The Threat Posed by globalresearch.ca

The Globe and Mail’s editors and NATO have published a strong attack (November 18, 2017) on globalresearch.ca, a website that regularly publishes posts which are critical of the US government, particularly its foreign and military policies. This comes at a time when the liberal political establishment is pushing for political censorship of the alternate media.

Kobani, Syria after U. S. bombing attack

In the 1950s I lived in Washington, DC and witnessed the impact of McCarthyism on the academic environment, the civil service and the racial and gay communities.. But ten years later there was the civil rights movement and the dramatic growth of the anti-war movement.

I have published a few articles on globalresearch.ca, mostly covering the research I was doing on Afghanistan. One article I wrote in 2009, “Crushing Democracy in Afghanistan,” was reprinted  by Kabul Press. The editor asked me to write more articles as he felt the mainstream media in North America was far off base on Afghan politics.

In 1970 the US government began to give financial support to Sunni Islamist organizations in Afghanistan. In July 1979 the US government and Saudi Arabia began major funding of the Sunni Islamist military forces opposing the Marxist government in Kabul and their Soviet allies. That has turned out well, hasn’t it?

US policy in the Middle East has followed the Carter Doctrine: the close alliance with the feudal Gulf States and the control of their oil is a vital interest. New wars in the Middle East began in 1991. The “Assad Must Go” policy associated with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, is the latest. But public opinion polls in both Canada and the USA reveal that the majority do not want any more wars.

The results of these policies, strongly criticized in posts on globalresearch.ca,  is very clear.  Mass destruction. Many thousands killed. Millions of refugees. Terrorist attacks on civilians. The rise of new radical right wing political parties. While NATO moves steadily to surround and isolate Russia., it looks like the NATO determination to remove Assad will result in greatly enhancing Russia’s standing in the Middle East.

For NATO and the US Deep State we have the mainstream news by Mark MacKinnon and Doug Saunders. For the critics there is Seymour Hersh and Robert Fisk. The full story of what is happening will eventually emerge.

No Is Not Enough

Naomi Klein’s new book, No Is Not Enough is on the best sellers lists. I had read and admired her two previous books: The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything. As she points out, this is a very different book. It is a popular tract on how we need to work together to oppose and replace Donald Trump as the President of the United States. The answer is not found in one-day marches on single issues but in bringing people together in an organized way to build an alternative movement.




If you regularly read the paper, follow the news on television or go online you will be familiar with the Trump phenomenon. In Canada it has been reported that most people now watch CNN and not the CBC or CTV. 

    It is only when you get to th last 40 pages of the book that Canada enters the picture: a look at the formation of the Leap Manifesto as one example of an effort to bring people together in a new progressive political formation. But there is no real examination of the experience of the Leap Manifesto. For example, none of the four candidates for the leadership of the New Democratic Party, a very moderate social democratic party, were willing to back the Manifesto. There is no evidence that any serious organization is being done around the manifesto.

Naomi Klein has deep ties to the USA. While born in Montreal, her parents are both American and she has dual citizenship. She writes for many publications but is a Contributing Editor to The Nation magazine. In the 2016 US presidential campaign both The Nation and Klein supported the candidacy of Bernie Sanders.    

The financial crisis of 2009 and the Centre-Left    

Where is the analysis of the Democrat Party? Even before entering the White House, Barrack Obama revealed his true colours. He took time off from the presidential campaign in October to go to Washington to pressure Democrats in Congress to support President Bush’s TARP program for bailing out the banks. Without majority support in Congress from the Democrats TARP would not have passed . The majority of the Republicans voted to let the market do its job, destroy the weak banks and let the strong ones survive. “Creative destruction” as Schumpeter called it.

Klein comments “What if the Democrats had used the leverage they had in 2009 and 2010 to make serious, substantive restructuring demands of the banks and the auto giants in exchange for continuing to bail them out.” Why would the Democrats do that? They are known as “the party of Wall Street” for good reason.

This is one of the frustrations with this book. We all saw on TV the massive support that came to Bernie Sanders during his left wing presidential campaign. When it became clear that the establishment of the Democratic Party was not going to let him get the nomination, Jill Stein offered to step down and let Sanders take her role as the presidential candidate of the Green Party. This would permit his “political revolution” to continue and confront the “Duopoly” of the American political-economic Establishment. Instead, Sanders declined the offer and  told his supporters to join the Democratic Party and to support Hillary Clinton. Klein avoids any comment on this crucial political shift. The radical democratic movement behind Sanders vanished.

What about American militarism?

There is another key issue which the progressive democratic left must confront: the militarism and imperialism of the Anglo-American alliance. Bernie Sanders was rightly criticized for almost completely ignoring this in his campaign. Some will remember that in his presidential campaign Trump argued that NATO was obsolete and should be shut down and that if he were elected President he would put an end to the politics of regime change. He would “drain the swamp” in Washington.

Public opinion polls in the USA showed that the majority of Americans were opposed to more wars. President Obama had bombed seven Muslim countries. Klein has dodged this key issue. In contrast, Martin Luther King insisted that racism and poverty in the USA were tied to militarism and imperialism and the US had to end the war in Vietnam. Soon after he was assassinated. 

Social Democracy and the rise of right wing nationalism
In the fall of this year there were two important elections in Europe. In September 2017 there was a national election in Germany. Angela Merkel and the Christian Democrats lost 65 seats in the legislature and saw their popular vote total fell by 8. Percentage points. The Social Democrats (SPD) lost 40 seats and saw their share of the vote fall to 20%, the lowest total since the end of WWII. The new right wing Alternative for Germany (AFD) won 94 seats and 12.6% of the vote.

In the general election in Austria in October the Social Democrats (SPO) won 27% of the vote and 52 seats in the legislature. But the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), a right wing nationalist party, won  26% of the votes and 51 seats in the legislature. In both these countries the social democratic parties had supported a neoliberal austerity program that had a dramatic negative impact on their trade union partners. To what extent is the rise of the new nationalist right wing parties due to the very significant move to the right by the social democratic parties? Klein does not get in to this, perhaps because the book is directed to a US audience.

Canada’s example of building a political alliance

There is one recent example of working together to build a new political alliance. In the late 1980s in both Canada and the USA popular organizations, led by the trade union movements, were formed –  broad political alliances to oppose the free trade agreements. In Canada there also was the formation of provincial Coalitions for Social Justice. Many popular groups joined in these alliances. Members of these groups individually chose to focus their political work in these coalitions. A similar organization was formed in Mexico in the 1990s.

One problem with these coalitions was that they were formed to try to defeat a precise political agenda put forth by big business. There was no attempt to formulate a positive alternative vision. Many saw the  coalitions as an arm of the social democratic parties. The Sanders movement demonstrated that this is now possible. But it would not work in the Democratic Party or in a Tony Blair-Bill Clinton neoliberal formation called The New Democrats. Unfortunately Klein chose not to assess this example.

No Is Not Enough: Resisting the New Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need. By Naomi Klein. Toronto: Knopf Canada , 2017












                                

Natural Resources: The Struggle between Democracy and Liberalism

Husky heavy oil upgrader at Lloydminister

For thousands of years human beings lived in very small communities, commonly referred to by anthropologists as “band societies.” These were egalitarian, democratic societies, based on the principles of reciprocity. Given this long history, one could argue that this is the normal social structure for human beings. The basic moral principles of these societies were altruism and solidarity. Land and natural resources were common to all.

    In these democratic societies there were differences in personal property, but there was no concept of private property in the means of production, which is the standard today. Everyone had access to natural resources and was guaranteed adequate food, clothing and shelter. Customs, rules and moral codes were established on the basic democratic principle of utilitarianism. Political decisions were made by popular participation. Anthropologists have noted that in these societies, sharing among the group increases when there is a shortage of food or a threat of starvation.

    In all these societies, land and natural resources belonged to the people as a whole. The different communities often had territories where they operated, recognized by others, but even here there was no strict territorial notion of ownership. These band and tribal societies have been held up as the earliest examples of democracies. The fundamental value was the recognition of the equal worth of all human beings.  (See Fried, 1967; Hindess and Hirst, 1973; Lewellen, 1992)

Unequal access to land and resources

    Change started to come with the neolithic revolution, the development of modern agriculture. Through the use of improved staple crops, the introduction of draft animals, and the use of irrigation, those who farmed the land were able to produce an economic surplus. The storage and distribution of cereal grains, in particular, allowed the development of a social division of labour. This new social system first occurred in Mesopotamia. 
 
    We see the creation of social classes, the fundamental division between the political, religious and economic elite, who had some form of special use rights over land and resources, and the majority who were the producers: serfs, slaves, peasants, peons, independent farmers who paid a tax, those under debt bondage, etc.. It was common that the producing class was forced to surrender 50% of the crop that their labour had produced. This was called “rent,” surrendered supposedly for the right to have use of the land. However, in reality this was a system of appropriation of the “surplus labour” from the agricultural producers, the surplus over and above what was necessary for the survival of the producing family.

    In these new hierarchical societies, where the farming classes were grossly exploited and often faced starvation, the political state became necessary in order to enforce the social division of labour. With clear class divisions, laws and rules were established and implemented by the dominant classes. The military, the penal system, and the death penalty became central characteristics of these states. It is in Mesopotamia that we first see the use of organized religion as an important ideological institution in the defence of hierarchy and inequality. (Bellwood, 2005; Bottero, 1992; Flannery and Marcus, 2012; Gamble, 2013; Leick, 2001; Weaver, 2003)

    Rebellions by the producing classes had to be contained. But while access to land and resources was unequal, the concept of individual ownership was virtually non existent. As territorial states were developed, land and natural resources became state property, to be allocated by the ruling political elite. (See Harris, 1977; Balandier, 1970; Krader, 1968)

    In Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, the decentralized political system led to the development of the feudal system of ownership and use of land and other resources. Local lords and tenant farmers had rights to land; the serfs paid a rent to their landlords, in the form of products, labour time and then later money. But there was no private ownership of land, and serfs had rights to the use of land.

    The shift to private ownership of land and resources came during the early rise of capitalism, the period commonly referred to as mercantilism, roughly between 1500 and 1750. Mercantilism was characterized by the formation of the territorial state, the development of the modern state political system, and the expansion of European imperialism and colonialism around the world. The territorial state became the new owner of all resources, and the absolutist kings and queens granted land and other natural resources to privileged individuals.

Cameco Corporation uranium mine

Land rights and imperialism

    For Canadians, what is most important is the changes that were occurring in England. The Norman invasion of 1066 began the process of establishing a more centralized political order. William the Conqueror laid claim to all of England by the right of conquest. As the absolute sovereign, he then allocated all the land of the country to a special group of aristocrats. These lords in turn granted land use to other subsidiary lords, then down to the tenants who actually did the farming. Peasants had the right to land use, for which product and services were rendered as rent. But there was still no concept of private ownership of land; lords could not buy and sell land and resources as if they were private property. The Crown still held absolute property rights.

    However, the landlords strove always to increase their control over the land. Parliament was originated as an instrument by which the landlords used their political power to gain the right to private ownership of land and resources from the absolute monarch. By the 17th century men with property had used their complete control of Parliament to establish a new legal system which granted them private property rights. Whereas the feudal system had been based on relationships between persons, by the 17th century this had been replaced by the capitalist concept of the exchange of things. (Hindess and Hirst, 1975; MacPherson, 1962; Vogt, 1999)                                                           
    The other major development in Europe over the mercantile period was modern imperialism and colonialism. England and the other major European nation-states embarked on extensive military assaults around the world. This involved not only the subjugation of the majority of the people of the world but also the imposition of absolutist colonial regimes. In all the conquered areas of the world, which included almost all of the non-white and non-Christian peoples, the colonial powers ended all systems of common ownership of land and resources. As one political economist noted, these acts of piracy “signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.” Not only did the imperial states seize all land and resources, individuals and their families arrived from Europe bent on grabbing “free land” from the indigenous populations. (See Weaver, 2003)                                                            
    Those of us who live in western Canada know this from our own history. On May 2, 1670 the British Crown created the Hudson Bay Company and gave the company “the sole trade and commerce of all these seas, straits, bays, rivers, lakes, creeks and sounds ... that lie within the entrance of the straits, commonly called Hudson Straits and the possession of all such lands and territories not already possessed by other subjects or the subject of any other Christian prince or state.” The mercantile corporation was declared to be the “true and absolute lords and proprietors of the entire territory.” It mattered not who lived on this land.
   
Liberalism and the right to steal land and resources

    The European monarchs had no problem justifying their conquest and domination of other peoples around the world. The indigenous people were described as barbarians, were not Christians, and were by definition inferior. The Europeans were bringing Christianity and civilization. It took a while for the Church in Rome to determine that the non-white people around the world were actually human beings. The Church then ordered an end the practice of indiscriminately killing these people; instead , they were to become slaves and serfs to work in agriculture, forestry and mining.

    But some English capitalists felt the need for a moral justification beyond conquest for seizing other people’s land and resources and ending their freedom. The most influential defence of the new capitalist imperialism was set forth by John Locke (1637-1704), generally considered to be the founder of liberalism and liberal political economy. He set down the ideological justification for individual rights, the right to own private property and the justification for imperialism and colonialism in The Second Treatise of Government (1690) and Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and Raising the Value of Money (1691).                                                                
    Locke argued that England had the right to seize land abroad as their settlers and business enterprises would be productively using the land and resources. The land not under cultivation by the indigenous population was considered “waste land” and could be seized at will. But Locke went farther in advancing the liberal view of private property. Since the indigenous populations of North America cultivated their lands in a collective or democratic manner, Locke argued that they had no claim to it. Under the principles of liberalism, those who farmed could only establish a legal claim if the land or resources were used on an individual basis; it had to be enclosed and fenced off by individuals. Since this was not the case in North America, new local governments, enterprises and settlers were free to take any land that was being used by the indigenous populations.                            
    Equally important to establishing the liberal capitalist view of private property, Locke argued that those individuals and enterprises which seized land and natural resources did not require the consent of others or the community in general. North America was “wilderness” or “vacant space” and any use of the land by colonizers would be a beneficial improvement. He also stressed that it was not necessary for those who seized this land and resources to pay any compensation to the general public. Furthermore, the indigenous populations could only claim the right to use the land and resources if they were selling their product on the world market.  

    Finally, Locke argued, government was needed to establish rules to defend the rights of the owners of private property. This is the first task of governments. It is only logical that those who participate in politics, those who can be classed as “citizens,” who can vote and  hold a seat in Parliament, is limited to men who own property. (Arneil, 1996; Macpherson, 1992)

Saskatchewan Potash Corporation

The democratic reaction

    The traditional liberal view of ownership and control of natural resources by a small group of men did not gone unchallenged. Over time we have seen the struggle to revive the democratic tradition. In the political area, men without property mobilized in a broad fashion to achieve equal political rights with those who had property and the right to form trade unions. Those who were slaves struggled to achieve freedom. Non-whites fought to obtain the same rights as whites. Colonized peoples took up arms to achieve independence from the European empires and establish their own governments. Women continue to struggle to be recognized as persons with equal rights with men.                              
    As democracy spread across the world  the majority who did not own private property in the means of production took political action, formed political parties, eventually formed governments, and pushed for economic and social rights and greater equality.  Part of this broad democratic struggle  has included the demand that natural resources belong to the people as a whole. Elected governments, with sovereign power, can redefine ownership and how resources are developed and used. It is clear that in the period since the rise of capitalism and liberalism, the central political struggle around the world has been between the supporters of the liberal order of privileges for the few and those who support the democratic value of equal rights for all.

References
   
Arneil, Barbara. 1996. John Locke and America: The Defence of English Colonialism. Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press.

Balandier, Georges. 1970. Political Anthropology. London: Allen Lane the Penguin Press.

Bellwood, Peter. 2005. First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Bottero. Jean. 1992.  Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning and the Gods.  Chicago :University of Chicago Press.

Flannery, Kent and Joyce Marcus. 2012. The Creation of Inequality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
-
Fried, Morton H. 1967. The Evolution of Political Society. New York: Random House.

Gamble, Clive. 2013. Settling the Earth: The Archeology of Deep Human History. New York: Cambridge University Press. 

Harris, Marvin. 1978. Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Cultures. New York: Random House.

Hindness, Barry and Paul Q. Hirst. 1975. Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Krader, Lawrence. 1968. The Formation of the State. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

Leick, Gwendolyn. 2001. Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City. London: Penguin Books.

Lewellen, Ted C. 1992. Political Anthropology: An Introduction. London: Bergin & Garvey.

Macpherson, C. B. 1962. The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke. New York: Oxford University Press.

Megarry, Tim. 1995. Society in Prehistory: The Origins of Human Culture. New York: New York University Press.

Vogt, Roy. 1999. Who’s Property: The Deepening Conflict Between Private Property and Democracy in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Weaver, John C. 2003. The Great Land Rush and the Making of the Modern World, 1650 - 1900. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.

Origins of the Free Trade Agreements

The Trudeau government is currently re-negotiating NAFTA with the governments of the USA and Mexico. The results we are told will be Win!  Win! Win!

How can Canada lose? The standard line from big business, the mass media and mainstream academics is that everyone benefits from free trade.  Consumers profit from lower prices for all goods and services. So while we wait to see how the proposed new NAFTA negotiations will go,  it might useful to remember the major political battle that transpired as the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) and NAFTA were created. Who pushed for these agreements? What was the opposition in all three countries?

The Push from the United States 

                                                                          

Free Trade Is For Capital Not Labour

At the beginning, a free trade agreement between the United States and Canada was proposed by Ronald Reagan in his 1980 Presidential campaign. In 1983 Paul Robinson, the U..S. ambassador to Canada, began talks with Sam Hughes, President of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. The US insisted that the official request for negotiations had to come from Canada in order to try to contain nationalist political opposition.

The US administration had goals: the elimination of the Foreign Investment Review Agency,  the National Energy Program and the Canada-US Auto Pact.  They wanted the agreement to include services, agriculture and culture. All federal and provincial government subsidies should be eliminated and “national treatment” guaranteed for American investments. Municipal and provincial governments were not to give preference to local, Canadian companies. The big surprise was that the final draft of CUSFTA also included a continental energy agreement that gave US investors a preferred status and guaranteed access.

The US government initiative had strong support among the American corporate sector. In 1987 over 400 large corporations created the American Coalition for Trade Expansion with Canada. They spent heavily on advertisements and began a major lobbying campaign in Washington.

Canadian Business Support for the Agreement

In Canada the Chamber of Commerce led the campaign. They were joined by the powerful Business Council on National Issues, the Canadian Manufacturers Association, the Canadian Bankers Association, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, and many other business organizations. They achieved support from the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects, headed by Donald Macdonald. After Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives were elected in 1984, the Canadian government pushed hard for a bilateral free trade agreement.

Strong Opposition in Canada                                                                               

 
There was strong opposition to the agreement in Canada. It was led by the Action Canada Network, anchored by the Canadian Labour Congress and the Quebec trade union federations. The coalition included teachers organizations, most farm organizations, the major women’s organizations, the Assembly of First Nations, the Canadian Environmental Network, and the Canadian Conference of the Arts. Public opinion polls revealed majority opposition to any agreement.

The Canadian business alliance played a key propaganda role in the federal election in the fall of 1988, known as the “free trade election” because of the strong opposition taken by John Turner, the leader of the Liberal Party. The New Democratic Party also opposed the agreement, but its leader, Ed Broadbent, played down the issue in his campaign.

The Conservatives won a majority of the seats in the House of Commons. But the Liberals and the NDP together took 56 percent of the popular vote. This explains why big business in Canada has been so committed to keeping the British first-past-the-post electoral system. Ronald Reagan declared CUSFTA “the new economic constitution for North America.”

Negotiating NAFTA                                                                                           

Historically, Mexican business organizations had not opposed the Keynsian “populist” agenda. They had clearly benefited from one policy in particular: when a foreign-owned corporation sought permission to build a plant in Mexico, they were required by law to find a Mexican partner and give them 51% of the voting stock. This had resulted in strong business organizations. As they said in Mexico, “300 businessmen run the country.”

This was quite a contrast to Canada which put up tariffs under the National Policy to try to force American corporations to manufacture in Canada. The result was the “miniature replica” problem: high foreign ownership, very inefficient Canadian branch plants, and a relatively weak capitalist class.

This changed in Mexico with a new political leadership that had largely been trained at elite American universities. They absorbed the neoliberal agenda advanced by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan: free trade, the free market, government deregulation, the privatization of profitable state-owned enterprises, including public utilities, and a broad attack on labour unions and the welfare state.

While the media emphasized the benefits to consumers of the removal of tariffs, in general they were already below the 10% level. Big business, sitting on excess capital, wanted the right to invest anywhere, sell their products and services anywhere, and repatriate their profits without government interference. Corporate taxes would be reduced and tax havens expanded.

The Alternative Agenda

When negotiations for NAFTA began, the Canadian and American anti-free trade coalitions were still in place. In Mexico, a similar coalition was formed, the Mexican Network on Free Trade (RMALC). Their goal, supported by their American and Canadian counterparts, was to raise Mexican wages and standards of work up to the highest levels in the northern states. This included human rights protections as found in the European Union, rules of the International Labour Organization on labour rights, and health and safety rules. The coalitions also argued that corporations should not be permitted to move to Mexico to avoid environmental regulations.
Of course, when the final draft of NAFTA was released none of these objectives were included. Corporations were moving to Mexico to maximized profits by specifically taking advantage of much lower wages, lower taxes and weaker regulations.

For many years public opinion polls in Mexico have shown majority opposition to NAFTA. Economic growth and job creation was much higher during the `populist” period, before the new shift to the politics of neoliberalism and structural adjustment.Today that opposition has been enhanced by the politics of Donald Trump. This is reflected in the rise of support for Manuel Lopez Obrador in recent public opinion polls. 

                                                             
John W. Warnock is retired from teaching political economy and sociology at the University of Regina. He is author of Free Trade and the New Right Agenda (1988) and The Other Mexico: The North American Alliance Completed (1995).               

Tina Beaudry-Mellor Seeks Leadership of Saskatchewan Party

OPEN LETTER

Tina Beaudry-Mellor

Minister of Social Services

P. O. Box 2405, Station Main

Regina, SK S4P 4L7

Hi Tina:

It has been quite a while since we have talked. Congratulations on your political success. You might remember that when I taught Political Science and Sociology at the University of Regina it was as a sessional or contract instructor, which meant low pay ($4000 for a course), no pension program, and no other benefits. Precarious work, it is now called.

I am retired and  living on CPP, OAS and GIS which comes to $1933 per month. This is tough for seniors for as we age we need new glasses, hearing aids and dental work. In Canada these are not covered by Medicare.

On top of this I have a serious health issue. For seniors this is common. Three years ago I started to have control problems with my left foot and leg. Neurologists I consulted in Regina suggested that I might have a neuromuscular disease. But more tests were needed.

I spent the winter of 2016-7 in Ontario. While there a physician referred me to the ALS Clinic at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, University of Toronto, the best in Canada. They did numerous tests, and the group of doctors and scientists concluded that I have a variant of ALS. This is a terminal illness for which there is no cure.

Canadians know more about this disease due to the national publicity given to the case of Sue Rodriguez and her friend and supporter, MP Svend Robinson. She committed suicide, as do many in her position today.

While in Ontario all my doctors and health support workers urged me to take out an Ontario health card in order to benefit from the Ontario Disability Support Program and the Community Care programs. I did so. I am 83 years old. I am not as sharp as I used to be. I was preoccupied with my health and living problems. I did not adequately research this issue.

However, when I returned to Regina in April I was informed that my Saskatchewan health card had been cancelled. I was cut from the Seniors Income Plan (a loss of $240 a month) and was presented with a bill for “over payments” from the plan. This was because I had “moved to Ontario.” This was not the case. I have been a permanent resident of Saskatchewan since 1986.

It seems to me that a Minister of Social Services should be a very compassionate person. They have to deal with the weak and the poor, the most vulnerable in our society. And there are choices to be made.

Yes, there is a big budget deficit. But why go after the weakest and most vulnerable?

Why not go after all those corporations and individuals who use offshore tax havens to avoid paying taxes? Why not start with Cameco? The Canadian Revenue Agency has concluded that they have used intra-corporate transfer pricing to avoid paying $2.4 billion in taxes. How much of that should go to the province of Saskatchewan?

Sincerely yours,

John W. Warnock

Who Rigs Elections? Russia or the USA?

Boris Yeltsin with Bill Clinton: Our Man in Russia

Turn on the news these days and all you can find are reports of how Vladimir Putin and the Russians were responsible for the defeat of Hillary Clinton and the Democrats in the US election last November. Endless allegations but so far no hard evidence.

Yet we know thanks to Wikileaks that someone hacked in to the e-mails of the Democratic National Committee and a key Clinton associate, John Podesta. Was it the Russians? The Washington Deep State knows but no one is talking.

The Next Question, Please

As a former academic, the next question should be obvious. Has the USA ever interfered in a Russian election? Some might recall that in December 2015 Victoria Nuland, a well-known neocon, appointed by Hillary Clinton to be her Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, admitted in public that the U S government had spent $5 billion “promoting democracy” in the Ukraine since 1991.

It used to be that the CIA was charged with clandestine intervention in elections in foreign countries, often done via their front groups and foundations. Then Ramparts blew their cover, President Ronald Reagan responded in 1983 by creating the National Endowment for Democracy. The NED channels government funds through a stable of innocent sounding organizations, administered by the US Department of State. Other monies go through the US Agency for International Development and the US Information Agency.

The Old Cold War

The US government and its allies in NATO had as their primary goal the overthrow of the state socialist regimes based on the model of the Soviet Union, the end of all regimes which operated a  planned economy, and the re-introduction of a capitalist system with a market economy.

While it is usually claimed that the US government wanted to create liberal, representative democracies in these one party states, this was never a high priority for administrations in Washington. One recalls the strong support given to the vicious military dictatorships in Latin America and the historic support for the feudal regimes in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region with their commitment to Sunni Islamist politics. US governments also supported the fascist governments of Salazar in Portugal and Franco in Spain in spite of the fact that these two regimes had fought on the side of Nazi Germany in World War II.  

In the USSR: Gorbachev v. Yeltsin

The liberal reform of the Soviet Union began in the 1980s. Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Politburo, undertook a policy to “expand democracy within the socialist system.” In 1988 he created the Congress of the Peoples Deputies, a new more representative legislative body. Its first election was held in March 1989. The disintegration of the Soviet bloc began on a serious level in 1988.  In June 1990 the Russian branch of the Congress of Peoples Deputies declared national sovereignty.

At the same time radical reformers gathered behind Boris Yeltsin. They wanted an end to the socialist system and the introduction of a capitalist economy. In June 1991 Yeltsin ran for the office of President of the Russian Federation and won. Gorbachev dissolved the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and resigned as Secretary. The breakup of the Soviet union followed and the United Nations recognized the new independent states.

The US Government Backs Yeltsin

The US government rushed to support those elements which pushed for national independence and the end of the state socialist planned economy. Much of the financial assistance was channelled through organizations and corporations  supported by the NED.

USAID provided around $300 million for the Russia project, run through the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID). They institute promoted the “shock therapy” model identified with Jeffrey Sachs, who became head of HIID. Sachs had been chosen by the US government to lead a reform project in Poland after 1989.

Most of the “reforms” were imposed by President Yeltsin via decrees bypassing the legislature, which was opposed to the complete dismantling of the old socialist planned economy. They were often drafted by representatives from HIID. Yeltsin began by lifting price controls and ending state subsidies. The result was hyperinflation, a dramatic increase in unemployment, a serious rise of abject poverty and the disappearance of the medical and hospitalization system, which had been tied to places of employment under the planned economy. 

The Constitutional Crisis of 1993

The conflict between Yeltsin and the parliament continued through 1993. In September  Yeltsin abolished the federal Supreme Soviet and the Congress of Deputies by decree and called for a new constitution. There were major demonstrations in the streets against Yeltsin and his reform agenda. The police and military erected barricades of barbed wire around the “White House” – the Russian parliament building. Leaders in the Parliament called on demonstrators to seize the television station. Military from the Department of the Interior and Special Forces appeared in support of Yeltsin.

On October 4 the Army began to shoot at the White House. Soon after tanks began shelling the top floors of the White House. Then the armed forces stormed the building. As the members of the parliament and their supporters left the building they were arrested and jailed. The following day Yeltsin banned the opposition parties and all their publications. Yeltsin’s action was strongly supported by the US government and its NATO allies.

Yeltsin proclaimed a new constitution and held elections for the new legislature in December. But the parliament elected was still dominated by the Communist Party and Russian nationalist parties which were strongly opposed to the liberal path being pushed through by Yeltson and his team of US advisers.

The Russian White House in 1993. Yeltsin/Clinton Democracy

The Elections of 1996

Yeltsin moved ahead strongly with his privatization program. Major state assets were sold, generally for about 10 cents on the dollar. This was the plan advocated by the US government.  However, the creation of a new capitalist class also produced a stable of very wealthy oligarchs who soon lined up behind Vladimir Putin.

Much of this was implemented by the Russian Privatization Center, which was created in 1992 by the HIID with a grant of $45 million from USAID. Other grants came from the Ford Foundation.

In the election for the new parliament in December 1995, the Communist Party and the Russian nationalist parties won a majority of the seats on a program which opposed Yeltsin’s policies. Public opinion polls showed that Gennady Zaganov, the Communist Party candidate for president, was well ahead of Yeltsin.

Once again it was the USA to the rescue. The Clinton Administration put together $14 billion in loans, much of it from the International Monetary Fund. The German government kicked in $2.7 billion, and the French added $392 million.

Yeltsin had the advantage of total control of Russian television, a state monopoly. Throughout this conflict the parties in the parliament, who represented an alternative vision, were denied all access. 

The Yeltsin campaign was run by three Americans, Richard Dresner, George Gordon and Joe Shumate. They were assisted by Steve Moore of Video International which had been trained by Ogilvy and Mather, the famous US PR firm. They flooded television with evidence of the horrors of the Stalin regime. It worked.

Manipulating Elections

Putin may have wanted Donald Trump to win the US election. Trump did pledge a new era of detente with Russia. But intervention? The NED directly operates  in over 80 countries doing their best to influence elections. Where is the Russian equivalent?

For more:

William Blum, Rogue State. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2000.
Stephen F. Cohen, Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives. NY: Columbia University Press, 2011.
https://www.thenation.com/article/harvard-boys-do-russia/https://www.thenation.com/article/harvard-boys-do-russia/
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/2017-03-10/russia-trump-and-new-d-tente.
https://www.monthlyreview.org/2006/12/01/the-myths-of-democracy-assistance-u-s-political-intervention-in-post-soviet-eastern-europe/                   

Bernie Sanders: "Don't Do as I Do -- Do as I Say!"

Donald Trump was not the only surprising political story of 2016. But given the total media focus on the new US President, we have almost forgotten the amazing political campaign of Bernie Sanders for the nomination of the Democratic Party for president.  I still remember the massive turnouts for his rallies and the long lines of  people waiting to get in to the events to hear him speak.

Out of nowhere we saw an America we had not seen since FDR and the Great Depression. Thousands cheered the attacks on Wall Street, the rule of the 1%, his criticism of the gross inequalities of income and wealth, and the corporate media. Sanders called for a political revolution, one which would give first priority to the most vulnerable, create a universal public health care system, end tuition at state universities, and shut down the “prison industrial complex.” Public opinion polls found that one half of American youth  preferred the Scandinavian version of “socialism” to capitalism. There seemed to be the beginning of a “political revolution.” It was astonishing.

Sanders’ Political Strategy  

Bernie's New Book 

Sanders was born and raised in Brooklyn. He went to the University of Chicago, where he joined the Young Peoples Socialist League (YPSL) and the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE). He supported Martin Luther King and opposed the war in Vietnam. In 1968 he moved to Vermont where he joined the Liberty Union Party. In 1972 they needed a candidate for the U.S. Senate, and Sanders stepped up. He got only 2% of the vote but did not give up. In 1974 he ran for governor for the Liberty Union Party and got 6% of the vote.

In 1980 a group of progressive friends decided to back Sanders as an independent candidate for mayor of Burlington. The strategy was to build a coalition that started with local trade unions, tenants, neighbourhood organizations, and environmentalists. They began in the poor and working class neighbourhoods, knocking on doors and pushing a very progressive platform. He was opposed by a Democrat and a Republican.. He finished first in a three way split.

Sanders had two allies on the city council with eight Democrats and two Republicans in opposition. They formed a new political party, known first as the Independent Coalition and then the Progressive Coalition. It became the model for the Vermont Progressive Party.

The Progressive Coalition administration of Sanders carried out many radical reforms in Burlington. Sanders took 70% of the vote in low income and working class wards. In 1987 the Democratic Party and the Republican Party worked together and chose only to run one candidate against him, a Democrat from city council.  But Sanders and the Progressive Alliance won 54% of the vote.

Going to Washington

In 1990 Sanders ran for the single seat that Vermont had in the U .S. House of Representatives. He defeated the candidate for the Democratic Party by 16 points. Elected as a member of the Progressive Alliance, he was the first person in Congress from a third party in 40 years. But to get a position on a Congressional Committee, he joined the caucus of the Democratic Party.

While in the House, Sanders opposed President Bill Clinton’s deregulation of Wall Street, the changes to the tax system which benefited the rich and the corporations, and stood against the new free trade agreements.

In 2006 one of Vermont’s seats in the US Senate came open, and Sanders declared that he would run. He got the support of Harry Reid, the leader of the Democrats in the U. S. Senate. With the Democratic Party not fielding a candidate, he won 65% of the vote, a landslide victory against the Republican candidate.

Rally in Oregon

Running for President

In 2015 Sanders made the decision to challenge Hillary Clinton for the nomination of the Democratic Party for president. He did not like Clinton’s politics; she seemed even more tied to Wall Street and the corporate elite than her husband. Furthermore, it seemed like there was never a war that she did not enthusiastically support.

The campaign showed just how the political process in the USA is rigged. The media largely ignored the Sanders campaign. The Democratic Party structured the whole primary process in order to support Hillary Clinton, the candidate supported by Wall Street. The neo-conservative elite, who had backed George W. Bush, supported Clinton as well. 

Numerous public opinion polls showed that Sanders would easily beat Donald Trump. In contrast,  the public distrusted Clinton almost as much as Trump. The Democrat Members of Congress who were backing Sanders could be counted on one hand. That was no surprise as they were all dependent on corporate funding for their own election campaigns and had moved to support the neoliberal program associated with the Democratic Leadership Council and the “New Democrats.”

When it became evident that Sanders could not win the Democratic Party nomination, Jill Stein, the candidate  of the Green Party, offered to step aside and let Sanders run as their candidate.  Together, they would “continue the political revolution.” Sanders said no. When Clinton was nominated, Sanders appealed to his supporters to back her and the Democrats. The political revolution, he argued, would continue, but inside the Democratic Party. There would be no attempt to create a third party to challenge the Duopoly.

 Where is Our Revolution?

The election of Donald Trump as President has come as a major shock to a majority of Americans. The Democrats are trying to blame it all on the Russians. Bernie Sanders insists that the future of his movement should be in the Democratic Party. A test case came when the Democrats chose the new chair of the Democratic National Committee. Sanders pushed for Keith Ellison, who had supported him through the primary campaign. The opposition was led by Barrack Obama and the conservatives in the party, including Bill and Hillary Clinton. They chose Tom Perez. There was no way that they would tolerate a swing to the left.

It is not enough to join anti-Trump protest demonstrations. The USA and the world face major problems at this time. The public wants an to end continuous wars. It should be evident that the Democratic Party remains the Party of Wall Street. The best alternative, the road to real change, is to follow the path used by Bernie Sanders in his political career in Vermont. There is the need for a revival of a national Progressive Party. The alternative is growing despair and withdrawal from political activity.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

How Did We Get Those Free Trade Agreements?

In 2016 “free trade” once again made the headlines. There was the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)  and  the Trans Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).  In the United States, both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump insisted that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had been good for Mexico but had greatly damaged the US manufacturing economy. Now President, Donald Trump is insisting that NAFTA has to be renegotiated.

The standard line from big business, the mass media and mainstream academics is that everyone benefits from free trade.  Consumers profit from lower prices for all goods and services. So Canadians are waiting to see how the proposed new NAFTA negotiations will go. It might useful to remember the major political battle that transpired as the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) and NAFTA were created.

The Push from the United States

At the beginning, a free trade agreement between the United States and Canada was proposed by Ronald Reagan in his 1980 Presidential campaign. In 1983 Paul Robinson, the U..S. ambassador to Canada, began talks with Sam Hughes, President of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. The US insisted that the official request for negotiations had to come from Canada in order to try to contain nationalist political opposition.

The US administration had goals: the elimination of the Foreign Investment Review Agency,  the National Energy Program and the Canada-US Auto Pact.  They wanted the agreement to include services, agriculture and culture. All federal and provincial government subsidies should be eliminated and “national treatment” guaranteed for American investments. The big surprise was that the final draft of CUSFTA also included a continental energy agreement that gave US investors a preferred status and guaranteed access.

The US government initiative had strong support among the American corporate sector. In 1987 over 400 large corporations created the American Coalition for Trade Expansion with Canada. They spent heavily on advertisements and began a major lobbying campaign in Washington.

Canadian Business Support for the Agreement

In Canada the Chamber of Commerce led the campaign. They were joined by the powerful Business Council on National Issues, the Canadian Manufacturers Association, the Canadian Bankers Association, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, and many other business organizations. They achieved support from the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects, headed by Donald Macdonald. After Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives were elected in 1984, the Canadian government pushed hard for a bilateral free trade agreement.

There was strong opposition to the agreement in Canada. It was led by the Action Canada Network, anchored by the Canadian Labour Congress and the Quebec trade union federations. The coalition included teachers organizations, most farm organizations, the major women’s organizations, the Assembly of First Nations, the Canadian Environmental Network, and the Canadian Conference of the Arts. Public opinion polls revealed strong majority opposition to any agreement.

The Canadian business alliance played a key propaganda role in the federal election in the fall of 1988, known as the “free trade election” because of the strong opposition taken by John Turner, the leader of the Liberal Party. The New Democratic Party also opposed the agreement, but its leader, Ed Broadbent, played down the issue in his campaign.

The Conservatives won a majority of the seats in the House of Commons, but the Liberals and the NDP together took 56 percent of the popular vote. This explains why big business in Canada is so committed to keeping the British first-past-the-post electoral system. Ronald Reagan declared CUSFTA “the new economic constitution for North America.”

Negotiating NAFTA

Historically, Mexican business organizations had not opposed the Keynsian “populist” agenda. They had clearly benefited from one policy in particular: when a foreign-owned corporation sought permission to build a plant in Mexico, they were required by law to find a Mexican partner and give them 51% of the voting stock. This had resulted in strong business organizations. As they said in Mexico, “300 businessmen run the country.”

This was quite a contrast to Canada which put up tariffs under the National Policy to try to force American corporations to manufacture in Canada. The result was the “miniature replica” problem: high foreign ownership, very inefficient Canadian branch plants, and a relatively weak capitalist class.

This changed in Mexico with a new political leadership that had largely been trained at elite American universities. They absorbed the neoliberal agenda advanced by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan: free trade, the free market, government deregulation, the privatization of profitable state-owned enterprises, including public utilities, and a broad attack on labour unions and the welfare state.

The media emphasized the benefits to consumers of the removal of tariffs. But tariffs in general were below the 10% level. Big business, with excess capital, wanted the right to invest anywhere, sell their products and services anywhere, and repatriate their profits without government interference. Corporate taxes would be reduced and tax havens expanded.

The Alternative Agenda  

Manuel Lopez Obrador at Mexico City Rally

The Canadian and American anti-free trade coalitions were still in place. In Mexico, a similar coalition was formed, the Mexican Network on Free Trade (RMALC). Their goal, supported by their American and Canadian counterparts, was to raise Mexican wages and standards of work up to the highest levels in the northern states. This included human rights protections as found in the European Union, rules of the International Labour Organization on labour rights, and health and safety rules. The coalitions also argued that corporations should not be permitted to move to Mexico to avoid environmental regulations.

Of course, when the final draft of NAFTA was released none of these objectives were included. Corporations were moving to Mexico to maximized profits by specifically taking advantage of much lower wages, lower taxes and weaker regulations.

For many years public opinion polls in Mexico have shown majority opposition to NAFTA. Economic growth and job creation was much higher during the `populist” period. That opposition has been enhanced by the politics of Donald Trump. This is reflected in the rise of support for Manuel Lopez Obrador in recent public opinion polls. .
                                                                
John W. Warnock is retired from teaching political economy and sociology at the University of Regina. He is author of Free Trade and the New Right Agenda (1988) and The Other Mexico: The North American Triangle Completed (1995).               

On Re-negotiating NAFTA

Most people who are following the Trump phenomenon know that big business is worried that the new Republican President will carry through on his pledges to pull the USA out of the various “free trade” agreements and put forth alternatives which will “bring the good jobs back to America.” The Globe and Mail reflects this concern through its editorials and its stable of men committed to the neoliberal program, enhanced in recent years by opinion pieces contributed by propagandists from the many right wing “Think Tanks” based at Canada’s universities.

A recent piece by Ian McGugan is typical. “...trade is a mutual exchange in which countries buy from one another and invest in one another...this back-and-forth usually works to both parties’ benefit because it allows each country to specialize in what it does most profitably.” Oh?

Who does the trading and why.

Historically, trade began as a democratic process in horticultural societies. People came together to exchange their surplus goods for goods that were in short supply. I was fortunate to observe one of these markets in rural Chiapas one day while travelling in Mexico. Once a week there was a community market where individuals (usually women) came, spread a blanket on the ground and laid out their agricultural products and crafts. They bargained with buyers on a price, usually based on labour time. The products had a use value for buyers.

I also saw this in a public market in San Cristobal which I visited with local friends. On several tables a woman from an indigenous community had stacked the clothes that she had created. The needlework was amazing. Her daughter, around 10 years old, was explaining how a price was set for the various items. It was based on the labour time needed by her mother to create the individual item. The labour theory of value.

The mercantile system.

This democratic trade was replaced in Europe during the feudal era by professional merchants who had a different value system: maximizing profit by buying cheap and selling dear. Slowly this form of trade came to challenge the feudal system.

Merchant trade was radically changed by the creation of the territorial states with absolute monarchs and a class system founded on a landed aristocracy. Trade was controlled by the ruling classes and state-created monopoly corporations like the Hudson Bay Company. State military power became an important factor in this new system of trade. Historians hold that the mercantile system lasted from around 1500 to 1750.

A key factor was the development of European imperialism and colonialism. “Trade” under this structure was more like military pillage. Slavery was introduced on a large scale. Europeans began moving to areas of the world where the indigenous peoples had been forcibly removed from their land and resources.

The new liberal political economy. 

A new class with wealth was developing under mercantilism, a capitalist class which demanded the end to the old order and the freedom to invest and trade anywhere in the world. John Locke is often cited as the founder of liberalism. But what he did was put together a unified political position based on demands by the new capitalist class.

Locke was primarily concerned with justifying the seizure of land and resources from indigenous communities. He supported slavery, was a partner in the New Royal African Company, which was engaged in the slave trade, and invested in sugar plantations in Barbados, which depended on slavery for productive labour.

The early liberals like Locke argued that the only reason for government to exist was to defend private property rights. Citizenship and any role in parliament should be limited to men who owned private productive property. 

When the new ruling class of capitalists took power, they fiercely supported colonialism and imperialism through the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Trade under such a system could not be anything but unequal.

The orthodox view of trade today continues to follow the model set forth by David Ricardo in his Principles of Political Economy (1817). Free trade benefits all. Every country has a relative comparative advantage. Great Britain should emphasize manufacturing. Portugal should give up on manufacturing and concentrate on making wine. How did that turn out? 

Karl Marx once asked: Cuba today is a sugar plantation. When did the Cubans decide that this was their international comparative advantage? In fact, the Cuban indigenous populations were all killed or fled to other areas around the Caribbean. They were replaced by Spanish immigrants and African slaves.

The real world of trade is quite different from that described in the current economics text books.  Governments establish policies to try to regulate trade. But it is the large corporations and the major financial interests who direct the policies and who do the trade in goods, services and control the capital flows. Different social and economic classes have different political views on trade and trade policy. This all became very evident in the debate surrounding the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

John W. Warnock is retired from teaching political economy and sociology at the University of Regina. He is author of Free Trade and the New Right Agenda (1988) and The Other Mexico: The North American Triangle Completed (1995).