https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mndU2380diE
Thursday, April 8, 2021
Global Proposal Against the Economic Blockade
By Pasqualina Curcio on April 5, 2021
https://www.resumen-english.org/2021/04/global-proposal-against-the-economic-blockade/
At least twenty countries are formally victims of US “sanctions”. Since 1992, in the United Nations General Assembly, all countries except the US and Israel have voted against the unilateral coercive measures imposed by the United States on Cuba. Despite the evident majority, the US has ignored them. Good wishes, denunciations and calls to lift the blockades have not been enough to prevent these genocidal actions against entire peoples.
To put an end to these interference practices, we must make amends for two serious mistakes we made as humanity in 1944 and 1971. To do so, it is first necessary to know how “sanctions” work. Let’s look at an example.
When food company “X” from, for example, Mexico wants to trade with company “Y” from Venezuela (a sanctioned country), the US government, through the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sends a little message and says: “if you sell food to Venezuela, we will freeze all the bank accounts you have in the world financial system. Therefore, if Venezuelan company “Y” pays you for the food, you will not be able to dispose of that money, nor the money already in your accounts. Don’t even bother to transfer it to another bank account because we will block it as well. Oh, and if you put it in the name of another person or company, we will block that one too.”
The US government can block financial resources because it is the owner of the purse strings of all financial transactions made in dollars in the world. Through the Swift (global payment clearing system) the US has the power to decide what financial transactions are made, when and under what conditions. With that power it instills fear, threatens, blackmails, “sanctions” and blockade.
Removing this power from the US is the strategy to be followed to combat criminal blockades, which involves suspending the Bretton Woods Agreement (1944) and the petro-dollar (1971).
In 1944, in the midst of World War II, 44 countries met in Bretton Woods to decide on the new commercial, monetary and financial order that still prevails today. At that time, when Europe was destroyed and ruined by the war, the United States imposed itself, taking advantage of its status as not only the country that produced 50% of the world total with a surplus trade balance, but above all as the world’s largest lender.
They decided that the US dollar would be, the world’s reference currency. In other words, the US was granted the exclusivity and therefore the power that all the world’s currencies should be referenced to the dollar, which in turn was backed by gold. That was the first big mistake. Incidentally, the IMF was created, which granted the largest share, 31.1%, to the US and with it the greatest voting power and control in that organization.
Then, in 1971, mankind committed the second great mistake by silently allowing the United States to unilaterally disassociate itself from gold as the standard for fixing the price of its currency. Nixon announced to the world that from that moment on, the price of the dollar, to which all the world’s currencies would continue to be pegged, would depend on confidence in the US economy. This announcement was accompanied, not by chance, by the creation of the petro-dollar. From that moment on, all the oil bought in the world had to be traded in dollars, and since there was no country that did not buy hydrocarbons, all of them would need the US currency, which would be available in sufficient quantities because it could be issued without the restriction of the amount of gold in the vaults of the US Federal Reserve.
They flooded the planet with dollars and, in order to be able to trade them, they created the SWIFT payment clearing system, also unilaterally granting themselves the monopoly of the world financial market. It was a masterful move on the part of the country of the North.
Today, 80 years after Bretton Woods and half a century after the petro-dollar, the world has turned upside down.
The US has gone from being the world’s largest lender in 1944 to the most indebted country on the planet; it literally owes the whole world, its debt amounts to US$ 25 trillion. The situation worsens for those in the North when their international reserves do not even cover 2% of their foreign debt. In contrast, China tops the list with the largest international reserves, which also covers 153% of its foreign debt. Not to mention that the US has had a negative trade balance for half a century, importing more than exporting. The Chinese have been in surplus for 5 decades. US production no longer represents 50% of the world total, it dropped to 24% while China went from 1% to 16%.
Proposal against the economic blockade
In this context, what should be submitted for debate and decision in the United Nations National Assembly is not only whether countries are for or against the “sanctions” and blockades imposed by the United States. The debate should focus on the democratic construction of a new trade, monetary and financial system.
The questions to be taken to the UN Assembly for consultation should be:
Are you in favor of the US dollar not being the only world reference currency? Are you in favor of there being many world reference currencies and not granting exclusivity, and therefore economic power, to a single country? Are you in favor of countries being able to buy oil and its derivatives in any currency and not exclusively in dollars? Are you in favor of all currencies being considered international reserve assets and not only the dollar, the euro, the pound sterling, the yen or the yuan? Do you agree that countries should be free to trade their goods in any currency? Do you agree that there should be several, many, payment clearing systems in the world and not only SWIFT, including the exchange of goods itself? Do you agree that, within the framework of regional integrations, currencies should be created for exchange in that region that can also be used for transactions with other regions or countries? Do you agree that decisions in the IMF should be democratized and, therefore, that each country should have the right to vote, eliminating the quotas that apply there?
The coalition of countries against the blockade that has recently been formed by Venezuela, China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, among others, should, besides continuing to add nations, besides denouncing the criminal “sanctions” of the US, and besides calling for compliance with the UN Charter, include in the agenda of the United Nations Assembly the creation of a new commercial, monetary and financial system that would allow us to move towards a pluripolar, multicentric, truly democratic world in which the sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples would be respected. Thus, in passing, and in the face of the imminent decline of the most genocidal empire that history has ever known, they would give it a little push to finish its fall.
Source: Ultimas Noticias, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English
Autoworkers speak out against 84-hour workweek
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/04/08/shap-a08.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
Autoworkers speak out against 84-hour workweek for skilled trades at Sterling Heights Assembly Plant: “It seems like torture”
Tom Hall
12 hours ago
This week, Stellantis began its Alternative Work Schedule (AWS) for skilled tradespeople at its Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP) north of Detroit. This brutal schedule, also known as 12/7, entails 12-hour workdays for seven days straight with no overtime pay, followed by seven days off.
The AWS at the plant is the first of its kind for skilled trades in the auto industry, made possible through concessions granted to the company by the United Auto Workers union in the 2019 contract. It represents a further attack on the eight-hour day in the auto industry, which had already been substantially eroded when the UAW agreed to allow AWS for production workers a decade ago.
The new schedule creates an inherently dangerous situation by physically exhausting skilled tradespeople who occupy critical positions within the plant. The system also introduces the so-called “team concept,” forcing workers to perform tasks for which they are not qualified.
This is all the more reckless given the massive spread of new variants of COVID-19 throughout the state of Michigan. Sterling Stamping Plant, which is located across the street from SHAP, recorded its highest one-month total number of infections ever last month. No such figures exist at SHAP, as a result of a UAW-management cover-up of infections at nearly every plant in the country, but workers in the factory have reported an increase in positive cases and workers near their stations being placed under quarantine.
Inside the plant, anger is simmering among both skilled trades and production workers. For months, the plant has been working continuous forced overtime, with production employees working six- and even seven-day workweeks. The auto giant is desperate to make up for lost profits due to both the pandemic and the global semiconductor shortage by keeping the plant, which produces the highly profitable and best-selling Ram pickup truck, running as hard as possible.
The SHAP Rank-and-File Safety Committee—organized by workers last year independently of the UAW—is seeking to mobilize opposition throughout the auto industry to the brutal work schedule and unsafe conditions. Last month, the committee issued a statement demanding “the rescinding of the 12/7 schedule and the reinstatement of the principle of the eight-hour day for all workers, the payment of time and one-half after eight hours and for Saturday work.”
“They are short with people, but they are running any way,” one skilled trades worker told the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter. “People are in training and working at the same time. This is crazy.”
“[The overtime is] overbearing for people as human beings,” a production worker said. “I do overnight. I am on C crew. It’s really hectic when we have to do six days but that is usually volunteer-only. But to do it every week for seven days, I don’t know, it seems like torture. We feel like we are rats in a lab.
“I don’t understand the purpose for this schedule. I feel like it’s unnecessary. The UAW I feel could potentially be a really strong force. But they don’t really acknowledge the workers. The higher ups get the best end of the stick. We basically generate most of the money going up to them. They make a lot of decisions without our consent. Our voices are not heard.
“If the trucks are rolling off the line, and nothing is wrong with the product, how is our overtime related to the production of the trucks? There is no problem with the truck we make. The Ram is still the highest selling truck. They say demand is high, but two or three Saturdays a month should cover that. Who is even buying the trucks? This is the type of conversation we have on the line.”
While SHAP continues to run full blast, the company has been forced to eliminate production at other plants. Stellantis’ brand-new Mack Avenue plant is reportedly on short shifts due to chip shortages, and Warren Truck Assembly Plant has been taken offline for three weeks, with temporary workers from the plant shifted northward to SHAP. According to unconfirmed reports from workers, the shutdown at Warren Truck has recently been extended to six weeks.
“This will trickle down,” a production worker at SHAP said. “As long as we allow them to impose this on skilled trades, it’s just a matter of time before it comes down to all production workers. It will happen eventually.”
The UAW, he continued, “do what the corporation wants. No one likes it. But the union is just allowing it. People are not trusting them anymore. When they get behind closed doors with the company, they will do anything against us.”
Autoworkers live under constant threat from both management and the union, he said. “No one wants to start over again. We need our jobs. If one of us steps forward, they have a target on their back. The union is putting that fear out there. Anyone who speaks up will be made an example of. They use fear and intimidation. That’s not how it used to be.”
The situation at SHAP is being followed closely by workers at other plants, mainly through social media, because they understand it as a spearhead for a broader offensive by the company. Michelle, a worker from Stellantis’ Toledo Jeep plant, said, “What Stellantis is doing to the skilled tradesmen is only the beginning. At some point, they will try and impose this type of schedule on all the workers. The worst thing about this is that the union has allowed it to take place. As far as I’m concerned, it is the clearest indication yet that these officials do not speak for the members but are a part of management.
“Making workers come in seven days a week and 12 hours a day will put them into an early grave and perhaps that’s the intent. That way the company doesn’t have to meet its pension obligations or pay for health care once we’ve retired.
“At Toledo Jeep right now they are giving workers an option to work 40-, 50- or 60-hour shifts without overtime pay and optional days off. For those of us who have families, it’s a real bummer. When do you spend time with your kids, go to a doctor’s appointment or just relax? I definitely feel that something needs to be done about this.”
A Stellantis worker from Indiana said, “It’s just a matter of time before they force this schedule on all Stellantis workers. If the UAW won’t support the skilled trades for this awful schedule now, most likely they won’t support us if it trickles down to the unskilled workers. It’s just a matter of time.
“I think this whole situation is just awful! This will affect marriages, family time and cause more health concerns. People will get sick. People will be getting fired or end up quitting. Workers will be made to choose between money or family. People want to go to their kids’ concerts, games and recitals. There won’t be any quality of life. Not to mention, there are workers that have to care for elderly or sick parents.
“I wonder what perks the union is getting for siding with management this time. I know they are getting some type of piece of a pie at our expense.” She concluded, “We have to get prepared, and be ready to fight for better working conditions and schedules. I think there needs to be a strike.”
A parts worker and supporter of the rank-and-file safety committee of Faurecia Gladstone workers in Columbus, Indiana, expressed his solidarity with SHAP workers, saying: “The working class has come too far to allow the capitalists at Stellantis, or any other corporation, or even the government, to impose 12/7. That doesn’t give anybody time for their family. That doesn’t give anybody time to do the things that they need to do to live.
“I think what they are doing is barbaric. It is murderous. When it comes to 12-hour days, people are working themselves to death. That is not right to take somebody’s life like that just for their profits.
“They have a set-up at Gladstone where it is pretty much the same. It’s for 11-and-a-half hours a day. But with this shortage of parts they keep you as long as they can, then without warning they tell you to go home.
“All the working class is fighting for the same thing. Money is God to the capitalists. They don’t care whose lives they take, who they run over, as long as they get that profit.
“Giving that $4 trillion in the Cares Act to the billionaires was wrong because all that was personal profit for them. They are not putting themselves on the line. They are not even close to the front lines where they can be contaminated and killed. But yet they expect the working class, the teachers, the miners, the autoworkers, everybody to do this for them.
“The only way we are going to be able to stop the pandemic profiteers is to have a general strike throughout the world. We are done with the greediness that has killed 3 million people.”
To learn more about getting involved with the SHAP Rank-and-File Safety Committee, sign up today.
Warrior Met coal miners in Alabama denounce UMW president, say they will reject sellout deal
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/04/08/coal-a08.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
Jerry White
11 hours ago
A meeting of striking coal miners in Alabama erupted in anger Wednesday afternoon after United Mine Workers (UMWA) officials presented the details of their tentative agreement with Warrior Met Coal. The miners denounced UMWA President Cecil Roberts and stormed out of the meeting, declaring that they would reject the contract when they vote on Friday because it did nothing to restore wage cuts accepted by the UMWA five years ago.
The 1,100 coal miners walked out April 1 at Warrior Met’s mines and processing facilities in Brookwood, Alabama, about 45 miles southwest of Birmingham. The striking miners are determined to recoup lost wages and abolish the company’s hated “four-strike” disciplinary program, which is used to terminate long-standing miners and replace them with low-wage contractors.
Warrior Met Coal mine in Alabama (Photo: Warriormetcoal.com)
“Everybody began cussing Cecil Roberts and walking out after we heard all the union got was a $1.50 raise and a $500 signing bonus,” one miner with more than a decade at the mine told the World Socialist Web Site. “It got hostile up there. Roberts gave his song and dance about how “democratic” the union was, and we could vote it down and stay on strike if we wanted to.
“They began the meeting with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance to try to get us calm but then they presented a video on the contract. The base pay for a miner, with the $1.50 an hour raise, will be $25. In 2016, we took a $6 an hour pay cut to get the company out of bankruptcy and it has gotten record production and big profits over the last few years. We expected a $5 or $6 raise and a signing bonus of $10,000. Instead, we got a quarter of what we lost back. This is a slap in the face,” he declared.
According to the summary of the five-year deal passed out at the meeting, new hires would get a dollar raise to $23.77 by 2026, while grades 1 and 2 would get a $2 increase to $25.90 by the end of the contract. By contrast, coal miners in 1982 were earning $11.83 an hour, the equivalent to $32.24 in today’s dollars.
“The contract includes the same crappy health insurance—they just modified the deductibles,” another miner added. “It’s still an 80-20 co-pay plan when we used to have 100 percent employer-paid insurance.
“The bonuses for record production went to the supervisors, not the workers,” he continued. “Half of the workers who helped get the company out of bankruptcy and broke the records have been fired. The company deliberately targets higher seniority workers and they set them up with the ‘four-strike’ policy. It’s so bad that the supervisors set up money pools to bet on who will get fired next.
“They supposedly upgraded the four-strike policy in the new contract to missing six days before they can fire you. But it’s the same thing. I’ve known guys who the company has had to take to the hospital after getting hurt and they still got a strike against them. They said, ‘You were off the premises.’ Yeah, but you took him to the hospital, that’s why he was off the premises! You can get hurt in an accident and they can airlift you to the hospital and you will still get a strike against you. They don’t accept doctor’s excuses, nothing.
“I’ve lost a lot of good union brothers because of that policy. Even if your car breaks down on the way to work, they’ll give you a strike. If you are late, they won’t say anything and will send you underground. But when you come back up you got a strike.”
Another worker described this system as “almost a military occupation in the mine. They plan on how to fire this or that guy, especially the workers with more than 10 years’ seniority, so they can replace them with contractors making $18 or $20 an hour.”
He went on to describe the other brutal conditions at the Warrior mines, which the UMWA helps the coal operator enforce. “We’ve been on a mandatory six-day week. At the end of the week, they can come up to you and say, ‘We need you to work another day.’ You tell them you’ll need another day off next week and they’ll tell you, ‘Sorry, we can’t do that day because we don’t have enough workers.’ You end up working 9, 10 or 11 days in row, with no rest. You have to work for years and years to accumulate paid time off.”
None of this will be improved in the new contract, he said. It will still take one to five years to get 120 hours off, six to 10 years to get 160 hours, and 11 years or more to get 200 hours. The long hours go hand-in-hand with unsafe and potentially deadly working conditions.
“They talk good about safety above ground, but when you are underground, safety goes out the window. We have one of the gassiest mines in the country. We have methane everywhere. Stuff falls on you. There is acid water and miners get Black Lung. In 2001, 13 miners were killed at the No. 5 mine when a methane explosion caused a cave-in. A month or two ago, workers found out that the methane sniffer devices were shut off. They probably did it deliberately to run as much coal as possible. If you complain to a supervisor about safety, they write you up.
“Our struggle is to get back what we lost and to gain respect. They don’t want to pay us fairly. It’s been a couple of years since they have been out of bankruptcy and they have been making record profits. Instead of paying us, management sends its dogs after us. We are struggling to be treated fairly, but none of that is in the contract.”
Another worker added, “We are looking for a good raise and signing bonuses, but they came up with nothing but more harassment. They’ve got a lot of miners working seven days a week. The supervisors got $30,000 to $50,000 bonuses for record production and we got nothing. Underground, the supervisors show off the new homes they’ve bought with their bonuses. It’s humiliating.
“With all the harassment, we couldn’t wait to get on the picket lines. When you cuss them as they head into the mines—it is therapeutic.”
The strike by miners occurs as graduate students at Columbia University, nurses in Worcester, Massachusetts and ATI steelworkers in Pennsylvania are also striking. The rebellion against the UMWA is part of the growing mood of resistance among workers after a year in which millions have suffered from the pandemic and the economic catastrophe while the billionaires have gotten even richer.
Workers throughout the area, including a US Steel’s Fairfield Works, face the same attack on jobs and working conditions as the Warrior miners. Non-union workers at Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse, 25 miles from the Warrior mines, and autoworkers at the nearby Mercedes Benz plant in Vance, Alabama, are also looking for a way to fight against unsafe conditions imposed by companies that have made huge profits during the pandemic.
But the UMWA, the United Steelworkers and other unions have deliberately isolated the strike by central Alabama coal miners. At the same time, the UMWA is seeking to starve the miners into submission by paying them only $300 a week in strike benefits. While miners’ families suffer and many strikers are considering getting other jobs, including at the Amazon warehouse, Roberts pocketed $210,693 in compensation from the UMWA last year, according to the union’s filing with the US Labor Department. In 2020, the UMWA paid out $0 in strike benefits, according to the report, even though it controls assets valued at $164.28 million, in addition to the multibillion-dollar UMWA Health and Retirement Funds.
The UMWA controls this vast wealth in spite of the fact that decades of betrayals have reduced it to an empty shell, from 160,000 active coal miners in 1978 to fewer than 8,000 today.
The UMWA is employing the same “selective strike” policy that led to the disastrous defeats of miners in the AT Massey and Pittston strikes in the 1980s. This is paving the way for mine bosses, including the executives at Warrior Met’s predecessor company, Walter Energy, to use the bankruptcy courts to wipe out tens of thousands of jobs and the hard-won wages, pensions and working conditions of miners.
This underscores the needs for the Warrior miners to form a rank-and-file strike committee, independent of the UMWA and other corporatist unions, to break the isolation of their struggle and fight for common action by steelworkers, autoworkers, Amazon workers and others.
Biden and other corporate-controlled politicians have backed the union drive at the nearby Amazon Bessemer warehouse not to advance their interests of workers but to install a labor police force, similar to the UMWA, to contain the growing opposition of the working class. Whether the union campaign is successful or not, Amazon workers will need independent organizations to fight.
“When I first got here, it seemed like the UMWA was strong and we had old-school guys teaching us the ropes,” the miner, with more than a decade of experience, told the WSWS. “But they have all retired or died. The UMWA is weak. We need a change. We have to unite with the teachers, the Amazon workers, the steelworkers to make us stronger. But the unions won’t do that. We need a different avenue.
“We need to unite around a different view from the Republicans and the Democrats. When our strike started, they sent 140 cops out to the docks to protect the company. The government uses the money for the companies, not to take care of the needs of the workers.
“We need a real socialist party for workers. The Democrats and Republicans put on this dog-and-pony show for the public, but behind closed doors they’re working together. They don’t stay in power this long without working together. They push this black vs. white thing to divide workers and try to keep us ignorant by working us all the time and with all the TV shows, basketball, and other distractions. But people are starting to wake up. All this wealth comes out of working people and we have to take it back.”
Taiwan threatens to shoot down Chinese drones amid mounting US-China conflict
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/04/08/usch-a08.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
Peter Symonds
10 hours ago
As the Biden administration has deliberately intensified the US confrontation with China, Taiwan has rapidly come into focus as the spark that could trigger a war between the two nuclear-armed powers. Biden, following on from Trump, is questioning and undermining the diplomatic framework that has maintained an uneasy and precarious peace across the Taiwan Strait for decades.
By strengthening ties with Taiwan, the US is calling into question the One China policy that was the basis for establishing diplomatic relations between Beijing and Washington in 1979. It is also encouraging Taipei to take a far more aggressive stance towards China adding to the danger of conflict, and fueling fears in Beijing that Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which advocates greater autonomy from China, could declare full independence—a red line for Beijing.
Multiple aircraft fly in formation over the USS Ronald Reagan, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. (Kaila V. Peters/U.S. Navy)
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, took note that “American decision makers” were warning of the danger of China launching an attack on Taiwan. He bluntly declared that Taiwan would throw everything into a conflict with China “We will fight the war if we need to fight the war. And if we need to defend ourselves to the very last day we will defend ourselves to the very last day,” he declared.
Wu’s comments were followed on Wednesday by threats from Lee Chung-wei, who heads Taiwan’s Ocean Affairs Council, that Taiwan would shoot down Chinese drones that came too close to the Pratas Islands controlled by Taipei in the South China Sea. Lee claimed that Chinese drones had been spotted but acknowledged that none entered the restricted waters and airspace extending 6 km from the islets. But if they had entered, he said, “it will be handled under the rules. If we need to open fire, we open fire.”
These statements are testimony to the extraordinary tensions that the US is stoking in the Indo-Pacific. Denunciations of “Chinese aggression” and “Chinese expansionism” from Washington, parroted by US allies and partners around the globe, stand reality on its head. US imperialism has over the past decade carried out a huge military build-up throughout the region and deliberately inflamed potential flashpoints, including the South China Sea and the Korean Peninsula.
On Wednesday, the US Navy sent another warship through the sensitive Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland which is just 130 km wide at its narrowest point. The guided missile destroyer USS John S. McCain became the fourth naval vessel to make the “transit” since Biden took office. If the tempo is maintained, the Biden administration will eclipse the record of 13 transits set by the Trump administration last year.
On the same day, the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, and its associated strike group, carried out military exercises in the South China Sea, including fixed- and rotary-wing flight operations, maritime strike exercises and anti-submarine operations. It is the second time this year that the huge nuclear-powered carrier and its armada have carried out war games close to the Chinese mainland and key naval bases in southern China. “[Our] war-fighting prowess is unmatched,” the commanding officer Captain Eric Anduze boasted.
The US Navy has also carried out at least two so-called Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOP) in the South China Sea since Biden came to office. US warships directly challenge Chinese maritime claims by sailing close to Chinese-controlled islets—provocative manoeuvres that have the potential to trigger a military clash either by accident or design.
On the pretext of “freedom of navigation,” Washington declares that these military exercises close to the Chinese coast line are legitimate. But when it comes to the operations of Chinese military aircraft and naval vessels, these are always portrayed in the most sinister light. Yesterday, Taiwan scrambled fighter jets in response to an “incursion” by 15 Chinese aircraft into Taiwan’s self-declared air defence identification zone—broad airspace restrictions that have no standing in international law.
At the same time, the US and international media played up the exercises in the Pacific involving China’s aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, and five escort ships which passed through the Miyako Strait in the Japanese Ryukyu Islands on Sunday. The strait is wide enough that the waters are international and no Chinese violation of Japanese sovereignty was involved.
Two top US military figures—the former head of the Indo Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson and the incoming head Admiral John Aquilino—both warned of the heightened danger of US war with China over Taiwan in the near future. Davidson declared that “the threat is manifest during this decade—in fact, in the next six years,” while Aquilino, when asked at his congressional confirmation hearing, said “this problem is much closer to us than most think.”
Since 1979, the US has adhered to the One China policy, in effect recognising Beijing as the legitimate ruler of all China, including Taiwan. As a result, the US has no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan and any contact has been low key. At the same time, under the Taiwan Relation Act, the US has continued to supply defensive arms to Taiwan and offer an assurance that it would come to Taiwan’s defence in the event of a Chinese attack.
By elevating the levels of contact with Taiwan, including a visit last year by a US cabinet lofficial, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, the Trump administration effectively undermined the previous diplomatic protocols associated with the One China policy. Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo early this year went a step further ending all restrictions on contact between US and Taiwanese civilian and military officials—a policy that Biden, who declared his commitment to Taiwan as “rock solid,” is continuing.
Under the Biden administration, the Pentagon is considering stationing offensive intermediate range missiles on what is known as the first island chain ringing the Chinese mainland—including on Taiwan. The US is also assisting in the expansion of Taiwan's submarine fleet. Taiwan is also developing its own indigenous offensive missiles to strike deep within China.
The US is recklessly playing with fire. As part of establishing diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1979, the US broke relations with Taiwan and withdrew its military forces. Any attempt by the US to station its troops or military hardware on Taiwan would draw a hostile response from China and threaten to precipitate military conflict.
A great deal is at stake. Taiwan is both strategically and economically significant. As part of the first island chain, it would be a key element in an attempt by the US either to impose an economic blockade on China or to launch a full-scale war. At the same time, it is home to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which accounts for some 90 percent of the production of the most advanced computer chips that are required for a wide range of both commercial and military applications.
The warnings by US admirals of war with China in the near term have far more to do with fears in Washington that China is overtaking the US economically and strategically, than with “Chinese aggression.” The heightened discussion in Washington over the need for strong ties with Taiwan makes clear that this strategic island is a major component of the Pentagon’s planning for war with China. US imperialism is prepared to use military means to shore up its global dominance—even if it leads to a calamitous nuclear conflagration.
Facing a rapidly emerging class struggle at home, the US ruling class is also seeking to turn these immense social tensions outward against an external enemy. Workers and youth should reject the rising tide of propaganda demonising China in increasingly racist terms and turn to the Chinese working class which faces the same forms of capitalist exploitation. The only means for ending the danger of war is to build an international antiwar movement of the working class on a socialist basis to put an end to capitalism—the root cause of war.
The true toll of the coronavirus pandemic
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/04/08/pers-a08.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
Bryan Dyne
11 hours ago
The official death toll of the coronavirus pandemic continues to spiral to staggering heights. In the United States, more than 570,000 lives have been lost to the disease. Worldwide, the number exceeds 2,890,000. Daily case and death counts are rising internationally as the continued spread of new and more infectious variants threatens to exceed last year’s fall surge.
Moreover, the actual number of deaths attributed to the disease and its consequences is in reality far higher. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently revealed that the number of “excess deaths” in 2020, those deaths above what was expected based on averages from previous years, exceeded 503,000, 42 percent more than the officially recorded coronavirus deaths from last year.
COVID-19 patient Efrain Molina, center, gets a fist bump from nurse leader Edgar Ramirez at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
But even this massive death toll is only one reflection of the reality of the pandemic. Just as millions of people have died, tens of millions more have and continue to suffer from what, in a rational society, would be a preventable disease.
Among them are the many children who have lost a parent to the coronavirus. An article in JAMA Pediatrics written by Rachel Kidman and her colleagues published Monday reveals that “an estimated 37,300 to 43,000” children in the US now suffer from parental bereavement as a result of the pandemic, three-quarters of whom are adolescents. In contrast, about 20,000 American children lost a parent as a result of the Vietnam War.
And as Kidman notes, these are only children who have lost a parent, not another relative or person who is their primary caregiver, nor did they look at the impact of the many thousands of parents who have lost children, or the broader circle of friends, co-workers and family that knew those who died.
Kidman and her coauthors also note the dangers of failing to contain the disease. If left unchecked, her team estimated that there will be a total of 1.5 million pandemic-related deaths in the US, leaving behind “116,900 parentally bereaved children.” In other words, if society is to “live with the disease,” as is now being promoted by the political, corporate and media officialdom, at least 75,000 to 80,000 more youth must grow up having lost at least one parent to the coronavirus.
It is this arithmetic, however, that is being pushed by the Biden administration as it calls for the full reopening of in-person learning at schools, while at the same time steadily abandoning safety guidelines. Schools have been shown to be among the chief way the pandemic spreads, through both teachers and students, and are especially dangerous now that, according to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, “the [more contagious and deadly] B.1.1.7 variant is now the most common lineage circulating in the United States.”
Moreover, whatever the cynical claims by the Biden administration of the costs on the childrens’ education and mental health, that cost is already enormous. New findings published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal found that, among more than 236,000 COVID-19 patients in the US, 34 percent were diagnosed with a neurological or psychiatric condition within six months of their initial infection. Common symptoms included anxiety and mood disorders, while seven percent had a stroke and another seven percent developed substance abuse disorders. For thirteen percent of those in the study, this was their first recorded neurological or psychiatric diagnosis.
Generalizing to all those who had the coronavirus, these results suggest that more than 45 million people have or will acquire a neurological or mental health problem as a result of COVID-19.
Research has also documented further long-term effects caused by the coronavirus well after patients have “recovered.” Physicians at Danderyd Hospital and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that 11 percent of people who had just mild cases of COVID-19 still suffer from loss of smell, loss of taste or fatigue eight months after contracting the disease, significantly impairing their ongoing health and quality of life.
Other reports have documented different aspects of what is being termed post-viral or Long COVID syndrome. Last summer, more than 87 percent of patients released from hospitals in Italy reported having at least one of the following—fatigue, shortness of breath, joint pain and chest pain—more than two months after symptoms of the coronavirus itself began. A study in China found similar conditions for at least six months after COVID-19 patients were discharged. Even those who contracted the disease but were asymptomatic have developed these health problems.
Such studies paint a grim picture beyond the 133 million people that have contracted a potentially deadly illness. They reveal tens of millions of survivors that live daily with the possibility of chronic and extraordinary health problems for months, and tens of millions more wonder if they were unknowingly exposed and will contract, or perhaps have already contracted a debilitating symptom that will be with them for months.
It is also unclear when, or even if, such long-term symptoms will end. This virus is at best estimates only 18 months old, which means no one knows what the long-term effects will be after 10, 20 or 30 years. The physical and mental health of millions have been potentially permanently ruined, with devastating and limitless costs.
In the calculation of the financial oligarchy and the government that serves it, such considerations are of no consequence. The deaths and long-term illnesses are just statistics. But these were in fact hundreds of thousands of living, breathing human beings, murdered by criminal policies of Republican and Democratic administrations, and millions more are now forced to languish.
The argument put forward by every capitalist government in Europe and the United States—that society must “live with” the virus—comes at an unacceptable cost in lives, in health, and in heartache. No, humanity cannot “live with” this virus, and it cannot “live with” the capitalist social order that refuses to contain it.
But even this massive death toll is only one reflection of the reality of the pandemic. Just as millions of people have died, tens of millions more have and continue to suffer from what, in a rational society, would be a preventable disease.
Among them are the many children who have lost a parent to the coronavirus. An article in JAMA Pediatrics written by Rachel Kidman and her colleagues published Monday reveals that “an estimated 37,300 to 43,000” children in the US now suffer from parental bereavement as a result of the pandemic, three-quarters of whom are adolescents. In contrast, about 20,000 American children lost a parent as a result of the Vietnam War.
And as Kidman notes, these are only children who have lost a parent, not another relative or person who is their primary caregiver, nor did they look at the impact of the many thousands of parents who have lost children, or the broader circle of friends, co-workers and family that knew those who died.
Kidman and her coauthors also note the dangers of failing to contain the disease. If left unchecked, her team estimated that there will be a total of 1.5 million pandemic-related deaths in the US, leaving behind “116,900 parentally bereaved children.” In other words, if society is to “live with the disease,” as is now being promoted by the political, corporate and media officialdom, at least 75,000 to 80,000 more youth must grow up having lost at least one parent to the coronavirus.
It is this arithmetic, however, that is being pushed by the Biden administration as it calls for the full reopening of in-person learning at schools, while at the same time steadily abandoning safety guidelines. Schools have been shown to be among the chief way the pandemic spreads, through both teachers and students, and are especially dangerous now that, according to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, “the [more contagious and deadly] B.1.1.7 variant is now the most common lineage circulating in the United States.”
Moreover, whatever the cynical claims by the Biden administration of the costs on the childrens’ education and mental health, that cost is already enormous. New findings published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal found that, among more than 236,000 COVID-19 patients in the US, 34 percent were diagnosed with a neurological or psychiatric condition within six months of their initial infection. Common symptoms included anxiety and mood disorders, while seven percent had a stroke and another seven percent developed substance abuse disorders. For thirteen percent of those in the study, this was their first recorded neurological or psychiatric diagnosis.
Generalizing to all those who had the coronavirus, these results suggest that more than 45 million people have or will acquire a neurological or mental health problem as a result of COVID-19.
Research has also documented further long-term effects caused by the coronavirus well after patients have “recovered.” Physicians at Danderyd Hospital and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that 11 percent of people who had just mild cases of COVID-19 still suffer from loss of smell, loss of taste or fatigue eight months after contracting the disease, significantly impairing their ongoing health and quality of life.
Other reports have documented different aspects of what is being termed post-viral or Long COVID syndrome. Last summer, more than 87 percent of patients released from hospitals in Italy reported having at least one of the following—fatigue, shortness of breath, joint pain and chest pain—more than two months after symptoms of the coronavirus itself began. A study in China found similar conditions for at least six months after COVID-19 patients were discharged. Even those who contracted the disease but were asymptomatic have developed these health problems.
Such studies paint a grim picture beyond the 133 million people that have contracted a potentially deadly illness. They reveal tens of millions of survivors that live daily with the possibility of chronic and extraordinary health problems for months, and tens of millions more wonder if they were unknowingly exposed and will contract, or perhaps have already contracted a debilitating symptom that will be with them for months.
It is also unclear when, or even if, such long-term symptoms will end. This virus is at best estimates only 18 months old, which means no one knows what the long-term effects will be after 10, 20 or 30 years. The physical and mental health of millions have been potentially permanently ruined, with devastating and limitless costs.
In the calculation of the financial oligarchy and the government that serves it, such considerations are of no consequence. The deaths and long-term illnesses are just statistics. But these were in fact hundreds of thousands of living, breathing human beings, murdered by criminal policies of Republican and Democratic administrations, and millions more are now forced to languish.
The argument put forward by every capitalist government in Europe and the United States—that society must “live with” the virus—comes at an unacceptable cost in lives, in health, and in heartache. No, humanity cannot “live with” this virus, and it cannot “live with” the capitalist social order that refuses to contain it.
VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY ON AVOIDING WAR IN UKRAINE
By Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, AntiWar.com.
April 7, 2021
https://popularresistance.org/veteran-intelligence-professionals-for-sanity-on-avoiding-war-in-ukraine/
Dear President Biden,
We last communicated with you on December 20, 2020, when you were President-elect.
At that time, we alerted you to the dangers inherent in formulating a policy toward Russia built on a foundation of Russia-bashing. While we continue to support the analysis contained in that memorandum, this new memo serves a far more pressing purpose. We wish to draw your attention to the dangerous situation that exists in Ukraine today, where there is growing risk of war unless you take steps to forestall such a conflict.
At this juncture, we call to mind two basic realities that need particular emphasis amid growing tension between Ukraine and Russia.
First, since Ukraine is not a member of NATO, Article 5 of the NATO Treaty of course would not apply in the case of an armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
Second, Ukraine’s current military flexing, if allowed to transition into actual military action, could lead to hostilities with Russia.
We think it crucial that your administration immediately seek to remove from the table, so to speak, any “solution” to the current impasse that has a military component. In short, there is, and can never be, a military solution to this problem.
Your interim national security strategy guidance indicated that your administration would “make smart and disciplined choices regarding our national defense and the responsible use of our military, while elevating diplomacy as our tool of first resort.” Right now is the perfect time to put these words into action for all to see.
We strongly believe:
1. It must be made clear to Ukrainian President Zelensky that there will be no military assistance from either the US or NATO if he does not restrain Ukrainian hawks itching to give Russia a bloody nose — hawks who may well expect the West to come to Ukraine’s aid in any conflict with Russia. (There must be no repeat of the fiasco of August 2008, when the Republic of Georgia initiated offensive military operations against South Ossetia in the mistaken belief that the US would come to its assistance if Russia responded militarily.)
2. We recommend that you quickly get back in touch with Zelensky and insist that Kiev halt its current military buildup in eastern Ukraine. Russian forces have been lining up at the border ready to react if Zelensky’s loose talk of war becomes more than bravado. Washington should also put on hold all military training activity involving US and NATO troops in the region. This would lessen the chance that Ukraine would misinterpret these training missions as a de facto sign of support for Ukrainian military operations to regain control of either the Donbas or Crimea.
3. It is equally imperative that the U.S. engage in high-level diplomatic talks with Russia to reduce tensions in the region and de-escalate the current rush toward military conflict. Untangling the complex web of issues that currently burden U.S.-Russia relations is a formidable task that will not be accomplished overnight. This would be an opportune time to work toward a joint goal of preventing armed hostilities in Ukraine and wider war.
There is opportunity as well as risk in the current friction over Ukraine. This crisis offers your administration the opportunity to elevate the moral authority of the United States in the eyes of the international community. Leading with diplomacy will greatly enhance the stature of America in the world.
For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer & former Division Director in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (ret.)
Bogdan Dzakovic, former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Graham E. Fuller,Vice-Chair, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Robert M. Furukawa, Captain, Civil Engineer Corps, USNR (ret.)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
John Kiriakou, former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former Senior Investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
Edward Loomis, NSA Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA presidential briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East & CIA political analyst (ret.)
Pedro Israel Orta, CIA Operations Officer & Analyst; Inspector with IG for the Intelligence Community (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Scott Ritter, former MAJ., USMC, former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA
Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)
Robert Wing, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (former) (associate VIPS)
Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq War
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPs) is made up of former intelligence officers, diplomats, military officers and congressional staffers. The organization, founded in 2002, was among the first critics of Washington’s justifications for launching a war against Iraq. VIPS advocates a US foreign and national security policy based on genuine national interests rather than contrived threats promoted for largely political reasons. An archive of VIPS memoranda is available at Consortiumnews.com.
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