Wednesday, August 28, 2024

'Head-spinning': Pulitzer-winning historian says 2024 election unlike any since 1968

Daniel Hampton
August 28, 2024 

A Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian shared Wednesday why she feels the 2024 election cycle is the most "head spinning" she's seen in decades. (Screengrab via CNN)

A Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian shared Wednesday why she feels the 2024 election cycle is the most "head-spinning" she's seen in decades.

Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin appeared on CNN's "OutFront" with Erin Burnett. Burnett asked if this election season — with the assassination attempt, Joe Biden's unceremonious exit from the race following a disastrous debate performance and the first Black and Asian woman winning the Democratic nomination — has left Goodwin's head "spinning."

"Without question," replied Goodwin.

She compared the last eight weeks to the 1968 convention and election.

"Everybody thought Lyndon Johnson was the nominee to be the candidate running against the Republican, who turns out to be Richard Nixon once again. They thought that there was no chance that anyone could undo him. He then decides to withdraw from the race on March 31. And then it looks like it's going to be a debate between Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy. Then Martin Luther King is killed, Robert Kennedy is killed. And then you get to that Democratic convention," she said, where Democrats "lost that election that day."

"I lived through that time," she said. "It was head-spinning then, it's head-spinning now."

Goodwin said she has confidence that whether Kamal Harris or Donald Trump wins, the country will rise above.

"This is why history is so important!" she said. "It's why I love it so much."

She said the country needs history.

"We need perspective. We need their lessons. We need their hope!" she said.

Watch the clip below or at this link.

Amid soaring temps, heat-related deaths have more than doubled since 1999
Common Dreams
August 27, 2024 

Heat waves rise near a heat danger warning sign in Death Valley National Park, Calif. David McNew/Getty Image

As 55 million people in the U.S. Midwest faced heat alerts on Monday, research published in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association showed that heat-related deaths in the country rose 117% between 1999 and 2023.

"The current trajectory that we're on, in terms of warming and the change in the climate, is starting to actually show up in increased deaths," lead author Jeffrey Howard, an associate professor of public health at the University of Texas at San Antonio, toldUSA Today. "That's something that we hadn't had measured before."

Using a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention platform, Howard and co-authors from Pennsylvania State University and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences analyzed all deaths from those 25 years coded for "hyperthermia of newborn," "effects of heat and light," or "exposure to excessive natural heat" as either a contributing or underlying cause of death.

They found 21,518 deaths for the full period, with 1,069 in 1999. The lowest annual figure was in 2004 (311) and the highest was in 2023 (2,325). Last year was the hottest on record globally and scientists are already warning that this year is expected to continue that trend.

"As temperatures continue to rise because of climate change, the recent increasing trend is likely to continue."

Last year broke the record that was set in 2016—a year that's also significant in the new study: "The number of heat-related deaths... showed year-to-year variability, with spikes in 2006 and 2011, before showing steady increases after 2016."

Howard toldCBS News that "it is likely that continued increases in average temperatures, the number of 'hot days,' and the frequency and intensity of heatwaves could be playing a role" in the rise since 2016.

"There is also a social and behavioral component as well," he added, "including differences in access to air conditioning, outdoor work, the number of unhoused individuals, and things like that."

The researcher noted that Arizona, California, Nevada, and Texas had the highest heat-related deaths—which he said is "not terribly surprising because we know that these are some of the hottest regions in the country, but it does reinforce that the risk varies regionally."

The paper warns that "as temperatures continue to rise because of climate change, the recent increasing trend is likely to continue. Local authorities in high-risk areas should consider investing in the expansion of access to hydration centers and public cooling centers or other buildings with air conditioning."

The authors also acknowledged limitations of their research—including "the potential for misclassification of causes of death, leading to possible underestimation of heat-related mortality rates; potential bias from increasing awareness over time; and lack of data for vulnerable subgroups"—meaning the true death toll could be higher.

A legal memo published in June by the watchdog Public Citizen detailed how local or state prosecutors could bring criminal charges against oil and gas companies for deaths from extreme heat made more likely by the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.


"These victims deserve justice no less than the victims of street-level homicides," said Aaron Regunberg, senior policy counsel for the group. "And this memo shows that prosecutors have a path to secure that justice, if they choose to pursue it."
'Alarming' rise in deadly lightning strikes in India: scientists

Agence France-Presse
August 27, 2024 

Lightning illuminates the night sky during a storm in the Indian town of Guwahati on March 31
 (Biju BORO/AFP)

Climate change is fuelling an alarming increase in deadly lightning strikes in India, killing nearly 1,900 people a year in the world's most populous country, scientists warn.

Lightning caused a staggering 101,309 deaths between 1967 and 2020, with a sharp increase between 2010 and 2020, a team of researchers led by Fakir Mohan University in the eastern state of Odisha said.

"The results indicate a steady increase in lightning activity in India, positioning it as a major killer among climate change-induced natural disasters," it said.

While the report looked at data on deaths, not the number of strikes, it said "lightning activity in India is becoming increasingly unpredictable".

Data showed that the average annual fatalities per Indian state rose from 38 in the period 1967 to 2002, to 61 from 2003 to 2020 -- a period when the country's population has also rapidly grown to 1.4 billion people.

Lightning strikes are common in India during the June-September monsoon rains, which is crucial to replenishing regional water supplies.

But scientists say their frequency is increasing due to rising global temperatures, unleashing a cascade of extreme weather events.

Higher air temperatures create more water vapour, which after it cools at altitude, creates electric charges that spark lightning.

The high number of fatalities in India is also due to ineffective early warning systems and a lack of awareness of how to reduce the risk, the report added, published in the international journal of Environment, Development and Sustainability.

Mass fatalities from a single strike are common, such as when farmers shelter in groups from lashing rain under a tree.

The report said the data on recorded deaths from lightning indicates "an increasing trend, with the last two decades showing the highest increase", calling it "an alarming development".

The "rising trend of extreme climate conditions is likely to exacerbate the situation", it added, with a "pressing need" for policy changes to mitigate the impact.

Project 2025 would lower taxes for the rich and hike them for everyone else: analysis

Edward Carver, Common Dreams
August 28, 2024 


The Center for American Progress on Tuesday released an analysis of the tax plans in Project 2025, a right-wing manifesto whose authors have close ties to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, showing that conservatives aim to lower taxes on corporations and the rich while raising them on working- and middle-class Americans.

The liberal research and advocacy group, which published the analysis as part of a series of in-depth articles on Project 2025, found that the right-wing plan would raise income taxes for the median family of four by about $3,000, cut taxes by at least $1.5 million for a household earning more than $10 million per year, on average, and cut the corporate tax rate to 18% from 21%, an already historically low rate instituted by Republicans in 2017.

The analysis, authored by Brendan Duke, a senior director of economic policy at CAP, shows that, of households with a married couple and two children, only those earning more than $170,000 per year would see a tax break under the Project 2025 plan.

"This analysis lays bare how the extreme, conservative Project 2025 plan is more of the same from conservative leaders—delivering handouts to the wealthy and corporations on the backs of working people," Kobie Christian, a spokesperson at Unrig Our Economy, an advocacy group, said in a statement.

The Project 2025 plan would consolidate seven tax brackets into just two—15% and 30%—on the grounds that it would "simplify" the tax code. However, CAP says that the existing number of tax brackets don't create any additional complexity and are easily dealt with by tax-filing software. Moreover, 70% of tax filers only deal with the two lowest tax brackets—10% and 12%—"so they effectively are already in a two-bracket system," Duke wrote.

CAP's findings about the impact of Project 2025's tax proposals on median earners are in keeping with those of the Democrats on the U.S. congressional Joint Economic Committee, who released a similar analysis earlier this month.

CAP included projections of the impact that Project 2025 would have on median income earners in each state and in the District of Columbia. Only in D.C., a high-earning area, were median earners projected to pay lower taxes under the right-wing plan; in all 50 states, their taxes went up.

It's unclear how popular the Project 2025 tax plans would be. Polling from Navigator Research, a progressive polling firm, in February showed that the vast majority of Americans favor increasing taxes on the rich and large corporations.

In addition to the immediate tax plans laid out above, Project 2025 also puts forth a long-term plan to replace all income taxes with a value-added tax—a flat, regressive proposal endorsed by some U.S. House Republicans. In addition to the injustice of such a plan, it may also be impractical. CAP found that it would require a value-added tax—similar to a sales tax—on everything, even essential items such as groceries and healthcare, of at least 45%, if it were to replace lost government revenues, and warned that this would cause inflation.

Project 2025 policy agenda is a 920-page manifesto written by right-wing groups including the Heritage Foundation. The plan has drawn intense media attention in recent months and has proven unpopular with the American public, leading Trump, who was president from 2017 to 2021, to repeatedly try to distance himself from it. However, 140 of his former administration officials helped create the manifesto.

Stephen Moore, a Heritage Foundation fellow and an outside economic adviser to Trump, helped write Project 2025 tax plan, according to Duke. Moore drew scrutiny this week for questioning the need for the child tax credit.



Project 2025 Provides a GOP Blueprint for Destroying America’s Labor Unions and the Rights of America’s Workers
August 28, 2024
Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

The approach of Labor Day provides an appropriate time to reflect upon how Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans, if restored to power, will deal with the American labor movement.

Much of the evidence on this score is available in Project 2025, a 922-page public policy agenda, produced by the Heritage Foundation, for the first 180 days of a new Republican administration. Ever since 1981, this exceptionally wealthy, conservative, and powerful Washington think tank has been churning out blueprints for incoming Republican administrations. In fact, the Heritage Foundation performed the same service for the first Trump administration, bragging after only a year that the Trump White House had implemented nearly two-thirds of its proposals.

The Project 2025 policy agenda is far-ranging and includes many of the nostrums advanced by rightwing Republicans, including abolishing the U.S. Department of Education, slashing taxes for the wealthiest Americans and corporations, building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, further restricting abortion, increasing oil and gas production, maintaining a “biblically based” definition of marriage and family, and ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

But few of the project’s recommendations are as extreme as those dealing with America’s unions and the workers they represent.

For example, Project 2025 calls for banning public employee unions―unions representing teachers, librarians, firefighters, postal workers, police, clerks, trash collectors, and other public sector workers. As 32.5 percent of public sector employees belong to unions, they constitute the most highly unionized portion of the American workforce. Thus, the abolition of their unions would eliminate nearly half the union membership in the United States.

Nor would the rest of the nation’s union members, composed of private sector workers (only 6 percent of whom belong to unions), fare much better under this Heritage Foundation scheme. Most notably, Project 2025 advocates empowering the states to ban labor unions. Even partway through existing contracts, unions could be terminated. Furthermore, it would become illegal for employers to voluntarily recognize unions, while businesses would be allowed to create their own sham company unions.

Stripped of their access to union representation and the benefits unions bring, American workers would face still further losses of long-standing rights. Project 2025 calls for allowing the states to ignore the federal minimum wage and overtime pay laws, as well as for eliminating child labor rules that protect children from working in mines, meatpacking plants, and other hazardous workplaces. In these and other ways, Project 2025 promotes a return to the distant past, before the advent of legislation to prevent the abuse and exploitation of American workers.

Moreover, to safeguard the implementation of the Heritage Foundation’s rightwing agenda, Project 2025 champions firing as many as 50,000 federal government workers and replacing them with Trump loyalists.

Not surprisingly, once the extremist proposals in Project 2025 began to attract negative publicity, Donald Trump scrambled to distance himself from it. “I know nothing about Project 2025,” the Republican presidential candidate declared. “I have no idea who is behind it.”

Nevertheless, the connections between Trump and Project 2025 were hard to disguise. A CNN investigation revealed that at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration helped write or had a hand in the Heritage Foundation game plan, including six of Trump’s former Cabinet secretaries. In fact, the person overseeing the entire project, Paul Gans, had served as a top official in the Trump White House.

Embarrassed by the growing controversy over Project 2025, key participants scurried for cover. Gans suddenly retired from the project in July, announcing that, given the election season, he would “direct all my efforts to winning bigly.”

Upon Gans’s departure, Kevin Roberts, the director of the Heritage Foundation and a leading Trump ally, took command of Project 2025. But Roberts, too, facing unpleasant public scrutiny and Democratic Party criticism, sought to downplay Project 2025’s connection to Trump and the Republican Party. This included postponing, until after the election, the publication of his forthcoming book, which contained a revealing foreword by J.D. Vance. In the foreword, the GOP vice-presidential candidate observed that “the Heritage Foundation isn’t some random outpost on Capitol Hill; it is and has been the most influential engine of ideas for Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump.”

Only two years before, Trump himself emphasized his staunch and continued partnership with the Heritage Foundation. Attending a foundation event, he remarked: “This is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detailed plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America, and that’s coming.”

In addition, if anyone had any doubts about what Trump and his MAGA Republicans would do in the future about workers’ rights, they had only to look at the labor record of the first Trump administration. That record included sabotaging America’s labor unions, presiding over massive plant closures and job losses, blocking workers’ wage gains, and undermining the health and safety of American workers.

Consequently, the nation’s labor movement saw Trump’s past record and agenda for the future for what they were. In a statement issued on July 18, 2024, Liz Shuler, president of the national AFL-CIO, declared: “In his first term as president, Donald Trump was a disaster for workers and our unions.” Moreover, “the Trump Project 2025 Agenda lays out his plan to turbocharge his anti-worker policies, eliminate or control unions, and eviscerate labor laws and workers’ contracts.” Consequently, “a second Trump term would put everything we’ve fought for―good jobs, fair wages, health care, retirement security, worker security―on the chopping block.”

Indeed, Project 2025 provides a powerful reminder to the labor movement and its supporters of how important it is to defeat the election of Trump and his MAGA Republicans this November.


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Lawrence S. WittnerWebsite

Lawrence ("Larry") Wittner was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, and attended Columbia College, the University of Wisconsin, and Columbia University, where he received his Ph.D. in history in 1967. Thereafter, he taught history at Hampton Institute, at Vassar College, at Japanese universities (under the Fulbright program), and at SUNY/Albany. In 2010, he retired as professor of history emeritus. A writer on peace and foreign policy issues, he is the author or editor of twelve books and hundreds of published articles and book reviews and a former president of the Peace History Society. Since 1961, he has been active in the peace, racial equality, and labor movements, and currently serves as a national board member of Peace Action (America's largest grassroots peace organization) and as executive secretary of the Albany County Central Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. On occasion, he helps to fan the flames of discontent by performing vocally and on the banjo with the Solidarity Singers. His latest book is Working for Peace and Justice: Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual (University of Tennessee Press). More information about him can be found at his website: http://lawrenceswittner.com

Trump surrogate refuses to disavow RFK Jr's suggestion COVID was a racial bioweapon

Matthew Chapman
August 28, 2024

A campaign aide for former President Donald Trump deflected Wednesday over whether the campaign supports conspiracy theories put forth by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Screengrab via MSNBC)

A campaign aide for former President Donald Trump deflected Wednesday over whether the campaign supports conspiracy theories put forth by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Corey Lewandowski refused to give a straight answer when confronted by MSNBC's Ari Melber over whether the campaign stands behind Kennedy's many fringe theories now that the Trump campaign is using him as a surrogate.

"I'll remind everyone, RFK Jr. has said that COVID itself was made to target 'both Caucasians and Black people,' that he 'won't take sides on 9/11,' that the CIA controls the American press," said Melber. "How much of this should we understand to be the Trump campaign's position, and can you tell us what role RFK Jr. would play in health policy? We're hearing reports he could be involved in the transition team."

"Well, RFK Jr. has been someone who's been very steadfast in making sure that when it comes to the decisions that affect your body, you get to choose, and what we saw was government mandates, whether you're a government employee at the local level, the state level or the federal level, being forced to take an injection in order to save your job, and RFK was against that," said Lewandowski."

At that point, Melber interjected.

"You're talking about policy, and you are referring to something that is true, there was a wide national debate about government requirements. I would just mention, I asked you, though, about RFK's actual conspiracy theories. Are you going to tell me that you and Donald Trump think COVID was hatched to target people by race, or are you going to reject that part of his agenda?"

Lewandowski declined to answer directly, saying Kennedy is "a big man" who has "been on television a number of times to answer his own questions."

"What I am here to tell you is that he has a microphone to an audience who's very concerned that the government-mandated vaccines into their children and themselves in order to keep their jobs, and there's real Americans who lost their jobs and their livelihoods because of what the government did to them, and I think when it comes to RFK, specifically those moms who have young children, they're very concerned about what is being injected into their children, whether it's through the food supply or through these vaccines, and RFK has an opportunity to go out and talk about the fact that he was right," said Lewandowski. "The government should not have had to mandate those. We don't know the full impact of what was mandated by the government on the long-term repercussions that it could potentially cause, so we're very much in line with RFK on that position."

Watch the video below or at the link here.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

US ‘ceasefire’ plans are a trick to gift Israel Palestinian land

United States and Britain continue to aid Israel's genocide


United States secretary of state Antony Blinken is a con-artist 
(Picture: Chad J. McNeeley)

Tuesday 27 August 2024
 SOCIALIST WORKER

A gigantic fraud is taking place over the collapse of a supposed ceasefire deal in Gaza. Israel and its Western backers blame Hamas, but the real reason is that Israel made a deal impossible.

Key sticking points in the talks included Israel demanding that it would keep troops in the Philadelphi Corridor. The Corridor is a nine-mile stretch of land along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.

The idea that Israel would remain in the Corridor is an explicit violation of a 2005 agreement governing the area. It forbids Israeli deployment there.

Hamas insisted that any agreement should include the freedom of return for Gaza residents to their homes.

It also wants relief and reconstruction for Gaza—and a captive-prisoner exchange deal.

During talks in Cairo, Hamas’s delegation demanded that Israel be bound by what was agreed at earlier talks on 2 July.

That plan had been laid out by United States president Joe Biden and backed by a United Nations Security Council resolution.

Francesca Albanese, a UN official for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said, “History repeats itself. “Israel is using negotiations to eat up other portions of what remains of Palestine.

“Under the guise of ‘ ceasefire negotiations’ Israel is trying to create the conditions for permanent occupation and more land grabs.

“Those familiar with Palestine’s history recognise in what is happening to the Palestinians under Israel’s unlawful occupation, the pattern of settler colonialism.”

Israel has now confined 1.7 million displaced Palestinians into a mere tenth of Gaza’s area, according to Gaza’s government.

This drastic reduction in living space comes amid new evacuation orders from the Israeli military, further restricting the areas deemed “safe” for civilians.

In a statement released last week, the Gaza authority condemned the Israeli military’s actions as “some of the most heinous crimes against civilians in Gaza”.
Hamas says Britain has ‘contributed’ to genocide

In the first statement of its kind, the Palestinian resistance group Hamas has zeroed-in on Britain’s secret role in supporting Israel’s genocidal assault in Gaza.

Hamas said that British intelligence operations have directly contributed to the deaths of thousands of women and children in Gaza, according to the Quds News Network.

In December last year, the British Ministry of Defence announced that it would conduct surveillance flights over Israel and Gaza.

It said they would “provide intelligence to Tel Aviv as part of hostage rescue efforts”.

The ministry claimed that these surveillance aircraft were unarmed, did not have a combat role and were solely tasked with locating Israeli prisoners.

Two months ago, a senior Israeli official disclosed that a British spy team had been deployed to Israel since the beginning of its bombing campaign last October.

This revelation, highlighted in a New York Times newspaper report, also noted that both British and US spies have been operating in Israel throughout the genocide.

The Israeli official stated that the intelligence provided by Britain had given Israeli forces a significant advantage.
British medics in Gaza with message for Starmer

Dozens of British‑based doctors, nurses and medical professionals who worked in Gaza have called on Keir Starmer to halt arms sales to Israel.

In an open letter coordinated by the rights group International Centre of Justice for Palestinians, the health workers warned the prime minister and foreign secretary David Lammy that continuing arms sales could put them in violation of international law.

They said ending the sales is “morally as well as legally right”.

“It is difficult for many of us to recount the scenes we witnessed in Gaza, not least of all in the knowledge that many of the injuries we treated may have resulted from the use of weapons systems and components supplied from Britain,” the letter read.

The letter also noted that “with only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured or both”.

Citing domestic British law, international humanitarian law and Britain’s own Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, the signatories stressed that it was imperative to halt the sales.
Israeli bombs targeting more schools

Israeli bombs slammed into the al-Ezz Bin Abdul Salam school on Monday, the latest school‑turned‑shelter it has attacked.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Wednesday last week that Israeli bombs killed at least four people and wounded 18 at the Salah al-Din school.

It had been sheltering displaced Palestinians. Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat noted bitterly, “Another school massacre in northern Gaza. This is being done on purpose to empty out the remaining population.

“For the past ten months, Israeli occupation forces have been trying to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza.

“They have bombed us, starved us and are now targeting the most populated areas. These people are not interested in a ceasefire they are only interested in killing Palestinians.”

Israel has repeatedly attacked Gaza’s schools, hospitals and universities. Injuring Within a ten-day period in August, Israeli forces struck five schools in Gaza City, killing more than 179 people and injuring scores more.

Israel killed at least 15 people at the Dalal al-Mughrabi school on 1 August. Two days later, Israeli strikes on Hamama and al-Huda schools killed 17 people and injured more than 60.

On 4 August, Israeli missiles murdered at least 30 people in the Nassr and Hassan Salameh schools in the Nassr neighbourhood in Gaza City.

Israel bombed Abdel Fattah Hamouda and az‑Zahra schools, killing 17 people on 8 August. On 10 August, Israel hit Gaza City’s al-Tabin school, killing more than 100 displaced Palestinians.

Palestine protest diary

Sat 31 Aug Divest for Palestine day of action at councils. Details at tinyurl.com/Divest3108

Sat 7 Sept, 12 noon central London—national demonstration

Sat 21 Sept, 12 noon Liverpool—protest at Labour Party conference

UK


Resist Starmer’s push to make workers pay

Starmer is trying to make working class people pay for the mess that the Tories left behind


Keir Starmer on the phone to his rich buddies (Picture: No10)

Tuesday 27 August 2024
SOCIALIST WORKER Issue 2920

Remember when soaking Rishi Sunak stood outside Downing Street to announce the election while “Things Can Only Get Better” blasted in the background? On Tuesday Keir Starmer swept away hope of speedy change and laid out that things are going to get worse (see page 3).

“I won’t shy away from making unpopular decisions now if it’s the best thing for the country in the long term,” he said. “We can’t go back to business as usual.” Starmer is preparing us for Labour’s “painful” October budget—and to make working class people pay for the chaos the Tories left behind.

Things will be getting worse for ordinary people—not politicians, bosses or bankers. That’s a political choice.

Labour doesn’t need to keep the two-child benefit cap, snatch the winter fuel allowance from millions of pensioners and slash funding from key services to fill the “£22 billion black hole”. Stopping funding for war would save billions. Britain has given £4.6 billion to Ukraine’s war drive, plus a further £2.5 billion this year.

Military spending is 2.2 percent of Britain’s GDP. But Labour will raise spending to 2.5 percent to a total of £87 billion a year.

Above all, Labour won’t tax the rich. A 2 percent wealth tax on assets over £10 million could generate £24 billion a year and affect just 0.04 percent of people.

Applying the same rate of tax on income to capital gains—a tax on the profit when the rich gains from selling second homes and businesses—would generate £16.7 billion a year. Ending subsidies for oil and gas companies would generate £2.2 billion a year.

And around £10 billion could be generated by taxing the rich who get huge breaks for paying into private pension schemes. But relying on Labour to tax the billionaires isn’t enough.

We need to dismantle the system that creates vast wealth inequality. That means launching an assault against the bosses and their system—and going beyond the narrowness of trade union leaders.

Pushed on BBC Radio 4 to comment on Labour’s plans, TUC union federation general secretary Paul Nowak fell dutifully in line. He could have been mistaken for a Labour spokesperson.

Nowak said, “This is a serious message from a serious prime minister that his government is committed to putting right what went wrong over 14 years.”

And he said that unions wouldn’t push for higher public sector pay than the pay review bodies recommended. We can’t sit around and wait for things to potentially get better. Starmer said that national strikes “crippled” the country.

Workers need to use this power. If things are getting worse for us, we should make it much worse for Starmer.



Macron Refuses to Appoint Left-Wing Prime Minister, Sparking Call for Protest
August 28, 2024
Source: TruthOut




The decision has made the left furious, saying that Macron is bucking democratic norms to refuse the left power.French President Emmanuel Macron officially rejected naming a prime minister from the left-wing coalition that triumphed in the country’s snap election in June, sparking anger from left-wing leaders and advocates who say that Macron is exercising a dangerous power grab.

Macron issued a statement on Monday saying that he would not be appointing a prime minister from the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) coalition, which won a plurality of seats in France’s election — a historic win for the French left. He claimed that any prime minister representing NFP would be immediately voted out by the National Assembly.

To many on the left, the statement showed Macron’s refusal to give up power despite his coalition’s loss, and his outright opposition to allowing left-wing rule.

Many have pointed out that, if the left-wing pick would be immediately voted out, then he should just allow that to happen rather than refuse to appoint a left-wing candidate to begin with; leading French paper Le Monde said that Macron should appoint a left-wing leader in the “interest of democracy.”

The decision has infuriated the left. Leaders of La France Insoumise (LFI), which won roughly 75 of the 178 seats belonging to NFP in the election, have characterized Macron’s actions as a “coup” and the party has called for protests against Macron. The leader of the country’s Communist party has also called for an uprising.The Green party and Socialist party leaders have said that they will not participate in negotiations with Macron due to his refusal to work with the left. “This election is being stolen from us,” Green party leader Marine Tondelier said.

As president, Macron is responsible for naming a new prime minister after power shifts in elections, but he has dragged his feet on doing so. For weeks, he refused to meet with NFP’s candidate, the Socialist Party’s Lucie Castets.

Meanwhile, on Monday, he met with the far right coalition’s leader, Marine Le Pen — potentially in hopes that he could peel off members from the right in order to shirk the left and form a coalition of the center-left and center-right, or even the far right, that reject the left. Le Pen’s party, the Rassemblement National, was expected to win June’s election and is known for its extremist right-wing views. Though the party rebranded itself in 2018, its original formation was made up of fascist collaborators and military officers trying to maintain France’s colonial empire.

The NFP did not win a majority in the National Assembly, which requires 289 seats under a single coalition or party for a majority. However, it is a major bucking of the norm for Macron to not at least try to co-lead with a member of an opposing party, known as cohabitation.

The NFP ran on a platform of raising France’s minimum wage, undoing the raising of the legal retirement age and building affordable housing.

'This election is being stolen from us': French left calls mass protest against Macron

David McBrayer
August 27, 2024

Leftist parties in France on Tuesday accused President Emmanuel Macron of election theft and announced mass protests after he rejected Nouveau Front Populaire's proposed candidate for prime minister, even though the left-wing coalition won the most seats in a snap parliamentary contest last month.

The left-wing parties that formed NFP in June to fight off the surging far-right expressed outrage at Macron's decision, with the Jean-Luc Mélenchon-led La France Insoumise (LFI) Party condemning Macron's dismissal of a leftist government as a "coup" and urging a "firm response from French society."

The party specifically called for "a large demonstration against Macron's coup on September 7" and expressed "hope that the political, union, and allied forces committed to the defense of democracy will join this call."

Marine Tondelier, the leader of France's Green Party, said Tuesday that "this election is being stolen from us" and declared that "the people must get rid of Macron for the good of democracy."

"He is chaos and instability," Tondelier added.

The French political system has been engulfed in chaos since Macron called snap elections in June after his party performed dreadfully in European Parliament elections in June as Marine Le Pen's far-right, xenophobic National Rally surged.

While the French left and Macron allies successfully teamed up last month to prevent the National Rally from seizing control of the nation's government, NFP's stunning victory in the snap election created a new dilemma for Macron, who has been openly hostile to the left since taking office in 2017.

Macron claimed Monday that a leftist-led government "would immediately have a majority of more than 350 MPs against it, effectively preventing it from acting."

"In view of the opinions expressed by the political leaders consulted, the institutional stability of our country means that this option should not be pursued," said Macron, ruling out the NFP's candidate for prime minister, Lucie Castets.

Protesting Macron's decision, leftist leaders boycotted a fresh round of negotiations on Tuesday, with Tondelier saying that "we're not going to continue these sham consultations with a president who doesn't listen anyway... and is obsessed with keeping control."

"He's not looking for a solution, he's trying to obstruct it," said Tondelier.

In a social media post on Monday, Mélenchon pledged to move ahead with an impeachment motion against Macron, calling for a "swift and firm" response to the French president.

"The president of the republic has just created a situation of exceptional gravity," Mélenchon wrote.


French president Emmanuel Macron plots to keep a pro-boss government

The left wing LFI party has announced protests ‘against Emmanuel Macron’s coup’ on Saturday


Marching against racism in Paris on 14 July

By Charlie Kimber
Wednesday 28 August 2024
SOCUALIST WORKER Issue 2292

The neoliberal French president Emmanuel Macron has detonated another deep crisis. He’s bulldozed aside democracy and refused to name a government led by the left wing New Popular Front (NPF) coalition.

The NPF won the most seats in the July parliamentary elections. But Macron insists on an openly pro-boss government—even if people didn’t vote for one.

The French constitution does not spell out that the president must appoint a prime minister from the group that won most MPs. But previously this has always happened.

To give himself cover, Macron held talks with leaders of the fascist National Rally party. They said that they would immediately call a no confidence vote against any leftist prime minister.

But Macron could have ordered his MPs not to support such a vote against the NPF prime ministerial candidate, Lucie Castets.

Manuel Bompard, national coordinator of the LFI left party, which is part of the NPF, called Macron’s actions an “anti-democratic coup”. LFI leader Jean-Luc Melenchon said his party would put forward a motion to remove the president. But this requires a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament, and is unlikely to go through.

The French media now speculate that Macon might come up with some corporate figure as prime minister. These include Renault chair Jean-Dominque Senard and Pascal Demurger, head of insurance company Maif.

The French ruling class is unsure how to proceed. Assembling a stable political coalition to implement austerity is difficult, but it can’t allow the uncertainty to continue.

The NPF is also caught in the logic of its electoral pact with Macron. It did a deal at the elections in July to help his candidates win in many constituencies. Now the NPF leaders bleat as Macron carries through his wholly-predictable policies.

Castets is a smooth technocrat close to the Socialist Party—the most right wing element of the NPF. The idea of putting her forward was to seem “reasonable” and not upset “moderate” parties.

But Macron won’t support even the mildest left programme. He wants money for the military, not welfare or public services. And he promised France’s bosses a war on workers’ living standards and rights.

The Le Monde newspaper reports, “For Emmanuel Macron and his people, it is simply unthinkable to appoint a government that would call into question the ‘mother of all reforms’, that of pensions”.

Pushing aside that roadblock requires struggle, not parliamentary manoeuvres. LFI now “proposes that marches for the respect of democracy take place”. There must be mass mobilisation., and pressure on the union leaders to call walkouts.

But the elections were on 7 July. Melenchon could have called for marches and strikes immediately afterwards. Instead, he allowed a “truce” for the Olympic Games and left Macron to proceed with meandering talks.

Melenchon then retreated in the face of Macron’s intransigence and asked him to accept a Castets government with no LFI ministers.

All of this imprisons the left inside barren electoral combinations and leads away from militant mobilisations.
UK 
Why we must oppose racism and war at the TUC Congress

Sean Vernell is a UCU union national executive committee member and delegate to the TUC union federation's congress. He surveys some of the key debates this year


Paul Nowak, general secretary of the TUC union federation

Wednesday 28 August 2024
SOCIALIST WORKER Issue 2920


Among delegates to this year’s TUC union federation congress, there is a heightened sense of expectation.

For the first time in 14 years, congress takes place for under a Labour government. Motions to congress, which begins on 8 September, call upon Labour to fulfil its manifesto promises from repealing anti-union laws to addressing climate change.

But, as is customary at the TUC, there is little on how to achieve these demands. A lot of fire and fury, but very few calls for action to back up the demands.

While most motions and amendments will pass without controversy, not all will. There are key debates over climate change, arms expenditure and racism that will be contested, which reveal the tensions among union leaders.

The TUC is only the echo of the battle that takes place inside workplaces—most delegates are union full timers—but it does matter who wins these debates.

The GMB, a union led by the right wing within the trade union movement, represents some of the lowest paid workers. It also represents some of the most skilled workers in the arms and energy industries.

GMB has been successful in shifting TUC policy to the right over the last three years. It successfully moved a motion calling for an increase in arms expenditure and arming Ukraine—a bloody battleground between the West and Russia. And it moved the debate on climate change to the right by successfully passing motions in support of fossil fuels.

The Unite union has members working in the arms and energy industries and is in competition with the GMB. This leads general secretary Sharon Graham to pander to the GMB on key issues such as climate change and arms expenditure.

GMB’s lead motion this year is entitled, “Industrial strategy is national security.” The motion argues that their members working in steel, gas, chemicals and water are in a unique position to understand the relationship between economic growth and national security.

The motion claims that protecting jobs in these industries is at the same time protecting the “national interest”. It ends by calling for support for more gas and the building of Sizewell C, a nuclear power plant.

And, not to be outdone, one of Unite’s lead motions is on “a workers’ transition in the North Sea”. It aims to unravel a key Labour commitment to ban new oil licenses in the North Sea in response to the climate crisis.

It starts with welcoming Labour’s commitment to 650,000 green jobs but ends with calling for an end to the ban. It calls upon congress “to do everything in its power to prevent oil and gas workers becoming the miners of net zero”.

These arguments are completely false. The NUM union miners’ fight to defend their jobs and communities in 1984-85 was in response to Margaret Thatcher’s brutal union-busting agenda.

Thatcher’s claim was that the pits were “uneconomic”—the destruction of miners’ jobs was nothing to do with the environment, “net zero” or climate change. Indeed, the Tories quickly replaced British coal with imports from Poland.

We only have to throw our minds back to the lockdowns to see how a number of industries converted their plants to make socially useful products to save people lives. Workers in fossil fuel industries could use their skills as part of a green transition. Why aren’t the Unite and GMB leaderships making these arguments?

In Port Talbot workers face a jobs massacre because of bosses’ drive to maximise profits—and Unite and Community union leaders’ failure to lead a fight.

Unite and GMB would be much more effective in defending jobs if they identified this as a key struggle and united with those campaigning for a rapid and urgent transition to highly skilled jobs which could transition us away from fossil fuels.

The Unite leadership will also attempt to outdo GMB by watering down a Palestine motion that calls for an “end the arms trade with Israel”. Its amendment deletes this and replaces it with calls to “ban export licenses for arms directly traded with Israel and encourage others to do the same”.

The only people who will be cheering if these motions are passed are the CEOs in the fossil fuel and arms industries and the far right who peddle the same myths.

Many union leaders have signed up to support the Stand Up To Racism campaign against the far right. Hopefully congress will support the NEU union’s amendment which calls on the TUC to “mobilise for demonstrations and campaigns against the far right called by SUTR”.

But, if the trade union movement is to be effective in combatting the far right, it should also oppose militarism. When government unleash the dogs of war, it unleashes the dogs of racism as well.

This is why it matters who wins these debates at Congress. Unison and PSC have two good motions that put the alternative argument over these issues. The UCU also has an amendment to the Unison motion on climate change. It calls on the government to “seek to taper defence spending and arms proliferation, with a just transition into climate jobs for affected workers”.

The attempt to defend jobs on the grounds of a “national interest” will always undermine the class interest of workers. Workers, whatever industry or sector they work in, have no national interest—they only have a class interest which they share with workers across the globe. It is this class unity that real internationalism must be built upon.