Revealed: Meetings Blitz Between Big Ag And Anti-Green Lawmakers

https://popularresistance.org/revealed-meetings-blitz-between-big-ag-and-anti-green-lawmakers/






By Clare Carlile, DeSmog.

October 5, 2023
Educate!




Campaigners condemn “unholy alliance” with industrial farm lobby.

DeSmog analysis finds meetings with influential MEPs’ meetings outnumber those with NGOs eight to one.

Agriculture lobby groups have been in constant contact with a small group of influential European politicians, holding an average of over two meetings a week while the bloc negotiated flagship reforms to protect nature and climate, DeSmog can reveal.

Between January 2020 and July 2023, over 400 meetings took place between industry and key members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who have been at the forefront of efforts to stall reforms since the Farm to Fork strategy launched in 2020.

DeSmog documented meetings held by six MEPs from the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the largest group in parliament.

The analysis found that in the period the lawmakers – Alexander Bernhuber, Herbert Dorfmann, Norbert Lins, Christine Schneider, Franc Bogovič and Anne Sander – met industry-linked groups eight times as often as non-governmental groups representing public interests.

Groups that were granted an audience included the world’s four largest pesticide firms Bayer, BASF, Corteva and Syngenta along with fertiliser firms Yara and OCP Group, trade groups that represent the meat and dairy industry and farming unions allied with industrial interests, such as Copa Cogeca.

The analysis also showed that five out of six representatives appeared to flout EU transparency guidelines. Around 20 percent of the MEPs’ meetings were with unregistered groups, and at least one in six meetings documented by DeSmog was not declared on the parliamentary website.

The EPP is vociferously opposing two major pieces of legislation from the EU’s Green Deal, a historic package by the bloc to reduce its emissions in line with global climate targets. It includes key reforms that are currently making their passage through Europe’s lawmaking bodies. If passed, both could have a significant impact on agribusiness’ commercial interests.

The first, the Nature Restoration Law, includes plans to restore 20 percent of degraded ecosystems in the EU. The second, known as the Sustainable Use Regulation, or SUR, would see pesticide use halved by 2030.

The findings come at a crucial time for nature-friendly laws in Europe, which scientists say are critical to securing the bloc’s food supply and tackling both climate breakdown and biodiversity collapse. Agriculture accounts for around 11 percent of carbon emissions in the EU, and farming has been linked to drastic declines in bumble bees and other wild pollinators.

Parliament’s Agriculture and Environment committees will vote on the pesticide reduction plan on the 9 and 24 of October respectively. Final negotiations are ongoing for the Nature Restoration Law – parliament voted to exclude farmland in July but the final iteration has yet to be negotiated with the Council.

DeSmog’s findings follow a sustained lobbying effort by industry to derail both laws. The EPP also stands accused of “blackmailing” its MEPs into opposing the Nature Restoration Law, and promoting “fake news”, allegations that party leader Manfred Weber denies.

DeSmog’s analysis also found that cumulatively since 2020 between them the six selected politicians had taken part in the equivalent of more than one event a month that was organised, or sponsored by, agribusiness lobby groups – some of which were hosted in parliament.

“These statistics raise huge concerns but are hardly surprising,” said Vicky Cann from transparency watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory. “The big farming lobby, the agrochemical industry and Conservative politicians closely work together in order to keep the untenable and unfair status quo in EU farming as long as possible – to the detriment of all.”

Slovenian MEP Franc Bogovič said he does not take orders from industry groups. “I’m a farmer and … I’m an agricultural engineer and I have my own opinion,” he told Politico. “I really don’t need their opinion on this. I have my own clear view of what is possible and what is not possible in agriculture.”

None of the other MEPs included in the study responded to DeSmog’s request for comment.
High Volume Of Meetings

DeSmog analysed official meeting records for six EPP representatives since 2020, when the EU first unveiled its Farm to Fork Strategy, an ambitious plan to overhaul farming practices as part of the Green Deal.

The MEPs all sit on key decision-making committees for the green agricultural policies such as AGRI, the European Parliament’s committee on agriculture issues, and ENVI, its counterpart for the environment.

Overall, more than 70 percent of the meetings declared by the six MEPs during the period were with industry groups, including pesticide manufacturers, food companies and farm lobbies.

The meetings were held during key negotiating moments. A plot of the meetings (see graphic below) shows that they spiked in the months before the European Council demanded a controversial re-assessment of the impact of the pesticide reduction plan, which had the effect of delaying the proposal by several months.

The analysis found that Norbert Lins, chair of AGRI, held 169 meetings with corporate groups relating to food and farming, compared to just 19 with non-governmental organisations.

The meetings held by Lins with NGOs did not cover the legislative proposals to reduce pesticide use and restore nature, both of which he has vocally opposed. But he met with industry 

16 times on these topics.  

Official meetings held by industry interest representatives and six EPP MEPs (Alexander Bernhuber, Herbert Dorfmann, Norbert Lins, Christine Schneider, Anne Sander and Franc Bogovič) between January 2020 and July 2023, on Farm to Fork, Nature Restoration Law and the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Regulation. / Credit: Ian Nixon and Brigitte Wear.

Herbert Dorfmann, the EPP coordinator on the AGRI committee, has the highest mismatch – 91 percent of all his declared meetings were with industry groups.

The six politicians also held 40 meetings with farming union Copa-Cogeca and its influential French and German members FNSEA and Deutscher Bauernverband, which have warned that Farm to Fork would be “untenable” for the agricultural sector.

Copa-Cogeca calls itself “the united voice of farmers and agri-cooperatives in the EU”. However, in June it admitted to overstating its membership numbers after being accused in an investigation by Lighthouse Reports and Politico of promoting industrial farming interests over those of smaller operations and young farmers.

Around 75 percent of the meetings held with farming unions on Farm to Fork, the Nature Restoration Law and the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Regulation were with Copa-Cogeca, its national members or their regional branches.

Although two-thirds of European farms are less than five hectares in size, the politicians did not hold any meetings on the proposals with unions representing smallholders. They held just two with representatives of the organic sector, which farms around 10 percent of European farmland.

“Science shows that farmers are a very diverse group of people,” said Guy Pe’er, an ecologist at the Department of Ecosystem Services in the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research and at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research. But despite the fact Copa Cogeca primarily represents large-scale operations, he said, they have “demonstrated that when it comes to agriculture, they are the bosses”.

He added: “If politicians choose to give only one voice, meeting and inviting just a few organisations, then they give them power. You’re wiping off this heterogeneity, knowingly and willingly.”

In the period, the selected politicians held a total of 29 official meetings with the world’s four largest pesticide firms – Bayer, BASF, Corteva and Syngenta – and their trade group CropLife Europe, which have lobbied fiercely against the SUR regulation.

Kristine De Schamphelaere from campaign group Pesticide Action Network said these groups’ opposition to the ambitious pesticide regulation posed a threat to health and biodiversity. “Europeans are deeply concerned about the impacts of pesticides on their health and environment. Yet, many MEPs from the ranks of EPP ignore these concerns and scientific evidence,” she said.

DeSmog’s analysis found that the MEP Bogovič, who used to sell pesticides for a living, held 13 meetings with industry on the pesticide reduction law, compared with three meetings with only two NGOs.

Bogovič said NGOs don’t approach him. “I never avoid discussions with people who have different opinions – I like that,” he told Politico.

CropLife Europe said in a statement to Politico that it sought meetings with lawmakers relevant to its industry, regardless of their political affiliation. “Mr Bogovic is a key MEP to discuss the SUR [pesticide regulation]. We continue to discuss the proposal with all stakeholders.”
Adopting Industry Rhetoric

Industrial farming organisations say the EU’s green reforms could drastically reduce yields and endanger farmer incomes – warnings that are closely echoed by the EPP on their social media feed (for example, in November 2022 and March 2023).

The same claims have been contested by over 6,000 scientists, who point to major risks for the food supply if action is not taken to curb pesticide use and restore habitats.

“Science has been ignored and put aside,” said ecologist Guy Pe’er. “Politicians systematically adopt the language of those unions and pseudo farmers organisations that spread misinformation.”

“It is the responsibility of politicians to take the inputs of different sectors and different sources, weigh them and look at evidence. It is their responsibility to serve their voters’ interests,” he said.  

X posts from the EPP opposing green farming plans closely echo industry claims. 

Scientists who support the nature-friendly plans requested meetings with multiple MEPs ahead of parliament’s vote on the Nature Restoration Law, DeSmog understands.

Pe’er told DeSmog that only two EPP representatives – Christine Schneider and Peter Liese – had agreed to meet with the academics. The chair of the agriculture committee Norbert Lins and EPP leader Manfred Weber were among multiple lawmakers from both EPP and Renew who refused or ignored their requests.

DeSmog’s findings come at a time of growing criticism of the EPP’s approach to Farm to Fork.

In July, MEPs accused the party of spreading “fake news” in its online campaign against the plans to restore nature in the bloc.

The month before, the head of rival party Renew, Pascal Canfin, alleged that the EPP had threatened to exclude MEPs who did not oppose the Nature Restoration Law. Party leader Manfred Weber denies the claim, and asked for evidence, arguing that Canfin was “nervous and panicked” ahead of the vote, according to Politico.

Canfin, who chairs ENVI, also told Politico that the EPP had substituted around of third of its regular members in the committee for the crucial vote on the Nature Restoration Law in June, to ensure the party line was followed.

“As a group Renew has been very careful to hear all sides of the debate on the nature restoration law. Indeed, it was our group that pushed for the compromise that eventually found a majority in plenary,” Renew told DeSmog in a statement. “It is not, however, our group’s role to tell MEPs who they should or shouldn’t meet in the lead-up to a vote nor where they get their information.”

EPP did not respond to multiple requests to comment. But the party levelled similar accusations at its critics in a post on X, writing in June: “Those who accuse us of being against nature and the fight against climate change are simply spreading fake news. Our votes were crucial in adopting 29 laws to make the #GreenDeal successful”.
Laws Drafted By Industry

Campaigners say that industrial farming lobbies have major political clout. As of 2023, the pesticide industry alone employed 50 full time lobbyists in Brussels while public records show that the four largest pesticide firms and their trade association CropLife Europe spent over €35 million (£30 million) lobbying the EU since 2020. In the same period, the farmers’ union Copa-Cogeca spent somewhere between €4.3 and 4.8 million (£3.7 and 3.2 million) on EU lobbying.

Greens MEP Sarah Wiener says the industry ties of conservative politicians have been “reflected in votes and amendments tabled”.

For its part, farming union Copa-Cogeca has publicly admitted that it drafts laws on behalf of politicians. In June, Pekka Pesonen, General Secretary of the union, told media outlet Politico that at least a third of amendments tabled by politicians originated with industry lobby groups or with NGOs.

This account is confirmed by Wiener, who is chief negotiator on the pesticide regulation SUR and was the Greens negotiator on Farm to Fork. “Copa-Cogeca proposed amendments to weaken Farm to Fork, some of which were simply copied and tabled by conservative and right-wing groups,” she said.

DeSmog requested access to minutes of meetings with Copa-Cogeca and the pesticides firms in a Freedom of Information Request to the European Parliament. However, parliament said records of the meetings are held in the private offices of MEPs and therefore not subject to freedom of information laws.
MEPs Speaking On Industry Panels

Campaigners have also criticised the six politicians in DeSmog’s sample for the high volume of industry-events they have attended.

In the period, the EPP politicians took part in 50 events (networking, panels or protests), including some in parliament itself that were organised or sponsored by the agribusiness industry. These included 20 events by major pesticide firms or their lobby group CropLife Europe.

Norbert Lins and Herbert Dorfmann were the most active. Both joined over 15 events, while Schneider attended just three.

Alexander Bernhuber, Franc Bogovič and Anne Sander between them held at least four events in parliament, which were either co-hosted with or platformed speakers from agrochemical or industrial farming groups which have opposed Farm to Fork.

For example, in April 2023, Bernhuber – the EPP’s chief negotiator on the proposed pesticide reduction laws – hosted an event on SUR, which was moderated by the powerful sugar and beet producers’ lobbies (CEFS and CIBE), both major users of bee-harming pesticides in the EU.

“It’s clear that the EU Farm to Fork strategy has been constantly under attack by an unholy alliance between Big Agri and a fixed group of right-wing MEPs,“ said Vicky Cann from Corporate European Observatory. “Parliamentary events are just one manifestation of this.”

She added: “EU food and agriculture policy has been dominated by the demands of Big Agri rather than the interests of most farmers and sustainability for too long.”
Transparency Concerns

DeSmog’s analysis has raised concerns about a lack of transparency in EU decision-making.

The research found around a fifth of all meetings held by the six MEPs were with organisations not registered as lobby groups. With the exception of Franc Bogovič, all the MEPs analysed held multiple meetings with unregistered groups.

Under EU transparency guidelines, all organisations seeking to influence policy must register as a lobby group, providing details of their affiliations, funding, lobbyists and lobby spends.

The guidelines state that MEPs “should adopt the systematic practice of only meeting interest representatives that have registered in the Transparency Register”.

But because transparency rules are not legally binding, groups are able to “circumvent” them, Cann from CEO explained.

Of 15 meetings with industry-linked groups on the pesticide reduction proposal held by Norbert Lins, who is chair of AGRI, the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee, five were with unregistered groups.

They included Moroccan state-owned fertiliser company OCP Group, which Lins met in March 2022 to discuss ‘EU food security’ in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Lins has repeatedly cited fears about food security in opposition to proposed reforms, a claim critics say has been weaponised by both the pesticide and fertiliser lobby.

“I think citizens have a right to know who exactly their representatives are meeting with and who are behind these organisations,” Sarah Wiener said.
Undeclared Meetings

Analysis of social media posts also showed that five out of six MEPs held meetings with industry members without declaring them, a practice that also flouts EU transparency guidance.

For the purposes of this study DeSmog defines meetings as any pre-scheduled or sit-down discussion between MEPs and interest representatives. Examples included hikes, breakfasts in the European Parliament and private, closed-door discussions at conferences and trade events.

Guidelines state that MEPs should publish details of all scheduled meetings with groups which seek to influence policy, in particular when legislation is discussed. However, the guidance is only binding for lawmakers who act as chief negotiators on proposed laws.

Between them Alexander Bernhuber, Herbert Dorfmann, Norbert Lins, Christine Schneider were found to have held some 15 meetings that were not declared. French MEP Anne Sander had almost 45 undeclared meetings.

Undeclared meetings took place with major farming association Copa-Cogeca, and pesticide firm Corteva. In at least a half of those meetings, the content of the social post revealed that policy was under discussion.

In recognition of the need for greater transparency, the EU approved new laws in September that will require all lobbying meetings to be published going forward – measures that the EPP has opposed.

Greens MEP and transparency expert Daniel Freund thinks voters need to be able to see who their politicians are speaking to. Transparency is crucial to ensure there isn’t “undue influence” over policy decisions, he said.
Tipping Point

With European Elections due in June 2024, experts say that decisions made now will set the tone for parties across Europe. Officials have warned that the failure of biodiversity-focused lawmaking could leave Europe’s wider Green Deal plan to become carbon neutral by 2050 in jeopardy.

Sarah Wiener said she was “confident” that an agreement on the pesticide reduction laws could yet be reached. However, with conservative politicians pushing to strip out legally binding targets, “the influence of the agricultural lobby is clearly felt,” she said.

Parliament, Commission and Council are now also involved in final negotiations on the Nature Restoration Law, with parliament currently recommending that farming be removed from the plans.

“We know that ecosystems are collapsing, with major risks to us as well,” the scientist Guy Pe’er said. “The question is: why is there such a glaring gap between the knowledge about what needs to be done and action by politicians?”



DeSmog’s analysis includes disclosures of meetings filed by the MEPs before September 25 2023. Additional research by Brigitte Wear.

University Of Maine Graduate Students Win Union Recognition

https://popularresistance.org/university-of-maine-graduate-students-win-union-recognition/






By Christopher Burns , Portside.

October 5, 2023
Organize!




The Maine Labor Relations Board last week certified the Maine Graduate Workers Union-UAW.

The graduate workers union will represent about 1,000 graduate assistants, research assistants and teaching assistants who make up a large percentage of the tea.

The University of Maine System’s graduate students have won certification for their union.

The Maine Labor Relations Board last week certified the Maine Graduate Workers Union-UAW after an independent arbitrator determined it had a majority support among graduate workers, according to the Maine AFL-CIO.

The university system said in August it would recognize the union and began bargaining if an independent analysis found it had a majority support.

The graduate workers union will represent about 1,000 graduate assistants, research assistants and teaching assistants who make up a large percentage of the teaching and research workforce across the system’s seven campuses, according to the Maine AFL-CIO, which announced the certification on Friday afternoon.

It is affiliated with the United Auto Workers.

“Today, after years of discussion and months of organizing, we are thrilled to announce that we have won our union,” said Remi Geohegan, a second-year Ph.D. student and teaching assistant in the Graduate School of Biomedical Science and Engineering at the University of Maine. “The University of Maine administration did the right thing by agreeing to recognize our union through a majority sign-on process, and the majority has spoken. Based on the strong support that exists across campus, and among faculty, legislators and community leaders, we are excited about the very real prospect of beginning negotiations for a strong first contract.”

The graduate workers went public with their demand for union recognition in March, saying that a union would address concerns about wages and health benefits and give them more of a voice in their workplace.

“Our work powers the educational and research mission of the University, and was instrumental in UMaine receiving the status of an R1 rated research university. In short, UMaine works because we do,” said Em Sowles, a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate and research assistant in the physics department. “But for too long, we have struggled with low and inconsistent pay, substandard health benefits and the need for a voice at work. Today we are proud to have formally secured a seat at the table, so we can begin to improve our working lives through legally-enforceable contracts.”

The graduate workers are the latest academic workforce to form a union, joining those at Columbia University in New York City; Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the University of Alaska; the University of Connecticut; and the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Kaiser Permanente Workers Begin Largest Healthcare Strike In US History

https://popularresistance.org/kaiser-permanente-workers-begin-largest-healthcare-strike-in-us-history/








By Mike Pappas, Left Voice.

October 5, 2023
Resist!


Workers at Kaiser Permanente, the largest private health care corporation in the United States, have begun the biggest healthcare strike in U.S. history.

They’re demanding a new contract with inflationary wage increases, increased staffing, an end to casualization and outsourcing, and benefits for retirees.

The largest health care strike in U.S. history has begun, as more than 75,000 workers at Kaiser Permanente walked off the job this morning. The scheduled three-day labor stoppage comes after Kaiser failed to meet the demands of workers, continuing to prioritize their profits over patient care.

The striking coalition includes eight unions representing health care workers from a variety of job descriptions and covers Kaiser facilities in California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Virginia, and Washington City. This represents about 40% of all Kaiser Permanente staff, according to spokeswoman Renee Saldana of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare (SEIU-UHW)—the largest union in the coalition.

The union’s contract with the company expired over the weekend, and workers are demanding a significant staffing increase, alleviation of grueling work hours, wage increases that outpace inflation, and benefits for retired staff in the industry. Additionally, they are noting that their poor working conditions lead to poor patient care. This represents a common theme for healthcare workers attempting to provide quality patient care in a capitalist healthcare system that continually puts profit over patient wellbeing.

Healthcare workers are becoming increasingly fed up with the working conditions imposed by the U.S. healthcare system. They are tired of seeing the wellbeing of patients being sacrificed at the altar of profit. They are also tired of having their own well being destroyed by the continual exploitation they face under this system. One healthcare worker preparing to picket outside a Kaiser Hospital location in North Hollywood said, “We just can’t go on with this staffing crisis.”

Kaiser Permanente is the largest private hospital and healthcare management consortium in the United States, bringing together a broad spectrum of healthcare workers including nurses, X-ray technicians, pharmacists, optometrists, and other job titles. The company serves 12.7 million people in California, Washington, Oregon, Georgia, Hawaii, Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia. The private health care corporation has reported more than $3 billion in profits in the first half of 2023 and has paid at least 49 corporate executives salaries in excess of $1 million a year. Despite these profits, the company continues to impose strenuous working conditions on staff, continually under-staffing and under-paying.

While this initial strike is planned for just three days, the SEIU-UHW union said the coalition is prepared to launch a “longer and stronger” strike in November, when another contract expires in Washington State. This could extend the stoppage to even more workers.

Healthcare workers at Kaiser are joining a wave of strikes sweeping the United States—hundreds of thousands of workers have walked off the job. We are seeing worker action in sectors ranging from the auto industry—with the struggle of the 146,000 members of the UAW union against Ford, GM, and Stellantis—to Hollywood screenwriters and actors, to the 53,000 hotel workers in Las Vegas who voted last week to strike. In addition to the common struggle for wages that exceed the inflation of recent years, the end of tiered wages and varied pensions and health plans, striking workers are increasingly putting forward more radicalized demands, such as that of the auto workers for the reduction of the work week without a reduction in wages.

Workers are beginning a new October of struggles and strikes and are preparing for an autumn of discontent, fighting exploitative bosses around the country.

Okinawa: A Bastion For Peace?

https://popularresistance.org/okinawa-a-bastion-for-peace/










By Dae-Han Song, Popular Resistance.

October 5, 2023
Educate!





Recently, in Taiwan, the government unveiled its first home-built submarine. In Japan, the government will upgrade civilian airports and seaports to dual military use in preparation for conflict in Taiwan. The U.S. and allies maneuver to contain China, Russia, and North Korea, while the latter band together against the former’s economic sanctions and military threats. Both blocs test the strength and resilience of the region’s stability. And while North Korea has been the regional bogeyman for decades, if war breaks out, it will likely be in Taiwan.

While China has called for an “indivisible security” where security is dependent upon the security of all, U.S. discourse has centered around the containment of China and deterring war… by preparing for it. If a rapid and massive escalation in U.S. military capability and alliances is proposed to make an invasion of Taiwan costly and unsuccessful (i.e., “the porcupine strategy”), what would prevent China, which has declared its desire for peaceful unification with Taiwan but hasn’t ruled out the use of force, from invading before the U.S. achieves its deterrence fait accompli? While both powers will maneuver just below the thresholds of war, what would prevent a miscalculation from igniting it in the region?

Unable to imagine a world beyond the U.S.-centered one, the anglophone media has little discussion on the peaceful transition towards the multipolar world emerging from the growing wreckage of the U.S.-unipolar one. Thus, shifting the discourse towards peace requires actors from the Global North to raise their voices against war and confrontation and call for peace and coexistence.

The first such voices will emerge from the geopolitical fault lines by those conscious of the destruction of war. Among these, a key actor will be the Okinawan people, whose perilous location in the “keystone of the Pacific” and whose history as a sacrificial lamb shapes their consciousness and positions them to help lead peace movements in the region.
“Keystone of the Pacific”

During the U.S. military rule (lasting until 1972, 20 years after Japan regained its “sovereignty”), U.S. military license plates in Okinawa carried the slogan “Keystone of the Pacific,” referring to Okinawa’s strategic importance to the Korean and Vietnam wars. Today, Okinawa is a keystone in the United States’ Taiwan strategy. Military bases such as Kadena Air Base (housing “the [U.S.] Air Force’s largest combat air wing”) serve as unsinkable aircraft carriers.

As much as Okinawa is a strategic point for the U.S. strategy against China, it also invites Chinese counterattack. Beyond geopolitical reality, Okinawans’ fear of becoming sacrificial lambs is ingrained in their historical consciousness. As Hideki Yoshikawa, director of the Okinawa Environmental Justice Project, notes, those who lived through World War II’s Battle of Okinawa learned that “soldiers, especially the Japanese soldiers, don’t protect you.” In fact, “having military bases… means attracting military attack.” Unsurprisingly, a 2022 study revealed that 83 percent of Okinawans believed that Okinawa’s bases would be targeted during a conflict.
Sacrificial Lamb

Fought in the final days of World War II, the Battle of Okinawa was the bloodiest Pacific battle and the only one fought on Japanese land. According to Satoko Oka Norimatsu, director of the Peace Philosophy Centre in Vancouver, Canada, more than 120,000 Okinawans (one-quarter to one-third of the population) were sacrificed to slow the U.S. military advance into mainland Japan. Middle and high school boys and girls were mobilized as soldiers and nurses. Given Japan’s forced annexation and cultural assimilation of Okinawa’s independent Ryukyu kingdom in 1879, Norimatsu bluntly notes that the Japanese Imperial Army sacrificed “its southern colony to protect the main Emperor’s land.”

It was sacrificed again after the war. The 1951 Treaty of San Francisco with the U.S. returned “sovereignty” to Japan, but handed Okinawa to the U.S. military, which had never left. For another 20 years, Okinawans lived under U.S. law, requiring passports to go to Japan and suffering the indignities and dangers of foreign military occupation: in 1955, a six-year-old girl was raped and murdered, followed by another rape a week later. In 1972, Japan re-acquired Okinawa, promising U.S. military bases would be reduced to a level proportional to that of the mainland. Instead of a reduction, the proportion increased. While “lower defense spending because of the U.S. military presence in Okinawa” enabled Japan’s postwar economic surge, Okinawa remained Japan’s poorest prefecture.

Even under Japanese governance, the heinous crimes of U.S. soldiers persisted: the 1995 abduction and rape of a 12-year-old girl by three U.S. soldiers; the 2016 rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman by a U.S. military contractor; the (at least) eight sexual crimes from 2017 to 2019 revealed to have been investigated and kept secret by the U.S. military.

Okinawans suffer the dangers and indignities of housing—in a dense urban area—Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, referred to as “the most dangerous base in the world” by former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In 2017, a flying helicopter dropped a window on an elementary school injuring a child. In 2004, a helicopter crashed on the campus of Okinawa International University. Added to all this is the incessant noise of low-flying aircraft over residential areas.
Waging Peace

In a 2019 non-binding referendum, 72 percent of Okinawans opposed the construction of a new base in Henoko-Oura Bay to replace Futenma Base. Yet, according to Yoshikawa, the government-dominated media’s barrage of “propaganda about the China threat, Taiwan contingency, and North Korean threats” has made some more amenable to increasing military presence. In contrast to Okinawa island, some of the prefecture’s southern islands, inexperienced in war or occupation, are more open to stationing Japanese Self-Defense Forces.

Yoshikawa says that peace movements are responding by working to “create a larger, more cohesive peace movement” that is organizing events and rallies to which peace groups from mainland Japan and abroad are invited. The growing US-Japan-South Korea trilateral alliance has “sparked a counter-alliance among peace movements” in each country. If Okinawa is an unsinkable aircraft carrier for the U.S. to wage war, it can also become a bastion for movements to wage peace.



This article was produced by Globetrotter.



Dae-Han Song is in charge of the networking team at the International Strategy Center and is a part of the No Cold War collective.

Bolivia: New US Chargé D’Affaires Is Known Expert In Destabilization

https://popularresistance.org/bolivia-new-us-charge-daffaires-is-known-expert-in-subversion-and-destabilization/











By Orinoco Tribune.

October 5, 2023
Educate!





The newly appointed US chargé d’affaires in Bolivia, Debra Hevia, has been condemned by Bolivian political analysts and public opinion as an expert in subversive activities and destabilization, according to a report published by the local news outlet La Época.

The publication—specialized in political analysis—noted that it is “very important to refer to the fact that she had a position in the Operations Center of the Department of State (DOS), which is characterized as a space for designing political destabilization strategies.”

The article, written by Jacinto Roca, adds that the DOS is a working group dedicated to intelligence and special operations tasks, attached to the US State Department.

It further specifies that former US ambassador to Bolivia, Philip Goldberg, continued to operate from within that subversive structure, even after being expelled from Bolivia in 2008 for promoting and supporting the violent and secessionist actions of the anti-democratic opposition, led by Luis Fernando Camacho.

This interventionist regime change work utilized political intelligence reports provided by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which was also expelled from Bolivia that same year, the article reports.

According to journalist Pepe Pomacusi, Hevia—married to a Bolivian born in Tarija and with two children—shared a video in which she talked about the snowy La Paz Illimani, the marraquetas (the traditional bread of this city), and Bolivian hospitality, following the initiation of her duties in La Paz on September 14.

However, the report warns that behind this seemingly pleasant image—reinforced by mainstream social media platforms—that “there is a State Department official with experience and expertise in interventionism and such special operations, written in an invisible script.”

La Época noted that according to Hevia’s resumé, she holds the rank of minister counselor (equivalent to a two-star military rank), and has completed missions in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Panama, and Ecuador. She has also worked in the Office of Central American Affairs, after working as a political advisor in Romania, the Netherlands, and Slovakia.

The news piece further highlights that Hevia’s areas of expertise relate to drug trafficking, human rights, and individual freedoms, according to her resumé. It should be noted that these areas are often cited by US foreign policy as grounds for their unlawful regime change operations.

The president of the US entity, Joe Biden, published a report on September 15 in which he includes Bolivia in a list of “the main drug transit countries or the main producing countries of illicit drugs for the fiscal year 2024.”

In response to this, the Bolivian minister of government, Eduardo del Castillo, criticized the US decision and stated that it was “prepared unilaterally and lacks technical support, with a clearly geopolitical backing to it.”

The list presented by Biden includes nations that have sovereign positions against the US empire’s hegemonic aspirations in global geopolitics, such as China and India (and the BRICS economic bloc), Colombia, Honduras, Laos, México, and Nicaragua, among others.

Haiti As Empire’s Laboratory

https://popularresistance.org/haiti-as-empires-laboratory/








By Jemima Pierre, Taylor and Francis Online.

October 5, 2023
Educate!




The United States and its allies push renewed foreign intervention.

The uses and abuses of the first Black republic as a testing ground of imperialism offer stark warnings. Haiti still struggles to be free.

In December 2019, President Donald Trump signed into law H.R.2116, also known as the Global Fragility Act (GFA). Although this act was developed by the conservative United States Institute of Peace, it was introduced to Congress by Democratic Representative Eliot L. Engel, then chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and cosponsored by a bipartisan group of representatives, including, significantly, Democrat Karen Bass. The GFA presents new strategies for deploying U.S. hard and soft power in a changing world. It focuses U.S. foreign policy on the idea that there are so-called “fragile states,” countries prone to instability, extremism, conflict, and extreme poverty, which are presumably threats to U.S. security.

Though not explicitly stated, analysts argue that the GFA is intended to prevent unnecessary and increasingly ineffective U.S. military interventions abroad. The stated goal is for the United States to invest in “its ability to prevent and mitigate violent conflict” by funding projects that mandate “an interagency approach among the key players, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Departments of State, Defense, and the Treasury” amid collaboration with “international allies and partners.”

In April 2022, the Biden-Harris administration affirmed its commitment to the GFA by outlining a strategy for its implementation. As detailed in the strategy’s prologue, the U.S. government’s new foreign policy approach depends on “willing partners to address common challenges, [and] share costs.” “Ultimately,” the document continues, “no U.S. or international intervention will be successful without the buy-in and mutual ownership of trusted regional, national and local partners.” The Biden administration has also stressed that the GFA will use the United Nations and “other multilateral organizations” to carry out its missions. The prologue outlines a 10-year plan for the GFA that, according to the U.S. Institute of Peace, will “allow for the integration and sequencing of U.S. diplomatic, development, and military-related efforts.” Among five trial countries for GFA implementation, Haiti is the first target.

Hailed by development experts as “landmark” legislation and, as Foreign Policy reported, a “potential game-changer in the world of U.S. foreign aid,” the act seems to offer a reset of U.S. foreign policy in ways that shift tactics while maintaining the objectives and strategies of U.S. global domination. The act and its prologue clearly articulate that the main goals are to advance “U.S. national security and interests” and to “manage rival powers,” presumably Russia and China. In this sense, especially for governments and societies in the Western Hemisphere, the GFA can be seen as a revamping of the Monroe Doctrine, the 1823 U.S. foreign policy position that established the entire region as its recognized sphere of influence, shaping U.S. imperialism. The GFA deploys cunning language—tackling the “drivers” of violence, promoting stability in “conflict-prone regions,” supporting “locally-driven political solutions”—that hides the legislation’s real intent: to rebrand U.S. imperialism.

In their deliberations on the Global Fragilities Act, U.S. officials labeled Haiti as one of the world’s most “fragile” states. Yet this supposed fragility has been caused by more than a century of U.S. interference and a consistent push to deny Haitian sovereignty. Throughout a long history and complex—though blatant—imperialism, Haiti has been and continues to be the main laboratory for U.S. imperial machinations in the region and throughout the world. It is no surprise, therefore, that Haiti is the first object in the United States’ latest rearticulation of a policy for maintaining global hegemony.

In fact, a review of the actions of the United States and the so-called “international community” in Haiti from 2004 to the present demonstrates how Haiti has served as the testing ground—the laboratory—for much of what is encapsulated in the Global Fragilities Act. The GFA, in other words, is not so much a new policy as it is a formal expression of de facto U.S. policy toward Haiti and Haitian people over the past two decades. Without recognizing these uses and abuses of Haiti, the site of the longest and most brutal neocolonial experiment in the modern world, we cannot fully understand the workings of U.S. (and Western) hegemony. And if we cannot understand U.S. hegemony, then we cannot defeat it. And Haiti will never be free.
Sovereignty Again Denied

Since 2004, Haiti has been under renewed foreign occupation and lacks sovereignty. This is not hyperbole. Take, for example, a series of events and actions following the July 7, 2021 assassination of Haiti’s arguably illegitimate but still sitting president, Jovenel Moïse. The day after the assassination, Helen La Lime, head of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), declared that interim prime minister Claude Joseph would lead the Haitian government until elections were scheduled. Because of Joseph’s interim status, however, the line of succession was unclear. Days before his killing, Moïse had named neurosurgeon and political ally Ariel Henry as prime minister to replace Joseph, but he had not yet been sworn in.

A few days after Moïse’s assassination, the Biden administration sent a delegation to Haiti to meet with both Joseph and Henry, as well as with Joseph Lambert, who had been chosen by Haiti’s 10 remaining senators—the only elected officials in the country at the time—to stand in as president pending new elections. Despite these competing claims to power, Washington chose a side. The U.S. delegation sidelined Lambert, convinced Joseph and Henry to come to an agreement over Haiti’s governance, and urged Joseph to stand down.

A week later, on July 17, BINUH and the Core Group—an organization of mostly Western foreign powers dictating politics in Haiti—issued a statement. They called for the formation of a “consensual and inclusive government,” directing Henry, as the designated prime minister named by Moïse, “to continue the mission entrusted to him.” Two days later, on July 19, Joseph announced he would step aside, allowing Henry to assume the mantle of prime minister on July 20. The “new”—and completely unelected—government and cabinet was composed mostly of members of the Haitian Tèt Kale Party (PHTK), the neo-Duvalierist political party of Moïse and his predecessor Michel Martelly. In the wake of the devastating 2010 earthquake, the PHTK, with Martelly at the helm, was put in place by the United States and other Western powers without the support of the Haitian masses.

After the U.S. Embassy, the Core Group, and the Organization of American States (OAS) released similar statements applauding the formation of a new “consensus” government, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken affirmed support for the unelected leaders. “The United States welcomes efforts by Haiti’s political leadership to come together in choosing an interim prime minister and a unity cabinet,” he said in a statement. In effect, Haiti’s true power brokers—or what I have called the “white rulers of Haiti”—determined the Haitian government’s replacement through a press release.

Meanwhile, the international community ’s decision-making process completely left out Haiti’s civil society organizations, which had been meeting since early 2021 to find a way to resolve the country’s political crisis as Moïse, already ruling by decree, was poised to overstay his constitutional mandate. These groups adamantly rejected the foreign-imposed interim government and have criticized the international community’s actions as blatantly colonial.

Who and what are the entities making decisions for Haiti and the Haitian people, and how did they claim such prominent roles in controlling Haitian politics? Haitians are not members of the BINUH, OAS, or Core Group. But also central is the question of the country’s sovereignty—or lack thereof. Haiti has been under foreign military and political control for almost 20 years. But this is not the first time, of course, that Haiti has been under occupation.
Legacies Of Foreign Control And Occupation

In the summer of 1915, U.S. Marines landed in Port-au-Prince and initiated a 19-year period of military rule that sought to snuff the sovereignty of the modern world’s first Black republic. During this first occupation, as I have written elsewhere with Peter James Hudson, “the US rewrote the Haitian constitution and installed a puppet president [who signed treaties that turned over control of the Haitian state’s finances to the U.S. government], imposed press censorship and martial law, and brought Jim Crow policies and forced labor to the island.” In line with its racist view that Black people do not have the capacity for civilization or self-government, Washington rationalized that it was necessary to teach Haitians the arts of self-government—a view that continues today.

But the most pronounced labor of the U.S. Marines was counterinsurgency. They waged a “pacification” campaign throughout the countryside to suppress a peasant uprising against the occupation, using aerial bombardment techniques for the first time. Dropping bombs from planes onto Haitian villages, the pacification campaigns left more than 15,000 dead and countless others maimed. Those who survived and continued to resist were tortured and forced into labor camps.

The United States finally left the country in 1934 after massive grassroots protests by the Haitian people. But one of the most consequential results was the establishment and training during the occupation of a local police force, the Gendarmerie d’Haïti. For years, this police force and its successors were used to terrorize the Haitian people, a legacy that continues today.

In the years after the 1915-1934 occupation, the United States continued to intervene politically and economically in Haitian affairs. The most notorious of these engagements was the U.S. support for the brutal dictatorship of Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier and Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. In the first democratic elections after the fall of the Duvalier regime, the United States unsuccessfully tried to prevent the ascension of the popular candidate, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. However, nine months after his January 1991 election, Aristide was deposed in a CIA-bankrolled coup d’état. The coup was not consolidated, though, because of continuous resistance from the Haitian people. By 1994, U.S. president Bill Clinton’s administration was forced to bring Aristide back to Haiti after three years in exile—with more than 20,000 U.S. troops in tow. Aristide was now a hostage to U.S. neoliberal policy. The troops remained until 2000.

Haiti officially lost its nominal sovereignty again in late February 2004. The Western governments, as well as the powerful Haitian elite, never supported the Aristide government, presumably because of its “populist and anti-market economy” positions, as former U.S. ambassador Janet Sanderson later alluded in a leaked 2008 diplomatic cable calling for continued foreign intervention. Thus, when Aristide won a second term in the 2000 elections, just months after his Fanmi Lavalas party gained control of a majority of seats in the parliament, the U.S. and its Western partners worked to discredit the administration. The French ambassador to Haiti at the time, Thierry Burkhard, later admitted that France was concerned about Aristide demanding financial restitution for the immoral indemnity—or what The New York Times has called “The Ransome”—that Haiti was forced to pay for its independence.

The plans for the 2004 intervention and occupation were hatched the previous year at a meeting in Canada dubbed the “Ottawa Initiative on Haiti.” Aristide had been back in power for two years. Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien and his Liberal Party government organized a two-day conference from January 31 to February 1, 2003 at Meech Lake, a government resort near Ottawa, that brought together top officials from the United States, European Union, and OAS to decide the future of Haiti’s governance. There were no representatives from Haiti in attendance. Canadian journalist Michel Vastel, who got wind of this secret meeting, reported that the discussion in Ottawa included the possible removal of Aristide with a potential Western-led trusteeship over Haiti.

On February 29, 2004, President Aristide was deposed, bundled onto a flight by U.S. Marines, and flown to the Central African Republic. Almost immediately, U.S. President George W. Bush sent 200 U.S. troops to Port-au-Prince to “help stabilize the country.” By the evening of Aristide’s expulsion, 2,000 U.S., French, and Canadian soldiers were on the ground.

In the meantime, at the behest of permanent members the United States and France, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) unanimously passed a resolution that authorized “the immediate deployment of a Multinational Interim Force for a period of three months to help to secure and stabilize the capital, Port-au-Prince, and elsewhere in the country.” In other words, the UN voted to send a “peacekeeping” mission to Haiti. Significantly, Resolution 1529 was passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which, unlike a Chapter VI resolution, authorizes UN forces to take military action through land, air, and sea without requiring the consent of the parties in conflict. That is, the resolution empowered the multinational force to “take all necessary measures to fulfill its mandate.”

The UN mission to Haiti raises four important points. First, Haiti was the only country not engulfed in civil war to receive a Chapter VII UN military deployment. There were certainly local protests during the passage of the resolution, but these were of Haitians demonstrating against the removal of their democratically elected president. The situation in Haiti, in other words, could not be considered a civil war, in the normal sense of the word, that merited a Chapter VII deployment (if such deployment can ever be merited). Rather, through the deployment, the same characters who initiated and consolidated the coup suppressed a people’s protest.

Second, key players in backing and aiding Aristide’s removal were also permanent members of the UNSC, the only body with the power to deploy a multinational “peacekeeping” mission. From the Ottawa Initiative, it was clear that the United States, France, and Canada had conspired to remove Aristide and destroy the Haitian state. Third, and relatedly, to justify the foreign intervention and subsequent occupation, the United States and France concocted a narrative that Aristide had abdicated the presidency. Indeed, UN security documents and resolutions about Haiti during this time, as well as Western media reports, pointed to Aristide’s presumed “resignation” as the reason for the deployment of UN military forces.

On March 1, 2004, the morning after Aristide’s ouster, Democracy Now! broadcasted a remarkable live program during which U.S. congresswoman and chairperson of the Congressional Black Caucus, Maxine Waters, called in to say that she had spoken to President Aristide. “He said that he was kidnapped,” Waters reported. “He said that he was forced to leave Haiti … that the American Embassy sent the diplomats … and they ordered him to leave.” In the weeks following, Aristide spoke to Democracy Now! about the kidnapping. “When you have militaries coming from abroad surrounding your house, taking control of the airport, surrounding the national palace, being in the streets, and [they] take you from your house to put you in the plane,” he said, “ … it was using force to take an elected president out of his country.”

Fourth, and perhaps most egregiously, the UNSC claimed that the so-called interim government set up in the wake of Aristide’s ouster had asked for the stabilization force. But that government was illegitimate. In his 2012 book Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti, Jeb Sprague recounts that in the early morning after the Aristides were escorted to the airport, the U.S. ambassador to Haiti, James Foley, picked up Haitian Supreme Court Justice Boniface Alexandre and took him to the “prime minister’s office for consultations in preparation for his ascension to power.” Haiti’s prime minister, Yvon Neptune, later reported that he did not have a say—nor did he participate, as dictated by Haitian law—in the swearing-in of Haiti’s U.S.-installed interim president. Alexandre’s first act as interim president was, on the order of the U.S. ambassador, to submit an official request to the UNSC for multinational military forces to restore law and order. The UNSC immediately authorized the deployment.

Taken together, these realities demonstrate how the entire UN deployment and occupation—based on a coup d’état sponsored by two permanent members of the UNSC, claims that the president had resigned, and the illegal swearing-in of an illegitimate head of state—were fraudulent. At the same time, protests from the Haitian people were dismissed by Western governments and media as “gang violence” and the action of “bandits.” Such characterizations not only tapped into age-old racist stereotypes of Haitians as always already violent, but also gave more pretext for the Chapter VII deployment. To add insult to injury, most of the UN resolutions referred to securing Haiti’s “sovereignty,” as if this sovereignty could coexist with foreign political control and military occupation.

The illegal 2004 coup d’état was both perpetrated and cleaned up with UN sanction. On June 1, 2004, the UN officially took over from U.S. forces and set up the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) under the guise of establishing peace and security. A multibillion-dollar operation, MINUSTAH had, at any given time, between 6,000 and 13,000 troops and police stationed in Haiti alongside thousands of bureaucrats, technical staff, and civilian personnel. In a horrific parallel to the first U.S. occupation of Haiti, MINUSTAH soldiers committed numerous acts of violence against the Haitian people, including shootings and rapes. MINUSTAH soldiers were also responsible for bringing cholera into the country, a disease that officially killed as many as 30,000 and infected almost a million people.

But what most solidified this occupation was the creation and operationalization of the Core Group. An international coalition of self-proclaimed and non-Black “friends” of Haiti, the Core Group was established as part of the 2004 UN resolution that brought foreign soldiers and technocrats to the country. While the group’s membership has fluctuated since its initial formation, it currently has nine members: Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, the United States, European Union, OAS, and United Nations Organization. Significantly, the group has never had a Haitian representative. The Core Group’s stated goal is to oversee Haiti’s governance through the coordination of the various branches and elements of the United Nations mission in Haiti. But in practice, the Core Group represents an insidious example of (neo) colonialism driven by white supremacy.
Imperial Punishment

While there was a formal drawdown of the MINUSTAH mission in 2017, the UN has remained in Haiti through a set of new offices, culminating in the establishment of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) in 2019. Despite protests in Haiti against ongoing UN presence, the UNSC continues to renew BINUH’s mandate each year. The latest renewal was on July 14, 2023. BINUH has had an outsized, public role in Haitian internal political affairs and is often the mouthpiece of the Core Group.

The overwhelming power of the Core Group is blatantly public. At a special session on Haiti at the UNSC on April 26, 2023, the newly appointed head of BINUH, María Isabel Salvador of Ecuador, took the lead in presenting Haiti in typical racist terms— as a basket case of unthinking and violent gangs. Unelected and unaccountable to the Haitian people, the Core Group is the arbiter of colonial direct rule of Haiti.

Western imperialism in Haiti is a hierarchical structure established through the power of the United States, which then outsources colonial control of Haiti to others. In a confidential 2008 diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks, then U.S. ambassador Sanderson called MINUSTAH “a remarkable product and symbol of hemispheric cooperation in a country with little going for it.” She continued: “There is no feasible substitute for this UN presence. It is a financial and regional security bargain for the [U.S. government] … We must work to preserve MINUSTAH by continuing to partner with it at all levels … That partnering will also help counter perceptions in Latin contributing countries that Haitians see their presence in Haiti as unwanted.”

Brazil, for example, home to the largest Black population outside of Africa, oversaw the military wing of the occupation since its inception. The nominally leftist administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spent more than $750 million to fund this operation. As I have written elsewhere, Haiti was Brazil’s “imperial ground zero.” But there was also buy-in from other marginalized governments from the Caribbean and Latin America. At one point, MINUSTAH’s leadership included a representative from Trinidad and Tobago and an African American attorney and diplomat. And this leadership was accompanied by a multinational military force made up of troops from several South American, Caribbean, and African countries, including Argentina, Colombia, Grenada, Bolivia, Benin, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Cameroon, Niger, and Mali.

In addition to Brazil, other neighboring countries’ neocolonial governments have been similarly recruited by the United States to aid in its undermining of Haitian sovereignty. The Dominican Republic, for instance, funded and housed the ragtag paramilitary troops that terrorized Haiti from 2000 to 2004. More recently, in the fall of 2022, Mexico joined the United States last year in advocating before the UNSC for renewed foreign military intervention in Haiti. Washington has urged Canada to take the lead, and in June 2023, Ottawa announced plans to coordinate international security assistance to Haiti, including police training, from the Dominican Republic.

Since Moïse’s 2021 assassination, Haitians have protested foreign support for the illegitimate and corrupt de facto government, rising inflation and fuel prices, illegal weapons dumping, and a dizzying rise in violence. In response, the United States and its allies have continued to push for foreign military intervention in the country. In January 2023, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) supported the call for a foreign force. In July, U.S. Secretary of State Blinken, Vice President Kamala Harris, and U.S. Representative Hakeem Jeffries convinced the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to reverse its initial course affirming Haitian sovereignty to now call for intervention. At the time of writing, the United States was poised to introduce a UNSC resolution after Kenya expressed willingness to lead a multinational armed mission. It must be noted that it is Haiti’s Core Group-installed Prime Minister Henry who, along with the UN office in Haiti, is insisting on this violent solution to the crisis in the country—a crisis they themselves helped to create.

The Haitian community’s continued protests against foreign troops and Western meddling are a testament to their unwavering courage.

The denial of Haitian sovereignty seems to be, as Sprague has described, “a synchronized effort by cooperating states and institutions bolstered by a global elite’s consensus against popular democracy.” The Global Fragilities Act, then, not only lays out a plan that has already been implemented in Haiti over the last 20 years, but also directly emerges out of U.S. experiences in the Haitian (neo)colonial laboratory. We need to recognize Haiti’s critical place as a testing ground for U.S. and Western imperialism.

But Haiti is also the site of one of the longest struggles in the world for both Black liberation and anticolonial independence. This explains the U.S. empire’s constant reactionary onslaught against the people of Haiti, punishing their repeated attempts at sovereignty with decades of instability designed to secure and expand U.S. hegemony. For two centuries, imperial counterinsurgency against Haiti has aimed to terminate the most ambitious revolutionary experiment in the modern world. The tactics deployed to attack Haitian sovereignty have been consistent and persistent. We ignore how these tactics may be used on the rest of the region at our peril.

Net Neutrality Is Back; Telecom Giants Are Again Playing Dirty

https://popularresistance.org/net-neutrality-is-back-telecom-giants-are-again-playing-dirty/










By Evan Greer, Fast Company.

October 5, 2023




Opponents of net neutrality have endless money to burn on influence operations.

And they’ve shown no qualms about breaking the law to achieve their goals.

Can you hear that? That’s the sound of an army of well-paid public relations consultants frantically typing up op-eds and blog posts at the behest of internet giants like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T.

Their misleading arguments are formulaic enough that ChatGPT can probably do most of the work. Slanted studies are being commissioned. Deals for ad buys are being signed. Donations are being made to dark money “nonprofits” who soon will suddenly care deeply about the classification of broadband.

Big Telecom’s lobbyists and spin doctors are working overtime this week because the Federal Communications Commission has at long last announced the agency’s plans to restore Title II net neutrality, which was repealed in 2017 by the Trump administration.

In a functioning democracy, this move would be noncontroversial. Basically no one outside of the telecom giants and their front groups supported the repeal of the rules. The Title II protections were put in place after millions of people from across the political spectrum demanded that the FCC use its authority to prevent internet providers from abusing their gatekeeper power, blocking or slowing down websites, or charging unfair fees to use your favorite apps.

Thousands of small businesses explained how net neutrality was essential for keeping mom-and-pop shops from getting crushed by big corporations. Planned Parenthood warned that the repeal of the rules was a threat to reproductive rights and sexual health. Librarians, teachers, veterans, and first responders all rallied against the repeal.

No matter your political views, pretty much everyone can agree that we don’t want our phone company to decide where we get our news or listen to music, charge us scammy fees, or generally screw us over more than they already do.

Unfortunately, that kind of “cable company f*ckery,” as comedian John Oliver called it, is extremely profitable for Big Telecom monopolies, especially ones that own their own media empires—Comcast owns NBC Universal, while AT&T owns CNN and HBO.

That’s why these behemoths are willing to stoop so low to kill net neutrality. It may be good for consumers and democracy, but it stands in the way of their aspirations of domination and their quest to squeeze us internet users for every penny.

How low will they go? Last time around, telecom monopolies were caught red-handed funding millions of fraudulent comments, using real people’s names and addresses that were stolen and stuffed into the FCC docket to create the fake appearance that lots of people oppose net neutrality. In California, astroturf groups placed misleading robocalls specifically targeting senior citizens, falsely claiming that net neutrality would make their phone bill go up.

Suspiciously named nonprofits like the Progressive Policy Institute, who hide their donors, ran misleading ads that looked like they were pro-net neutrality while sending emails to lawmakers opposing net neutrality. My own group, Fight for the Future, and other net neutrality activists, were targeted by a hacking-for-hire group who tried to break into our personal emails. Later, that group was tied to a “fixer” type firm that does dirty work for U.S. companies.

Opponents of net neutrality have endless money to burn on lobbying and influence operations, and they’ve shown no qualms about breaking the law or straight-up lying to achieve their goals. The ink has barely dried on the FCC’s announcement, and inside-the-beltway outlets are already awash with industry-backed opinion pieces falsely arguing that net neutrality was never needed and that bringing it back will ruin the internet.

This one is from an organization called Citizens Against Government Waste. They’re best known for astroturfing on behalf of Big Tobacco, but apparently they don’t discriminate as long as you’re willing to write them a check. Here’s another piece loudly touted to be authored by former Obama attorneys but—oops—they forgot to disclose that the underlying study was funded by telecom industry lobbyists.

Buckle up, kids. We’re going to see a lot more of this.

Telecom shills have a few talking points that astroturfers will continue to recycle over and over again. There’s the thoroughly debunked lie that net neutrality protections decrease telecom giants’ investment in their networks. But the new favorite by far is, basically, “The internet has been fine since net neutrality was repealed, so that proves we don’t need it.”

Actually, things haven’t been fine. Even with active court challenges and a strong net neutrality law in California keeping telecom giants’ worst behavior in check, big internet service providers have demonstrated exactly why we need to restore the FCC’s ability to provide basic oversight.

Verizon prioritized profits over people’s safety when it throttled internet traffic for California firefighters during devastating wildfires. Many disadvantaged communities, including those in rural areas and communities of color, have consistently been excluded from broadband expansion efforts. Some ISPs have even resorted to requiring customers to watch advertisements before granting access to the internet.

The COVID-19 pandemic forever put to rest the idea that internet access is a “luxury,” as millions of us found ourselves completely dependent on our internet connection in order to go to work, send our kids to school, and access lifesaving medical information.

With its hands intentionally tied by the repeal of Title II, the FCC could do almost nothing to address egregious inequities, like children having to sit outside Taco Bell to complete their homework during the pandemic because they didn’t have internet access at home.

After an industry-backed smear campaign against unquestionably qualified nominee Gigi Sohn led to inexcusable delays in getting President Joe Biden’s FCC up and running, the commission now has no time to waste. If it doesn’t move quickly to restore net neutrality, it could run out the clock.

That means the agency will have to steel itself against the predictable onslaught of misleading anti-Title II nonsense. Yes, there will be a steady stream of op-eds in The Hill, industry-friendly Wall Street Journal editorials, and astroturf letters covered by Politico. Yes, telecom lobbyists will likely revisit their exploitative and offensive tactic of falsely claiming net neutrality is harmful to communities of color and low-income people. Yes, right-wing extremist groups will laughably claim these rules against censorship will somehow lead to government censorship.

All of this is to be expected. But the FCC has a job to do. And it needs to do its job—even if the industry it’s supposed to regulate doesn’t like it.



Evan Greer is the director of Fight for the Future, the digital rights group known for organizing the largest online protests in human history for net neutrality.