THE OLD TWO STEP SHUFFLE

2023 Was '2 Steps Forward, 2 Steps Back' for Tropical Forest Loss


"Steep declines in the Brazilian Amazon and Colombia show that progress is possible, but increasing forest loss in other areas has largely counteracted that progress," one expert said.


Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva delivers a speech in Brasília on June 5, 2023.
(Photo: Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images)

OLIVIA ROSANE
Apr 04, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

An annual accounting of global deforestation, released Thursday, shows that political will can make a significant difference when it comes to protecting vital ecosystems and the Indigenous and local communities that depend on them—but that policymakers in many regions are not taking enough action to save tropical forests.

The data, gathered by the University of Maryland's Global Land Analysis and Discover Lab and published on the World Resources Institute's (WRI) Global Forest Watch program, found that primary tropical forest loss in 2023 decreased by more than one-third in Brazil and nearly 50% in Colombia after both countries elected leaders who championed conservation policies. However, on the global level, these declines were offset by increased deforestation in other countries.

"The world took two steps forward, two steps back when it comes to this past year's forest loss," Global Forest Watch director Mikaela Weisse said in a statement. "Steep declines in the Brazilian Amazon and Colombia show that progress is possible, but increasing forest loss in other areas has largely counteracted that progress. We must learn from the countries that are successfully slowing deforestation."

"This year's forest loss numbers tell an inspiring story of what we can achieve when leaders prioritize action, but the data also highlights many urgent areas of missed opportunity to protect our forests and our future."

All told, 3.7 million hectares of primary tropical forests were felled last year at a rate equivalent to 10 soccer fields per minute. While tropical deforestation decreased by 9% in 2023 compared with 2022, the overall deforestation rate has held steady when compared to 2019 and 2021. Tree clearing released 2.4 metric gigatons of climate pollution into the atmosphere, which is nearly half of the U.S.'s yearly emissions from burning fossil fuels.

"Forests are critical ecosystems for fighting climate change, supporting livelihoods, and protecting biodiversity," WRI President and CEO Ani Dasgupta said in a statement.

Global Forest Watch focuses on the tropics because more than 96% of human-caused deforestation occurs there. However, the climate crisis contributed to making 2023 a devastating year for global tree loss, which rose 24% due to record-breaking wildfires in Canada's boreal forests.

"That is one of the biggest anomalies on record," University of Maryland researcher Matt Hansen toldReuters, adding, "It's a big deal, and it's a cautionary tale for climate impacts to fire."

In the tropics, Brazil managed to cut primary deforestation by 36%, the lowest level in the country since 2015. The country moved from being responsible for 43% of tropical deforestation in 2022 to 30% in 2023.

The decline coincided with the election of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who replaced former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro oversaw record deforestation as he prioritized exploitative industries over forest protections and Indigenous rights. Since taking office in early 2023, Lula has reversed course by promising to end deforestation by 2030, ramping up enforcement efforts against illegal forest clearing, rolling back anti-environmental measures, and recognizing new Indigenous territories.

"We're incredibly proud to see such stark progress being made across the country, especially in the Brazilian Amazon," Mariana Oliveira, who manages the Forests, Land Use, and Agriculture Program for WRI Brazil, said in a statement.


In Brazil, Amazon forest loss decreased by 39%, though deforestation increased in the vulnerable and vital Cerrado and Pantanal ecosystems.

"We still have a very long ways to improve and sustain the efforts, and I hope today's release energizes the national and subnational governments in Brazil—and governments around the world—to build on this momentum rather than using it as an excuse to slow down," Oliveira said.

The other 2023 success story was Colombia, which curbed primary forest loss by 49%. This reversal followed the election of left-wing President Gustavo Petro Urrego, who took office in August 2022 with Vice President Francia Márquez, a Goldman Environmental Prize winner. After a 2016 peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, other armed groups and other opportunists moved into territories they had vacated, increasing forest loss. Petro has prioritized conservation in negotiating peace agreements with these other armed groups.

"The story of deforestation in Colombia is complex and deeply intertwined with the country's politics, which makes 2023's historic decrease particularly powerful," WRI Colombia natural resources manager Alejandra Laina said in a statement. "There is no doubt that recent government action and the commitment of the communities has had a profound impact on Colombia's forests, and we encourage those involved in current peace talks to use this data as a springboard to accelerate further progress."

Despite the good news out of Brazil and Colombia, upticks in deforestation in Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Laos counteracted that progress on the global level. In Bolivia, forest loss rose by 27% to reach the greatest loss on record for a third consecutive year. A little over half of this was due to fires that spread more readily because of climate-fueled drought, while the rest was due to the expansion of agriculture, particularly soy. Agriculture was the main force behind deforestation in Nicaragua—which cleared 4.2% of its remaining primary forest—and Laos, which saw record loss of 47%.

Deforestation rates also continued to creep upward in Congo at 3% in 2023. This is concerning because the Congo rainforest is the last tropical forest that reliably acts as a carbon sink, and because of its importance to local communities.

"Forests are the backbone of livelihoods for Indigenous people and local communities across Africa, and this is especially true in the Congo Basin," Teodyl Nkuintchua, the Congo Basin strategy and engagement lead at WRI, said in a statement. "Dramatic policy action must be taken in the Congo Basin to enact new development pathways that support a transition away from unsustainable food and energy production practices, while improving well-being for Indigenous people and local communities as much as revenues for countries."

The new data comes as world leaders have six years to meet their promise, made at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in 2021, of ending deforestation by 2030. However, WRI found that nearly 2 million more hectares were cleared in 2023 than would be consistent with meeting that goal, Mongabayreported.

WRI global forest director Rod Taylor told reporters that the world was "far off track and trending in the wrong direction when it comes to reducing global deforestation."

WRI's Dasgupta said: "The world has just six years left to keep its promise to halt deforestation. This year's forest loss numbers tell an inspiring story of what we can achieve when leaders prioritize action, but the data also highlights many urgent areas of missed opportunity to protect our forests and our future."

Taylor added that the rest of the world could not rely on individual leaders like Lula or Petro, but should take steps to encourage deforestation such as making it more profitable to preserve forests than to clear them, making sure global supply chains are deforestation free, and protecting the land rights of Indigenous peoples.

"Bold global mechanisms and unique local initiatives together are both needed to achieve enduring reductions in deforestation across all tropical front countries," Taylor said.

The U.S. Right also Wants to Get Rid of Birth Control

 BY DAN LA BOTZ

Having succeeded two years ago in overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that previously provided federal protection for abortion rights, and then having passed abortion restrictions in several states that have virtually eliminated abortion, the right is now advocating that birth control pills should be eliminated.

Claiming to be defending women who might be harmed by hormonal contraception, and arguing that they are also protecting women’s dignity and the family, rightwing social media has begun a campaign to end recreational sex. Getting rid of the birth control pill they suggest is a feminist issue, good for women’s bodies and their souls.

The right’s ideological arguments against the pill, like their arguments against abortion, are couched in terms of defending the family and women themselves. The conservative Heritage Foundation states that “…conservatives have to lead the way in restoring sex to its true purpose, and ending recreational sex and senseless use of birth control pills.”

Rightwing activist Charles Rufo claims that, “The pill causes health problems for many women. ‘Recreational sex’ is a large part of the reason we have so many single-mother households, which drives poverty, crime, and dysfunction. The point of sex is to create children—this is natural, normal, and good.”

One rightwing woman commentator, speaking on X, suggests the birth control pill has often caused women serious psychological problems and led to recreational sex that was often “loveless and degrading.” She says that there should be “a feminist movement for rewilding sex and returning the danger, the intimacy, and the consequentiality to sex.” In this way, she says, women can “reconnect with the fullness of our embodied nature.” Republican politicians have taken up these arguments and some propose to restrict or ban the pill.

Most women are highly unlikely to buy this argument. The birth control pill has been widely used since 1960 by tens of millions of women over the last 70 years, and though the pill may not be the best form of contraception for all women, and while a relatively small percentage of women suffer adverse effects, the pill has allowed women to take control of their own lives.

The pill is often talked about in terms of the “sexual revolution” but it has been part and parcel of the movement for women’s liberation. The pill, widely used by both single and married women, made it possible for women to plan their careers and their families and, yes, to have sex for pleasure when they wanted to. Working class, and poor women no longer had to have children that they couldn’t afford and support or so many children that they would be overwhelmed with domestic labor and emotionally exhausted. Most teenage girls have their first sexual intercourse at 16 or 17 years of age, but some earlier, and so man parents often try to protect them from unwanted pregnancies by arranging with a doctor for them to take birth control pills.

A recent national poll by Americans for Contraception, as reported in The New York Time, found that 80 percent of voters stated that protecting access to contraception was “deeply important” to them, and even among Republicans 72 percent view birth control favorably. Still, Republican politicians will likely try to restrict birth control pills. Just this month in the state of Arizona, Democrats put forward a bill to protect access to all forms of birth control, but the Republicans there voted it down. Women and their allies will have to be on guard against another attack on their freedom.

24 March 2024

ATTACHED DOCUMENTS

• the-u-s-right-also-wants-to-get-rid-of-birth-control_a8461-2.pdf (PDF - 905.1 KIB)
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• the-u-s-right-also-wants-to-get-rid-of-birth-control_a8461-3.pdf (PDF - 904.9 KIB)
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• Dan La Botz was a founding member of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). He is the author of Rank-and-File Rebellion: Teamsters for a Democratic Union (1991). He is also a co-editor of New Politics and editor of Mexican Labor News and Analysis.

The Contradictions in the Democratic Party on View

 BY DAN LA BOTZ

The tensions and contradictions within the Democratic Party were fully on view on March 28 in New York City. On the one hand, President Joe Biden raised $25 million dollars, more than at any other single fundraising event in U.S. political history. Yet at the same time he was repeatedly interrupted by protestors chanting things like “blood on your hands,” referring to U.S. support for Israel’s war against the Palestinians. Biden appeared with former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in a demonstration of the party’s unity at the top. But that could not stop protestors from the party’s rebellious rank-and-file from raising their voices against what they called Biden’s support for “genocide” in Gaza.

Some 5,000 people attended the event in person where the cheapest tickets sold for $250 and access to the intimate receptions cost between $250,000 and $500,000. A photo with the three presidents cost $100,000. So far, the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee have raised $128.7 million, while Trump and the Republican Party have raised $96.1 million.

Trump must raise money not only for his election campaign but also for legal expenses for the several criminal trials he faces and for penalties in the civil suits he has lost, all of which amount to hundreds of millions of dollars. Last week his Truth Social, Trump’s social media company, was for the first time listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange at a value of $50 per share and valued overall at $6.8 billion. Suddenly Trump’s net worth is estimated at $7.5 billion. However, many believe the stock’s value will collapse, since Truth Social is a small social media presence and has been losing subscribers and money. So, rich as he is at the moment, Trump is not financially secure. Nevertheless, he won the Republican nomination, absolutely dominates the party, and has a fanatically loyal base.

Biden’s strong financial position does not solve the problem of the eroding support his is receiving from some Democrats because of his failure to call for an immediate ceasefire and end U.S. support for Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinians in Gaza where 32,000 have been killed, 13,000 of them children, thousands of others no doubt dead beneath the rubble, over 75,000 injured, and 1.7 displaced and hundreds of thousands starving. In the West Bank, Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians, has carried out mass arrests, and set up new illegal settler roads and outposts, as uniformed Israeli settlers engage in violent attacks upon Palestinians.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has repeatedly called upon Israel to protect Palestinian civilians and to make humanitarian aid available. The United States abstained on the recent vote in the Security Council for an immediate but temporary ceasefire for the remainder of the Ramadan holiday and for Hamas’s release of the remaining hostages of the October 7 attack. Yet while Biden’s administration opposes Israel’s plan for an attack on Rafah and has apparently broken with Netanyahu’s government, Biden has not ended his support for the Israeli government, continuing to authorize more jet planes and bombs.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrations continue cross the United States demanding a ceasefire and an end to U.S. support for Israel. Americans as a whole oppose Israel’s actions, Democrats by larger margins. The far left is divided. Some protests are led by Jewish Voice for Peace and the Democratic Socialist of America, while others are organized by Stalinist or campist groups such as the Party for Socialism and Liberation, with Palestinian groups found in all of them. In any case, according to the Gallup Poll, young adults 18-34 show the biggest decline in their view of Israel, dropping from 64% favorable in 2023 to 38% today. That’s Biden’s problem, no matter how much money he raises.

31 March 2024


ATTACHED DOCUMENTS

the-contradictions-in-the-democratic-party-on-view_a8473.pdf (PDF - 905.2 KIB)
Extraction PDF [->article8473]

Dan La Botz
 was a founding member of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). He is the author of Rank-and-File Rebellion: Teamsters for a Democratic Union (1991). He is also a co-editor of New Politics and editor of Mexican Labor News and Analysis.

Lord Balfour Was an Imperialist Warmonger


We should give our full solidarity to the Palestine Action comrade who defaced a portrait of Arthur Balfour at Cambridge University. But the problem for everyone who opposes the genocide against Gaza is how to massify and politically equip the movement.


Daniel Nath 

LEFT VOICE USA

March 21, 2024



On March 8, a member of the organization Palestine Action in Britain publicly denounced the current genocidal Israeli war on Gaza and the colonial history of the state of Israel by spray painting and slashing an oil painting depicting Lord Arthur Balfour in suit, tie, and regal red robe on display at Cambridge University.

In a press release, Palestine Action demanded the British government shut down Israeli arms company Elbit Systems’ manufacturing in Britain and stop supporting occupation in Palestine.

When it covered this act of political vandalism, the New York Times introduced Lord Balfour as “the British official whose pledge of support in 1917 for ‘the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people’ helped pave the way to Israel’s founding three decades later.” This whitewashed description of Balfour as simply an “official,” who seemingly concerned himself with the rights and safety of oppressed people and refugees, is consistent with the publication’s defense of Israel’s brutal violence in this war. Palestine Action more accurately called Balfour a “colonial administrator.”
Greatest Hits of Lord Balfour on Three Continents

A leader of the British Conservative Party, Arthur Balfour succeeded his own uncle, Lord Salisbury, as prime minister in 1902, without new elections, when his uncle resigned due to old age.

As minister for Ireland (appointed by his uncle in 1887), Balfour moved the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, which allowed for the suspension of trial by jury for people involved in a rent strike of tenant farmers against landowners and the banning of Irish nationalist political parties. Immediately thereafter, the Royal Irish Constabulary shot into a crowd of protesters listening to speakers on the town square of Mitchelstown, County Cork, killing three people with impunity.

Balfour became prime minister a month after Britain won full control of the territory that became modern South Africa in the Second Boer War. South Africa became one of the most racist states in the world and produced roughly half of global gold in the 20th century. It was formed out of the Cape Colony and Natal, colonized by Britain in the 19th century, and the Transvaal and Orange colonies, colonized by the Dutch descended Boers. The Boer colonies completely denied the vote to Africans; the Cape Colony formally assigned the right to vote based on individual property and thus “only” denied it to Black people in practice. When the British parliament debated in 1906 what to do about the vote in South Africa, and many MPs argued for the Cape Colony system, Balfour insisted: “the white and black races … are born with different capacities.” He was a founding father of apartheid.

Until 1905, Britain had more or less open borders. As prime minister, Balfour pushed the Aliens Act, which introduced the first formal immigration restrictions, allowing the state to classify poor, disabled, or allegedly criminal migrants as “undesirable,” and establishing deportations. The law passed after substantial Jewish immigration from the Russian Empire to England — and near the height of the pogroms in Ukraine during the revolution and counterrevolution of 1905. It was anti-Semitic in motive and effect.

During World War One, Balfour was first head of the navy, then foreign minister. He issued his Declaration to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain the week that the British army based out of Egypt broke through Ottoman forces and occupied Gaza. A month later, Britain occupied Jerusalem; a year later, Nablus.

The invasion force included tens of thousands of Indian soldiers under white commanders. In 2017, a Jerusalem Post article, penned by Israeli diplomat Lenny Ben-David, celebrated this fact as a way of welcoming visiting Indian prime minister Narendra Modi at the centenary, by claiming General Edmund Allenby’s (a veteran of the South African war and, from 1919, governor of Egypt!) invasion of Palestine as a liberation. Balfour wrote in 1919 to prime minister David Lloyd George, “[I]n the case of Palestine we deliberately and rightly decline to accept the principle of self-determination … We do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country … the 700,000 Arabs.”

Individual Actions Are Not Enough

The actions of the solidarity activist who destroyed the Balfour portrait were entirely justified. At the same time, individual symbolic actions cannot stop imperialist support for genocide. Public statements have value if they help to shape mass political support for Palestinian freedom in Britain, the United States, and other countries.

We need working-class mobilization and independence from all wings of our rulers, and all those who send heavy weaponry to Israel. The goal of our movement for the liberation of Palestine must shape its methods in the present. That goal should be hundreds of thousands of workers standing actively with Palestinians and against our own capitalists’ imperialism.

The case of Britain is striking. On November 11 and other days of protest since, around one million people have marched in solidarity with Palestinians. But their demands are ignored with impunity by the British government. On normal days, when there is not a march organized, these million people, including many of the most motivated, return to the separateness and powerlessness of individual daily life. The non-existence of effective sustained political campaigns and organizations prevents this large section of the population from taking a practical shape to change the world.

The British capitalist class has demonstrated its resolve to deny the reality of this war — the carpet bombing and starving of a ghetto — through all its tools in media, culture, and institutions. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has fully supported the Israeli state, insulated from the opinions of millions of workers, youth, and immigrants in Britain. Existing social, political, and union organizations are content not to organize those masses who are against British imperialism and aid to Israel for more assertive political action.

Palestine Action made a contribution by ripping down Balfour’s image. If members are arrested for this action, the Left and the working class should directly support them against criminal prosecution.

However, mobilization and class and political independence are needed to oppose the genocide and fight for a single socialist Palestinian state — with the IDF and the Zionist borders abolished, with full right of return, where Arabs and Jews can live as equals.


Daniel Nath  is a political writer, lives in the Midwest, and is forklift certified. He has covered topics including police crimes, borders, and why unions can't be apolitical

Terrorist Attack and Election Pave Way for Putin to Intensify Repression and War

BY ASHLEY SMITH, ILYA BUDRAITSKIS

MONDAY 1 APRIL 2024


Russian President Vladimir Putin is already trying to use the horrific terrorist attack that took place Friday 22 March at a Moscow concert hall to stoke his broader imperialist and authoritarian aims, and Russian political theorist Ilya Budraitskis says he fears Putin may soon “compound this tragedy with repression at home and death and destruction abroad.”

The terrorist group Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) has claimed responsibility for the attack, in which a group of terrorists killed and wounded hundreds of people attending a rock concert in suburban Moscow. United States officials have also assigned culpability to ISIS-K for the attack. But President Putin and other Russian officials have made statements that seek to implicate Ukraine in the attack — a rhetorical move designed to deflect attention from his regime’s failure to stop the attack and whip up support for escalation of his imperialist war.

All of this is playing out in the immediate aftermath of the rigged Russian presidential election, in which all opposition candidates were banned, and Putin secured an overwhelming victory. With his new term scheduled to last until 2030, he will become the country’s longest reigning ruler since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Presenting the election as confirmation of popular support for his regime, Putin stands ready to consolidate his reactionary rule within Russia and expand his imperialist war in Ukraine.

In the conversation that follows, Russian socialist Ilya Budraitskis shares his thoughts about the terrorist attack, the election, Putin’s rule, the nature of Putin’s regime and the trajectory of the war. Budraitskis is a political theorist and activist from Russia, a visiting scholar with the Program in Critical Theory at the University of California Berkeley, and author of Dissidents Among Dissidents: Ideology, Politics, and the Left in Post-Soviet Russia. He is also a member of the editorial board of the Russian socialist website Posle.media.


Ashley Smith: What happened in the horrific terrorist attack in Moscow? Who is behind it? How have the Russian authorities and Putin responded? How will they use the attack in Russian and in their imperialist war on Ukraine?

Ilya Budraitskis: A group of terrorists entered Crocus City, a concert hall in Moscow, armed with machine guns and explosive devices. They attacked the private security guards, shot people in attendance, and set off their devices, triggering a fire and killing at least 133 people and injuring more than 100.

Russian security forces have arrested 11 people, four of them as they tried to escape the country into either Belarus or Ukraine. These four were migrant workers from Tajikistan, a Central Asian Republic and former Soviet republic, and they have confessed to the attack, claiming they were paid $5,000 to carry it out.

In the immediate aftermath, without a shred of evidence, Russian officials and news outlets blamed Ukraine and even implied U.S. involvement. Putin delayed making any public address clearly in the hopes of finding or manufacturing evidence to use against Ukraine.

When he did speak on national television 20 hours later, he claimed Ukraine was trying to help the terrorists escape from Russia. He also denounced all migrant workers from Central Asia as if they all shared some kind of collective guilt for the attack.

None of these charges are credible. Right after the attack, Ukrainian spokespersons denied any involvement and warned that Putin would blame Ukraine and whip up support for his war. Obviously the attack on migrants is just racism and xenophobia.

As for allegations against the U.S., Washington had actually informed Russia of an impending attack by ISIS-K, a wing of ISIS based in Afghanistan, that has targeted Russia for decimating its forces in Syria and backing the country’s dictator Bashar al-Assad. Since the attack, Washington has blamed ISIS-K for carrying it out.

That group has also claimed responsibility, and they are likely the culprit. ISIS-K could have reached out through Afghanistan into nearby Tajikistan to secure the services of the attackers.

Putin initially dismissed Washington’s warnings as disinformation and fearmongering. But his security forces did arrest several people they accused of being agents of ISIS. But clearly they did not take the warning that seriously, did not root out all of its agents in Moscow, and failed to stop the attack.

Nevertheless, Putin has persisted in trying to implicate Ukraine. Clearly he intends to instrumentalize the attack to justify domestic repression and imperialist war in Ukraine.

That is how he has responded to previous terrorist attacks. For instance, when Chechen militants seized a school in Beslan and took more than 1,100 hostages, he recklessly raided the school, leading to the death of hundreds, ended democratic elections of regional governors and dramatically escalated the war in Chechnya.

I predict Putin will follow that script today. He will ram through more repressive measures, not just against supposed terrorists but against any dissent against his rule in Russia. Already, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has proposed the restoration of the death penalty.

Putin will likely also whip up patriotic support for a possible new offensive in Ukraine. Thus, he may compound this tragedy with repression at home and death and destruction abroad.

Let’s turn to the results of the Russian election. They are, of course, no surprise. Putin won 87 percent and antiwar candidates were banned, how should we understand this result? How much does this reflect popular support for the regime, how much is the result of coerced support and how much of it is the result of passive acquiescence?

The results of the election were indeed unsurprising. They were like all the others in Putin’s career; the outcome was preordained and rigged. But there were certain differences this time. He achieved a North Korean level of victory, something he had never done in the past.

In 2000, when he was elected for the first time as president, he won with only 52 percent of the vote. In other elections, he got less than 70 percent, and in his last election in 2018 he garnered 76 percent.

To secure 87 percent of the vote, he abandoned even the pretense of democracy. His regime carried out one of the most falsified elections in history, except regime loyalists and their apologists.

The level of falsification is hard to exaggerate. They falsified the results, reporting numbers that did not correspond with real tallies. To enable this rigging of the election, Putin destroyed the entire infrastructure of independent observers.

For example, the regime banned the nongovernmental organization called Golos (“Voice”), which had been the main organization that trained independent election observers. Most of its organizers have been jailed or driven out of the country.

As a result, Putin had a free hand to deliver an electoral result entirely at odds with independent pre-election polls. According to one of those, only 50 percent said they intended to vote for Putin.

Another 40 percent said they were not sure who they would vote for and said they would not like to publicly state their preference. So, clearly he does not have 87 percent support of the Russian population.

The important thing to understand about this so-called election is that it was compulsory and supervised. For instance, bosses, especially in the public sector, not only required their workers to vote, but also required them to share a photo of their ballot.

Obviously, the threat was that if they didn’t vote for Putin, they would lose their jobs. The election was thus a product of a dystopian combination of an extreme totalitarian dictatorship and surveillance capitalism.

In that sense, it makes little sense to call it an election. Putin is already using it to consolidate his ideological hold over Russian society, presenting the results as confirmation that everyone is lockstep behind his domestic and imperial project.

In the occupied areas of Ukraine, the election was even more rigged and bizarre. In the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, 95 percent supported Putin. The occupying forces manufactured this result at gunpoint.

In perhaps the least believable of all the results, Putin “won” the election in Avdiivka, a city which was just destroyed by the Russian Army, who drove most of its population out. Nevertheless, Putin secured overwhelming support in the city.

Both in Russia and occupied Ukraine, this election was a sham. The results are a product of coercion and systematic falsification.

In the run up to the election, Putin had Alexi Navalny killed to send a signal to both domestic and international opposition to his regime. Nonetheless, his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, called for protests at the ballot box. How big were they? What is their significance?

Navalnaya’s call, which I totally supported, was never designed to influence the outcome of the election, which, as I’ve said, was entirely predetermined by the regime. Instead, the idea was to take advantage of it to mobilize political opposition.

Remember that all unauthorized public gathering has been banned and any political dissent especially against the war in Ukraine has been met with brutal repression.

The Russian authorities were very afraid of the planned protest. In the days leading up to the election, they required a lot of people to report to police stations and threatened that if they turned out they would be arrested and fined for an illegal mass action.

Moreover, they suppressed information about the call. Remember all opposition websites like Meduza have been blocked. Nevertheless, according to one independent poll, nearly a quarter of Russians had heard about the action.

Of course, the numbers that did come out were nowhere near that percentage. But the fact that people did turn out and in significant numbers demonstrates opposition to Putin and his imperialist war in Ukraine.

Putin’s regime and Russian capitalism have been surprisingly resilient, despite the war, the attempted coup by Yevgeny Prigozhin and Western sanctions. How do you explain this?

The main reason for Russia’s economic stability is its oil industry. It is not sanctioned and with the price of oil still very high, Russia has been able to maintain economic growth and profitability.

At the same time, the price of the war is very high. Estimates are that the military consumes about 40 percent of the regime’s budget. This arms economy can also fuel growth, especially among weapons manufacturers, over the next year or two, but such expenditures are not sustainable over the long term.

This oil and military economy have not changed Putin’s neoliberal economic model. There has been some temporary nationalization of companies, but those seized assets have been quickly sold to other owners loyal to the regime.

In that sense, it had nothing to do with nationalization in any traditional sense. It was merely redistribution of property. That has entailed some recomposition of the Russian ruling class, but without changing its highly privatized structure.

Putin has also used the war to secure support from highly paid professional soldiers. They are making far more than regular workers in other public and private sectors.

But this war economy is only sustainable for so long. Eventually its contradictions will undermine its growth and, with that the contradictions of the political system, will reemerge, provoking a new round of instability and crisis.

How will Putin use his rigged electoral victory domestically for his neocolonial war in Ukraine?

Even before the election, Putin boasted in a speech before Parliament that the absolute majority of Russians supported his “special military operation.” So, he will interpret the rigged vote as confirmation of his ideological hold on the Russian people.

But this is hubris. There is in fact widespread dissatisfaction with the war continuing for much longer, even among Putin supporters. Many of those voted for him thinking, “He started this war, and he should end it.”

Putin ignored this sentiment. During the campaign, he never mentioned how he was going to restore peace. Instead, he kept repeating the idea that Russia was in an existential war with the West, and that it must continue it and expand it into other countries.

A minority of Russian society supports that project, probably about 10 to 20 percent. But the majority want peace to be restored. Of course, they don’t want Russia to be militarily defeated, but they want this war to end at some point.

These feelings are growing, and they could create a crisis for the regime in the future. But for now, its response is to ignore such feelings or respond to them with campaigns of patriotic indoctrination to whip up support for an expanding war.

Former President Dmitry Medvedev, who is now deputy chairman of the Security Council, made Putin’s aims abundantly clear in a speech a few days before the election. He declared that Russia aimed to “liberate” Odessa, reclaim it as a Russian city and eliminate Ukraine as a nation state.

He went on to propose his own peace formula as an alternative to the one proposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He declared that Ukraine is not a real nation but a territory that should be carved up between Russia, Poland and Romania.

Of course, the only way to carry that out is the total conquest and seizure of Ukraine by Russia. That is the opposite of peace. It is a recipe for unending imperialist war and colonial occupation.

Many expect an escalation of the war in Ukraine soon. Will that require greater mobilization of Russian troops? How will the Russian population react? Will it spark any resistance?

It’s hard to say whether the Russian authorities will mobilize more Russian troops. Until recently, they have done everything they can to avoid a second wave of mobilization.

Of course, now after the elections, which they claim proved that Russians totally support the war, they may start another mobilization. At the same time, they are smart enough to know that would be very unpopular.

So, for now they are likely to continue paying enormous salaries to so-called volunteer soldiers. But if they intend to carry out a larger-scale offensive, they will have to mobilize conscripts.

They could pair that new mobilization with a promise to bring back those who were drafted in 2022 and deployed to the front lines for the last two years. That might quiet the growing calls from wives and relatives for those soldiers to come home.

But people will only put up with this war and mobilization for so long. And any returning soldiers will bring with them stories of the slaughterhouse in Ukraine, something destabilizing for the regime.

So, how stable is Putin’s regime and Russian capitalism? What are the system’s problems and fault lines?

There is a deep problem in the very political construction of this regime. In one of his recent speeches, Putin betrayed some awareness of this problem. He declared that the old elite forged through the privatization of the Soviet Union’s state property is outmoded, and that a new elite needed to be established.

He said that a new, true elite should be recruited from the heroes coming from the front lines. In reality, Putin is building a new elite, not from them, but the children of his narrow circle of friends who control big state corporations and private industry.

Their parents are aging, and Putin knows he faces a problem in the reproduction of a loyal ruling clique and regime. So, he sees their children as his future loyalists in the state and Russian corporations.

That is a sign of a deeply personalistic regime, in which Putin only trusts people he considers friends. But the dictator’s number of friends is limited, so the only way to expand it is through recruiting their loyal children into positions in the government bureaucracy and board rooms.

Putin is also integrating his personal bodyguards into positions in the state. As a result, there are a number of governors in various regions of the country who came from his personal security team.

Such methods of regime expansion and consolidation can backfire, creating serious problems for its continued rule. For example, in this arrangement, if people inside the state apparatus want to advance their careers, they eventually hit a dead end, because at the top of the bureaucracy are Putin loyalists appointed by the dictator.

If you are not in that charmed circle, your career advancement is doomed. That can breed apathy and even discontent in the state apparatus, something that can undermine the regime from within.

Of course, the top layer of the state apparatus will support Putin to the last breath, backing the escalation of his imperialist war. But, underneath them, there are layers among whom discontent and opposition can grow. So, the big question both inside and outside the regime is how long this loyalty not just to Putin, but to the system, can last.

Another problem the regime faces is the contradiction that I’ve described between Putin’s imaginary vision of a loyal Russian society united behind him and the real divisions within it, especially those provoked by the war. That contradiction can only hold for so long.

Finally, many on the left are pushing for Ukraine to engage in peace talks and accept a land-for-peace deal with Putin, something they would never demand of Palestinians. What do you think of that argument? Why is it unrealistic? What should the left say about the war, and what should it demand instead?

We should be clear that Putin took the decision to launch this invasion very seriously and is determined not to stop until he achieves his stated goals — the elimination of Ukraine as an independent nation-state and the imposition of a puppet government in Kyiv. If he does not achieve these goals, he will view it as a defeat, something he is not willing to accept.

He views any continued existence of an independent government in Kyiv as a threat to Russia’s national security. So, he will not be satisfied with seizing just parts of Ukraine; he wants to seize the entire country as a first step in rebuilding the old Russian Empire.

He made this clear in a recent interview on Russian TV in which he was asked about the possibility for peace talks. He bluntly stated that he was not interested in any such talks, that they are motivated only because Ukraine has a lack of arms.

He would only welcome peace talks that secure the imperialist goals of conquest and regime that are the goals of his “special military operation.” So, at this point, he will reject any talks and instead likely escalate the war.

Faced with this unending imperialist war, the left should stand with Ukraine and its struggle for liberation. If Putin succeeds in conquering Ukraine, it will set a precedent for other imperialist powers and states to launch similar wars of colonial conquest.

The international left should defend the right of oppressed nations to self-determination without exception and defend their right to secure arms to defend themselves. Only such solidarity from below can stop the drive toward more and more imperialist war.

25 March 2024

Source: Truthout. Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

ATTACHED DOCUMENTS

terrorist-attack-and-election-pave-way-for-putin-to_a8462.pdf (PDF - 948.1 KIB)
Extraction PDF [->article8462]

Russia
Terrorist Attack in Moscow: When the government’s response is more frightening than the terrorist attack itself
Russian leftists are planning to disrupt Putin’s fake presidential election this weekend
Russia turns Ukraine’s occupied areas into an armed camp
“Stop the War” Means “Death to the Dictatorship”
Alexei Navalny Taught Russia’s Opposition How to Mobilize

Ilya Budraitskis
Ilya Budraitksis is a leader of the "Vpered" ("Forward"), Russian section of the Fourth International, which participated in the founding of the Russian Socialist Movement (RSD) in 2011.

Ashley Smit
Ashley Smith is the managing editor at Spectre and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America in Burlington, Vermont. He has written in numerous publications including Truthout, The International Socialist Review, Socialist Worker, ZNet, Jacobin, New Politics, and many other online and print publications.

'Time for Justice in Alabama': Supermajority of Mercedes-Benz Workers File for UAW Vote

"We are standing up for every worker in Alabama," said one employee. "We're going to turn things around with this vote. We're going to end the Alabama discount."


United Auto Workers members are seen at a rally in 2023.
(Photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

JULIA CONLEY
Apr 05, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

The alleged illegal union-busting that Mercedes-Benz autoworkers in Vance, Alabama accused the car company of in a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board has not weakened the resolve of pro-union employees, a supermajority of whom now support a union election, according to the United Auto Workers.

The union announced Friday that more than 5,000 workers at the company's nonunion plant have filed a petition with the NLRB in favor of an election, with the workers aiming for a vote by early May.

"It's time for change at Mercedes," said the UAW. "It's time for justice in Alabama. It's time for Mercedes workers to stand up. That's why Mercedes workers have filed for their vote to join the UAW, and to win a better life."

The announcement comes weeks after Volkswagen employees in Chattanooga, Tennessee filed for a union election that's expected to be held April 17-19.

Both union votes are the result of aggressive campaigning by the UAW, including union president Shawn Fain, in the wake of a historic "stand-up strike" that pushed the Big Three automakers to agree to new contracts for about 150,000 workers late last year.

After the victory, Fain announced the launch of the largest union organizing drive in U.S. history, aiming to welcome 150,000 workers at nonunion auto plants into the UAW.

Over 10,000 autoworkers in recent months have signed union cards, and the UAW said Friday that employees at more than two dozen facilities are also organizing.

Mercedes' two U.S. plants in Alabama and South Carolina are its only facilities in the world where workers are not represented by a union. Workers in Vance say they want better healthcare, retirement security, safety protocols, and paid sick days.

Jeremy Kimbrell, a measurement machine operator at Mercedes, said the union vote is part of an effort to ensure carmakers no longer view Alabama as a state where workers can be compensated unfairly.

"We are standing up for every worker in Alabama," said Kimbrell. "At Mercedes, at Hyundai, and at hundreds of other companies, Alabama workers have made billions of dollars for executives and shareholders, but we haven't gotten our fair share. We're going to turn things around with this vote. We're going to end the Alabama discount."

Moesha Chandler, an assembly team member, said her job has given her "serious problems with my shoulders and hands."

"We are voting for safer jobs at Mercedes," said Chandler. "When you're still in your 20s and your body is breaking down, that's not right. By winning our union, we'll have the power to make the work safer and more sustainable.

The UAW celebrated the news out of Vance by releasing a video showing a recent rally where Fain encouraged workers to support the union effort.




"You gotta believe you can win, that this job can be better, that your life will be better, and that those things are worth fighting for," Fain told the Mercedes workers. "That's why we stand up."

The growing pro-union movement across the South represents "huge stakes," said Lauren Kaori Gurley, a labor reporter for The Washington Post. The UAW has faced resistance from right-wing politicians across the South for decades as it has attempted to unionize factories.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, said Thursday that the UAW's efforts are a "threat from Detroit" that "has no interest in seeing the people of Alabama succeed."

Ivey's comments indicated that the governor "thinks so little of Alabama workers, that we're only good for cheap labor," Kimbrell told AL.com.

“Our Big Push Was for Union Democracy and a Plan to Win”: An Interview with the Amazon Labour Union Democratic Reform Caucus


Two years after the historic victory at JFK8, Amazon workers voted in a referendum in their union. They want to hold new elections and revise the constitution, as part of a struggle to make ALU more democratic and militant. Left Voice spoke with two organizers to discuss the struggle in ALU.


Luigi Morris 

LEFT VOICE USA

March 20, 2024

DeSean McClinton-Holland / New York Times

In 2022, Amazon workers on Staten Island made history. The JFK8 warehouse in New York voted to unionize, forming the first U.S. union in the company’s history — an independent union known as the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), representing over 8,000 workers.

Since then, Amazon has been intransigently refusing to start contract negotiations. Union-busting tactics, such as the persistent firing of pro-union activists, continue at JFK8 and other facilities. Amazon even filed a case arguing that the National Labor Relations Board, the agency that enforces labor law, is “unconstitutional.”

Two years after the historic victory, the JFK8 warehouse remains Amazon’s only unionized workplace in the United States. ALU lost the elections at LDJ5 in Staten Island and ALB1 near Albany. These results were a product of the intense anti-union activities, but also a reflection of ALU’s approach under the leadership of Chris Smalls.

Under Smalls, the ALU pursued a strategy that relied on a combination of factors: the hatred towards Jeff Bezos, the huge impact of the ALU victory, the image of Chris Smalls, and the support of progressive Democrats. But without rank-and-file organizing, worker’s democracy, direct action, and class independence, it is not possible to win against a trillion-dollar company.

A sector of workers have been expressing discontent about the direction that the new union is taking, especially regarding democracy and militancy. The ALU Democratic Reform Caucus (ALUDRC) called for a referendum about electing a new leadership and revising the constitution. According to ALUDRC, a majority voted in favor of holding the referendum, which is expected to happen in the middle of the year.

An example that many workers look to is the Amazon Labor Union-KCVG Constitution that “was drafted and democratically adopted by hundreds of KCVG workers, following input from more than 500 workers.”

To hear more about the referendum and the fight for a more democratic and militant union, we spoke with Connor Spence and Sultana Hossain, who are members of the Democratic Reform Caucus.

Connor is a founding member of the ALU and is fighting to be reinstated after being fired in December 2023 for organizing. Sultana was also recently fired for her union organizing after four years of working for Amazon.
What led the ALU Democratic Reform Caucus to call for a referendum to have internal union elections?

Connor: Shortly after our election in 2022 at JFK8, ALU kind of stumbled and was failing to make progress. We had serious disagreements with the direction the union was going: we thought that organizing wasn’t being done on a level that needed to be done, and the structure of the union was severely flawed.

There were a lot of internal disputes that resulted in the forming of a reform caucus within ALU, which is comprised of most of the original ALU organizers and a lot of rank-and-file leaders from the building, like Sultana, who originally didn’t really want to be part of ALU because of the way that it was representing itself to the workers. When the reform effort came about, it attracted a lot of people like Sultana. Our big push was that there needed to be more democracy in the union — workers need to be in control of the decision-making, there needs to be more transparency, and we need a credible plan to win. And that was the platform of our caucus.

We also wanted what was originally promised during the campaign: that there’d be elections for the leadership positions in ALU. Right after the JFK8 victory, when all the leadership was interim, the promise was that they would have to fight for their positions again in another election with a much larger pool of voters than the first time. But that never happened.

Eventually, we did reach a settlement with our union’s executive board that created this framework for how we could have elections. And the first part of that process was to have a referendum among the JFK8 workers. The question was: should ALU have officer elections? The choices were yes or no. We just had that referendum last week, and a majority of the people who participated voted yes, in favor of having elections. Now we will have elections in June or July, depending on certain logistical barriers.
Why is it important to put up this fight for basic union democracy?

Sultana: I think the core of the caucus, in our ideology, is that union democracy is very important. We believe the rank and file should have a say in everything that happens in the union. Without union democracy, you can’t really serve the interests of the members. Meanwhile, you also don’t have a framework for fighting corruption within the union or ousting self-serving officials. So it’s important to have union democracy. It’s everything that this caucus stands for and fights for. This referendum is a testament to that. We gave workers, the members of ALU, an opportunity to say whether or not they want democracy in this union, and we got an overwhelmingly supportive vote.

That is something we have been aware was the case at JFK8. You know, we had hundreds of people sign on to a petition last summer on whether to have these elections. So this referendum is just a testament to what the rank and file believes in general, which is that we should all have a say in what happens in our union if the union is meant to represent us.
How is this process to democratize the union connected to the fight for a contract?

Connor: Well, I think that one of the things we have to address is basically what our contract fight with Amazon is going to look like, and what kind of contracts we’re going to try to get from the company. And all those demands, those have to be surveyed from the members. Nobody can just make those up for people. We have to figure out what people feel strongly about. So that’s a democratic process.

As far as creating pressure to put on the company to get those demands, we’re going to have to engage in collective action. That’s also democratic process, as far as planning what kind of action people want to take, when to start it, and how long to do it. These are all decisions that need to be made by the group of workers that’s participating. It can’t come from the top down. So basically, every aspect of what we do, we have to figure out how to do it collectively, how to do it in a way that all the people participating can have a say. So that means that whatever we do around collective action and collective bargaining, there are a series of democratic steps that need to happen to make those things possible.

Sultana: A lot of the organizing that was required leading up to this referendum was letting workers know that in no way does speaking up for union democracy take away from the contract fight. That argument is something we had to dispel as part of our outreach — [we had to argue] that union democracy is essential to win a strong contract.

There have been moments where workers have been deterred from being involved in this referendum because they think it’s taking away from the contract fight if we’re focusing on electing union leadership. But it’s been important to us to emphasize that we will never win a strong, fair contract without true union democracy. They go hand in hand; you can’t have one without the other. So that’s what we’ve been saying in our conversations with workers. Organizing involves thousands and thousands of conversations, and fighting misinformation, and educating the rank and file on their rights. And that’s what we do: educating workers on their rights.
Can ALU become again a source of inspiration for the millions of workers who want to fight for better working conditions and union democracy?

Connor: It’s obviously important that we have a successful union fight at Amazon. Our win in 2022 galvanized so many people. A lot of the independent unions that popped up — Trader Joe’s, for instance — saw our win as inspiration. Amazon is the country’s second largest employer, probably soon to be the first. So winning a good contract and getting good working conditions at Amazon is going to be like the tide that lifts all boats. It’s going to show that it’s possible for everyone else. But we also want what we are doing here to be the model of how it can be done in other places.

In order to take on Amazon, we need to basically put an unprecedented amount of pressure on this company. It’s a trillion-dollar company, and the organizing we have to do is going to have to operate at such a high level — we need a high degree of worker involvement and engagement. And there’s simply just no way to do that without forming an organization where the workers are involved in the decision-making process. There’s no top-down union structure that’s going to be able to take on Amazon. That’s our position on what kind of organizing needs to happen.

The fight right now in America with the working class is basically against large corporations like Amazon. It’s Amazon. It’s Starbucks. It’s Trader Joe’s. It’s SpaceX. So in order to take them on, it requires a lot of organization — nationwide campaigns and strike action in a lot of cases. In our view, the only way to achieve that level of organization is through true rank-and-file democracy.





Luigi Morris is a member of Left Voice, freelance photographer and socialist journalist.

'You Are an Inspiration,' Sanders Tells LA Hotel Workers Fighting for Just Contracts


"The message of today is we are sick and tired of the greed of corporate America," Sen. Bernie Sanders said at a union rally in downtown Los Angeles.


U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks to a crowd of unionized hotel workers and allies in downtown Los Angeles on April 5, 2024.
(Photo: Bryan Giardinelli/Hello@BreatheNewWinds.com)

JAKE JOHNSON

COMMON DREAMS
Apr 06, 2024

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders joined hospitality workers in downtown Los Angeles on Friday as they picketed outside one of the dozens of hotels that have yet to reach a contract deal with UNITE HERE Local 11, whose membership is demanding better pay, benefits, and job protections in one of the nation's most expensive cities.

"You are an inspiration, because of your courage, to millions of working people throughout this country," Sanders (I-Vt.) told the crowd of workers gathered outside Hotel Figueroa. "You are working hard, you are what keeps these hotels going. You deserve decent wages, you deserve decent benefits, you deserve decent healthcare, you deserve decent schedules, you deserve decent pensions."

Since last summer, thousands of workers at more than 50 hotels in southern California have taken part in rolling strikes that have yielded record contract agreements—including significant wage increases and other victories—at 34 hotels.

Many of the hotels that have yet to meet workers' demands, including Hotel Figueroa, are owned by private equity firms.

Sanders called out one of those firms—the investment behemoth Blackstone—by name on Friday, noting that the company CEO's annual compensation is far larger than the combined wage increases that striking hotel workers are demanding.

"Working people are sick and tired of getting ripped off while corporate America enjoys record-breaking profits," said Sanders. "We are living in a country today where, for the last 50 years, the wages of working people, in terms of inflation, have gone nowhere—actually declined."

"You are part of a growing movement in this country of workers joining unions, of organized unions standing up and demanding decent contracts. That's what's going on all over America," the senator continued. "The message of today is we are sick and tired of the greed of corporate America... This union deserves a decent contract."


(Photo: Bryan Giardinelli/Hello@BreatheNewWinds.com)

Friday's rally at Hotel Figueroa, which is owned by the private equity firm BentallGreenOak, came weeks after the hotel's former food and beverage operator shut down its operations as its nonunion employees attempted to organize. More than 100 workers lost their jobs as a result.

Maria Ibarra, a cook who was laid off, filed a class-action lawsuit earlier this week alleging that Hotel Figueroa's ownership "violated a city ordinance meant to protect workers' jobs when there are changes in management by failing to retain them when the new operator took over."

"We service workers are not disposable," said Ibarra. "We're not something to be tossed aside when we're no longer convenient. I am filing this lawsuit to make sure our rights are respected."

The hotel workers' strike actions over the past eight months have been described of the largest of their kind in U.S. history, and they've persisted even in the face of physical violence. In January, an unknown assailant used an apparent air rifle to shoot workers with metal ball bearings, leading some workers to wear bulletproof vests and helmets on the picket lines.

"My co-workers and I have been fighting for a just contract for months," Noelia Gonzalez, a room attendant at Hotel Figueroa, said during Friday's rally. "On many occasions during our pickets, we've been attacked. I'm very frustrated that my coworkers experienced violence while fighting for their rights and their benefits. I'm frustrated that the company left us vulnerable to violent attack."

"The hotel and company would not exist without our hard work and effort," she added. "That's why we deserve what we're fighting for."

"What we're doing here in this street and streets across southern California... is worth more than all the private equity money in the world."

Ada Briceño, co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11, said Friday that the "corporate greed" on display in the hotel sector "isn't just a threat to workers—it's harming our democracy."

"The same way the ultrawealthy concentrate their money to buy hotels, they also concentrate their money to influence our political system," said Briceño. "But I'm here to tell you that all the collective action, what we're doing here in this street and streets across southern California and hotel workers standing up is worth more than all the private equity money in the world."

In an interview with Common Dreams ahead of Friday's rally, Sanders said the hotel employees' tireless push for just contracts underscores that workers are increasingly "standing up to corporate greed and are prepared to fight." Last year, the number of U.S. workers involved in major work stoppages jumped 280%, a surge fueled by nurses, actors, autoworkers, and others.

"It's really quite extraordinary. And if you and I were chatting 10 years ago, I don't think we would've anticipated this," said Sanders. "The absurdity of so few having so much and so many having so little and workers having to struggle is I think bringing forth a real strong reaction about the working class of this country."