Our blog highlighted the dishonest propaganda attempts by the right-wing to use our environment crisis to scape-goat migrants, here, here and here.

The Guardian carries another similar story. 

Mark Brnovich, Arizona’s Republican attorney general, in a lawsuit demands the reinstatement of Donald Trump’s immigration policies to help remedy the “pollution and stress on natural resources” caused by migrants who move to the US.

Another, the Negative Population Growth, launched a campaign aimed at the “complete elimination of illegal and quasi-legal immigration and reduction of current legal immigration by 80%” in order to slash planet-heating emissions.

Betsy Hartmann, an academic at Hampshire College who specializes in the environment and migration, said she was “very concerned this will be used by far-right groups to fuel hatred. It has become a sort of conventional wisdom now, which poses a real danger.”

In the US, the most prominent voices linking environmentalism with anti-immigration has been the web of groups dubbed the Tanton network, named after John Tanton, an ophthalmologist from Michigan who was once active in the Sierra Club and died in 2019. The Center for Immigration Studies, one of these groups, has welcomed Brnovich’s lawsuit.

 France’s far-right National Rally party has declared that “borders are the environment’s greatest ally; it is through them that we will save the planet”.  In Germany, the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany has warned the country’s environment faces “a great danger” if it allows in more migrants.

According to some scientists, blaming migrants for the unfolding climate and biodiversity crises stokes resentment and obscures more important causes such as overconsumption by the world’s wealthiest 10%  who produce around half of all consumption-based emissions, while the poorest half of humanity contributes only 10% – and the entrenched power of fossil fuel companies and their political allies.

Environmental groups have now largely moved away from talking about overpopulation to focus on these other themes. “In the environmental community, it has become a bit of a third-rail issue. It’s very difficult to talk about,” said Dale Jamieson, a professor of environmental studies and philosophy at New York University. Jamieson added: “But if you’re trying to hang environmental concerns on to an anti-immigration agenda, that is so transparent, it’s just not sincere.

He goes on to explain that “When it comes to problems like climate change, nationalism is the problem, not the solution. Ecological boundaries do not care about national boundaries so trying to solve climate change within one nation-state is not an effective way of doing things.”

Right seizes Trump playbook to blame migrants for environmental harm | Population | The Guardian

Applying for asylum at international borders is a legal right guaranteed by the U.N. Convention on Refugees (to which the United States is a signatory) and the U.S. Refugee Act.

Since Biden took office, right–wing outlets have run non–stop sensationalist border stories depicting liberals as​“soft” on immigration. Such propaganda distracts from the very real plight of asylum seekers and the vulnerable families who are trying to build better lives for themselves are depicted as a security threat to the  United States, rather than the media garnering sympathy for those desperate people from the U.S. public.

Biden frequently talks about his humanity towards the migrants at the border but his actual actions have differed little from Trump’s. Biden has reopened migrant youth detention centres. Families who arrive at the border are denied entry, but unaccompanied minors pass through — tantamount to separating families on the Mexico side of the border, rather than changing the policy. Biden continued to apply Title 42, a public health statute, first used by Trump to expel migrants under a cynical pretext of controlling Covid-19. And before indignant grassroot Democrats forced him to back down, Biden also intended to maintain Trump’s low cap on refugees.

 There are tens of thousands of people in rough and ready makeshift camps on the Mexico side of the border exposed to the weather and to those criminal elements seeking to take advantage of them.

Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala have deployed 18,500 troops to stem migration from Central American countries at the behest of the United States to deter the migrant caravans. The United States imposed unequal trade agreements that privilege U.S. business interests over the well-being of local Central American.  The United States has legitimized and validated corrupt governments such as Honduras and the Hernández 

 Although it dates from the 1950s, this article puts the case against the lesser evil argument rather well and still remains relevant today.

Critics of the Labour Government are rapidly increasing in number. With daily increases in the cost of living, whilst wages climb at tortoise pace in pursuit; with the ever growing threat of war and the prospect of devastating atomic warfare; with some essential foodstuffs and other commodities being rationed down to infinitesimal quantities, the Labour Government stands accused of being the cause of it all. That is the fate of all politicians who undertake the job of capitalist government. The government of the day, whether it be Conservative, Liberal Labour or Coalition, always bears the brunt of criticism for the prevailing bad conditions. Socialists do not subscribe to this idea. They do not claim that the problems that confront the workers today arise because of the Labour Government, but rather, in spite of a Labour Government. These problems arise from the capitalist society in which we live and governments are powerless to prevent them.

This does not mean that a government has no power to affect the prevailing conditions. The outbreak of war may be advanced or postponed by a particular government policy. Governmental action can cause the meat ration to be increased or it can cause it to dwindle to an even less amount. One government might cause a few more houses to be built than would another or one government might impose import duties where another would remove them. One could introduce harsh anti-working-class legislation whilst another could repeal it. Although a capitalist government can modify, amend, adjust and generally tinker around with the problems that confront it, it is powerless to remove them.

Amongst the critics of the Labour Party are many erstwhile staunch supporters whose votes help to put that party in power. It is not in the least unusual these days to hear Labour Party supporters vehemently denouncing the government for doing things that should have been left undone and not doing things that should be done. They will readily admit the shortcomings of Labour ministers and oppose the Labour Government’s policy. They will agree that socialism is the only solution to working class problems, but—BUT—as it is not possible to establish immediately they intend to support the lesser of two evils, the Labour Party in preference to the Conservatives. “The lesser of two evils”—how often the workers have been hoodwinked by that notion! As though one capitalist political party was even a little bit preferable to another. As though there is anything to chose between them as far as the workers are concerned. As the Irishman is reputed to have said, “The only difference between them is that they are all alike.” Looking back over the years of working class struggle, under all kinds of governments, should be sufficient evidence that the workers’ position is not altered whenever there is a change of government Giving the workers the choice of two political parties, each competing for the job of administering capitalism, is like giving the Christmas goose the choice of being roasted or boiled.

If it were true that one particular party was likely to be less harmful to working class interests than another, there is still no means of telling which one it is. The German workers in 1932 selected what they considered to be the lesser evil when they elected Hindenburg as president in preference to his opponent. Hitler. But a year later Hindenburg appointed Hitler to the chancellorship of Germany and the German workers had both evils to contend with. After nearly 30 years of Labour Government in New Zealand the workers there have apparently come to the conclusion that there is a lesser evil than the Labour Government and have kicked it out. Working class supporters of the Conservative Party will, of course, claim that their party is the lesser evil. The fact of the matter is, that all capitalist governments are evils from the viewpoint of the working class, and the minor differences that exist between them are reflections of the sectional interests of the capitalist class. The promises, plans and programmes that they present at election times are only possible of fulfilment if the capitalist system allows. Whether a particular government smites the workers with a velvet gloved hand or a mailed fist depends on the capitalist needs of the moment. In times of crisis for the capitalist class it will be as ruthless with its workers as it dares and the government then in office will have to do the dirty work. If a government is at all inclined to leniency in favour of the workers, all the might of the combined sections of the capitalist class will be turned to achieve that government’s destruction. But as Labour Parties, like Conservative Parties, are parties of capitalism, they can be relied upon to serve capitalist interests in opposition to the workers. If capital needs increased production, it is the job of the existing government to see that it is increased; if capital wants wages frozen, it is the task of the government to put them in the refrigerator; if capital is forced to fight for its fields for investment and its markets, it is the job of the government to whip up the workers and send them off to kill or be killed; and if the workers embarrass capital by striking, it is the job of the government to use the troops that it controls to “preserve law and order.”

International capital will drag governments around by their ears. The Rumanian Government, just before the last world war, was re-shuffled a number of times first at the dictates of German capitalism then at the dictates of British. The members of the political organisation known as the Iron Guard were first taken into the Rumanian Government, then turned out and later brought in again. The British Government is now leaning heavily on American Capitalism. The British army will operate under an American general and the British Atlantic fleet will take its orders from an American admiral. Because American capital wills it. Just as, where British capital holds sway, there can be found native armies officered by Britons. No matter what the politicians may say, the position would not be seriously altered if any other party formed the government.

Socialism is the solution to the workers’ problems and until they establish socialism they will have to put up with capitalism and all its attendant evils. The great need is to convince the workers of the necessity for socialism and that will not be done by telling them to support a capitalist party because it is considered to be a “ lesser evil ” than some other party. By that means they will be giving support to the capitalist class to prolong this system and delay the establishment of socialism. By supporting the capitalist parties the workers are forming the tail-end of capitalist politics. Those who urge them to do that and betraying working class interests.

The workers must be urged to break completely with the political parties of capitalism, whether openly pro-capitalist like the Conservatives or avowedly pro-labour like the Labour Party. They must be brought to realise that they must join a political party, separate from and opposed to the capitalist parties. Socialism is an immediate necessity. As long as capitalism lasts there will be wars, poverty, insecurity and all the rest of the evils that flow from this system. There is no “lesser evil ” to be found by supporting any one of the capitalist parties in preference to another.

If a man is robbed by two thieves, it is in his interest to regain his property, not to take sides with one thief or the other in their differences about the share-out of their loot, even if one of them has got a kind-looking face. When he tries to get his stolen property back he will soon find that the two robbers will sink their differences and gang up to prevent him recovering his goods. They will both be vicious and he must oppose the two of them or else find himself “between the devil and the deep blue sea.”

W. Waters

hat-tip to

ALB and Darren at

Socialist Standard Past & Present (socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com)

 Hassan Jabareen, the general director of Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, declared that a massive arrest operation of  Palestinian citizens of Israel for their participation in support of Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem and the besieged Gaza is a “militarised war against Palestinian citizens of Israel.” 

Israeli police announced they will penalise those who have taken part in demonstrations against settler violence, the Israeli forces’ crackdown on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, and the IDF’s bombing of Gaza.

Israeli police said some 1,550 people have already been arrested since May 9 and the campaign is a “continuation” that aims to “prosecute” demonstrators who have over the past two weeks taken to the streets in towns and cities across Israel.

 Now, thousands of security forces from “all units” will be deployed to carry out raids, it said, in towns and cities predominantly inhabited by Palestinian citizens of Israel. Police, border guards and reserve brigades will search homes and conduct “investigations.” 

Janan Abdu, a Haifa-based lawyer with the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, pointed out that, “These are not just police forces but also include special units – border police, secret services and undercover forces.” She continued, “They treat their citizens as an enemy. There has always been two systems: one for Arabs and one for the Jews.” 

The purpose of the arrests is to “intimidate and to exact revenge on Palestinian citizens of Israel – ‘to settle the score’ with Palestinians, in the Israeli police’s own words – for their political positions and activities”, Hassan Jabareen said. 

 Rallies were held in cities including Haifa, Yafa, Lydd and Nazareth in solidarity with Palestinian families facing forced expulsion from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah and following Jewish-Israeli attack on worshippers in Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Palestinian citizens of Israel have long been discriminated against.

 Majd Kayyal, a Haifa-based activist, said, “We need to start a new chapter as Palestinians inside Israel. We need to rip apart and dismantle Israel’s fragmentation policy.” he said. “Our fight as Palestinian citizens of Israel is a part of the collective fight of the Palestinian people against Israel’s settler-colonial project.”

‘A war declaration’: Palestinians in Israel decry mass arrests | Al-Aqsa Mosque News | Al Jazeera

 Approximately 245 000 deaths in the United States in 2000 were attributable to low education, 176 000 to racial segregation, 162 000 to low social support, 133 000 to individual-level poverty, 119 000 to income inequality, and 39 000 to area-level poverty.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3134519/

The richest 130,000 Americans have as much wealth as the bottom 117 million.

billionaire wealth has increased by more than $1.3 trillion during the pandemic while millions have fallen into poverty.

In San Diego County, we have mansions on the beach, but we also have 40 percent of children living in poverty — and that was before the pandemic.

 Locals in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta have stepped in to help the hundreds of mainly Moroccan migrants in dire need of food, clothes and water after aid groups have found themselves unable to help. Migrants have been wandering the streets of Ceuta. Most have no money.

The situation has encouraged some locals to step in by offering the migrants clothes, a place to shower, and food.

Sabah Mohamed said she took action after seeing how much the migrants suffered. “I saw so many people just roaming in the streets and we thought, ‘We have to help them’. There were people who were wet, people who had no shoes, others who were disoriented and who were hungry…So my friends and I, who don’t belong to any organisation, decided we needed to help.”

“They give us clothes, we can come have showers here… they give us food and water. It’s everything we need, thank God. The people of Ceuta are kind to us,” one migrant at Mohamed’s home said.

Ceuta migrant crisis: Locals step in to help as aid groups overwhelmed (france24.com)

 The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) calls for no new oil, natural gas and coal investments for the world to be able to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.  It outlined a path to net-zero emissions that suggested stopping new investments in oil, gas and coal supply, retiring coal-fired plants in advanced economies by 2030. The IEA said its pathway was “the most technically feasible, cost-effective and socially acceptable”.

Some Asian energy officials viewed that approach as too narrow.

Energy companies in Australia, the biggest carbon emitter per capita among the world’s richest nations, and officials in Japan and the Philippines said there were many ways to get to net zero.

Akihisa Matsuda, the deputy director of international affairs at Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), said the government has no plans to immediately stop oil, gas and coal investments.

“The report provides one suggestion as to how the world can reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, but it is not necessarily in line with the Japanese government’s policy,” he said.

Japan was the region’s third-largest carbon emitter in 2019, after China and India.

“The IEA report doesn’t take into account future negative emission technologies and offsets from outside the energy sector — two things that are likely to happen and will allow vital and necessary future development of oil and gas fields,” Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association Chief Executive Andrew McConville said.

Australia’s top independent gas producer, Woodside Petroleum, said it still aims to make a final investment decision for an $11 billion investment to develop a new gas field off Western Australia in late 2021.

Australia on Wednesday committed A$600 million ($467 million) in taxpayer funds to build a new gas-fired power station.

In the Philippines, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said cutting finance for oil, gas and coal without considering efficiency and competitiveness would “set back the Philippines’ aspiration to join the ranks of upper-middle-income countries,” he said.

Demand for coal is still expected to be strong in the next few decades as some countries are still building new coal-fired power plants, said Hendra Sinadia, executive director at Indonesia Coal Mining Association.

Asia snubs IEA’s call to stop new fossil fuel investments (trust.org)

It is characteristic of any war that the first victims are usually innocent civilians. The World Socialist Movement fully sympathises with the compassion being expressed for the plight of the people of besieged Gaza. Saturday saw an example with an enormous turn-out in London showing support for the Palestinians. We roundly denounce the lethal Israeli air-strikes against Gazans who cannot flee the war–zone to safety nor seek refuge in the shelter of underground tunnels which were being deliberately targeted.

 Every few years we have witnessed Israeli state-violence with the purpose of repressing Palestinian resistance. Palestinians had begun protests against the eviction from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem. These were accompanied at the al-Aqsa mosque with demonstrations against the provocative incursions of extremist Zionists. As the protests grew, Israeli police responded with increased violence.  

It is frustrating that many concerned people are endorsing armed struggle by Hamas as fully justified. A common refrain repeated is it is not for us to determine the methods of resistance but the Palestinians themselves and they have chosen Hamas as their representatives. But we cannot avoid questioning that claim. Has it ended the siege of Gaza? Has it provoked Israel to deploy its army to face high casualties that a ground invasion would inflict? Has it challenged Israel’s security with several hundred rockets fizzling out before even reaching Israeli territory and those that do, 90% get shot down by Iron Dome? As the political commentator, Norman Finkelstein observed, the rocket risk to Jewish-Israelis is as much as being struck by lightning. Has “self-defence” been a financial cost to Israel with the USA paying most of the bills?

The rockets, in fact, distracted from the East Jerusalem and the Palestinian-Israeli protests and served Hamas efforts to control events. It was a power-play by Hamas, not solidarity. Hamas wanted to portray itself as the leadership of the Israeli-Palestinians the moment they appeared to be acting independently in various cities within Israel. We can see that the real motive Hamas has in militarising the struggle is to ensure it retains partisan political control, distancing the Palestinian Authority even further but also undermining those that possess the decisive potential power,  the Palestinian-Israelis.

John Pilger and others present the argument that the occupation legitimises the right of resistance. But the dilemma is that defending the armed struggle directly weakens other strategies such as the rights of those who seek to wage non-violent resistance using general strikes and civil disobedience.

Rather than rockets, Hamas could so easily have revived the March of Return along the fences and if the Israeli snipers shot the participants as the IDF did previously, it would have resulted in far fewer casualties being incurred. Hamas wanted a media event of Israeli bombing and Israel willingly gave it to them for Netanyahu’s domestic election reasons.

The apologists for Hamas, the romantics who still adhere to the proven failed national liberation ideology, never mention that Hamas supported the Islamist al-Nusra who fought against Syria’s Assad, Hezbollah and Iran. The very same al Nusra jihadists being also supported by Israel and the USA. Strange bedfellows indeed. 

As socialists, our position is one against all nationalism but it should not be mistaken for docility to oppression or that Israel’s apartheid system and its occupation should not be resisted. The Palestinians should practice self-defence and engage in equal human rights. But the tactics chosen must be ones with the best chance of success.

No war but the class war but class politics is something many of the marchers against Israel and for a free Palestine don’t wish to understand, preferring to depict it as a religio-ethnic conflict. We support a vision of Jews and Palestinians coming together as workers, no matter how remote such an aspiration might appear today. Our fundamental principle is that true freedom will never be achieved until we are all liberated from wage slavery. This means that we do not support Hamas or any other would-be rulers. We cannot accept the sacrifice of our fellow-workers to satisfy the self-interest of sectarian political parties.

 The message of socialism is worldwide. It reaches across the artificial national boundaries erected by mankind. and is as much for the ears of every worker. Poverty and inequality will last as long as the capitalist social system is in existence. The only way out is to establish socialism, which will organise the world so that everyone, whatever their sex or colour of skin, has free access to the world’s wealth and stands equal to the rest of humanity. There is no place for vicious exploitation in such a society. That is the lesson for workers to learn all over the world.

 It is no longer possible for the Irish defenders of capitalism to pretend that the poverty and unemployment suffered by the Irish workers are due to “foreign” government. So also in Scotland. It is better that Scottish workers should be able to realise that they suffer from exploitation just as much whether at the hands of Scottish exploiters or European and Asian exploiters. If Scotland’s workers see in national independence a solution to their economic problems they will—like the Irish and many others—suffer a grievous disappointment.  It is part of the task of the Socialist Party to work to destroy the present illusion and thus avoid future disillusion. Let Scottish workers organise not as Scots alongside their home capitalists, but as workers. They should reject the fallacious argument of political parties which urge them to do otherwise. In England, this fallacy is based on an old saying that “The enemies of my enemies are my friends.” In truth, the capitalist enemies of Scotland’s capitalists are not, and cannot, be the friends of the workers. If certain Scottish capitalists happen to be at loggerheads with some English capitalists, that is no reason why Scottish workers should imagine they have a friend in the Scottish employing class. The real task of Scotland’s workers is that of the workers everywhere—to fight against capitalism whatever the national flag under which it hides. The duty of socialists is to keep this issue always to the fore, not to rouse deadly national hatreds which obscure the class divisions in society and retard the growth of socialism.

This “internationalism” of the Socialist Party is in direct antagonism to that national sentiment which is fostered under the name of “patriotism.”  As class-conscious workers, its members view any “nationalism” as a snare in the path towards emancipation. Not only does it serve to cloud the class issue within the nation, but it also hinders the workers of the world from recognising and acting up to their unity of interest. What significance has “pride” in one’s nation for the wage-slave? The Socialist Party vehemently denies any connection between the interests of the capitalist and working people.

 Internationalism will only have a sure foundation to the extent to which such illusions are ruthlessly cut out. The first step is to tell foreign workers frankly that with the best will in the world the amount of practical help that can be given is strictly limited, and therefore it is necessary for them not to build great hopes on succour from abroad to make up for their own weakness. The best help that the workers anywhere can give to their foreign comrades is to redouble their efforts to strengthen the socialist movement in their own country and hasten the day when the workers will control social affairs. Socialists intend to help build a world in which there will be neither exploiters nor exploited. We are interested in the resources of the whole world and we want them to be used for the benefit of all mankind without distinction of nationality.

The real division in the world is not between people of supposedly different “nationalities” but between two social classes both of which are international: a class of capitalists and state capitalists who own and control all that is in and on the Earth and a class of people who, excluded from such ownership and control, are obliged to work for an employer (private or state) in order to live. Wage and salary earners everywhere, whatever their language, legal nationality, skin colour, have a common interest.

The future lies with us, the past belongs to our enemies. They depend for their success upon the ever-diminishing working-class ignorance; we depend for ours upon the increasing working-class knowledge. Unlike those parties, which degrade the name of socialism, the Socialist Party and its companion parties have an unbroken record of loyalty to socialism and commitment to working-class internationalism in peace and in war. The truth is that the very essence of socialism is internationalism. Socialism knows no frontier. It matters little that one country may be peopled by any other nationality. That would make no difference to the movement of the working class towards the world-embracing cooperative commonwealth. 

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE

 The £300,000 saved in a cost-cutting exercise during the refurbishment of the 24-storey Grenfell council block between 2014 and 2016 that led to combustible aluminium panels being substituted for the planned non-combustible zinc on the exterior of the block has cost the council over £500m, £406m on its response and recovery efforts in almost four years since the disaster,  in addition to the costs to the taxpayer of the ongoing public inquiry, which hit £117m by the end of March this year, most of which was taken up with lawyers’ bills.