Oklahoma Supreme Court Repeats Disinformation That Charter Schools Are Public Schools

by Shawgi Tell / July 22nd, 2024

In a much-awaited case brought forth by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond (Drummond v. Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board), the Oklahoma State Supreme Court ruled 6-2 on June 25, 2024, that St. Isidore of Seville Catholic K-12 Virtual Charter School is unconstitutional and cannot open and enroll students in Fall 2024.

The online religious charter school is sectarian and not permitted to receive any public funding, said the court. Writing for the majority, Justice James Winchester said that, “the contract between the state board and St. Isidore violates the Oklahoma Constitution, the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act and the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.” He added that, “Under Oklahoma law, a charter school is a public school. As such, a charter school must be nonsectarian. However, St. Isidore will evangelize the Catholic faith as part of its school curriculum while sponsored by the State.” Winchester also stated that, “What St. Isidore requests from this court is beyond the fair treatment of a private religious institution in receiving a generally available benefit, implicating the free exercise clause. It is about the state’s creation and funding of a new religious institution violating the establishment clause.”

The Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause make up the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Justice Dustin P. Rowe dissented from much of the majority opinion while Justice Dana Kuehn dissented entirely with the majority.

Reuters stated that the religious online charter school would have siphoned about $26 million from public coffers in the first five years of operation. The real amount is likely higher. Charter schools across the country siphon billions of dollars a year from public schools, increase segregation, and fail and close regularly.

This unprecedented ruling blocks what would have been the first publicly funded religious charter school in the U.S. It invalidates the approval in October 2023 of St. Isidore by the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, an entity comprised mostly of unelected private persons. Charter school authorizers around the country typically consist of many unelected individuals from the business sector. Such entities usually embrace capital-centered ideas and policies.

The sponsors of the deregulated virtual charter school, the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and Diocese of Tulsa, have openly stated that the religious virtual charter school would be open to students statewide, rely directly on Catholic teachings, and use public funds to operate. Catholic leaders have never concealed their mission to evangelize students at the online religious charter school. In fact, St. Isidore students would not only “be taught Catholic doctrine,” they would also be “required to attend mass,” reported Oklahoma Voice.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court ordered the termination of St. Isidore’s contract with the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, which became the new Statewide Charter School Board on July 1, 2024. “The [nine-person] board will succeed the [five-person] Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, which oversaw only online charter schools in Oklahoma,” says The Oklahoman. The new entity will oversee all charter schools in the state and will be comprised mainly of unelected business people with greater responsibilities and powers.

For their part, the Catholic sponsors of the virtual charter school have pledged to appeal the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, and they plan to open the online religious charter school in the 2025-2026 school year. On July 5, attorneys for the online religious charter school asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court for a stay of its order to have its contract rescinded by the new Statewide Charter School Board until the U.S. Supreme Court considers the case. The new Statewide Charter School Board, which met for the first time on July 8, held off on terminating the virtual school’s contract. The new unelected board claims that it is waiting to see how legal proceedings play out in the coming weeks and months. On July 17, Drummond scolded the new board for not rescinding the contract for the Catholic virtual charter school. He told the new board, “You must know and accept that no state agency, board, or commission may willfully ignore an order from Oklahoma’s highest court.” Private religious forces are hoping that recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court that further abolish the distinction between public and private will work in their favor.

Such developments and contradictions arise in the context of neoliberal forces working for the last few decades to restructure the state in ways that change governance and administrative arrangements to expand privatization. Blurring the public-private distinction is central to neoliberal efforts to further privilege private interests while marginalizing the public interest. This is why today there is little distinction between the state and Wall Street. We live in a system of direct rule by the rich. Private monopoly interests, not the public, control the economy and the state. In the years ahead, major owners of capital will strive to further dominate the state so as to privatize more institutions, programs, enterprises, services, and governance itself.

“Public” and “private,” it should be stressed, are legal, political, philosophical, and sociological categories that mean the exact opposite of each other; they are antonyms. Confounding them is problematic, both conceptually and practically. It is self-serving, not just intellectually lazy, to mix up two sharply distinct categories like “public” and “private.” It is like saying hot and cold mean the same thing. In its essence, private property is the right to exclude others from use of said property; it is the power of exclusion; [1] It is not concerned with transparency, inclusion, the common good, or benefitting everyone.

State constitutions typically prohibit states from using public money to support or benefit religious institutions and entities. As a general rule, states cannot use public money to fund religious schools. Historically, there has been a powerful trend in U.S. society to keep religion and state separate (the so-called “wall of separation between church and state”). Modern conditions and requirements dictate that states must avoid sponsoring, promoting, funding, or privileging any religion. There can be no “religious liberty” when a state sponsors, funds, privileges, or entangles itself with any religion or sect. The state is supposed to represent the interests of all members of the polity, regardless of religion.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court argued that had St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School opened as a regular nonsectarian “public” charter school instead of a religious charter school, it could have received public funds and operated normally.

In reasoning in this manner, the court correctly negated publicly-funded sectarian education arrangements but erroneously sanctioned the continued funneling of public funds from public schools to deregulated charter schools that are public only on paper. In other words, the highest court in Oklahoma saw no problem with charter schools siphoning public funds from public schools. The court overlooked the fact that charter schools in Oklahoma, like the rest of the country, are privately-operated and differ legally, philosophically, pedagogically, and organizationally from public schools.

The court thus blundered when it repeatedly referred to charter schools as public schools in its ruling. It uncritically repeated flawed and banal assertions about the “publicness” of charter schools. It incorrectly characterized charter schools as state actors even though private entities are typically the only entities that hold charter school contracts in the U.S.

It is generally recognized that how an entity is described on paper can often differ greatly from how it operates in reality. There can be a large chasm between the two. People understand that words and deeds are not always aligned. Indeed, there has always been a big gap between rhetoric and reality in the charter school sector. Charter school owners and promoters have long confused words on paper with empirical realities. They want people to believe that just because something is on paper, it is automatically true, valid, and unassailable. They have taken abstraction of certain ideas to incoherent and detached levels, while also merging legalese and lawfare to advance their agenda. For 32 years charter school owners and promoters have strived to create a legislative veneer of respectability, but lack of legitimacy remains a nagging problem in the charter school sector.

To be clear, all charter schools in the U.S. are privately-operated and governed by unelected private persons. Unlike public schools, charter schools are not run by publicly elected people. In fact, many charter schools are directly owned-operated by for-profit corporations that openly cash in on kids as their education model. For example, most charter schools in Michigan and a few other states are openly for-profit charter schools. But even so-called “non-profit” charter schools regularly engage in profiteering.

Legally, private operators of charter schools exist outside the public sphere, which makes them private actors, not state (public) actors. Charter school operators are not government entities or political subdivisions of the state. This is why most constitutional provisions apply to public schools, which are state actors, but do not apply to the operators of charter schools or the students, teachers, and parents involved with them. Charter schools teachers, for example, are legally considered “at-will” employees, the opposite of public school teachers. The rights of teachers, students, and parents in public schools are not the same as the rights of teachers, students, and parents in charter schools.

For these and other reasons, charter schools are deregulated independent schools. As private actors, they are not subject to the same requirements as traditional public schools. They do not operate in the same way as public schools. They are not “entangled” with the state in the same way that public schools are. Charter schools do not have the same relationship with the state as public schools. The state, put simply, does not coerce, compel, influence, or direct charter schools to act in the same way as public schools. The state does not play a significant role in charter school policies and actions, certainly not in the way that it does with traditional public schools. This means that the state cannot be held responsible for the actions and policies of private actors.

In the U.S., state laws explicitly permit charter schools to avoid most laws, rules, statutes, regulations, and policies governing public schools. Charter schools can essentially “do as they please” in the name of “autonomy,” “competition,” “accountability,” “choice,” “parental empowerment,” and “results.” It is no accident that charter school advocates boast every day that charter schools are “free market” schools, which means that they are based on the law of the jungle. President Bill Clinton, a long-time supporter of charter schools, once correctly called charter schools “schools with no rules.” Charter schools have long embraced social Darwinism and a fend-for-yourself ethos.

The “free market” ideologies of competition, individualism, and consumerism are therefore central to the creation, operation, and expansion of charter schools. Fending-for-yourself in the pursuit of education is seen as natural, normal, and healthy by charter school owners and promoters. There can supposedly be no better way to organize education and life according to charter school owners and promoters. Thus, when a charter school fails and closes, one is supposed to quickly and effortlessly find a new school, complain about nothing, move on, and nonchalantly accept that “this is just how life is.” In this outdated, disruptive, and unstable set-up, one is expected to be a “rugged individual” who embraces inequality and competition. Winning and losing is supposedly inevitable. Put simply, neoliberals and privatizers do not view education as a basic human right that must be guaranteed in practice. Commodity logic—the logic of buying and selling—guides their outlook and agenda.

Further, the notion, promoted by some, that charter schools are “public-private partnerships” is also flawed and dangerous because it implies that there is a public component to charter schools and that a fair, balanced, equal, meaningful, and mutually-beneficial relationship can exist between the public sector and the private sector. This neoliberal notion covers up the fact and principle that public funds belong only to the public and must not be wielded or controlled by the private sector at any time. If the private sector wants income and revenue, then it should generate income and revenue through its own activities and operations, without using the state to seize public funds that do not belong to it. Public funds must serve the public and not be claimed by private interests through new governance arrangements that harm the public. So-called public-private “partnerships” further concentrate accumulated social wealth in private hands and restrict democracy.

It is disinformation to claim that the public sector needs the private sector for government, society, institutions, infrastructure, and programs to exist and function at a high level. The public sector would be far healthier and more human-centered if a public authority worthy of the name kept all public funds in public hands at all times and used public funds only to advance the general interests of society. It should also be recalled that the private sector has been rife with fraud, failure, scandal, and corruption for generations. We see this in the news every day. Privatization does not guarantee efficiency, success, or excellence. Privatization invariably increases corruption and negates human rights.

Other differences between charter schools and public schools include the fact that, as privatized education arrangements, charter schools cannot levy taxes like public schools and do not accept or keep all students. Unlike public schools that accept all students at all times, charter schools, which are said to be “welcoming,” “free,” and “open to all,” routinely cherry-pick students. In addition, many charter schools are legally permitted to hire uncertified teachers.

Charter schools also frequently fail to uphold even the few public standards enshrined in state charter school laws (e.g., open-meeting laws, reporting laws, enrollment requirements, and audit laws). These are laws and requirements they are supposed to embrace but often violate. It has often been said that the charter school sector is not transparent or accountable, even though it seizes billions of dollars every year from the public, leaving the public worse off—and all under the veneer of high ideals. Dozens of other differences between public schools and charter schools can be found here.

Charter, by definition, means contract. Charter schools are contract schools. Contract law is part of private law in the U.S., not public law. Private law deals with relations between private citizens, whereas public law deals with relations between the state and individuals. Thus, the legal basis and profile of charter schools differs from the legal basis and profile of public schools, which is why, as noted earlier, charter school students, parents, and workers have different rights and protections than public school students, parents, and workers.

Charter schools in the U.S. are private entities that enter into contract with the state or entities approved by the state. The state does not actually create the charter school, it mainly delegates (not authorizes) a function to the private contractor of the school; it is outsourcing education; it is commodifying a social responsibility. This outsourcing of constitutional obligations to private interests does not automatically make said interests state actors.

A private actor does not automatically and magically become a public agency with public power just because it is delegated a duty by the state through a contract. Generally speaking, not a single charter school in the U.S. is owned-operated by a public entity or government unit. Unlike public schools, charter schools are usually created by private citizens, often business people, and often with extensive support from philanthrocapitalists. These private forces or entities do not suddenly become public entities just because they contract with the state or an entity approved by the state. Partnering with the government is not the same as being part of the government. And simply receiving public funds to carry out a function does not spontaneously transform a private entity into a public entity. It is well-known that thousands of private entities in the country receive some sort of public funding but they do not suddenly stop being private entities.

Nor can charter schools be deemed public just because they are called “public” 50 times a day. Repeating something endlessly does not instantly make something true. There would actually be no need to call charter schools “charter” schools if they were public schools proper. The word “charter” before the word “school” instantly sets charter schools apart from public schools. The word “charter” creates a demarcation. Similarly, there would be no need to call charter schools “schools of choice” if they were traditional public schools. “Free market” phrases such as this one also communicate a difference between charter schools and public schools. Today, ninety percent of the nation’s roughly 50 million students attend a public school in their zip code. Neoliberals have successfully starved many of these schools of public funds over the past 45 years.

It is also worth noting that the academic performance of cyber charter schools in the U.S. is notoriously abysmal (see here, here, and here). Equally ironic in this situation is that Epic Charter Schools in Oklahoma, a massive online charter school, has been charged by various government authorities with different crimes in recent years. The owners-operators of Epic Charter Schools have been charged with embezzlement, money laundering, computer crimes, and conspiracy to defraud the state. Such crimes have been widespread in the entire charter school sector for three decades. Equally noteworthy is the fact that under Oklahoma law charter school teachers do not have be certified to teach.

Currently, there are more than 60 privately-operated charter schools in Oklahoma. About 3.8 million students (7.4% of U.S. children) are currently enrolled in nearly 8,000 charter schools across the country.

The inescapable law of the falling rate of profit under capitalism, especially since the mid-1970s, continues to coerce capital-centered forces to privatize as much of the public sector and social programs as they can in order to maximize profits and avoid extinction. Capitalist economies everywhere are in deep trouble and are becoming more reckless in their narrow quest to maximize profits as fast as possible. Greed is at an all-time high.

Capital-centered forces will continue to restructure the state apparatus to advance their retrogressive agenda under the banner of high ideals. This includes raiding the public education sector and privatizing it in the name of “serving the kids,” “empowering parents,” “promoting competition,” and “increasing choice.” So far, “school-choice” schemes have made some individuals very rich while lowering the level of education and harming the public interest.

Charter schools represent the commodification of education, the privatization and marketization of a modern human responsibility in order to enrich a handful of private interests. The typical consequences of privatization in every sector include higher costs, less transparency, reduced quality of service, greater instability, more inefficiency, and loss of public voice. Whether it is vouchers, so-called “Education Savings Accounts,” or privately-operated charter schools, education privatization (“school-choice”) has not solved any problems, it has only multiplied them. [2]

Charter schools are not public schools. If privately-operated charter schools wish to exist and operate they must do so without public money. Public funds belong only to the public and must be used solely for public purposes. This means guaranteeing a range of services, programs, and institutions that continually raise living and working standards. It means serving the common good at the highest level and blocking any schemes that undermine this direction.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The right to exclude is “one of the most treasured” rights of property ownership.

[2] See The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back (2023).

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Shawgi Tell is author of the book Charter School Report Card. He can be reached at stell5@naz.edu.. Read other articles by Shawgi.

 

Amazon Gets Fresh, Bayer Loves Basmati: Toxic Influences in Indian Agriculture

by CST Research / July 22nd, 2024

The citizens of India have a problem. In what the media like to call ‘the world’s biggest democracy’, there is a serious, proven conflict of interest among officials in the areas of science, agriculture and agricultural research that results in privileging the needs of powerful private interests ahead of farmers and ordinary people.

This has been a longstanding concern. In 2013, for instance, prominent campaigner and environmentalist Aruna Rodrigues said:

The Ministry of Agriculture has handed Monsanto and the industry access to our agri-research public institutions, placing them in a position to seriously influence agri-policy in India. You cannot have a conflict of interest larger or more alarming than this one.

In 2020, Kavitha Kuruganti (Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture) stated that the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee had acted more like a servant for Monsanto — there is an ongoing revolving door between crop developers (even patent holders) and regulators, with developers-cum-lobbyists sitting on regulatory bodies.

However, the capture of public policymaking space by the private sector is set to accelerate due to a recent spate of memorandums of understanding between state institutions and influential private corporations involved in agriculture and agricultural services, including Bayer and Amazon.

Corporate capture

As part of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Amazon (June 2023), farmers will produce for Amazon Fresh stores in India as part of a ‘farm to fork’ supply chain. It will see “critical inputs” in agriculture and “season-based crop plans” in collaboration with Amazon based on “technologies, capacity building and transfer of new knowledge.”

This corporate jargon ties in with the much-publicised notion of ‘data-driven agriculture’ centred on cloud-based data information services (which Amazon also offers). In this model, data is to be accessed and controlled by corporates and the farmer will be told how much production is expected, how much rain is anticipated, what type of soil quality there is, what must be produced and what type of genetically engineered seeds and inputs they must purchase and from whom.

This has been described as the recolonisation of Indian agriculture, which will eventually involve a handful of data owners (Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet etc.), input suppliers (Bayer, Corteva, Syngenta, Cargill etc.) and retail concerns (Amazon and Walmart-Flipkart — both firms already control 60% of India’s e-commerce market) at the commanding heights of the agrifood economy, determining the nature of agriculture and peddling industrial food. Farmers who remain in this AI-driven system (a stated aim is farmerless farms) will be reduced to exploitable labour at the mercy of global conglomerates.

This is part of a broader strategy to shift hundreds of millions out of agriculture, ensure India’s food dependence on global finance and foreign corporations and eradicate any semblance of food democracy (or national sovereignty). [1]

In addition to the MoU with Amazon, an MoU was signed between the ICAR and Bayer in September 2023. Bayer (it bought Monsanto in 2018), which profits from various environmentally harmful and disease-causing chemicals like glyphosate, signed the MoU to help “develop resource-efficient, climate-resilient solutions for crops, varieties, crop protection, weed and mechanization”, according to the ICAR website.

The ICAR is responsible for co-ordinating agricultural education and research in India, and Bayer seems likely to exploit the ICAR’s vast infrastructure and networks to pursue its own commercial plans, including boosting sales of toxic proprietary products.

But that’s not all. According to the non-profit GRAIN in its article ‘The corporate agenda behind carbon farming’, Bayer is gaining increasing control over farmers in various countries, dictating exactly how they farm and what inputs they use through its ‘Carbon Program’.

GRAIN says:

You can see in the evolution of Bayer’s programmes that, for corporations, carbon farming is all about increasing their control within the food system. It’s certainly not about sequestering carbon.

Given the seriousness of what is laid out by GRAIN in its article, India’s citizens and farmers should take heed, especially as the ICAR website states that a focus of the MoU with Bayer will be on developing carbon credit markets.

In a letter (14 July 2024) to Rabindra Padaria, principal scientist at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), and Himanshu Pathak, director-general of the ICAR, Aruna Rodrigues says: [2]

Inking in ICAR’s formal partnership with Bayer (Monsanto) quite simply confirms straightforwardly that the ICAR protects its interest, which is the same as those of Bayer-Monsanto, large chemical/herbicide corporates… the ICAR has ditched its mandate to Indian farmers and farming, which is to promote farmer interests as a priority in an unbiased and objective assessment of what is right and good for Indian farming and food…

A separate ‘citizen letter’ (20 July 2024) has also been sent to Pathak on the various MoUs that the Indian government has signed with influential private corporations. [3]  Hundreds of scientists, farmer leaders, farmers and ordinary citizens have signed the letter.

It states:

Bayer is a company notorious for its anti-people, anti-nature business products and operations in itself and, furthermore, after its takeover of Monsanto. Its deadly poisons have violated basic human rights of peoples across the world, and it is a company that has always prioritised profits over people and planet.

It goes on to say that it is not clear what the ICAR will learn from Bayer that the well-paid public sector scientists of the institution cannot develop themselves. The letter says entities that have been responsible for causing an economic and environmental crisis in Indian agriculture are being partnered by ICAR for so-called solutions when these entities are only interested in their profits and not sustainability (or any other nomenclature they use).

The letter poses some key questions such as: Where was the democratic debate on carbon credit markets? How is the ICAR ensuring that the farmers get the best rather than biased advice that boosts the further rollout of proprietary products? Is there a system in place for the ICAR to develop research and education agendas from the farmers it is supposed to serve as opposed to being led by the whims and business ideas of corporations?

These are fundamental questions given that agriculture is a state subject as per India’s constitution. It is all the more concerning given that the authors of the citizen letter note that copies of the MoUs are not being shared proactively in the public domain by the ICAR.

The letter asks that the ICAR suspends the signed MoUs, shares all details in the public domain and desists from signing any more such MoUs without necessary public debate.

However, on 19 July, there were reports that the ICAR had signed another MoU, this time with Syngenta for promoting climate resilient agriculture and training programmes. In response, the authors of the letter state that the ICAR has (again) partnered with a corporation that has a track record of anti-nature and anti-people activities, selling toxic products like paraquat, class action suits against its corn seeds and anti-competitive behaviour.

Mutagenic HT rice

It is becoming clear who the ICAR actually serves. Let us return to Aruna Rodrigues and her letter to Rabindra Padaria (IARI) and Himanshu Pathak (ICAR) for additional insight.

Rodrigues’ letter focuses on the commercial cultivation of basmati rice varieties tolerant to imazethapyr-based, non-selective herbicides. These chemicals can be liberally sprayed on herbicide tolerant (HT) crops because the crops have been manipulated to withstand the toxic impacts of spraying.

The HT varieties of rice have undergone some form of mutagenesis rather than genetic engineering. Mutagenesis has traditionally involved subjecting plant cells to chemical or physical agents (e.g. radiation) that cause mutations to the DNA in the hope that a resulting mutation may produce a desirable effect in the plant. This kind of mutation breeding has been used for decades but only affects a minority of the plants on the market. Industry watchdog GMWatch says this risky technology (mutagenesis breeding) in the past managed to escape regulation.

So, this HT crop by the mutagenesis route is not defined as ‘genetic engineering’ (the method usually used to create HT crops) and therefore falls outside the purview of current GM regulations.

Although the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) bars HT crops (a) for being a HT crop and (b) on account of contamination of crops in a centre of genetic diversity, it has been a long-standing aim of biotech companies like Bayer (Monsanto) to get HT crops cultivated in India.

Rodrigues asks:

Is it a deliberate decision of the ICAR to use the mutagenesis route to produce HT rice varieties (tolerant to imazethapyr) with the explicit objective to bypass the formal regulation of GE crops/GMOs?

Rodrigues accuses the ICAR of effectively ditching its mandate to Indian farmers, many of whom regard organic farming as their competitive advantage. This step is also a potential threat to India’s export markets, which are based on organic standards, along with the necessary co-surety that India’s foods and farms are not contaminated by herbicides, a consequence of using HT crops.

By adding a trait for herbicide tolerance, the ICAR is informed:

ICAR’s action directly impacts this vital issue of contaminating our germ plasm in rice and contravenes a Supreme Court Order of “No Contamination”. Furthermore, our export markets for basmati are in excess of US $5 billion in 2023-24. Your action will also directly impact India’s exports and thereby, impact farmer export potential, incomes and income opportunities that premium prices provide.

Moreover, Rodrigues asserts that the entire mutagenesis process for HT rice must be elaborated, especially when the mutant variety is for the purpose of human consumption. The ICAR is duty-bound to provide, for example, whether a physical or a chemical mutagen was used, the range of doses used and the toxicity for the said material, the herbicide(s) used to test the HT of the basmati rice being used, the concentrations of the herbicides used and the genetic mechanism by which HT rice through mutagenesis has a resistant gene to imazethapyr.

While the issue of intellectual property rights for the HT rice varieties using mutagenesis is unclear, the ICAR and IARI have executed a technology transfer agreement of the HT trait for commercial cultivation.

A failed technology

In her letter, Rodrigues states that, based on empirical evidence of 35 years of HT crops in the US and Argentina, HT crops are a failed technology: it spawns super weeds, increased herbicide use and no added performance yield. Moreover, for India, HT crops are a perverse use of technology, whether genetic engineering or through mutagenesis, that risks small and marginal farmers’ crops and herbs and plants used in many Ayurvedic medicines because of herbicide drift.  It will also uniquely impact the employment of women in weeding.

She goes on to state that in the US overall herbicide use has increased more than tenfold since the introduction of HT Crops (1992-2012 figure). In addition, HT crops are designed for monocultures and completely unsuited to Indian small-holder, multi-crop farming: anything not HT will be destroyed, the resistant crop stands, but everything else dies, including non-target organisms.

The herbicides used with HT crops are also a major human health issue. There is a strong link between glyphosate and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In relation to this, there are more than 100,000 lawsuits winding their way through US Courts. Glyphosate (used in Bayer’s Roundup herbicide) is also an endocrine disruptor and is linked to birth defects. Rodrigues notes that Monsanto and the US Environmental Protection Agency had both known for over 40 years that glyphosate and its formulations cause cancer.

Other herbicides used by Bayer include glufosinate (used in its Liberty herbicide), which is acknowledged as more toxic than glyphosate and, like it, is a systemic, broad spectrum, non-selective herbicide. It is a neurotoxin that can cause nerve damage and birth defects and is damaging to most plants that come into contact with it.

Glufinosate is banned in Europe and not permitted in India. It has been implicated in brain developmental abnormalities in animal studies and is very persistent in the environment, so it will certainly contaminate water supplies in addition to food where it will be absorbed.

Imazethapyr (contained in Bayer’s Adue herbicide) is also a systemic broad-spectrum herbicide and is banned in some countries and not approved for use in the EU.

Prof. Jack Heinemann (University of Canterbury in New Zealand) adds that the likes of imazethapyr must be tested for their ability to cause bacterial antibiotic resistance. An important concern given that India’s population has some of the highest levels of antibiotic resistance in the world. Any spread of HT crops would put people at severe risk of resistance and disease.

Despite these environmental and health concerns, the herbicide market in India is projected to grow by around 54% in the next five years, from USD 361.85 million in 2024 to USD 558.17 million by 2029.

In her letter, Rodrigues concludes:

In view of the above evidence of serious irreversible harm to health, food and agriculture across several dimensions and contravention of the PP (Precautionary Principle), it is a required scientific response for the ICAR to immediately withdraw HT rice varieties and desist from introducing any HT crop through mutagenesis.

Notes

1. For further insight into this, see Food, Dependency and Dispossession: Resisting the New World Order by C Todhunter on Globalresearch.ca or Academia.edu.

2. ICAR Introduces HT Rice Varieties by the Mutagenesis Process Tolerant to Imazethapyr, letter to the Indian Council for Agricultural Research and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, A Rodrigues, 14 July 2024.

3. Citizens’ letter (incl. farmer leaders and agri scientists) to ICAR against multiple recent MoUs with agri-corporations – ASHA Kisan Swaraj, 20 July 2024.Facebook

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CST Research carries out research into food, agriculture and development issues. Read other articles by CST Research.

 

Tempting Armageddon as a national strategic policy

Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat. “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”

by Paul Larudee / July 22nd, 2024

If you want to get ahead in Washington, devise the most dangerous, reckless, merciless and destructive plan for US world domination. If it kills millions of people (especially if they are mostly women and children), you will be called a bold strategist. If tens of millions more become refugees, it will be even more impressive. If you find a way to use nuclear weapons that would otherwise be gathering dust, you will be hailed as brilliant. Such is the nature of proposals for dealing with Russia, China and Iran, not to mention smaller nations like Cuba, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, North Korea, etc. Can a plan to decimate humanity and scorch the earth be far behind?

How did we get here? This is not the world that was envisioned in the years following the greatest war in history.

If you consider yourself a hammer, you seek nails, and this seems to be the nature of US foreign policy today. Nevertheless, when WWII ended in 1945, the US had no need to prove that it was by far the most powerful nation on the planet. Its undamaged industrial capacity accounted for nearly half the economy of an otherwise war-torn and devastated world, and its military was largely beyond challenge, having demonstrated the most powerful weapons the world had ever known, for better or worse.

That was bound to change as the world recovered, but even as the rebuilding progressed, it did so with loans from the US and US-dominated institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which added international finance as another pillar of US supremacy. The loans built markets for US production, while creating allies for its policies in the postwar period.

It wasn’t all rosy, of course. But the war and its immediate aftermath introduced greater distribution of wealth, both in the US and much of the world, than had hitherto been the case. Highly graduated income taxes – with rates greater than 90% on the highest incomes – not only funded the war effort, but also assured relative social security and prosperity for much of the working class in the postwar period. In addition, the GI Bill provided funds for college education, unemployment insurance and housing for millions of returning war veterans. Although a main purpose of the legislation may have been to avoid the scenes of armed repression against unemployed and homeless war veterans, as occurred with a much smaller number of veterans after WWI, it had the effect of ushering many of them into middle class status. Another factor was the introduction of employee childcare and health insurance benefits during the war, in order to entice women into the work force and make it possible for them to devote more of their time to war production. These benefits (especially health insurance) remained widespread and even increased after the war, contributing to higher living standards compared to the prewar era.

Internationally, wider distribution of wealth was seen as a means of deterring the spread of Soviet-style socialism by incorporating some of the social safety net features of the socialist system into a market economy that nevertheless preserved most of the power base in capitalist and oligarchical hands.

Unfortunately, many of the wealthy and powerful may have seen these developments as temporary measures to avoid potential social disorder, and a means of fattening the cattle before milking, shearing and/or butchering. One of the earliest rollbacks was the income tax structure, which saw a decades-long decline in taxation of corporations and the wealthy, as well as features in the tax code that allowed many of the wealthy to dodge income taxes altogether.

Similarly, savings and loan institutions, designed to serve the financial needs of the middle class, became a means to exploit them, thanks to changes in chartering rules engineered by the lobbyists of the wealthy to profit from speculative trade in mortgage securities. The most egregious consequence of this was the crash of 2008, resulting in the greatest transfer of wealth in US history to the top 1% (or even 0.1%) in such a short time. By then the neighborhood savings and loan was a memory, having been devoured by investment bankers to satisfy (unsuccessfully) their insatiable appetites.

In the international dimension, another important development was the uncoupling of the US dollar from the gold standard in 1971. This ended the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, and made the untethered dollar the standard, rendering its value equivalent to whatever purchasing power it might possess at any given time, and placing the United States in unprecedented control of international exchange.

A further instrument of postwar power was NATO, an ostensibly voluntary defensive alliance of nonsocialist western European and North American nations, to which the socialist countries reacted with their own Warsaw Pact. Both were voluntary to roughly the same imaginary degree, and justified each other’s existence. But both were also a means for the great powers of the US and the USSR to dominate the other members of their respective alliances. The defensive function of these alliances became obsolete with the dissolution of both the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in 1991. NATO then became an offensive alliance, functioning to preserve, enhance and expand US hegemony and domination in the face of its descent into internal dysfunction and external predation.

These transfers of wealth and power, both domestically and internationally took place even as US industrial and manufacturing power waned. This was due not only to competition from the expected postwar recovery of powers destroyed during the war (as well as newly rising ones), but also to the unmanaged voracious appetites of US speculators and venture capitalists, who replaced vaunted US industrial capacity with cheap foreign (“offshore”) sources. This eventually converted the US from a major production economy to a largely consumer one. It also helped to transfer middle and lower class wealth from the American masses to its upper echelons, as well-paying union and other full-time jobs were replaced by menial minimum wage and part-time ones, or by unemployment, welfare and homelessness. The service industries, construction, entertainment, finance, military, government and agriculture usually remained relatively stronger than industry and export, but less so than during the 1950s, and were increasingly funded by expansion of the national debt, rather than a strong economic base.

Of course, concentration of wealth is commensurate with concentration of power, and although the wealthy always have greater political power than the less wealthy, the transition to an increasingly oligarchical US society got a major boost in 2010 with the Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which granted corporations and other associations unprecedented power to use their vast financial resources to control the outcome of elections. It was a bellwether: despite the fact that Supreme Court justices are unelected officials, it is hard to imagine such a decision taking place a half century earlier (during the Warren Court, for example), when popular power in the US (though never as great as proclaimed) was perhaps at its peak, and which was reflected in the composition of the court and its decisions in that era. Citizens United gave corporations and well financed interest groups virtually unlimited control over US domestic and international policy.

The coalescing of these trends has resulted in a power structure and decision-making procedure (or lack thereof) that accounts for the astonishing headlong rush toward Armageddon described in the introductory paragraph of this article. The US is currently considered the only remaining superpower, but what is the basis of that power? It is not industrial or economic power, which the US abandoned for the sake of short-term profits in “offshore” manufacturing, as previously stated.

It is not even military power, much of which has been invested in extremely expensive air and sea forces that are now becoming obsolete, as second and third tier powers like Russia and Iran develop cheaper mass drone architecture, untouchable hypersonic missiles and electronic systems that make traditional weaponry less relevant. An extreme example of such irrelevance can be seen in the strategies of Hamas and its Palestinian allies, armed largely with low-tech self-developed weapons designed to exploit the vulnerabilities of massively armed Israeli forces laying waste to the Palestinian population and infrastructure above ground, while the resistance forces remain relatively invulnerable below ground, and able to attack effectively and indefinitely from their hundreds of miles of deep reinforced tunnels.

Similarly, the irrelevance and obsolescence of US arms became evident in the Ukraine war, as the US, and indeed all of NATO, proved themselves incapable of manufacturing more than a fraction of the artillery, shells and armored vehicles that Russia produces, with a military budget hardly more than a tenth that of the US, much less the combined NATO budget.

The US aim in the Ukraine war was and is ostensibly to defeat Russia. But it will consider the war a success even if (as seems certain) this objective fails. This is because the more immediate US goal is to assure and reinforce the subjugation of the western NATO countries, as well to expand to the rest of Europe. In effect, the Ukraine war solves the problem perceived by US policymakers that the dissolution of the USSR removed much of the justification for a defensive alliance which was no longer facing a threat of the sort against which it was created to defend.

But that question was apparently raised mainly if at all by academics at the time, not diplomats. Perhaps a partial explanation was inertia: why change what seemed to be keeping both peace and prosperity (for its members)? The US also found missions for NATO from the Balkans to 9/11 response to West Asia to Afghanistan and North Africa. But all of these paled in comparison to its previous function of deterring the Soviet Union. In order to justify the continued existence of NATO, a new, similar threat was needed, not merely “police actions”. This was manufactured by the US, starting with expansion of NATO to eastern Europe, in violation of its promises in 1991 to the leadership of the dissolving Soviet Politburo not to expand “an inch beyond the eastern border of [East] Germany.” Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined in 1999. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004. In 2009, Albania and Croatia also joined, followed by Montenegro in 2017 and North Macedonia in 2020. Finland joined in 2023 followed by Sweden in 2024.

The purpose of the expansion, while giving the appearance of relevance, was not so much to respond to a perceived threat as to manufacture one, and Russia was selected to be the threat, despite the fact that it had posed no apparent strategic threat to NATO for more than two decades after the end of the Soviet Union. It even discussed the possibility of joining the Alliance. But the US had other intentions. Without a credible common threat, NATO might cease to be a defensive military alliance, with the eventual possibility of defections by members that no longer saw a significant benefit to their otherwise exorbitant and oppressive membership. Furthermore, many western European nations were finding common interests with Russia, most notably the Nordstream pipelines providing cheap, plentiful and reliable Russian natural gas to the European economies.

Obviously, this was intolerable for the US and its plan to dominate all of western and eastern Europe combined. Russia soon understood that the expansion of NATO was intended as a strategic threat to Russia’s security. As successor of, and inheritor to, the Soviet nuclear arsenal and its delivery systems, Russia could not afford to have NATO nuclear strike systems sitting on its doorstep any more than the US could accept nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962. The US therefore chose to threaten Russia’s existence through Ukraine.

Ukraine was the perfect weapon to prod the Bear. It was poor and corrupt, and it had a substantial racist and ultranationalist anti-Russian Nazi and Fascist minority, with origins dating to collaboration with Nazi Germany. These elements hated Ukraine’s large ethnically and linguistically Russian population, who had a strong traditional link with Russia and its history, including Ukrainian cities founded by Russia. With well-placed undercover money, arms and expert CIA covert manipulation, a small but violent uprising, a coup d’état and civil war might turn Ukraine into a security threat to Russia that could be used to seal NATO under US control.

Under the stewardship of Hillary Clinton’s handmaiden, Victoria Nuland, laden with $5 billion (actually, with unlimited funds), this is exactly what happened in 2013-14. The newly installed Ukrainian coup government promptly began the repression of its ethnically Russian population, which mounted a resistance movement to defend itself, as intended by the US/NATO covert operators. Over the next eight years, the US funded, armed and trained its Ukrainian puppet, all the while amplifying the repression against the ethnic Russians, whose resistance groups Russia supported with arms and training. Negotiated agreements in 2014 and 2015 (the Minsk accords) to end the fighting were only partially and temporarily effective, and as German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted in an interview with Die Zeit in 2022, they were only an attempt to gain time [to strengthen the Ukrainian military until they were ready to take on Russia].

That time was February, 2022, when – on cue from its US puppeteers – Ukraine escalated its attacks on its Russian minority in Lugansk and Donetsk oblasts (provinces), instantly raising the daily casualty toll from dozens to hundreds. As intended, this prompted Russia to intervene directly with a “Special Military Operation”, ostensibly limited mainly to ending the massacres and defending the population that was under attack, but also to driving Ukraine to the negotiating table.

It worked. At the end of March, the two countries reached a ceasefire agreement at negotiations in Istanbul, under the auspices of the Turkish government. But this was not what the US had in mind, so British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was promptly dispatched to Istanbul, to remind the Ukrainians that puppets are controlled by the hands of their masters. From then on, the war escalated until it engaged more than a million armed combatants and resulted in more than a half million casualties. And in case some NATO member might be tempted to explore reconciliation with Russia, the US destroyed the Nordstream pipelines, breaking a major foundation of Russia’s peaceful economic bonds with the rest of Europe, and with them much of Europe’s heretofore economic success, on the assumption that weaker partners are more dependable than strong ones (and constitute weaker economic competition, as well).

The US thus became the undisputed hegemon of Europe by means of a conventional proxy war with Russia. But their original plan included the defeat of Russia, as well, both militarily and economically, the latter by means of sanctions that would deny markets and world trade to the Russian economy. This part of the plan was a miserable failure, as Russia found prosperity in new markets, and invested in an astonishingly productive, innovative and efficient strategic defense industry, mainly at its robust defense complex in the Ural mountains. No matter. War, destruction and wanton slaughter had nevertheless proven to be effective strategies for European domination, even without defeating Russia. In addition, the US had shown that, despite its industrial limitations, it could impose its will through proxies bought, trained and supplied with its most powerful weapon, which it had in unlimited supply: the mighty US dollar.

I therefore return to the question of the basis of US power. What enables a country with a declining industrial base and stagnating military production, a shrinking working and middle class and an expanding homeless population to expend vast sums of money to hire and arm proxy fighting forces, purchase and develop foreign political parties, overthrow governments, maintain a military budget that is the equal of the next nine countries combined, and an intelligence budget that is larger than the entire defense budget of every other country except China and Russia?

Part of the answer is that the US increases its national debt by whatever amount it wishes, usually paying low but reliable rates of interest, depending on the market for US Treasury notes. Currently, the debt is roughly $35 trillion, more than the annual US GDP. The only other time in history that debt has exceeded GDP was in WWII, which hints at profligate borrowing. But the US is not worried about the size of the debt or about finding takers for its IOUs. As mentioned earlier, the dollar was uncoupled from the value of gold in 1971. The untethered dollar is therefore the basis for most currencies in the world. As a result, the  entire world is heavily invested in the dollar and in maintaining its value, and will buy US Treasury notes as needed to assure that it remains stable and valuable. This enables the US to outspend all other countries to maintain and augment its power throughout the globe. Some have accused the US of treating this system of funding as “the goose that lays the golden egg”.

Others have accused it of coercing or “shaking down” other countries to participate in this financing scheme or face unpleasant consequences. The same accusation has sometimes been leveled with respect to the purchase of US “protection services” and expensive military hardware as part of the NATO member “contributions” that bring US installations and personnel to those countries, and to other US satellite countries around the globe.

The other major basis of US power is the use of unlimited dollar resources to visit extreme violence, death, war and destruction upon countries and societies that do not accept subordinate status, or even those who do, but whose destruction may be seen as a necessary object lesson to those who might otherwise step out of line. This is a commitment to use totally disproportionate force with little or no effort at diplomatic efforts to reach strategic goals. The Israelis call this the “Dahiyeh Doctrine”, in reference to turning entire suburbs (“dahiyeh” in Arabic) or cities and their populations into smoldering ruins for the sake of intimidation. In the case of Ukraine, the US/NATO, has raised the stakes in the destructiveness of the weapons being used against Russia, as well as the choice of increasingly deeper targets inside Russia, while refusing negotiated diplomatic solutions. Threats to use low yield nuclear weapons have also been suggested.

This is, in effect, the insanity ploy, “We are unreasonable and capable of anything. Do what we say or accept terrible consequences.” It is the Armageddon strategy, “We are willing to go to any lengths.” It is the strategy of those who think they are invincible, and who demand complete obedience from, and dominance of, potential rivals. It is the strategy of those who think that they can do whatever they want without serious consequence to themselves. The direct origin of this strategy is the Wolfowitz Doctrine, first issued by Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in 1992, and submitted to his superior, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. The basis of the doctrine is that any potential rival to US power must be destroyed or reduced to size.

Cheney and Wolfowitz are part of the neoconservative political movement that began during the Vietnam war. It is a movement of warmongers and autocrats who believe that the control of US foreign policy must be kept in the hands of “experts” (themselves) and out of the hands of elected officials who don’t support them. The dissolution of the Soviet Union was in their eyes a vindication of their influence in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, and their “success” led to the founding of the short-lived Project for a New American Century think tank during the latter part of the Clinton presidency.

The Project for a New American Century in turn became a springboard for neocon saturation of the George W. Bush administration in the major foreign policy arms of the government – the cabinet, the National Security Agency, the State Department, the intelligence services, and eventually the military. Since then, neoconservative control has only broadened and deepened in the U.S. To a large extent they are the unelected cabal that run US foreign policy and related agencies, with support from the interests that profit from war and exploitation, including weapons manufacturers, petroleum and mineral companies, and, of course, the similarly-minded Israel Lobby.

It is in these circles that arrogance knows no bounds, that no risk is too great, and that no amount of death and destruction is inconceivable, because you are not invited to participate unless you consider yourself too intelligent and powerful to make a mistake, and because Armageddon can only happen if you will it so.Facebook

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Paul Larudee is a retired academic and current administrator of a nonprofit human rights and humanitarian aid organization. Read other articles by Paul.

 

Puppet Realisations: Biden Stands Aside

by Binoy Kampmark / July 23rd, 2024

Having been endorsed as the only viable candidate to battle Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential elections, Joe Biden was subsequently browbeaten and harried into leaving the way open for another candidate.  It involved some movement of political furniture, but nothing more.

The process resulting in Biden’s decision had increasingly bulked over the last two months.  With each day, another Democratic figure would come out to suggest he pass the torch to another appropriate appointee of the establishment.  Whispers became roars.  Former President Barack Obama, whose deputy Biden had been, also joined the camp of dissent.  Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi likewise.

With the announcement made, tedious commentary claimed it was a “shock”.  What was shocking was the lengthy pondering from Democratic Party hacks and plotters that Biden had the reserves to carry off a campaign that would lead to another electoral victory. In doing so, the president was understandably gulled by the false assumption that he had the support that mattered.  For a moment, the puppet had forgotten his various masters, the strings loosened, the fantasy in reach.

Confidence in his own indomitability was seemingly shattered by the June 27 presidential debate with Trump.  But even then, he remained obstinate, his sense of delusion brimming.  On July 7, Biden declared that the only force that would convince him to stand aside was the “Lord Almighty”.  Subsequent interviews revised such a celestial standard by suggesting that matters of health or a sharp decline in the polls could also play a part.

A letter to Democrat lawmakers sent on July 8 had one purpose in mind: snuffing a movement that had begun gaining momentum.  “I can respond to all of this by saying clearly and unequivocally: I wouldn’t be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump.”  In a heavily coloured account, he suggested that his position as a presumptive nominee had never been in doubt.  “Only three people chose to challenge me.  One fared so badly that he left the primaries to run as an independent.  Another attacked me for being too old and was soundly defeated.”

To challenge his standing, imputed Biden, was to effectively ignore the rank-and-file of the party, suggesting a crude disenfranchisement.  This was a gloriously rich assertion, given that presidential nominations have far more to do with corporate, unelected donor interests and stratagems conducted out of public view than they do with the average voting citizen.

The view was also patently deceptive, given that rival contenders were not allowed onto the ballot in certain states (take Wisconsin and North Carolina as examples) or permitted to face a proper primary process.  Ironically enough, attitudes among the average voter Biden waxes lyrical over were already hardening in favour of an alternative candidate in polls conducted last year.  In April 2023, an Associated Press/NORC poll found from a sampling of 1,230 US adults that 73% would prefer he not run again, with age being a critical factor.

It has been left to the Democratic establishment to maintain the illusion of presumptive nomination right to the point the decision was made to scupper the whole effort.  Indeed, much of the Biden presidency has been stage managed, heavily padded and often choreographed to repel journalistic scrutiny of conduct and policy.  The New York Times even went so far as to find this hermetic capsuling “troubling”, given that the president had “so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”  By the end of June this year, the paper’s editorial board had openly endorsed the Joe Must Go viewpoint.

In a call-in to MSNBC’s Morning Joe after sending his letter of defiance, the president made no secret of his disdain for various party operatives who had begun to doubt his mettle.  The measure was theatrical, given that those same operatives have been his prop and stay.  Resorting to a tactic he has previously deployed, he scorned the unnamed elites who knew little about the true inclinations of the Democratic voter. Amidst his rambling answers to program hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, his agitation was clear enough: “I’m getting so frustrated by the elites – now I’m not talking about you guys – the elites in the party, ‘Oh they know so much more.’  Any of these guys that don’t think I should run, run against me.  Announce for president, challenge me at the convention.”

A few days later, Biden’s performance at the NATO Washington summit produced sharp intakes of breath when introducing the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky as Russia’s Vladimir Putin.  He also managed to mangle his Vice President, confusing Kamala Harris with Trump.  The elites proved increasingly disgruntled.  With the donor base now in open revolt, threatening withdrawal of support, the decision was a foregone one.  Pity they are not willing to step aside as well.
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Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He letures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.