By
Eric London

19 June 2013

Government and intelligence officials appeared before Congress yesterday as part of the cover-up of the Obama administration’s massive international surveillance programs. The meeting was convened as a joint effort to attack whistleblower Edward Snowden and downplay the assault on democratic rights that he has made public.

The title of House Intelligence Committee hearing—“How Disclosed National Security Agency Programs Protect Americans, and Why Disclosure Aids Our Adversaries”—made clear its anti-democratic purpose and content.

The committee meeting came one day after Snowden issued a defiant response to the government threats, saying in an Q&A on the Guardian website that more revelations are in store, and that the “[t]ruth is coming and it cannot be stopped.”

Republican House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rodgers responded by saying in his opening remarks: “It is at times like these when our enemies within become almost as damaging as the enemies outside.”

The testimonies provided by NSA head General Keith Alexander, FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce, NSA Deputy Director Chris Inglis, General Counsel to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Robert Litt, and Deputy Attorney General James Cole followed a similar script, consisting of unsubstantiated tales of thwarted terrorist attacks mixed with threats of future attacks.

Alexander claimed that the international spying campaign has helped “prevent potential terrorist events over fifty times since 9/11.”

Barack Obama recited the same talking points in a recent interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose. “The one thing people should understand about all these programs is they have disrupted plots,” the president said in an interview that aired Monday night.

Joyce repeated the claim that the PRISM program of Internet communications monitoring had thwarted an attempt to bomb the New York City subway. He also claimed that it fingered someone who had communicated with a “known extremist” in Yemen and was involved in “nascent plotting” to bomb the New York Stock Exchange.

All the supposed plots disrupted were described in the vaguest terms possible. In fact, the one factor that is common to many of the terror plots over the past decade—going back to the September 11 attack and extending through the Boston Marathon bombings—has been the involvement of individuals with connections to US intelligence.

The “war on terror” rationalizations are aimed at covering up the real purpose of the spying programs revealed by Snowden: the accumulation of massive stores of data on the population of the United States and the world.

Asked directly whether it was possible for NSA analysts to “flip a switch” to listen to phone calls or read emails of Americans, Alexander replied, “No.”

The question about “flipping a switch” was deliberately ambiguous, but the answer given by Alexander is meant to suggest that the NSA cannot access the content of the communications of Americans—a claim that has been contradicted by Snowden and other NSA whistleblowers.

During the proceedings, Alexander and his cross-agency team of attorneys were showered with so much praise by members of Congress that it was almost unclear who was testifying before whom.

“General Alexander,” said Republican Mike Rodgers in his opening remarks, “please convey our thanks to your team for continuing every day despite much misinformation about the quality of their work. … Thank you for continuing to serve to protect the United States,” Rodgers cooed. “Thank you on behalf of America for your service to your country.”

Rodger’s Democratic Party counterpart, Dutch Ruupersberger, was equally prostrated. “General Alexander…your leadership at the NSA has been outstanding,” he said.

“We are here today because of the brazen disclosure of critical classified information that keeps our country safe,” Ruppersberger went on. “This widespread leak by a 29 year-old American systems administrator put our country and our allies in danger by giving the terrorists a really good look at the playbook that we use to protect our country.

“The most important thing we can do here today,” Ruppersberger declared, “is let the public know the true facts … so the public can understand that this program is legal, why we’re doing this program, and how it protects us.”

Alexander and company are given center stage not to “let the public know the true facts,” but rather to peddle a series of lies in an attempt to quell widespread opposition to the international programs of government surveillance.

The hostility of the ruling class to democratic rights was perhaps voiced most poignantly by Democrat Jan Schakowsky, who asked Alexander: “Do you feel that this open hearing today jeopardizes in any way our national security?”

Though Congress is unanimous about the need to spy on the American people, its members disagree as to whether or not the surveillance programs should be discussed in public.

With the state and media scurrying to cover-up the revelations made public by Edward Snowden, Congress is showing once again that it is ready and able to rubber stamp the unconstitutional actions of the executive.

SEP election meetings

The socialist answer to the assault on democratic rights

19 June 2013

American whistleblower Edward Snowden has revealed to the world the extent of the spying operations being conducted by the Obama administration and its intelligence agencies, with the collaboration of major corporations such as Microsoft, Apple, Google, YouTube and Facebook.

The phone records, Internet activity, emails and other electronic communications of tens of millions of people, in the US and internationally, are being systematically monitored, recorded and entered into vast databases. Amid a deepening global economic crisis, this massive and illegal surveillance operation is aimed against US rivals abroad and the working class in America and globally. The financial aristocracy, terrified of the rising popular discontent over social inequality, mass unemployment and constant war, is establishing the framework for a police state.

Snowden, a 29-year-old former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who has taken refuge in Hong Kong, faces grave dangers for his courageous actions. The Obama administration is preparing to file criminal charges and extradite him to stand trial. American politicians, both Democrat and Republican, are baying for his prosecution. The American media has joined the witch-hunt, with so-called liberal commentators denouncing him as a “traitor” and right-wing pundits calling for his execution.

The Gillard government is silent about Snowden’s exposures because the Australian state apparatus and intelligence agencies are directly involved in US spying operations and have undoubtedly accessed and used NSA information collected on Australian citizens. Just as the Labor government has aided and abetted the Obama administration’s vendetta against Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes and diplomatic intrigues, so it will collude with Washington in persecuting Snowden.

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) calls on the working class and youth, in Australia and around the world, to defend Edward Snowden. Like Assange and alleged whistle-blower Bradley Manning, he is being persecuted for revealing the truth about the extent of the conspiracy against the democratic rights of working people. Support for him must be built up in workplaces, at universities and schools and in working-class suburbs.

The SEP meetings, which are part of our 2013 election campaign, will explain that the only social force that can defeat the threat of dictatorship is a mass political movement of the international working class, fighting for an internationalist and socialist perspective to abolish the profit system. We call on workers and youth, and all those concerned about democratic rights, to attend.

Details:

Clayton, VIC
Sunday, June 30, 2.30 p.m.
Clayton Hall Meeting Room
264 Clayton Road, Clayton
(50 metres north of Clayton Railway Station)
Melways: 79 C2

Tuggerah, NSW
Sunday, June 30, 2 p.m.
Tuggerah Community Hall
9 Anzac Road, Tuggerah
(2 minute walk from Tuggerah railway station)

Sydney, NSW
Sunday, July 7, 2 p.m.
Redfern Town Hall
73 Pitt Street, Redfern

Authorised by Nick Beams, 113/55 Flemington Rd, North Melbourne VIC 3051

By
Dorian Griscom

19 June 2013

On Monday, June 17 Brazil saw its largest protests in at least 20 years. Hundreds of thousands marched in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Brasilia, the country’s leading cities, while smaller demonstrations occurred in other cities around the country.

Estimates of the numbers who took to the streets nationwide ranged as high as nearly 1 million. In Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and commercial capital, an estimated 250,000 demonstrated, and in Rio de Janeiro another 150,000 filled Avenida Rio Branco and much of the city’s downtown. In the capital of Brasilia, some 5,000 youth occupied the lobby of the National Congress, while hundreds of others climbed onto the building’s roof. There were also protests in Fortaleza, Vitoria, Maceio, Belem, Salvador, Curitiba, Porto Alegre and Recife.

Monday’s mass protests broadened and deepened a wave of smaller protests that were initially launched in response to transit fare hikes implemented by various city governments across the country, most notably in São Paulo.

These first demonstrations were staged in reaction to seemingly small price increases for use of public transportation, averaging between 5 and 10 cents (in US dollars) per ticket.

Much as in the events surrounding the protests in Turkey’s Taksim square, the brutal repression unleashed against these initial demonstrators by Brazil’s military police helped trigger nationwide anger. As a result the greatest number took to the streets since at least the 1992 demonstrations demanding the impeachment of then-President Fernando Collor de Mello and possibly since the 1984 mass movement demanding direct elections at the end of the military dictatorship.

The protests on Monday expressed far more general grievances, decrying rampant government corruption, lack of adequate basic services, widespread poverty and the squandering of billions in state funds on the construction of lavish stadiums for the Confederations Cup and World Cup soccer tournaments instead of investing in education and healthcare. At the heart of these grievances lies the immense gulf between the wealthy ruling class and the working population in this country of 200 million, which is one of the most socially polarized in the world.

Slogans in Monday’s protests expressed the profound divide which exists between the Brazilian working class and the political representatives of its corrupt ruling elite. One sign read, “You do not represent me.” Another much publicized slogan said: “We don’t need the world cup. We need money for hospitals and education.”

Brazil’s Military Police brutally cracked down on the first protests in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, firing rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators. Hundreds were arrested in last week’s demonstrations and at least 100 injured.

There were also violent police attacks on journalists in São Paulo. At least 15 journalists were injured by rubber bullets, police batons, tear gas and pepper spray over the weekend. They charged that they had been deliberately targeted by the Military Police. One journalist was reportedly hit by a police car, and another was blinded in one eye by a rubber bullet.

After it became clear that the police violence was helping fuel the growth of the protest movement, the police in both cities attempted a more hands-off approach to Monday’s mass demonstrations. Demonstrators took up the chant, “What a coincidence, no police, no violence.”

In Belo Horizonte, however, police Monday formed a blockade on a road leading to the Mineirão soccer stadium, where a match was in progress between Tahiti and Nigeria. Despite a pledge in advance not to use violence, the police used teargas and rubber bullets when protesters crossed the blockade. Before the police crackdown, the demonstration had gone on for five hours with no violence on the part of protesters.

The Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) government which has run the country for the past ten years, first under Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and now with Dilma Rousseff, who took office as president in January 2011, has sought to cover over Brazil’s sharp social tensions with minimal social assistance for the country’s poorest and the promise that the rise of Brazilian capitalism on the world stage would bring general prosperity to the population.

This myth has been dramatically undermined over the past year by economic stagnation combined with rampant inflation. With the country’s economic growth falling to 0.6 percent in the first quarter, industrial production has fallen, triggering layoffs. The official inflation rate has hit 6.5 percent, with many charging that the real increase in prices is double that. Interest rates are rising, and spending freezes are being put into place by state and local governments. There is a growing sense that the so-called Brazilian economic miracle is grinding to a halt.

The convening of the Confederations Cup, widely seen as something of a dry run for next year’s World Cup, which was meant to symbolize Brazil’s arrival as a “21st century power,” has brought the gulf between the self-serving narrative of the political establishment and the harsh reality of poverty, inadequate social services and a generally dysfunctional infrastructure which Brazilian youth and workers confront on a daily basis into sharp relief.

President Dilma Rousseff sought to project the image of a popular leader firmly in the saddle responding to dissent in a rational way by stating: “Brazil has woken up a stronger country. The size of [Monday’s] marches is evidence of the strength of our democracy.” In reality, the Brazilian ruling class and its political servants are terrified at the prospect of a mass movement from below expressing the genuine aspirations of Brazil’s working class.

This found expression Tuesday night. As tens of thousands of young demonstrators again took to the streets of Sao Paulo, laying siege to city hall, Rousseff was meeting at the nearby Congonhas airport with her predecessor, Lula da Silva, her principal political adviser, education minister Aloizio Mercadante, and Sao Paulo’s PT Mayor Fernando Haddad. There were unconfirmed reports that the well-known political consultant João Santana was also in attendance in what apparently were crisis talks over how to deal with the growing popular revolt.

The panic atmosphere within the ruling establishment finds reflection in the government’s confused reaction to the escalation of the demonstrations. While the city leaders responsible for fare hikes initially claimed the increases were non-negotiable and labeled the protesters as “vandals,” the federal government has since stepped in, with congress proposing a piece of legislation which would reduce public transportation fees across the country with the clear aim of diffusing popular anger.

As with other mass protest movements which have emerged over the past few years, the one in Brazil is at present without a political leadership or program. Initially the protests were called by the Movement for Free Fares, which advocates providing public transportation as a free public service and had organized demonstrations over the past several years with little public turnout. This year, however, intersecting with fare hikes and mounting discontent, it erupted into a massive spontaneous movement.

It is noteworthy that Brazil’s unions, which work to subordinate the working class to the PT government, have played no significant role in the mass protests.

There are already those who are seeking to make a virtue of the initial political confusion, calling for a movement “without a party.”

As Brazilian workers and youth come increasingly into struggle, it is inevitable that they turn with hostility against the corrupt ruling PT, which has falsely claimed to represent the working class, as well as the other right-wing parties in state and local governments, such as the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira) and Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro), and the various pseudo-left forces that orbit around the PT.

However, a mass movement with no revolutionary political perspective and program will ultimately face only dispersion, co-option and defeat.

For the mass movement in Brazil to avoid such a fate requires the building of a new revolutionary leadership mobilizing the working class independently in the struggle for socialism. The entry of the Brazilian working class into struggle posed by these mass demonstrations carries with it profoundly revolutionary implications, whose reverberations will be felt not only throughout Latin America, but around the world.

By
Thomas Gaist

19 June 2013

Turkish counterterrorism forces carried out mass arrests Tuesday morning, grabbing scores of people from private homes and offices during sweeps in 21 of the country’s provinces and the major cities of Ankara, Istanbul and Eskisehir.

The arrests targeted parties active in the ongoing protest movement, including the Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) and the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP), the Gulf Times reported. According to the Progressive Journalists Association (ÇGD), at least eight journalists were also taken and many more have been subject to police intimidation.

Two days earlier, police arrested over 500 protesters, deploying truncheons, rubber bullets, water cannon and tear gas indiscriminately against crowds that included many families and young children. Doctors reported that the water cannons were laced with chemical agents, leaving first degree burns on many of the victims.

In a further escalation of the repression, top Turkish officials vowed to mobilize the military to crush opposition should the current police actions prove insufficient. On Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told an interviewer, “Our police, our security forces are doing their jobs. If it’s not enough, then the gendarmes will do their jobs. If that’s not enough … we could even use elements of the Turkish Armed Forces.”

Arinc stated unequivocally that the “innocent protests had ended” and that any further street actions would be considered illegal.

In recent remarks to members of his ruling AKP [Justice and Development Party], Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan celebrated the successes of the Turkish police in their repression of the protest movement: “In the face of a comprehensive and systematic movement of violence, the police displayed an unprecedented democratic stance and successfully passed the test of democracy.”

“The people and the AKP government have foiled the plot … hatched by traitors and their foreign accomplices,” Erdogan continued. In an obvious threat against further protests, he warned, “From now on, there will be no question of showing any tolerance to people or organisations who engage in violent acts.”

The “democratic stance” deployed against the demonstration in a series of vicious attacks beginning May 31 has resulted in 5 deaths and over 7,500 injuries, including the loss of eyes by 10 individuals due to rubber bullet impact.

Also on Monday, Turkey’s interior minister Muammer Güler announced new laws cracking down on social media users.

“We have a study of those who provoke the public via manipulations with false news and lead them to actions that would threaten the security of life and property by using Twitter, Facebook or other tools of social media,” Güler told the Hurriyet Daily News on Monday.

Prime Minister Erdogan referred to social media as a “troublemaker in societies.”

Hundreds of thousands of youth, workers, and professionals have taken to the streets during the past three weeks in opposition to the reactionary policies of the Turkish government, which have enriched the corporate and financial oligarchy at the expense of the working class.

While the protests were sparked by a confrontation over the planned redevelopment of Gezi Park, the root cause lies in the global economic crisis and enormous growth of social inequality it has generated. Turkey has the second highest level of income inequality of the 34 Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development countries, according to a 2011 study. Since 2008, the capitalist elite in Turkey has taken advantage of the global financial crisis to slash wages and lay off masses of workers.

The Erdogan regime is a loyal friend of American and European imperialism, which are striving to subjugate the entire region in pursuit of their financial and geopolitical interests. Indeed, Washington has promoted Erdogan’s “moderate Islamist” regime as a model for the entire Muslim world. During his visit to Washington in mid-May, Obama praised Erdogan as “a strong ally and partner in the region and around the world.”

Speaking in early June, White House spokesman Jay Carney made clear that the Obama administration was untroubled by the crackdown: “Turkey is a very important ally. And look, all democracies have issues that they need to work through … I think that we continue to work with Turkey on a range of issues—as a NATO ally and as a key player in the region—and we look forward to doing that.”

The CIA operates a major command and control center on Turkish soil, from which it coordinates the flow of weapons, supplies and billions of dollars in cash across the Turkish-Syrian border as part of the rapidly escalating US-led war against the Assad regime.

The vast majority of Turkey’s population opposes the use of their country as a staging area for imperialist conspiracies, and rightly fears the Al Qaeda-linked extremists promoted by the US, who appear to have been involved in the Reynahli bombings on May 11. The intensity of the protests against the regime reflects the growing hatred of the population for imperialism and its agents within the Turkish ruling elite.

Nevertheless, the protest movement is dominated by pseudo-left and nationalist forces—including the Kemalist Republican People’s Party (CHP), the Freedom and Solidarity party (ODP) and the (Maoist) Labour Party (EMEP)—who are hostile to the working class and incapable of rallying the vast majority of the population against Erdogan’s AKP.

The one-day strike and march action called by five major trade unions this week, including the Confederation of Public Workers’ Unions (KESK), the Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions (DİSK), the Turkish Doctors’ Union (TTB) and the Turkish Union of Engineers and Architects’ Chambers (TMMOB), exemplify the class collaborationist orientation of these forces. The real purpose of such limited strike actions is to “let off some steam” without posing any alternative or mounting any challenge to the status quo.

Turkey’s unions have strong institutional ties to the European Union and have already supported austerity policies in Greece and elsewhere. They are becoming discredited in the eyes of the population as a result of their efforts to cut a deal with the ruling elite. Like unions in every country around the world, they now act as police forces on behalf of capital.

Middle class protest politics, including the passive resistance of the “Standing Man” phenomenon, are insufficient to break the power of the Erdogan regime and the capitalist elite it serves. For this, the working class must be mobilized independently from and in opposition to the pseudo-left, Stalinist, nationalist and trade union leaders, as part of an international struggle for socialism.

The author also recommends:

Turkey at the crossroads
[6 June 2013]

Turkey, Syria and the hypocrisy of US imperialism
[14 June 2013]

By
Robert Stevens

19 June 2013

Late Monday, a ruling by Greece’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, cancelled the June 11 decision of the government to immediately close the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT), with the loss of 2,700 jobs.

The provisional ruling is an attempt on behalf of the Greek ruling class to manage a crisis that has threatened to spiral out of control. It stated the decree last week shutting off ERT’s signal overnight was illegal and ordered it to be immediately switched back on. However, the ruling also says the New Democracy-led government was entirely within its rights to close ERT and cut workers’ jobs. It only refers to ERT’s TV, radio and Internet operations being restored while the service is restructured. The fate of its magazine operation and orchestras remains undecided.

On June 11, following the issuing of a presidential decree earlier that day closing ERT, Greek police cut the power supply to its antennas. All ERT transmitters were closed down around Greece, as was eventually the global ERT World feed. Workers were given just five minutes’ notice before being fired.

Broadcasting workers occupied the building and thousands of supporters converged en masse outside ERT’s Athens HQ and at ERT’s base in the second city, Thessaloniki.

The closure was the government’s response to demands by the “troika” of the European Commission, International Monetary Fund, and European Central Bank for 4,000 job losses to be imposed by the end of this month. It took place just one day after the arrival of troika officials in Athens, who still remain, monitoring the progress of previously agreed austerity measures. First and foremost among these is that the government imposes the necessary public sector job cuts this year, as part of 150,000 jobs to go by 2015.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ decision to close ERT and sack thousands of workers had the support of the ruling elite throughout Europe. The New York Times noted Monday, “Mr. Samaras has won the sympathies, if not the outright backing, of Europe’s ruling class, including Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who telephoned him on Sunday to urge him to stay the course.” Britain’s Financial Times described the closure as a “necessary evil”, before asserting, “ERT’s inefficiency is a prime example of what has gone wrong with the public sector in Greece.”

It bemoaned that previously, “Workers were hard to fire because of excessive protection”. The “troika of international lenders expects 4,000 jobs to go by the end of the year. Before this week’s decision to close down ERT, the cabinet had offered little detail of where the axe would fall.”

Congratulating the government for passing “structural reforms, including a shake-up of the labour market”, it concluded, “The troika is right to demand that Mr. Samaras deliver on what he has promised.”

The assault met with widespread public opposition, but those who came to the head of the movement attempted to separate out the fate of ERT from the broader austerity measures being forced through by the government and the EU. They complained that the closure of the state broadcasting company was an “embarrassment” for Greece and that its absence would undermine “social cohesion.”

In a letter June 11, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) wrote to the Samaras government making clear it was not opposed in principle to cuts at ERT. It wrote, “The existence of public service media and their independence from Government lie at the heart of democratic societies, and therefore any far-reaching changes to the public media system should only be decided after an open and inclusive democratic debate in Parliament—and not through a simple agreement between two Government Ministers.”

The EBU added, “While we realise the need to make budgetary savings, national broadcasters are more important than ever at times of national difficulty. This is not to say that ERT need be managed less efficiently than a private company. Naturally, all public funds must be spent with the greatest of care.”

The pseudo-left SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left), the main parliamentary opposition, was instrumental in efforts to divert opposition to ERT’s closure into safe, patriotic and class-collaborationist channels. Speaking at a rally outside ERT’s headquarters last week, SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras said, “We are appealing to all democrats, irrespective of which party they belong to, that the defence of democracy is a duty for all of us. It has nothing to do with petty party calculations.”

The defence of ERT was a matter of preserving “social cohesion”, Tsipras declared.

Tsipras’ entreaties were an appeal to New Democracy’s coalition partners—the social democratic PASOK and Democratic Left (DIMAR)—to help form a “government of national salvation” in the event that the government collapsed.

PASOK and DIMAR had publicly protested the manner in which ERT was closed, while defending plans for its restructuring—arguing that the necessary job losses should have been carried through while ERT remained on air.

The financial markets had reacted anxiously to the possibility that popular hostility to Samaras’ dictatorial decision could bring down the government. As the court delivered its ruling on ERT, talks were taking place between New Democracy, PASOK and DIMAR to avoid such a prospect, with Samaras saying he would accede to ERT being temporarily opened with a much smaller staff, ahead of major restructuring.

New Democracy welcomed the court ruling as a vindication of its policy. A party official commented, “ERT is shut, ERT is finished”. The Finance Ministry stated that the ruling “confirms the abolition of ERT and its board of directors and orders the Minister of Finance and relevant Deputy Minister to broadcast a programme from a public body until a new body is formed.”

ERT will still be closed down and replaced by a new broadcaster, Nerit, this summer, employing just 1,200 workers. Further talks are scheduled between the party leaders today. Moreover, the “saving” of ERT will do nothing to mitigate, let alone reverse the devastating social cuts imposed on Greece. Even more is to come. On Tuesday Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras and Samaras met troika officials to discuss its plans for ERT and the overall cuts agenda. Also discussed was the failure of EOPPY, Greece’s main health care provider, to achieve the targets demanded, and privatisations.

By
Peter Schwarz

19 June 2013

In keeping with the protocol of such occasions, the first official visit to Germany by US President Barack Obama is being used to evoke historical memories and proclaim mutual friendship. The fact that 50 years ago this month President John F. Kennedy gave his famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech in front of Schöneberg Town Hall is being exploited to this end.

Behind the carefully maintained facade, however, the German-American relationship is far from harmonious. Tensions in the spheres of economic and foreign policy have been aggravated by the recent revelations of US National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance.

Obama’s public image has changed dramatically since his last visit to Berlin, in the summer of 2008. At that time, 200,000 people gathered in Berlin’s Tiergarten to cheer the Democratic presidential candidate, who they hoped would end the policies of war and torture of his reviled predecessor, George W. Bush.

This time, Obama is due to speak before a hand-picked audience of just 4,000 in front of the hermetically sealed-off Brandenburg Gate.

After four-and-a-half years in office, Obama is no longer seen by broad layers of the population as a beacon of hope, but rather as the man responsible for massive spying and illegal and violent measures. The fact that Guantanamo still holds 166 prisoners without charge or trial while thousands of alleged terrorists and innocent civilians have been killed by American drones in contravention of international law is seared into the public consciousness.

Accordingly, the organizers of the Obama visit are treating the inhabitants of Berlin as if they were the population of a hostile country. The German capital has been under a virtual state of siege since the president’s family flew in on Tuesday night.

The entire airspace of Berlin and Tegel Airport were closed during Obama’s approach, as were the streets through which the presidential convoy traveled to the city centre. Parked cars and chained bicycles were removed by the police at the expense of the owners. Since the exact travel times of the president were kept secret for security reasons, these measures lasted for hours.

Sections of the German media and official political circles are openly treating the Obama visit with suspicion and skepticism, although their reaction is driven by considerations entirely different from those motivating ordinary people. While the population is outraged by the undemocratic and illegal behavior of the US government, the German ruling elite increasingly regards the US as an economic and geopolitical rival.

This can be seen very clearly in the attitude of the German government towards the Syria conflict. Berlin and Washington are collaborating closely to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad and replace it with a puppet regime. Germany is playing a key role in organizing the exile Syrian opposition and enabling it to establish links with the armed militias inside the country.

At the same time, German Chancellor Angela Merkel opposes arming the Syrian opposition, as called for by Obama. She fears this will lead to a worsening of relations with Russia, which has close economic ties to Germany. Merkel also fears that a collapse of the Syrian state and an escalation of sectarian civil war will have broad repercussions in Germany, leading to a spread of terrorism and civil war to Europe.

It is noteworthy that the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the main voices of the German ruling class, published a detailed and exclusive interview with Assad just two days before Obama’s visit. In the interview, the Syrian ruler appeared not as a bloodthirsty tyrant, but rather as a prudent bourgeois politician. He made clear he was ready to cooperate with the imperialist powers and strongly warned against the consequences of a policy that undermines existing borders and arms jihadist forces.

“Any playing around with the borders in the region means redrawing the map,” Assad said. “This has a domino effect that no one can control. It may be that one of the major powers initiates this process, but at a certain point no one will be able to stop it.”

He also warned of the danger of “exporting terrorism to Europe” should Europe arm terrorist forces in Syria.

The dispute over the NSA’s eavesdropping Prism program makes clear that Germany regards the US first and foremost as an economic rival. Chancellor Merkel has stated she will raise the surveillance issue in her discussions with Obama, but her interior minister, Hans-Peter Friedrich, has defended the US spying program. In the Welt am Sonntag, Friedrich confirmed that the German secret services benefit from the spying and are regularly supplied with information by the US. According to Der Spiegel, the German Intelligence Service plans to invest €100 million and recruit up to 100 new employees to expand its own monitoring of the Internet.

German reactions to the NSA bugging have less to do with democratic rights and defending privacy than the fear of political and economic espionage. “Only the very naive believe that Prism is really about terrorism,” the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes, “given the billions of data records selected every month. The fact is, there are not potential terrorists lurking behind every tree, but it is a good excuse to dress up good old industrial espionage.”

Jakob Augstein sums up the anti-American sentiment in ruling circles when he writes in his regular column for Spiegel Online: “We are monitored. All the time and everywhere. And it is the Americans who watch us. On Tuesday, the head of the largest and most comprehensive control system ever invented by man is coming. If Barack Obama is our friend, then we really do not need to worry about our enemies.”

Behind the disputes over Syria and Prism are fundamental geo-strategic issues. For some time there have been fierce differences over financial policy between the US and Germany. Washington and American banks are exerting massive pressure on Berlin to abandon its commitment to austerity and pump large sums of money into the European financial system.

At the same time, Obama’s turn to Asia cuts directly across the economic interests of Germany, which is heavily dependent on trade with China.

The 20th century provided many examples of how such tensions can rapidly escalate and lead to military conflict.

By
Patrick O’Connor

19 June 2013

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is facing renewed opposition to her leadership from within her own government, less than three months before the scheduled September election. Underlying the turmoil-wracked minority government is a wider crisis of the Labor Party and the entire parliamentary setup in Australia.

Labor parliamentarians yesterday met in Canberra for the final two-week session of the House of Representatives and Senate ahead of the election, regarded as the last opportunity for Gillard’s opponents to remove her as leader. Last week, supporters of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd openly canvassed for support for yet another leadership spill, following unsuccessful challenges in February 2012 and March this year. Sections of the media, especially the Murdoch press, have fuelled the crisis atmosphere, suggesting that Gillard’s key allies and powerbrokers, cabinet minister Bill Shorten and Australian Workers Union secretary Paul Howes, were withdrawing support.

The Labor parliamentary caucus convened yesterday, without any challenge to Gillard, who has repeatedly insisted that she will not stand down. Tensions were so high, however, that a planned vote on changes to the way cabinet members are selected was postponed until after the election because Gillard’s backers feared any discussion could open the gates for an attack on the prime minister.

Gillard reportedly urged her colleagues to “put purpose before self-interest.” The internecine fighting is nevertheless continuing. Rudd has insisted that he will not take the leadership unless drafted by an overwhelming majority of the Labor caucus. Former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie unsuccessfully called on former Prime Minister Bob Hawke to intervene and somehow broker a resolution to the leadership impasse.

At least for now, Gillard retains powerful backing. Shorten and Howes insist that they remain her loyal supporters, part of the “praetorian guard” within the Labor and trade union apparatus that installed her in a June 2010 coup. These factional powerbrokers, most of them US embassy “protected sources,” ousted Rudd after Washington opposed his diplomatic efforts to mediate between the rival interests of China and US imperialism in East Asia and the Pacific. Gillard, by contrast, has unconditionally aligned Canberra with the Obama administration’s aggressive “pivot” to Asia, which is aimed at strategically and militarily containing Beijing. Her ability to retain the leadership to date is in large measure because she enjoys the support of Washington.

The 2010 coup reoriented Australian foreign policy, but at the same time triggered a crisis for Gillard that has never gone away. In the August 2010 election, the hostility among working people to Rudd’s anti-democratic removal was a major factor in producing the first hung parliament in 70 years and a Labor minority government, dependent on the Greens and “independent” MPs. Gillard’s pro-business policies, which have produced an avalanche of job cuts and plant closures, and deep cutbacks in public spending, have only intensified the hostility felt toward Labor within the working class.

Like other social democratic parties around the world, the Labor Party junked its previous national reformist program in the 1980s and became the most ruthless enforcer of the demands of the financial and corporate elite. Between 1983 and 1996, the Hawke-Keating governments carried out an unprecedented transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich. This lurch to the right has accelerated under Rudd and Gillard. The Labor Party has lost its former base of support in the working class and is widely regarded with hatred and contempt.

As a result, the September election is set to reduce Labor to rump status within the federal parliament, as has already happened in the Queensland and New South Wales state parliaments. Barry Cohen, a minister in the previous Labor government of Bob Hawke, last week urged that Rudd replace Gillard, to at least minimise the disaster. “If it’s as bad as some predict there won’t be an ALP, or at least not as presently constituted,” he warned.

With the party forecast to win as few as 24 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives, there are growing fears within the ruling elite that the Labor Party could disintegrate.

For more than a century, the Labor Party has functioned as the main prop for bourgeois rule. At every crisis point—including World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, the collapse of the post-war boom in the early 1970s, and the turn to pro-market restructuring in the 1980s—the Labor Party has been installed in office to implement the economic and geostrategic shifts required by the ruling class, while subordinating the working class to the capitalist nation state and the parliamentary setup.

Now this political instrument is breaking up under conditions of the deepest global economic breakdown since the 1930s, as well as escalating geopolitical tensions in Asia driven by Washington’s “pivot.” The Australian economy is facing a sharp downward turn amid slowing demand for mineral exports, especially from China, and growing signs of slump in other sections of the economy. Coming on top of Ford’s announcement that it will end manufacturing in Australia, GM-Holden yesterday demanded huge cuts in labour costs in its auto plants.

Goldman Sachs issued a warning this week of a potential downturn early next year that would trigger demands for a US-style “quantitative easing,” that is, the printing of huge amounts of money, by the Reserve Bank. “The risk of recession is significant,” Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital Investors, told the Wall Street Journal. “We’re now at the point where the mining investment boom is sliding away and unfortunately the other parts of the economy have not picked up enough to fill the gap.”

Ruling circles are dominated by a profound sense of crisis and fears of a social explosion. While critical of the Labor government, they have little confidence in the ability of opposition leader Tony Abbott to impose their demands for social austerity on the working class if he were elected prime minister. In the first six months of 2013, the Business Council of Australia, the Minerals Council, right-wing think tanks, financial press commentators and economists such as Ross Garnaut all demanded a wholesale onslaught on every aspect of the social and economic life of the working class, whichever party comes to office. Acutely conscious of the overwhelming opposition among ordinary people toward such a social counter-revolution, Abbott has resisted making any public endorsement of this reactionary agenda.

As far as far as the ruling elite is concerned, there is no clear alternative to Gillard within the Labor Party. Editorials in the major newspapers have explicitly stated that Rudd must position himself even further to the right than Gillard if he wants any hope of returning as prime minister. The unstated assumption advanced by many that Rudd could somehow salvage the situation for Labor at the next election amounts to wishful thinking. The former prime minister’s touted public “popularity” is, in reality, a reflection of widespread opposition toward the anti-democratic way he was removed from office. A leadership change will do nothing to reverse the hostility within the working class toward Labor, which is the legacy of many, many decades of bitter experience.

The current impasse contains the seeds of a constitutional crisis. The minority government is propped up by two rural “independent” MPs, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, both of whom have insisted that their support for Gillard would not necessarily transfer to Rudd. If Gillard were to be removed and the two MPs withdrew their support, the government could lose its parliamentary majority. In the event of a parliamentary impasse, the Queen of England’s official representative in Australia, Governor General Quentin Bryce, could intervene and appoint Abbott as prime minister ahead of an early election. The precedent for such action was set when Governor General John Kerr ousted Gough Whitlam’s Labor government in the Canberra Coup of 1975.

While no challenge emerged in yesterday’s meeting of the Labor caucus, the deep-going political turmoil surrounding the government and the entire political establishment will only intensify in the weeks and months ahead.

By
Jake Dean

19 June 2013

Agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration Custom Enforcement (ICE) raided 14 7-Eleven convenience stores early Monday morning throughout Long Island, New York and Virginia. Federal agents arrested nine owners and managers; they are being charged with human smuggling, harboring and hiring undocumented workers, using stolen Social Security numbers, and wire fraud.

Ten stores were raided in Long Island, New York and four in Virginia; five homes were also seized in New York.

The agents are also investigating 40 other 7-Eleven franchises located throughout New York City and across the nation. According to the New York Times, the investigation being led by the Justice Department and DHS is considered “one of the largest criminal immigrant employment investigations ever conducted.”

More than 50 undocumented workers, largely from Pakistan, were hired utilizing fraudulent Social Security numbers stolen from about two-dozen people, including children, the dead, and a Coast Guard cadet. Two of the employees, one in New York and one in Virginia, were using the same Social Security number.

The defendants being prosecuted are Farrukh and Bushra Baig—a married couple with dual Pakistani and US citizenship—who own and manage 12 7-Eleven stores in New York and Virginia. Bushra’s brothers, Zahid and Shannawaz, along with Malik Yousaf, Tariq Rana and Ramon Nanas, are also being charged.

Earning only between $300 and $500 per week, the Pakistani workers have been forced to work for more than 100 hours a week, being paid less than minimum wage in addition to having 75 percent of their earnings stolen by their employers. They have also been forced to live in substandard homes owned by Farrukh and Bushra Baig.

Commenting on the conditions facing the workers, Loretta E. Lynch, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, stated, “These defendants ruthlessly exploited their immigrant employees, stealing their wages and requiring them to live in unregulated boarding houses, in effect creating a modern-day plantation system.”

Conflicting reports have stated that the defendants were able to generate upwards of $182 million in assets, employing more than 50 immigrants since 2000. Without question, both the franchise owners and the 7-Eleven corporation itself have made huge sums of profit from the illegal operation.

With locations in 16 countries, including Japan (its largest market), Thailand, Canada, the Philippines, and Hong Kong, 7-Eleven’s revenues exceeded $16 billion in 2009, making it one of the top retailers in the US. According to Stores Magazine, it was ranked 22nd out of the top 100 retailers that year.

According to 7-Eleven’s “franchise application agreement,” the corporation and the franchisee split the gross profit 50-50. The owners are under pressure to lower wages and hire undocumented workers as a result of 7-Eleven’s business model, which requires the franchisees to cover payroll and payroll taxes, employee benefits, as well as local business taxes and licenses.

Furthermore, the agreement also states, “The Franchisee’s monthly gross income is reduced by [those] expenses. Any amount remaining each month is the Franchisee’s net income.” In other words, the 50 percent gross profit that goes to the franchise owner must also pay for some of the highest costs in running the store.

With a lack of oversight from the corporation and the pressure to ensure high profit margins, unscrupulous business owners turn to human smuggling and stealing the wages of immigrant workers left with no protections. Business owners are given a green light to exploit the most vulnerable layers of society without fear of retribution.

The raids have occurred during the debate on the so-called comprehensive immigration reform bill, officially titled “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act.” The issue of democratic and legal rights for immigrant workers has been completely avoided during this debate.

The current immigration legislation does nothing to address the social needs of immigrant communities. The bill seeks to hire an additional 3,500 new agents as well as employ the use of drones along the border to pursue undocumented immigrants and those seeking entry at the border. The main aim is to step up deportations, not to protect immigrants’ rights.

The Socialist Equality Party fights for the defense of all immigrant workers, as stated in its program: “The working class as a whole must take up the defense of the rights of immigrant workers against the super-exploitation of the capitalist employers and the repression of the police and immigrant authorities.”

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Italy, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and Venezuela have felicitated Hassan Rohani on his landslide victory in Iran’s presidential election in separate congratulatory messages.

In a message on Monday, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano extended his most sincere congratulations to Rohani and called for stronger relations between Rome and Tehran.

Also, OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu congratulated Rohani on his victory in the June 14 presidential poll, and wished him success in administering Iran™s affairs.

He expressed optimism that ties between the 57-member organization and Iran would further improve under President-elect Rohani, and that Tehran plays a more active and influential role in the international body.

œIran is one of OIC™s founding members and an active member of the organization,” Ihsanoglu stated.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has offered his felicitations on Rohani™s victory.

He praised bilateral relations between Venezuela and Iran, and called for further enhancement of cordial ties between the two countries in the future.

In addition, leaders of Persian Gulf Arab countries have issued separate messages, congratulating Rohani on his election as Iran™s next president.

Nearly 50.5 million Iranians, including more than 1.6 million first-time voters, were eligible to participate in the June 14 presidential election. The Interior Ministry put the voter turnout at 72.7 percent.

Rohani won 50.7 percent of the vote to secure an outright victory.

Rohani currently represents Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei in the Supreme National Security Council, and is a member of the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts. He is also the director of the Expediency Council’s Center for Strategic Research.

MP/AS