A Food Pandemic Infects America

L. Ali Khan

A food pandemic means the abundance of disease-causing foods (pathogenic foods) people consume regularly and consequently develop life-threatening morbidities. The U.S. has been infected with a food pandemic for many years, now spreading to other countries.

In 2020, the U.S. life expectancy dropped by 1.5 years from 78.8 to 77.3 years, which is facially attributable to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the backstory points to a previously bursting food pandemic that covertly joined forces with the invading virus. For example, the Covid-19 patients with type-2 diabetes, a food disease, have been much more vulnerable to severe effects of the virus. With the number of deaths exceeding 616,000, the food plus virus pandemics have hit the U.S. hard. Even if the virus goes away, the food pandemic will continue to exact harm in the foreseeable future. Sadly, the pandemics deniers remain bountifully ignorant.

Public health is much more complicated than the mere availability of low-cost food. Food pandemics hit nations where food scarcity is infrequent, food production is high, distributions systems are efficient, but a massive amount of affordable food is pathogenic. Nutritional ignorance, overeating, Information perplexity, and food industry-sponsored smokescreens extend the reach and duration of the pandemic.

One may argue that even unhealthy food is better than prolonged starvation. The recent famines in history killed millions of people worldwide. In the 18^th century, due to drought, crop failure, and poverty, Mughal India faced two famines that killed 21 million people, nearly ten percent of the population. In the 20^th century, China faced two major famines, one in 1907 due to high rains that prevented crop production, another during 1959-61 primarily due to flawed government policy. These two famines wiped out at least 70 million people, mostly in rural areas. In 1921, amid a civil war and railroad disruptions, Russia suffered from a catastrophic famine that killed nearly 10 million people, breeding episodic cannibalism.

Ironically, in their effect on human life, food famines and food pandemics are distressingly similar. A famine emaciates the human body, causing mental distress, poor mobility, vulnerability to pathogens, multiple diseases, and premature death. A food pandemic fattens up the human body, causing the same morbidities as famine, including mental distress, compromised mobility, susceptibility to pathogens, numerous diseases, and early death. Sorrowfully, food pandemics are deadlier as they persist for decades, way longer than famines. Famine deaths are swift and dramatic. By contrast, food pandemics cause slow grinding but lethal diseases.

This study analyzes the four intertwined elements that precipitate a food pandemic: (1) a significant range of foods contain pathogenic ingredients; (2) pathogenic foods are readily available and affordable; (3) food consumption stimulates quantitative overloading (overeating) by altering biochemistry and generating food addiction; (4) foods cause life-threatening morbidities, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, vision loss, and cancer.

Pathogenic Ingredients

Research singles out two primary pathogenic ingredients found in most packaged foods, restaurant foods, and home-cooked foods: seed oils (corn oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, and others) and added sugars (fructose, corn syrup, maple syrup, and others). Of these two ingredients, added sugars come out on top as the main villain in producing type 2 diabetes and the associated cardiovascular disease, pancreatic malfunction, and kidney failure. “The people of the U.S. consume more sugar than any other country in the world. On average, Americans consume 126.4 grams of sugar daily.” The recommended dose varies from a lower limit of 11 grams to a higher limit of 25 grams. No nutrition expert contends that added sugars benefit human health.

Seed oils (vegetable oils) offer an alternative to animal fats, such as butter and lard. However, the debate over seed oils is confusing and controversial. The critics of seed oils contend that these oils disturb the balance between omega-6 and omega-3 fats. Excessive ingestion of omega-6 fats through seed oils produces chronic inflammation in the human body, leading to numerous diseases. Animal fats, too, remain controversial, but influential experts recommend “cutting back” on these fats.

On the factual level, the use of seed oils has dramatically increased in the past fifty years (1970-2020). According to the data that the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture collects, American consumers are ingesting more than 400 average daily calories per capita from vegetable oils in recent years. In contrast, in 1970, they drew 115 average daily calories per capita from salad and cooking oils. This increase is nearly four-fold. (see graph) Over these fifty years, the average daily calories from butter, lard, and dairy fats have varied small amounts. However, as good news, the average daily calories from margarine (trans fats) have plummeted from 58 to less than 15 per capita.

In addition to seed oils and sugars, pathogenic foods also contain pesticides, growth hormones, and heavy metals. Furthermore, regardless of antibiotics and steroid injections, all meat contains sex steroid hormones, and all chicken contains drug-resistant bacteria. (A more health-conscious European Union (E.U.) permits only hormone-free U.S. beef. The U.S. exports poultry products (chicken and turkey) to more than 120 countries around the world. The E.U. refuses to accept U.S. poultry washed with chlorine and antimicrobial chemicals.) In recent years, chemicals in agriculture increased from below 3 billion in 1970 to over 15 billion. (see graph).

The distinction between organic and inorganic foods has created a new pricey market for organic foods beyond the pocketbook reach of most Americans. Non-organic foods–whether fruits, vegetables, dairy, and meat–are produced with synthetic chemicals to boost growth. By contrast, organic foods face less exposure to pesticides and antibiotics. Yet, cross-contamination between organic and non-organic foods weakens the distinction.

According to ERS, in 2018, on average, people in the U.S. consumed more meat, eggs, nuts, grains, and refined sugars than the recommended amounts. Chicken consumption has doubled since 1970. The consumption of vegetables and fruits falls short of 2020-2025 dietary guidelines. For the most part, Americans are eating a nutritionally deficient diet infected with pesticides, hormones, and numerous chemicals used in preservation, processing, packaging, coloring, and canning. It is no relief that the food is affordable.

Affordability

The food pandemic sets in motion when the pathogenic food is readily available and affordable. Affordable food consists of grains, sugars, vegetables, fruits, and meat, mainly carrying pathogenic ingredients. In most states, the lowest average food cost per month for one person ranges from $200 to $233.

From time immemorial, the food available to the rich has been of much higher quality than the food available to the poor. This dichotomy continues to bedevil many nations worldwide, including the U.S. The disadvantaged communities invariably have insufficient food of lower grade, not conducive to good health. There are historical examples of famine when food was available, but it was too expensive for poor people to buy. While food affordability is a desirable social objective, the question remains whether affordable food is healthy.

Food available to most U.S. inhabitants is affordable, though some families struggle with meager incomes. In 2019, around 34 million people, 10.5 percent of the U.S. population, lived in poverty. However, the poverty rate for Black communities stood at nearly 19%, for Hispanics at 16%, exceeding the national poverty rate. The poverty rate for minors under the age of 18 was over 14%.

In sum, Black communities, Hispanics, and children face food insecurity. In addition to the 34 million under the poverty level, millions of Americans above the poverty line have little choice but to consume affordable foods of questionable quality. Whether these numbers and communities have improved or worsened in the past two Covid-19 years remains to be seen.

The invasion of Covid-19 has complicated social dynamics and food ingestion. For decades, people are eating pathogenic foods far too much and far too often for many reasons, including physical immobility, mental distress, and loneliness. Unfortunately, quantitative overloading of the body breeds numerous diseases.

Quantitative Overloading

“Eat as much as your heart desires” is the siren song of American Argonautica.

Under evolutionary constraints, the human body has evolved to bear periods of starvation. For centuries, humans did not eat every day, certainly not three or more times a day. Food was scarce. Animals were challenging to hunt. Seasons, mainly winters, complicated the availability of fruits and plants. Food preservation was elementary. Consequently, early humans mostly remained in a fasted rather than fed state.

The 21^st-century humans face a different challenge: quantitative overloading of the digestive system with unhealthy foods.  Americans are in a fed state for nearly 16 to 18 hours a day and do not allow the pancreas to take a break from releasing insulin and digestive enzymes. The stomach carries a Sisyphean boulder. Obesity is the inevitable consequence of quantitative overloading. In 2017-2018, U.S. obesity hit 42.4%. This figure is a nearly four-fold increase from 1970 (see graph). Furthermore, millions more are overweight. This increase in obesity varies little across income, gender, and racial groups

For decades, the U.S. has been at the cutting edge of accelerating the plentiful availability of food. Thanks to scientific agriculture, farming, food processing, food preservation, refrigeration, storage, packaging, canning, faster transportation, the U.S. has solved almost all problems related to food availability. Furthermore, the ready-to-eat food, fast food, restaurant food, and the food available at grocery stores in cities, towns, and gas stations on highways have revolutionized the convenience at which food is available any time of any day, 24/7. Some urban communities are “food deserts” where the food is available only at convenience stores.

The food industry stimulates quantitative overloading with aggressive marketing, deceptive labeling, and faulty research. Kids and teens are susceptible to food advertising. For example, Black-targeted TV shows overwhelmingly advertise “fast food, candy, sugary drinks, and unhealthy snacks.” The food labeling confuses rather than informs the consumers as food manufacturers hide pathogenic ingredients with unfamiliar technical names. For example, dextrose and treacle are sugars. Even organic sugar is sugar.

The most controversial feature of the food pandemic is the industry-sponsored research that promotes dairy, eggs, meat, cereals, and seed oils. For example, because of conflicting research findings, the consumers do not know how many eggs they should consume per week. Keto and carnivore diets promote animal sources of protein as weight loss strategies. Even some internet physicians enter the scene with podcasts promoting their books and supplements to further confuse the consumers about healthy foods.

Research controversies are a godsend for advertising all sorts of foods, as confusion benefits the food industry rather than the public. Frustrated with conflicting mantras, “fat is bad,” “fat is good,” most consumers give up on guidance and decide to eat what they like without regard to health consequences. This eating crisis mired in utter uncertainty obliterates the distinction between good food and bad food.

Furthermore, the food industry engages in manipulative research to find chemicals that promote the overeating of products, a concept like an addiction. Select chemicals included in processed foods release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that furnishes pleasure and yearning for more. Studies demonstrate that foods with added sweeteners and fats have “the greatest addictive potential.  Much like the tobacco industry, the food industry emphasizes “personal responsibility” in craving pathogenic foods.

Food Pathologies

Contaminating consumer products with pathogenic ingredients is dishonorable. Willfully doing so is a crime. The pathogenic seed oils, sugars, and foods infected with pesticides, hormones, and chemicals kneaded into food introduce the invisible, even delicious, poisons in mainstream staples. Sodas, donuts, chips, cookies, and ice creams (rightfully) get the bad rap. However, even relatively healthier foods contain overt and covert pathogenic ingredients.

There is a near consensus among nutrition experts that refined carbohydrates and sugar consumption leads to type 2 diabetes. This mother disease gives birth to obesity, cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, vision loss, and other systems pathologies. Once considered morbidity of mature age, diabetes is now penetrating children and adolescents younger than age 20. Diabetes begins to weaken the immune systems long before it surfaces in blood tests.

The nutrition debate over dietary fat is confusing and controversial, benefitting the food industry. Keto diets emphasizing the replacement of carbohydrates with fats complicate the discussion. However, the critics assert that “Dietary fat induces overconsumption and weight gain through its low satiety properties and high caloric density.” Since ingested fats must first pass through the lymphatic vascular system, quantitative overloading of fats can overwhelm the lymph nodes.

Food processing chemicals aggravate the villainy of foods derived from sugars and seed oils. For example, nitrates and nitrites, extensively used to process food, correlate with various forms of cancer. Bisphenols used in soda cans and food lining interferes with puberty and fertility. Perchlorate, a chemical released from defense and military operations and found in drinking water and surface waters, attacks thyroid function. Artificial food coloring to attract children worsens the symptoms of attention deficit disorder.

Most Americans live in a monster Skinner Box in which no matter which lever you press, the food you get is pathogenic.

Conclusion

The food pandemic has been slowly gaining momentum in the past few decades and will continue to spawn lethal pathologies in the years to come. Humans engage in quantitative overloading of pathogenic foods derived from sugars and seed oils for various personal, social, and economic reasons. The preservatives introduce a toxic chemical load to healthy and unhealthy foods. Obesity and the consequent morbidities are strongly correlated to the food pandemic. The affordability of food is a legitimate social goal. But affordable food must not be toxic. Unfortunately, nutrition research, some sponsored by the food industry, confuses consumers with conflicting findings. Frustrated consumers, not knowing what is good for their health, fall back on what taste buds crave, thus ingesting pleasurable poison. Jack Lalanne (1914-2011), the legendary nutrition maharishi, cautioned people about processed food in a provocative warning: “If it tastes good, spit it out.” Even if the food is entirely healthy, eating less is evolutionary more protective of the human body.

Estimated Cost of Post-9/11 US Wars Hits $8 Trillion With Nearly a Million People Dead

Jon Queally

With the final U.S. soldiers leaving Afghanistan earlier this week after nearly 20 years of occupation and war, a new analysis released Wednesday shows the United States will ultimately spend upwards of $8 trillion and that nearly one million people have lost their lives so far in the so-called “global war on terror” that was launched after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

According to Brown University’s Costs of War Project, which has been releasing reports on the financial and human costs of the post-9/11 wars at regular intervals since 2010, the total cost of the war and military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere over the last two decades have directly killed at least 897,000 to 929,000 people—an estimate the researchers say is conservative.

“The deaths we tallied are likely a vast undercount of the true toll these wars have taken on human life,” said Dr. Neta C. Crawford, co-director of the Costs of War Project, in a statement. “It’s critical we properly account for the vast and varied consequences of the many U.S. wars and counterterror operations since 9/11, as we pause and reflect on all of the lives lost.”

The study calculates that of the $8 trillion estimated costs in the wars waged by the U.S. since 9/11:

• $2.3 trillion is attributed to the Afghanistan/ Pakistan war zone;
• $2.1 trillion is attributed to the Iraq/Syria war zone; and
• $355 billion was attributed to other battlefields, including Libya, Somalia, and elsewhere

Above those figures, another $1.1 trillion was spent on Homeland Security programs and $2.2 trillion is the estimated obligation for the future care of U.S. veterans who served in the various wars.

 

Detailing the report for The Intercept, journalist Murtaza Hussain writes:

The staggering economic costs of the war on terror pale in comparison to the direct human impact, measured in people killed, wounded, and driven from their homes. The Costs of War Project’s latest estimates hold that 897,000 to 929,000 people have been killed during the wars. Of those killed, 387,000 are categorized as civilians, 207,000 as members of national military and police forces, and a further 301,000 as opposition fighters killed by U.S.-led coalition troops and their allies. The report also found that around 15,000 U.S. military service members and contractors have been killed in the wars, along with a similar number of allied Western troops deployed to the conflicts and several hundred journalists and humanitarian aid workers.

The question of how many people have lost their lives in the post-9/11 conflicts has been the subject of ongoing debate, though the numbers in all cases have been extraordinarily high. Previous Costs of War studies have put death toll figures in the hundreds of thousands, an estimate tallying those directly killed by violence. According to a 2015 estimate from the Nobel Prize-winning Physicians for Social Responsibility, well over 1 million have been killed both indirectly and directly in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan alone. The difficulty of calculating death tolls is made harder by the U.S. military’s own refusal to keep track of the number of people killed in its operations, as well as the remoteness of the regions where many of the conflicts take place.

The researchers behind the project emphasized that while the total number of direct deaths caused by the more recent wars are less than the World Wars and the Vietnam War, the post-9/11 conflicts are different because of the long-term damage they have done to the societies that have suffered under many years of constant bombings, death, and destruction.

“What have we truly accomplished in 20 years of post 9/11 wars, and at what price?” asked Dr. Stephanie Savell, co-director of the project, in a statement. “Twenty years from now, we’ll still be reckoning with the high societal costs of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars—long after U.S. forces are gone.”

An online event with the report’s lead researcher Dr. Neta Crawford and other experts to discuss the findings of the report was held Wednesday morning.

Hosted by The Intercept’s Hussain, the panel also featured Dr. Catherine Lutz and Dr. Linda Bilmes of the Costs of War Project, and Dr. Maha Hilal of the Justice for Muslims Collective. In addition, remarks will be made by Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), David Cicilline (D-R.I.), and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

Watch the livestream below:

Speaking during the panel discussion, Dr. Hilal said that the money on war spent since 9/11 is, to her, “$8 trillion dedicated to the murder of Muslims, and I see no better way to make this sound any better or different.”

“We talk about what will happen to the veterans when they come back,” she continued, “obviously that’s important to address. But what about the people left behind in Afghanistan, in Iraq—after a drone strike in Somalia—what about them? Do they get any care? Do they get any compensation? Absolutely not. So what would be the cost of war if that was actually the priority for the United States?”

In conclusion to her remarks, Hilal quoted from the 2013 testimony of a 13-year-old boy from Pakistan named Zabir, whose family had been targeted by U.S. drones, when he told Congress: “I no longer love blue skies. In fact, I now prefer gray skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are gray.”

“This is the cost of war,” said Hilal. “That a young boy, 13 years old, can never look at the sky the same way that people who haven’t been bombarded with violence can. And this, to me, is one of the things that has been totally neglected.”

After two decades of imperialist occupation, Afghanistan faces a “humanitarian catastrophe”

Jean Shaoul

United Nations (UN) Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned that “A humanitarian catastrophe looms” in Afghanistan as almost half of the population, some 18 million people, need urgent humanitarian assistance to survive.

Guterres said, “One in three Afghans do not know where their next meal will come from. More than half of all children under five are expected to become acutely malnourished in the next year.”

With the current $1.3 billion UN humanitarian appeal for Afghanistan only 39 percent funded, there is a desperate need for further funding to get food into the country before the winter snows block the roads in a couple of months’ time.

An internally displaced Afghan child looks for plastic and other items which can be used as a replacement for firewood, at a garbage dump in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2019. According to UN statistics, Afghanistan is among the poorest countries in the world where children are subjected to extreme poverty and violence on a daily basis. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

Guterres’s remarks underscore the fact that in all the saturation coverage by the mainstream media of the evacuation of foreign nationals and Afghans associated with the US and its allies, little has been said about the economic and social devastation wrought on the country itself.

The US-led war and occupation that started in 2001 followed more than two decades of covert operations orchestrated by the CIA and carried out by its regional and local proxies against the impoverished country, by far the poorest in Asia. The invasion of Afghanistan had been planned well in advance of the 9/11 attacks which served as a pretext. It was launched not to prosecute a “war on terrorism,” but rather to pursue Washington’s geo-strategic interests—controlling a country that bordered the oil-rich former Soviet republics of the Caspian Basin, as well as China, and thereby securing US domination of Central and South Asia.

Afghanistan is itself rich in untapped minerals, variously estimated at $1 to $3 trillion.

The war in pursuit of these predatory aims was a war of aggression, concealed by massive lies, without popular support in the NATO countries, much less in Afghanistan itself. It violated international law and in turn gave rise to a raft of other crimes that included civilian massacres, extraordinary rendition and torture, Guantanamo Bay and CIA “black sites.”

Costing the US at least $2 trillion, the invasion and occupation has destroyed Afghanistan’s economy and plunged the population into poverty. The country was ranked as the world's 169th poorest country out of 189 on the UN Development Programme’s Human Development Index in 2020. It now faces further economic collapse at the hands of the US and other imperialist powers.

The American government has frozen Afghanistan’s $9 billion foreign currency reserves held in its banks, leaving the Taliban with access to just 0.1-0.2 percent of the country’s total international reserves. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in which the US has a controlling stake, as well as Western Union—the US financial services corporation that is the world’s second-largest provider of money transfer services—have all halted their operations with Afghanistan. The IMF has also frozen a recently approved $340 million grant from its Special Drawing Rights.

Afghanistan’s currency has fallen by 10 percent as the physical supply of US dollars that supported its value ended abruptly. The banks have largely remained closed, with long lines of people trying to access their savings outside the few banks that have reopened, prompting the Taliban to limit withdrawals to the equivalent of $200 a week.

As the currency falls further, prices are expected to skyrocket. They have already started to rise amid fears of shortages in the coming months, exacerbated by a severe drought, the second in three years, that has led to the loss of 40 percent of crop production and a 'devastating impact' on livestock. The price of lentils has more than doubled, while the price of vegetable oil has risen 25 percent along with that of chickpeas and beans.

According to Reliefweb, even before this latest crisis, 3.1 million children were suffering from malnutrition. In Ghor province in December 2020, 15.9 percent of children under the age of five were acutely malnourished, including 3.4 percent who were suffering from severe acute malnutrition, the deadliest form of hunger. Fully 45.5 percent of children were stunted or chronically malnourished.

The Asian Development Bank reports that almost half the population, including more than one third of those who are employed, lived on an income below the national poverty line in 2020. Around one third of the population lives in such severe poverty they are unable to afford the basic necessities of life, including adequate food. Millions of people hover only slightly above the poverty line.

Some 70 percent of the population scratch out a living in the countryside, of which just 12 percent is suitable for arable farming and 46 percent for livestock grazing. More than 40 percent of the workforce are either unemployed or underemployed.

Over 70 percent of the population are under 25 years of age, with 400,000 young people entering the labour market every year. Apart from government positions and the army, such jobs as do exist are mainly poorly paid day-labouring or casual work, leaving young men with little alternative but to join the foreign-funded militant groups or criminal gangs, particularly as drug smugglers.

According to the World Bank, about 75 percent of government spending is financed by other governments, including international organisations. While the Taliban has said it will continue to pay government workers, including healthcare professionals and the armed forces, it is far from clear how they can do so, leaving hundreds of thousands of Afghans at risk of losing their livelihoods.

Close to 40 percent of the country’s GDP comes from foreign aid that has often served to undermine the local economy. This, along with the insecurity, drought and natural disasters, has played into the hands of Afghanistan’s warlords and drug dealers as impoverished farmers turned to poppy cultivation and the opium trade.

The country’s wealth is in the hands of a few families that have profited from the vast inflow of foreign military contracts and their control of over business. The wealthiest 10 percent of Afghans control the economy and the government.

At the same time, the war, waged largely in the southern and eastern parts of the country, has created a huge disparity in income, wealth and economic opportunities between the south and north of Afghanistan.

Four decades of conflict and its consequences have turned Afghanistan into one of the largest refugee-producing countries in the world. As the UN refugee agency points out, Afghans represent the longest-displaced and the longest-dispossessed population in the world, with a staggering three in four Afghans having suffered internal or external displacement in their lifetime.

The overwhelming majority of Afghan refugees are hosted by Pakistan or Iran—around 3 million in each, registered and unregistered. Large numbers live in the United Arab Emirates, Germany and other European countries, as well as in the US, although the number accepted has fallen significantly in recent years after the Trump administration slashed the already rock-bottom refugee admissions. Last year, the US accepted just 604 Afghan refugees.

According to a report in August 2020 by Amnesty International, there are a further four million displaced within Afghanistan itself. They have very little access to essential services like drinking water or healthcare facilities and live in dire poverty amid inadequate housing, food insecurity and insufficient access to sanitation—a situation made all the more dangerous by the pandemic. While healthcare and treatment at public facilities are free, families are unable to afford even the cost of transport to get to a hospital.

In recent days, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) reported that the worsening security situation across Afghanistan in the wake of NATO’s troop withdrawal and Taliban advances had forced another 360,000 people from their homes since January.

It was the impact of these devastating conditions on the consciousness of the Afghan people that led to the swift collapse of Washington’s puppet regime after President Joe Biden announced the withdrawal of US troops. The rapid fall of Ashraf Ghani’s government can only be explained by the magnitude of the crimes carried out against Afghanistan’s people, who have seen their society destroyed, around 170,000 killed as a direct result of the war, and another 360,000 indirectly through disease, malnutrition and land mines.

These are world historic crimes whose perpetrators remain unpunished and occupy the leading positions of power within the US, the UK, Germany, France and other imperialist centres.

Leading contenders in Germany’s federal election promote militarism, police, social cuts and the wider spread of COVID-19

Peter Schwarz

The policies of the next German government will be characterised by militarism, police build-up, the dismantling of social gains and the unrestricted spread of COVID-19, irrespective of the result of the federal election on September 26. This was the clear message from the television debate between the main candidates of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens, broadcast by the private channel RTL on Sunday evening.

Armin Laschet (CDU), Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Annalena Baerbock (Green Party) outdid one other in stressing their commitment to the German army (Bundeswehr), a strong state and a restrictive budgetary policy. There were no differences of substance between the trio worthy of mention. All three spoke for an elevated and privileged upper class that has lost all touch with the reality of life for the vast majority of the population.

They reacted to growing social discontent and the intensification of the class struggle by moving closer together and further to the right. A striking feature of the almost two-hour debate was that no mention was made of the current strikes by health workers and train drivers.

Laschet, Baerbock and Scholz at the debate on RTL

The deep divide between the main establishment parties and the majority of the population is also reflected in the latest election polls. For the first time in German history, no party has the support of even a quarter of those polled. The CDU/CSU and SPD are polling at 23 percent apiece, the Greens at 18, the neo-liberal Free Democratic Party and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) at 11 and the Left Party at 7 percent. If the election results correspond to the polls, at least three parties would be needed to form a majority capable of governing.

Germany is presently ruled by a “Grand Coalition” of the CDU/CSU and SPD, headed by Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is retiring after 16 years in office, with Scholz as finance minister. The Greens are nominally in the opposition, although they have supported the policies of the Grand Coalition in all significant respects.

Already on the first topic, foreign policy and the military consequences of the debacle in Afghanistan, the fundamental agreement between the three candidates was evident.

The Social Democrat Scholz stressed that further international military missions by the Bundeswehr would be necessary in the future. He boasted that since he took over as federal finance minister, “the largest increase in the Bundeswehr budget has taken place … We are now over 50 billion euros. I worked very hard for that to be possible and will continue to do so in coming years.” Without a Social Democratic finance minister, this huge increase would not have taken place, he stressed.

The candidate of the conservative Union (CDU and CSU) Laschet spoke out in favour of forming a National Security Council, better equipment for the Bundeswehr and strengthening the European Union so it could act militarily without relying on America. He accused Scholz and the SPD of delaying the acquisition of armed drones, a claim Scholz vehemently denied.

Baerbock for the Green Party was the most bellicose. She accused the ruling Grand Coalition of constantly giving ground when things got tough and placing domestic political considerations above foreign policy responsibility. “I would change that. As Germans, we have a responsibility in the world.”

She spoke out in favour of a massive rearmament. A lack of materiel in the Bundeswehr was “a big, fat problem.” NATO’s 2 percent (of GDP) target is not enough, she said: “If economic output declines, then we don’t have more security, but nominally we have reached our goal.”

With regard to coronavirus policy, all three candidates spoke out against another lockdown: “There will be no new lockdown” (Scholz); “As things stand today, we don’t need another lockdown” (Baerbock); “We will have to live with the virus” (Laschet).

In view of exponentially increasing infection rates of the dangerous Delta variant, such a policy means the deliberate contamination of the population, resulting in thousands of fatalities and hundreds of thousands at risk of Long COVID and other consequences of the infection. Children and adolescents, who are unvaccinated and now crowded closely together in schools, are particularly at risk.

Laschet, Scholz and Baerbock are determined to continue the current policy, which sacrifices human lives to the profits of big business and the banks. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Laschet is prime minister, already has the highest seven-day incidence in Germany, with an infection rate of 128 per 100,000 inhabitants.

The three candidates also hardly differ on social issues. All they are proposing are some minor shifts in income tax among the top 10 percent. After the assets of Germany’s 136 billionaires increased by $178 billion to a total of $625 billion in the coronavirus year 2020, Scholz proposes a 3 percent increase in the top tax rate for very high incomes.

Leaving aside the fact that capital gains—which make up a large part of the income of the very rich—are taxed at a flat rate of 25 percent and that German tax law provides thousands of loopholes for top earners, Scholz’s proposal does not even go near reversing the tax cut of the last SPD-led government. That government, headed by Gerhard Schröder, lowered the top tax rate by 9 points from 53 to 42 percent.

In view of widespread child poverty (every fifth child in Germany grows up in poverty), Baerbock pleaded for a basic child allowance totaling 10 billion euros. But even this concession is no more than a drop in the ocean. Against a background of exploding rents, an increase in precarious employment, growing old-age poverty and rising inflation, the numbers of the poor are growing rapidly.

Laschet was more honest when he spoke out against any tax increase for the rich and big business. He justified his position with the time-worn and false argument that the enrichment of a few leads to economic growth that benefits all.

All three candidates are aware that the murderous consequences of their coronavirus policies and growing inequality will lead to fierce social conflicts. In chorus, therefore, they all advocated a strong police and surveillance state.

Laschet demanded the installation of surveillance cameras in public places, better equipment, more staff and public support for the police, the relaxation of data protection and the legalisation of data retention by the authorities. He accused the SPD of opposing such measures.

Scholz strongly contradicted him. With the support of the SPD, parliament had long since passed a “very tough law” allowing data retention. However, it was still being reviewed by the European Court of Justice and could come into force as soon as the court gave the green light. Together with Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, Scholz boasted he had also massively expanded the federal police force and planned to continue doing so for the next few years.

Scholz emphasised that he had no problems with video surveillance, saying, “Where I had responsibility, I also made use of it.” Scholz was referring to his time as mayor of Hamburg. In this capacity, he was responsible in 2017 for the brutal suppression of protests against the G20 summit by a gigantic police contingent and the prosecution of many left-wing youth, some of whom were sentenced to long prison terms.

On the issue of domestic rearmament, Baerbock also sought to outdo Laschet and Scholz from the right. The Greens were not to blame for what the CDU/CSU had failed to do in government, she said. Video surveillance has long existed at railway stations and other public places. The bigger problem was that there were too few posts in the judiciary and too few police officers in public places. “I want us to equip our police better. The state needs money for that,” she concluded. “That means ensuring that in future with tax revenue.”

It is significant that in the course of the almost two-hour debate, not a word was said about the extensive far-right networks uncovered in the country’s police and military apparatus, the growth of far-right crimes against leftists and Jewish institutions, and the activities of far-right AfD. These burning issues, which have attracted strong public attention, have disappeared without a trace. The reason is that the AfD and its neo-Nazi supporters are needed to implement the right-wing policies of the future German government.

Mélenchon, French unions defend their support for anti-vaccine protests

Will Morrow

In recent days, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of Unsubmissive France (La France Insoumise—LFI), and Philippe Martinez, the leader of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) trade unions, have issued statements defending their support for the right-wing campaign against mandatory vaccination and the Macron government’s “health pass.”

Anti-vaccine protesters march during a rally in Strasbourg, Saturday, July 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)

The “health pass” restricts access to public places to individuals who have been fully vaccinated, have recently contracted and recovered from the virus, or can provide a negative test within the previous 72 hours (recently increased from 48). It effectively legally enforces vaccination, because negative testing will be prohibitively expensive under a reactionary decision to end free tests.

The Socialist Equality Party supports mandatory vaccination, which is an essential component of the eradication of the coronavirus. We oppose Macron’s policy as being insufficient, and not a genuine struggle to eradicate the virus. Macron is using the introduction of mandatory vaccination of the adult population as a justification for a complete ending of social distancing measures, including the reopening of schools this week and of all non-essential workplaces.

Only 65.5 percent of the French population has been fully vaccinated, while daily cases number in the tens of thousands. The premature ending of social distancing measures has already produced an average of 100 deaths per day over the past week, and is preparing an even more terrible wave of deaths. Macron’s policy is not driven by a scientifically-guided strategy of ending the pandemic and saving lives, but of preserving the profits of French corporations and the wealth of the super-rich.

The opposition of LFI and the trade unions to Macron’s law, however, has been from the right, not the left. They have given their backing to the protest movement against the “health pass” that has been dominated and politically led from the outset by the extreme right. They adopt the same reactionary arguments of the extreme right: that the introduction of mandatory vaccination is an attack on personal liberties.

Mélenchon spoke on Sunday, August 29, at the LFI Summer School, where he formally launched his campaign for the 2022 presidential elections. He declared that Macron’s response to the pandemic was a “sum of stupidities, with a complete inefficiency and an absolute brutality… We are opposed to the ‘health pass,’ because it is an attack on the liberty of the world of labour, of society, of human relations.”

Notwithstanding his reference to the “world of labour,” Melenchon’s position toward vaccination is indistinguishable from the line of the far right. The WSWS answered these reactionary arguments in its Perspective article of July 29:

The safeguarding of public health in a mass society depends on a whole host of regulations: the wearing of seatbelts and speed limits, proscriptions against drunk driving and smoking in public places, maximum occupancies for buildings, rules for handicapped parking and many other measures… It is always the most right-wing forces that oppose the protection of social rights by raising the banner of “individual rights,” the most notorious of which is the “right of profit.”

There is nothing in the least progressive about the campaign against “vaccine mandates.” It is based on appeals to ignorance, fear and anti-scientific prejudice. Those who are campaigning against vaccinations by claiming they are an intolerable violation of personal liberty are peddling anarchism and libertarianism, which has nothing in common with the interests of the working class.

Mélenchon’s reference to “liberties” presents the question of vaccination as though it were an individual democratic “right” to infect others with a deadly virus. The same reasoning could be employed to oppose lockdowns, contact tracing, and a host of other measures that involve restrictions of individual movement and are scientifically required in order to combat the virus and protect the lives of the working class. It should be rejected by workers and youth with contempt.

In fact, these are the arguments that are explicitly made by the far right. Mélenchon’s speech therefore had a second aim: of covering up the fact that he is aligned with the most extreme right-wing political forces, such as Marion Marechal Le Pen and the Patriots leader Florian Philippot, in their campaign against mandatory vaccination.

“We are fed up, when we go to protest, of having to listen to the lessons in good will from one side, and from the other, of supposedly supporting the extreme right and anti-Semites, whose actions and statements are nonsense,” he said. “We have had enough of the far-right and anti-Semites [at the protests]. Get out of our demonstrations! Keep your posters for yourselves!”

This is a reference to repeated instances involving far-right protesters being photographed at the demonstrations holding signs with fascist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, which have revolted broad sections of the population. Protesters have worn the Star of David in an attempt to equate mass vaccination with the Holocaust, while there have been repeated acts of aggression against coronavirus testing stations and vaccination centres.

Mélenchon then pledged to hold further demonstrations with anyone opposed to Macron’s law:

We want to be able to assemble with all those who wish to to say, “no,” to the “health pass,” without accepting their ravings. That is why I am asking the workers’ movement and associations to enter the fray, and allow us to form protected sections of the protest, free of prejudices, where anyone may come whatever their religion, whatever their political views, to defend the liberty of all the French… Do not let the far right take the head of these protests.

But if the far right has been at “the head” of the protests, it is because they have always been based on a right-wing opposition to Macron. Far-right forces have campaigned against the “health pass” by opposing even the most limited social distancing restrictions and the argument that the virus must be allowed to spread unhindered.

Mélenchon, like pseudo-left organisations such as the New Anti-capitalist Party and Revolution Permanente, provides them with a “popular” cover by presenting what is a right-wing movement as a left-wing workers’ movement that has inexplicably been “captured” or infiltrated by the far right. Thus, they demand that the trade unions, which have enforced Macron’s “herd immunity” policy and opposed any strikes against the reopening of schools and workplaces in unsafe conditions, more openly participate in the right-wing protests.

At the same time, Mélenchon and his LFI colleagues, like Francois Ruffin, continually downplay the dangers presented by the virus and the necessity of vaccination. While they repeatedly declare that they are personally vaccinated, they insist that this is a purely personal decision. In this way, they seek to deaden consciousness of the dangers posed by the virus, rule out the possibility that it could be eradicated through scientific policies, and effectively defend Macron’s policy of allowing the virus to spread untrammeled.

The same basic argument was made by CGT head Martinez in interviews this week. Asked if the CGT would be participating in the Saturday demonstrations led by the far-right, he replied that “the CGT will not be marching with anti-vaxers who make anti-Semitic statements, who defend unacceptable conspiratorial theories. Our union does not march either with Florian Philippot.”

Yet the union would organise a protest march against the “health pass” next month, he added. He asserted that “everything that is obligatory is not efficient. On this question, the government must convince instead of mandating.” Just as significant as what Martinez said, however was what he did not say: He said nothing about the danger posed by this week’s reopening of schools, nor the fact that the virus is infecting tens of thousands of people per day and killing almost 100—and made clear the union would not launch any campaign against Macron’s policy.

EU plans detention camps for Afghan refugees across Central Asia

Alex Lantier

After the humiliating collapse of the US puppet regime in Afghanistan on August 15, European Union (EU) officials are traveling to the Middle East and Central Asia. As German Interior Minister Heiko Maas and French President Emmanuel Macron meet officials across the region, the EU is earmarking over €1 billion for spending there.

This intervention exposes the hypocrisy of the EU powers’ statements over the US debacle in Afghanistan. They echoed the US media’s demands that the Taliban let Afghans, who helped Washington and the European powers occupy Afghanistan, flee from the Kabul airport. While posturing as defenders of Afghans’ freedom of movement, however, they are working to set up detention camps across Central Asia—in Iran, Pakistan, Turkey and beyond—to imprison Afghans and keep them from seeking asylum in Europe.

Afghan refugees in an Italian Red Cross refugee camp, in Avezzano, Italy, Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

The construction of detention camps to house refugees in neighboring countries was the subject of a special meeting of EU interior ministers on Monday night in Brussels.

The EU’s model in Afghanistan is the vast network of camps built in the Mediterranean to house millions of refugees fleeing the NATO wars in Syrian and Libya since 2011. Beside hundreds of thousands of refugees held in squalid detention camps in Europe like those of Moria in Greece or the Canary Islands in Spain, many more are held in camps in Turkey (3.7 million), Lebanon (1.5 million), Jordan (1.3 million) and Libya. EU-funded camps in Libya, in particular, are infamous for beating, sexually assaulting, murdering refugees or selling them into slavery.

The EU interior ministers summit budgeted €600 million for the upkeep of camps and maintaining good relations with countries in the region detaining Afghan refugees. In 2015, amid rising tensions between Turkey and the EU powers, around 1 million refugees in Turkey were allowed to travel on to Europe. The stated goal of ministers at the Brussels conference this week was to avoid a repeat of such events and to prevent Afghan refugees from arriving in Europe.

Arriving at the summit, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer declared, “It’s very important to accelerate diplomatic efforts. I expect the European Commission, if we agree politically today, to strongly support the neighbouring countries if they take Afghan refugees. … If we act quickly, we won’t repeat 2015.”

Similarly, the Austrian, Danish and Czech interior ministers issued a joint statement before the meeting. They declared: “[T]he most important thing right now is to send the right message into the region: Stay there, and we will support the region to help the people.”

The summit issued a “Statement on the situation in Afghanistan.” It stated, “Based on lessons learned, the EU and its Member States stand determined to act jointly to prevent the recurrence of uncontrolled large-scale illegal migration movements faced in the past …” It proposed diplomatic, construction and police initiatives facilitating the operation of EU detention camps in countries near Afghanistan, such as Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkey.

It continued, “The EU should also strengthen the support to the countries in Afghanistan’s immediate neighborhood to ensure that those in need receive adequate protection primarily in the region. The need for unified and coordinated external but also internal communication is key. Targeted information campaigns should be launched to combat the narratives used by smugglers, including in the on-line environment, which encourage people to embark on dangerous and illegal journeys towards Europe.”

The statement blandly refers to EU aid to Central Asian countries to “reinforce border management capacity” and stepped-up EU “external operations for asylum capacity building.” What is involved, stripping these euphemisms away, are plans to fund and oversee a continent-wide network of border police agencies and prison camps for hundreds of thousands or millions of people.

EU Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas boasted to the Financial Times that the EU would have ample funding for such plans .“We are at the beginning of the budgetary cycle, we’re not scraping the barrel as we were in 2015. I don’t think money will be the problem,” she said.

The overnight collapse of the US puppet regime has exposed the failure of the 20-year NATO war in Afghanistan and of the imperialist powers’ response to the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Washington sought for 30 years to use its military hegemony to counterbalance its accelerating economic decline, invading countries across the Middle East and Central Asia. While claiming millions of lives and wasting trillions of dollars, these wars also led to the greatest refugee crisis since World War II, as 82.4 million people had to flee their homes.

In this period and especially since the 2015 refugee crisis—which came amid a wave of terror attacks across Europe by Islamist networks, which the NATO powers had used as proxies in Libya and Syria—the European imperialist powers are adopting ever more fascistic, police-state policies. The targeting of refugees for mass drownings in the Mediterranean or for internment in camps, where they are being beaten and assaulted, went hand in hand with the cultivation by the ruling elite of fascistic and anti-refugee moods in the security forces and the entire state machine.

Facing the debacle of the US position in Central Asia and the discrediting of imperialist militarism among workers internationally, the EU powers are doubling down on anti-refugee policies. The day before the interior ministers meeting, as he departed for a tour of the region taking him to Turkey, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Qatar, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas referred to the strategic calculations and the pursuit of influence that underlie EU migration policies.

Maas pointed to the goals of his trip, calling for a “coordinated international approach to the Taliban. Our offer of support to the neighboring countries to assist them with coping with the humanitarian and economic fallout is also part of this. It is in our own interests to ensure that the collapse in Afghanistan does not destabilize the entire region.”

Similarly, before traveling to Iraq for talks, French President Emmanuel Macron gave an interview to the Journal du Dimanche addressing the US debacle and refugees. He called for “protecting” France from “large, irregular migrant flows,” asserting, “According to the High Commissioner on Refugees, there are already 850,000 Afghan refugees in Iran and 1.5 million in Pakistan. And the Tajik president, with whom I spoke two days ago, told me there is pressure on his border.”

Macron asserted that “massively increased financial contributions” are “our duty and the only way to prevent population movement that, otherwise, would be inevitable.” He also implicitly criticized the US pullout from Afghanistan and demanded that Washington pay a share of the prison camps’ budget. “We must multilateralize this issue, and the United States must carry their weight. They may not feel the migratory pressure, [but] they are not unrelated to the decision that triggered it.”

In reality, the debacle of the US-NATO war in Afghanistan is a historic exposure of the nature of imperialism and the necessity of expelling it from the Middle East and Central Asia. Nor are the EU imperialists an alternative to Washington. Their plans to replace NATO military units in Afghanistan with a regional network of EU-funded prison camps are deeply reactionary and deserve the opposition of workers across Europe and internationally—defending freedom of movement and the right of Afghans and all peoples to travel, live and work where they please.