Capitalism and the Violence of Environmental Decline

Rob Urie

The Statement Problem

Since the re-beginning of the environmental movement in the 1960s, the scale and scope of environmental ills have been systematically understated, suggesting both that the causal mechanisms weren’t entirely understood and that environmental problems have been growing. That way of proceeding, of identifying problems and solving their proximate causes, occasionally resolved individual problems without addressing their singular generating mechanism— industrial capitalism. Environmental woes are now past the point when solving multiple problems individually constitutes a workable path forward.

Regular assurances that technology will save us have been issued in the 1970s. Since then, environmental problems have aggregated to world-threatening scale. Granting the extraordinary regenerative capacity of nature and, to use a spatial metaphor, the localized cleverness of technology, it is this localized quality that is the problem. If I take a bite from an apple, whither the apple? Without knowing the size of the bite relative to the size of the apple, there is no way to know. Then apply the complexity of the world to the idea of the apple. Technology is the bite of the apple.

The logic of capitalist solutions ties to the logic of the generating mechanism. Through the latter, the world is broken into pieces and reconfigured using the framework of capitalist efficiency. This is how environmental problems were conceived for a while— as isolated problems to be solved by addressing constituent pieces. ‘External’ solutions like geoengineering to address climate change take this modular view from capitalist production and apply it to ‘the world.’ Rather than changing the configuration of the pieces creating the problem, change the world to accommodate it.

What is seen as a technical problem is, in fact, conceptual. This has been partially recognized with the shift from siloed sciences to environmental ‘systems’ analysis. But holism and systems are variants of the ontology that guides capitalism. They are complex taxonomic objects, but then so are their constituents. The problem is, and always will be, the reciprocal in the world— what isn’t known. Or to go deeper, what may be known in some sense— the feel of the breeze on one’s cheek, the cock of a lover’s arm in sleep, etc. but that isn’t known to be a constituent. Capitalism is the occasional aspect of life that has been put forward as its totality.

This comes to bear in a pragmatic sense through now accumulating environmental crises. The history of pesticides since Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring has been to serially replace one adverse side-effect with another. Separately, PFAS were known to cause adverse health effects by the early 1970s. Today, several thousand PFAS exist, each developed to ‘solve a (particular) problem’ while causing a host of others. Even within the ontological conceit that guides capitalism, these serial failures are only plausible under the terms provided until their toxic effects become known. In an earlier age, this was called a ‘long con.’

A temporal dynamic is set up through capitalist production. The choices are, 1) forego the activity that will cause an environmental problem, 2) engage in the activity without regard for the consequences, 3) reconfigure the activity with the hope of not causing the problem, or 4) reconfigure the world to accommodate the problem. Note: only 1) precludes capitalist production. 2), 3) and 4) are first and foremost types of violence toward the world, and second, profit opportunities for capitalists. 3) assumes that the logic that caused the problem will solve it. And 4) relies on the ‘broken window fallacy.’

Violence is as Violence Does

The very idea of ‘the environment’ as a separate and distinct entity is one with the ontological premises that drive capitalism. To the extent these are applicable, animals breath, drink water and eat just fine without any necessary ‘human’ knowledge of what they are doing. Put differently, ‘the world’ doesn’t come with necessary conceptual partitions. Foucault’s ‘Chinese encyclopedia,’ whatever its fealty to its subject, captures this idea wonderfully. His point, if I may (can): the contingency of taxonomy.

‘animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) suckling pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) etcetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies’.

Capitalism is in this sense a meth-addled drone pilot sitting in an air conditioned trailer in bumblefuck Virginia with a pile of pornographic magazines in one hand and the button that slaughters a wedding party in Afghanistan in the other. The choices are, 1) don’t push the button, 2) push the button and slaughter the entire wedding party, 3) push the button, but only target the men, 4) OD on meth with plans to meet the wedding party in the afterlife. If anything, this metaphor is too generous.

A History of Violence

The American story of goodness and benevolence has always depended on a particular conception of time linked to selective history. The Indian Wars— genocide to clear the land for ‘real estate’ and resources, had just concluded, and the American eugenics movement of forced sterilization was just getting started, when Nazism was being conceived in Germany. Far from being driven by ideology, it was the economic success of American industrialization driven by the fruits of slavery and genocide that motivated Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.

The conception of a sad and tragic, but necessary, past is used to place this history in a vaguely conceived ‘before.’ However, indigenous women were still being forcibly sterilized in 1976. The U.S. war in Southeast Asia, in which at least four million overwhelmingly innocent human beings were slaughtered, was just ending then. And despite the victories of the Civil Rights movement, the class position of American blacks remained little changed. This marked the start of the era of ‘freedom to’ capitalism— neoliberalism.

Following decades of smaller scale terror, brutality, rape and pillage, George W. Bush launched the U.S. War against Iraq that led to the deaths of at least one million Iraqis and lit the wider Middle East on fire. The bloodshed led several million Iraqis to flee their homes both internally, and to neighboring countries, including Syria. The U.S. has been ‘putting out fires’ it started in the region, including supporting a Saudi-led genocide in Yemen, arming a relentless proxy war in Syria and bombing Libya back to the seventeenth century, ever since. Most of the central architects of the Iraq War spent years or decades working in the oil and gas industry.

This can be understood through epochs, in geopolitical terms, as tragedy related to being human and / or as an amalgam particular to American history. Left out would be the economic motivations, the use and abuse of ‘the world’ as a means to ascend an economic pyramid to wealth, prestige and power. This isn’t to suggest that this is all that it is, history reduced to a single motivation. However, religious, political and cultural ‘freedom’ could in theory have been achieved without slavery, genocide and / or anyone getting rich.

By the late nineteenth century, the American forests had been cut to the ground. Resources had been mined. With ‘industrialization’ in full flower, rivers and lakes were used as open toilets for industrial waste. Jim Crow laws were in force, the later stages of ‘Indian removal’ were underway and industrial conglomerates were using their economic power to eliminate competition, consolidate market power and crush labor. ‘Freedom to’ remained the province of the oligarchs, newly minted industrialists and those outside of government reach.

By the 1960s the environmental consequences of American industrialization had reached their temporary limits. Rivers and lakes were catching fire from high concentrations of industrial pollutants. The ravages of strip mining for coal— along with the human toll that coal mining had on miners, was becoming known outside of Appalachia. The air in major cities was toxic and had been made nearly unbreathable by surrounding industries, vehicular traffic and the burning of waste. The Federal government responded to unrest from below, with Richard Nixon creating the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) shortly after the first Earth Day in 1970.

The ‘process’ of industrialization has been turned into a formula of sorts by economists. 1) produce industrial inputs and consumers goods (dirty production) for export, 2) use the wages and accumulated capital from doing so to shift to higher value-added production and domestic consumption and when this has been accomplished 3) let ‘newly industrializing’ countries take over dirty production. From London to New York to Beijing, two and one-half centuries of toxic air, undrinkable water and rolling public health crises. But then, the pollution moves on and everyone is rich, right?

Back to the conception of time at work for a moment: the idea of ‘progress’ in the economist’s history is an illusion in the sense that it implies a past, present and future to an idea— that of industrialism, that is totalizing. Capitalism is a mode of social organization. Labor is organized as parts of a whole as gears are to a machine. The reciprocal of capitalist social organization is ever-present within capitalist societies. America is littered with the carcasses of past capitalism. The abandoned factories, gas stations and industrial sites exist in the present as much as they did in the past. ‘Capitalism’ doesn’t see them— and live with them, but we do.

Industrial agriculture is a prime example of the capitalist concept of efficiency applied to break a process into constituent parts and then reconfigure it along industrial lines. Monoculture planting reconfigures the landscape and local ecosystems. Chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides reconfigure plants, ecosystems and the makeup of the soil. Formerly prime agricultural land is killed, denuded of the very life that made it good for growing crops for millennia. By the 1970s, farmers in Southeastern Pennsylvania were abandoning orchards, claiming improbably that the land had ‘gone sour’ when industrial methods were to blame.

Liberal economists admit to environmental destruction without granting it primacy. This is by design. Value Theory, the capitalist method of determining what something is worth, is tied to money and power. As the argument goes, something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Two points: in this theory, without a price, there is no value. Second, given the skewed distribution of income and wealth, price means one thing to the rich and another to the poor. And in fact, the relation of price to wealth has its direct corollary in the relation of wealth to political power.

As accumulating environmental crises are in the process of demonstrating, nature exists regardless of whether or not it has a market price assigned to it. And to the extent that wealth can buy temporary respite from the consequences of environmental destruction, the people with the money to adequately price nature, were doing so actually possible, have less motivation than the people who don’t. And this leaves aside the class relations that have environmental destruction as a source of concentrated wealth and power.

An argument is making the rounds that a small number of corporations are responsible for the preponderance of greenhouse gas emissions. This formulation supports not-useful parsing of the problem in favor of a limited response. Climate change is a function of carbon emissions relative to nature’s capacity to absorb CO2— carbon sinks, which are being destroyed. Industrial agriculture both emits greenhouse gases (primarily methane) and destroys carbon sinks. And oceans are giant carbon sinks that are being destroyed. The problem is larger than ‘rogue corporations’ encompasses.

The problem is capitalism, not corporations per se. And the problem with capitalism is political and conceptual, not technological. Technological solutions to climate change 1) address the problem in isolation and 2) provide no indication that the unsolvable problem of unintended consequences is understood. The refocus on science and technology since the 1970s correlates 1:1 with the accumulation of environmental problems in multiple, related dimensions. You can argue that this is coincidence, not correlation, but the technological generating mechanisms— industrial production, industrial agriculture and industrial fishing, tell the true story.

The irony that liberal critics of past totalitarian regimes are about to face is that unless immediate and far reaching action is taken to resolve the environmental crises now unfolding, liberal capitalism might end up being the most murderous force in human history. Since the 1960s the U.S has had enough nuclear weapons to end human life on the planet. Through its promotion and practice of industrial capitalism, the U.S. now has primary responsibility for its consequences. If the powers that be don’t want to lead, then get out of the way.

Corporations that abuse human rights are a threat to SDGs and our planet

Bobby Ramakant

One of the major processes at the United Nations (UN) that gives hope for a better tomorrow where “no one is left behind” is the UN binding treaty on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights.

History is marred with examples how transnational trade and businesses kept profit over people. Domestic laws and legal frameworks failed to hold abusive transnational corporations to account for not just human rights abuses but also for environmental damages (often irreparable loss like that of biodiversity). That is why we urgently need strong legally binding mechanisms globally to end all forms of corporate capture.

Governments need to walk the talk on the promise of sustainable development where “no one is left behind”. When corporate power undermines democracy and democratic processes, a large number of people are left to deal with a range of injustices, inequalities and abuses, as well as, climate crisis deepens which further exacerbates the impact on the poor people.

People’s Representatives globally call for UN binding treaty

This week UN Inter-governmental Working Group (IGWG) is discussing a global binding treaty on “transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights”.

Interest in this process continues to grows as evidenced in the significant presence of government delegations, civil society and elected officials worldwide. 321 members of regional and national parliaments, as well as municipal authorities have endorsed the Call of People’s Representatives Worldwide for the UN Binding Treaty.

Charles Santiago, Member of the Parliament of Malaysia stated, “Prices of medicines are very high and people are dying because of that. This is a consequence of the monopolies controlled by transnational corporations. The emerging movement for UN binding regulations to tackle power of transnational corporations, is encouraging for all of us.”

Delegates from over 40 countries representing communities affected by transnational corporations’ human rights violations, social movements, trade unions and civil society organisations are speaking up too. These are the voices of affected people that should be in the centre of these negotiations.

Tchenna Maso from La Via Campesina (Movement of affected by Dams) in Brazil, said, ”We are concerned about the content of the revised draft text presented for discussion this week because it does not reflect many of our key concerns and proposals. In particular, the treaty needs a primary focus on transnational corporations, as indicated in the original resolution 26/9, to address the corporate impunity we see in the world.”

Kea Seipato, Coordinator of the Southern African section of the Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity, stressed that, “The people of Southern Africa are calling for a self-determined development and are demanding a Treaty that will ensure that. They are calling for the ‘Right to Say No’ to the plunder of their resources by transnational corporations.”

Pablo Fajardo, representative of the Union of People Affected by Chevron in Ecuador, said, “International financial systems and multinationals have captured the Ecuadorian State over the last two years. That is why a binding treaty is needed, which returns sovereignty to peoples and states. But it is also clear to us that a UN binding treaty that is not accompanied by sustained social action will not be effective – as exemplified by recent events in Ecuador over the past ten days.”

Karin Nansen, chair of Friends of the Earth International said: “Environmental and human rights defenders are on the frontline of resisting the violations committed by transnational corporations, enduring systematic attacks of intimidation, silencing and killings. The historical importance of this binding treaty process to end, once and for all, the impunity of transnational corporations and guarantee access to justice for those affected cannot be overemphasized.”

Recently activists performed in front of the Palais de Nations representing how transnational corporations use Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanisms (ISDS) to sue governments that implement regulations to protect labour standards or the environment. The action is part of a tour traveling from Geneva to Vienna, where today the UN Trade Commission UNCITRAL begin negotiations on a reform of the ISDS system.

Dr Thomas Köller from Attac Germany remarked, “We call on the European governments and the European Union (EU) to participate constructively in the negotiations on the UN Binding Treaty. In Vienna the EU must withdraw its push for a Multilateral Investment Court.”

This is not the first time where countries globally have joined hands against corporate abuse. More than a decade back in global tobacco treaty negotiations, despite tobacco industry tactics to water down this treaty process, governments agreed to stop tobacco industry interference in public health policy. This treaty, formally called the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), has two backbone Articles that potentially empowers governments to better implement life saving public health laws: Article 5.3 of this treaty, guidelines of which were adopted in November 2008 by governments, recognizes in its preamble that there is a direct and irreconcilable conflict of interest between tobacco industry and public health policy. Article 19 of this treaty which is being worked upon by governments is to hold tobacco industry legally and financially liable for the damages it has caused. I have been part of every global tobacco treaty negotiations so far (Conference of the Parties to the WHO FCTC) as an observer (part of Corporate Accountability led Network for Accountability of Tobacco Transnationals team). Tobacco industry interference in global tobacco treaty is a stark reminder why we need laws and policies in place to not let abusive corporations interfere with health and development policy making.

No time to lose in dealing with corporate abuses

Only 135 months are left for 193 governments to deliver on promise of sustainable development goals (SDGs). Conflict of interest of several transnational corporations with health and development policies is stark enough to raise alarm for stronger action to make strict legally binding rules and laws against it. It is vital to protect sustainable development policy making from corporate capture. As thousands and millions echoed last month during climate strike, there is no planet-B.

A new phase in Syria and the Middle East?

Salim Nazzal

Sad years had passed when hundreds of thousands died in a senseless war. It destroyed one of the most stable countries in the Middle East. Billions of dollars were allocated to bomb Syria. According to the former foreign minister of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have paid more than two billion dollars to support terrorism, whose gangs have spread death and extremism throughout Syria. What have the Syrian people benefited from the destruction of their country? The immediate answer is nothing except ruin and death. This is a lesson to all those who seek to struggle for political and economic reform?

There should have been clear from the beginning of the Syrian war, the big difference between the criticism of the regime. And the demand for reform, and the demolition of the state.

The Syrian opposition from the democratic forces, made mistakes when it refused to establish a dialogue with the regime. At the instigation of countries, like Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, which was a fatal mistake that contributed to the country’s destruction and devastation?

Now the picture has changed. The criminal gangs did not succeed in achieving their goals thanks to the steadfastness of the Syrian army and the Syrian leadership. If these gangs reached, Syria would have turned to Afghanistan in the Middle East. Syria’s future is bright after the government army has succeeded in liberating most of the country. There are still areas such as Adlib, the capital of terrorists, spreading chaos and destruction, but this will not last long. It is time to get rid of the militias in Syria and the Middle East. So states can resume their role in protecting the security of citizens and the country. Recent developments demonstrate that Syria is heading towards the end of the chaos period and the beginning of another phase of history.

The Turkish Gambit

Arshad M Khan

The only certainty in war is its intrinsic uncertainty, something Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could soon chance upon. One only has to look back on America’s topsy-turvy fortunes in Iraq, Afghanistan and even Syria for confirmation.

The Turkish invasion of northeastern Syria has as its defined objective a buffer zone between the Kurds in Turkey and in Syria. Mr. Erdogan hopes, to populate it with some of the 3 million plus Syrian refugees in Turkey, many of these in limbo in border camps. The refugees are Arab; the Kurds are not.

Kurds speak a language different from Arabic but akin to Persian. After the First World War, when the victors parceled up the Arab areas of the Ottoman Empire, Syria came to be controlled by the French, Iraq by the British, and the Kurdish area was divided into parts in Turkey, Syria and Iraq, not forgetting the borderlands in Iran — a brutal division by a colonial scalpel severing communities, friends and families. About the latter, I have some experience, having lived through the bloody partition of India into two, and now three countries that cost a million lives.

How Mr. Erdogan will persuade the Arab Syrian refugees to live in an enclave, surrounded by hostile Kurds, some ethnically cleansed from the very same place, remains an open question. Will the Turkish army occupy this zone permanently? For, we can imagine what the Kurds will do if the Turkish forces leave.

There is another aspect of modern conflict that has made conquest no longer such a desirable proposition — the guerrilla fighter. Lightly armed and a master of asymmetric warfare, he destabilizes.

Modern weapons provide small bands of men the capacity and capability to down helicopters, cripple tanks, lay IEDs, place car bombs in cities and generally disrupt any orderly functioning of a state, tying down large forces at huge expense with little chance of long term stability. If the US has failed repeatedly in its efforts to bend countries to its
will, one has to wonder if Erdogan has thought this one through.

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 is another case in point. Forever synonymous with the infamous butchery at Sabra and Shatila by the Phalange militia facilitated by Israeli forces, it is easy to forget a major and important Israeli goal: access to the waters of the Litani River which implied a zone of occupation for the area south of it up to the Israeli border.

Southern Lebanon is predominantly Shia and at the time of the Israeli invasion they were a placid group who were dominated by Christians and Sunni, even Palestinians ejected from Israel but now armed and finding refuge in Lebanon. It was when the Israelis looked like they were going to stay that the Shia awoke. It took a while but soon their guerrillas were harassing Israeli troops and drawing blood. The game was no longer worth the candle and Israel, licking its wounds, began to withdraw ending up eventually behind their own border.

A colossal footnote is the resurgent Shia confidence, the buildup into Hezbollah and new political power. The Hezbollah prepared well for another Israeli invasion to settle old scores and teach them a lesson. So they were ready, and shocked the Israelis in 2006. Now they are feared by Israeli troops.

To return to the present, it is not entirely clear as to what transpired in the telephone call between Erdogan and Trump. Various sources confirm Trump has bluffed Erdogan in the past. It is not unlikely then for Trump to have said this time, “We’re leaving. If you go in, you will have to police the area. Don’t ask us to help you.” Is that subject to misinterpretation? It certainly is a reminder of the inadvertent green light to Saddam Hussein for the invasion of Kuwait when Bush Senior was in office.

For the time being Erdogan is holding fast and Trump has signed an executive order imposing sanctions on Turkish officials and institutions. Three Turkish ministers and the Defense and Energy ministries are included. Trump has also demanded an immediate ceasefire. On the economic front, he has raised tariffs on steel back to 50 percent as it used to be before last May. Trade negotiations on a $100 billion trade deal with Turkey have also been halted forthwith. The order also includes the holding of property of those sanctioned, as well as barring entry to the U.S.

Meanwhile, the misery begins all over again as thousands flee the invasion area carrying what they can. Where are they headed? Anywhere where artillery shells do not rain down and the sound of airplanes does not mean bombs.

Such are the exigencies of war and often its surprising consequences.

Childhood and adolescent obesity worldwide expected to increase 70 percent by 2030

Katy Kinner

The world’s population of children and adolescents with obesity is predicted to increase by 70 percent by 2030, from 150 million to 254 million. Without intervention, experts predict rates of obesity in higher income countries will stabilize at high levels while low and middle-income countries will struggle to handle a rapidly increasing public health problem.

The above figures were published in the World Obesity Federation’s, “Atlas of Childhood Obesity,” a 212-page report released this October that displays the latest data on obesity prevalence of infants, children and adolescents in 191 countries.

Data for the Atlas was gathered from an article authored by the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC) titled: “Worldwide trends in body-mass index, underweight, overweight, and obesity from 1975 to 2016: a pooled analysis of 2,416 population-based measurement studies in 128.9 million children, adolescents, and adults.” The article was first published in an October 2017 issue of the medical journal The Lancet .

The NCD-RisC analysis was the first of its kind to measure worldwide trends in obesity, analyzing data covering four decades from 1975 to 2016. As the title suggests, the study pooled 2,416 population-based studies that provided height and weight measurements of 128.9 million people, with 31.5 million of the total falling between the ages of 5-19 years.

The study categorizes children as 5-9 years old and adolescents as 10-19 years old and defines obesity as more than two standard deviations above the median of the World Health Organization (WHO) growth reference for children and adolescents. While it will not be addressed in this article, the study also focuses on global figures and health consequences of underweight children and adolescents.

The WOF Atlas begins by displaying the NCD-RisC data through ranked lists of each country’s obesity risk scores, obesity prevalence and predicted 2030 obesity prevalence.

The countries with the current highest prevalence of child obesity by percentage are Cook Islands, Nauru and Palau with obesity rates of 40.7, 40.6 and 40.0 percent respectively. The subsequent eight countries are also Pacific Island countries. The United States is ranked 15th with a 25.4 percent child obesity rate. Kuwait, Qatar and Puerto Rico are 12th, 13th and 14th with one quarter of their child population qualifying as obese. Figures are expected to worsen by 2030 with child obesity rates in Cook Islands, Nauru and Palau expected to reach 45.9, 43.3 and 44.8 percent respectively.

Cook Islands, Nauru and Palau also have the highest rates of adolescent obesity with Nauru at 32.3, Cook Islands at 31.3, and Palau at 30.4 percent. The U.S. is ranked 11th with 21.0 percent of its adolescents classified as obese in 2016. In 2030, rates are predicted to grow to 41.6 percent in Cook Islands, 40.1 percent in Palau and 39.4 percent in Nauru.

The Atlas’ list of countries by the assigned risk scores more effectively illustrates the shocking predicted growth. The risk score indicates the risk of a country having or acquiring a significant childhood obesity problem in the next decade. The countries with the top ten risk scores, the first eight with the highest score of eleven, are Cook Islands, Kiribati, Micronesia, Niue, Palau, Puerto Rico, Swaziland, Tokelau, Bahamas, and New Zealand.

Pacific Island countries take many of the top twenty positions in lists of both current and predicted 2030 per capita obesity levels. While neither the Atlas nor the NCD-RisC puts forward a hypothesis, a UNICEF report states that most Pacific Island countries have not returned to pre-2008 per capita GDP levels and due to inflation, food prices, especially fruits and vegetables, are still out of reach for many households. As a result, families turn to cheap and less nutritious alternatives. Low levels of employment, widespread poverty and poor education also plague many islands in the Pacific region.

It is worth mentioning that obesity is not an indication that nutritional needs have been met or exceeded. It is not uncommon that a child could subsist off cheap, but high-calorie food products containing little to no vitamins like vegetable oils, trans fats and processed carbohydrates that render them both obese and malnourished.

The next 200 pages of the Atlas are made up by the “Country Report Cards” which list the country’s obesity prevalence broken up by age and gender and grants a percentage representing its chance of meeting the WHO goal of “no rise in obesity levels from 2010 to 2025”.

According to the Atlas, only one in ten countries have a 50 percent or higher predicted chance of meeting the WHO goal. Many countries received a zero percent chance of meeting the target. Even countries with comparatively significant public health initiatives such as the United Kingdom, only received a 37 percent chance of meeting the target. The US received a 17 percent chance.

A closer look at the original NCD-RisC study provides further details on this global upward trend. The data shows a global increase in both mean Body Mass Index (BMI)—a calculation based on a person’s height and weight—and prevalence of obesity among children and adolescents in the past four decades. In high-income countries, mean BMI plateaued in 2000 at high levels while regions of east, south and southeast Asia still struggle with accelerating rates.

From 1975-2016, the global age-standardized prevalence of obesity in children and adolescents increased from 0.7 percent to 5.6 percent in girls and 0.9 percent to 7.8 percent for boys. Every region worldwide saw an increase in obesity prevalence in the past four decades with the highest proportional growth found in southern Africa, a 400 percent increase per decade, and the smallest proportional growth found in high income countries with an increase of 30-50 percent per decade.

Neither report theorizes at length about why developing countries are facing skyrocketing obesity rates, but other obesity studies point to factors such as globalization and urbanization. Personal food choices are influenced by price and availability and with the globalization of food markets, processed and fast food options are offered at competitive values. Urbanization is also linked to a significant reduction in physical activity levels, leading to weight gain. Contrary to past conceptions that obesity is a moral and personal failing, the latest research paints obesity as a social problem with low socioeconomic status and education levels acting as major risk factors.

As many obesity reports indicate, obesity disproportionately affects poor and working class communities. Children and teens in these communities have less access to tools that contribute to healthy lifestyles such as nutritious food, recreation programs, public initiatives or safe play areas. In addition, poor health care coverage traps young people in a cycle of worsening health issues, further exacerbating the inequalities.

Obesity is not only a social epidemic but one of the most preventable causes of early death. It has been linked to an increased risk of chronic disorders such as type 2 diabetes mellitus, heart disease, stroke, musculoskeletal disorders, and certain types of cancer such as endometrial, breast and colon cancer. Children and adolescents with obesity are also particularly impacted by low self-esteem and depression, with young women at a higher risk for more severe symptoms.

Scientists and medical professionals across the world have rightly recognized childhood obesity as one of the largest public health issues of the 21st century. The solution in fighting against it has less of a clear consensus with a dominant appeal toward governmental reform and local community initiatives. The Atlas itself was released as part of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition (2016-2025) which seeks to coordinate among non-profits and governmental agencies to slow and reverse growing obesity rates.

But no amount of pressure or reform can reverse a health crisis of this magnitude. Obesity is a global social issue that cannot be solved within a capitalist system that places the financial interests of the wealthy elite over the health interests of the vast majority. Across the world, the demand for healthy lives for the world’s youth comes into conflict with the profit interests of food corporations, giant agricultural industries and their governmental representatives.

UK police gain access to details of thousands of men, women and children through government’s Prevent database

Barry Mason

The UK’s police forces have full access to private information, including the political views, of thousands of men, women and children who have been referred to the government’s Prevent programme.

The information is available to police forces through a database—the National Police Prevent Case Management (PCM)—that is centrally managed by the national counter-terrorism body.

Liberty, an organisation defending civil liberties and promoting human rights, established that police had access to this information using Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation.

Any individual referred to the Prevent programme is assessed as to whether they are at risk of being vulnerable to radicalization. Those deemed to be at risk can be referred to the Channel programme on a voluntary basis. The UK government describes this as, “providing support at an early stage to people who are identified as being vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism… (using) a multi-agency approach to protect vulnerable people…”

Prevent was introduced by the then Labour government in 2003 and its remit widened in 2011 by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat government. In 2015, legislation made it a statutory duty for school, local authority, prison and National Health Service staff to report any individual deemed vulnerable to radicalization to the Prevent programme.

Liberty’s October 7 press release explained that the database was “being used to monitor and control communities.” It noted that the FOI results showed that the police database, “includes the sensitive personal information of every referral ever received by Prevent... (including) the vast majority of referrals which haven’t resulted in any deradicalisation action—meaning potentially thousands of people have been entered into a secret Government database based purely on what they are perceived to think or believe.”

According to Liberty, all police forces add to the database to which the Home Office has access. Those put on the database are not informed or told what information is being held.

The report quoted Liberty’s policy and campaigns manager, Gracie Bradley saying, “This secret database isn’t about keeping us safe. It’s about keeping tabs on and controlling people—particularly minority communities and political activists. It is utterly chilling that potentially thousands of people including children, are on a secret government database of what they’re perceived to think or believe… this database is just the latest example of the government’s increasingly totalitarian approach to policing.”

Muslim Council of Britain general secretary Harun Khan said, “This database—over and above being a hugely authoritarian tool—will mean that the vast majority of those referred, who are found to have no terrorism link, will still be perceived as potential risks by the state, and this will disproportionately affect Muslims.”

According to Liberty, it is not known how long the information is held or if other organisations such as local authorities can access it. Also, it is not known what the implications of being on the database would be or if the record would show up on an enhanced criminal record check.

It is not known exactly how many people appear on the database but according to the FOI all those referred to Prevent are added to it. In the three years up to March last year, 21,042 individuals were referred to Prevent. For the year 2017–18, there were 7,318 people referred to the program. Of these, 90 percent were not forwarded to the next stage of the process, Channel. Two thirds of those referred that year were under 20 years of age and one third of the referrals came from schools.

Liberty highlights how Prevent can end up with discriminatory results, giving as an example how some British Asian children had been questioned by police for having toy guns at home.

Writing in the Metro newspaper on October 8, the advocacy director of Liberty, Clare Collier wrote, “what we found is disturbing for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was built by the police and contains information that is stored and shared without people’s knowledge or consent, which disproves the government’s recent claim that Prevent is a safeguarding policy. Many of those on the database haven’t actually done anything wrong—they are reported to Prevent because of what they’re perceived to think or believe. In fact, less than one out of 10 referrals to Prevent have resulted in deradicalisation action.”

She continued, “the system forces teachers—as well as nurses, doctors and other public servants—to report purported signs of so-called extremism (destroying) the trust that should underscore relationships like those between teachers and pupils.”

In January, the Home Office announced a review of the Prevent programme that would be undertaken later in the year. On August 12, Conservative government Minister for Security, Brandon Lewis, announced the review would be undertaken by Liberal Democrat politician, Lord Carlile.

Carlile is a trusted representative of the British ruling elite and a prominent defender of MI5. He was a supporter the 2016 Investigatory Powers Act allowing the state warrantless access to internet connections and called Edward Snowden’s exposure of illegal mass state surveillance “a criminal act.”

Prior to the announcement of Carlile’s appointment 10 human rights and community groups had written to Lewis. They raised concerns at the manner in which the process of selecting a reviewer of the Prevent programme had been conducted behind closed doors and feared it would become a “whitewash.” The letter to Lewis was quoted in part in an article in the Independent on August 10. It stated, “An incredibly broad range of people and organisations have raised concerns about the impact of the Prevent strategy, including politicians of all parties, health and education workers, members of the security establishment and people from communities disproportionately affected by counter terror policy.” They said any review should look at Prevent’s “underlying assumptions and evidence base, its human rights implications and ultimately whether it is fit for purpose.”

In a public statement on Carlile’s appointment to head the review of the Prevent programme, Liberty stated, “We are deeply troubled by the appointment of Lord Carlile as Independent Reviewer of Prevent. Not only has the government failed to follow its own Governance Code on Public Appointments, but Lord Carlile’s close ties with and publicly declared support for the Prevent strategy undermine the integrity and credibility of this review from the outset.”

It continued, “There seems to be little purpose in an ‘independent review’ whose outcome is pre-ordained by Lord Carlile’s self-declared partiality. His appointment to this vitally important position shatters the credibility of the review from the outset. The review should be comprehensive and wide-ranging in scope and not one that starts with the premise that Prevent should be continued and/or expanded.”

That the widespread and indiscriminate use of Prevent is raising concerns among trusted representatives of the political and intelligence establishment shows the degree to which they fear that such authoritarian measures will generate mass opposition among workers and broader layers in society.

The revelation that data garnered by the Prevent programme is being fed into an all-encompassing police database confirms that central to the plans of the crisis-ridden British ruling class, as with ruling elites internationally—is the enormous strengthening of the state apparatus. There can be no doubt that in the coming period, as the class struggle accelerates, that referrals to Prevent will be used to monitor all manner of opposition, including left-wing, socialist opposition and its information immediately accessible to the police.

As well as fostering divisions among workers and youth, the repression of freedom of speech and democratic rights via Prevent is bound up with the suppression of opposition to the government’s entire reactionary agenda. This is critical for the ruling elite as they seek to impose—in the immediate post-Brexit period—even greater attacks on living standards, and slash the right to health, education and housing.

Algerian junta to slash energy subsidies amid mass protests

Kumaran Ira

As Algerian workers and youth descended into the streets for the 35th week of mass protests against General Ahmed Gaïd Salah’s military regime, its energy bill to slash subsidies and raise energy prices for Algerian workers provoked deep anger. The bill has made clear the imperialist interests served by the regime, which has announced a presidential election for December 12—the first election since the ouster of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Last Sunday, hundreds of people protested in front of parliament against the bill approved by the cabinet ministers. The cabinet also approved the 2020 budget, which cuts public spending by 9.2 percent and introduces new taxes to reduce a budget deficit that is expected to stand at 7.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Police units were deployed to crack down on protests, but failed to disperse the crowd. The main areas surrounding Zighout Youcef Palace, the seat of the People’s National Assembly, were invaded by angry protesters.

Protesters denounced the energy bill, chanting, “This country is not for sale,” “Legislators traitors,” and “You have pillaged this country.” One protester declared, “This is a law written by foreign companies in their own interests, even the regime admits this.”

Several days before, Energy Minister Mohamed Arkab had announced: “We have discussed with the big corporations that are ranked among the five best in the world, and we had the opportunity to notice two aspects that must be improved in the current hydrocarbon law—namely, the regulatory framework and the fiscal system.”

The Algerian national energy monopoly, Sonatrach, had held talks with a number of major energy companies, including US firms Exxon Mobil and Chevron and several European companies.

As world oil and gas prices fall, the Salah regime is pushing through a long-prepared energy reform. It aims to impoverish ordinary workers and escalate the looting of Algeria in the interests of imperialism and the Algerian bourgeoisie that has provoked the mass protests against the regime. Since the decline of oil prices in 2014, over 90 percent of households report that their living standards have fallen.

The Arab Weekly, which obtained a copy of the draft law, reports that “the government plans to lift subsidies on energy and electricity prices and subject them to international pricing. It continues: “Lifting the subsidies could lead to a nearly 300 percent increase in petrol, diesel and electricity retail prices, and most Algerians’ family budgets would not be able to handle the increases.”

Officials claim it is critical to eliminate the subsidies system, as most of the $15 billion budgeted for subsidies goes to people who, they cynically claim, “don’t need them.”

Political analyst Raouf Farrah told El Watan, “The government is not telling the Algerian people, but this project will mark a definite step backward in public oversight and implementation of oil projects in favor of the interests of transnational corporations.”

Trampling underfoot the mass opposition that had been focused on Bouteflika, the regime is trying to ram through a bill Bouteflika had discussed with the oil firms and hoped to pass upon securing a fifth term. Farrah said, “The main lines of this project were discussed and approved in talks with Total, Exxon, ENI and Repsol before February 22, 2019. Indeed, the Bouteflika regime aimed to modify the 2005 hydrocarbon law, partially amended in 2013, to obtain the political support of energy transnationals so they would back his bid for a fifth term.”

This brings fresh confirmation that the bourgeoisie in Algeria, as in all the former colonial countries, is incapable of establishing any genuine independence from imperialism. Bouteflika’s attempt to seek a fifth term provoked mass protests by workers and youth that led to his ouster by the Army in the spring. Yet even after Bouteflika’s ouster and the jailing of dozens of billionaires and top officials close to him on corruption charges, his illegitimate laws aiming to plunder Algeria are still proceeding, with the approval of the military authorities.

Algeria is Europe’s third-biggest natural gas supplier, and its natural gas wealth is at the center of its economy. Hydrocarbon exports represent more than 95 percent of foreign currency receipts and 40 per cent of the state budget. The sharp fall in energy prices since 2014 raised the public deficit to 9 percent of GDP in 2018, and the state has reacted with drastic austerity measures. Algeria’s dollar reserves have fallen over this time from $178 billion to $89 billion.

Over this same period, under Bouteflika, a tiny oligarchy linked to the top layers of the regime and its hold over Sonatrach was massively increasing its already obscene wealth. The top 10 percent of the Algerian population owns 80 percent of the country’s wealth, whereas 35 percent of the population lives in poverty, subsisting on less than US$1.25 per day.

The only progressive solution is for the workers to bring down the military junta, expropriate the billionaires now sitting in jail, and run Algeria’s energy industry as a public utility. The mass protest movement that erupted in February is coming up face to face with the reality that its fundamental aims can be achieved only through the revolutionary mobilization of the working class in a movement against capitalism and imperialism.

Fearing the upsurge of struggles in Algeria and across North Africa, as well as in Europe, the imperialist powers are seeking, in the name of “democracy” and “constitutional” changes, to work out a deal with various bourgeois forces in Algeria to quickly end the movement.

Last month, Marie Arena, president of the European Parliament’s subcommittee on human rights, declared her solidarity with the mass protests against Bouteflika that erupted in February. In a video on social media, she said, “Today the protesters are men, women, young people who are asking for democracy in Algeria. We support them here in the European Parliament by organizing a hearing with a number of actors in the current revolution in Algeria.”

She stated that the protesters “of course demand that elections be held, but not under the current model, not under the current regime, not with the rules of the current regime.” She went on: “They demand that there be changes in the Constitution, that there be political pluralism, that there be freedom of expression and association, which is not the case today in Algeria.”

Arena’s statement reeks of hypocrisy. The EU powers regularly support military regimes to suppress the working class while claiming cynically to support “democracy.” The EU openly collaborates with Egyptian military dictator Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and tacitly supports his bloody terror against the Egyptian working class.

Fighting continues in wake of US-Turkish agreement on northern Syria

Bill Van Auken

Fighting continued in northeastern Turkey in the wake of an agreement struck Thursday between US Vice President Mike Pence and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. At least 14 civilians were reported killed Friday in air strikes and shelling near the bitterly contested Syrian border town of Ras Al-Ain.

The deal, described by Washington as a “ceasefire,” has been characterized by Ankara as merely a 120-hour “pause” in its offensive against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which served as the US military’s proxy ground troops in what was ostensibly a war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Under the terms of the deal, the YPG forces—regarded by the Turkish government as “terrorists” and an extension of the PKK Kurdish separatist movement in Turkey—are supposed to be withdrawn from a so-called “safe zone” extending 20 miles south of the Turkish-Syrian border.

At a press conference in Istanbul Friday, Erdogan stressed that it was Washington’s responsibility to assure the withdrawal of its erstwhile Kurdish allies from the border region. “If the promises are kept until Tuesday evening, the safe zone issue will be resolved,” he said. “If it fails, the operation ... will start the minute 120 hours are over.”

It has become clear, however, that there exists no agreement as to what territory the “safe zone” covers. While Pence announced on Thursday that this zone would extend 20 miles south into Syrian territory, he gave no indication as to what length of the Syrian-Turkish border would be involved.

Both US officials and spokesmen for the Kurdish forces have since indicated that the deal applies only to the roughly 80-mile stretch of the border area between the towns of Ras Al-Ain and Tal Abyad that Turkish forces have occupied. The Erdogan government, meanwhile, has stated that the “safe zone” will extend 275 miles from the city of Manbij, about 25 miles west of the Euphrates River, all the way east to the Iraqi border.

The realization of such a venture, however, would require either the collaboration of—or a direct military confrontation with—Syrian government troops backed by Russian military units, who have moved into the area, taking over bases abandoned by the US military in Manbij and establishing their presence in the cities of Kobani and Raqqa, as well as elsewhere on the Turkish-Syrian border.

Moscow’s position is that all of Syrian territory, including the territory marked out for a so-called safe zone, must be placed under the control of the Damascus government of President Bashar al-Assad. With the announced withdrawal of the 1,000 US troops deployed in northern Syria, Russia has emerged as the principal mediator between Turkey, the Syrian government and the Kurdish militia. It is unlikely a coincidence that the 120-hour deadline for the US-Turkish deal falls on Tuesday, when Erdogan is scheduled to fly to the Black Sea resort city of Sochi for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. According to some reports, representatives of the Assad government are also to be present.

While US President Donald Trump has made ludicrously grandiose statements about the ramshackle deal struck in Ankara, claiming that it had “saved millions of lives” and represented “a great day for civilization,” it has only intensified opposition within US ruling circles, where the withdrawal of US troops from Syria is seen as strengthening Russia’s hand in the Middle East.

This was apparent in a lengthy analysis published Friday by the Wall Street Journal, whose right-wing editorial board is generally a reliable supporter of Trump. It stated: “The decision by President Trump to leave Syria set in motion events that upended U.S. policy in the Middle East, cast doubt on America’s reliability as an ally and allowed Washington’s adversaries to fill the void: The Assad regime strengthens its hold. Russia expands its influence. And Iran sees greater freedom to ferry weapons to allies in the region, posing new threats to neighboring Israel.”

Similarly, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank with close ties to the US military and intelligence apparatus, commented: “The precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria now tilts the balance further in Russia’s favor. The PYD [Democratic Union Party, the political arm of the YPG militia], which Turkey regards as a terrorist group, is likely to fall further under Moscow’s sway, allowing Russia to play Turkey and the Kurds off one another. Already, the PYD has accepted the restoration of Assad’s control over northeastern Syria. Turkish-backed militias are racing to secure as much of the region as possible, but Russian forces have positioned themselves between the Kurds, Syrian forces, and the pro-Turkish militias, casting Moscow as the main powerbroker. The U.S. withdrawal also makes Russia’s ambition of reuniting Syria under Assad more achievable.”

Behind all of the denunciations of Trump for betraying the Kurdish nationalists—who offered their forces up as cannon fodder for the US imperialist intervention in Syria in the vain hope of securing autonomy—these are the real concerns that have generated a political firestorm over the US withdrawal.

Trump has sought to cast the withdrawal as a fulfillment of his campaign pledge to end Washington’s “forever wars” in the Middle East and Afghanistan, making a populist and nationalist appeal to broad antiwar sentiment. At the same time, however, he has increased the Pentagon’s budget to $750 billion, while seeking to focus US military might against American imperialism’s principal global rival, China.

From the beginning, the Democrats have focused their opposition to Trump on foreign policy questions of concern to the US military command and the intelligence agencies, particularly centering on what they view as an insufficiently aggressive posture in relation to Russia and Syria.

With Trump’s precipitous troop withdrawal in Syria and the subsequent signing of the agreement in Ankara conceding to all of Erdogan’s demands, this opposition has found growing support within the Republican Party as well, reflected in last Wednesday’s 354-60 vote in the House of Representatives condemning Trump’s actions in Syria, with Republicans joining Democrats by a margin of 2-to-1.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s staunchest supporters, joined with Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen in announcing that, despite the so-called cease-fire deal, they were moving “full steam ahead” with legislation calling for sweeping sanctions against Ankara. These include not only a halt to all US military collaboration with Turkey and a ban on arms sales, but also an investigation into Erdogan’s personal finances, fines against Halkbank, a large Turkish state-owned bank, and a ban on US investors buying Turkish sovereign debt. Similar legislation is also moving through the House.

Part of the deal struck in Ankara was a pledge that Washington would impose no further sanctions on Turkey and would withdraw those already imposed following a conclusive halt to the Turkish offensive in Syria. The imposition of Congressional sanctions will have the likely effect of shifting Ankara into even closer alignment with Moscow.

In the midst of the political controversies over the Turkish incursion into Syria, Amnesty International issued a report charging the Turkish military with “serious violations and war crimes, summary killings and unlawful attacks.” It said that both Ankara and the Syrian Islamist militias that it supports—formerly armed and funded by the CIA to overthrow Assad—had shown “a shameful disregard for civilian life.”

Meanwhile, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said Friday that it is conducting an investigation into verified reports that Turkish forces have used chemical weapons, white phosphorus shells, against civilian populations on the border, leaving Kurdish civilians, including young children, with horrific chemical burns.

While the US government and the corporate media repeatedly promoted unsubstantiated claims of the use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces to justify US military intervention, there has been no such outcry over the crimes of the Turkish regime.

General strike paralyzes Catalonia as over half-a-million demonstrate in Barcelona

Alejandro López

Yesterday, on the fifth day of protests and riots after the draconian ruling that sentenced nine Catalan nationalist politicians to nine to 13 years in prison, hundreds of thousands of protesters marched through Barcelona and a general strike paralyzed Catalonia. Broad sections of youth and workers mobilized to protest the police state that is emerging in Spain and more broadly across Europe.

During the morning, five columns of thousands of protesters, organized by the Catalan National Assemby and Òmnium Cultural under the slogan “Freedom March,” blocked highways leading to Barcelona. The columns started in Vic, Berga, Tàrrega, Girona and Tarragona and converged on Barcelona during the afternoon, where tens of thousands more had assembled. Protesters carried a giant banner reading, in English: “Free Catalan Prisoners Now.”

Protesters match into the city on the fifth day of protests in Barcelona, Spain [Credit: AP Photo/Manu Fernandez]

On the AP7 motorway at La Jonquera, near the city of Girona, demonstrators blocked traffic on the two routes connecting Spain and France. Protesters also blocked at least 20 major roads as they marched towards Barcelona for the mass rally with striking workers and students.

The major protest in the centre of Barcelona started at 5:00 p.m. and involved over half a million protesters, according to the police. Under the banners of the separatist trade unions Intersindical-CSC and Intersindical Alternativa, and the slogan “Your rights and freedoms, general strike,” hundreds of thousands marched shouting for the freedom of political prisoners, independence and against fascism. Many carried secessionist flags. Over 50,000 demonstrated in the other major Catalan cities of Lleida and Girona.

The demonstrations, however, were not primarily motivated by secessionist sentiment. There is a growing realization among broad layers of the Spanish population that the ruling class is moving rapidly to authoritarian forms of rule.

The draconian decision to imprison politicians for calling peaceful protests, years after the end of the fascist regime of General Francisco Franco, is being met by rising militancy and opposition among workers and youth. The ruling on Monday is an infamous and illegitimate verdict, which creates the precedent to outlawing as “sedition” any form of protest against the state. The ruling was made by a court that is discredited by its recent statements of support for fascist dictator Francisco Franco.

In recent days, tens of thousands of protesters, especially youth, have been involved in clashes with police. As numerous videos now show, many are chanting and throwing insults at the police in Spanish, not Catalan.

The mass protest in Barcelona coincided with a general strike in the region. The strike paralyzed the city. Train metro lines, regional routes and AVE fast-speed services were all affected, even as the regional Catalan government imposed reactionary minimum service requirements of between 25 percent and 50 percent of normal work levels.

In the education sector, over 50 percent of schoolteachers and 90 percent of university staff went on strike. Small shops also closed—72 percent, according to initial data. One third of civil servants went on strike. The port of Barcelona was also affected, as port workers struck against the labour reform and in defence of democratic rights.

The regional Department of Labour stated that electricity consumption dropped by 10.11 percent compared to the day before—a level similar to prior mobilizations such as the strike against the 2010 labour reform and the October 3, 2017 strike after the independence Catalan referendum.

Carmaker SEAT, a unit of Volkswagen AG, which produces 3,500 cars a day, halted production at its plant in Martorell, near Barcelona, from Thursday afternoon until Saturday, over concerns that the marches would disrupt traffic. Iberia cancelled 12 Friday flights between Barcelona and Madrid due to the strike, while Vueling grounded 36 of its scheduled journeys.

In some cases, major businesses promoted the strike. The Bon Preu group of supermarkets and gas stations announced the closure of all its establishments but said it would still pay its workers.

Although the separatist unions and the Catalan regional government called the strike a “success,” major sections of the working class—especially significant layers of industrial workers—did not participate. For Spanish-speaking sections of the working class in Catalonia, the slogan of the creation of a mini-capitalist Catalan republic, driven by pro-European Union and NATO forces with a long record of imposing social austerity on workers, is viewed with hostility.

Moreover, the Stalinist Workers Commissions (CC.OO) and the social-democratic General Union of Labor (UGT) unions boycotted the event and have refused to call any strikes or solidarity actions.

The ruling Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and its ally, the Stalinist-Pabloite Podemos party, are desperate to block a broader movement in the working class against the repressive, antidemocratic acting PSOE government of Pedro Sánchez. Podemos is supporting this government. On Monday, Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias called for people “to respect the law and accept the verdict.” He complacently concluded : “It is time for us to roll up our sleeves and work to rebuild bridges between a divided Catalan society and … Spanish society.”

On Wednesday, Iglesias met with Sánchez to make clear that he would not oppose any police escalation in Catalonia and even applauded the coordination of the regional Catalan police force and Spanish police forces during the crackdown.

Yesterday, Iglesias denounced youth in Catalonia clashing with police, calling the violence a “disaster” that was “doing a lot of harm” to chances to peacefully resolve the conflict.

In the past days over 100 protesters have been arrested, and clashes between police and protesters have injured over 350. The state has seized on the violent clashes as a pretext to escalate police-state measures. So far 10 protesters have been sent to jail without bail. In four cases, the judge argued that the defendants were trying to “prevent the execution of the final verdict issued by the Supreme Court.”

Yesterday, the government also activated the special forces unit of the paramilitary Guardia Civil, the Grupo de Reserva y Seguridad (Reserve and Security Group) unit, which was established in 2006 by the PSOE government. This group, whose stated mission is “the restoration of public order in large mass demonstrations,” played an infamous role in crushing the 2012 miners’ strike and attacking the 2017 Catalan referendum.

The National Court, descended from the Public Order Court set up by Franco to punish “political crimes,” has also ordered the Civil Guards to shut down the website and social media accounts of Tsunami Democràtic, the organisation that has coordinated the protests. The group was behind Monday’s attempts to occupy Barcelona airport. National Court Judge Manuel García Castellón has ordered an investigation of this platform for evidence of terrorism.

Fascist forces cultivated by the right-wing atmosphere instigated by the ruling class are also intervening for the first time. On Thursday night, fascist thugs attacked protesters as they ran towards Diagonal Avenue, where the people had gathered. Some of them were wrapped in Spanish fascist flags, were armed with baseball bats and shouted “Franco! Franco!” One 23-year-old youth was severely beaten.

Speaking from Brussels after a Council of Europe meeting, acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez warned that “rule of law cannot yield to exaltation” and threatened that those responsible for “serious violent acts’ would be dealt with “sooner rather than later.”

Right-wing parties are calling for Sánchez to remove the Catalan regional government by invoking Article 155 of the constitution. In October 2017, the right-wing Popular Party (PP), with the support of the PSOE, invoked this article, used this power to suspend the democratically elected Catalan regional government and imposed elections under the presence of thousands of police forces sent by Madrid.

PP leader Pablo Casado demanded that Sánchez act with “urgency” in Catalonia against riots and compared the situation to the “kale borroka” urban guerrilla operations in the Basque Country in the 1980s and 1990s. The most common actions at the time included attacks on offices of political parties, burning cars, attacking housing, and destroying ATMs, bank offices, public transport and rioting using Molotov cocktails.

Madrid has a long record of brutal repression using reactionary antiterror laws against the Basque separatists. Casado effectively called for the use of the same antiterror laws against Catalan protesters.

Citizens leader Albert Rivera also urged Sánchez to invoke Article 155 to suspend the elected regional government and to send more police forces. He declared that the protests and strike was “general sabotage to everyday life of Spaniards.”

Suicide rates and suicidal behavior rise sharply among American youth

Trévon Austin

According to a report released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suicide rates among those Americans aged 10 to 24 years old sharply increased by 56 percent between 2007 and 2017. Within the same period, suicide ideation, or thoughts of suicide, and suicide attempts have doubled for adolescents and young adults. The rate of homicide deaths for this age group also saw an increase of 18 percent between 2014 and 2017, after an initial decrease of 23 percent from 2007 to 2014.

The CDC report shows that while the increase is particularly acute amongst young people, there had been a general increase in suicide rates across all ages and ethnicities by 30 percent from 1999 to 2016.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for youth aged 12 to 18 in the United States, behind unintentional injuries such as car accidents and drug overdoses. In 2017, suicides accounted for more than 2,200 deaths in the age group. Researchers suggest a number of risk factors that are associated with the rising epidemic, including childhood maltreatment, mental and neurological illnesses and poverty.

Within the span of a decade, suicide deaths increased from 6.8 deaths per 100,000 people to 10.6 deaths, with 2,449 more suicides in 2017 than in 2007. Previously, 10-to-14-year-olds had the lowest rates of suicide, but that rate tripled between 2007 and 2017.

Daniel Webster, the co-director for the Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence, told the Wall Street Journal that homicide deaths among youth in the US has decreased dramatically since the 1990s and were mostly in decline and stable through 2014 before the recent increase. Webster noted the growth in homicide death rates in 2015 and 2016 was largely concentrated in a limited number of cities, including St. Louis and Chicago.

Experts say the increased homicide rate is most likely related to the illicit drug trade, poverty, and police violence but are unable to point to a specific influence on the national shift. According to the CDC, school-related shootings account for less than 2 percent of all youth homicide deaths in the US and likely don’t influence the trend. However, data from the FBI suggests a slight decrease in the youth homicide rate in 2018.

A separate study released last week in the medical journal Pediatrics examined trends of suicidal behavior across groupings by ethnicities and sex of teenage high school students. The study found that self-reported suicide attempts among African American teenagers in high school rose by 73 percent between 1991 and 2017.

The study utilized results from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a school-based survey administered by the CDC, from 198,540 high school students in 9th through 12th grade who took the survey between 1991 and 2017. The survey asked participants a set of four questions on suicidal thoughts and behaviors.

While black youth were the only group to display an overall increase in the nearly three-decade period, all groups experienced an increase in suicide ideation, suicide plans, suicide attempts, and injury from attempt since 2009. The recent rise in suicide attempts is particularly concerning because the most prominent risk factor associated with suicide death is prior suicide attempts. In 2017, more than 111,000 youth 12 to 18 years old were seen in an emergency department for self-harm behavior.

Researchers behind the study also noted a shift in the sex disparity in youth suicidal behavior. Traditionally, girls are more likely to attempt suicide and have suicidal ideation, and boys are more likely to die by suicide. However, recent studies indicate that the gap in suicide deaths between sexes may be decreasing in youth aged 10 to 19 years.

A study from Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio found the number of children and young adults who have attempted suicide by poisoning, including drug and alcohol overdoses, has increased in the United States in recent years as well. A significant increase was observed between 2011 and 2018 with 71 percent of cases studied in the report consisting of girls and young women.

Using data from the National Poison Data System, which reports information from all 55 poison control centers across the United States, researchers found more than 1.6 million children and young adults aged 10 to 24 attempted to kill themselves by poisoning between 2000 to 2018.

This staggering number outlines the scope of the epidemic of suicide in the United States. Self-poisoning, defined as when a person intentionally overdoses on drugs or exposes themselves to toxic substances, is the most common form of suicide attempt among women of all ages. Its fatality rate is below 5 percent, meaning that individuals are likely to be rescued. This results in a suicide death rate that some researchers believe underestimate the severity of the issue.

While the factors behind the growth of desperation in youth is multifaceted and complex, the last two decades has been marked growth of staggering social inequality, unending violent wars overseas, unceasing police brutality at home, an ever-rising student debt burden, and persistent underemployment.

The latest CDC statistics on youth suicide are a stark confirmation, despite President Donald Trump’s boasting over record low unemployment figures and a booming stock market, of the complete failure of the capitalist system to meet the most basic needs of young people and the working class in general.

Not coincidentally the rise in the suicide rate for young people has accompanied the growth of so-called deaths of despair from drug and alcohol overdoses and disease associated with addiction amongst working-age adults. Millions lost their homes or jobs in the economic collapse of 2008 only to see the banks who were responsible for the disaster bailed out with trillions of dollars. The greatest transfer of wealth in history was carried out on the backs of the working class to save capitalism resulting in the human catastrophe which is now finding expression in these grim statistics.

Continued rise in STDs highlights bipartisan attack on American healthcare system

Erik Schreiber

The incidence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) increased sharply in 2018, according to an annual report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The increase continues a trend that has persisted for at least a decade and is the result of a conscious, bipartisan attack on the health of the working class.

The CDC report “is a cause for deep concern about dangerous gaps in our public health infrastructure,” according to a press release from the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the HIV Medicine Association. The data indicate “neglect of critical public health investments” that has “damaging impacts to public, as well as individual, health,” the groups said.

The transmission STDs is entirely avoidable if individuals have knowledge of and access to the appropriate preventive measures. If an infected person goes without treatment, however, STDs can cause infertility, facilitate HIV transmission, and create stigma. The CDC report mainly focuses on three STDs: chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis.

Chlamydia was the most common of the three in 2018, when 1,758,668 cases were reported to the CDC. “This case count corresponds to a rate of 539.9 cases per 100,000 population, an increase of 2.9 percent, compared with the rate in 2017,” according to the report. In fact, the rates of reported cases have increased over each of the last five years.

Chlamydia incidence is highest among teenagers and young adults. In 2018, the overall rate of reported cases among females between ages 15 and 24 increased 1.0 percent over the 2017 level and 11.8 percent over the 2014 level. Similarly, rates among men increased 37.8 percent from 2014 to 2018.

Reports of chlamydial infection have been increasing since at least 2000. “During 2000–2011, the rate of reported chlamydial infection increased from 251.4 to 453.4 cases per 100,000 population,” according to the report. This represents a staggering 80 percent increase during this period.

Gonorrhea was the second most common STD in 2018. “Rates of reported gonorrhea have increased 82.6 percent since the historic low in 2009,” the report notes. From 2017 to 2018 alone, the rate of infection increased 5.0 percent (6.0 percent among men and 3.6 percent among women).

The increase in gonorrhea infection is particularly alarming, since N. gonorrhoeae, the bacterium that causes it, can develop resistance to antibiotics quickly. According to the report “In 2018, more than half of all infections were estimated to be resistant to at least one antibiotic.” The CDC has recommended various cephalosporins (a class of antibiotics) to treat gonorrhea infection, but the bacterium is developing resistance to these medications.

In its investigation of syphilis, the report examines all stages of the disease, including primary and secondary syphilis (i.e., the most infectious stages) and congenital syphilis (i.e., infection transmitted to a baby from its mother). In 2018, the total case count of reported syphilis in all stages was the highest recorded since 1991. The number of reported cases increased 13.3 percent from 2017 to 2018. Furthermore, incidence has increased almost every year since its historic low in 2001, when the disease had been on the brink of eradication.

The rate of congenital syphilis has been rising each year since 2013. In 2018, 41 states reported at least one case of congenital syphilis. The national rate in 2018 was 39.7 percent higher than it was in 2017 and 185.3 percent higher than it was in 2014. “During 2017–2018, the number of syphilitic stillbirths increased (from 64 to 78 stillbirths), as did the number of congenital syphilis-related infant deaths (from 13 to 16 deaths),” according to the report. “The resurgence of syphilis, and particularly congenital syphilis, is not an arbitrary event, but rather a symptom of a deteriorating public health infrastructure and lack of access to health care.”

As the CDC itself implies, the continuing increase in STD incidence is a scandal and an indictment of both capitalist parties. President Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress have cut the CDC’s budget during every year of his presidency. The budget was reduced from $6.4 billion in 2017 to $6.3 billion in 2018 and to $5.6 billion in 2019.

After cynically declaring a national emergency on the border with Mexico last year, Trump directed the Treasury and the Department of Defense to reallocate $6.7 billion in funds—more than the CDC’s 2019 budget—to pay for building a border wall. These funds already had been appropriated by Congress for other purposes, and Trump’s action violated the Constitutional separation of powers. Nevertheless, the Senate approved the impeachable offense by voting to “back-fill” the money.

President Barack Obama and the Democrats also did their best to make workers, rather than the federal government, foot the bill for health care. Obama’s signature domestic initiative, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), required that people without insurance from their employer or a government program buy insurance from a private insurance company. Rather than challenging the for-profit health care industry, the ACA has guaranteed it a continuous flow of profits.

The Democrats and Republicans are as united in their support for war spending as they are in their attacks on workers’ health. Both parties collaborated to provide a historic $738 billion for the military in fiscal year 2020 while allotting only $632 billion for all other discretionary spending categories combined.

The CDC report, together with the bipartisan budgets, show that there is no constituency in the ruling class that will guarantee the fundamental right of the working class to healthcare. If it is to secure its most basic needs, the working class must organize independently of both capitalist parties on the basis of socialist program fighting to reorganize society to meet human need and rather than the interests of private profit.