The drive to impeachment and the dangers facing the Brazilian working class

Bill Van Auken

The protracted drive to impeach the country’s Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores—PT) President Dilma Rousseff appears to have taken a qualitative leap forward following the withdrawal from the government Tuesday of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), the largest party in Brazil’s national congress.

The mounting pressure for a change of government in Latin America’s largest country, independent of any popular vote, poses a serious threat to the working class. The dangers arise not merely out of the conspiracies of the right-wing politicians, judges, business lobbies and media conglomerates that are pushing for impeachment, but more fundamentally from the rapid intensification of the economic, social and political crisis gripping Brazilian capitalism and the absence of any genuine revolutionary leadership in the working class.

The impeachment process has developed in tandem with the now two-year-old Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato) investigation into a vast corruption scandal centered on bribes and kickbacks for inflated contracts with Petrobras, Brazil’s state-run energy conglomerate and the largest corporation in Latin America.

The investigation has uncovered not only the systemic corruption of the Workers Party, but the terminal rot of the entire bourgeois political setup in Brazil, with every party implicated together with all of the prominent politicians pursuing Rousseff’s impeachment.

Underlying this political breakdown is the deepest economic crisis in Brazil since the Great Depression of the 1930s. After a 3.8 percent contraction of the economy last year, the same or worse is predicted for 2016. Official unemployment has risen to 9.5 percent, with over 1.8 million jobs wiped out over the past year. Some two million unemployed Brazilian workers are expected to run out of their jobless benefits by June. And, for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century, real wages are in decline and social inequality is rising.

It is this objective crisis that has created the conditions in which sections of Brazil’s middle class have been whipped into a political frenzy of hatred for the PT and Rousseff. Mass pro-impeachment demonstrations have seen calls for the military to intervene and even appeals to Donald Trump to save Brazil. Fascistic assaults have been reported on people wearing red, the color associated with the PT, and others suspected of supporting the ruling party.

The turn to the right by these layers is rooted in their anger and disillusionment that the promise made by PT governments that Brazil had somehow escaped the effects of the global financial crisis and was on an irreversible path to “First World” capitalist development has turned to ashes. It is provided a scapegoat for the economic debacle in the PT, not only its corruption but its minimal assistance programs to Brazil’s poor, now seen as an intolerable diversion of wealth from the more privileged social layers.

With Rousseff’s approval rating having fallen below 10 percent, broad sections of the working class, confronting mass layoffs and falling wages, are also disgusted with the PT, a corrupt bourgeois party. With the aid of the CUT (Central Única dos Trabalhadores) union bureaucracy, the PT has masqueraded as the representative of the “people,” while tailoring its policies to the profit interests of Brazilian and international capital and the prescriptions of the IMF.

To the extent that Rousseff and her predecessor, Workers Party founder Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, have been able to make any broader appeal against the drive to impeachment, it is because of disquiet among sections of the population over the extra-legal and patently politicized methods being utilized to bring down the government, as well as the fascistic moods being whipped up to further this aim.

Lula, as the former metalworkers union leader turned president is universally known, was himself on the receiving end of these methods, hauled out of his apartment in a pre-dawn raid by scores of police for an involuntary interrogation earlier this month.

Rousseff, Lula and various pseudo-left elements gravitating around the PT have begun to try to rally support by portraying the impeachment drive as a “coup,” drawing a direct comparison to the 1964 US-backed military overthrow of the government of President Joao Goulart, carried out precisely 52 years ago today.

While the dangers facing the working class from recent political developments are undeniable, this comparison is at best self-serving. Goulart was overthrown under conditions in which he was advocating bourgeois nationalist reforms. These included nationalization of the country’s oil refineries, controls forcing multinational companies to reinvest all profits in Brazil, a limited land reform and cuts to military spending, policies that earned him broad popular support as well as the enmity of the ruling oligarchy, the military and Washington.

Rousseff has responded to Brazil’s economic crisis with “fiscal adjustment” policies, placing the burden of the crisis on the backs of the working class. Her government recently passed anti-terrorism legislation granting it police-state powers against domestic opposition. Rousseff and the PT’s resistance to the alleged “coup” is not a struggle against the demands of capitalist reaction, but rather an insistence that her government can successfully achieve the aims of big business.

If today the predominant layers of both domestic and foreign capital are pushing for her impeachment, it is because they see a radical change in government as the means to dramatically accelerate reactionary capitalist policies already being pursued.

However, there is no unanimity in regards to the best way to achieve this policy. Elements of the ruling class, including on the right, have advocated that the best means for achieving an increase in the “competitiveness” of Brazilian capitalism through the driving down of labor costs is to bring back Lula, acting in concert with the union bureaucracy, to control and suppress any struggles of the working class. This option has been advanced by none other than Delfim Netto, the former finance minister of the military dictatorship in the 1960s, who was credited with creating the Brazilian “economic miracle” of that period based on similar methods enforced at gunpoint.

Responsibility for the dangerous crisis now confronting the Brazilian working class—whether the PT stays or goes—rests most directly with those who promoted the Workers Party as some new “democratic” instrument for realizing a uniquely Brazilian path to socialism. Established in the wake of the tumultuous student protests and mass workers strikes of the late 1970s that ultimately forced the military to surrender power, the PT was an instrument for containing and taming the struggles of the working class and blocking the construction of a mass revolutionary socialist party.

Organizations linked to revisionist tendencies that broke with the International Committee of the Fourth International, including those affiliated to the Pabloite United Secretariat, the followers of the Argentine Nahuel Moreno and the French revisionist Pierre Lambert played a key part in promoting the PT. Today, they all continue to play a politically reactionary role in the face of the current crisis.

The Morenoite PSTU (United Socialist Workers Party) has responded to the impeachment drive with the slogan “Fora Todos,” or “Throw them all out” and the call for a new general election, which is essentially an adaptation to the right-wing demonstrations of the upper middle class. Its adaptation to the right in Brazil is in sync with its international policy, which mirrors that of similar tendencies in Western Europe and North America in the hailing of CIA-orchestrated wars for regime-change and right-wing coups, from Libya to Syria and Ukraine, as “revolutions.” In its casual dismissal of any talk of a “coup,” the PSTU seeks to lull the working class over the real threats that it faces.

Taking a seemingly opposite position is Democracia Socialista, the erstwhile Brazilian section of the Pabloite United Secretariat, which has remained inside the PT, with its most prominent leader, Miguel Rossetto, now serving as labor minister and a major spokesman for the Rousseff government. Warning of a repeat of the 1964 coup, it calls for “the unity of broad sectors in defense of democracy” and a “return to the [PT] election program of 2014.” This means a subordination of the working class to bourgeois parties and politicians, and the recycling of the false promises that were immediately abandoned in favor of austerity measures as soon as the voting is over.

The reality is that democratic rights, as well as jobs, living standards and social conditions, can be defended only by mobilizing the working class in a politically independent struggle against both the PT government and its bourgeois opponents, based on a socialist and internationalist program. This requires a thoroughgoing assimilation of the lessons of the betrayal carried out by the PT and its pseudo-left enablers and the building of a new revolutionary party of the working class as a Brazilian section of the International Committee of the Fourth International.

New layoffs in New Zealand meat processing

John Braddock

Amid an ongoing global restructuring of the meat processing industry, New Zealand company Affco laid off 214 workers at its Rangiuru plant, in the Bay of Plenty, earlier this month.

About 50 workers briefly protested the layoffs outside the plant. The Meat Workers Union (MWU) said the company was targeting unionised senior staff, in apparent defiance of court orders. Veteran workers would normally be laid off last at the end of the killing season, but instead this time had gone first. Some workers had 35 to 45 years of service. The layoffs came three weeks earlier than usual, putting workers at least $1,800 out of pocket.

Owned by the Talley Group, an agribusiness conglomerate, Affco is New Zealand’s fourth largest meat processor. It has been in and out of court over the past year, following a lockout of MWU members who refused to sign individual contracts at several plants. The Rangiuru layoffs came after the Employment Relations Authority ordered the reinstatement of two MWU delegates who had been sacked over their union activities.

The union declared it would return to court over the way the layoffs were carried through. This is a ploy to divert and suppress any united action by meat workers over deepening struggles within the industry. A series of fruitless court cases have been taken against Affco over repeated legal breaches, including lengthy lockouts and the denial of the union’s access rights at processing plants.

Last August, the MWU called off a planned two-day strike by about 1,000 workers at eight Affco sheds in an 18-month dispute over Affco’s demands for cuts to pay rates, a longer working day, an end to seniority for workers and changes to work breaks. The Employment Court had earlier dismissed court action by the MWU over Affco’s move to lock out workers at the Rangiuru plant. The court ordered the parties back into mediation, which the MWU accepted but Affco walked away from.

Affco has continued attacks on jobs and conditions. In February, 170 Wairoa meat workers returned to work, ending a five-month lockout after the Employment Court declared that Affco unlawfully locked out workers and breached its “good faith” obligations under the Employment Relations Act when bargaining employment contracts.

These are the most recent in a series of assaults. A 65-day lockout of 110 meat workers at the Canterbury Meat Packers Rangitikei lamb and sheep plant in 2011 resulted in the MWU and the Council of Trade Unions agreeing to cuts to pay and conditions after the workers were virtually starved back to work. In early 2012, 1,300 Affco meat workers held a 5-day strike in support of 1,000 workers locked out from five plants over a collective agreement dispute.

Globally, US, Brazilian and other giants are rationalising production and slashing labour costs in pursuit of ever-greater corporate profits. Last November, Tyson Foods, the world’s largest meat producer, announced that two of its US plants would close in 2016 at a cost of 880 jobs. Australian meat workers face ongoing demands for wage cuts, increased productivity, casualisation and job cuts following a series of industry takeovers.

In November 2014, financial commentator Rod Oram, an advisor to the industry “reform” group Meat Industry Excellence (MIE), warned in the Sunday Star Times that the New Zealand processing industry had entered a “death spiral.” From 2003 to 2013, the number of sheep in New Zealand fell 22 percent, while beef cattle fell 20 percent as many farmers, seeking bigger profits, converted to dairying. The processing companies, Oram claimed, had failed to slash excess capacity. One report commissioned by MIE recommended the closure of up to 19 plants.

Confronted by worldwide cost-cutting, the two biggest companies operating in New Zealand, Alliance and Silver Fern Farms (SFF), are attempting to wipe out each other, along with their local rivals. In October 2015, SFF accepted an unprecedented 50/50 partnership proposal for an investment of $261 million from China’s largest meat processor and retailer Shanghai Maling.

Workers are bearing the brunt of the bitter fight for survival, facing an onslaught on jobs, wages, working conditions and living standards. In recent disputes, Affco has asserted its right of complete control over chain speeds, manning and tallies, and replaced seniority rights with performance-based job allocations.

Meatworkers operate under oppressive conditions. One, with 10 years’ experience, told the WSWS he is normally required to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. If for any reason this is reduced to an 8-hour day, which can happen without any explanation, he finds his pay packet insufficient to live on.

Such conditions are the result of decades of attacks carried out by employers and governments with the full support of the trade union bureaucracy. Until the 1980s, meat processing was, for almost a century, the core of the organised working class in New Zealand.

Like all the unions, the MWU collaborated in the 1980s with the Labour government’s pro-market agenda to open up the previously protected economy to international competition. Over the decade following 1984, 14,000 freezing workers’ jobs were eliminated, and some 28 plants closed, devastating many provincial towns.

Workers initially resisted the onslaught with a series of strikes around the country. The MWU was instrumental in facilitating the closures, insisting they were inevitable and calling for “decent” redundancy payments. In 1988 at the South Island Fortex Seafield plant, amid mass picketing by workers, the MWU agreed to allow shift work, a first for the industry. This enabled the plant to run 22 hours a day, 6 days a week, opening the way for further assaults on long-established conditions won by meatworkers.

The MWU’s betrayals flow from their nationalist, pro-employer perspective of ensuring that New Zealand companies are “internationally competitive.” This means helping employers to cut costs to match the wages and conditions imposed on workers in other countries, pitting meat workers against each other along national lines.

MWU organiser Roger Middlemass told the Manawatu Standard in October 2014 that the union supported closures if they led to more “stable” employment for the remaining workforce. Middlemass said: “We need to take a New Zealand Inc. approach ... We’re a small country … No-one wants to see the New Zealand meat industry owned by foreign countries.”

Underlining the MWU’s nationalist orientation, it has involved the Maori tribal “Iwi Leaders Group” (ILG) to help impose corporate-union deals on meat processing workers, who are largely Maori. The ILG represents the interests of the privileged Maori political and business elite, who are hostile to the working class. Its negotiators, who helped the MWU to cancel the planned strike across eight Affco sheds last August, include Ken Mair, an official of the Maori Party which is a partner in the National-led government and Tukoroirangi Morgan, a former MP in the right-wing populist NZ First Party.

Affco is not, as the MWU maintains, an “outlier” in the industry. All the meat companies have joined the offensive against workers. The MWU is keeping each group of workers in struggle isolated within their own plants in order to wear them down, often under conditions of lockout, and by tying up disputes in the courts, giving the union time to negotiate and impose settlements.

Nearly 750 dead in US house fires in 2016

Steve Filips

So far this year 743 people have been killed in house fires in the US, according to a running estimate by the US Fire Administration (USFA). The organization, which bases its tally on a survey of published media reports, counted 2,290 fire deaths in 2015.

In the current year, the states with the highest number of fire deaths include Texas with 45 dead; New York, with 41; Georgia, 38; Michigan, 34; Pennsylvania, 32; and California, with 32.

House fires are a manifestation of the American social crisis. The leading cause of these tragedies is unsafe alternative heating and lighting methods, generally utilized by the poor and working poor, often as a result of their gas or electricity being suspended by for-profit monopolies.

The likelihood of fires resulting in death is augmented by outdated and unsafe housing and inadequate fire protection. Much of the American housing stock, extending from one-family homes to multi-unit apartments, has not been adequately appraised for fire hazards. Meanwhile, fire protection has been victimized by severe budget-cutting in recent years. Much of the country is served by volunteer-only fire departments.

The number of people killed in house fires in the US over the last 15 months, at 3,033, according to the USFA, is substantially more than the 2,381 US soldiers killed in 15 years of fighting in Afghanistan. That war, which has killed and displaced millions of Afghanis, cost the US government $1 trillion dollars, according to a 2014 estimate by the Financial Times. The current federal budget appropriates less than one one-thousandth of that, $690 million, in grants for fire departments.

The following is a sampling of recent house fire tragedies:

In Syracuse, New York, on January 20, a house fire claimed the life of Takiya Bell, age 13. The blaze was started by candles that were being used for light and heating. On the night of the fire, temperatures had dropped to 23 degrees. Emagine Rucker, 2, and Na’Leyah Keith, 13, were injured. The tenants had reportedly been living without utilities since November of last year, when they moved in. The poverty rate for the Pond street home in the 13208 zip code on Syracuse’s north side was 33.8 percent in 2014, according to the US Census Bureau.

On February 13, in Fayetteville, West Virginia, two people were killed in an early morning fire likely caused by a basement wood burning stove.

A February 19, a fire in Buffalo, New York, killed Demetrius Johnson, 24, and, in another apartment, Juan Montanez, 49. Before dying Johnson saved the life of his three-year-old son and his daughter, Treasure Brighton, 8. Treasure Brighton suffered severe burns on over 80 percent of her body and remains hospitalized. The poverty rate in the neighborhood is 30.3 percent.

In Bellmont, New York on February 22, an early morning fire took the life of Stephen A. Harrington, 52. The fire is believed to have been caused by a wood burning stove.

On March 3, in Rochester, Minnesota, a four-unit apartment building caught fire in the late afternoon, claiming the lives of Melissa Phiefer, 25 and her 2 year old daughter Emily, who were found unresponsive by firefighters in their basement apartment.

In Orange, Massachusetts, a single family home caught fire on March 6, killing two young girls, Leena Ciolino, 6, and Victoria Gaignard, 8. Leena’s father sustained injuries while attempting to rescue the girls from the second story where the fire is believed to have started. Victoria Gaignard was at the house on a sleepover.

On March 7, a fire at a boarding house in northwest Atlanta, Georgia, killed four men and two women. Earnest Eberhardt, 61, the homeowner, was among the dead. Relatives told the media that Eberhardt would take in people to his house without asking rent. Among the victims were Gene Spurley, 62, Anthony Brown, 54, Velma Rivers, 46, and Anthony Jones, 49. An acquaintance of the victims, Janette Ragland, said that that portable space heaters were in use at the house and were the likely cause of the fire. The poverty rate in the neighborhood is 39.5 percent, and 62.9 percent for those 18 years old and younger.

On March 10, in Omaha, Nebraska, a single-family two-bedroom rental home with ten occupants caught fire in the early morning hours, killing Bibiano Pacheco-Perez, 21, and Brenda Martinez-Palma, 24. The poverty rate in the neighborhood is 41.2 percent, and 60.5 percent among children.

On March 11, in Winchester, Kentucky, an apartment fire killed three and injured six. The dead are Tina Reynolds, 29, Donald Hisle, 36, and Dixie Everman, 71. Half the residents in the ten-unit complex were receiving federal housing assistance.

On March 14, in Orange, New Jersey, a fire in a single family home killed brothers Nishawn and Nayon May, 2 and 7 years old, respectively, as well as their uncle Maurice May, 52. The mother of the boys saved her teenage daughter and suffered severe burns over most of her body while attempting to save her children. Ten people lived in the home. Over a third of children in the neighborhood live below the official poverty level.

Costa Rica closes its borders to Cuban migrants

Andrea Lobo

The Costa Rican Government has closed its borders to a new wave of Cuban migrants traveling by land to the United States. As of last Friday, 1,600 of them were stuck at the Panamanian border under overcrowded and reportedly unsanitary conditions.

The Costa Rican president stated the previous week, “We ask the Cuban migrants not to travel anymore… The government has ended its humanitarian assistance operation.”

Luis Miguel Hincapié, Panama’s vice minister for foreign relations, reported on Saturday that there would be a meeting “with [foreign relations] vice-ministers from all countries involved in the beginning of April… Cuba, Ecuador, Colombia and Central America.”

Costa Rica’s “humanitarian” act, which was officially terminated March 15, consisted of housing and arranging for the 7,800 Cubans who were stranded in Costa Rica since last November to continue their journey to North America. During the following week, the Costa Rican government doubled up border surveillance to prevent more Cubans from crossing.

The closing of the preferred corridor of Cubans to the US—from Ecuador to Panama, and northward to Texas, where, as opposed to Florida, they can enter legally by presenting themselves to US border officials—was initiated last November, when the Costa Rican police arrested several bands ofcoyotes, people-smugglers, forcing an initial wave of Cubans to go through the Nicaraguan border stations.

Soon after, on November 15, the Nicaraguan Government militarized its borders to prevent the Cuban migrants from crossing. They fired rubber bullets, tear gas, and high pressure water hoses, demanding that the Costa Rican authorities fix the problem by “removing” the migrants from the border.

According to the US Customs and Border Protection data, 43,159 Cubans entered the US in fiscal year 2015, a 78 percent rise from the previous year, and over five times as many as in 2011. A Cuban emigrant in Panama told Fusion news, “Cubans are afraid that [Presidents Raúl Castro and Barack Obama] are going to make a deal after their hug, and the US is going to revoke the Cuban Adjustment Act.” The Cold War-era act provides unique treatment to Cuban refugees, who are allowed to stay in the US once they set foot on US soil and are automatically granted legal residency after one year.

During January, and after several failed negotiations, Costa Rican authorities made deals with Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador to let the migrants fly over to El Salvador and travel by bus to Mexico for $555—an opportunity about 5,000 Cubans took, while the rest desisted or used other coyotes to continue their dangerous trip to the US. Another 1,300 Cubans were flown directly to Mexico.

The Costa Rican General Department for Migration and Foreign Matters (DGME) congratulated the institutions and communities involved in this operation, but insisted that “it is not possible for the country to repeat it.” One of the agency’s main concerns is that the continuing inflow of Cubans will feed the growth of smuggling organizations.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, acting in concert with the Cuban government, intended to generate a humanitarian crisis to put pressure on Washington to stop the welcoming of Cubans into the United States under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. Claiming to defend the rule of law and its national sovereignty, Nicaragua attacked migrants, including hundreds of children, and left them to their fates, at the hands of criminal organizations and in the face of a mounting health crisis.

Despite their initial scathing denunciations of Nicaragua, the other countries in the Cuban migration corridor have followed suit. Towards the end of November, the Ecuadoran Government, another Cuban ally, imposed a visa requirement for Cubans, making Guyana the only country in mainland Latin America without this restriction for Cubans.

Claiming that they don’t have the resources to continue their assistance, the Costa Rican authorities decided in December not to issue any more transit visas to Cubans. The foreign minister said the government spent $3 million on sheltering and feeding the migrants, while the US State Department gave them $1 million.

After allowing more Cubans to enter, the Panamanian Government has given very little assistance. According to NGOs aiding those at the border with Costa Rica, the Panamanian authorities have removed the Cubans living in tents and placed them in a border police “bunker” with very poor sanitation, leading to protests that resulted in five arrests last Wednesday.

The Panamanian authorities are now completing a census in order to deny assistance to incoming Cubans, who continue to enter in large numbers, primarily from Colombia.

The tensions between Central American governments have exposed the fragility of three decades of supposed economic, political, and social integration since the end of the civil wars in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. The UN Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) recently celebrated the creation of regional markets for medicines and electricity and the “95.7% harmonization of tariff lines” as part of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) with the United States.

Nonetheless, historically, the economic liberalization, increased dependency on foreign capital, and rabid competition for greater foreign investment that results from these common markets and transnational free trade treaties has led to intensifying nationalism and xenophobia and subsequent attacks on the working class, especially through regressive taxes and cuts in social security and education.

For instance, the Central American Common Market, initiated in 1960, led to an initial tripling of foreign capital and cheaper imports for wealthier consumers, but resulted in the Honduran-Salvadoran 1969 war, increased inequality, and an economic recession once the market had reached its maximum demand by the late 1960s. The resulting social crisis and empowerment of the oligarchies were principal causes of the civil wars in the late 1970s.

Nicaragua’s spokeswoman and first lady Rosario Murillo blamed Costa Rica for the migrant blockade and warned on November 17: “We can’t rule out the possibility of another invasion of our territory promoted and encouraged by Costa Rica.” She was referring to a conflict over a river delta island at the border, which the International Court of Justice decided a day before her statement constituted Costa Rican territory and demanded reparations from Nicaragua for environmental damage and its military incursion on the island.

Government officials and the press in both countries have used the migrant issue to instigate greater xenophobia. For instance, on November 25, the Costa Rican ambassador in Nicaragua, Javier Sancho, when denying visas to over 1,000 Nicaraguans requesting work visas that day, compared them with livestock: “People have to understand that Costa Rica is a country of rights, there are laws and procedures they have to fulfill; Costa Rica is not some pasture [‘potrero’] that everyone can come into.”

After several unsuccessful meetings with the other Central American governments throughout December, Costa Rica condemned the other countries for their lack of cooperation and “bad faith” and decided to break from the Central American Integration System (SICA), the UN sponsored political body for the region. These political ruptures are an expression of the tensions generated by economic deceleration due to falling commodity prices and the exporting of US capital between Central American countries and to Southeast Asian economies, particularly Vietnam.

These regional conflicts generated by the world economic crisis historically have been exploited by the US and local elites in an attempt to convince workers of the various countries on the Central American isthmus to blame each other rather than the real source of mounting social crises—capitalism and US imperialist domination.

This time around, however the US client regimes are all directly criticizing US foreign policy, namely the special refugee status for Cubans, for ultimately causing the present crisis.

These criticisms arise not only in relation to the millions of dollars in costs in dealing with migrants and smugglers. The local ruling elites are also concerned about popular anger over the glaring disparity between the treatment of Cubans under the US Cuban Adjustment Act, and the treatment meted out to Central Americans trying to reach the United States.

It is not lost on Central American workers that their governments are aiding Cubans to move into the US as refugees, while they accept millions of dollars from the State Department to prevent their “own” citizens from escaping and seeking asylum away from the intense violence and poverty over which these same governments preside.

However, given the political rapprochement between Washington and Havana and the coming flood of US capital into Cuba, there are growing calls for the revocation of the act, meaning that Cuban migrants would be subjected to the same treatment as their Central American counterparts.

Instead of relieving the tensions and controversy, the State Department reminded Central Americans of their sub-colonial status by stating that it has no plans to change its migration policy. Instead, the Obama Administration has intensified its raids and deportations and continues to pay Mexico to stop Central American families fleeing, chiefly, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

According to the New York Times, about 80 percent of Central American migrants appealing for refugee status since the large influx in 2014 are being deported, while the New Yorker reports fourteen flights a week since 2014 sending them back.

Through direct military coups, as in Honduras in 2009, increasing national antagonisms, and flooding the political elite’s coffers with “security and development” financing, such as the $1 billion 2016 Alliance for Prosperity with Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, the US State Department safeguards the region as a platform for cheap labor, natural resource exploitation, and military operations.

The Central American oligarchical elites will quiet their complaints against Washington--whether they come in the form of the timid criticisms of Solís or the phony “anti-imperialist” rhetoric of Ortega--and get on with their attacks on the living standards of the working class in service of imperialism.

Hungary strengthens state security powers after Brussels attacks

Markus Salzmann

The Hungarian government has responded to the terrorist attacks in the Belgian capital March 22 by further strengthening its state apparatus. Last week, it tabled a draft law loosening restrictions on telephone and Internet surveillance, and providing the authorities with continual access to bank accounts.

Despite the best efforts of the Fidesz Party government, the authorities can currently only carry out telephone surveillance with a court order. Telecommunications providers also have the opportunity to oppose surveillance. According to the new law, in “dangerous situations” Internet and telephone communication will be completely cut off and only SMS communication and emergency calls will be possible.

The strengthening of the security agencies with more personnel and technology is also planned. According to interior minister Sandor Pinter, a counter-terrorism centre is to be developed which will evaluate, analyse and pass on information, and, when necessary, issue warnings. In this context, the constant domestic deployment of the military is being pursued.

“The events in Paris and Brussels have settled the debate, the terrorism threat has grown,” the interior minister declared at a press conference. Prime Minister Victor Orban described the attacks in Brussels as “an attack on Hungary,” which had to be responded to with “all necessary steps.”

The government is shifting blame for the terrorist attacks onto refugees seeking protection in Europe. Foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said there was hardly a reasonable person left in Europe who would not deny that the terrorist threat has increased because of uncontrolled illegal immigration.

Interior minister Pinter stated that the details of the new measures would be outlined at a later date. However, he was forced to admit that they were so significant that some would require a two-thirds majority in parliament to pass.

The human rights organisation Amnesty International has already expressed concern that the expansion of anti-terror laws will undermine basic individual rights.

In January, Orban initiated a constitutional reform, which empowers the government in case of a vaguely defined terrorist emergency to significantly restrict democratic rights. At the time, it was clear that the limitation of democratic rights was directed above all against popular opposition to the government. Hungary has been repeatedly rocked by protests during recent months.

Earlier this month, tens of thousands demonstrated in Budapest against the government’s education policy and solidarised themselves with striking teachers. It was the largest anti-government protest in two years. The demonstrators demanded better pay and working conditions for teachers and more state funding for the education system. Recent polls showed high levels of support for the teachers’ demands.

The government can rely on the support of the opposition parties in the implementation of the new measures. The Fidesz government has relied on support from the fascist Jobbik Party since it lost its two-thirds parliamentary majority.

Jobbik declared it would support the anti-terror measures on the condition that “they are actually aimed at prevention.” Jobbik spokesman Adam Mirkóczki made clear that the far right party would attach further conditions to their support for the measures, and demanded the strengthening of several laws related to the threat of terrorism.

The Socialist Party (MSZP) is also in fundamental agreement with the measures. The chairman of the national security committee, Zsolt Molnar, said that the MSZP was prepared to support all measures which increased the security of the Hungarian population.

Along with Hungary, several other European governments have responded to the Brussels attacks with drastic measures. The Polish government announced a major expansion of the intelligence agencies’ powers to “combat terrorism.” Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said, “We will present the bill to parliament at the beginning of April so that it can be adopted by May.”

The new measures make surveillance of telephone conversations and Internet data easier. The use of anonymous pre-paid mobile telephones is to be restricted and bank account data from “suspect persons” will be monitored. “Terrorist suspects” can be detained for longer periods of time and foreigners can be deported more easily.

The Polish government has also blamed refugees as a whole for the attacks in Brussels. “After what happened in Brussels yesterday, we cannot say that we are in the meantime willing to take in any migrants,” Prime Minister Beata Szydlo told the television station Superstacja. The Prime Minister thus contradicted a promise by the previous government last September that Poland would accept 7,000 refugees.

Over recent months, the Polish government has rapidly strengthened the state apparatus. Since the Law and Justice Party (PiS) assumed power last autumn, it has undermined the power of the courts, expanded its control over the surveillance agencies, co-opted the state radio and television broadcasters and begun a massive rearmament programme both externally and domestically.

In February, a law came into force massively expanding police powers. At the same time, PiS has increased military spending and armed and integrated paramilitary units into the state apparatus. In total, these units amount to 80,000 men, which corresponds to two-thirds of the regular Polish armed forces of 120,000.

The Brussels attacks have also been exploited in the Czech Republic to accelerate the domestic deployment of the army. In an emergency cabinet meeting in Prague last Tuesday, the government adopted a measure allowing the deployment of 550 active army personnel for a period of two months. According to Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, this would strengthen the police forces.

Australian prime minister lurches from one crisis to the next

Peter Symonds

Just over a week ago, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull set the stage for a rare “double dissolution” election, involving all seats in both parliamentary houses on July 2. The move is a desperate bid to break the logjam in the Senate—the parliamentary upper house—where opposition parties and so-called independents have used their majority to block key budget measures.

Yesterday, Turnbull announced another extraordinary scheme aimed at silencing mounting criticisms within corporate and financial circles that his Liberal-National Coalition government had failed to commit to deep cuts to public spending, lower corporate taxes and further inroads into wages and working conditions.

On the eve of a meeting of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) with state premiers on Friday, the prime minister proposed a far-reaching change to taxation that would devolve responsibility to the states for the raising of income taxes allocated to the funding of public schools and hospitals.

The plan would reverse the tax system established in 1942 in the midst of World War II, under which the federal government collected all income tax and dispensed tied grants to the states. While the states are currently responsible for public education and health, the new scheme would dispense with the principle of equal provision of services across the country, and could sow the seeds for a fracturing of the Australian federation.

Increasingly, Turnbull is taking on the appearance of a drowning man clutching at straws. Central to the government crisis is the hostility among millions of ordinary working people to the entire political establishment, after decades of attacks on jobs and living standards. Since the eruption of the 2008 global financial crisis, Australian politics has been beset by one upheaval after another, leading to four changes of prime minister in less than 8 years. A key factor in the turmoil has been the inability of governments, both Labor and Coalition, to overcome deep opposition among voters to the corporate agenda of austerity.

With an election due this year, Turnbull calculated that a double dissolution, along with changes to voting procedures for the Senate, offered the best chance of clearing the independents out of the upper house and then proceeding with the demands of big business. Turnbull, having ousted Tony Abbott as party leader and prime minister just seven months ago, is fixated on stamping his authority on the Coalition and obtaining an electoral “mandate.”

By this week, however, the prime minister appeared to be having second thoughts, putting out feelers to the independents on a compromise that would allow the passage of legislation to re-establish the draconian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) with extensive coercive powers against building workers.

A “double dissolution” election—the constitutional mechanism to resolve an impasse between the two houses of parliament—requires a trigger, that is, government legislation that has been blocked by the Senate. Turnbull chose the ABCC laws as the trigger, anticipating that the Senate would oppose them, thus making the need to stamp out “union corruption” a central feature of the Coalition’s election campaign against the opposition Labor Party.

If the government is now reconsidering its options, its main concern is that the wellspring of opposition to the establishment parties could result in a new Senate that is just as fractured as the present one. This dilemma is compounded by the fact that a budget has to be brought down in May, prior to the election. If it contains harsh spending cuts, it will only further alienate voters. If it does not, it will bring a new round of criticism from big business and the potential for moves to oust yet another prime minister.

Turnbull’s latest plan to insist that state governments levy their own income tax is driven primarily by short-term political expediency. Under fire from the corporate elite for doing nothing to slash social spending, he is proposing to shift all responsibility onto the states for raising the extra financing needed just to keep schools and hospitals functioning. He is offering the state governments, which are desperate for money after the Abbott Coalition government cut $80 billion from health and education funding in 2014, an initial sweetener—an additional $3 billion pittance—in return for signing up to a discussion on the proposed tax arrangements.

Turnbull made the announcement yesterday on the fly, without notes, calculations or projections. He had conducted no prior discussions with the state governments and his new policy has deepened the rift between himself and his treasurer, Scott Morrison. According to the prime minister, the plan will make state governments responsible for funding services and end their “blame game” with Canberra. “If a state government, over time, wants to raise more money by lifting taxes, well it will be answerable to the public,” he said.

Concerned about the electoral repercussions, Treasurer Morrison had scotched the idea of higher taxes, suggesting that the prime minister had “not gone that far.” This was the second time in less than a fortnight that Morrison and Turnbull were at odds with each other. Last week, Morrison was not informed in advance of Turnbull’s decision to recall parliament—even though, as treasurer, he would have to deliver the budget a week earlier than scheduled.

The government’s disarray has only been exacerbated by the response from state governments, big business and the establishment media, none of which has wholeheartedly embraced Turnbull’s tax plan. Every state premier has questioned the lack of detail, even those most likely to benefit. The Business Council of Australia declared it was concerned that “anything which risks increasing complexity reduces the competitiveness of Australia’s income tax system.”

Paul Kelly, editor-at-large at Murdoch’s Australian, declared the proposal was “riddled with economic and political problems.” He warned that Turnbull risked becoming “an experimental ideas merchant devoid of the ability to close the deal.”

The proposal to allow state governments to levy income tax has broad implications. It was originally devised by the Abbott government’s Audit Commission in its 2014 recommendations as a means of establishing “competitive” federalism, aimed at pitting states against each other in an endless fight to attract investment by lowering business costs. Abbott rejected the proposal as a form of “double taxation”—a criticism repeated by the Labor opposition yesterday.

The plan would lead to a further deterioration of public education and health as state governments cut funding to provide tax breaks and other incentives to big business. At the same time, poorer states would be substantially worse off. According to one estimate, the differences would be huge: to raise the same level of income, Tasmania would have to levy taxes 41 percent higher than the national average, whereas the Australian Capital Territory could afford to drop its taxes by 31 percent.

The proposal would also accelerate the privatisation of essential services. State governments would be left to finance and operate public schools and hospitals that have already been savaged by decades of cutbacks. The federal government, however, would continue to directly fund private schools, and indirectly provide funding for private hospitals, via its rebate for those taking out private health insurance.

Whether the tax plan survives tomorrow’s COAG meeting remains to be seen. An earlier proposal floated by Turnbull for an increase in the regressive and unpopular goods and services tax (GST), in order to boost funding for the states, was withdrawn before it was even formally announced.

Increasingly the Turnbull Coalition government, torn by internal divisions and recriminations, is thrashing about in search of a solution to the same impossible political conundrum that wracked its predecessors—the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments, and the Abbott Coalition government —how to impose the dictates from above on the millions below, who are becoming ever-more hostile and restive.

Boeing to slash 4,000-8,000 jobs

Barry Grey

Citing an internal company document, the Seattle Times reported Wednesday that Boeing, the giant commercial and military airplane manufacturer, plans to slash 4,000 jobs at its Washington state-based commercial division by June, with an additional 4,000 job cuts likely to come by the end of 2016.

Boeing responded to the news report by acknowledging that it planned to slash about 4,000 jobs in its commercial airlines division by mid-year, and an additional 550 jobs in a unit that conducts flight and lab testing. However, it refused to confirm press reports that these cuts were only part of a planned 10 percent reduction at the division by year-end, which would bring the job reduction to 8,000 positions.

“There is no employment reduction target,” company spokesman Doug Alder said. “The more we can control costs as a whole, the less impact there will be to employment,” he added. The latter statement is intended to put pressure on workers to accept new concessions in the name of “saving jobs,” and provide the International Association of Machinists union (IAM) with ammunition to press its members for further give-backs.

The report sent shockwaves throughout the state, and particularly the Seattle region, where the bulk of the company’s commercial aircraft production is located. More than 9,000 Boeing jobs have been eliminated since 2012, after the IAM agreed to an extension of a sellout contract it imposed following a seven-week strike in 2008.

Boeing announced last month that it would begin trimming its work force, starting with executives and managers. Even so, the scale of the cuts announced Wednesday appeared to come as a surprise to the media, not to mention the public.

The job cuts at Boeing will impact hundreds of supplier firms and ripple through the economy of the state and the rest of the country. In Wichita, Kansas, one Boeing supply firm, Spirit AeroSystems, laid off 42 workers earlier this month after 265 IAM workers accepted voluntary retirement packages.

At the end of 2013 and beginning of 2014, the IAM responded to threats by Boeing to move production of its 777X commercial plane to a low-wage state unless it received sweeping labor concessions and huge tax cuts from the state government by ramming through an additional, eight-year contract extension. That agreement eliminated pensions for current employees, imposed higher health care costs, and slashed wage increases. It also extended a no-strike provision to 2022.

The extension was initially rejected by IAM District 751 members by a 2-to-1 margin. It was only narrowly passed in a revote ordered by the International union leadership and conducted over the Christmas vacation period.

In late 2013, the state government, headed by Democratic Governor Jay Inslee, approved an $8.7 billion tax break for the airplane manufacturer, the largest corporate tax abatement in US history. The legislation imposed no requirement on Boeing to maintain its current level of employment in the state.

Boeing is in the midst of its biggest peacetime boom in its 100-year history. In 2015, the company set records for both commercial deliveries, 762, and revenues, $96.1 billion. With the assistance of the IAM, it has dramatically increased the ratio of planes produced to the number of workers employed in their production.

It is now insisting, however, that new and even more sweeping cost-cutting measures are required to make it competitive with its main rival, European-based Airbus. The Seattle Times said it had obtained the transcript of an internal webcast from February in which Boeing Commercial Airlines CEO Ray Conner first informed workers that job cuts were coming.

Conner said the cuts were needed to “win the market, fund our growth and operate as a healthy business.” He focused on the struggle with Airbus for commercial airplane orders, arguing that labor costs had to be slashed in order to lower Boeing’s prices. “We’re being pushed to the wall,” he declared.

The company had said the cost-saving push “involves taking out billions of dollars in cost by the end of 2016.”

Boeing spokesman Adler said the 4,000 job cuts by June will include some 1,600 “voluntary layoffs” and 2,400 job losses through attrition. However, Boeing has broadly hinted that further job cuts this year would include involuntary layoffs.

The IAM has played a critical role in helping the company pit Boeing workers against their fellow workers at Airbus. The logic of its economic nationalist and corporatist policies is a race to the bottom, in which one section of workers competes with another for a dwindling pool of jobs by working harder and longer for lower wages and benefits.

Both the IAM and the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), the union for Boeing engineers and technical workers, reacted to the announcement of the job cuts with impotent appeals to the state legislature to bar the company from slashing jobs as part of its tax windfall.

IAM District 751 posted a statement on its Facebook page from the district president, Jon Holden, which merely said: “We have not been notified of these types of workforce reduction numbers. We continue to have concerns about work that has been moved outside of Washington state, which is why we focused so much energy on trying to get job number guarantees for the $8.7 billion in aerospace tax incentives that our citizens are paying.”

A spokesperson at the district office told the World Socialist Web Site that the union did not have any information about the job cuts, including whether they would impact its members. “We would hope that the company would inform us sooner rather than later,” she said.

The job cut announcement by Boeing is one of several major layoffs and closures that have been reported in recent days. The Boston Globe reported Tuesday that the Boston-based financial firm State Street Corp. plans to shrink its workforce by up to 7,000 workers by 2020. And Alcoa permanently closed a 56-year-old aluminum smelter in Warrick, Indiana on March 24, eliminating 325 jobs.

Layoffs are also taking place in the steel industry, and since January of last year, over 25,000 jobs in oil, gas and supporting industries have been wiped out as a result of the collapse in oil and commodity prices.

Forty thousand jobs threatened as Tata Steel announces end of UK operations

Robert Stevens

The plans of steel conglomerate Tata to sell their loss-making UK steel business threaten the jobs of 15,000 steel workers along with another 25,000 jobs in the company’s supply chain. Were the jobs to go, it would mean the end of steel production in the UK.

Tata took over its UK steel plants in 2007 after acquiring Corus Group for £6.7 billion. Its largest plant is at Port Talbot in South Wales. In an area of high deprivation, whose population has relied on steel production for decades, 4,000 jobs and a further 6,600 jobs in the supply chain are under threat.

Tata’s other main plants are in Scunthorpe in North Lincolnshire, Rotherham in South Yorkshire, Llanwern in South Wales, Shotton in north Wales, and Corby in Northamptonshire.

The decision to sell its UK business has prompted a governmental crisis for the ruling Conservatives, currently campaigning for the UK to remain in the European Union in the upcoming June 23 referendum. Tata’s announcement will inevitably be used by supporters of the Leave campaign.

As criticism of the government mounted Wednesday, Prime Minister David Cameron returned from holiday in Lanzarote, while Business Secretary Sajid Javid was forced to return from Australia.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, returning from a holiday in the South of England, wrote to Cameron, calling for the recall of Parliament. Downing Street refused the request. Cameron is to chair a meeting of “key ministers” today to discuss the crisis.

Tata announced its plans in a review of its European steel portfolio, citing among the factors involved the “global oversupply of steel, significant increase in third-country exports into Europe, high manufacturing costs, continued weakness in domestic market demand in steel and a volatile currency.”

The company’s UK steel operations are losing more than £1 million a day, and the firm claims it has “suffered asset impairment of more than £2 billion in the last five years.” According to a source close to the company cited by the Guardian, “Tata is ready to ‘give it away for nothing.’”

Tata is hiving off its UK operation as the result of a deepening trade war in the world steel industry. Amid a deepening economic slowdown globally, restructuring has led to massive job losses in North America, Europe and Asia. The vast majority of job losses, 400,000, are slated for China, which produces half of the world’s steel and which has already cut production by 90 million tons. It plans to slash production further by between 100 million and 150 million tons (a 20 percent reduction.)

The response of ruling elites the world over has been to unleash protectionist measures, many targeting China, which is accused of “dumping” cheap steel onto the global market. According to the Guardian, Tata “worked closely with the government over the last few months but decided to pull out of the UK after the government refused to back calls in Europe for higher tariffs against Chinese steel imports.” A Tata source told the newspaper this was the “last straw.”

The trade unions and the Labour Party are the main advocates of this nationalist demand. Shortly after being elected as party leader, Corbyn insisted on meeting China’s President Xi Jinping during his state visit to the UK in October, at which time he gave him a private letter citing his concerns over UK steel job losses. A few days later, speaking to steelworkers in Scunthorpe, Corbyn declared that “If necessary,” he would “go to Beijing” in defence of the UK steel industry.

In his letter to Cameron, Corbyn stated, “If necessary, ministers must be prepared to use their powers to take a public stake in steel-making to protect the industry and British manufacturing. The Government must do whatever it takes to save this strategic industry.” He called for the convening of “a meeting of all relevant parties—government ministers, trade union and employee representatives, and industry groups—to discuss all options, including a public stake, available to the Government to ensure the security of the industry in the future.”

Speaking at the Part Talbot plant Wednesday, Corbyn stepped up his nationalist agitation, calling for an “immediate government intervention to protect our steel industry.” He insisted that “strategic procurement of steel from steelworks in Britain” was required for all UK infrastructure projects.

These calls were echoed by Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey, who stated, “The unity of voices—from business to government—to say that temporary nationalisation is the way forward must not be ignored. … Every single one of these plants and its workers should be regarded as a national asset and, as such, it is government’s duty to safeguard them for the nation.”

Trades Union Congress leader Frances O’Grady said, “The government should directly intervene to save the UK steel industry … to secure the future of this vital industry.”

These are not calls for the nationalisation of the industry as previously carried out by Labour in 1967. What is being proposed is that the government take a temporary stake in the steel plants, pending their eventual sale to another private entity. Shadow Business Secretary Angela Eagle has called on the government to consider part-nationalising the steelworks to “shelter the assets until the storm has passed.”

This would be an operation to fleece the taxpayer, as was the case with the £45 billion bailout of the RBS Bank after the 2008 financial crash, which is why Javid and Business Minister Anna Soubry both hinted that it might be considered by the government.

Neither Corbyn nor the trade union bureaucracy proposes any struggle by steel workers in defence of their jobs. Instead, they propose to deepen the collusion with the employers that has already led to thousands of job losses, speed-up and wage cuts based on a heightened programme of national protectionism—including seeking subsidies and tax breaks from the Tories.

Steel industry workers must oppose this call for an alliance with big business and appeals to the very government that is imposing devastating austerity measures.

Protectionism is not an answer to the untrammelled exploitation by the transnational corporations facilitated by successive Labour and Tory governments since the 1980s. It is a mechanism through which these same corporations will be given additional funds, paid for by the working class, to prosecute an accelerated trade war against their global rivals. Such a trade war, whether framed within demands to save UK steel or for the EU to “get tough” with China, will mean for workers only a race to the bottom, in the name of securing global competitiveness. The only possible outcome will be further job losses in Britain, Europe and internationally.

In reality, whereas Chinese steel imports to the UK have doubled to 687,000 tonnes due to low prices, the EU accounts for fully 4.7 million tonnes and global markets are saturated. Protectionism directed against China will therefore only be the first step taken.

Tata is a prime example of the reality of globalised production and the international character of the working class. It employs 600,000 workers in many industries in 80 countries. The Tata Steel Group manufactures steel in 26 countries, with a commercial presence in over 50 countries, integrating the labour of 80,000 employees across five continents.

The only progressive and viable perspective on which to defend jobs is a unified struggle by steel workers in Britain with their fellow workers throughout Europe, America, India, China and the world over, in opposition to the steel corporations, the reactionary and moribund trade unions, and all wings of the capitalist class.

War: The great unmentionable in the 2016 US elections

Joseph Kishore

The most striking feature of the 2016 US election campaign is the virtual absence of discussion of what is by far the most serious issue facing the people of the United States and the world, looming over everything else: the escalating military conflict that threatens to plunge the entire planet into a new world war.

While it is not a topic of significant debate among the various candidates contending for the presidential nomination of the Democratic and Republican parties, hardly a day goes by without a new provocation that raises the prospect of a military confrontation involving the US, China, Russia and the European powers.

Yesterday was no exception. US Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work announced that the Obama administration would not recognize any air defense identification zone (ADIZ) that China might proclaim in the South China Sea in response to an upcoming international court ruling on territorial disputes in the region.

Earlier this month, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, referring to a future conflict over an ADIZ, wrote that “the US is heading toward a dangerous showdown in China.” Ignatius quoted Kurt Campbell, former assistant secretary of state for Asia, who said: “This isn’t Pearl Harbor, but if people on all sides aren’t careful, it could be ‘The Guns of August.’” Campbell was referring to the book by Barbara Tuchman on the events that led up to World War I, which led to the deaths of 17 million people.

Also on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon has “drawn up plans to position American troops, tanks and other armored vehicles full time along NATO’s eastern borders… in what would be the first such deployment since the end of the Cold War.”

Work, who last month declared that a test of intercontinental ballistic missiles was designed to show “that we are prepared to use nuclear weapons in defense of our country,” told the Journal that with the additional forces “there will be a division’s worth of stuff to fight [Russia] if something happens.”

As far as the media and the candidates of the Democratic and Republican parties are concerned, all of this falls under the category of the “great unmentionable.” Indeed, the Obama administration is attempting to temporarily postpone a full conflict with Russia or China, following a well-established pattern in which major military operations are launched after presidential elections. The aim is to prevent the question of war and the war plans of the ruling class from becoming a topic of political discussion among broader sections of the population.

Particularly since the launching of the “war on terror,” and then following the mass protests in 2003 against the impending invasion of Iraq, the American ruling class has worked systematically to exclude any expression of anti-war sentiment from the political process. In 2002, the Democrats kept the issue of the looming invasion of Iraq out of the mid-term elections, after Democrats in Congress agreed to give Bush a blank check to use military force.

In 2004, opposition to war was so intense that it threatened to overwhelm the election cycle. That was the year that Howard Dean, the governor of Vermont, won widespread support due largely to his stated opposition to the Iraq war, and appeared to be on the path to winning the Democratic nomination. His campaign was then derailed through a carefully coordinated operation by the Democratic Party leadership and the media, which proclaimed him “unelectable.” Senator John Kerry, who had voted for the Iraq war, was brought forward, the “antiwar” Democrats mobilized behind him, and the issue of war was removed from an election that culminated in the victory of George W. Bush for a second term.

Two years later, despite the efforts of the Democratic Party to keep the mid-term elections from becoming a referendum on war, opposition to the Iraq invasion led to a massive defeat for the Republicans and gave control of both houses of Congress to the Democrats for the first time since 1994. The Democrats responded by rejecting any move to force a change of course, let alone bring charges against Bush administration officials. They funded all of the Bush administration’s military appropriation bills, including for the 2007 Iraq “surge.”

The channeling of anti-war sentiment behind the Democratic Party was carried out with the critical assistance of the organizations of the middle class that had led the anti-war protests in 2003. This culminated in the campaign of Illinois Senator Barack Obama in 2008. Obama was presented as the “transformational candidate” who would reverse the eight years of war and social reaction under Bush. During the primaries, Obama’s political trump card was the fact that he had opposed the invasion of Iraq while his principal opponent, Hillary Clinton, had voted for it in the Senate.

In fact, the Obama administration became the vehicle for the middle class organizations surrounding the Democratic Party to fully and openly embrace imperialism. After more than seven years of Obama as “commander-in-chief,” the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue. The Obama administration has led a war to overthrow the government in Libya, stoked a civil war in Syria through the promotion of Islamic fundamentalist militias, launched drone strikes on Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, supported the Israeli assault on Gaza, backed a brutal Saudi bombardment of Yemen, and overseen the militarization of the South China Sea and Eastern Europe.

All indications are that within a year, if not earlier, the extent of US military operations will be far greater. Despite the looming danger of a global conflict involving nuclear-armed powers, the media and the various candidates are keeping the ongoing military operations off the agenda. When war is discussed, it is from the standpoint of general agreement among Republicans and Democrats on the need to “destroy ISIS” and confront Chinese and Russian “aggression.”

In the Democratic Party campaign, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has emerged as the preferred candidate of the military and intelligence apparatus. She is personally responsible for launching the war in Libya and the CIA-backed destabilization operation in Syria. On her campaign web page, Clinton boasts of having “called out China’s aggressive actions” in Asia. The Clinton campaign web site adds, “Hillary will confine, contain, and deter Russian aggressions in Europe and beyond, and increase the costs to Putin for his actions.”

As for Bernie Sanders, he has said virtually nothing about war or foreign policy, aside from criticizing Clinton for supporting the 2003 invasion of Iraq. On his campaign web site, “war and peace” is relegated to the 25th of 28 issues in the election. He calls the 2003 invasion “the worst foreign policy blunder in modern US history.” The invasion of Iraq was, according to Sanders, not a crime, but a strategic mistake from the standpoint of the interests of the American ruling class.

He proclaims that “as President and Commander-in-Chief, I will defend this nation, its people, and America’s vital strategic interests, but I will do it responsibly.” He boasts of having voted for war in the Balkans in 1999 and in Afghanistan in 2001. He has supported the Obama administration’s drone strikes, denounced Russia, and insisted that the US maintain the largest military in the world.

For all his rhetorical criticisms of the “billionaire class” and its influence over American politics, Sanders never suggests that foreign policy is dictated by this same “billionaire class.” Nor does he propose any cuts to the gargantuan military budget. Sanders too would defend “America’s vital strategic interests”—code words for the drive by the American corporate and financial elite to control the world and its key sources of raw materials, cheap labor and trade routes. Nothing could more fully expose the fraud of Sanders’ “socialism.”

There remains deep and broad-based anti-war sentiment among American workers and youth. Large sections of the voting population have lived their politically conscious lives under conditions of permanent war. There is no mass support for war against China or Russia, or for the measures including a further destruction of democratic rights at home and the introduction of the military draft—that would inevitably accompany such a war.

There remains, however, a huge danger. As a consequence of the conspiracy of silence by the media and the political establishment, the population as a whole is largely unaware of what is currently taking place and what is being planned in the aftermath of the elections. It is a life-and-death question that the attention of the working class be focused on the war plans of the ruling class and that the political foundations be laid for a new mass-anti war movement.

The fight against imperialist war requires the building of an independent political movement of the working class, based on an internationalist and socialist program. Workers must not allow themselves to remain trapped within the pro-imperialist confines of bourgeois politics and the Democratic Party. The working class must intervene with its own program and perspective, connecting the fight against war with the fight against inequality, dictatorship and the capitalist system.