Justice for Julian Assange, Test of Western Democracy

Nozomi Hayase

This has been the 7th year that WikiLeaksfounder Julian Assange spent Christmas in confinement inside Ecuador’s London embassy. For nearly a decade, the US government’s aggressive witch-hunt of truthtellers has trapped him in the UK.

Assange claimed political asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2012 to mitigate the risk of extradition to the US, relating to his publishing activities. He has been unlawfully held by the UK government without charge, being denied access to medical treatment, fresh air, sunlight and adequate space to exercise. In December 2015, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that Assange was being “arbitrarily deprived of his freedom and demanded that he be released”. Yet the UK government’s refusal to comply with the UN finding has allowed this unlawful detention to continue.

This cruel persecution of Assange represents a deep crisis of Western democracy. As injustice against this Western journalist prevails, the legitimacy of traditional institutions has weakened. The benevolent Democracy that many were taught to believe in has been shown to be an illusion. It has been revealed as a system of control, lacking enforcement mechanisms in law to deal with real offenders of human rights violations, who for example illegally invade countries under the pretext of fighting terrorism. Under this managed democracy, the premise of ‘no person is above laws’ is made into a pretense that elites use to escape democratic accountability. Media has become the ‘Guardian’ of ruling elites that engage in propaganda to distort truth.

Dictatorship of the West

Assange’s plight, his struggle for freedom revealed a dictatorship in the West. There have been changes in Ecuador’s treatment of Assange ever since a new President Lenin Moreno took office in May 2017. Contrary to the former President Rafael Correa, who courageously granted the publisher asylum, Moreno has shown total disregard for this Australian journalist who has become a political refugee and also a citizen of Ecuador since December 2017.

This Ecuadorian government’s shift in attitude had to do with Western governments’ bullying this small nation of South America. It was reported that the US has pressured Ecuador over loans, making it act illegallyin violation of international laws as well as its own constitution. At the end of March, one day after a high level US military visit to Ecuador, this new Ecuadorian president unilaterally cut off Assange from the outside world, by denying his access to internet, prohibiting him from having visitors and communicating with the press. Assange has been put into isolation, which Human Rights Watch general counsel described as being similar to solitary confinement.

In mid October, in the guise of restoring his internet access, Ecuador issued a “Special Protocol” that perpetuates this silencing of Assange. By further restricting his freedom of expression and requiring him to pay for medical bills and phone calls, Moreno government seeks to break Assange. He is forcing him to leave the embassy on his own accord and get arrested by UK authorities, who are refusing to give him assurances to not extradite him to the US.

US imperialism

Assange has met the fury of empire by exposing US government war crimes having the blood of tens of thousands of innocent people dripping from its hands. He has become a political prisoner, being treated as an enemy by the most powerful government in the world. Last month, US prosecutors mistakenly revealed secret criminal charges against Assange under file in the Eastern District of Virginia.

James Goodale, First Amendment lawyer and former general counsel of the New York Times, commented on the danger of US government’s efforts to charge a journalist possibly under espionage who is not American and did not publish in the US:

“A charge against Assange for ‘conspiring’ with a source is the most dangerous charge that I can think of with respect to the First Amendment in almost all my years representing media organizations.”

The Espionage Act of 1917 is a US federal law, created after World War I to prosecute spies during wartime. This law is still in effect today and can be used to go after even those outside of US territory, due to a later amendment that removed this wording from the act: “within the jurisdiction of the United States, on the high seas, and within the United States”.

Obama’s Justice Department was eager to prosecute Assange and WikiLeaks for publishing classified documents, but chose not to do so, due to concerns that it would set a precedent which could strip away the First Amendment protection for the press. After WikiLeaks’ Vault 7 publication in March 2017 detailing CIA capabilities to perform electronic surveillance, the US government showed its appetite to abuse this outdated law to criminalize journalism.

In April 2017, the then Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated that the arrest of Assange is a priority. This threat on press freedom increased in the following months, as he showed his determination to prosecute media outlets publishing classified information.Trump’s Secretary of State and the former CIA director, Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks “a non-state hostile intelligence service”, claiming that the organization tries to subvert American values and it needs to be shut down. As the Trump administration tries to claim that it has a right to prosecute anyone in the world in their assault on free press, top Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill showed their bipartisan support. They signed a letter demanding Pompeo urges Ecuador to evict Assange.

Contagious act of resistance

The secret indictment against Assange opened a sad era for democracy. Barry Pollack, WikiLeaks founder’s Washington D.C. based attorney noted that this Trump administration’s attempt to prosecute “someone for publishing truth is a dangerous path for democracy to take”. David Kaye, UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression stated that “prosecuting Assange would be dangerously problematic from the perspective of press freedom” and should be resisted.

Top human rights organizations have been showing strong opposition against the extradition of Assange. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch urged the UK government not to extradite him to the US. More than 30 Parliamentarians of the German Parliament and EU Parliament wrote to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, asking the UN to intervene so that Assange can travel to a safe third country.

Now, significant support for Assange has emerged from one of the European nations. On December 20, two German parliamentarians came to London to visit Assange inside the Ecuadorian Embassy. Germany that once suffered the suppression of civil liberty under a terrifyingly totalitarian state, has in recent years become a safe haven for Western dissidents who were forced to flee their countries against their governments’ persecution. In the aftermath of Snowden revelations of the ‘United Stasi of America’, support for the safety of whistleblowers and journalists who report on government surveillance has increasingly grown.

WikiLeaks investigative editor Sarah Harrison, who helped to secure asylum for the NSA whistleblower found her refuge for her exile from the UK in Berlin. Germany’s major centre-left political party, SPD recognized her political courage, demonstrated in her work with WikiLeaks and the organization’s extraordinary source protection. Harrison was given an award, named after a journalist and the former West German chancellor Willy Brant who escaped the Nazis and was exiled before returning to Germany.

Last week, two German politicians who traveled to visit Assange, carried out an act of urgent diplomacy to represent this country’s commitment to the value of freedom of speech. At the press conference outside of the embassy after their visit, the pair who has been eager to see Assange for months, but were not allowed to do so until now, stood with Assange’s father and called for an international solution to Western government’s persecution of Assange. Sevim Dagdelen, member of the Left Party, emphasized that Assange’s injustice is an exceptional case, noting how “there is no other publisher or editor in the Western world who has been arbitrarily detained” and this is a betrayal of Western values about human rights. Heike Hansel, vice-chairman of the Left parliamentary group, urged people to resist US government’ extraterritorial prosecution of Assange.

The courage of individuals inside democratic institutions, striving to uphold civil liberties, became contagious. Just before Christmas Eve this year, UN experts reiterated their demand for the UK to honor its international obligations and allow Assange to leave the embassy without fear of arrest and extradition. Chris Williamson, a sitting UK Member of Parliament has endorsed the UN’s statement that Assange should be compensated and be made free.While elected officials are standing up for the principle of democracy, concerned citizens around the world day and night stand watch over Assange outside of the embassy in London.

Restoring rule of law

As 2018 comes to an end, the legitimacy of the West and its entire fabric of institutions is now being tested. Democracy birthed in ancient Athens, was people’s aspiration to organize a society through their direct participation in power. In modern times, it got uprooted from the original imagination and quickly degenerated into a form of ‘elective despotism’ that Thomas Jefferson once predicted.

In the institutional hierarchy of Western liberal democracy, what was regarded as the force for progress began to decay, from inside out. A system of representation that is purported to make those who are capable and intelligent to use their skills for public service, has been abused. Now, the rich and powerful began to inflict harm on those whom they are supposed to represent.

WikiLeaks, the world’s first global Fourth Estate, has come to existence as response to this crisis of democracy. With a pristine record of accuracy in its publications, the whistleblowing site brought a way for citizens around the world to transform this hollow democracy that has devoured ideals that once inspired the hearts of ordinary people.

From the 2007 release of the Kroll report on official corruption in Kenyathat affected the outcome of the national election, to the exposing of the moral bankruptcy of Iceland’s largest bank in 2009, WikiLeaks publications helped awaken the power of citizenry in many countries. Released documents sparked global uprisings, transforming pervasive defeatism and despair into collective action on the streets. US diplomatic cables leak shared through social media in 2010 unleashed a powerful force that finally topped the corrupt Tunisian dictator Ben Ali.

Months after the Arab Spring, informed by WikiLeaks cables, people in Mexico launched a peaceful youth movement against the political corruption of the media. Revelations of Cablegate also affected the course of a presidential election in Peru, and transformed the media in Brazil. In 2016, the DNC leaks and publication of Podesta emails educated American people about how their political system works.

Julian Assange, through his work with WikiLeaks, engaged in that type of vibrant journalism that revitalized the impulse for real democracy. By publishing vital information in the public interest, he defended public’s right to know, empowering ordinary people to actively participate in history.

Now, it is our responsibility to respond to this crisis of democracy through solidarity. Can each of us step up to the challenge to solve the problems that our leaders have created? Efforts to free Assange urge us all to claim and exercise the power inherent within that can restore justice to end this prosecution of free speech.

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Takes a Military Turn?

Abdus Sattar Ghazali

New York Times says Pakistan has eagerly turned more toward China as the chill with the United States has deepened and some of China’s biggest projects in Pakistan had clear strategic implications.

In a report about Pakistan’s deepening ties with China, the paper pointed out that under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor [CPEC] Pakistan is cooperating with China on distinctly defense-related projects, including a secret plan to build new fighter jets while Pakistan is the only other country that has been granted access to China’s Beidou satellite navigation system.

Chinese officials have repeatedly said the Belt and Road is purely an economic project with peaceful intent. But with its plan for Pakistan, China is for the first time explicitly tying a Belt and Road proposal to its military ambitions — and confirming the concerns of a host of nations who suspect the infrastructure initiative is really about helping China project armed might, the New York Times report said adding:

“As China’s strategically located and nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan has been the leading example of how the Chinese projects are being used to give Beijing both favor and leverage among its clients. Since the beginning of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, Pakistan has been the program’s flagship site, with some $62 billion in projects planned in the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. In the process, China has lent more and more money to Pakistan at a time of economic desperation there, binding the two countries ever closer.

Some of China’s biggest projects in Pakistan, such as Gwadar port and access to Beidou satellite navigation system, had clear strategic implications, according to the New York Times:

“A Chinese-built seaport and special economic zone in the Pakistani town of Gwadar is rooted in trade, giving China a quicker route to get goods to the Arabian Sea. But it also gives Beijing a strategic card to play against India and the United States if tensions worsen to the point of naval blockades as the two powers increasingly confront each other at sea.

“Military analysts predict that China could use Gwadar to expand the naval footprint of its attack submarines, after agreeing in 2015 to sell eight submarines to Pakistan in a deal worth up to $6 billion. China could use the equipment it sells to the South Asian country to refuel its own submarines, extending its navy’s global reach.

“A less scrutinized component of Belt and Road is the central role Pakistan plays in China’s Beidou satellite navigation system. Pakistan is the only other country that has been granted access to the system’s military service, allowing more precise guidance for missiles, ships and aircraft.

“The cooperation is meant to be a blueprint for Beidou’s expansion to other Belt and Road nations, however, ostensibly ending its clients’ reliance on the American military-run GPS network that Chinese officials fear is monitored and manipulated by the United States.”
Space Silk Road

China’s own satellite navigation system, Beidou, has won a stamp of approval in 2014 from an international maritime body, an important step toward its goal of global acceptance for its answer to the United States’ Global Positioning System (GPS).

The Maritime Safety Committee of the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations body that sets standards for international shipping, formally included Beidou in the World-Wide Radio navigation System during its Nov. 17-21 2014 meeting. This means that the Chinese system has become the third system, after GPS and Russia’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), recognized by the United Nations body for operations at sea.

Named after the Chinese word for the Big Dipper or Plough constellation [Ursa Major], Beidou has been in the works for over two decades but only became operational within China in 2000 and the Asia-Pacific region in 2012.

When complete in 2020, it will have a constellation of 35 satellites to provide global coverage. During 2018 alone, there have been more than 10 Beidou satellite launches.

By the end of 2018, it covers countries along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – a massive China-led infrastructure and trade program, part of what it calls the “Space Silk Road”, according to BBC. Beidou already covers 30 countries involved with the BRI, including Pakistan, Laos and Indonesia.

A global navigation system that can rival GPS is a big part of China’s ambition to be a global leader in space, Alexandra Stickings, from the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, tells the BBC.

“The main advantage of having your own system is security of access, in the sense that you are not relying on another country to provide it. The US could deny users access over certain areas, for example in times of conflict.”

It could also serve as a back-up if GPS were to go down entirely.

Domestic phone brands such as Huawei, Xiaomi and OnePlus are now Beidou-compatible, although Apple did not add the Chinese system to its new line-up of iPhones announced in September 2018.

For China, Pakistan could become a showcase for other countries seeking to shift their militaries away from American equipment and toward Chinese arms, New York Times quoted Western diplomats as saying. And because China is not averse to selling such advanced weaponry as ballistic missiles the deal with Pakistan could be a steppingstone to a bigger market for Chinese weapons in the Muslim world.

Best film and television of 2018

David Walsh & Joanne Laurier 

The film world in 2018 can be viewed and judged in different ways and by distinct standards.

“Global box office revenue for 2018 is expected to hit an all-time high of $41.7 billion … revenue looks to be up 2.7 percent over 2017, when combined worldwide ticket sales landed at a record $40.6 billion,” notes the Hollywood Reporter.

China continues to be a major contributor to this growth. According to government statistics, the country’s box-office earnings in February, 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion), set a global monthly record. The Indian entertainment website, Showsha, notes the February 2018 figure was “a significant milestone in box-office history and comes at a time when China—the world’s second-largest movie market—is inching towards its target of overtaking North America (the United States of America and Canada) as the world’s largest film market by early 2019.”

It was a relatively good year, after several very bad ones, in terms of North American box office revenue. That total is predicted to reach $11.5 billion for the first time, on some 1.3 billion tickets sold, an increase from $11.07 billion in 2017.

A number of large-budget films contributed to the financial success, including, according to Variety, “Disney’s Avengers: Infinity War, Universal’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and Fox’s Deadpool 2, as well as sleeper hits like Paramount’s A Quiet Place and Warner Bros.’ A Star Is Born .” None of these, except perhaps the last, even deserves serious treatment.

The only movie in the top 10 “highest-grossing films of 2018” (the sole measuring stick that interests the American media these days) not a bloated superhero or comic book movie and such is Bohemian Rhapsody, the film biography of Queen lead vocalist Freddie Mercury.

Variety also pointed out that Black Panther (which the WSWS review noted, apart “from its racialist theme … is nothing more than a conventional Hollywood ‘blockbuster’”) “was the big winner in North America, becoming one of three movies to ever hit $700 million at the domestic box office and the third-highest grossing film of all time in the States. The barrier-breaking film became the must-see cultural event at theaters, driving its global haul past $1.3 billion. Is Oscar gold the next stop on Marvel’s road to glory?”

The Geeks of Color website noted March 12 that the previous weekend “was a historical one at the box office for Ava DuVernay and Ryan Coogler. The two filmmakers took the top two spots at the weekend’s box office with Black Panther and A Wrinkle in Time, marking the first time that African-American directors have held the number one and number two positions.” That the two films were inconsequential at best and did not speak to the conditions and problems of wide layers of the African-American population or anyone else concerns no one in Hollywood or identity politics circles. We have recently commented on the spate of “women’s films” and the generally unimpressive results on that score too.

Generally speaking, crassness and crudity prevail in the American commercial film industry. Things simply get worse and worse.

There were, nonetheless, some critical and observant films and television series made or released this year, including a number produced in Hollywood.

UK: Cross-party moves escalate to prevent Brexit and secure second referendum

Robert Stevens 

Hostilities continued during parliamentary recess over Britain’s scheduled exit from the European Union (EU) at the end of March.

A vote is to be held the week of January 14 on Prime Minister Theresa May’s proposed Brexit deal. She refused to hold a vote earlier this month as she knew it would be voted down. In an attempt to placate opposition to the deal from both Remain and Leave factions in her own party, May said she would seek further concessions, particularly on the post-Brexit arrangements regarding the Northern Ireland border with the Republic of Ireland, an EU member.

But May has secured no further concessions ahead of the January vote, with European Council President Donald Tusk stating that there is “no mandate to organise further negotiations” on a deal that took over two years to finalise. The Financial Times reported Sunday, “There have been no formal EU-UK Brexit negotiations since the [EU] summit ended in acrimony on December 13, with EU diplomats on holiday over the Christmas and New Year break.”

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn denounced May for delaying a vote until the last minute to bounce parliament into supporting her Brexit deal as the only option to avoiding a chaotic and economically damaging no-deal Brexit. Corbyn, who was an opponent of EU membership for decades, supported Remain in the 2016 referendum. He has made a series of concessions to the party’s pro-EU wing ever since, but this has done nothing to placate the Blairites who are seeking a reversal of the 2016 Leave vote through a second referendum, or “People’s Vote.”

Tensions within Labour escalated again following an op-ed piece Corbyn published in the Guardian, as parliament went into the Christmas recess. He reiterated that Labour, if it won a snap general election in the New Year under his leadership, would honour the 2016 referendum and seek a Brexit based on protecting “jobs”, i.e., by securing continuing access to the EU’s Single Market and a Customs Union preserving tariff-free trade. He said if Labour won an election, “You’d have to go back and negotiate, and see what the timetable would be.”

Asked his view of what Labour under his leadership would advocate in the event of a referendum, Corbyn again refused to call for a Remain vote, stating, “It would be a matter for the party to decide what the policy would be; but my proposal at this moment is that we go forward, trying to get a customs union with the EU, in which we would be able to be proper trading partners.”

Corbyn was repeating the policy adopted by the Labour Party at its conference in October, but his intervention provoked an immediate backlash from the Blairites and their allies in the Liberal Democrats, Scottish National Party and pro-Remain Tories.

Corbyn’s stated aim is to force a general election and only if that fails to consider other options, including a second referendum. But he has refused to move a vote of no confidence in the government, which is the only means of possibly securing a general election—suggesting that he will do so only after the vote on May’s deal when the chance of success is most likely. In reality there is no reason to believe that pro-Brexit Tories or the Democratic Unionist Party would support such a no confidence motion.

Corbyn is delaying a vote for two reasons: above all to make clear to the ruling class that he is not threatening political stability and wants to come to power bearing their imprimatur, but also because he knows that a failed no confidence motion will mean bringing an end to the policy of “constructive ambiguity” on Brexit.

The Blairites have spent most of the last several months seeking to commit Corbyn to a second referendum. Last week Tony Blair’s former Foreign Minister David Miliband denounced Corbyn in a Guardian op-ed, saying his position was “not much better” than that of the hard Brexit faction around Tory Boris Johnson. Miliband stated, “Jeremy Corbyn’s Guardian interview has rightly caused a furore. He makes clear that his difference with the government lies in tactics not goals, personnel not principles.”

Cross-party backing for a second referendum had to be mobilised, Miliband said as, “It is reported that five [Tory] cabinet members can now see their way to supporting a people’s vote. They need to insist that preparations begin now.”

Blairite Guardian commentator Jonathan Freedland warned of the “coming catastrophe” and said there should be no “working out whether this or that move will boost [Labour’s] electoral prospects. None of that matters when a national emergency is looming. The only purpose of politics at this moment is averting it.” It was “unconscionable that Jeremy Corbyn keeps playing his own games, avoiding the formal vote of no confidence in this horror show of a government which, once done, would compel Labour to pursue other ways out of this quagmire.”

Further pressure was heaped on Corbyn this weekend with demands by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) that Article 50—the legislation governing the UK’s exit from the EU—be suspended. The only purpose of a suspension would be to prepare the way for a second referendum. TUC General Secretary Francis O’Grady said of May in a New Year message, “Her Brexit deal doesn’t command a parliamentary majority and that there’s no majority for no deal either.”

The Observer, the Guardian’s Sunday sister publication, reported that cross-party talks aimed at extending Article 50 “have been under way for several weeks to ensure the 29 March date is put back—probably until July at the latest—if the government does not push for a delay itself. It is also understood that cabinet ministers have discussed the option of a delay with senior backbench MPs in both the main parties and that Downing Street is considering scenarios in which a delay might have to be requested from Brussels.”

Labour’s Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer warned that the UK would be just nine weeks away from leaving the EU by the time of the January vote in parliament on May’s Brexit deal, and “If the deal is rejected, parliament will need to have a very serious debate about how to protect the economy from a no-deal scenario and at this stage nothing should be ruled out.”

With an unprecedented crisis of rule in the UK, Corbyn’s major concern is to preserve the unity of the Labour Party’s “broad church” on the basis that only a Labour government can rescue British imperialism.

There is not a single issue of political principle in Corbyn’s politics of constant manoeuvre and concessions to the Blairites. The one option this bourgeois politician will never take is to take a stand on political principles reflecting independent interests of the working class.

Corbyn is vehemently opposed to any struggle for socialism based on a common offensive by all European workers against the EU and all its constituent governments, which is the only means of opposing the dangers of austerity, repression and militarism. His preaching of party unity, social peace and a “patriotic” commitment to the national interest disarms workers even as the repressive arms of the state are preparing for social unrest as Brexit approaches. With an eye on the Yellow Vest protests in France, nearly 10,000 soldiers have been placed on standby to be deployed to deal with any contingency, with the suppression of an escalation of industrial action topping the list.

FCC to launch investigation of CenturyLink following US-wide 911 outage

Jacob Crosse

Beginning in the early morning Thursday, December 27 and continuing throughout Saturday evening, hundreds of thousands of people were unable to reach 911 emergency phone services in the United States.

CenturyLink, the third largest telecommunications company operating in the US, behind AT&T and Verizon, respectively, admitted its phone and internet services were experiencing technical difficulties, but had hoped to have recovered within “a few hours.” After a few hours passed and services remained down into Friday morning, CenturyLink acknowledged the problem was more widespread and would take additional time to fix. This prompted Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai to announce an investigation into CenturyLink for its role in the outage.

Emergency phone service outages, ATM disconnections, and disrupted internet service was reported in multiple states, including Texas, California, Oregon, Colorado, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Missouri, Arizona and Massachusetts.

Chairman Pai, a former Verizon lawyer, Obama appointee, and erstwhile advocate of “free market” solutions and staunch opponent of “net neutrality,” released a statement on Friday in which he called the outage “completely unacceptable.” CenturyLink has yet to release a public statement as to the cause of the outage. On Friday, CenturyLink spokesperson Nikki Wheeler advised people unable to reach 911 on their landline to “...use their wireless phones to call 911 or drive to their nearest fire station or emergency facility.”

Brian Krebs, a former Washington Post reporter, tweeted Saturday morning a statement released by CenturyLink that was only sent to “core customers.” In the statement CenturyLink blamed their extended outage on a faulty network management card in Denver, Colorado that was “propagating invalid frame packets across devices.” The release didn’t specify how one card could have negatively impacted so much of the network across multiple systems and states. CenturyLink acknowledged in the letter that engineer teams had to be dispatched to Atlanta, Chicago, Kansas City, Los Angeles and New Orleans to reset equipment on site that had been affected.

While service has now been restored it is unclear how many people were affected by the multi-state network outage and if any lives were lost as people were unable to access emergency services. Banner Health Services, which operates 28 hospitals, and utilizes CenturyLink and Verizon networks, reported that four of its hospitals had internment phone and internet connections. The North Colorado Medical Center, located in Greeley, seemed to have suffered the worst of it, with internet and phone outages that lasted for 24 hours, leaving doctors and nurses unable to access patients’ electronic medical records.

Meanwhile, in Boston a man was forced to use one of the city’s 176-year-old street-side boxes to report a building fire after he was unable to reach emergency services on his cellphone. The fire box system was built in 1852 using copper wires to transmit in Morse code to the fire department. The firefighters were able to respond before any injuries occurred. However, as Boston Fire spokesman Brian Sanders told NBC News, “It was a small fire that we were able to put out, but it could have been much worse.”

As America’s infrastructure continues to deteriorate, these dangerous outages are becoming more common. The FCC concluded a similar investigation into AT&T last year for two nationwide emergency service outages that occurred in March and May 2017. The two blackout incidents lasted for approximately six hours and resulted in 15,200 failed 911 calls. AT&T, which had an operating revenue of $190 billion in 2017, paid a paltry $5.25 million dollar fine at the conclusion of the investigation. Meanwhile, according to opensecrets.org, AT&T spent over $7 million dollars that same year contributing to political campaigns, including the Republican and Democratic party, with outgoing Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke receiving $126,204 dollars from the company, the most of any candidate.

Notably, CenturyLink was recently fined by the FCC for an emergency service outage in April 2014 that left 11 million people in six states without 911 service. The FCC statement estimated that 6,600 911 calls were left unanswered for over six hours as the network was down. CenturyLink was forced to pay a $16 million dollar settlement and agreed to a compliance plan to prevent future outages from occurring. As for the latest outage and pending FCC investigation, it seems to have had little effect on CenturyLink shareholders; at the close of the stock market on Friday, CenturyLink’s stock price remained unchanged.

The latest CenturyLink outage is another objective example that despite petty fines from a complicit government and assurances from corporate public relations departments these reckless incidents will continue to occur, leaving people without access to emergency help at precisely the time they need it most. Telling people to “drive themselves” to the hospital while suffering from a medical emergency is as absurd as it is dangerous.

The irrationality of the capitalist system expresses itself in all of facets of society and imperils humanity needlessly. Only through the working class consciously taking ownership of public utilities, including telephone and fiber lines, can they be operated for the benefit of all, instead of private profit.

Facing possible liquidation, Sears to close 80 more stores in March

Kevin Martinez

Sears Holdings has announced plans to close 80 more Sears and Kmart stores across the US in March, in addition to the nearly 200 stores already set for closure. In October, the retailer filed for bankruptcy and was operating nearly 700 stores, saying it would close only 142 unprofitable stores. The next month, it was announced that 40 additional stores would be closed.

Workers at the stores in the latest round of closures were told that liquidation sales would begin in two weeks and that adjacent Sears Auto Centers would also be shut down.

Sears Chairman and former CEO Eddie Lampert has offered to buy Kmart and Sears out of bankruptcy through his hedge fund ESL Investments. Transform Holdco LLC, an affiliate of ESL, submitted a last-minute bid on Friday to purchase all the assets of Sears Holding, with 425 stores valued at $4.4 billion. This includes a $1.3 billion financing commitment from three financial groups.

The company and its advisers now have until January 4 to determine whether the bid is “qualified.” Transform said that if the bid is successful the company that emerges will employ up to 50,000 people, of the existing 68,000 employees.

Lampert had made a $4.6 billion proposal to buy the company on December 6. The deal included 500 stores, the Kenmore appliance and DieHard Tool brands, 50,000 employees, key real estate and the company’s inventory and receivables.

Sears faces liquidation if the latest offer is not approved by a bankruptcy judge. Recently, US Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Drain allowed the company to sell its home-improvement service business to Service.com for $60 million. The company, once an icon of American capitalism, has been suffering for years as it faces competition from online retailers like Amazon.com.

For much of the 20th century Sears was not only the nation’s largest retailer, but also its largest private-sector employer. With hundreds of stores across the country as well as a catalog which sold countless items, it was the mainstay of many communities and towns.

In 2005, Lampert used Kmart, which he bought out of bankruptcy two years before, to purchase Sears for $11 billion and then merged the two. He later resigned as CEO but remained on as chairman.

The fate of Sears follows a long line of mergers and acquisitions in recent years which have decimated the retail industry. The buyouts are a desperate attempt to avoid bankruptcy and outright liquidation by corporate sharks. In May it was announced that the retail industry was responsible for one third of all job cuts last year alone.

The stagnation of workers’ wages and declining working conditions means fewer purchases of goods and services from retailers like Sears, who face monopoly competition from Amazon and other retailers. The loss of Sears stores will hit the poorest communities the hardest, as the last avenues of employment dry up.

Since 2011, Sears lost over $11 billion, including $5.8 billion in the last five years. More than 1,000 stores have closed in the last decade, 700 stores just in the last two years.

Lampert’s bid to buy Sears follows the trend of the growing financialization of US capitalism. ESL Investments, Lampert’s hedge fund, already holds around 40 percent of Sears Holding’s debt—$1.1 billion in loans.

Should Sears survive outright liquidation, its “rescue” will come at the expense of the remaining workers who will be forced to work harder and longer for less pay to ensure company profits.

5,147 workers died at work in the United States in 2017

Jessica Goldstein

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries for 2017 on December 18. The Census has provided statistics on the total known number of workplace deaths in the US each year since 1992 and takes its data from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reports.

In 2017, 5,147 fatal occupational injuries were reported in the US, down slightly from 5,190 in 2016. The fatal injury rate in 2017 was 3.5 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers, down from 3.6 in 2016. The 2017 data shows that in the United States, an average of over 14 workers died at work each day.

Fatal falls in 2017 were at their highest rate in 26 years of reporting, causing a total of 887 deaths and accounting for 17 percent of all deaths reported.

Fishers and related fishing workers and logging workers had the highest published rates of workplace fatalities in 2017.

Grounds maintenance workers suffered 244 fatalities in 2017, a very small decrease from 247 in 2016 and still the second-highest total since 2003. Thirty-six deaths were caused by falls from trees, and being struck by a falling tree or branch caused another 35.

Transportation incidents remained the most frequent cause of death, with 2,077 deaths recorded, 40 percent of the total. The occupational groups with the highest number of fatalities were the transportation and material moving and construction and extraction sector, accounting for a total of 47 percent of worker deaths in 2017. These groups had the highest number of deaths in 2016 as well.

Among transportation workers in the occupational subgroup of driver/sales workers and truck drivers, heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers suffered the largest number of workplace fatalities, 840, in 2017. According to the BLS, this is the highest death toll for heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers since data collection began for the occupational series in 2003.

Unintentional overdoses from non-medical use of alcohol or other drugs rose by 25 percent from 217 in 2016 to 272 in 2017. This is the fifth consecutive year that unintentional overdose workplace fatalities rose by 25 per cent. This shocking number points to the widespread social misery and decades of depressed living conditions faced by working people.

Fifteen percent of workers killed on the job were aged 65 and older—an all-time high for the series. When reporting began in 1992, eight per cent of workers killed on the job were in this age group. Workers 65 and older also had the highest fatality rate of all age groups in 2017, at 10.3 per 100,000 in 2017, up from 9.6 in 2016.

Workplace deaths among workers in private manufacturing and wholesale trade were the lowest since reporting on fatal occupational injuries began in 1992. This could be the result of large numbers of layoffs and plant and warehouse closures that have taken place over the past quarter century.

Workers killed in the private mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction industry increased by 26 per cent year over year, from a series low of 89 in 2016 to 112 in 2017.

The service sector as a whole saw workplace deaths remain virtually unchanged, 2,702 in 2016 compared to 2,707 in 2017. Retail trade accounted for 287 deaths in 2017 and transportation and warehousing 882 deaths.

The last figure speaks to the grueling conditions of workers in America’s logistics industry, including among workers at UPS and Amazon, two of the largest logistics and warehousing corporations in the world.

While the official figures record a marginal decline in reported workplace deaths from the past year, the number of workplace deaths in 2017 is still significantly higher than those recorded in each of the years 2013, 2014 and 2015. Overall, workplace deaths in the US had been steadily on the rise in the period 2009-2016.

The official statistics are put in a somewhat different perspective by the findings of a report released in 2018 by the US Department of Labor’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) that claims workplace fatality and injuries are underreported. A 2014 OSHA rule strengthened provisions that require employers to report work-related deaths and injuries to OSHA; however, this is a rule, and not a law.

The OIG found that OSHA’s data on these incidents were “deficient.” Additionally, the OIG found further deficiencies in OSHA’s assurance that employers took steps to abate hazards that caused known fatalities and injuries to workers. The OIG took several corrective actions against OSHA as a result of its findings, some to which OSHA agreed, but to others it did not respond.

The investigation was undertaken by the OIG after the results of a March 2016 report by David Michaels, the former assistant secretary of labor for Occupational Safety and Health, showed that during the first year after the revised reporting rule took effect, employers failed to report about 50 percent or more of severe injuries to OSHA.

The OIG found that OSHA’s reporting is “hampered by the lack of complete information on the number of work-related fatalities and severe injuries, challenges related to identifying underreporting, inconsistent practices for detecting and preventing underreporting, and citations not consistently used as a deterrent.”

In other words, all statistics on workplace deaths reported by OSHA are very likely significantly understated.

The fact that in the United States, one of the most developed capitalist countries in the world, workers die unnecessarily is an indictment of the economic system of capitalism. The lives of workers are being squandered for the sake of the mad drive for profits by Wall Street CEOs, hedge fund managers and investment bankers.

The representatives of the corporate elite, in the Democratic and Republican parties and their allies in the leadership of the trade unions, are also to blame for the creation of the American industrial slaughterhouse. Successive Democratic and Republican party administrations—most recently those of Obama and Trump—have worked to relax regulations on businesses and strip funding from OSHA and other official workers’ health and safety programs in order to satisfy corporate cost-cutting.

Since the 1970s, the trade unions adopted the policy of corporatism based on the claim that the interests of the working class are identical to those of the corporate masters. On this basis the unions have collaborated in the establishment of joint labor-management health and safety committees in which they work hand-in-hand with the bosses to roll back safety standards.

No amount of pressure on the unions will compel these organizations to fight for workers interests. Fundamental rights such as health and safety protections must be fought for by workers themselves. Workers need to form their own rank-and-file factory and workplace committees to oversee and enforce safe practices in the workplace. The scourge of workplace deaths and injuries can only be eradicated by uniting workers across industries and national boundaries in a common struggle against the capitalist profit system.

One year since Trump’s tax cuts: a balance sheet

E.P. Milligan

December marked one year since the passage of Trump’s corporate tax windfall legislation, cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent down to just 21 percent. Officially known as the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017,” the legislation handed some $1.5 trillion to the major corporations and the super-rich while leaving the working class to shoulder the burden.

As the World Socialist Web Site rightly predicted in its December 21, 2017 perspective, the bill “marks a new stage in the decades-long social counterrevolution in the United States. It will make America, already the most unequal advanced economy in the world, far more unequal, entrenching the rule of an unaccountable financial oligarchy.” One year later, a balance sheet of the legislation’s effects on American society confirms this analysis.

In October, the United States Treasury announced that the federal budget deficit has risen to $779 billion, up 17 percent from the previous fiscal year. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a report in April projecting the national debt will now increase by $1.9 trillion over the next decade. The spike in the deficit will precipitate a new round off assaults on the few remaining social programs in the US—above all, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

After-tax profits rose nearly 20 percent in the third quarter from the previous year as a result of the cuts, while wage growth remained static. After-tax corporate profits are now growing nearly 10 percent faster than pre-tax profits, a phenomenon which usually only occurs around recessions. The first three quarters of this year saw enormous tax savings for some of America’s largest corporations. Walmart saved $1.6 billion, with Bank of America saving $2.4 billion. AT&T and Verizon saved $2.2 billion and $1.75 billion, respectively. Apple alone has collected a whopping $4.5 billion.

Corporate spokesmen and media pundits at the time had made promises of raising wages, handing out bonuses and creating new jobs. In reality, the handouts in the form of bonuses and raises for workers amounted to a small fraction of the $200 billion in savings on income tax. A recent report by the Economic Policy Institute estimated that bonuses gave workers only 2 cents more per hour over the past year. Wages overall have increased only 3.1 percent over the course of the year, barely keeping up with the rate of inflation. By comparison, dividend payouts to corporate shareholders have set a new annual record of $420 billion. The majority of the payouts went to the wealthiest 10 percent of the US population, which owns 84 percent of all stock holdings.

Capital investment—intended to fund research and development and create jobs—rose at the beginning of the year only to fall sharply in the third quarter. Conversely, stock buybacks—a method by which a corporation repurchases shares in order to artificially inflate their value without creating anything or hiring employees—surged to previously unseen heights.

The total amount of S&P 500 company buybacks alone neared $200 billion in the third quarter, with a total buybacks reaching $579 billion for the first nine months of 2018. The total amount of buybacks is expected to top $1 trillion by the end of the year, according to Goldman Sachs analysts. This is almost double the amount of the previous annual buyback record of $589 billion in 2007—the year that began the financial meltdown that triggered the worst recession since the Great Depression.

It is now clear the vast majority of corporate spending from the tax cut has gone to the further enrichment of a tiny parasitic layer of investors and CEOs. Whatever expenditures made on paltry handouts to workers have been dwarfed by buybacks and dividends, a financial orgy that once again threatens another and even greater financial meltdown. The events of the past year once again underscore the deeply intractable crisis of capitalism, marked by a degree of financialization of the world economy that has long ago surpassed the point of no return. Profit is now primarily made not through the growth of the productive forces, but rather, through their destruction.

In fact, many corporations have instead carried out layoffs in spite of their surge in profits. General Motors (GM) has announced plans to lay off 15,000 workers and shut down five plants in the United States and Canada, along with two unspecified plants internationally. While GM is planning to cut $6.5 billion in costs, it has squandered over $10 billion in stock buybacks and dividend payouts for its richest investors since 2017, and $25 billion since 2012.

Bank of America has cut 5,000 jobs this year alone. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan has cited the growth of automation and online banking as the impetus for the layoffs. According to Moynihan himself, the corporation has cut 100,000 jobs since 2010 when he took over the company. Wells Fargo, another bank that has made billions from the cuts, followed suit in an announcement that it plans to downsize its work force by up to 10 percent. This came shortly after an announcement of $40 billion in stock buybacks since the law passed.

AT&T slashed more than 10,000 union jobs this year in an acceleration of layoffs from last year. Verizon has laid off 3,100 employees this year, while announcing a buyout offer cutting an additional 10,000 workers. The company recently made the decision to outsource 2,500 jobs to Infosys, a large Indian technology firm.

The trade unions representing many of the affected workers, such as the United Auto Workers (UAW) and Communications Workers of America (CWA), have directly collaborated in imposing the layoffs and plant closures.

The Democratic Party offered only nominal opposition to the tax cuts. While voting against the legislation last year in a party-line vote in both the House and Senate, the Democrats are not proposing to introduce legislation to repeal the cuts once they regain control of the House of Representatives January 3—neither partially nor as a whole. The Republican Party introduced legislation to repeal, deauthorize, defund, or otherwise do away with Affordable Care Act (ACA) 83 times during Obama’s presidency. The Democrats are opposed to even a symbolic gesture against the tax cuts, as doing so would risk alienating the party from its corporate base.

Amid widespread violence, Bangladesh’s ruling party re-elected

Vimal Perera

The national election was held yesterday in Bangladesh amid widespread violence mainly instigated by the ruling Awami League which was determined to return to power for a third consecutive term by suppressing the opposition parties.

More than 100 million voters were to elect 299 representatives to parliament. According to unofficial results reported last night, the Grand Coalition led by the Awami League was heading for a “landslide win.” The full official results are due to be released this afternoon.

The opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and its allies in the National Unity Front (NUF) have condemned the election as “farcical” and demanded a “fresh election under non-partisan administration.” Prime Minister Sheik Hasina Wajed has already rejected the request.

By yesterday evening, 17 people had been killed in election-related violence by Awami League and BNP supporters, while thousands were injured. Last Thursday, the BNP-led alliance alleged that eight of their activists had been killed, 12,588 injured, and 9,202 arrested.

A collective of 16 human rights organisations, including the Asian Human Rights Commission and the Asian Network for Free Elections, issued a statement on Saturday accusing the government of conducting the election under a “restrictive electoral environment” and “cracking down on civil society, the opposition and the media.”

From Saturday, the government deployed about 600,000 security personnel including soldiers across the country to intimidate political opponents and voters. In what was tantamount to censorship, the government deliberately slowed 3G and 4G internet services, saying it was a measure to counter “false propaganda.”

The crackdown on political opponents underscores Prime Minister Hasina’s nervousness about the growing opposition to her government. The Awami League won the 2014 election in a “landslide” as its chief rival, the BNP, which is also notorious for thuggery and violence when in power, boycotted the election.

The BNP decided to participate in this election in a bid to retain its voter base. Its leader and former prime minister, Khalida Zia, has been charged and jailed for 17 years over graft, thus disqualifying her from contesting the election. Many BNP leaders have also been jailed or are living in exile.

Leaders of the Islamic fundamentalist Jamaat e Islami, a BNP ally, have been tried for war crimes during the 1971 secessionist uprising against Pakistan. The party has been banned and several of its leaders hanged. Awami League’s campaign against war crimes is mainly aimed at whipping up nationalist sentiment and suppressing political opposition.

The Hasina government has also increasingly attacked media freedoms. In October, it passed a new “Digital Security Act” under the pretext of strengthening defamation laws. In reality, the legislation is to suppress criticism and dissenting views and silence the media.

Police arrested photojournalist Shahidul Alam in August for exposing police violence against students in an interview with Al Jazeera and was released only after a local and international outcry.

Hasina and her ministers have ridiculed criticism over the government’s human rights record. In a recent interview with the New York Times, she said: “If I can provide food, jobs and health care, that is human rights… What the opposition is saying, or civil society or your NGOs—I don’t bother with that.”

Hasina has above all suppressed strikes and protests by workers in order to attract foreign investors. Big business has praised the government for driving sound “economic growth” during its decade of rule.

Analysts cite the increases in Gross Domestic Product growth from 5.57 percent for the 2009-2010 financial year to 7.28 percent in 2016-2017, in per capita GDP from $US500 to nearly $1,800, and in export income from $16 billion to $35 billion. In its election manifesto, the Awami League promised to increase growth to 9 percent and turn the country into a middle-income economy by 2024.

The economic growth, however, has only benefited a small wealthy elite, including the politicians. The Centre for Policy Dialogue, a prominent think-tank, said the top 5 percent of income earners took home 121 times more income than the bottom 5 percent of the population in 2016.

The Awami League government has faced growing opposition and unrest over deteriorating living conditions from workers, teachers, youth and students.

Strikes of garment workers erupted sporadically since early December over demands for a rise in monthly wages of 16,000 taka or $190, as compared to the government’s recommended increase of 8,000 taka. Workers in 20 factories in Mirpur and Gazipur and adjoining districts have stopped work.

Secretary General of IndustriALL Bangladesh Council Salahuddin Shapon declared: “Along with the government, we the trade union leaders also requested workers not to hold any demonstration before national polls, but unrest continues in the sector.”

The government and trade unions fear a major eruption of protests among the country’s four million garment workers and other sections of the working class.

In June, thousands of teachers held protests demanding the nationalisation of non-government educational institutions and for pay to be determined by the government salary scheme.

In July, students and youth held protests against unemployment and the reactionary quota system for recruiting employees for the state sector jobs. Though the overall official unemployment rate is about 4 percent, youth joblessness stands at 11 percent.

The election was also intertwined with the growing rivalry between the US and China throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Despite nominal expressions of concern about election violence, the US and its strategic partner India have backed the Awami League government as a means of undermining Chinese influence.

An article in the Dhaka Tribune entitled “Why India prefers Hasina in Office” reported that India’s ambassador Harsh Vardean Shringla had met with political leaders even while claiming to have nothing to do with the election.

The newspaper pointed out that the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had provided Dhaka with $9 billion in credit and aid in a bid to undercut China. The Hindu supremacist Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent organisation of Modi’s Bharatiya Janatha Party, recently praised Hasina as India’s “most trusted and tested ally.”

For its part, Beijing has offered Bangladesh $30 billion for infrastructure investment as part of its massive “Belt and Road Initiative” plans to integrate Eurasia more closely with China and undermine American influence.

The new Awami League government will inevitably face a worsening crisis as it is drawn more closely into the cauldron of geo-political rivalry on the one hand, and resorts to increasingly autocratic methods of rule, on the other, to try to crush rising discontent and opposition from working people.

Opioid overdose deaths triple among US teens and young children

Kate Randall 

Opioid overdose death rates among US teens and children have tripled over the past 17 years, a new study shows. The study, published online in JAMA Network Open, examined a group of almost 9,000 children and adolescents (under age 20) who died in all settings from opioid poisonings between 1999 and 2016.

Researchers found that young children have either died from accidentally ingesting narcotics or from intentional poisoning. Teens, meanwhile, have more often died from unintentional overdoses, using prescriptions painkillers found in their homes or drugs bought on the streets. These include prescription opioids, heroin, fentanyl and other legal and illicit drugs.

Julie Gaither, lead researcher of the study and an instructor at the Yale School of Medicine, told MedicalXpress, “These deaths don’t reach the magnitude of adult deaths from opioids, but they follow a similar pattern.” She added, “As we consider how to contain this epidemic, parents, clinicians and prescribers need to consider how children and adolescents are affected and how our families and communities are affected.”

The study shows the depth of the opioid crisis facing the youngest segments of the population and points to the woefully inadequate response of the government in dealing with this social catastrophe as it spirals out of control.

The study notes: “What began more than two decades ago as a public health problem primarily among young and middle-aged white males is now an epidemic of prescription and illicit opioid abuse that is taking a toll on all segments of US society, including the pediatric population.”

Drug overdose deaths in the US topped 72,000 in 2017, according to estimates released earlier this year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This staggering figure was 6,000 more deaths than 2016 estimates, a rise of 9.5 percent. Some 43,000 of drug overdose deaths in 2016, the latest year examined by the JAMA study, are attributed to opioid overdoses. Other causes include alcohol poisoning and other drug overdoses.

The study categorized children and adolescents by the following ages: 0 to 4, 5 to 9, 10 to 14, and 15 to 19 years. Deaths in these age groups were then classified according to intent: unintentional, suicide, homicide, and undetermined intent. The study based its findings on death certificates since 1999.

A total of 8,986 children and adolescents died from prescription and opioid poisonings between 1999 and 2016: 605 (or 6.7 percent) among ages 0–4; 96 (1.1 percent) ages 5–9, 364 (4.1 percent) ages 10–14 and 7,921 (88.1 percent) ages 15–19. Among those under age 20, the annual estimated mortality rate from opioids more than tripled during this period—rising from 0.22 per 100,000 in 1999 to 0.81 per 100,000 in 2016.

The largest changes were seen among the oldest and youngest children. Teenagers ages 15–19 had by far the highest death rates from opioids, at 88.1 percent of the total. Of these teen deaths, more than 85 percent were unintentional. In other words, while some teens deliberately overdose, others, seeking escape from the stresses of unemployment, peer pressure, school demands, and college admissions and debt, are falling victim to the wide availability and lethal potency of both legal and illegal opioids.

While some deaths can be blamed on unscrupulous drug dealers, these deaths must above all be laid at the feet of the multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical companies who have flooded neighborhoods with these potent opioids. Workers and professionals who have been prescribed these drugs become the unwitting suppliers to their children, who find them in home medicine cabinets and ingest them, lacking adequate knowledge of the dangers they pose.

The 605 deaths among children ages 0 to 4 is the second highest, accounting for 6.7 percent of all pediatric deaths. Two hundred thirty of these deaths were unintentional, while the manner of death could not be determined in 227 of these cases.

However, 148 deaths in this age group, about one-quarter of the total, were due to homicide. And the percentage of deaths due to homicide was highest for those younger than 1 year, standing at 34.5 percent of this age group. Behind this appalling statistic stands the social desperation that would drive a parent or caregiver to kill an innocent infant with the aid of opioids. There are no figures that indicate how many of these young victims have been born addicted to opioids themselves.

While the study found that the majority of pediatric deaths were among non-Hispanic white males, with each passing year non-Hispanic black children accounted for a larger proportion of fatalities. While white children saw a threefold increase in deaths, black children had a nearly fourfold increase.

A similar trend has been seen for female children, among whom death rates increased more than threefold compared with a twofold increase among males. These trends mirror those seen in the adult population, where deaths due to opioids have been rising at a faster rate than among blacks and women.

In line with the opioid crisis affecting the US adult population, the devastating toll of opioid deaths among children casts a grim light on 21st century America. While the opioid crisis spares no segment of society, the most profoundly affected are workers and the poor and the communities where they live. At the root of this crisis lies a society characterized by growing social inequality, corporate greed and profound government indifference.

In 2017, the Trump administration declared the opioid epidemic a “public health emergency,” but then allocated no new funding to the states to address it. In September, congressional Democrats and Republicans approved compromise legislation that purports to address the opioid crisis, but the bill is primarily focused on law enforcement. It allocates as little as $8 billion over five years, or roughly $1.6 billion per year—a pittance given the dimensions of the epidemic.

A health emergency on the scale of the drug epidemic requires an emergency, socialist response. The giant pharmaceutical companies, who are responsible for the scourge of opioid addiction and deaths, must be transformed into publicly owned utilities. The health insurance industry, which dedicates its resources to denying coverage and treatments instead of curing the ill, must be abolished and replaced with universal, socialized medicine.

To counter the opioid crisis, which claims increasing numbers of the young and old, the Socialist Equality Party insists that billions of dollars be allocated to fund rehabilitation centers, using the most advanced scientific methods and procedures. In order to facilitate this, profit must be taken out of healthcare, which is a social right that must be guaranteed to all.