https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ_Tw0w3lLA
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
British Army Chief Tells Troops Prepare For World War III With Russia
https://popularresistance.org/british-army-chief-tells-troops-prepare-for-world-war-iii-with-russia/
UK Army chief Patrick Sanders told his troops to prepare for World War III with Russia.
Benjamin Norton discusses how Western imperialists are threatening nuclear apocalypse to try to save their declining empires.
The chief of the United Kingdom’s army, Patrick Sanders, told his troops to prepare for World War III with Russia.
Mainstream British media outlet and radio station LBC published a report on June 19 titled “British soldiers must get ready to fight Russia in Third World War, army chief warns.”
General Sanders just took over as commander-in-chief, and he told his soldiers to prepare “to fight in Europe once again.”
According to LBC, the UK military chief said, “There is now a burning imperative to forge an Army capable of fighting alongside our allies and defeating Russia in battle.”
The British media outlet added that Prime Minister Boris Johnson had just visited Ukraine and warned his country, “I am afraid that we need to steel ourselves for a long war.”
In this video, Multipolarista editor Benjamin Norton discusses how Western imperialists are threatening nuclear apocalypse to try to save their declining empires.
The Neocon’s Dream – Decolonize Russia, Re-Colonize China
https://popularresistance.org/the-neocons-dream-decolonize-russia-re-colonize-china/
On March 26 U.S. President Joe Biden called for regime change in Russia:
Speaking in Warsaw, Poland, on Saturday, President Biden said of Russian President Vladimir Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
The White House immediately rushed to talk back that call for regime change and a day later Biden himself denied that he was calling for regime change:
President Joe Biden told reporters on Sunday he was not calling for a regime change in Russia when he said a day earlier that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power,” a surprising comment the White House quickly tried to walk back Saturday.
When a reporter asked if he was calling for Putin’s removal from office, Biden replied “no” as he walked out of church Sunday afternoon, according to Bloomberg pool reporter Courtney Rozen.
However, other parts of the U.S. government makes unmistakeably clear that its aims in Russia go even much than regime change. Tomorrow the US Government’s Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) will hold a briefing on the “Moral and Strategic Imperative” that makes it necessary to “Decolonize Russia”.
As Nicolo Saldo points out:
What is notable about this panel is the shift from “spreading freedom and democracy” to the need to “decolonize” Russia.
The neo-conservatives are back using a new narrative to push their old agenda.
Russian officials will love such talk:
Today’s panel is a further step forward in that it tells ordinary Russians that even regime change and democracy is not good enough for them. They require the partition of their country into smaller (more easily controlled) polities, so that they can be free. Needless to say, this is a propaganda coup for Putin and the Kremlin as it allows them to paint the conflict in Ukraine as an existential fight.
The Kremlin has no need to ‘paint’ the conflict as an existential fight. The Russians know that it is such a fight.
Biden’s haplessness continues to tank the Democrats chances to keep house majority.
In a meager attempt to tackle the high fuel price he will today call on Congress to suspend the tax on fuel for three month. It is just a gimmick which would have little effect at the pump and has no chance to pass Congress:
GOP lawmakers have been hammering Biden and Democrats on the campaign trail over inflation and fuel prices. They argue that such measures are political theater that will do little to make long-term dents in oil prices. The best way to reduce oil prices, they say, is to loosen regulations and increase U.S. oil production.
The real reason for high fuel prices is Biden’s misguided foreign policy. Three of the biggest oil producers on the globe, Venezuela, Iran and Russia, are under U.S. sanctions that limit their oil exports:
The sanctions have made it more difficult for Russia to sell its oil. Biden has also banned the import of Russian oil, and last month Europe announced it was imposing a partial embargo on it.
As of 2020, Russia was the world’s third-largest producer of petroleum, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
As the New York Times correctly headlines:
Western Move to Choke Russia’s Oil Exports Boomerangs, for Now
That move will continue to boomerang. Russia sells it oil to China and India where it gets refined. The resulting gasoline and diesel is then exported to the U.S.. That is good for India and China as they buy the oil with a rebate and sell the end products with a substantial margin. It is a ‘win’ ‘win’ ‘win’ for Russia, India and China with the sole loser being the ‘west’. Whatever NYT hope of sanction success is expressed in its ‘for now’ addition to the headline is not going to change that.
Meanwhile Russia is announcing the next target of its campaign to counter ‘western’ misbehavior – the reserve status of the U.S. dollar and the Euro:
MOSCOW, June 22. /TASS/. The issue of creating an international reserve currency based on currencies of BRICS member-states is under consideration, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday in the welcome address to BRICS Business Forum participants.
“The matter of creating the international reserve currency based on the basket of currencies of our countries is under review,” the Russian leader said.
BRICS currently consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Together those countries represent 3.2 billion people and a third of the world’s purchase power GDP. The new international reserve currency would therefore have a much larger backing than the U.S. dollar or the Euro.
The U.S. is moving too but in the wrong direction.
Some in the Biden administration are pushing to lower Trump era tariffs on Chinese goods. M.K.Bhadrakumar interprets that as an attempt of a new détente with China. I doubt that lowering the tariffs would have much effect on prices in the U.S. as a new law that became applicable yesterday will raise prices of goods from China even more. The U.S. is slowly waking up to the consequences of such stupidity:
The Biden administration has said it intends to fully enforce the law, which could lead the U.S. authorities to detain or turn away a significant number of imported products. Such a scenario is likely to cause headaches for companies and sow further supply chain disruptions. It could also fuel inflation, which is already running at a four-decade high, if companies are forced to seek out more expensive alternatives or consumers start to compete for scarce products.
Failure to fully enforce the law is likely to prompt an outcry from Congress, which is in charge of oversight.
“The public is not prepared for what’s going to happen,” said Alan Bersin, a former commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection who is now the executive chairman at Altana AI. “The impact of this on the global economy, and on the U.S. economy, is measured in the many billions of dollars, not in the millions of dollars.”
As Bhadrakumar acidly comments:
When Russia attacked Ukraine and the West imposed sanctions against Moscow, Washington threatened China that any move on its part to help Russia circumvent the sanctions would trigger severe punishment. Now the wheel has come full circle and the US needs China’s helping hand to salvage its economy. This is Thucydides Trap turned upside down — an emerging power rescuing an entrenched great power, whose extravagance pauperised it.
I doubt that. Tariffs or no tariffs China will not help the U.S. in anything. It knows that the U.S-Russian proxy war is about much more than Ukraine.
The current U.S. aim may well be to decolonize Russia, but its real geopolitical aim is a re-colonization of China.
Food Insecurity Increases In The US While It Declines In Nicaragua
https://popularresistance.org/food-insecurity-increases-in-the-u-s-while-it-declines-in-nicaragua/
Whose Socialist Government Has Defied U.S. Regime Change Designs.
In 2018, 48% of U.S.-based churches had their own food-distribution ministry or supported efforts run by other churches or organizations such as food pantries or food banks. These faith-based ministries, unlike government programs, provide immediate help to hungry people with no requirements. And more than two million people volunteer at a food pantry, soup kitchen, emergency shelter or after-school programs in the U.S., working more than 100 million volunteer hours a year—according to Hunger in America 2014, a study conducted by Feeding America.
Expansion Of Public Sector In Nicaragua Has Improved Quality Of Life For Everyone
In 2018, 48% of U.S.-based churches had their own food-distribution ministry or supported efforts run by other churches or organizations such as food pantries or food banks.
These faith-based ministries, unlike government programs, provide immediate help to hungry people with no requirements. And more than two million people volunteer at a food pantry, soup kitchen, emergency shelter or after-school programs in the U.S., working more than 100 million volunteer hours a year—according to Hunger in America 2014, a study conducted by Feeding America.
This wave of charity recognizes a serious problem in the United States: Despite being a wealthy nation, food insecurity remains high.
People In The U.S. Are Not Food Secure
In the U.S., the average percentage of households with food insecurity stayed between 10% and 15% from 1995 until 2020, when the numbers shot up. Despite volunteer and government food aid, hunger grew 9% from 2019 to 2020, when 38 million people were hungry.
According to recent research by the Census Bureau from the week before Christmas 2021, 81 million people experienced food insecurity, and 45 million reported not having enough food. Families with children have suffered most: The rate of hunger has been 41% to 83% higher for households with children than adult-only households.
In 2020, one in seven (14.8%) households with children could not buy enough food for their families. The prevalence of food insecurity was much higher in some states than others, ranging from 5.7% in New Hampshire to 15.3% in Mississippi from 2018 to 2021.
Twice as many Black households experience hunger than white households. During the pandemic, 19% to 29% of Black homes with children have reported not having enough to eat; 16% to 25% of Latino homes and 7% to 14% of white homes reported the same. Black families go hungry at 2 to 3 times the rate of white families.
Some 43% of Black households with children have experienced food insecurity during the pandemic—the highest rate in recorded history. Children get sick more often if they are not consuming enough nutritious food, and hunger impedes learning.
Thus, one in four people in our nation, the richest nation on Earth, did not have adequate access to sufficient nutritious food needed for a healthy life.
In the face of this pervasive food insecurity, families turn to a variety of sources for help.
More than 42 million people rely on SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. During the Covid pandemic, the USDA increased the purchasing power of the plan—by 21% —for the first time since 1975. There were also emergency allotments that increased the value of food stamps people received. This part will likely end soon.
In 2019, 35 million people relied on food charity, another sign that millions of people do not earn a living wage.
Undocumented immigrants are more dependent on food pantries because they are excluded from government programs. Church-related food programs make a big difference for these people’s lives, especially for their children.
One in eight families have reduced their food spending to pay for health care. And Black families are twice as likely to be unable to afford health care. Impoverishment in the United States includes food insecurity, lack of decent housing, lack of health care, poorly paid employment or no employment, and poor quality public education.
Approximately 80% of households receiving food stamps had at least one worker, indicating that millions of people do not earn a living wage.
In 2019, unemployment of Black individuals was double the rate of whites and Blacks were much more likely to only earn minimum wage or less.
In 2020, the average Black family had $1,500 for emergency spending, while white families had $7,500. Only 10% of Latino families had savings to last six months, while 36% of whites did.
In January 2020, at least 580,466 Americans were without a home, and 30% of those were children. Marginalized racial groups are more likely to be without homes as a result of segregation and discrimination in housing and employment as well as in many other areas of life. Hunger is not universal among unhoused people; however, it is much more frequent than among the housed population.
“Vehicle residency is one of the fastest-growing forms of homelessness,” said Sara Rankin, Professor of Law and Director of the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project at the Seattle University School of Law.
U.S. foreign policy has had a major effect on hunger and nutrition in developing nations for many years. U.S. agricultural policies aggressively promote creating markets for our farmers by promoting international reliance on U.S. food exports.
U.S.-Related International Food Insecurity
U.S. loan policies are never aimed at the food security of the population of developing nations; instead, they promote production and export of products such as bananas, sugar and coffee to the point that many developing nations are producing and exporting the same things. Thus, the international price stays artificially low, and the countries benefit little from these exports.
Small and medium-scale farmers plant the food that local people eat, like corn, beans, rice, vegetables and fruits, and they also raise farm animals in a more healthful way than large corporations. But U.S. policies have contributed to placing that land into the hands of large landowners and corporations.
The U.S. influences national policies of developing nations such that it is very difficult for small and medium-scale farmers to get loans or any other kinds of government support.
The U.S. subsidizes its own farmers to the point that products like corn and rice are actually sold below what would be the real price.
In this way, we put small and medium-scale corn and rice producers out of business in developing nations—they simply cannot compete with the large-scale subsidized farmers. So, most end up having to sell their land, leading to more large export-based farms—many now owned by U.S. corporations.
This whole process also leads to more migration out of these countries.
Dependency on food imports from the U.S. also undermines the international goals formulated at the 1974 UN World Food Conference to encourage food self-reliance and security from hunger.
An Example Of Food Sovereignty For The United States And Other Nations
The small nation of Nicaragua in Central America has worked on ending poverty for the last fifteen years. One of the most important strategies has been to develop food security, and today they have reached approximately 90% food security.
This means that small and medium-scale farmers are producing 90% of the food that Nicaraguans eat: corn, beans, rice, plantains, vegetables, fruits, chicken, fish, pork, beef, honey, sugar, etc. Their population is much more food secure in times of crisis, whether it be a climate-related crisis or a political crisis. There are no factory farms of cattle. There are large and corporate producers of export crops like sugarcane; but even coffee production for export is held more in the hands of small and medium-scale producers.
Along with this, they now have almost 100% electricity coverage, more than 90% of people have potable water in their homes, and there is good universal health care and education including technical and university education. The government subsidizes transportation, electricity and water for their more vulnerable population.
Since petroleum prices skyrocketed in March 2022, the government is covering all the increases in electricity, gas and gasoline. Since 2007, amazingly, they have increased renewable energy from 20% to almost 80% and are in third place worldwide.
They had a major land reform in the 1980s that put land into the hands of nearly a million people. During three governments by and for the wealthy from 1990 to early 2007, much of that land returned to the hands of the wealthy. But government policies have helped nearly 600,000 families legalize their property. The government also makes technical assistance, training and low-interest loans available to micro and small-scale farm families.
It is interesting to note that, during the years of the Somoza-family dictatorship, supported by the U.S. from the 1930s to 1979, there was much concentration of land in a few hands. That impacted what was grown and how. In the western Pacific area, there were so many pesticides used for production of cotton that, even today, pesticides are found in the breast milk of women from this area.
Because of current Nicaragua policies that benefit the people instead of U.S. corporations, the U.S. has been doing many things to destabilize Nicaragua politically, and even directed and financed a coup attempt in 2018.
Although it didn’t fly, it cost the economy billions of dollars, and the U.S. continues to try to destroy the excellent example Nicaragua is giving to the world. Just visit Nicaragua and you will see that another world is possible and that we could be employing similar policies in our country.
Corporate Profits Limit Food Security And Health In The United States
Monoculture production of grains on a corporate scale is not good for the land and requires enormous amounts of fertilizers and pesticides. Whereas sustainable farming practices control weeds, insects and other pests with ecosystem management, farmers who monocrop are dependent on pesticides. Pesticides are linked to multiple health problems, including neurological and hormonal disorders, birth defects, cancer and other diseases.
Production of cattle, pigs and chickens on a corporate scale is terrible for the environment and there are many cases of water sources being polluted.
Corporate-raised animal products such as beef have lower levels of important nutrients and are higher in LDL (the “bad”) cholesterol. Grass-fed cows eating in a field produce milk and meat higher in omega-3 fatty acids, high-quality fats, and precursors for Vitamins A and E.
The volume of animal waste produced on factory farms is much greater than that of human waste. Household waste is processed in sewer systems, while animal waste is often stored in lagoons and applied, untreated, as fertilizer to farm fields. That excrement stored in lagoons has pathogens such as E.coli, residues of antibiotics, animal blood, bedding waste, cleaning solutions and other chemicals. Manure pit gases with hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and methane fill the air, along with dust and irritants.
Factory farming is especially threatening to ground water supplies. Bacteria, viruses and nitrates can enter the supply and the community can be exposed to disease and nitrate poisoning. Nitrate poisoning is dangerous to infants and fetuses and can lead to birth defects and miscarriages. It has also been associated with esophageal and stomach cancers.
There is substantial overuse of antibiotics on factory farms—80% of antibiotics sold in the world today are for corporate farming. Antibiotic overuse leads to the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Then with mutations, these bacteria can jump to humans, causing pandemics. Pandemics are also associated with viral mutations promoted by the large number of animals in very small spaces. In recent years, we have seen an increase of zoonotic diseases; these are infectious diseases caused by a pathogen such as a bacterium, virus, parasite or prion that has jumped from an animal to a human. Examples are salmonellosis, Ebola, influenzas, and bird and swine flu.
In the United States, along with food charity, it is essential for us to become involved in changing food production policies that support more small and medium-scale farmers who can be encouraged to use sustainable practices through loan policies, for example.
We also need an agrarian reform plan and laws to limit how big a farm can be so that we prioritize the health of our population instead of prioritizing the profits of corporations. And, of course, we need good jobs that pay a living wage so that everyone can enjoy good nutrition—and we must recognize this as a human right.
One last point as food for thought. The U.S. has already sent $13.6 billion in arms to Ukraine and it appears on the verge of sending $33 billion more in arms. To end world hunger would only cost $45 billion. Why do our lawmakers so easily spend billions on war but do not even consider spending money on peace?
Lessons From Colombia: A Victory For The People
https://popularresistance.org/lessons-from-colombia-a-victory-for-the-people/
By Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG.
June 27, 2022
Featured Campaign, Podcast
On June 19, Colombians elected the first leftist president and the first Afro-Colombian vice president in history. This was possible, despite being in a repressive state, because of a strong national social movement that organized an effective national strike in the spring of 2021. Clearing the FOG speaks with Charo Mina Rojas, an Afro-Colombian human rights defender and leader in the 2016 peace process, about this victory, the obstacles they faced and how they will counter efforts by the wealthy class to prevent further progress. Activists in the United States have much to learn from the Colombian people’s movement and an important role to play in preventing interference by the US government.
Listen here:
Subscribe to our show on iTunes, SoundCloud, MixCloud or Stitcher.
Review us on iTunes! Click here … Then click on “View in iTunes … Then click “Ratings and Reviews.” Guest:
Charo Mina Rojas is an Afro-Colombian human rights defender with more than two decades of experience in activism at the national and international levels. Ms. Mina-Rojas is the National Coordinator of Advocacy and Outreach for the Black Communities’ Process (Proceso de Comunidades Negras- PCN) and a member of the Afro-Colombian Solidarity Network.
Ms. Mina-Rojas was extensively involved in the Havana peace process, serving on the Gender Committee of the Ethnic Commission. The Ethnic Commission was composed of the Afro-Colombian Peace Council (CONPA) of which PCN is part, the National Indigenous Orgarnization (ONIC) and Consejo Mayor Indigena.
The Ethnic Commission was formed to advocate for the inclusion of Afro-Colombian and Indigenous rights and perspectives in the agreement. Their collective advocacy led to the landmark achievement of an Ethnic Chapter within the Peace Accord, which contains protections for Indigenous and Afro-Colombian Peoples, including for their gender-based human rights. Ms. Mina-Rojas was instrumental in guaranteeing that Afro-Colombian and Indigenous women’s rights were included in the final agreement.
Ms. Mina-Rojas is now a member of the Special High Level Body for Ethnic Peoples, and is working to ensure the Colombian Government’s peace implementation plan fully adheres to the provisions of the Ethnic Chapter and other relevant provisions of the Peace Accord, including its gender rights protections.
Ms. Mina-Rojas has worked for many years to educate grassroots Afro-descendant communities on Law 70 of 1993, which recognizes their cultural, territorial and political rights. It was PCN, the organization that she works for that successfully advocated for the enactment of this law as well as the development of the Observatory of Racial Discrimination in Colombia, and the addition of specific statistics on Afro-descendant people in the Census 2005. Ms. Mina-Rojas raises awareness about gross human rights violations against Afro-descendant women at national and international level, calls for accountability and provides protection for Afro-descendant women leaders and women human rights defenders.
Abortion rights protests encounter police, right-wing violence
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/06/27/rqth-j27.html
By our reporters
a day ago
Tens of thousands continued to protest over the weekend in cities from coast to coast in the United States, denouncing the Supreme Court’s decision announced Friday morning to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision and allow state governments to outlaw abortion.
Some 15 states with “trigger laws” are expected to have legal bans on abortion in effect by early July, and a total of 26 states are at some stage of a legislative process to follow suit. Only the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states, the West Coast, and Illinois and Minnesota in the Midwest have robust protection of abortion rights in place.
States like Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Arizona and Montana are in legally uncertain conditions.
One of the largest demonstrations took place Friday night in Phoenix, as some 8,000 people marched and rallied outside the Arizona state Capitol. As they chanted their opposition to the Supreme Court’s reactionary and anti-democratic action, the demonstrators were suddenly hit by teargas fired by police from inside the Capitol building itself.
Republican Senate President Karen Fann issued a news release describing the peaceful protest as an insurrection aimed at overthrowing the state government. The state Senate was in session engaged in approving a major expansion of charter schools to undermine public education while the rally outside was taking place.
State police said in a statement that what “began as a peaceful protest evolved into anarchical and criminal actions by masses of [a] splinter group” (?!). They said gas was fired “after protesters attempted to break the glass” separating the protest from the Capitol building.
Despite these claims, state police made no arrests, and there were no injuries reported. Reporters on the scene found no broken glass. The only apparent violence was the tear-gassing itself, which not only dispersed the protesters but disrupted the state Senate proceeding, as legislators fled their chambers and took refuge in the basement as gas filled the halls.
Democrats in the legislature issued a mewling statement condemning “violence in all forms,” noting the purported attack on the legislature, but saying that Republican lawmakers were “weaponizing this moment to deflect from the actions of January 6th.” They also noted that they have voted to give state police a large pay raise.
Protests continued Saturday in dozens of cities, including New York City, Philadelphia, Washington D.C.; Norfolk, Virginia; Atlanta, Georgia; Birmingham and four other cities in Alabama; New Orleans, Louisiana; Tucson, Arizona; across California, and in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington.
In Providence, Rhode Island, a speaker at an abortion rights rally, Jennifer Rourke, a black woman who is running for a state Senate seat as a Democrat, was assaulted by her Republican opponent, Jeann Lugo, a white male police officer who was off duty. A group of anti-abortion protesters had approached the much larger group of abortion rights demonstrators and fighting broke out, which Rourke was seeking to break up.
Lugo has been suspended by the police department pending an investigation, and he announced that he was also suspending his election campaign.
In Atlanta, a group of fascist Proud Boys trailed Saturday’s abortion rights demonstration but were blocked from getting to the protesters by a group of veterans who called themselves the “Wall of Vets,” forming a barrier to protect the demonstration.
Friday night in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the driver of a pickup truck engaged in a verbal conflict with abortion rights supporters, then accelerated his vehicle and struck one of the protesters, who had to be taken to the hospital for evaluation. The police have made no arrest and filed no charges.
Outside New Orleans, WSWS reporters spoke with people demonstrating at the St. Tammany Parish Justice Center in the suburb of Covington.
Most abortions were banned in Louisiana on Friday following the Supreme Court ruling, when so-called “trigger laws” went into immediate effect. The two anti-abortion bills that went into effect were signed by Democratic governors, current Governor John Bel Edwards and a previous governor, Kathleen Blanco.
A number of young people at the demonstration spoke about their thoughts on the ruling, its relation to broader political issues and the role of the Democratic Party.
Riley said, “I feel like we’re going so far back in history. This is something women already fought for, and the fact that so many are here today having to fight again is awful. It’s awful to see that people have to fight for their rights again.”
Kylie added, “It’s terrible that we’re repeating something that is already so far gone. We have voices that deserve to be heard, and as women in America it’s not fair for our choices to be taken away.”
Asked about the Democratic Party, Riley and Kylie agreed that “they’re not doing enough. They could have done a lot more, and they’re not changing anything. They’re as responsible as Republicans because they’re not showing our voices.”
Two other young demonstrators also spoke about the Democratic Party. One said, “I think that the Democratic Party is not doing enough to support people and their endeavors to combat capitalism, and the brutality of the government is in turn backing the Republicans and all the very right-wing people and taking away people’s rights.”
Kyle added, “I think the Democratic Party is just another right-wing party no matter how much they want to disguise themselves as a liberal and social justice. I think it’s just as bad.”
Between 300 and 400 demonstrated in Norfolk, Virginia on Sunday at a rally called by a reproductive rights group. While the organizers and speakers tried to funnel mass anger into support for the Democratic Party, a WSWS reporting team spoke with several youth and professionals who tended to draw more far-reaching conclusions from Friday’s gutting of abortion rights.
Kaylani, a family therapist, told the WSWS , “Unfortunately, with this ruling it’s only the beginning, only the first step. There are going to be so many precedents they will try to overturn; we are now going so far backwards.” She added, “There is a right and a wrong in this situation. You don’t get to put your opinions on someone else’s body; you don’t get to choose for them.” Michaela interjected, “or who they love, who they marry.”
Cassandra and Savannah, two college students at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, came to the rally to oppose the attack on abortion. Savannah said, “I am a gay woman who uses birth control so I’m not cool with any of this. I am out here trying to protest, to make content on TikTok, anything to raise awareness about this. Honestly, the people representing us right now are not doing their job. Democrats knew that Roe v. Wade has been targeted for a long time, and they really have not been doing their job.”
Imperialist war and the attack on democratic rights
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/06/27/pers-j27.html
WSWS Editorial Board
a day ago
The escalation of the US-NATO war against Russia and the massive attack on democratic rights—epitomized in the US Supreme Court decision abolishing the right to an abortion—are two sides of the same process.
In his seminal 1916 work Imperialism and the Split in Socialism, Vladimir Lenin defined imperialism as “reaction all down the line.” In both war and domestic policy, he explained, “finance capital strives for domination, not freedom.” Lenin wrote, “The difference between the democratic-republican and the reactionary-monarchist imperialist bourgeoisie is obliterated precisely because they are both rotting alive.”
Lenin’s words aptly characterize the present crisis of the world capitalist system.
At this weekend’s G7 summit, the leaders of the major imperialist powers met in the Bavarian Alps to plan the next stage of the war. Behind the backs of the population, with no public discussion and no formal declaration, the conflict has developed into a de facto war against Russia in Ukraine.
The extent of NATO involvement was revealed in a New York Times article published Saturday titled “Commando network coordinates flow of weapons in Ukraine, officials say.” The article explains that the US and NATO have organized “a stealthy network of commandos and spies” who are “rushing to provide weapons, intelligence and training.”
The article cites US and European officials who confirmed that the NATO powers have deployed advisers within Ukraine to train Ukrainian soldiers, while the US military directly trains soldiers at bases in Germany. This is the product of a years-long plan, dating back to the 2014 Ukrainian elections and the Maidan putsch, to transform Ukraine into a staging ground for a war against Russia. The Times article states, “From 2015 to early this year, American Special Forces and National Guard instructors trained more than 27,000 Ukrainian soldiers at the Yavoriv Combat Training Center in western Ukraine near the city of Lviv, Pentagon officials said.”
In both their choice of planning location as well as in their war aims, the leaders of the world’s self-proclaimed “democracies” emulated Hitler, the last capitalist politician who attempted the colonization of Russia through military means. The very castle where the G7 leaders met in the Bavarian town of Schloss Elmau had been a Nazi military vacation camp during World War Two.
A communiqué issued by the G7 group after the meeting in Schloss Elmau states that it is prepared to carry on the war “as long as it takes.” This means there is no limit to the number of lives the governments are willing to sacrifice to accomplish their geostrategic goals.
The first point on the agenda at the G7 summit—on the cost-of-living and food crisis—makes clear that the ruling class is aware the war is paving the way for a colossal confrontation with the working class.
Under these conditions, the ruling class of each imperialist power views the most basic democratic rights as obstacles in the pursuit of its war aims. Even as the war propagandists in the corporate media justify war on the grounds that Putin is a “fascist,” the logic of the development of the war in the imperialist countries necessitates “reaction all down the line.”
The decision by six unelected judges on the Supreme Court to strip hundreds of millions of Americans of the right to abortion must be seen in this context.
In issuing its decision, the court announced that it was launching an assault on all basic democratic rights. While Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas explicitly referenced contraceptives and same-sex marriage as the next targets, he made clear that all cases involving substantive due process must now be revisited. This includes fundamental rights related to searches and seizures, free speech and assembly, labor regulations and other civil rights.
The Democratic Party and Biden administration have facilitated the Supreme Court’s attack on democratic rights with constant efforts to appeal to and appease the far right. When Biden speaks of his “Republican friends,” he is appealing for bipartisan unity in the pursuit of imperialist war aims against Russia. This bipartisanship only legitimizes the extreme right and strengthens the increasingly fascist Republican Party, which attempted to prevent Biden from taking office less than two years ago.
The intensification of the war and the abortion ban are inextricably related and underscore the basic truth that democracy is incompatible with imperialism. In his 1948 book The American Political Tradition, the historian Richard Hofstadter references publisher Frank Cobb’s recollection of a discussion with then-President Woodrow Wilson on the eve of Wilson’s 1917 decision to enter World War One.
According to Cobb, Wilson “said when a war got going it was just war and there weren’t two things about it. It required illiberalism at home to reinforce the men at the front. We couldn’t fight Germany and maintain the ideals of Government that all thinking men shared.” Cobb quoted Wilson as saying, “To fight you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fiber of our national life, infecting Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat…”
This is the case in every imperialist center, where three decades of nonstop imperialist war have asphyxiated democracy and nourished the forces of extreme political reaction. In Britain, Boris Johnson is perhaps the most hated prime minister in history for his naked corruption and slovenly subservience to the London banks. The Johnson government is attempting to deport asylum seekers from countries devastated by imperialist war to Rwanda in a move that even the European Court of Human Rights ruled is blatantly illegal.
In France, where Emmanuel Macron is reviled as the “president of the rich,” the fascist far right won more votes than in any previous presidential election. An unelected administrative court just banned Muslim women from wearing bathing suits that comport with their religious beliefs in a blatant act of cruel discrimination against the country’s large immigrant population.
The war will be conducted on the basis of a massive assault on the economic and social rights of the working class in every country. Government after government is pouring billions of dollars into arming Ukraine without ever asking the public. Calls are growing for balancing budgets to pave the way for further military spending. To pay for war, health and welfare programs will be gutted, even as the pandemic spreads and as governments enact fiscal policies aimed at increasing unemployment and lowering wages.
The war has exacerbated a cost-of-living crisis that is forcing billions of workers to confront unprecedented levels of economic hardship. The imperialist governments are sacrificing the lives of millions in Asia and Africa who face varying degrees of starvation in an attempt to weaken the Russian government’s ties to the global economy. In Europe and North America, the cost of food, gas, energy, rent and basic services is skyrocketing because of the war, while the corporatist trade union bureaucracies suppress wages.
Conditions are emerging for a revolutionary explosion throughout the world. Protests against the rising cost of living are suppressed with deadly brutality in countries like Peru, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, and elsewhere.
In Europe, strikes are growing across the transport industries, including among British rail workers, dockworkers in Germany and Greece, airport workers in France, Denmark and the Netherlands, and pilots and flight attendants across the continent at Easy Jet, Ryanair, British Airways and SAS. A series of powerful strikes has taken place in heavy industry in the United States, where strikes are threatened by tens of thousands of dock and rail workers.
The ruling class has responded by banning strikes and blaming workers for undermining the war effort. In Britain, the Tories are denouncing striking rail workers as “Putin’s agents” while the courts in the US have barred rail workers from striking on national security grounds. This is the modern version of Hitler’s “stab-in-the-back” narrative, which blamed German workers and the revolution of 1918 for German imperialism’s defeat in World War One. In Spain, the “democratic” government of the PSOE and Podemos banned airport workers from joining a European-wide strike for similar reasons.
The International Committee of the Fourth International and its national sections, the Socialist Equality Parties, call for the development of a powerful movement of the international working class against imperialist war. The fight against war must be connected to the defense of democratic rights, rooted in the growing struggles of workers throughout the world and based on a socialist program in opposition to the capitalist profit system.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)