Uzbekistan’s Soviet Legacy Lives on in Its Treatment of Journalists


Uzbekistan’s State Security Services threaten, intimidate, and pressure journalists to avoid certain topics and delete certain stories.

By Cheryl L. Reed
June 03, 2022

Credit: Catherine Putz
This is part one of a two-part investigation into the State Security Services’ increasing repression of Uzbekistan’s journalists.

TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN — Tolib Rakhmatov was an investigative reporter for the popular Tashkent media platform Kun.uz when he was summoned in 2019 for his first meeting with the State Security Services (SSS) at Cafe Shum Bola. Rakhmatov, a middle-aged man with kind eyes and a quick wit, thought the restaurant was an ominous place for such a meeting. “Shum bola” means “naughty boy” in Uzbek.

“They said they just wanted to get to know me better,” he recalled recently. During his time at Kun.uz he was contacted five times by the SSS, he said. Each time he felt the officers were trying to intimidate him into quitting his job.

“They make indirect threats,” he added. “They say, ‘You don’t want your son or daughter to become crippled one day. You don’t want them crossing the street and something to happen to them.’”

Rakhmatov’s experiences with the SSS were similar to those recounted by more than 35 journalists, bloggers, human rights activists, and media watchers I interviewed in Uzbekistan from March until June this year. The Uzbekistan government welcomed me as an American journalist and U.S. Fulbright Scholar – a research grant from the U.S. State Department – to research the challenges facing journalists reporting about corruption and government malfeasance. I had previously interviewed nearly 100 journalists about obstacles to press freedoms in eight other post-Soviet countries.


Tolib Rakhmatov was a former investigative reporter with Kun.uz. He now covers Uzbekistani migrant workers abroad for www.migrant.mobi. Photo provided by author.

During the 26 years of former President Islam Karimov’s repressive regime, journalists were imprisoned and tortured. Since President Shavkat Mirziyoyev took over in late 2016, Uzbekistan has had a freer media. Currently, there are 10 bloggers in prison in Uzbekistan but no officially registered journalist is behind bars, according to human rights groups and media watchers.

Uzbekistan’s media is still crawling out from under the legacy of the Soviet era, when entertainment news dominated and government censors deleted what was perceived as too dangerous. Many journalists are still on the government payroll, working for state-owned and controlled TV, radio, newspapers, and websites. Other journalists and bloggers work as press agents for various government organizations. Even independent media take money from government organizations to report unlabeled advertorials. 

Journalism ethics are not well developed in the country, and understanding of conflict of interests is limited. Media editors and owners lack sophistication when it comes to the variety of ways stories can be reported. Many don’t understand or appreciate news analysis or investigative reporting. Journalism education is very basic and taught by many who were trained under the Soviets.

The only people who seem to be pushing the limits of the government’s tolerance are untrained bloggers who largely videotape in a shock and shame style. But these gonzo bloggers, who frequently take money to cover certain stories, are not protected by media laws.

Unlike Belarus and some other repressive post-Soviet countries where independent journalists band together and journalist groups aggressively fight for their rights, journalists in Uzbekistan are less collegial. Many are openly critical and suspicious of each other and of the union that is supposed to represent them.

One of the biggest problems cited by most Uzbekistani journalists is the SSS, who they say threatens, intimidates, orders them to delete stories, and demands they stop covering certain topics, such as high-level corruption within the government, the activities of wealthy businessmen, religious practices, or anything vaguely disrespectful to the president or his family. Despite repeated requests, the SSS refused to meet with me.

Such threats and intimidation stifle journalists from reporting about corruption and problems that the newly elected president says he needs to know about to make reforms. The result is a media that is timid and self-censoring, a populace that is afraid to speak out, and a country that promotes the façade of a free press when in reality it is a country that is entangled in propaganda.

“When the treatment becomes more harsh and more severe, people become more timid and more abiding authority, like North Korea,” explained Tashanov Abdurakhmon, chairman of Ezgulik, Uzbekistan’s only registered independent human rights group. “We are ill from these demands.”

I found only one journalist who claimed she could write whatever she wanted and the SSS wouldn’t bother her. When I asked what her secret was, she said: “The SSS killed my brother in 2015, eight of them went to prison. So now they leave me alone.”

Journalists say SSS pressure on the media has only intensified with the trifecta of controversial events: last October’s presidential election in Uzbekistan, the January protests in nearby Kazakhstan, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February.

“Media freedom has really gone down dramatically,” said Navbahor Imamova, a Voice of America reporter who has covered Central Asia for more than 20 years. “I’d say Uzbekistan has taken some 10 steps back. The security services have gotten much stronger.”

Navbahor Imamova is a former Uzbekistani state journalist who has worked for Voice of America covering Central Asia for more than 20 years. Photo provided by author.

Problems at Kun.uz

Rakhmatov left his job at Kun.uz on January 31 after he said he was told by owner Umid Shermukhammedov to stop reporting on stories about a land development case in Nazarbek involving a construction company owned by the brother of a deputy minister. Rakhmatov had written about the case as it wound through the court system. Then he says Shermukhammedov suddenly told him to stop. But when the case reached the Supreme Court, Rakhmatov wrote about the court ruling against the construction company.

“I thought it was safe to write about it,” Rakhmatov said. “We usually follow the principle that after a case comes to a logical conclusion that we write something about it. The Supreme Court decision was the final outcome.”

Four hours after the story was posted, it was removed, he said. The next day Rakhmatov was out of a job. He believes that someone in the government pressured Shermkhammedov.

“I was surprised because in the past Umid was quite free and open. And he was always very motivated about being brave in journalism,” Rakhmatov said. “I was quite disappointed.”

Shermkhammedov did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.

A month later, Kun.uz and other Tashkent media platforms came under fire from the SSS regarding their coverage of the Ukraine war.

“We tried to report both sides of the war,” explained Kun.uz Editor Dilshod Abdukadirov during an interview three weeks later. “The government said we need to take a more neutral position.” Although it was widely reported that Abdukadirov and Shermukhammedov were detained by the SSS for several hours on February 26 for their Ukraine coverage, Abdukadirov denied he’d ever been contacted by the SSS. Shermukhammedov even posted about the meeting on his Facebook, which was seen by dozens of reporters. He later deleted the post.

Dilshod Abdukadirov, left, is an editor at Kun.uz Here he is pictured with one of his reporters, Ilyos Safarov. Photo provided by author.

Abdukadirov promised to pose questions about the incident with Shermukhammedov and get back to me. Finally, after many Telegram and email exchanges over the course of two months, Abdukadirov wrote, “Umid does not want to talk about this topic.”

Rahkmatov was not surprised. “It’s normal to deny certain things,” he said. “They have to deny. They have to say everything is fine. In 2018, when the government put us offline and our website was blocked for 11 days, we told the public that it was a technical problem. But in fact, it was blocked.”

Since the end of February, Kun.uz, like other independent media, has published its most aggressive war coverage on its Telegram channel. In contrast, its website coverage has wavered between something equating neutral coverage andcarrying stories straight from the Kremlin’s news service – like a story in which Putin claims he is helping Ukrainians with its “special operations” and another incendiary story in which Putin claims the atrocities in Bucha were faked. That story carried the original headline “Bucha is fake,” but has now been changed so that Bucha is no longer mentioned in the headline. 

Dilshod Saikjonov is the first deputy director of the Agency for Information and Mass Media – the government’s media monitoring arm. He said he was not aware that the SSS had pressured Kun.uz to delete and alter its Ukraine coverage, even though the situation was highlighted by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Uzbekistan recently boasted about its ranking in RSF’s latest World Press Freedom index: 133 out of 180 countries.

“Kun.uz and Gazetta.uz are such strong mass media, why would they need to delete material?” He said he had privately urged the top editors to “balance” their stories on the war “because we are friends,” he said. “We play football together.”

Saikjonov said he was not aware of any journalist being pressured by the SSS. “Yes, I had some calls from journalists in the past who said it was a real situation, but I didn’t know if they were exaggerating,” he said.

Komil Allamjonov, former press secretary for Mirziyoyev and now head of the Public Foundation for Support and Development of National Mass Media, said he was aware of what happened at Kun.uz and had seen Shermukhammedov’s Facebook post.

“Some people from certain services lack sophistication and proper skills to work with journalists,” Allamjonov said. “So probably Umid and Dilshod had to face this kind of situation when they faced a work of unsophisticated tactics and instruments.”

He added, “The majority of the security services are people of old traditions of the Soviet legacy. So they inherited these old methods, which were rude.”

Allamjonov believes that journalism is one of the most dangerous professions. But he says journalists in his country need to be passionate about justice, brave and courageous, and fight against “these dark forces.”

“No one,” he said, “is going to give you media freedom as a gift.”

Allamjonov wields enormous power from his perch at the foundation. His deputy is the president’s own daughter, Saida Mirziyoyev. Allamjonov warns journalists not to politicize media freedom because the president could change his mind and opt for a more repressive media policy, like the one in Singapore.

Abdurakhmon, Ezgulik’s chairman, says that there is no freedom of the press and speech in Uzbekistan if that freedom only derives from the whims of one man. “Sooner or later the president can change his mind,” he said. “Freedom of speech should just be and not be dependent on whether the president wants it.”

Tashanov Abdurakhmon, left, is the chairman of Ezgulik, the only human rights organizations that is registered in Uzbekistan. Bekzod Nurmatov is vice chairman of Ezgulik. Photo provided by author.

Old Soviet Methods

In some cases the SSS pressure forces journalists to change their beats and their media platforms. Alisher Ruziohunov has worked at a number of media platforms including Kun.uz, Gazetta.uz and Bugun.uz. He said he has been asked to meet several times with the SSS. Once he was asked to postpone a story about a popular Tashkent market the government wanted to move. The market, he said, was owned by the son-in-law of an SSS officer.

“We made a big coverage,” he said. “We were asked by the SSS to postpone this coverage until some time when people weren’t aware of what they were doing.”

Later he was working on a story about how houses were being demolished in Andijan. The SSS warned him his coverage needed to be “soft.”

Ruziohunov said he changed his beat from politics to economics solely to avoid SSS pressure. “I prefer covering economic news because there are no red lines. In political coverage, you can’t cover the family of the president. There’s no reason to become a good journalist if you can only do this up to a certain level.”

The last time Ruziohunov received a threat from the SSS was in December 2021. An SSS officer asked him to a café and pressured him to inform him about the stories he was working on.

“He threatened me that if I didn’t cooperate that I would never have another job, and my brother would have troubles,” he said. “When I said I didn’t care about those things, the man offered me money. I told him I didn’t want the money. When he realized I wasn’t going to do what he wanted, he said he was just kidding. But I know how they manipulate reporters.”

Last year on May 3 – World Press Day – Ruziohunov said he and several other journalists he trusted were invited to the home of Timothy Torlot, the ambassador of the United Kingdom to Uzbekistan. There is even a picture of Ruziohunov, wearing a dapper blue jacket, and several other journalists sitting in Torlot’s living room on the embassy’s Facebook page. Afterwards, he said, an SSS officer visited him. “The guy told me what I said and recounted the conversation,” he said. “I knew one of my friends had informed on me using old Soviet methods.”

GUEST AUTHOR
Cheryl L. Reed is an American author and journalist who is researching journalistic freedoms in post-Soviet states. She is currently a Fulbright Scholar in Central Asia. For more information, see www.cherylreed.com

Getting deglobalization right

Joseph E. Stiglitz

June 03, 2022 


The World Economic Forum’s first meeting in more than two years was markedly different from the many previous Davos conferences that I have attended since 1995. It was not just that the bright snow and clear skies of January were replaced by bare ski slopes and a gloomy May drizzle. Rather, it was that a forum traditionally committed to championing globalization was primarily concerned with globalization’s failures: broken supply chains, food- and energy-price inflation, and an intellectual-property (IP) regime that left billions without COVID-19 vaccines just so that a few drug companies could earn billions in extra profits.

Among the proposed responses to these problems are to “reshore” or “friend-shore” production and to enact “industrial policies to increase country capacities to produce.” Gone are the days when everyone seemed to be working for a world without borders; suddenly, everyone recognizes that at least some national borders are key to economic development and security.

For one-time advocates of unfettered globalization, this volte face has resulted in cognitive dissonance, because the new suite of policy proposals implies that longstanding rules of the international trading system will be bent or broken. Unable to reconcile friend-shoring with the principle of free and non-discriminatory trade, most of the business and political leaders at Davos resorted to platitudes. There was little soul searching about how and why things have gone so wrong, or about the flawed, hyper-optimistic reasoning that prevailed during globalization’s heyday.

Of course, the problem is not just globalization. Our entire market economy has shown a lack of resilience. We essentially built cars without spare tires – knocking a few dollars off the price today while paying little mind to future exigencies. Just-in-time inventory systems were marvelous innovations as long as the economy faced only minor perturbations; but they were a disaster in the face of COVID-19 shutdowns, creating supply-shortage cascades (such as when a dearth of microchips led to a dearth of new cars).

As I warned in my 2006 book, Making Globalization Work, markets do a terrible job of “pricing” risk (for the same reason that they don’t price carbon dioxide emissions). Consider Germany, which chose to make its economy dependent on gas deliveries from Russia, an obviously unreliable trading partner. Now, it is facing consequences that were both predictable and predicted.

As Adam Smith recognized in the eighteenth century, capitalism is not a self-sustaining system, because there is a natural tendency toward monopoly. However, since US President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ushered in an era of “deregulation,” increasing market concentration has become the norm, and not just in high-profile sectors like e-commerce and social media. The disastrous shortage of baby formula in the United States this spring was itself the result of monopolization. After Abbott was forced to suspend production over safety concerns, Americans soon realized that just one company accounts for almost half of the US supply.

The political ramifications of globalization’s failures were also on full display at Davos this year. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the Kremlin was immediately and almost universally condemned. But three months later, emerging markets and developing countries (EMDCs) have adopted more ambiguous positions. Many point to America’s hypocrisy in demanding accountability for Russia’s aggression, even though it invaded Iraq under false pretenses in 2003.

EMDCs also emphasize the more recent history of vaccine nationalism by Europe and the US, which has been sustained through World Trade Organization IP provisions that were foisted on them 30 years ago. And it is EMDCs that are now bearing the brunt of higher food and energy prices. Combined with historical injustices, these recent developments have discredited Western advocacy of democracy and international rule of law.

To be sure, many countries that refuse to support America’s defense of democracy are not democratic anyway. But other countries are, and America’s standing to lead that fight has been undermined by its own failures – from systemic racism and the Trump administration’s flirtation with authoritarians to the Republican Party’s persistent attempts to suppress voting and divert attention from the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol.

The best way forward for the US would be to show greater solidarity with EMDCs by helping them to manage the surging costs of food and energy. This could be done by reallocating rich countries’ special drawing rights (the International Monetary Fund’s reserve asset), and by supporting a strong COVID-19 IP waiver at the WTO.

Moreover, high food and energy prices are likely to cause debt crises in many poor countries, further compounding the tragic inequities of the pandemic. If the US and Europe want to show real global leadership, they will stop siding with the big banks and creditors that enticed countries to take on more debt than they could bear.

After four decades of championing globalization, it is clear that the Davos crowd mismanaged things. It promised prosperity for developed and developing countries alike. But while corporate giants in the Global North grew rich, processes that could have made everyone better off instead made enemies everywhere. “Trickle-down economics,” the claim that enriching the wealthy would automatically benefit all, was a swindle – an idea that had neither theory nor evidence behind it.

This year’s Davos meeting was a missed opportunity. It could have been an occasion for serious reflection on the decisions and policies that brought the world to where it is today. Now that globalization has peaked, we can only hope that we do better at managing its decline than we did at managing its rise.

Copyright: Project Syndicate


JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ is the winner of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. His most recent book is Globalization and its Discontents Revisited: Anti-Globalization in the Era of Trump.

UAE to Chair UN's Committee on The Peaceful Uses of Outer Space

Thursday, 2 June, 2022

Omran Sharaf seen at the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space meeting. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Dubai- Asharq Al-Awsat

The UAE will chair the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS).

The 100-member state committee is one of the largest UN committees. It was established by the UN General Assembly in 1959 to govern the exploration and use of space.

It was tasked with reviewing international cooperation in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, studying space-related activities, encouraging space research programs and studying and recommending policy and the legal infrastructure supporting space exploration.

Omran Sharaf, who will now chair COPUOS for a period of two years (2022-2023), serves as the project director of the Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) at the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center in Dubai, UAE.

Sharaf was the first Emirati engineer to travel to Korea in the country’s technology transfer program, which saw him working on the development of the DubaiSat-1 and DubaiSat-2 remote sensing satellites.

During his time in Korea, Sharaf gained his Master's degree in Science and Technology Policy from the Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), South Korea, in 2013.

Sharaf said the space sector in the UAE is witnessing successive achievements.

He pointed out that it is a qualified sector, thanks to the future vision that prioritizes the development process, in light of the mass capacities and scientific expertise the UAE has in this field.

The UAE said winning the presidency is of great importance to it, stressing that this phase requires setting space policies.

World countries compete to launch dozens of satellites, thus the committee's role will be pivotal in building policies to ensure the sustainability of space and encourage adopting a regulatory framework calling for acting responsibly.

UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed said electing Omran to chair the committee is a new achievement for the state and reflects the world’s appreciation for its programs and contributions in the field of space.

“We wish Omran every success in leading this committee and implementing its goals and projects.”

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, expressed his pride in the UAE and Omran, noting that the country’s youths have reached space, they lead global issues and run international institutions.

During its presidency of the intergovernmental organization, the UAE seeks to bolster the efforts of space and science diplomacy at the global level, promote fair and peaceful access to space for all world countries, and compliance with international legal frameworks and UN treaties governing the safety and sustainability of outer space among the member states.

It further aims to support and encourage knowledge transfer programs among member states as a way to accomplish tasks more efficiently and a tool to develop the global space economy and promote the exchange and development of new and innovative practices of the committee’s work system, in line with international law.

Sarah al-Amiri, Minister of State for Public Education and Advanced Technology and Chairwomen of the UAE Space Agency, said, “It’s a great honor for the Emirates to take the chair of COPUOS, particularly as we founded our space program on international partnerships and collaboration and continue to place these partnerships at the core of our space sector development.”

WAIT, WHAT?! 

Outrage as North Korea takes helm of world disarmament body


Countries use North’s elevation in rotating presidency to chastise Pyongyang over recent missile tests and feared preparation for fresh nuclear test

North Korea's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Han Tae Song, appears on a screen in Geneva while chairing the Conference on Disarmament on Thursday.

 Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

Agence France-Presse in Geneva
Fri 3 Jun 2022

North Korea skipped the diplomatic niceties for a combative tone as it took the helm of the Conference on Disarmament.

“My country is still at war with the United States,” declared Pyongyang’s ambassador, Han Tae-Song.

Around 50 countries have voiced their outrage that the nuclear-armed North Korea is being tasked with chairing the world’s most foremost multilateral disarmament forum for the next three weeks.

North Korea took over the rotating presidency of the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament on Thursday, according to a decades-old practice among the body’s 65 members following the alphabetical order of country names in English.


North Korea fires suspected ICBM amid signs of preparation for nuclear test

But despite the automatic nature of North Korea’s presidency of the conference, dozens of non-governmental organisations had urged countries to walk out of the room in protest.

There was no dramatic exit, but many nations opted to send only lower-level diplomats, while the US, the EU, Britain, Australia and South Korea, among others, took the occasion to chastise Pyongyang over its numerous ballistic missile tests and feared preparation for a fresh nuclear test, the first since 2017.

“We remain gravely concerned about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s reckless actions which continue to seriously undermine the very value of the Disarmament Conference,” said the Australian ambassador, Amanda Gorely, speaking on behalf of the group of countries.

The decision to remain in the room should not in any way be interpreted as “tacit consent” of North Korea’s violations of international law, she said.

Pyongyang’s ambassador, who opened Thursday’s meeting, held exceptionally in the UN’s distinctive human rights chamber in Geneva, merely responded: “The president takes note of your statement.”

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price said that North Korea’s role called the body’s utility into doubt.

“It certainly does call that into question when you have a regime like the DPRK in a senior leadership post, a regime that has done as much as any other government around the world to erode the non-proliferation norm,” he said.

North Korea, one of the most militarised countries in the world, has carried out a number of missile tests since the beginning of the year.

The US and South Korea say it fired three missiles, including possibly its largest intercontinental ballistic missile, hours after Joe Biden closed a visit to the region late last month.


North Korea’s Covid outbreak likely ‘getting worse’, WHO says

The US and others have warned that Pyongyang is preparing its first nuclear test in five years.

In Thursday’s joint statement, Gorely urged North Korea to “observe a moratorium on nuclear test explosions”.

After repeatedly “taking note” as president of the criticism, Han, the North Korean ambassador, took the floor in his national capacity to insist on North Korea’s right to defend itself against US “threats”.

Pyongyang, he pointed out, remained officially at war with the US since the 1953 ceasefire that ended combat and split the Korean peninsula.

“No country has the right to criticise or interfere in the national defence policy” of North Korea, he said.

The Conference on Disarmament, which is not a UN body but meets at its headquarters in Geneva, is a multilateral disarmament forum that holds three sessions a year.

It negotiates arms control and disarmament accords and focuses on the cessation of the nuclear arms race.

Fears of arbitrary arrests in El Salvador

Jun 2, 2022

Non-governmental organizations in El Salvador have documented at least 50 cases of arbitrary detentions by security forces combating powerful gangs for months.

Pakistani women face harassment at workplace



Islamabad [Pakistan], June 3 (ANI): Over 70 per cent women are victims of harassment at the workplace in Pakistan and there seems to be no end to their plight.

Recently, an order has been issued by the federal ombudsman who has imposed a penalty on the former ambassador of Pakistan to Italy, Nadeem Riaz, who has been found sexually harassing the trade officer.
The reports have shown that the ombudsman has charged him with a heavy fine on the complaint of the trade officer who said that Nadeem Riaz had sexually harassed her, according to the Pakistani newspaper Daily Times.

Reports say that women who are working in offices in Pakistan with male colleagues and at places where the male ratio is significantly high, find inconvenience in their mobility around and at the workplace.

Citing official reports, Daily Times reported that more than 70 per cent of women are harassed at their workplaces every day. Many women have abandoned the idea of being a working woman owing to the lack of security and improper working conditions at the workplace and those who are forced to earn to support their families often remain silent as they cannot give up their job, nor do they complain about it due to fear of losing their employment.

Sara, a 25-year-old banker, said the practice prevalent in the workplace puts women in jeopardy.

“Harassment exists and we cannot ignore that. But we have to remain silent, otherwise, our fathers and brothers wouldn’t let us continue working, and we cannot afford that,” she said as quoted by the media outlet.

A report was produced on the “Sexual Harassment at workplace in Pakistan” after analyzing the experience of various women who were asked about their working environment at the workplace.

Most women are also found switching their jobs in order to avoid such a toxic environment.

Data collected by White Ribbon Pakistan, an NGO working for women’s rights, shows that 4,734 women faced sexual violence between 2004 and 2016. Lately, the government of Pakistan has passed the “Protection against Harassment at the Workplace (Amendment Bill), 2022 and has amended the weaker provisions of the 2010 law.

Pakistan observes an increased ratio of overall working women in recent years but the country is grappling with the issue of psychological, physical and sexual harassment of women that impedes their safe mobility and prevents them from stepping outside to work.

(ANI)

App lets women in Gaza anonymously report abuse

This app allows women in the Gaza Strip to report domestic abuse anonymously, allowing victims to seek help while avoiding the shame and reprisals that put many off of going to the authorities directly.

American Federation of Teachers demands gun reform | ABCNL

JUNE 2, 2022

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, discusses gun control in America after the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

Veterans

They are the good guys with guns. After another mass shooting, veterans want change.

By Kelly Kennedy, Michael de Yoanna and Sonner Kehrt, The War Horse
Jun 2, 2022

Petty Officer 2nd Class Zach Bernat, an aviation ordnanceman, demonstrates proper handling and safety procedures of the M240B machine gun before sailors qualify to operate the weapon during a gun shoot in 2010. (Petty Officer 1st Class Rebekah Adler/Navy)


Editors Note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter.

When Kyle Bibby reported in to the Naval Academy, he had never fired a gun. But he learned to shoot a pistol. Then a rifle. He learned safety measures and effective training. Eventually, he taught pistol to other midshipmen. When he graduated and was commissioned as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps, he says, “Pistols, rifles, machine guns, rockets — that was my life.”


Then he became a civilian.

“I am a gun owner, myself,” Bibby says. “And I just remember constantly feeling like, Oh, that’s it? I just show up, and you just hand it to me. There’s no safety manual. There’s no, ‘Hey, I recommend you do this. Hey, do you got a safe place to lock it?’

2nd Lt. Kyle W. Bibby, 3rd platoon commander for Company B, Battalion Landing Team 1/1, 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, gives instruction on the fundamentals of infantry patrolling to members of the Qatari Amiri Land Forces, March 29, 2009, in Qatar. 

(Gunnery Sgt. Matthew Holly/Marine Corps)

“Nope. Just, ‘Here’s this thing that can kill you or anyone else.’”

After yet another school shooting — one that, even as people grieved, caused the usual forays against politicizing tragedy or offering “thoughts and prayers” rather than solutions — veterans continue to speak up, on social media, in organizations they have formed, and in the media.

Some veterans are tired of being seen as homogenous, decked in T-shirts that feature big guns, voting based purely on the idea that you will take their weaponry only from cold, inflexible fingers.

Veterans have issues of their own with guns, violence, and suicide. They also know veterans are “just people” — often “just people” who haven’t trained on a weapon in decades — rather than heroes simply waiting for the Bat-Signal so they can instantly appear in schoolyards across the United States.

They want to help swing the argument back to a conversation about practical solutions, to a place where people can listen to each other and pay attention to the wants and needs of the majority rather than those who use service members and veterans to push a single-note story. They want to help a grieving nation understand that they, too, are diverse in their ideas, backgrounds, and opinions, but they take pride in their ability to work together.

They’re ready to be the good guys with guns, but maybe those guns are kept in a locked box in the garage. Or maybe the good guys with guns are required to train at the range every year to keep their weapons. Or maybe they have to go through a background check to buy them.

“The veteran space is a really interesting space to talk about gun control, because amongst veterans, just like most issues, there’s a lot of different opinions,” Bibby says. But, “we know what it’s like to hand an 18-year-old who has very little life experiences a very deadly weapon.”

There have been 27 school shootings so far this year, a number that seems to need daily updating. And there have been 119 since 2018, according to Education Weekly. Gun violence has risen in general: For the first time, children died more often from guns than in car accidents in 2020, The Washington Post reports. Kids have higher access to guns, too, and that increase has led to higher rates of suicide, according to the Society for Research in Child Development.

In May, a gunman shot into a crowd at a music festival in Oklahoma, killing one and injuring seven. There were no doors to defend, to lock. Six people were shot in downtown Chattanooga, with the mayor calling them “kids”: teenagers with access to guns. In Buffalo, a man killed 10 people at a grocery store because they were Black.

The veterans say the conversations can’t keep ending in a stalemate, and the solutions — or the beginnings of them — might be right there for everybody to see.

Recruits with Echo Company, 2nd Recruit Training Battalion, fire their rifles on Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C., Sept. 17, 2019. For one week, recruits must learn and practice the fundamentals of marksmanship before shooting live ammunition on range week. 

(Lance Cpl. Ryan Hageali/Marine Corps)

“As an individual soldier, I’ve gone through robust training, and as a company commander, when I oversaw soldiers, we have a training program for them to ensure range safety and firearm safety, as well,” says Anthony Joyce-Rivera, who serves as a major in the U.S. Army but spoke on his own behalf and not for the U.S. government. “And on military installations, there is no — I do not carry a firearm, I’m not allowed to carry a firearm. If I owned a weapon — full disclosure, I do not own a personal firearm — but if I did, the post requires you to have it registered with the provost marshal, and it has to be under two-lock security at all times in the home.”

He has never heard anyone complain about the policy, he says. But as a father of three young boys, and as the spouse of a woman who earned a degree because she plans to be a school teacher, he’s troubled by the lack of action around the issue.

He thought a lot about the shooting in Texas.

“All the things that were in place,” he says. “The police were, theoretically, at the scene at the time of the shooter showing up, so this ‘good guys with guns’ — they were there. Did they do anything in time? The gap to respond was frustrating; seeing the parents in the videos pleading for people to go in and do something, and being restrained, is very troubling and hard to see. Because I can empathize if that were my child in that school and I was a parent outside. …”

‘We have very strict regulations’

“Gun control” isn’t a foreign concept for service members.

“In the military, we have very strict regulations over safe weapons handling and storage of weapons,” says former Marine Joe Plenzler, an avid shooter since childhood who competes and likes to shoot at ranges. “For instance, on base, all weapons are stored in the base armory. They are prohibited from being stored in on-base residential areas.”

Plenzler also serves on the Veterans Advisory Council for Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that advocates for gun safety reforms.

The military requires extensive weapons training before anyone’s even allowed on the range: They talk about how to handle weapons. They use weapons simulators. They talk about range procedures.

After a patrol, Pfc. Estaban Fernando, performs weapon clearing procedures for his M4 carbine at Joint Security Station Justice, Nov. 25, 2009.

 (Spc. Luisito Brooks/Army)

“When I go in the military, they don’t just hand me a gun, right?” says Fred Wellman, a retired Army officer and political strategist. “You don’t just sign in and go, ‘All right there, Wellman, here’s your M4. And here’s the ammo. Here’s six magazines of ammo. Look, just keep it under your bed.’ No.”

Sherman Gillums Jr., a Marine Corps veteran and long-time veterans advocate, pushes further, saying it’s a misperception that military training is all about guns: It’s about safety and training.

“We don’t hand them a weapon, the day they — a weapon with bullets, I should say — the day they arrive at boot camp,” he told The War Horse. “It takes some time. They’re there for about a month before they ever see ammunition.”

(Disclosure: Gillums serves on the board of directors for The War Horse.)

Before service members get to that point, they face a background check — mental, physical, and criminal — before they join the military, Wellman says. And the rules that follow the checks and the training are strict.

“The weapon is kept in a locked and secured facility where you don’t have access to it,” he says. “Ammo is kept separately from that facility. For me to get my weapon, I have to sign it out. There’s rules that apply. I’m trained on the weapon in every way. If I break those rules, there’s punishment. … We don’t just have guys walk around posts with guns — because it’s stupid.”

Even with those rules in place, the military mandated further precautions to keep service members safe after officials in Iraq reported 126 negligent discharges among American troops in Afghanistan over an eight-month period and at least 90 troops died in Iraq. After years of rising suicide rates as national access to guns increased, Veterans Affairs began a campaign to encourage veterans to lock up their weapons. (Veterans suicide rates decreased in 2019.) And the services insist on continual training because leaders know inexperienced shooters get hurt or hurt others.

But that care is not what civilians see in the fight for gun-access rights: People in military-type gear armed to the hilt with magazines at the ready appear at state capitols, coffee shops, and grocery stores in their push for more access. In fact, it’s hard to know how many of those protestors are truly veterans. Veterans are, after all, known for losing their minds if a service member points a weapon at a pal in a movie, so the idea of a magazine in a rifle at a coffee shop seems out of character.

On most military bases, service members aren’t allowed to carry weapons.

“We require extensive training for service members to handle weapons,” Plenzler says. “We only issue live ammunition under strict supervision and on designated training ranges. This is with the exception of people standing security duty or in combat. I would say the military takes weapons safety and storage very seriously, while the civilian community in America does not.”

‘A particular type of patriotism’

Gun culture in the United States has long been intertwined with the military. Union veterans, concerned about a lack of marksmanship among their troops during the Civil War, founded the National Rifle Association, which met in Houston this Memorial Day weekend. For decades after its formation, the NRA’s rhetoric focused on military readiness — making sure civilians who might be called on to fight for their country knew how to shoot, says Matthew Lacombe, an assistant professor of political science at Barnard College and the author of Firepower: How the NRA Turned Gun Owners into a Political Force. But starting in the 1960s, the focus has shifted away from explicit military preparedness and more toward an ideology of “a particular type of patriotism.”

“I think what has remained is this notion that gun owners are sort of similar to soldiers,” Lacombe says. “They’re the patriotic defenders of our way of life.”

But many veterans say valorizing the military through gun ownership mischaracterizes the military experience.

“I’m a combat veteran four times over, and most of the time I was in Iraq, I spent sitting in rooms, drinking tea, eating sheep, and trying to keep people from killing each other,” Wellman says. “You’re really seeing the use of our veteran experience and the military experience as part of this conversation in ways that are troubling. But what’s troubling is that the majority of veterans who commit suicide do so by weapon.”

To continue the politicization of the military community, in the immediate aftermath of the Texas school shooting, the memes appeared: Just place an armed veteran in front of every school building.

Sgt. Ruby Maxime (left), catches the round from the weapon of 1st Lt. Brandon Pasko, a Cincinnati native, as he goes through clearing procedures at Joint Security Station Justice, Nov. 25, 2009.

 (Spc. Luisito Brooks/Army)

“It’s frustrating because it’s not realistic,” Joyce-Rivera says.

The average veteran served from the ages of 18 to 21, got an honorable discharge, and then went on with their life, he says. Now, at age 48 or so, they haven’t had weapons training in decades. Depending on what their jobs were in the military, they may not have had much to begin with.

“There’s this idea that veterans are somehow mythical humans that make less faulty decisions than other people,” he says.

He reiterated Wellman’s concerns about suicide: “The VA is looking at how to address gun violence for suicides for veterans,” he says. “So is the solution the demographic that already is struggling with suicide through firearms … having [them] equipped with firearms at schools?”

As a national conversation about veterans and mental health grows, Republican lawmakers have repeatedly introduced legislation attempting to protect gun access for veterans, often framing the issue in patriotic terms.

“There are struggles that the veteran community is dealing with of their own through gun violence,” Joyce-Rivera says. “And the mental health crisis? How do we look at that and thoughtfully address it without just saying, ‘Veterans are the solution here’?”

Spc. Juan Graces, an Individual Ready Reserve Soldier and infantryman serving with Bravo Troop 1/82 Cavalry, 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team, instructs Ugandan guards on properly loading and clearing the PKM machine gun on Jan. 14, 2010. 

(Capt. Brandon Ditto/Army)

For Gillums Jr., the veterans advocate, the question of veterans and gun access is a complicated one. Any discussion of restricting guns should be part of a broader conversation about mental health care, he says.

But, he says, what he finds intolerable is lawmakers who haven’t served posing with guns as a way of declaring their support for the military.

“You see the fingers on a trigger, all the things that show you clearly know nothing about the military culture,” he says, referring to constant training to touch the trigger only when it’s time to shoot. “The point of joining the military is not to have a weapon.”

Both Wellman and Gillums Jr. say they see hope in veterans in elected office — on both sides of the aisle.

“I do place a lot of the onus right now going forward on the folks in Congress who know what it means, who know what these weapons can do, who have had to fire them, have had to use them to defend the country, and are now in positions of responsibility — not authority, responsibility — to do the right thing,” Gillums Jr. says.
‘An unacceptable calculus’

Given the long string of shootings from Columbine High School to a country music festival in Las Vegas to this month’s shootings in Texas and New York, Kyleanne Hunter, a former Marine, likened America to a war zone — maybe even worse.

“We knew we might not come home and we knew we might have to live with guilt of others not coming home,” says Hunter, of Colorado, who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Super Cobra helicopter pilot and just finished the school year at the Air Force Academy as a professor of political science. “That’s part of the calculus that you take when you volunteer in an all-volunteer force.”

But Americans shouldn’t expect to face it at home, she says, and the news this month saddened her on a different level: “That is an unacceptable calculus to exist, going to school or going to a concert or going to church or going to a grocery shop.”

Hunter and Plenzler push back against the idea that gun control laws can’t make a difference. They are part of the #VetsForGunReform, a movement made up of veterans across the political spectrum.

“There’s no easy solutions, but there are actionable steps that we could take,” Plenzler says.

Joyce-Rivera has a suggestion:

The military employs weapons systems for a specific purpose, Joyce-Rivera says: To kill enemy combatants. But in the United States, people argue for the right to defend their homes. For that purpose, there should be a different weapons system, he says — one that doesn’t necessarily need to be accurate at 300 meters.

Gunner’s Mate 1st Class Corey Wilhelm, a safety officer at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth’s gun range, educates personnel from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 22 about gun safety and gun handling before a live-fire qualification course in 2020. (MCS2 Nolan Pennington/Navy)

“If the argument is to defend your home, I think we can design weapons systems that fulfill that need, but also help detract against the use of those weapons systems to commit mass shootings and killings,” he says. “As a military guy, that’s kind of where my head’s at is we got to talk about these things as weapons systems.”

The mass shootings aren’t the only violent firearm deaths to think about, Plenzler says. Crimes and suicides, happening in every corner of the country, should also be considered. Nobody he knows has all the answers for how to reverse the trend, Plenzler says, but adds that failing to seek solutions wouldn’t be fair to the victims. And the “false binary choices,” often advanced for political purposes, that people are either pro- or anti-gun complicates the conversation.

“It’s not like we need to be all for no restrictions on guns whatsoever or we’re for complete abolition,” Plenzler says. “I mean neither of those extremes are tenable positions. What I’m really interested in is finding the work in the middle.”

He starts by asking people what would make them feel safer. He often hears support for universal background checks for all gun sales. Many polls, including a survey by Morning Consult and Politico conducted one day after the Texas elementary school shooting, back up his assertion. The poll found 73% of respondents “strongly support” universal background checks and another 15% “somewhat support” the idea.

The House passed the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021 for all gun sales more than a year ago, but the measure has lingered in the Senate.

“I think people are getting tired of having a Congress that is flying in the face of public sentiment,” Plenzler says.

The Morning Consult poll also found that 4% “somewhat” oppose universal background checks and another 4% “strongly” oppose them.

Veterans themselves are “more supportive than nonveterans of expanding civilians’ gun-carrying rights,” according to research published this month in Social Science Quarterly, but are more likely to favor “banning AR15 and military-style rifles and high-capacity ammunition clips.” They’re also more likely to be in favor of a 14-day waiting period for “all gun purchases.”

“Taken together, these findings appear to reflect a veteran population that is positively disposed toward guns in general, but also understands the destructive power of military-style weapons,” the authors wrote.

A new “domestic terrorism” bill, which would have opened debate about hate crimes and gun safety, that flew through the House after the shooting in Texas was blocked when every Republican voted against it when it hit the Senate, saying it didn’t provide enough emphasis on domestic terrorism committed by those on the far left. Right-wing extremists have “been involved in 267 plots or attacks and 91 fatalities” since 2015, The Washington Post reports. Left-wing extremists have been involved in “66 incidents leading to 19 deaths.”

A bipartisan group of Senators is working on a bill that would address background checks for online or gun-show gun purchases, laws that would keep guns away from people a doctor has said could hurt themselves or others, and programs to increase security at schools.

Hunter would like to sit down with those who oppose any limits on gun ownership, she says — especially those who are against any regulations on assault rifles — to ask them if it is “worth it”:

“Is their AR-15 worth the fact that the generation of school kids that are there right now have worse educational outcomes than their parents because they’re afraid of being at school?”

The silence on bipartisan solutions has been the most frustrating point, Joyce-Rivera says.

“We need to address the problem,” he says. “And the problem is children are being killed with firearms.”

This War Horse investigation was reported by Michael de Yoanna, Sonner Kehrt, and Kelly Kennedy; edited by Kelly Kennedy; fact-checked by Ben Kalin; and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Headlines are by Abbie Bennett.

Biden enforces largest Medicare premium hike in history while funneling more profits to private insurers

Kate Randall
WSWS.ORG

In a move that received minimal media attention, last week the Biden administration reaffirmed its decision to enact the largest Medicare premium hike in the program’s 57-year history. The president is also endorsing a plan to funnel more money to private insurance companies and escalating plans to privatize the government insurance program for seniors and those with disabilities. Medicare enrolled 62.7 million people in 2021.

President Joe Biden on March 18, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

The White House announced May 27 that Medicare recipients will not see their premiums lowered this year. This is despite the fact that a rate hike confirmed last November was due in large part to projected costs for a drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease that have now been lowered.

In November 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced an approximately 14.5 percent increase to premiums for Medicare Part B, which covers doctor visits and some preventive care and outpatient services. The standard monthly premium rose from $148.50 in 2021 to $170.10 this year.

The hike came largely as a result of uncertainty over whether Medicare would cover the costs of Aduhelm, an exorbitantly expensive drug to treat Alzheimer’s. Under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry, the controversial drug was approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in June 2021, despite disputes over whether it is effective in treating the debilitating disease.

Biogen, the maker of Aduhelm, originally priced the drug at $56,000 a year. After a considerable outcry from patient advocates and others, Biogen announced that the drug would cost $28,200 effective January 1, 2022, when the Medicare premium hikes kicked in. In April, Medicare instituted strict rules regarding who could receive Aduhelm, restricting its use mainly to clinical trials.

On May 27, the Biden administration said that despite the halving of Aduhelm’s cost, and also its restriction to a small patient pool, it would not be lowering the monthly premiums deducted from seniors’ Social Security benefits. The administration justified this move on the basis of “legal and operational hurdles.”

In a report to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, CMS wrote that “a mid-year administrative redetermination [of Medicare premiums] would be prohibitively complex and highly risky, requiring significant resources and unproven technical solutions from the varied entities which manage premium collection and payment.” In practical terms, this means that Medicare enrollees will not be receiving either a refund on the premium increases already collected this year, nor will premiums be adjusted for the balance of 2022.

CMS claims that 2023 premiums will be adjusted to reflect the lowering of the price of Aduhelm and the reduction in the drug’s usage. There is no guarantee, however, that such an adjustment will take place, as other price hikes demanded by the pharmaceutical industry or other segments of the for-profit health care system are highly likely. And the government has seldom rebated money that it has already collected from the population.

CMS also makes the fantastic claim that seniors are unlikely to feel the impact of the premium hike due to a 5.9 percent cost-of-living adjustment in their Social Security benefits that began in January 2022. This small increase has already been more than eaten up by rapidly rising inflation hitting food, housing, transportation and other basic necessities. The impact on seniors is particularly dire, with more than 7 million living in poverty and 7.3 million food-insecure, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF).

The news that 2022 premium hikes will not be refunded or scaled back comes as Biden officials are moving forward with an 8.5 percent increase in payments made to private insurers operating Medicare Advantage plans in 2023.

Under Medicare Advantage, also known as Medicare Part C, beneficiaries pay their monthly premiums to the federal government but receive coverage from a private insurer for inpatient hospital and outpatient services, typically including prescription drug coverage as well. The establishment of these plans marked a major step in the dismantling of Medicare as a government program. Companies operating these plans are incentivized to limit the amount of medical care received by their enrollees in order to boost profits.

Dr. Susan Rogers, president of Physicians for a National Healthcare Program, told The Lever, “Medicare Advantage insurers such as United Healthcare, Anthem, and CVS/Aetna are celebrating record profits in the tens of billions of dollars.” She added, “Their business plan is simple: inflate their Medicare payments by making seniors look sicker than they are, and then pocket more of those Medicare dollars by ruthlessly denying seniors’ care.”

Enrollment in Medicare Advantage—signed into law in 1997 by Bill Clinton—has more than doubled over the past decade. In 2021, more than 26 million people were enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, or about 42 percent of the total Medicare population. Private plans have cost Medicare $146 billion since 2008.

In addition to hiking Medicare premiums and funneling more money to Medicare Advantage insurers, Biden has expanded Medicare privatization. The Direct Contracting Entity (DCE) program was launched in April 2019 by the CMS, during the Trump administration, under the auspices the CMS Innovation Center, known as CMMI.

Similar to Medicare Advantage, the DCE program allows intermediary companies to offer unique benefits, such as gym memberships. DCE operators range from private insurers to publicly traded companies to private equity firms. As for-profit entities they are also incentivized to limit patient care, particularly for the critically ill.

While Medicare patients choose to sign up for Advantage plans, patients can be enrolled in DCE health plans without their informed consent. Remarkably, seniors for instance may be “auto-aligned” to a DCE if any primary care physician they have visited in the past two years is affiliated with that DCE. Seniors are being swindled by these plans via methods more unscrupulous than scammers trying to obtain Social Security numbers over the phone.

Notably, CMMI was created under the Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law in 2010 by Barack Obama. CMMI’s aim was to develop new payment models in Medicare and Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor, without going through the formal legislative process that requires public comment.

The DCE program is now being expanded by the Biden administration under a new name—ACO REACH, or Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health. Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s office told The Lever that 350,000 seniors were assigned to DCE plans as of January 2022, none of whom signed up voluntarily.

In the US health care system, access to and the affordability of medical care is subordinated to the profits of the private insurers, pharmaceuticals and giant hospital chains. Democratic and Republican politicians alike are concerned with upholding the interests of this market-driven system, not by the needs of patients and health care workers. One need only follow the money to see who benefits.

Business Insider reports that Biden received roughly $47 million from health care industry executives during his 2020 presidential campaign. The leadership of DCE contractor Clover Health donated $500,000 to the main super PAC for Senate Democrats in 2020, while Chamath Palihapitiya, the company’s financier, donated $750,000 to the same super PAC, according to the Open Secrets web site.

Éric Duhaime, the Quebec Conservative Party and the ruling class’ turn to social reaction

Louis Girard
WSWS.ORG

Since his election as leader of the Parti conservateur du Québec (PCQ—Quebec Conservative Party) in April 2021, right-wing libertarian Éric Duhaime has received a great deal of coverage in the mainstream media and increasing attention from big business.

PCQ leader Eric Duhaime [Photo by Asclepias / CC BY-SA 4.0]

With four months to go before the Quebec provincial election, some polls place the PCQ ahead of the two parties that until 2018 had alternated as Quebec’s government for almost a half-century, the Quebec Liberal Party and the Parti Québécois (PQ).

PCQ leader Duhaime has been hosted, along with other party leaders, by business associations, including Quebec’s largest employer group, the Conseil du patronat du Québec. The television networks have already announced that he will be invited to join the official leaders' debate in the run-up to the October 3 Quebec election.

Yet the PCQ—which was founded in 2009 and is separate and distinct from the federal Conservative party, the official opposition in Canada’s parliament—has never won a single National Assembly seat, nor won more than 1.5 percent of the vote in a provincial election. Currently, the PCQ has a lone Member of the National Assembly (MNA), a defector from the ruling Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) who has said she will not be running in the coming election.

The media craze for Duhaime can best be understood by examining the very right-wing agenda he advocated for years as a trash- or shock-radio host in Quebec City and is now projecting with equal virulence as leader of the PCQ. This is not the first time the ruling elite has used an ultra-reactionary figure to push the entire axis of politics firmly to the right.

Duhaime has vehemently opposed all mandatory public health measures to counter the COVID-19 pandemic that has wreaked havoc and mass death in Quebec, the rest of Canada and around the world. Having denounced all efforts to curb the pandemic from the start, he enthusiastically welcomed the “Freedom Convoy,” a group of far-right trucker-owners, supported by the Conservative Party of Canada and much of the corporate media, who terrorized Ottawa residents for weeks to press their demand for the scrapping of all anti-COVID measures. Duhaime said at the time, “My goal is to bring these ideas into the National Assembly.”

Duhaime is a long-time friend and close associate of Pierre Poilievre. The front-runner in the current federal Conservative Party leadership race, Poilievre began his campaign by reaffirming his support for the far-right Convoy, the abandonment of all anti-COVID measures, and a massive assault on public services in the name of eliminating the federal budget deficit. Adopting the language of Margaret Thatcher to advocate for capitalism at its most predatory, Poilievre vowed to make Canada the “freest” country in the world.

The PCQ, now under Duhaime's control, also advocates massive cuts in social spending; accelerated deregulation; increased privatization, especially in health and education; and steep tax cuts for the wealthy, including the introduction of a single tax rate or flat tax.

Duhaime has long been active in right-wing circles. A political advisor to the leader of the Bloc Québécois from 1993 to 1999, he began his career with the Quebec indépendantistes when they were massively cutting social spending.

From 2000 to 2002, he was an advisor to Official Opposition Leader Stockwell Day of the Canadian Alliance, a party that was used to push Canadian politics further to the right and was the dominant element in the merger with the rump of the federal Progressive Conservatives that created the Stephen Harper-led, hard-right new Conservative Party.

In 2003, Duhaime was a candidate for the Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ), with a young Poilievre actively campaigning for him, before becoming a political advisor for the ADQ from 2003 to 2008. The ADQ, which ultimately became part of the right-wing populist CAQ, played a leading role in stirring up anti-immigrant chauvinism in Quebec, particularly around the phony issue of “unreasonable accommodation.”

Duhaime worked for the National Democratic Institute (NDI)–a US imperialist-sponsored agency associated with the Democratic Party that works closely with the US State Department and CIA—in Morocco from 2005 to 2007 and Iraq from 2008 to 2009. The NDI's board of directors has included such leading figures of US militarism as Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Paul Wolfowitz, Madeleine Albright and Elliott Abrams.

Like the rest of the Quebec political establishment and elite, Duhaime has supported Canada’s participation in US-led wars of aggression, from the 1999 NATO war on Yugoslavia, to the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and the 2011 regime-change war in Libya. In a tweet at the outset of the US-NATO instigated war with Russia over Ukraine, he rushed to label Moscow the aggressor and salivated over the opportunity the war presents to develop Quebec’s hydrocarbon resources.

In 2010, Duhaime founded the Réseau-liberté-Québec to bring together people anxious to be rid of what remains of the social concessions made to the working class as a result of the mass struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. Dr. Roy Eappen, one of the members of the network and now a PCQ candidate, is a prominent anti-abortion activist and climate-change denier. Encouraged by Quebec Premier François Legault's reckless profits-before-lives response to the pandemic, which has included the promotion of the reactionary pseudo-scientific “herd immunity” policy, the PCQ promotes all sorts of anti-scientific nonsense—on vaccinations, abortion, and climate change.

For a decade starting in 2010, Duhaime was a commentator in the press and in particular on the radio, where he was given ample opportunity and latitude to spew his reactionary, libertarian and xenophobic ideas. In a generally sympathetic article about him published in April, Duhaime boasted that he had the “microphone for four hours a day for 10 years.”

This included downplaying the hateful, Islamophobic acts that preceded the Jan. 29, 2017 terrorist attack on the Grand Mosque in Quebec City, which left six Muslims dead and some 20 injured. Duhaime dismissed the leaving of a bloody pig's head on the mosque steps as a “silly joke,” comparing it to someone delivering a pizza to a neighbor's house.

In a 2017 radio debate, Duhaime defended the aristocratic principle that voting rights should be modulated according to taxes paid, with the rich given weighted votes that would count more than those of the poor.

Duhaime unabashedly champions far-right positions, but it need be added that so far to the right has the entire political establishment moved over the course of the past decade-and-a-half, his policies on many issues are not so different from those advanced by the other ruling class parties.

Duhaime says that immigrants should be selected on the basis of their “civilizational compatibility.” But how is this chauvinism different from the CAQ's Bill 9, which selects immigrants according to their “values?” Or its Bill 21, which denies health care and other vital public services to devout Muslim women wearing the niqab or burqa. The latter law was itself inspired by the previous Liberal government's Bill 62. And what about the PQ's “Charter of Values,” which aimed to ban more than half a million public sector workers from wearing “conspicuous” religious symbols, while making an exception for “discreet” crucifixes?

Duhaime has become a darling of the bourgeois media and is being promoted by it as a means of pressing the CAQ to intensify its assault on the working class. Editorialists regularly speak of the “difficult decisions” that the government will have to make after the elections, i.e., renewed attacks on wages, working conditions, living standards and public services.

The “Eric Duhaime phenomenon” is taking place in the context of an immense crisis of global capitalism, characterized by galloping inflation, rising social inequality, catastrophic management of the pandemic, and NATO's war against Russia in Ukraine, which threatens to turn into a nuclear conflict.

The main responsibility for the threat from the far right facing the working class lies with the trade union bureaucracy, which has suppressed the class struggle for decades.

As support for the traditional ruling class parties has steadily eroded, the unions have isolated and run workers’ struggles and strikes into the ground. When governments have imposed anti-democratic back-to-work laws to break militant strikes, the unions, led by highly paid bureaucrats who fully accept the capitalists' “right” to make profit, have policed them.

As for Québec Solidaire, the pseudo-left party representing affluent sections of the middle class, it never criticizes the treacherous role of the union bureaucracy and spares no effort to integrate itself even more deeply into the ruling establishment.

It is in this political climate of bourgeois reaction, which is growing in intensity as the social opposition of the working class mounts, that extreme right-wing figures like Duhaime are being promoted by big business in an attempt to divert workers' anger into the most reactionary channels.