Swedish Election And The Extreme Right Wing

Peter Koenig

Sweden – Massive Up-scaling of False-flagging to Nationwide High Crimes – Will it Make the Right-Wing Swedish Democrats to Kingmakers on 9 September 2018?

The current Swedish Government, led by the Social Democrats, is governed by a coalition with the Green Party since 2014. Incumbent PM, Stefan Löfven, intends to continue his government and hopes to win on general election day, next Sunday, 9 September 2018. However, for years – ever since what they call the onslaught of undesirable immigrants, i.e. the “lesser people” from the Middle East and thereabouts – the extreme right, anti-immigration, eurosceptics ‘Sweden Democrats’ are on course to become the second-largest single party in the next parliament. On Facebook the party’s leader, Jimmie Åkesson, warned that “Sweden is on fire again”. He may have referred to the hundreds of cars set a blast this year in major Swedish cities – and the again likely refers to the same phenomenon at a lesser scale that has beleaguered Sweden already in previous years.

They, the Swedish Democrats, are building up their momentum to take over and becoming the kingmakers, this coming election. It looks like they have engaged hooligan-Nazi-type xenophobes – like those that fight the mainstream in Germany’s streets – the AFD (the Alternative for Germany) sponsored masses – to stage false flag terror attacks, mostly setting cars on fire. The cities principally affected are Stockholm, Malmö and Gothenburg. This year, the year of elections, the terror peaked with hundreds of car burnings and even a drive-by shooting in which at least three people lost their lives. When people feel in danger, are fearful, because they seem helpless against an unknown enemy – the terror – they turn to the right for protection. Its them, the right that promises fierce police and military protection – and, indeed, they carry out their promise.

Just a look at France. After a number of false flag attacks in which hundreds of people lost their lives – Macron was able to put the “State of Emergency” – akin to Martial Law – into the French Constitution. France today looks like a police and military state, in larger cities you find armed police and machine-gun touting military at every street corner. The sight has become the new normal. Are the French safer for it? Nope. Because the danger comes from within, not from outside. The danger comes from the very protectors which are complicit with those ‘hidden’ forces that want to maintain a police state that oppresses the public, so that this small all-controlling elite, can do what they want.

Strange enough, a year before the last elections in Sweden, in 2013, there was a similar eruption of car burnings in Stockholm, at a more modest scale, but all the same. Someone must have felt this kind of terror, rather new for Europe, and that could easily be ‘pushed off’ to unhappy immigrants – of which surely there are plenty – might ignite the anti-immigrant discourse. – This time it seems to work. The Social Democrats are way down in the opinion polls and the Swedish Democrats, way up, poised to become the key player in the next government.

France is in the middle of Europe, ready to break down any potential peoples’ uprising. Is Sweden going the Nordic way of France? – The risk is there, if the extreme right wins. – Are the Swedes conscious of this risk? – I doubt it. The corporate war propaganda tells them differently. And looking beyond one’s borders to learn, is hardly a nation’s forte. Its learning the hard way and discovering when it’s too late.

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Back to Sweden, in concrete, none of the two leading coalitions are predicted to have an absolute majority. The one led by the Social Democrats (Labor Party equivalent) is forecast to make 38.6% and the Conservative Alliance almost 40%. The right-wing, anti-immigrant and euro-sceptic Sweden Democrats have increased their adherents by about 50% since the 2014 elections and may get up to 20% at the polls – which may make them the Kingmakers. And that largely thanks to the street havoc, destruction and terror they organized. Not a good omen for Sweden.

Of course, there is much more at stake than just the Swedish election – a country with barely 10 million inhabitants but a huge in surface (about the size of California) and with maritime borders facing Denmark, Germany, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Sweden has been and is a neutral country, unaligned to such military associations like NATO. The possibly new incoming government, the way for which was prepared for at least five years – reminds of the Ukraine coup in February 2014, also prepared for at least 5 years, according to former Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, that turned the Kiev Government into a pure Nazi crime nest, supported by the west and by NATO. It is very possible that Sweden may become a NATO country – one more on the door steps of Moscow.

A NATO Sweden would be bordering on other NATO Russia fiends, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and could closely collaborate with them for possible aggression towards Russia – the northern build-up of troops could easily be channeled through a new NATO Sweden.

Are the Swedes conscious of this potentially new perspective? – The extreme-right Swedish Democrats have stolen voters from all the parties under the pretext of the immigrant curse and danger. Western paid propaganda played an important role, like everywhere when right-wing and hegemonic forces are at play.

If Sweden falls, Finland – another neutral and NATO-unaligned country – might also fall. Norway and Denmark are already part of this murderous monster-club. The northern attack route is being established.

Swedish defense minister Karin Enstrom has said her country is not in NATO partly because the EU treaty contains its own security guarantee: “Who needs NATO if you have the Lisbon Treaty?” – Right. But the Lisbon Treaty is not engaging at all. Its not a European Constitution which would be binding for all member states, and which would allow Europe to build-up her own defense strategy and defense forces – and which would allow, or even force Europe to pull on the same string – and more importantly – in the same direction.

All of this is not the case today. That’s why Europe is every time more integrated into NATO – NATO is absorbing the EU, one country and one military budget at the time. Karin Enstrom’s wise words – wise, inasmuch as we don’t want NATO – are wishful thinking, delusionary, unfortunately. It would need a massive awakening in Europe and a massive resistance buildup against NATO to come clear of this ever-growing threat on Russia that has the capacity to annihilate first Europe, then the world. Mr. Putin and Mr. Lavrov warn the west all the time – but are they listening? – At least for now, President Putin’s chess-playing excellence has avoided such a global catastrophe.

The United States of America, for whom war is economic survival, the arms race is profitable, peace would be Washington’s downfall – literally down into the pits – the US of A will not listen to such warnings. It is a fine line that President Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping, a firm and powerful defense and economic alliance, are walking.

Sweden is at the crossroads of going down the dangerous and destructive path of western aggression or stay neutral, remain a northern nation of integrity, ethics and peace. It is high time – and never too late – that the Swedes awaken to the danger that might await them this coming Sunday, 9 September. Swedes, you have proudly followed a socialist-leaning and social agenda for the last hundred years. Are you thoughtlessly risking abandoning this noble tradition – for false pretexts indoctrinated by a massive campaign of false flags? – I trust not.

Waste plastics poison the food chain and contribute to global warming

Philip Guelpa

A growing body of research shows that waste plastic is becoming a major source of environmental pollution, including as a potentially significant contributor of greenhouse gases, a principal cause of global warming. As has long been the case with fossil fuels, the plastics industry is attempting to suppress knowledge of the problem.

The rate of plastics production is dramatically accelerating. Industry projects a 40 percent increase in the next decade. Already, more plastic was produced during the first decade of this century than in all previous history (mass production of plastics began after the Second World War). However, less than a fifth of that material is recycled. In addition to the huge quantities being dumped in landfills, increasing attention is being drawn to the massive amounts of waste plastic accumulating in the world’s oceans.

Plastic waste covering Kamilo beach on Hawaii's Big Island. Credit: Bob Daemmrich/Polaris/eyevine

It is estimated that approximately 18 billion pounds of waste plastic are currently being added to the world’s oceans annually. Though dispersed throughout, these materials tend to concentrate in areas of circular ocean currents, called mid-ocean gyres, which constitute 40 percent of the world’s ocean surfaces. There are five major ocean gyres. The largest of these has been dubbed the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” Located between Hawaii and California, it is three times the size of France.

In total, studies suggest that there are now between 15 and 51 trillion pieces of plastic in the world’s oceans. At the current rate of deposit, by 2050 the total weight of plastic in the oceans will likely outweigh that of fish. Significant quantities of plastic debris are also found in inland bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes in North America.

This steadily growing mass of material has significant damaging effects on the environment and ultimately on humans.

In its original form (e.g., bottles, bags, etc.), fish, birds, and mammals are enveloped by or ingest these materials causing injury and death by asphyxiation, strangulation and starvation. Moreover, as they degrade into increasingly small pieces, what are called “microplastics” (less than five millimeters long), these particles enter the food chain and are ingested by animals, accumulating as growing quantities of indigestible material in their stomachs, leading to injury or death, and releasing toxic materials that bioaccumulate up the food chain, including into the diets of people consuming seafood.

For example, fish in the North Pacific have been found to ingest between 12,000 and 24,000 tons of plastic each year. A quarter of fish in California markets were found to have plastic in their guts. A 2014 study by Belgian researchers concluded that seafood consumers in Europe could be consuming 11,000 microplastic particles every year. The health implications of these toxic materials, such as cancer and liver damage, are ominous.

Another recently identified danger from plastic waste is its emission of greenhouse gases. In a just-published article in the scientific journal PLOS ONE (1 August 2018), titled “Production of methane and ethylene from plastic in the environment,” Dr. Sarah-Jeanne Royer and colleagues report that “the most commonly used plastics produce two greenhouse gases, methane and ethylene, when exposed to ambient solar radiation.”

Extended exposure to sunlight substantially speeds degradation of the plastics, releasing increasing amounts of gas. As heat and physical actions cause the discarded objects to fragment, more surface area is exposed, accelerating the process even more. Both of these gases are known to contribute to global warming.

Although the individual emissions from any single piece of plastic are small, and the main source of greenhouse gases remains the burning of fossil fuels, given the massive amounts of plastic waste that has accumulated along shorelines and is floating on ocean and lake surfaces, and its continuing trend towards growth into the future, the potential cumulative effect of this finding is significant. It was already known that degrading plastics emit carbon dioxide.

The authors conclude, “Our results show that plastics represent a heretofore unrecognized source of climate-relevant trace gases that are expected to increase as more plastic is produced and accumulated in the environment.”

Another study, by researchers at the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, “Rapid aggregation of biofilm-covered microplastics with marine biogenic particles,” published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B (29 August 2018), report that laboratory experiments indicate that microplastics aggregate into clumps held together by biofilms formed by bacteria and unicellular algae. They hypothesize that this process takes place in the ocean. Presumably a similar progression would occur in freshwater bodies as well. These aggregates may continue to float or sink to the bottom. Their subsequent fate, being consumed by pelagic or bottom-dwelling organisms for example, would be the subject of future research.

In a comment to the BBC, Dr. Montserrat Filella, a chemist at the University of Geneva, said, “As research expands our knowledge, we are realising that plastics can be insidious in many other ways. For instance, as vectors of ‘hidden pollutants’, such as heavy metals present in them or, now, as a source of greenhouse gases. And, in all cases, throughout the entire lifetime of the plastic.”

It should be noted that, although plastics degrade and change form over time, they remain in the environment indefinitely. Plastic has already begun to become part of Earth's geological record.

Attempts by Dr. Royer to obtain information from the plastics industry were met with silence. “I think the plastic industry absolutely knows, and they don't want this to be shared with the world,” she told the BBC.

Plastics are wonderful, highly useful materials. Their reckless disposal, however, is a major factor in the environmental degradation and climate change that threaten devastating consequences for humanity and all life on Earth. A major, coordinated effort is needed on the part of scientists, engineers and others around the world to address the current conditions and develop ways of benefiting from the intelligent use of these materials in the future without their negative effects (e.g., effective recycling, biodegradability, etc.). However, this will not happen under capitalism, in which the overriding motivation of the ruling class is the maximization of profit, regardless of the consequences. Instead, what we get is ineffective token gestures, such as the recent campaign to get rid of plastic straws.

Australia: Factory fire sends toxic smoke over western Melbourne

Eric Ludlow

A massive factory warehouse fire last week at Tottenham in Melbourne’s western suburbs shrouded much of the surrounding district in black, toxic smoke. Starting early on Thursday morning, the blaze took 140 firefighters with 30 trucks about 17 hours to bring under control. Material continued to smoulder on the site well into the weekend.

Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) acting chief fire officer Greg Leach told the media it was “one of the biggest fires we’ve seen in Melbourne for a long time.”

State authorities warned residents within 500 metres of the factory to shut their doors and windows, and switch off heating and cooling systems, to prevent smoke getting into homes. Fifty schools and childcare centres were closed due to the toxic plume.

Firefighters at the seen on Thursday (Source MFB Twitter)

The warehouse is owned by Danbol Pty Ltd, whose sole director and shareholder is 74-year-old accountant Christopher Baldwin. On Saturday, the MFB said that the fire was “suspicious” and handed over investigations to Victoria Police arson and explosives officers. The local Maribyrnong council said it had recently inspected the property at the MFB’s suggestion but found no cause for concern.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) revealed last Friday that Baldwin’s accountancy company, Baldwin Taxation and Advisory, had previously been subject to raids by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). ATO Deputy Commissioner Jeremy Geale told the state-funded network that the officers had been “examining a group of tax agents suspected of facilitating phoenix activity and promoting the avoidance of tax involving GST, income tax and the failure to remit pay as you go withholding tax payments.”

The old 14,000-square metre warehouse had a saw-tooth roof made of asbestos. It was reportedly storing acetone, a colourless, flammable liquid used as a nail polish remover and a solvent in paint, and acetylene, a highly-volatile gas used in welding.

Asbestos was progressively banned for use in Australian construction between 1967 and 2003. Despite this, many older buildings contain the potentially deadly substance.

The official line of the Victorian state authorities is that the asbestos used in the factory’s construction posed a “low risk” in relation to air quality because the material had likely been consumed by the fire. Acting MFB chief Leach told the ABC on Friday that although there was a chance that asbestos fibres had polluted the air, “the heat of the combustion had been such that most of that risk had been ameliorated.”

Scientific evidence, however, contradicts such claims. Asbestos Council of Victoria CEO Vicky Hamilton told the media that she tried to contact the MFB and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) following this assessment. “Asbestos doesn’t burn up in fire,” she told the New Daily, “that’s why it was considered a good product [in the past].”

University of Western Australia professor of medicine and public health and respiratory physician Bill Musk also told the New Daily that asbestos fibres that were “liberated into the atmosphere” during fires and earthquakes were dangerous. “There are different sorts of asbestos, but there’s no safe level of asbestos and that’s why it’s been banned.”

Dr Andrea Hinwood, the EPA’s chief environmental scientist, told a community meeting of concerned residents at Footscray Town Hall last week that the agency was not detecting concentrations of particulate matter above the standard for public warnings and this justified the “low risk” assessment. She told the residents just to “be sensible.” If they smelled smoke, stay out of it.

EPA official Dr Dave Barry said the agency’s tests had detected benzene and toluene compounds in the air but “at levels well below the exposure guidelines” and “not indicative of any significant risk to public health.”

The effect of the chemicals released by the fire, however, was immediately noticeable in Melbourne’s waterways. An MFB spokesperson told the community meeting that the 8,000 litres per minute of water used to quell the flames was flowing into waterways with unburnt chemicals. Since the fire hundreds of dead fish, eels and birds have been washed up along the nearby banks of Stony Creek and downstream six or more kilometres to the mouth of the Yarra River and into Port Philip Bay.

EPA inland water expert Dr Paul Leahy said Port Phillip Bay beaches up to 15 kilometres from the Yarra River, could be affected. Phenols, poly aromatic hydrocarbons, xylene, benzene and ethylbenzene have polluted popular fishing spots. Leahy admitted that these chemicals were “above recreational water quality guidelines.”

Residents who attended the community meeting were clearly frustrated by the lack of basic safety measures by state and local governments. Questions were raised over the auditing and monitoring of industrial facilities. A worker from an environmental group said such warehouses are “a time bomb” and asked why no one was monitoring the activities of these companies.

Sarah Carter, the Labor Party deputy mayor of the Maribyrnong council, told residents not to be “alarmist” and said industry was not to blame.

Last week’s fire came less than two months after a major fire erupted at the SKM Recycling plant in Coolaroo, a Melbourne northern suburb. It was the second fire within a year at that factory and the third recycling plant fire in Victoria this year.

The attitude of all the major parties—Liberal, Labor and the Greens alike—is utter contempt for the living conditions of ordinary workers. They defend big business, whose primary concern is to boost profit margins. Companies are stockpiling huge amounts of flammable material and creating the conditions for fires to occur with increasing rapidity and ferocity.

Whatever the exact cause of the Danbol-owned warehouse fire, the latest toxic blaze is a warning that the placing of profit above the needs and lives of ordinary people will produce more tragedies.

Home loan stress threatening millions of households in Australia

Mike Head

An immense financial and social crisis is developing in Australia because of extraordinary levels of mortgage debt, falling property prices, rising interest rates and the driving down of real wages.

Nearly one million households—one in four—are already being labelled “mortgage prisoners.” That is, they are trapped in debt while house values are falling. That number will soar as interest rates rise from their current record lows, according to detailed research published in the past two weeks.

This financial trauma is concentrated in working class suburban and regional areas, where some postcodes have at least 90 percent of mortgaged households “in stress,” meaning they do not have enough income to cover mortgage repayments and other living expenses.

These statistics provide a glimpse of the intolerable conditions that confront millions of working class people, while corporate profits soar on the back of record low wage growth and the increasingly casualised, insecure and under-employed workforce.

A speculative property bubble fuelled by cheap credit has underpinned economic growth in Australia since the 2008 global financial crash and the 2012 slump in the China-driven mining boom. Over the past 12 months, however, that bubble has begun to burst, while interest rates are beginning to rise at the same time.

New figures this week show Sydney property prices dropped 5.6 percent over the past year, while the national market fell 2.2 percent. It signals the end of a five-year boom, during which prices in Australia’s biggest city rose 70 percent and household debt rising to 200 percent compared to disposable income—one of the highest levels in the developed world.

Numbers of financial economists and business leaders are warning of a possible crash. On Wednesday, Michael Chaney, chairman of Wesfarmers, one of the country’s biggest retailing and industrial conglomerates, said house prices could fall 20 percent and drag Australia into recession. Large numbers of people would be left with property worth less than their debts.

Another warning sign came last week. Westpac, one of the four large banks, raised its mortgage rates by 0.14 points, due to increased global borrowing costs, even though the Reserve Bank of Australia had kept official interest rates on hold at a record low of 1.5 percent for 25 months. Three other banks have since joined Westpac’s hike and others are likely to follow.

In a report broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Four Corners” on August 20, Martin North of Digital Finance Analytics, which conducts household financial surveys, estimated that 820,000 households were already “in stress.”

This figure would soar if interest rates rose. A 0.5 percentage point rate increase would throw another 330,000 households into stress. Nearly half these households would be in major cities, especially in outer suburban working class areas. In the Sydney outer western suburb of Kemps Creek, for example, 86 percent of mortgaged households would be in stress.

A 2 percentage point rise would see such crisis levels develop in a wider sweep of suburbs, reaching 100 percent of mortgaged households in the Melbourne northern suburb of Fawkner and Sydney’s Silverwater and Kurnell.

A 5 point rise, taking rates back to the pre-2008 “normal” level, would throw more than two million households into stress, affecting at least 90 percent of mortgaged households in more than 170 postcodes. Only the wealthiest enclaves would have less than 10 percent in stress.

In another report, North said a full-blown credit crunch was already emerging, illustrated by the growing number of people being rejected by banks for new mortgages. Due to “lax” bank lending practices a year ago, banks rejected only 5 percent of people applying to refinance their mortgage. “Now it is 40 percent, which is a huge difference.”

North said people mainly tried to refinance in order to reduce their monthly outgoings, which showed that many households are under mortgage stress. “At the same time the cost of living is rising because wages are falling, so it’s a perfect storm for householders. On top of all that, the price of their house is falling.”

Paul Dales, economist at Capital Economics, warned: “With the full effects of tighter credit conditions and rising mortgage rates yet to be felt, the current housing downturn will probably end up being the longest and deepest in Australia’s modern history.”

This prospect is now followed closely on global financial markets. The London-based Financial Times noted yesterday that it “follows a similar pattern overseas, where property markets from London to Toronto are seeing price declines as central banks begin to unwind record-low interest rates, consumers balk at paying record high prices and regulators or banks impose tougher lending criteria on consumers.

“Australia is becoming a test case of whether regulators can manage a soft landing, rather than a disorderly crash.”

This concern was magnified because at the height of Australia’s housing boom in 2015, investors took out more than 40 percent of mortgages. They relied on record low interest rates, generous tax breaks on capital gains and “negative gearing” tax concessions—when rental income undershoots interest costs.

This government-subsidised investment rush, combined with decades of deep cuts to social housing, pushed up prices, placing home ownership out of reach for many young working class people. Sydney became the second least affordable city in the world, with house prices almost 13 times median income.

The investment rush has started to go into reverse. Loans to housing investors totalled $10.4 billion in June, down 18 percent on the same month last year, the lowest approval level in almost five years.

One reason is that a royal commission inquiry into the banks and finance houses has belatedly begun exposing predatory lending practices. This week, Westpac agreed to pay a $35 million fine for lending money to borrowers who lacked the capacity to repay the loans.

The federal government and its corporate regulators, long complicit in these abuses, have felt compelled to start to clamp down, forcing banks to restrict investor lending, interest-only loans and tighten lending criteria.

At the peak of the boom, four in 10 mortgages were interest-only, with investors betting on ever-rising property prices. North told the Financial Timesa big risk is the $360 billion in interest-only mortgages, which will convert to principal-and-interest loans over the next three years. Up to a quarter of these borrowers may struggle to meet higher repayments and be forced to sell their properties, he said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Liberal National government, the opposition Labor Party and the corporate media are largely burying this worsening social crisis, indifferent and contemptuous toward the human impact.

This is being accompanied by misleading headlines about “booming” national economic growth. According to official statistics released yesterday, annualised growth gained up to 3.4 percent in the June quarter.

Yet, this result was largely driven by further debt-fuelled consumer spending. Wages remained flat and the household savings ratio fell to a decade low of 1 percent. These results only underscore the danger of a terrible slump, plunging more working class households into financial stress.

Many Japanese schools fail to meet earthquake-resistant standards

Gary Alvernia 

Thousands of school buildings and structures in Japan fail to meet earthquake resistant standards, according to Tokyo’s Education Ministry. This includes both the school buildings themselves and exterior walls found on school campuses. The danger was highlighted when one such exterior wall collapsed during a June 18 earthquake in Osaka Prefecture killing two people.

On August 28, the Education Ministry announced that 978 buildings at public elementary and junior high schools were not earthquake resistant as of April 1, putting the ministry three years behind its own schedule to have all buildings up to code. Despite this, the government only plans to reduce this number of schools to 360 by the end of fiscal year 2020.

An emergency review from the ministry published on August 10 also revealed that even more schools have external walls on their grounds that do not meet building regulations for safety.

The report identified 12,640 schools out of 51,058 surveyed nationally that had such deficient structures. The schools included kindergartens, elementary, junior and senior high schools, and universities. Given that only about 20,000 of the schools actually have external walls, this indicates that 60 percent of these schools have hazardous, unsafe structures.

Of these walls, 7,473 had clear signs of visible damage and degradation, heightening the risk of a collapse. Other structures violated height limitations or failed to have required buttresses.

The review took place after a wall at the Juei Elementary School in the city of Takatsuki, Osaka Prefecture collapsed during the June 18 earthquake. A nine-year-old girl who attended the school and an 80-year-old man were killed. The wall separated the school’s swimming pool and a pedestrian path the two were using when the earthquake struck.

The entire structure stood at 3.5 metres, which included the wall itself at 1.6 metres, sitting on a 1.9-metre foundation. This placed the entire structure 1.3 metres above existing regulations. The wall also lacked necessary buttresses and had not been adequately reinforced by steel beams. Professor Yasushi Sanada of Osaka University, an expert in concrete structures and part of the government investigation team, noted “that the wall was already extremely unstable.”

Sanada also stated that the steel rods found inside the school wall were too short, increasing the risk that the cinder blocks would detach themselves for the main structure, as happened during the earthquake. Many such walls were built before 1981, when updated regulations required the building of earthquake-resistant structures, a necessity in Japan where earthquakes are common.

This danger was already well known to local city officials in Takatsuki. Three years prior to the June tragedy, Ryoichi Yoshida, a disaster management expert, had informed the local education board responsible for Juei Elementary of the dangers inherent in the wall, which was close to a route to school taken by many students. He was ignored. The education board officials claimed to have “tested” the wall by hitting it with a hammer, and then told the school that it was safe.

Only 80 percent of the schools with dangerous walls identified in the report have taken measures to address the situation, with some removing the structures. Others merely placed warning signs for passers-by to stay away in the event of an earthquake. Following the deaths at Juei Elementary, the Takatsuki municipal authorities declared their intention to remove any concrete wall higher than 1.2 metres within the city.

The response from local authorities is indicative of a far wider problem. Under capitalism, vital safety issues are ignored or papered over in the name of saving money until disaster strikes, then officials posture as if they will make genuine changes to dispel anger and outrage, then drop their promises until the next tragedy.

In addition, there were significant regional disparities in the proportion of schools with dangerous walls, with 52 percent of schools in Okinawa prefecture found to have such structures, as compared to Hokkaido with only 4.5 percent, the highest and lowest rates in the country respectively. These numbers could be an underestimation, as the education ministry’s review consisted of little more than a survey sent to education boards, with no external checks of the responses.

However, it is significant that Okinawa reports higher levels of dangerous school conditions as the prefecture also faces greater economic stresses than the rest of Japan. A third of Okinawan children live in poverty, more than double the rate on the mainland. Unemployment is more widespread and per capita income is also only 70 percent compared to the rest of the country. While poverty in Japan is by no means limited to Okinawa, this highlights that it is the poor and the working class who bear the brunt of attacks on education.

The condition of Japanese schools is not simply a product of neglect by local governments, but the result of decades of cuts in education spending. The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pledged no new funding to address school safety. It is only offering to re-direct funds from other school-related subsidies, while claiming that additional funds could be sought in the next fiscal year, which begins in April 2019.

The response by Tokyo is symptomatic of the broader slashing of funds for public education over the past 30 years. Japan currently spends roughly 3.5 percent of its GDP on education, well below the OECD average for advanced capitalist countries of 4.7 percent, and a marked decline from the 5.6 percent it spent in 1987.

The lack of funds has contributed to the continued use of deteriorating and unsafe structures by schools, which lack the resources to replace them or adopt safer alternatives. The lie that there is no money for schools to keep children safe is belied by the fact that the government recently requested another record increase in military spending—a 2.1 percent jump from last year to 5.3 trillion yen ($47 billion).

Leader of breakaway republic in Ukraine assassinated

Andrea Peters

Last Friday’s assassination of Alexander Zakarchenko, the head of the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) in eastern Ukraine, is exacerbating already heightened tensions between Russia and the Western imperialist powers. The 42-year-old leader of the Russian-backed rebel state died in an explosion at a café in Donetsk on the evening of August 31.

According to official sources, an improvised explosive device was placed in the restaurant before the prime minister arrived for dinner. Zakharchenko’s body guard was also killed. Twelve others, including the minister of finance, were injured. Dmitri Trapeznikov, Zakharchenko’s deputy, has been appointed temporary head of government, and the republic’s parliament will vote on holding new elections this Friday. Over 100,000 people attended the slain politician’s funeral on Sunday.

The DNR and Moscow blame Kiev for the attack. Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, denounced the Ukrainian government of Petro Poroshenko on Friday for “implementing a terrorist scenario” and resorting to “bloody means.” An official press release decried the murder as an event that “runs along Kiev’s logic of a military solution to the internal Ukrainian crisis.” It warned, “Such actions carry the serious risk of destabilizing the situation in southeast Ukraine.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, without directly accusing Ukraine of involvement, paid tribute to Zakharchenko and described his murder as a “dastardly crime.” The speaker of the DNR Parliament, Denis Pushilin, insisted that the murder was carried out by Kiev with the aid of US special operations forces.

The head of Ukraine’s security services, Igor Guskov, denied the country’s involvement. He stated that Zakharchenko’s death was either the result of infighting among warring factions inside the DNR or an act carried out by Russia, which wished to remove the allegedly troublesome Zakharchenko from power.

Moscow has dispatched investigators from its own Federal Security Services (FSB) to the DNR and called for an international investigation into the murder. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has said it is considering the matter. After initially circulating images of two suspects wanted by police on Wednesday, DNR officials declared that the individuals in question were no longer being sought.

Zakharchenko’s murder is one of a series of recent assassinations of prominent military and political figures in Ukraine’s two breakaway republics where there is a complex web of relationships between politicians, wealthy oligarchs, and state actors.

The fighting in the Ukraine’s southeast stems back to the US-backed, far-right coup in the country in February 2014. Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s president, who was moving in the direction of closer ties with Moscow, was driven from power in a wave of protests and violence led by ferociously anti-Russian, Ukrainian nationalists with the support of Berlin and Washington.

As millions of ethnically Russian citizens fled Ukraine, a separatist movement took hold in the largely Russian-speaking eastern coal-mining region known as the Donbass. The DNR and its sister state, the Lugansk People’s Republic (LNR), supported by Russia, formed out of this conflict. Powerful sections of the American ruling class, which are braying for war with Russia, see the conflict in Ukraine, like that in Syria, as an important front.

After Zakharchenko’s murder, DNR officials declared a state of emergency in the region and placed the military on high alert. They said that Ukrainian armored vehicles had been seen advancing on Volnovakha-Dokuchaevsk, a frontline south of Donetsk.

Daniel Bezsonov, spokesperson for the DNR’s operational command, stated Sunday that large numbers of foreign mercenaries, including US and Canadian forces, had arrived in Ukraine and joined two of Kiev’s artillery and infantry brigades in preparation for a major attack. Eduard Bazurin, a DNR military leader, said that Ukrainian shock troops have also been deployed to the southeastern city of Mariupol. The Ukrainian military also stated last weekend that anti-government attacks were escalating in the Donbass.

On Monday, joint Ukrainian-NATO exercises started in the western Ukrainian city of Lvov. American Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch declared at the opening ceremony that the ten countries involved “stand in solidarity with Ukraine for Ukrainian security, Ukrainian sovereignty, and Ukrainian territorial integrity.”

The murder of Zakharchenko may be the death knell of the Minsk II peace accords, agreed in 2015 between Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany (known as the Normandy Four), and to which Zakharchenko was a signatory. That agreement, which was supposed to stop the fighting and grant the DNR and LNR limited recognition, has been repeatedly violated by the Ukrainian army and far-right paramilitary stationed on the border.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared Saturday that forthcoming talks among the Normandy Four to discuss the implementation of Minsk II were now “impossible.” Zakharchenko’s murder “is a provocation, a frank one, aimed at frustrating the implementation of Minsk accords. Although, Kyiv authorities never fulfilled them anyway,” he added.

While France and Germany initially insisted that the assassination not be used to further escalate tensions, on Wednesday the European Union (EU) extended sanctions against 154 Russian individuals and 44 Russian companies over the country’s involvement in Ukraine. The number of sanctioned individuals dropped by 1, as the now-dead Zakharchenko was removed from the list.

French ministers resign as Macron government plunges in polls

Francis Dubois 

After Ecology Minister Nicolas Hulot resigned last week, a second resignation by Sports Minister and former fencing champion Laura Flessel on Tuesday deepened the sense of crisis besetting French President Emmanuel Macron’s government. Flessel, whose budget Macron had cut from €530 to €348 million, said she will “continue her struggle by other means,” adding that she supported Macron and defended his “values and patriotism.” She was the second minister to resign even before Macron’s planned reshuffle of his cabinet.

Afterwards, the Macron government announced Hulot’s replacement by François de Rugy, the speaker of the National Assembly and former Green, who joined Macron before his election. Swimming champion Roxanna Maracineanu will replace Flessel.

The government also announced Tuesday night, after 10 days of hesitations, that it would introduce on January 1, 2019 tax withholding by private corporations. The decision, which provoked protests from hundreds of thousands of small businesses, was announced after the main French business federation, the Medef, abandoned its opposition.

The government seems adrift, and Macron overtaken by events. The press reported his remarks, at a school visit in Laval, that being president “is not really a job.” He added that “some days are easy and some are not.” The pro-Macron daily Le Monde wrote in an editorial that “every element of optimism that there existed in the message of Macron’s candidacy” has been undermined.

Disastrous polls last month had already underscored his government’s isolation from the population. An Elabe poll showed that only 16 percent of Frenchmen think his policies help the country, and only 6 percent think his policies help them. After Macron’s repeated overtures to Trump, his bombing of Syria and his reform smashing rail workers’ wages and conditions, which was signed by the trade unions, the growing anger with Macron in small business, as well as among workers, leaves Macron with virtually no base of support.

The fairly weak illusions the media promoted after his election that his parliamentary majority, “drawn from civil society,” would be “close to the people” and would bring economic dynamism back to France, have disappeared in barely a year.

For small businessmen, peasants and artisans who are struggling, or whose children and employees are facing unemployment, Macron’s policies threaten their living standards like those of wage workers. And behind these social layers, anger against Macron is rising particularly among the main target of his policies: the working class.

The collapse of what little support Macron had retained comes amid a broad radicalization of the working class in Europe. This year, after a decade of deep austerity, an initial wave of strikes spread across Europe—mobilizing not only rail and airline workers in France, but teachers and railworkers in Britain, airline and retail workers in Spain, and metalworkers in Turkey and Germany. Already last year, the Generation What poll found that a majority of Europeans under 35, including 62 percent of the under-35 French, wanted to join a “mass uprising.”

The way for workers to win over the growing layers of small business opposed to the attacks of the European Union (EU) and of Macron, and to prevent a shift of the middle classes further to the right, is to wage a resolute and uncompromising struggle against their austerity policies. The critical question in this context is to arm the working class with a clear perspective of struggle, on a revolutionary and socialist basis, against European and international capitalism.

This requires a political break with the bureaucracies of the pseudo-left parties and trade unions who continue to negotiate social austerity with Macron. It is not a question of changing trade union tactics or of imposing on Macron a more supposedly “radical” prime minister like Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who volunteered himself for that role last year. It is a question of reorienting the working class in France and across Europe towards a struggle against the dictatorship of the banks, as took place a century ago in Russia.

As Trotsky wrote in 1934 in Whither France, “It is false, thrice false, to affirm that the present petty bourgeoisie is not going to the working class parties because it fears ‘extreme measures.’ Quite the contrary. The lower petty bourgeoisie, its great masses, only see in the working-class parties parliamentary machines. They do not believe in their strength, nor in their capacity to struggle, nor in their readiness this time to conduct the struggle to the end.”

Even 82 years later, the writings of the great revolutionary still shed light on the situation today. If Macron can press on with austerity despite growing strike action, and the neo-fascists win broader sections of middle class and working class voters, it is because masses of people have had devastating experiences with the social-democratic Socialist Party (PS) and the Stalinist French Communist Party (PCF). After decades of austerity following the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union, the PS, the PCF and the unions are empty shells, without any working class base.

To stop Macron’s onslaught and block the rise of the neo-fascists, the critical question is to build new organizations of struggle independent of the union bureaucracies, and build the Socialist Equality Party (PES) as the alternative to pseudo-left politicians like Mélenchon.

The first year of Macron’s term has vindicated the warnings made by the PES. Even before the second round of the 2017 presidential elections, the PES denounced the political blackmail of the ruling elite, which demanded that workers vote for Macron to block neo-fascist candidate Marine Le Pen. The PES called for an active boycott of the Macron-Le Pen runoff, to provide a politically independent axis for the coming struggles of workers and youth in the next presidential term.

The last year also vindicated the PES’ opposition to the pseudo-left parties and trade unions. Whatever their claims to having “radical” politics, they drove these struggles into a dead end. All discussed, negotiated and signed the smashing of rail workers’ wages and conditions in the face of broad opposition, and discussed plans for broad attacks on pensions and health care. Nevertheless, Mélenchon’s Unsubmissive France and the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) insisted that workers had to struggle within the framework of a “united front” with the unions’ negotiations with Macron.

To carry out a resolute struggle against austerity and militarism requires a break with Mélenchon and the NPA. The PES advanced the policy of building committees of action in the workplaces, factories and working class neighborhoods, to mobilize the entire working class in the coming struggles, and make contact with its natural allies: workers across Europe and beyond.

In this movement, which is heading towards the eruption of a national and European general strike, 50 years after the French general strike of May-June 1968, the PES intervenes to explain the necessity for the transfer of state power to the working class.

May’s Africa visit highlights Britain’s decline

Jean Shaoul

Prime Minister Theresa May’s three-day visit to Africa last week was part of the British government’s desperate attempt to drum up trade, promote investment and attract business for the City of London and Britain’s construction and security companies as the UK prepares to leave the European Union (EU) in March 2019.

May promoted the trip, which took in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, as an opportunity for Britain “to deepen and strengthen its global partnerships” and to “continue to work together to maintain stability and security.”

Africa was home to five of the world’s fastest growing economies, she said, although these were not the ones she visited. While May described South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya as “key partners” for the UK after Brexit, their combined GDP is about $770 billion, similar to the Netherlands. In fact, Britain’s total trade with Africa in 2016 amounted to some $36 billion (compared with $305 billion with the EU) and is a fraction of China’s $188 billion trade with Africa.

May took with her a 29-strong delegation, made up of figures from financial services, including David Schwimmer, the London Stock Exchange’s chief executive, and Bill Winters, the chief executive of Standard Chartered, a bank with a long history of dealings in Africa, as well as executives from the construction, technology and security industries. She said that Britain aimed to overtake the US and become the biggest G7 investor in Africa—although in 2017, British investment of $2.3 billion lagged far behind China’s $8.9 billion in greenfield projects.

May said this investment would be channelled through the CDC Group, the former Commonwealth Development Corporation and the Department for International Development’s (DfID) development finance institution. The largest single investor in private equity funds in Africa, it would invest £3.5 billion in Africa by 2022, alongside similar private sector investment.

The CDC has been heavily criticised for its investments in “development projects” such as hotels and shopping centres—Kenya’s largest travel market is the UK with nearly 170,000 visitors—as well as losing most of its $140 million investment in a Kenyan cement maker.

May’s statement marked an explicit shift in Britain’s foreign aid policy. While aid has always been about Britain’s geo-strategic interests, in future DfID’s aid budget will be used not to alleviate poverty but to boost Britain’s business interests, under the cover of job creation. This is in line with former International Development Secretary Priti Patel’s earlier argument that Britain’s aid budget should be cut unless it works in the national interest and was tied to trade deals.

Based on the UK’s National Security Council’s new Africa strategy, May said Britain would “radically expand” its diplomatic presence in Africa and expand its missions in west Africa. This would include reopening its high commissions in Lesotho and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), appointing the first-ever resident British ambassador to Mauritania and opening the first British diplomatic office in Chad, to be paid for by transferring £50 million from the foreign aid budget. It marks a change in focus towards the western Sahel region.

May also focused on “security cooperation,” saying she wanted to boost security and support for “fragile” African states that would involve “help” and “support” from Britain’s armed forces and growing security industry. The UK provides Nigeria counter-terrorism and counter-extremism support and carries out military training in Kenya.

In part at least, this is bound up with efforts to reduce migration to Europe, with Britain sending three RAF Chinook helicopters to work with French forces in Mali earlier this year. But geostrategic issues are involved. According to Michael Jennings of the Royal African Society, security cooperation would also include “development projects” in the high-risk conflict zones of the Sahel, based on “British expertise” developed in Syria and Afghanistan.

Last year, London hosted a conference on Somalia; Chancellor Phillip Hammond visited South Africa in late 2016; DfID Secretary Liam Fox visited Ethiopia, South Africa, Mozambique and Uganda in 2017; former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson visited more African countries than any senior UK government official in many years and attended the Africa-EU summit in Côte d’Ivoire; and Patel and her successor Penny Mordaunt visited several African countries over the past two years.

May visited Africa’s two largest economies, Nigeria and South Africa, and Kenya, which ranks ninth. In South Africa, Britain’s 29th largest trading partner at $8.7 billion in 2016, she met President Cyril Ramaphosa. She went on to Nigeria, home to the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell, which controls more than 20 percent of Nigeria’s oil production, meeting President Muhammadu Buhari in the capital Abuja, and pledging to help fight terrorism and human trafficking. She also made a brief stop-over in Lagos, where she met Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, who recently indicated that he would list his $10 billion cement business on the London Stock Exchange. Half of Nigeria’s 180 million population exist on less than $1.90 a day.

Her last stop was in Kenya, where President Uhuru Kenyatta treated her with some disdain, complaining that no British prime minister had set foot in the country for 30 years, and saying he was pleased she had “found time” to visit. He then made a show of forgetting the surname of the former foreign secretary Boris Johnson.

The Daily Nation newspaper noted sarcastically that the last time a British prime minister came to Kenya, “Land Rover was the official government car, East African Industries [now Unilever] was market leader and most Kenyans banked at Barclays.”

Despite all the hype, May’s delegation came away from Britain’s former colonies with little of substance, further exposing Britain’s catastrophic political, diplomatic and economic decline over the last decades.

May’s much-televised timorous and awkward attempts to dance with school children in South Africa epitomised the trip. She refused to discuss their urgent pleas to reduce the cost and difficulty of obtaining work, study or holiday visas to visit Britain or to extend visa exemptions, even though the National Health Service is dependent on African health care workers to staff its facilities, and foreign students entering British universities are one of the country’s most important export earners. The number of Africans studying in the UK has fallen from 17,815 in 2012-2013 to 13,990 in 2016-2017.

Whereas May’s trip was the first by a prime minister since 2011, aside from David Cameron’s brief trip to attend Nelson Mandela’s funeral in 2013, French President Emmanuel Macron has already visited eight African countries and Chinese leaders have made no fewer than 79 trips since 2007.

Britain’s declining position in Africa is reflected in the number of its diplomatic missions, just 31, compared to Germany’s 39, China’s 46, and America’s 49. France has 42 in sub-Saharan Africa alone. Turkey, which had 12 embassies in 2009 now has 39, while India announced in July it would open 12 new embassies. Crucially, Britain has had no less than six ministers of state for Africa since 2012.

Aware that she had little to offer, May conceded that Britain could not match the “economic might” of China or the US. Just days after her visit, Beijing is hosting the huge Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, expected to be the largest ever, where China will welcome dozens of African heads of state and is expected to offer new trade and finance deals. It follows President Xi Jinping’s second tour of Africa when he visited Senegal, Rwanda, Mauritius and South Africa.

In wake of credit downgrade huge job cuts looming at Ford

Shannon Jones

In the wake of the recent downgrading of Ford credit by the rating agency Moody’s, the financial press is full of speculation about a major round of job cuts by the US-based automaker as part of its already announced restructuring plan.

On August 29 Moody’s lowered Ford’s senior unsecured rating to Baa3, only one step above junk status. A downgrade makes it more difficult and expensive to finance debt. The downgrade was accompanied by a warning that there is an increased chance of a further lowering of Ford credit in the next 12 to 24 months.

The moves by the credit rating agency represent a shot across the bow at Ford on the part of Wall Street, which is demanding a further assault on workers in order to boost what it views as inadequate rates of return by the auto manufacturer. It follows decades of relentless cuts, facilitated by the unions in the US and globally, that have resulted in the decimation of hundreds of thousands of jobs and the steady erosion of wages and benefits at all the US-based car companies.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Times of London reported this week that Ford could cut up to 24,000 jobs at its European division as a result of a reorganization being discussed by top executives. The plan reportedly outlines $11 billion in restructuring costs including job buyouts and plant closures. The Sunday Times noted Ford employs 12,000 in Britain, with engine plants in Bridgend and Dagenham threatened.

The paper also reported that Ford Europe President Steven Armstrong said the company is focused on “aggressively attacking costs, implementing facility and product program efficiencies to lower product and material costs as well as capital intensity in Europe.”

Ford has been losing money on its European operations in contrast to North America, where it is still making profits. The plans by Britain to leave the European Union, Brexit, has added further uncertainty to Ford’s future in that country.

For its part, Moody’s noted the potential for a “cyclical” slowdown in the automotive industry. Indeed the increasingly volatile world financial situation, including the threat of auto tariffs on the part of the US Trump administration, points to the likely eruption of another major economic crisis that could put the 2008 crash in the shade. It is implicitly understood by the financial elite that the costs of such as shock would be shunted onto the backs of the working class.

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, who recently projected a 12 percent cut of Ford’s 202,000 worldwide workforce, said, “We do not see restructuring at Ford as a ‘nice to have’ … but as a crucial step to set the global business on a more balanced footing,” Jonas wrote August 20.

Any attacks on its European workforce would only prepare for attacks on workers in South America, Asia and in the United States itself.

The chorus on Wall Street for decisive action by Ford takes place under conditions where the company is still making substantial profits. The company made adjusted pre-tax earnings of $8.4 billion in 2017, however it is well short of profit expectations. While Ford sales were up four percent overall in August and the profitable Ford F-150 pickup truck is selling at a record pace for the year, Ford sales are down 1.2 percent in 2018.

The company has already announced the ending of most passenger car production in order to focus on more popular light trucks and SUVs. It is reportedly also looking to end production of the Galaxy and S-Max in Europe to concentrate on larger, more profitable models.

In an interview this week with the Detroit Free Press, Bob Shanks, Ford chief financial officer, acknowledged the term “restructuring” suggests, “workforce reductions and closures.” He continued, “A year ago we started a journey that’s going to be a very fundamental redesign of our traditional auto business. It’s a huge, huge transformation.”

He added, [Ford] is “looking at a major redesign in our business, particularly overseas markets. That performance is not good. After years of hard work, restructuring, new products and changes. It just isn’t what it needs to be... The bottom line is unacceptable.”

Despite efforts by the European unions to prevent resistance to Ford’s cost-cutting measures, autoworkers in Germany struck the US-based company and other automakers earlier this year and, in late 2017, 1,000 workers conducted a wildcat strike to oppose a rotten deal signed by the Ford Craiova Automobile Union and Ford Romania.

The deal demanded that 4,200 Romanian workers accept wage freezes for senior workers and a reduction in new hires’ pay to five percent below the current minimum salary, or as little as €300 (US$358) a month. Ford also demanded a reduction in payments for overtime work and “flexible” work hours whenever “operational demands require it.”

In a December 13, 2017 memo to workers, Ford Romania chief John Oldham threatened them with mass unemployment, saying, "We need to reflect on what is critical at this crucial moment for the Craiova plant, to have a higher salary increase or to secure the future of this factory! We hope you understand the importance of this year’s negotiation in the present politically and economically unstable climate.”

Automakers globally are facing pressure for major investments for research and development of electric and autonomous vehicles. The large investment required to implement such technology puts heavy strain on corporate cash flows, increasing the need for cuts.

One possible casualty of Ford’s cost cutting may be its plans for a technology center in Detroit, where the company recently purchased the old Michigan Central Depot with the apparent idea of converting it into a research hub for autonomous vehicles.

The credit downgrade by Moody’s follows the ouster of Ford CEO Mark Fields in 2018 after just three years tenure. In announcing the shake-up, Chairman Bill Ford pointed to the low valuation of the company’s stock and declining profits.

The threat to Ford workers takes place under conditions where financial pressures are mounting on the other US automakers. Speculation is widespread that GM, which sold off its European Opel and Vauxhall divisions in 2017, may soon announce the closure of one or more of its US passenger car assembly plants, in particular its Lordstown, Ohio facility where the company recently eliminated the second shift. GM is the only US car manufacturer that is continuing to build passenger cars in North America.

Fiat Chrysler is in the midst of a restructuring operation that has led to the temporary closure of a number of its biggest plants. The company ended US passenger car production in 2016 to focus on light trucks and SUVs.

The UAW has been predictably silent on the reports of Fords plans for a new round of cuts. This is not only because it is predicted that the cuts will fall most heavily on European autoworkers, but because the UAW takes its stand entirely on the basis of the defense of the profit interests of management.

The UAW has facilitated US layoffs by implementing contract changes that eliminate whatever meager job protections autoworkers had. The union agreed to the elimination of the jobs bank that provided some employment security for laid off autoworkers. Meanwhile, the UAW has sanctioned the use of more temporary part time (TPT) workers who are not eligible for supplemental unemployment benefits and have no pensions or recall rights.

The 2015 contract provided no explicit job guarantees. In place of a fight to defend jobs the UAW is actively inciting fratricidal conflict between US autoworkers and autoworkers internationally, supporting President Trump’s trade war measures and denouncing Mexican and Chinese autoworkers for “taking American jobs.”

The UAW has abetted the drive by the auto companies to force out better paid veteran workers and replace them with TPTs. The impact of the ruthless cost cutting drive by Ford was underscored by the injury earlier this year of Ford Flat Rock Assembly worker Lynn Hagood, age 55, who suffered severe injuries after being placed back on the assembly line with insufficient training.

At all the auto companies the UAW has sanctioned the use of forced overtime by management to avoid the hiring of additional workers. This has led to worker burnout and the increased likelihood of death or injury on the job.

The fight to defend jobs requires that workers elect factory committees, independent of the UAW, to initiate a struggle against plant closings and layoffs. This struggle must be waged in the closest unity with autoworkers internationally to counter the efforts by the global automakers and the unions to play workers off against each other country by country. The defense of jobs is bound up with the struggle for a socialist program, including the transformation of the auto giants into public enterprises under the democratic control of the working class.

Amazon market capitalization surpasses $1 trillion

E.P. Milligan

Amazon’s market capitalization reached over $1 trillion in value on Tuesday, making it the second company to do so in US history after Apple. Although Amazon’s share value receded to $2,039.51 by the end of Tuesday trading, Amazon’s share value has soared by 108 percent over the past year alone.

The growth of massive corporate behemoths like Amazon is not the product of its supposed “creative ingenuity.” Amazon’s soaring profits, like those of Apple, are the direct result of the brutal exploitation of its workforce. Amazon and its owners stand atop a mountain of broken bones, hernias, torn knee and back muscles, heat strokes, stress-induced asthma attacks, and countless other lifelong bodily injuries.

The historic character of the rise of Amazon demonstrates once again that the inevitable outcome of capitalist development is monopolization. Amazon exemplifies how technological advances are subordinated to the profit motive under capitalism.

Amazon is a massive operation, international in nature, which now employs 566,000 people across many countries and 5 continents. It utilizes state-of-the-art technology and information systems to mobilize and integrate the worldwide distribution of millions of goods. But the immense profits produced on the backs of its workforce are not used to improve living conditions for the masses of working people; they enrich a narrow layer of the super-rich.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made $1.8 billion on Tuesday alone. Broken down, this means Bezos made $20,833 per second, an amount roughly equivalent to what an Amazon worker makes in a year. He made $67 billion this year—equivalent to $8 million an hour. Bezos is now the richest man on earth, with a net worth of $164.7 billion. Based on the average US annual income of $28,446, it would take an Amazon worker over five million years to accumulate an amount equal to their CEO’s wealth—about equal to the time since humans genetically split off from gorillas and chimpanzees.

The pay for many US workers is even lower. Base pay at Amazon is $12 per hour, which amounts to less than $25,000 per year.

Coverage by the International Amazon Workers’ Voice (IAWV) newsletter has cited reports by workers at multiple facilities who have seen coworkers sleeping in their cars. Inside the facilities, workers face a high-tech dystopia, characterized by long hours and an authoritarian industrial regime. “It is like being tortured in your mind and your body for 10 hours a night,” one worker, Shannon Allen, told the World Socialist Web Site. Another worker described the work as “modern day slavery.”

A worker in the UK said that the company penalizes workers for getting hurt. “Someone hurt on the job? It gets raised to a leader who then calls first aid, they take a statement then ask if you are returning to work or going home. Going home incurs a half-point penalty.”

All over the world, the company forces workers to labor at fast, tiring, and often dangerous speeds. The UK worker said: “I still have near misses and collisions from people rushing…now it’s faster, faster, faster. It’s all about being on the go, meeting rates and targets.”

Amazon is ramping up the exploitation of its workforce as it prepares for another massive expansion. Last year, the company announced plans to open a second headquarters, though the decision as to where the facilities will be located has not yet been finalized. It also recently purchased 20,000 vans from Mercedes-Benz, with which the company plans to establish a network of contractors to carry out their last-mile delivery services. This development will deal a harsh blow to the US Postal Service, which currently handles 40 percent of last-mile deliveries. It also has begun to muscle its way into the $88 billion online ad market, with clear plans to surpass tech giants Google and Facebook.

Amazon workers have begun to fight back against their grueling working conditions and low pay. Strikes broke out at facilities in Spain, Germany, Poland, Italy and France this summer, and hundreds of workers have written in to the IAWV to describe the brutal exploitation they face at the hands of the company.

The ruling class has begun efforts to neutralize the growing opposition to social inequality, low wages, and sweatshop conditions. In particular, the Democratic Party is seeking to take control of these struggles and direct them back into safe channels like the Teamsters Union and the political orbit of Bernie Sanders, who endorsed Hillary Clinton for president after the 2016 Democratic primaries.

On Wednesday, Sanders introduced a bill that would tax corporations for the federal benefits their employees receive. The bill, named Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies or “BEZOS Act,” would establish a 100% tax on companies equal to the public assistance programs their employees depend on to live.

This legislation does nothing to address the unsafe conditions workers face and will not raise wages or lead to an improvement in their lives. It is significant that the bill instead is intended to provide the government money which it will likely hand back over to the corporations in the form of tax cuts and deregulation. On top of this, the bill’s authors and sponsors know it has no chance of passage.

In contrast, the Socialist Equality Party demands the immediate seizure of all of Jeff Bezos’s assets and their immediate distribution to meet the needs of the working class, including by massive expenditures on public transportation, healthcare, education, and the provision of food, water and housing to those in need. The corporation must be transformed into a public utility to be run not for the private profit of a few but to meet human need.

To accomplish this historical task, Amazon workers require organization—not through the corrupt trade unions that take their dues money to pay the salaries of bureaucrats—but fighting organizations run by and for the workers themselves. Such organizations, workplace committees, will be based on the principles of democracy and workers’ control of production, and will fight to educate the working class as a whole about the conditions Amazon workers face while inviting other sections of the working class to join in a common struggle against the massive corporations.