cities goes further than just public parks.

According to a Guardian investigation published last year, many apparently public squares and parks in major cities across the UK, particularly in the capital, are owned by private individuals or companies. Over 50 “pseudo-public spaces” in London are owned and managed by giant corporations such as JP Morgan, including large swathes of Camden, Islington and the City of London.

Although the public generally have free access to these areas, these squares and parks are not subject to local authority bylaws, with their private landowners often hiring their own private security services to police them.

This private ownership and policing of squares and parks in towns and cities can have enormous repercussions. According to the Guardian’s report, private security guards working outside the London mayoral headquarters, City Hall, prevented Guardian reporters from carrying out interviews near the premises. The security officers stated that journalistic activity is not permitted on the site as it is privately owned, before escorting the journalists to the security office and forbidding further attempts to conduct interviews with members of the public.

Not only are vital and valuable public facilities lost through council cuts and sell-offs, but the offloading of these public spaces to private entities, which are free to restrict access and police them as they see fit, is an attack on fundamental democratic rights of freedom of assembly and speech.

US hospitals fail to prevent unnecessary maternal deaths and injuries

Brian Dixon

Each year in the United States some 700 mothers die giving birth, while over 50,000 are severely injured. According to an investigation published by USA Today last Thursday titled “Deadly Deliveries,” the majority of these deaths and injuries could have been prevented if hospitals had followed best practices for delivering babies.

The Global Burden of Disease Study 2015, put together by researchers at the World Health Organization and published in 2016 in the medical journal The Lancet, reported that maternal deaths in most industrialized countries have either declined or remained flat since the 1990s, with countries in Western Europe falling below 10 maternal deaths per 100,000 births.

By contrast, the maternal death rate in the United States has nearly doubled, increasing from 16.9 deaths per 100,000 births in 1990 (for a total of 674 deaths) to 26.4 in 2015 (a total of 1,063 deaths). Based on this data, the USA Todayarticle concluded that the United States is the most dangerous country in the developed world for women to give birth.

Maternal deaths US by state

The investigation by USA Today helps shed light on why this is the case. It found that many US hospitals have failed to implement basic and inexpensive safety standards—such as weighing bloody pads to measure blood loss or administering medication in a timely fashion to treat spikes in blood pressure—that could prevent the majority of maternal deaths and injuries.

The maternal death rates varied by state. California, considered by leading medical societies to represent the gold standard of care, saw maternal deaths decline by half to 4 deaths per 100,000 births. On the other hand, Louisiana, Indiana and Georgia have the highest maternal death rates, exceeding 40 deaths per 100,000 births—similar to the rates found in Guam, Egypt and Tunisia. Louisiana’s maternal death rate of 58.1 deaths per 100,000 births is actually higher than the rate in Central Latin America (55.9).

The investigation was based on over 500,000 pages of internal hospital quality records from hospitals in the states of New York, Pennsylvania and the Carolinas, covering 150 women who suffered childbirth complications, along with interviews with mothers, family members and hospital administrators.

The newspaper found that US hospitals have been slow to adopt new safety guidelines that have been recommended by medical societies and other health organizations for nearly a decade.

There are no national regulations requiring hospitals to make data on childbirth complications public and hospitals are reluctant to release such data, making it difficult to identify facilities with major problems. For example, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services does not require the reporting of any complications in childbirths covered by Medicaid, which pays for almost half of the 4 million births that take place in the US each year. The private hospital accreditation group the Joint Commission requires the reporting of cesarean section rates, but no other information.

“Our medicine is run by cowboys today, where everyone is riding the range doing whatever they’re wanting to do,” Dr. Steven Clark, a leading childbirth safety expert at Baylor College of Medicine, told USA Today.

The lack of national regulation means that hospitals can ignore safety recommendations, a problem common to hospitals of all sizes and all levels of technological sophistication. As a result, less than 15 percent of mothers suffering childbirth complications in the hospitals looked at by investigators received the recommended treatment.

Maternal deaths in US vs. Europe

The primary sources of complications arise from dangerously high spikes in blood pressure that can lead to strokes and excessive blood loss, which can result in organ failure.

Medical societies and other health-related organizations have developed guidelines for treating pregnant women and new mothers for high blood pressure, including additional monitoring and treating them with medication within one hour. The newspaper, however, found that many hospitals failed to follow these guidelines.

In the dozen or so medial facilities USA Today looked at in Pennsylvania, hospitals failed to follow treatment guidelines 33 to 51 percent of the time, while two hospitals in the Carolinas had failure rates of 78 percent and nearly 90 percent. At one of the largest birthing hospitals in North Carolina, the Women’s Hospital in Greensboro, between October 2015 and June 2016, 189 out of 219 mothers were not given timely treatment for high blood pressure, despite medical staff being aware that their work was being monitored. The newspaper estimates that 60 percent of the deaths from hypertension could have been prevented.

Other mothers experienced excessive bleeding, resulting in their blood pressure dropping to dangerously low levels and posing the threat of organ failure. This can be prevented by carefully measuring the quantity of blood loss by weighing blood-soaked pads and collecting and measuring blood using a calibrated pouch. When medical staff make only visual measurements, they often underestimate the level of blood loss, while doctors may mistake the excessive blood loss for normal post-partum bleeding.

According to a 2016 training webinar put on by the country’s main hospital trade association, the American Hospital Association, 93 percent of the women who bled to death could have been saved had staff paid attention to the level of blood loss.

Many of the women interviewed by the newspaper expressed the common complaint that doctors and nurses did not listen to their concerns and were often ill prepared. The mothers experienced excruciating pain and most were never provided with an explanation for what went wrong.

“Over and over,” the article notes, “these women said they wanted other mothers to know the importance of finding heath care providers who listen to their concerns, pay attention to warning signs and are trained to deal with complications.”

Of the 75 hospitals in 13 states contacted by USA Today, half refused to answer questions about their safety practices. Of those that did reply, over 40 percent admitted that they did not quantify blood loss after birth, while the majority had no system for tracking whether women with dangerously high blood pressure were treated in a timely fashion.

Unlike other developed countries, the US does not have a national health care system that could mandate the use of best practices, meaning it can take a decade or more before they are widely implemented, resulting in hundreds of unnecessary deaths and tens of thousands of unnecessary injuries, primarily afflicting working class women.

While the newspaper indicates some of the problems underlying the preventable deaths and injuries—including the lack of national regulations and inadequate training for medical staff—it ignores the primary problem of the profit motive in health care. For example, while the article is quick to place blame on medical staff, it ignores the long hours and unsafe patient-to-staff ratios imposed on nurses as hospitals attempt to keep down labor costs at the price of patient safety.

Workers in US face growing class battles

Jerry White

A major conflict is brewing between workers and corporations in the United States, with employers resisting demands for any significant pay raises despite soaring profits and near record stock buybacks and dividend payouts for top executives and wealthy investors.

Labor agreements have expired or will expire over the next several days and weeks for hundreds of thousands of workers at United Parcel Service (UPS), the US Postal Service, and in the steel, telecom and entertainment industries. At the same time, teachers will be returning to their classrooms under conditions in which none of the issues that sparked strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona and other states have been resolved. New battles are looming involving educators in Los Angeles and Oakland, California, and other urban centers.

In each case, employers are not only refusing to relent on wages, they are doubling down and demanding new givebacks on healthcare, pensions and work rules. At the same time, corporate America, with the full assistance of the unions, is accelerating its drive to purge higher-paid “legacy” workers and transform their workforces into low-paid temps and part-time laborers without any rights.

For decades, the unions have effectively banned strikes, particularly in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. In 2017, major work stoppages in the US fell to seven, the second lowest level since records began in 1947, while in the United Kingdom they fell to the lowest level since the 1890s. This has allowed a historic restructuring of class relations, with labor’s share of nonfarm national income in the US falling from 66.4 percent in 2000 to 58.9 percent in 2018—a transfer of wealth that will equal $1.4 trillion in 2018 alone.

Since the beginning of the year, however, there has been a marked increase in the number of strikes throughout the globe. In the first six months of 2018, there were 12 major work stoppages in the US, involving 444,000 workers, more than the total number of strikers over the last six years combined.

Opposition to the corporate-government-union gang up is increasing.

* After an overwhelming strike vote, 230,000 UPS workers have been thrust into a direct fight not only with the giant package delivery company but also with the Teamsters. The union is backing the company’s demands for a new lower-paid class of “hybrid” delivery truck drivers and a $15 per hour poverty wage for part-timers who make up the majority of the company’s workforce. The Teamsters union has agreed to indefinitely extend the contract beyond the July 31 expiration date in an effort to wear down opposition and push through the sellout deal.

* Though ArcelorMittal made $5.4 billion in profits last year, up 30 percent from the year before, the giant steelmaker is demanding cuts to health insurance, which could force steelworkers to pay up to $8,000 more per year in out-of-pocket expenses. The company, which operates mills in northwest Indiana and other states, also wants to cut pensions and reduce incentive pay, vacation pay, and family and medical leave. United Steelworkers (USW) contracts covering 30,000 steelworkers at ArcelorMittal and US Steel expire on September 1.

* Last week, thousands of Fiat Chrysler workers in Kokomo, Indiana, voted by 99 percent to authorize strike action at the company’s transmission plants, which would quickly shut down the operation of the number three US automaker.

* More than 8,000 AT&T Midwest workers in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and other states, as well as AT&T Legacy workers, have been working without a new contract since April 14. The telecom giant, which recently completed the $84.5 billion acquisition of Time Warner, refused to back down on its demands for healthcare and pension cuts and the evisceration of job security.

* While blocking any strike by AT&T workers, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) just announced that it would extend the contract covering 39,000 workers at Verizon by four years, more than a year before the current contract expires. The extension is really a new concessions contract that further undermines health insurance.

* More than 98 percent of animation performers, members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Actors (SAG-AFTRA), voted to approve strike action to fight for improved wages and residual payments from Disney and other studios that produce highly profitable animated programs for subscription-based platforms like Netflix and Amazon.

The social anger that is building up goes well beyond 14.8 million workers still trapped in the pro-corporate unions, which cover only 10.7 percent of private- and public-sector workers, down from 20.1 percent in 1983. Tens of millions of other workers, particularly young workers, are treated as little more than industrial slaves and can barely survive.

Although the official jobless rate has fallen to its lowest level since 2000, there has been no corresponding rise in wages. Median weekly earnings in the second quarter rose by only 2.0 percent over the same period last year, even as the Consumer Price Index role by 2.7 percent. This was the third consecutive quarter where inflation outpaced wage growth.

The rising cost of food, fuel, housing and healthcare has forced workers to take on more debt to make ends meet. Recent studies by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies found that young people—many saddled with unsustainable college debt—are living with the parents or renting longer before buying their first house.

There is immense anger growing against the Trump administration, which has handed over trillions in tax cuts to the rich and is accelerating the attack on food stamp, healthcare and other essential programs. The Democrats, who defend Wall Street and the major corporations just as ruthlessly as the Republicans, are not attacking President Donald Trump for his ruthless attacks on immigrants or new military threats against Iran.

Instead, the Democrats accuse Trump of being a pawn of Moscow. Behind this is the push by the military-intelligence apparatus for a more aggressive military confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia. In the meantime, denunciations of “Russian meddling” are being used to censor the Internet and criminalize all forms of dissent, including working-class opposition to social inequality and war.

As the Socialist Equality Party insisted in its June 13, 2017 statement, “Palace Coup or Class Struggle: The political crisis in Washington and the strategy of the working class,” an “altogether different conflict is developing—between the ruling class and the working class, the broad mass of the population, which is suffering various forms of social distress and is completely excluded from political life.”

In order to fight, workers must break free from the stranglehold of the Teamsters, the United Auto Workers and the other unions, which are nothing more than the direct tools of the corporations. New organizations of struggle—factory, workplace and neighborhood committees—must be formed, elected and controlled by rank-and-file workers, and committed to the methods of the class struggle, not labor-management collusion.

These committees should establish the widest networks to unite all workers and overcome all the sectional divisions imposed by the unions to divide and weaken the working class. In opposition to the economic nationalism of the unions, these committees must unite American workers with our class brothers and sisters internationally.

Every struggle—for good-paying and secure jobs, healthcare and pensions; for the right of immigrant workers to live and work wherever they choose with full citizenship rights; for high quality public education, access to leisure time and culture; and for young people to have a future free from war, police killings and social inequality—must be united in a common industrial and political counteroffensive.

Such a struggle will pose the most decisive question: Which class shall rule? If the needs of the working class are to take priority then workers must wage a political struggle to take power in their own hands, expropriate the fortunes of the corporate and financial oligarchy, and reorganize economic and political life along socialist lines.