The Arab American News Book Review of "Creating a Failed State"

 A friend of mine found a book review in the The Arab American News on my book Creating a Failed State: The US and Canada in Afghanistan. 

Link: The Afghan Tragedy

The book is more relevant now with the disastrous withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan. The reviewer gives it a positive review saying:

If you want just one book that gives you the story of the Afghan tragedy, this is it.

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).               

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.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

U.S. Presidential Election: Trump v. Clinton?

There were five important primary elections in the United States yesterday, and the results seem to suggest that the candidate for the Republican Party will be Donald Trump and the candidate for the Democratic Party will be Hillary Clinton.

Donald Trump now has around 674 delegates of the 1237 that he needs for the nomination. Ted Cruz, the right-wing Christian fundamentalist from Texas, born in Canada, trails behind with 396. John Karich, the “moderate” from Ohio, has only 142. The proposal of the Republican establishment to mobilize around Karich will not work, as the rules for the Republication convention require that a candidate have won in at least eight states, and he has won only Ohio.  On average, Trump has been winning 37% of the votes cast in the Republican primaries, but most of the states remaining have a “winner take all” delegate system which will greatly aid him.

Hillary Clinton won all five of the contests yesterday for the Democratic nomination. She is slowly adding to her delegate lead over Bernie Sanders: it presently stands at 1132 to 818, with 2383 delegates needed to win the nomination. Clinton swept the solid south, and this has given her the lead, but these are states where the Democrats rarely win. Sanders will have to win many of the big states by a good margin to catch up with her.

Clinton as the Democratic candidate
There are a number of significant obstacles to Hillary Clinton winning the Presidential election in November 2016. They are as follows:

(1) In the primaries there has been a significantly greater turnout of voters for the Republicans. For example, in the five primaries on March 15 the Republicans received 54% of the total votes and the Democrats 46%. If this trend holds, Clinton will have to move to the right to attract Republican voters. No doubt this is part of her strategy to defeat Trump.

(2) 43% of potential voters are identified as independents. Only 19 states have open primaries where independents can vote. But public opinion polls showed that 70% of independents have preferred Sanders over Clinton. What can Clinton do to change this situation?

(3) Young people have turned out in mass to support Sanders. Clinton is part of the political and corporate establishment that they oppose. Sanders was winning 80% of the vote of those under 30 years of age. Will they vote for Clinton? One poll reported that 33% would not, and a second poll put this at 20%.

(4) In the CNN/ORC poll released on March 1, 55% of those surveyed had an unfavourable view of Clinton. Only Trump was higher at 60%. Sanders was at 33% and was the only candidate which had a favourable rating over 50%. Can Clinton change this situation?

I can see a possible scenario developing. Clinton could enter the convention with a majority of the elected delegates, but less than a margin of 493, the number of super delegates who will vote without being elected. If the public opinion polls show that Sanders would win in a contest with Trump and Clinton would not, would they break with tradition and not back the candidate with the most elected delegates?

For Canadians: A Heads Up on Elections in the USA

Here are a few things to keep in mind while watching the news from south of the border on this year's federal elections. That's right, I was once a U.S. citizen, at university I had a major in political science/political economy, and while living in Washington D.C. I was close to the John F. Kennedy camp. Long ago.  

(1) Voter turnout in the USA is quite low by the norms of modern liberal democracies. In non-Presidential federal elections, it tends to be near 35%. In Presidential elections it is around 50%.

(2) In recent elections, the trend has been for a drop in voter support for the Democrats and an increase in support for the Republicans. In the 2014 off year (non- Presidential) federal election, the Republicans won 51% of the vote for members of the House of Representatives and the Democrats won 45%.

(3) The Republicans have a firm control on the House of Representatives, 247 to 188 seats. They also control the Senate, 54 seats to 46. They now appear to be the majority party.

(4) In the four state primary elections prior to Super Tuesday (March 1), there has been a significant increase in voter participation in the Republican primaries and a decline in participation in the Democratic primaries.There are nineteen states which have "open primaries" where a person can vote for a party without being a member. In 2015 26% of American voters registered Republican, 30% Democrat and 43% declared that they were Independent. Bernie Sanders is the most popular candidate among Independents, who won't vote in the major primaries, like California and New York.

(5) Hillary Clinton is expected to do well in the primaries in the Southern states, which the Democrats do not normally win in the general elections. A good example is South Carolina, where blacks are in the Democratic party as the Republican Party, which completely dominates the state, is seen as the White Man's Party.

(6) As of this date, it looks like Donald Trump will most likely be the Republican candidate for President. There is no moderate alternative. Ideologically, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are not that different. Trump's stand against undocumented immigrants from Latin America is popular as is his stand against Muslim immigrants. He has also taken a strong stand against the free trade agreements and the loss of good jobs to Asian countries, and this is also a very popular position.

(7) The powers that be in the United States are united in their opposition to Bernie Sanders, even though several polls show he would be the best bet to defeat Trump in the federal election. Polls indicate that many people do not like or trust Hillary Clinton. Check out the results posted on Huffington Post. http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster#favorability-ratings

(8) There is a movement among the younger Bernie Sanders supporters to pledge that they will not vote for Clinton. For good reason, they are angry at the way the Democratic Party structure is backing Clinton.

(9) In a contest between Trump and Clinton, I would not be at all surprised to see Trump the winner.

What is Really Going on in Ukraine?

On June 10, 2015 the Pew Research Center, based in Washington, D.C., released the results of a major public opinion poll it had undertaken on the conflict between the US/NATO west and Russia over the conflict in Ukraine. The poll results, ignored by the mass media in the NATO countries, presents a picture that is quite different from that of our mass media and our political leaders.

Ukraine right demonstrates

Canadians might not be surprised to learn that public support by Russians for President Vladimir Putin has soared to 88% and the view of Russians toward NATO and the west has plummeted. Support for Putin’s policies towards Ukraine stands at 83%.

In contrast, support for the US/NATO policy on Ukraine has been falling among the general public in the six European NATO countries surveyed. The strongest opposition to the US/NATO policy is in Germany. For example, in the NATO countries surveyed only 41% supported sending military aid to Ukraine, with only 19% support in Germany.

Even more surprising, only in Canada and the USA did a majority of those surveyed support sending military forces to defend a NATO member if engaged in a military conflict with Russia. The lowest support for such action was in Germany at 38%.

The survey taken in Ukraine excluded Crimea, now once again a part of Russia, as well as the Eastern Oblasts of Luhans’k amd Donets’k, the centre of military conflict. Overall, the survey revealed increased hostility to Russia and a greater belief that the future of Ukraine is with the European Union and NATO.

However, the survey revealed growing majority opposition to the government in Kiev, which has had strong support from the governments of the United States, Canada and NATO. The economy is in collapse. Only 3% of those surveyed said the economy was “good” while 66% said that it was “very bad.” Over the past year support for the NATO-backed government has declined substantially. The Pew poll found support for the Kiev regime at only 32% with 59% having a negative opinion.

Only 33% of those surveyed approved of the performance of President Petro Poroshenko while 43% disapproved. The poll found that 60% disapproved of the performance of the Prime Minister, Arseney Yatsenyuk. 

On  President Poroshenko’s major government policies

* 57% disapproved of the military conflict in the east,
* 57% disapproved of the policies towards Russia,
* 61% disapproved of the policies towards corruption in government, and
* 62% disapproved of the general economic policies.

For Canadians the most important question was how to solve the situation with the rebels in the Eastern Oblasts. The Petroshenko government has refused to negotiate with the rebel governments. They have insisted on a military solution. NATO claims that it supports the Minsk agreement for a negotiated solution, but member states are beefing up military support to the Kiev regime. Both the President and the Prime Minister have made very disparaging comments about the people living in the Eastern oblasts who speak Russian as their everyday language. At the same time,  Putin has made it very clear that Russia will not allow the Kiev regime to crush the rebels, and this position has very strong popular support among the Russian public. If the Kiev regime were able to more successfully pursue the civil war, Russian military intervention would be expected.

It is here that the Canadian government and the opposition political parties are out of step with public opinion in Ukraine. The Pew poll found that 47% in Ukraine support a negotiated settlement and only 23% support the Kiev government’s military solution. A much better policy would be for the Canadian government to support a negotiated solution to the conflict and the proposals by the Eastern rebel governments for modifications in the existing Ukraine constitution.

NOTE: This first appeared as a guest comment in the Leader Post.

Is Democracy Possible?

     It seems to me that the rich and powerful have managed to convince a large majority of the people around the world that there is nothing they can do to change or even influence their governments. We face the prospects of a dire future with climate change, and everywhere majorities want their governments to take action. But they refuse. People want cuts to military spending and a halt to endless wars. But it goes on. In Europe, majorities want policies that promote employment, but everywhere governments demand more austerity programs. The growth of inequality of income and wealth continues unabated; people want much more egalitarian societies, but governments refuse to change the status quo.
    The other day the new Syriza government in Greece proposed a few very moderate social policies designed to help the poor and the unemployed, but the European Union vetoed the legislation. In office, it is hard to see any difference between the parties which formally represent big business and the social democratic parties which used to represent the common people. Do countries and their governments have any sovereignty today?
    The political elite everywhere seems to be firmly on the side of the big international banks and the other financial institutions. In the USA, the Federal Reserve created $4.5 trillion through quantitative easing (printing money) and it all went to the big banks, not to the people losing their homes. The newly created capital also served to push up the stock markets.

The official view of democracy
    Our political scientists declare that democracy is giving citizens the right to vote in elections every four years. Governments increasingly declare that democracy exists when there is a free market economy. The Anglo-American version of this liberal version of “representative democracy” normally produces governments which have a majority of seats in the legislature even when they receive less than 40% of the votes. Elections are deemed to be legitimate where voter turnout is less that 50% of the citizens.
    What do kids learn in school? How many know that the British parliamentary system, like we have in Canada, was designed for a time in history when the government was run by a very small group of rich white men? How many understand that the US system of government was founded on the liberal model  where the goal was to prevent the development of democracy?

Election day in Greece January 2015

Democracy requires mass, direct participation
    Modern democracy first developed in Athens and other Greek city states. If you go back and read some history, you will quickly discover that Greece at this time (500 - 300 B.C.) was characterized by continuous class war between the oligarchs, the large land owners who used slave labour to produce the products and profits, and the democrats, almost all of the rest of the people, the small farmers, serfs, artisans, and the few free labourers. This was a pre-industrial era, with a very small proletariat.
    Of course, in a fundamental way these societies were not really democratic. Slaves did not have the status of citizens, but they could buy their freedom, and some were able to do so. The people who were not born in Greece, the metics, were denied citizenship status.  Then at the very bottom were women who had no citizenship rights; they were the property of men, and those married to the oligarchs were confined to the house. It appears to be the case that the only prominent women were courtesans.
    Nevertheless, Athenian democracy grew as the growing popular classes challenged the oligarchs. Final legal authority rested in the Assembly; its decisions could not be overturned by some non-elected court or high official. It consisted of all the citizens, met 40 times a year, and had a quorum set at 6,000. Decisions were made by a majority vote of all citizens present. When the oligarchs were in power, they tried to change the balance of power by setting property qualifications for citizenship.
    There were also the law courts. The judges in the courts were chosen by lot from all the citizens, and they were changed each year. The top ten generals in Athens were elected. The armed forces were a citizens’ militia. The oligarchs were able to fill most of the state’s administrative positions because most of the popular classes could not take these positions because they had to work for a living. The democrats forming government responded by introducing pay for government work.
    As we know, Greek democracy was repressed by the local oligarchs, often with the support of armed forces from other cities or foreign states. Then democracy was suppressed by the Macedonian empire followed by the occupying Roman empire. The first attempt to create a democratic society and state was replaced by various versions of rule by the propertied classes.

What can we do?
    This is the big political question. In the January 2015 election Greece became the first major state where the population stood up and said “we have had enough.” The turning point, I believe, was when the unionized working class, which had historically supported the social democrats (PASOK), decided to break with tradition and shifted their support to the progressive, democratic left.
    Across Europe all of the governments and mainstream political parties, including the social democratic formations, have stood firmly with the capital class. They insist that there is no alternative to the neoliberal model. If this first attempt to move towards a democratic state and society is to survive, it needs strong support from its political and ideological allies, beginning in Europe.

The EU Message to the Greek Population: “There is no alternative” to making you suffer even more

    What’s going to happen in Greece? As I write this, the new left-wing Syriza government is trying to come up with an economic plan that will end the five years of hardship that has come with the austerity program that has been imposed on Greeks by the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank. The previous Greek governments, by the right wing New Democracy Party and the social democratic PASOK party, surrendered control over their economy to the technocrats from the Troika. The result has been a steady decline in the economy, an enormous government debt, the rapid rise in unemployment to over 26%, and the imposition of draconian social policies that have devastated the working class, seniors on pensions and the poor.

    Those on the political left have kept a close eye on what has been happening in Greece in recent years. In many ways the crisis mirrors what has happened to a whole host of underdeveloped countries who have experienced “structural adjustment” imposed on them by the World Bank, the IMF and the World Trade Organization. The Keynesian Welfare State is no more. Governments are not to create or maintain social programs that try to help the poor. Countries are not to have public ownership of essential public utilities. It is morally wrong for governments to tax corporations and the elite. Governments should not be introducing regulations to protect health, welfare and the environment.
   
The failure of previous Greek governments
    We have heard for years that “Greeks don’t pay their taxes.” But as Christos Laskos and Euclid Tsakalotos point out in Crucible of Resistance, it is really the rich and powerful who don’t pay their taxes. During the boom period from 2004 to 2008, corporate profits increased by 35%, but at the same time taxes received from private firms fell by 2 percent. Corporate tax evasion is rampant. In 2010 the 900,.000 private corporations “contributed only about 4 percent of total tax revenues.” There is a long history of the upper classes hiding their income and wealth in tax havens and Swiss banks. Independent professionals, like doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc., only declare a small percentage of their income on which they are taxed. The same is true of the small business sector. The new Syriza government has pledged to change all this. We will see.

    There were some attempts to impose the neoliberal model on the Greek population in the 1980s. But the big push for change began in 1996 with the election of a government under Kostas Simitis, the new leader of PASOK. He followed the trend of the social democratic parties in Europe, like those of Tony Blair in Great Britain and Gerhardt Schroeder in Germany. “Modernization” meant the repeal of the Keynesian welfare state. The new program of the social democrats emphasized “reform,” which in Greece included reduction of the taxes on corporations, the privatization of public enterprises and services, the implementation of “labour market reforms” and the liberalization of the financial system. The social democrats boosted casual and precarious labour in both the public and private sectors.

    Nevertheless, the Greek economy produced higher growth rates than the European Union as a whole between 1996 and 2008. New industrial sectors were developed. Investment was high. Profits for the private sector rose steadily. The decline in remuneration for the working class was offset by a significant increase in household debt. Public sector employment was at the average for the EU. Employment in the primary and secondary private sectors was 33.2% of total employment compared to 28.7% in the EU.

    Where Greece has differed from the EU is the extent of self-employment: in 2008 it was 35% in Greece compared to 14% in the EU. The high level of self-employment in the agriculture accounts for much of the difference. There are also many craftsmen and technicians who work on their own instead of with a business. Labour market “flexibility” has added to this number, the disguised unemployed.

    The other major difference is the size of the small business sector. In 2010 only 15% of Greek employees worked in firms with over 50 employees; in the EU as a whole, this figure is 31%. Part of the persistence of small firms has been their ability to avoid paying taxes. Many of these small businesses have disappeared in the post-2008 crisis.

The debtor nation
    The crisis of 2008, which was triggered by the collapse of the financial sector and the housing bubbles that had been created, revealed the extent to which the new capitalist system was linked on an international level.
    The New Democracy government held on until the general election of October 2009, when it was defeated by PASOK under the leadership of George Papandreou. Greece was reprimanded by the European Community when its budget deficit rose to over 12%, The PASOK government responded with cuts to wages and salaries and “reforms” to pensions and taxes.
    In May 2010 the Eurozone countries and the IMF provided a $110 billion loan, and PASOK promised to cut the budget deficit to 3%. In December the parliament voted for wage cuts for both the public and private sector. The second “bailout package” from the Troika came in July 2011. The government responded with spending cuts and tax increases, cuts in the public sector, cuts in pensions, and labour market “reforms.”
    In desperation, Papandreou formed a new coalition government under the leadership of Lucas Papademos. More omnibus bills were passed boosting restructuring. In early 2012 there were two general elections, and Greece ended up with a three-party coalition government headed by New Democracy. More cuts and restructuring followed.

The popular left mobilizes.
    Canadians could hardly believe the political changes that were taking place in Greece at this time. There was mass resistance from the victims of the economic crisis. It began in December 2008 with riots in Athens. The political leadership in parliament urged restraint. But the grass roots resistance spread. The new red-green party, the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza), actively supported all the grass roots political actions. The Communist Party (KKE) did not.
    The trade union leadership was reluctant to take extra-;parliamentary action because “their party” (PASOK) formed the government. But the grass roots members demanded action. The first general strike was held on May 5, 2010. Through the end of 2012 there had been 30 general strikes and many individual strikes, 500 in 2011 and 700 in 2012.
    In the fall of 2011 the Papandreou government imposed a new property tax which was tied to people’s electricity bills. Non payment would result in the loss of electrical power. There seemed to be no limit to what the social democratic government would do to try to placate the gnomes of Zurich.
    The other major development was the rise of Syriza as a serious political party seeking government power. In 2009 it received only 4.5% of the vote. In the May 2012 election it received 26.9% of the vote. In the campaigns of 2012 the party stressed popular assemblies in local towns and neighbourhoods with strong public participation and debate. In this class struggle, PASOK collapsed as its working class members fled to Syriza. There was no increase in support for KKE, which refused to embrace the new politics of the democratic left.
    In the election in January 2015. Syriza won 36% of the vote and under the strange Greek electoral system was able to form a majority government with the support of the Independent Greeks, which received 5% of the vote and 13 seats.
     PASOK, the social democratic party, received only 4.7% of the vote and 13 seats. They had been abandoned by their trade union allies. As Laskos and Tsakalotos point out, in the era of neoliberalism there has been a convergence between the social democratic parties and the traditional parties which represent big business. Greece is the first instance where their traditional supporters, the members of the mainstream trade unions, had shifted in mass, to a party on the left.

What will Syriza do?
    What will happen next? The leadership of Syriza confronted the Ministers of the European Union last Friday. The united front took a tough stand, forcing the new Greek government to surrender the major thrust of their political agenda, ending the control of the Troika over the Greek economy and the imposition of the disastrous austerity program. Syriza is up against the wall. Government funds were expected to be completely depleted by the end of February. They asked for a bridging loan for four months to work out their alternate plan. The EU ministers agreed, but only if Greece abandoned almost all of its election platform.
    It is reported that there is great disappointment and anger among Syriza supporters and members of the parliamentary caucus. Commentators are suggesting that the leadership will not be able to get their agreement through the parliament. What will the grass roots movement do? The party leadership had insisted that Greece stay in the European Union, a position supported by 70% of the Greek population, as reflected in public opinion polls. But an exit from the EU may be the only alternative to complete surrender of sovereignty to the Troika. It is also the best hope of breaking out of debt bondage.
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“I’ve seen the future, brother: it is murder.”

The Collapse of Western Civilization; a View from the Future. By Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014. 90 pp.

I guess a lot of people who read feel like they have had enough of the climate change issue. There are thousands of scientists working on the issue, and reports come out every day. A survey of literature in the scientific journals finds that 97% of those doing the actual research know that global warming and climate change is caused by humans burning fossil fuels.

The international organizations confronting this issue have set an arbitrary limit to the increase in temperature that we can tolerate: 2 degrees Celsius. That level of increase is often cited as “the tipping point” which will trigger disasters that cannot be stopped or reversed. The World Bank in its 2012 report argued that if things continue as they are going by the end of the 21st Century the rise would be around 4 degrees. They warned that it is not certain that we can adapt to such a climate. The International Energy Agency, an arm of the western capitalist states, which promotes the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, warned in 2011 that we are actually heading towards a 6 degrees Celsius increase.

We also know only too well that our governments are unwilling to take any serious steps towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions. All the international conferences on the issue repeat the conflict between the industrialized western states and the less developed countries. Our governments are not impressed with arguments that our industrial revolution created the mess, so why should the poor countries of the Third World be called on to take a heavy economic hit? Why don’t we set up a system based on per-capita consumption of fossil fuels? And so on.

It is easy for those of us who have followed this issue over the years to conclude that it seems highly unlikely that our governments will adopt any policies that seriously try to mitigate the problem. Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway believe this to be the case. Thus their small book looks back at the Period of the Penumbra (1988 - 2093), which produced the Great Collapse and the Mass Migration (2073-2093). Why did this happen?

Oreskes and Conway are highly respected historians of science based at U.S. universities. In 2010 they authored the widely acclaimed Merchants of Doubt. They exposed the influence of a small number of right wing neoliberal scientists whose crusade was to cast doubt on the science which exposed the dangers of tobacco smoking, acid rain, the questions about the ozone layer, and climate change. They were aided by corporations and conservative “think tanks.” The strategy was to deny the mainstream scientific data, delay any government action, and to present misleading evidence. They were aided by the mainstream media, which gave them equal coverage under their demand for “balanced reporting.”

Neoliberal hegemony
The key to the lack of action by governments was the ideological hegemony of neoliberal political economy. The scientists were on the political right: they strongly resisted any government intervention into the free market. These advocates were relatively few in number, but they had the support of political and economic power.

As I read their prediction of what would happen without a significant effort to reduce the burning of fossil fuels, I was reminded of the study done for the Pentagon on what to expect from the advance of climate change. It was the only study to seriously predict major loss of food crops, food riots, mass migrations, wars for the control of resources, the outbreak of diseases, and the inability of governments to deal with the crisis. The result, they predicted, would be highly authoritarian governments and increased militarism.

Oreskes and Conway project the arrival of the Great North American Desert in 2041, which spread up from the High Plains in the USA through the breadbasket states and the Canadian prairies. In response to food riots and widespread looting, the U.S. government imposed martial law. The two countries formed the United States of North America to try to share resources and help the mass migration of American citizens into Canada. Similar moves were made in Europe and Russia. The populations of Australia and Africa were obliterated by the warming climate and the inability to grow food. The country that dealt best with the crisis was China, which had an effective authoritarian government, a very large military/police establishment, and a citizenry used to following orders.

“Where they said REPENT, REPENT, I wonder what they meant.”

Thanks, Leonard.

Are you being monitored by Big Brother?

It seems a bit strange that Canadians and Americans show surprise when a whistleblower reveals that the U.S. government and its NATO allies are monitoring all of their communications. This has been going on for years. Does anyone remember Echelon?

Here is a very brief description of the extent of this monitoring, from a chapter in my book, Creating a Failed State: The US and Canada in Afghanistan (2008):

National Security Intelligence  
     Paired with its new military deployment is the U.S. government’s attempt to enhance its ability to gather and use intelligence. Under the Patriot Act and similar legislation in other countries governments have expanded their ability to acquire information through wire taps. The U.S. government even monitors what books people borrow from libraries and the web sites they access while doing research.
    The U.S. military finances several key organizations which specialize in high tech intelligence-gathering, including the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. The Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency do work in this area as well. In contrast to past systems of surveillance, there is no longer an emphasis on focusing on individual suspects. Today, the entire population is constantly under surveillance.
    Telephone calls, faxes, e-mails, Internet communications, telegrams and telexes are all sent by communication satellites under the control of Intelsat, which is ostensibly an international agency but actually  controlled by Lockheed Martin Corporation. The National Security Agency monitors all of this traffic. Communications utilizing short wave and very high frequency radio waves are monitored by a series of U.S. bases. Additional surveillance is carried out by the National Reconnaissance Office, under the  NSA, which operates a series of spy satellites. These also send back photo information. To this has been added the Space-Based Infrared System satellites which are part of the anti-ballistic weapons system.
    Using all of these capabilities, the U.S. intercepts all messages going through the copper cable and high-capacity optical fiber networks. The interception of fiber optic messages is done by a series of nuclear submarines. The United States also uses signals intelligence bases (Signit) to monitor communications. These are fields of antennas, satellite dishes placed at over 100 U.S. bases around the world.
    Many people who use the Internet are familiar with Echelon, which developed as part of the official Anglo-American political alliance that was founded at the beginning of the Cold War. The intelligence agencies of the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have a classified agreement for the exchange of all security information. It is also known today as the “UKUSA signals intelligence alliance.” On a daily basis the Echelon program scans millions of conversations and messages for traffic patterns and key words, which are then tagged and sent for further analysis and surveillance. It is not only used for surveillance of potential foreign espionage or terrorism but also for domestic individuals and groups. Echelon operates and monitors around 120 intelligence satellites.
    The five countries not only share intelligence information; the agreement gives member countries the right to spy on each other and their respective citizens. No special advance permission is required. In one well-known instance, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had the Canadian Communications Security Establishment monitor the telephone conversations of her political opponents in the Labour Party.
    President George W. Bush told Bob Woodward that he was “fascinated” by the ability of the U.S. National Security Agency to listen to telephone conversations around the world and to intercept a whole range of other communications.

Is there an alternative to the neoliberal regime?

We are now into the fifth year of The Great Recession. In all of the advanced capitalist countries economic growth rates lag and real unemployment remains high. Inequality of income and wealth steadily increases. This is the fallout from the neoliberal model of the free market and free trade. Margaret Thatcher insisted that There Is No Alternative (TINA). Is that true?

Great Britain, Ireland and the countries of Continental Europe show no signs of recovery. Governments all have consistently supported right-wing austerity policies. None of the major political parties have offered a different strategy. Surely, there must be a political alternative.

The new issue of Social Justice (Vol. 39, No.1) has some interesting articles on the struggles that are going on in Europe, “Conflicts within the Crisis.” There are several themes to these articles.

The European setting
First, capitalism in the advanced countries is now very much dominated by the FIRE sector: finance, insurance, and real estate. The central focus of the European governments, the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund has been to prop up the banks at all cost. That is, of course, to defend the private investors in the large banks. The bad debt that the banks took on through real estate and the derivatives markets has been transferred to the governments. The socialization of private debt. Government programs must be cut to pay off this sovereign debt.

Second, the various European governments have been hindered in dealing with the crisis partly because of the loss of sovereignty. The European Union, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization are strongly committed to defending the interests of capital and have significant powers over national governments. They are quite prepared to use their powers to punish governments which move to protect democracy and social justice.

Third, the social democratic parties and the leadership of the mainstream trade unions have adopted the same basic policies as the traditional right wing parties. Thus there is a monopoly of power in the hands of the ruling classes. It does not matter which of the major parties forms the government, the results are the same. Thus parliamentary government and electoral systems have lost legitimacy. This is reflected in the steady decline in voter turnout to around 50%.

Fourth, the existing governments have all adopted police state tactics, militarizing the police, using brute physical force against demonstrators, jailing dissenters, and moving to reduce historic civil rights and liberties. The same thing is happening in the United States and Canada.

The Crisis of Social Reproduction
The Great Recession has had an impact in Europe that has not reached North America. Unemployment has risen to levels not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Youth unemployment is now over 25% in the European Union and around 50% in some of the southern countries.

There is a crisis of care, as wages for many have been substantially cut. Pensions have been cut. Unemployment insurance has been reduced. Social services have been cut. The welfare state is being steadily downsized. Who would have believed that this could happen? Only in the former Third World, under the impact of the Washington Consensus, known as structural adjustment.

Is there a future for social democracy?
Across Europe, beginning in Great Britain and Ireland, social democratic parties have joined with the rich and powerful to bail out the banks and impose the neoliberal package. Thus the traditional major party of the left, which was created by the organized working class, no longer offers any alternative. As Margaret Thatcher once said, her greatest achievement as Prime Minister was transforming the British Labour Party into another conservative party, i.e., a party of pro-business neoliberals.

In Greece and Italy, the social democrats went so far as to form an alliance with the traditional parties of the right and impose unelected pro-austerity technocrats to run the government! Who needs parliamentary elections?

The leadership of the mainstream trade unions have also lost their legitimacy. They refuse to cut their ties to the social democratic parties even when their parties, in government, cut the programs that were enacted to provide security for those working for a wage and a salary. In Greece, the trade union leadership declined to support a general strike against "their government." The rank and file was forced to take the lead.

Struggling to find an alternative
Given the paralysis in the economy and in representative government, it is no surprise that in Europe the disaffected have turned to extra-parliamentary opposition. As we have seen in Greece and the other southern countries, mass demonstrations and general strikes have become the political opposition.

The other main political development is the grass roots movements, begun by young people, tied together by the social media. In Europe there was strong support for the street movements of the Arab Spring. A similar movement was prominent in Greece. The massive occupation of city squares across Spain, the 15M and the indignados, were another example. The call for a "Democratic Revolution" reflects the disaffection of European citizens with mainstream politics, representative government and the priority of the free market. “They call it democracy, but it is a dictatorship!”

The rejection of the current political system has resulted in the determination of the youth in particular to construct “new democratic organizations and institutions.” But there are limits to “leaderless resistance,” as we have seen throughout North Africa. There comes a time when grassroots democratic dissent has to shift to formal political organization if there is going to be change.