Refugees used as political weapon

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Turkey claimed 18,000 migrants had crossed the border, without immediately providing supporting evidence, but many appear to have been repelled by Greek border patrols firing teargas and stun grenades. Thousands of migrants may be in no man’s land between Turkey and Greece after Ankara opened its western borders, as Greek troops attempted to prevent refugees from entering Europe en masse. Turkish police, coastguard and border guards had been ordered to stand down, meaning passage to Europe would be no longer prevented, refugees and migrants made haste to Turkey’s borders with Greece and Bulgaria.



 Greek authorities said 52 warships and patrol boats were patrolling the seas around Lesbos, along with other Aegean isles, in an apparent show of force to deter clandestine voyages. Bulgaria has sent an extra 1,000 troops to its border with Turkey.



 Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, has long threatened to allow refugees and migrants transit into the EU, with which Turkey signed an accord in 2016 to stem westward migration in return for financial aid. He stressed the frontier would remain open. “We will not close these doors in the coming period and this will continue,” he said in Istanbul on Saturday. “Why? The European Union needs to keep its promises. We don’t have to take care of this many refugees, to feed them.”

There are more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, along with many others fleeing war and poverty in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Turkey’s borders to Europe were closed to migrants following a £5.2bn deal with the EU in 2016 after more than a million people crossed into Europe by foot. As that policy was effectively reversed, Erdoğan claimed that the number of people entering Europe from Turkey could rise to up to 30,000 on Saturday. 
But the policy shift appears to be intended to force the EU and Nato to support Ankara’s new military campaign in Idlib, Syria’s last rebel stronghold, where thousands of Turkish soldiers are supporting opposition forces facing an onslaught from regime forces backed by Russian air power. The Idlib offensive has pushed almost a million displaced civilians toward the Syrian-Turkish border. In the largest single loss of life to Turkish forces since their country became involved in the Syria conflict in 2016, at least 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in an airstrike on Thursday night in the north-western province.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/29/erdogan-says-border-will-stay-open-as-greece-tries-to-repel-influx

No Electoral Fraud – Bolivia

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A study released by a pair of MIT researchers reveals that, contrary to claims from the US-backed Organization of American States, there was no fraud in Bolivia’s October 20, 2019 elections—an accusation used by the OAS and others as a pretext for supporting the coup in the country that deposed President Evo Morales and replaced him with an unelected right-wing government. 



 According to Curiel and Williams, “There is not any statistical evidence of fraud that we can find…The media has largely reported the allegations of fraud as fact.“



The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) co-director, Mark Weisbrot, said in a statement that the OAS has a lot of explaining to do after facilitating the coup through faulty information. 




“The OAS greatly misled the media and the public about what happened in Bolivia’s elections, and helped to foster a great deal of mistrust in the electoral process and the results.” 


 MSNBC journalist Chris Hayes tweeted “Given the fact the entire Morales government was toppled over accusations of election fraud, the OAS has a lot to answer for.”




Jim Crow 2.0

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The US was suppose to be founded on the promise of democracy and fair representation, but it is also the country where minorities are frequently disenfranchised for political gain. Among the most vulnerable are millions of Americans, disproportionately African Americans, like Tucker, who have been entangled in America’s racially biased criminal justice system, and lose civil liberties like voting as a result.



The barriers facing many Americans advocates say, are modern adaptations of poll taxes and other devices which were designed to keep people from the voting booths during the Jim Crow era – when white politicians used the law to curb the civil rights of African Americans. Alabama is one of 30 states that requires people with felony convictions to pay back the financial obligations associated with their sentence before they can vote again.



In 2018, with the midterm elections approaching, Alfonzo Tucker Jr was particularly eager to vote. The mayor of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Tucker’s hometown, was running for governor, and the year before he had canvassed for Doug Jones, a Democrat running in a closely watched US Senate race. But Tucker wasn’t able to cast a ballot – state officials refused to even let him register. It wasn’t until weeks later that he learned why he had been deprived of the right to vote. He owed the state $4. Tucker’s case is particularly glaring. He lives less than a hundred miles north-west of Selma, the birthplace of the voting rights movement in America. This week, civil rights leaders are commemorating the 55th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery marches led by Martin Luther King Jr and civil rights activists as they protested against laws preventing African Americans from voting. Many were brutally beaten in Selma during the protests. “I read about the challenges during the 60s, 50s, that black people had to overcome just to vote,” Tucker said. “It’s the same thing going on in 2020.”
The specific policy that had ensnared Tucker dates back to the turn of the 20th century when Alabama leaders, openly seeking to preserve white supremacy, stripped anyone convicted of a crime of “moral turpitude”, among other offenses, of the right to vote. “What is it that we want to do? Why, it is within the limits imposed by the federal constitution, to establish white supremacy in this state,” John Knox, the chair of the convention, said at the time. “If we would have white supremacy, we must establish it by law – not by force or fraud,” he added.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/27/alabama-voting-rights-alfonzo-tucker

Free speech should be what is contagious

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Our present social system comes in various guises.  Many countries have some form of dictatorship, others have freer systems with less restriction on free speech.


  In China, if you vote, you vote for the regime. Any kind of dissent or disaffection, you’re in trouble. So when Dr Li Wenliang (a doctor in Wuhan, in central China) decided some of his patients were showing symptoms reminiscent of the Sars epidemic of 2003, and warned others to take extra care, the police moved in.


 They told him about the nasty things which happen to people who “make false comments” and “disturb the social order”, and he had to promise to shut up.


  For some strange reason this vigorous police action didn’t kill off the virus, or stop the disease spreading.  More people fell ill with flu-like symptoms, including Dr Li, who died. 


 At the Lunar New Year, thousands of Chinese (or even millions – China is a big country) travel to celebrate the holiday with relatives.  All of this continued, and when the Chinese authorities finally had to agree that something was wrong, the virus had spread all over China, and to other countries. Now in China and elsewhere, there is an economic slowdown, and stock exchanges all over the world report sharp falls in the price of shares.


      In other words, if China had what is usually called democracy, so doctors were less likely to be told to “shut up or else”, it is likely that mass travel across the country could have been restricted much earlier, and probably coronavirus nipped in the bud.  If these crisis measures had been taken promptly, it would have been much better for the world’s share owners, and might have saved them from the losses which coronavirus is now imposing. This could explain why in some countries the people in power agree that there are benefits in free speech.



Alwyn Edgar

Raise wages, cut hours, double the work-load

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Target increased their minimum wage then rolled out a “modernization plan” in 2019 to increase efficiency that cut workers’ hours and doubled their workload.  Target reported record share prices at the end of 2019.



Adam Ryan, 31, has worked at Target in Christiansburg, Virginia, for three years. He works additional jobs whenever he’s able to, but is regularly scheduled only 20 hours per week at Target, despite having open availability.



“I have to live with my family because I can’t afford rent on my own. I don’t have health insurance. I’ve had a rotting tooth in my mouth for years that I haven’t been able to receive treatment. I’ve applied for Medicaid in Virginia and every time I’m told I make too much money, and Target has told me I don’t qualify for their benefits because I don’t get enough hours,” said Ryan, who is also an organizer with Target Workers Unite, an independent initiative of Target workers.
Some 54% of workers surveyed report management telling them not to discuss wages with other workers and 41.6% of workers report workers have been reprimanded by management for discussing workplace issues in the store or on social media.
In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Bonnie Furlong has worked as a cashier at Target for about seven years, but still makes what starting workers make, $13 an hour.



“The last time they raised it, they cut our hours, so I’m basically making less than I was before they raised it to $13 an hour,” said Furlong. Her hours were reduced from 32 to 38 hours per week to around 20 hours per week. “If I wasn’t getting social security, which isn’t very much either, I wouldn’t be able to work there because I couldn’t afford it.”
In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Bonnie Furlong has worked as a cashier at Target for about seven years, but still makes what starting workers make, $13 an hour.



“The last time they raised it, they cut our hours, so I’m basically making less than I was before they raised it to $13 an hour,” said Furlong. Her hours were reduced from 32 to 38 hours per week to around 20 hours per week. “If I wasn’t getting social security, which isn’t very much either, I wouldn’t be able to work there because I couldn’t afford it.”
A Target employee in Florida for six years also reported drastic cuts to their schedule.



“This year I am losing my health benefits in March because of cut hours and I recently found out I am pregnant so I’m stressed out about it all. I am given eight hours of work to do in a four-and-a-half-hour shift and expected to get it all done,” they said. “I went from 40 hours a week to 15 hours in January 2020.”



In Houston, Texas, a Target employee told the Guardian the modernization plan has significantly increased workloads that aren’t feasible to complete in the time they’re scheduled.



“I can’t get anything done in 12 hours. I can’t pay rent either. They’re trying to minimize the workforce but maximize what gets done, and it’s causing issues,” they said. “I have two jobs to make ends meet on top of college. I don’t really do anything other than work any more, but they keep us dangling on a string.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/27/target-cuts-hours-leaves-workers-struggling

Profits before Coronavirus

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Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar—a former pharmaceutical executive—repeatedly refused during House testimony to guarantee that any coronavirus vaccine or treatment developed with taxpayer money will be affordable for all in the U.S., not just the rich.



During testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Azar was pressed multiple times to vow that vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus will be priced fairly and made affordable for all U.S. households.




“We would want to ensure that we’d work to make it affordable,” Azar told Rep. Jan Schakowsky, “but we can’t control that price because we need the private sector to invest.”


Schakowsky tweeted following the hearing that she gave Azar “THREE chances to assure us that any coronavirus vaccines or treatments developed with U.S. taxpayer dollars will be affordable and accessible to everyone and he flat out refused to do so.”


“He’s giving Big Pharma a blank check to monopolize them instead,” added Schakowsky.


Progressive advocacy group Social Security Works said that “this is what happens when you put a Big Pharma CEO who doubled the price of insulin in charge of regulating Big Pharma,” referring to Azar’s tenure at Eli Lilly. “Pharma and their friends in the Trump admin don’t care how many people die,” the group wrote, “as long as they get to make a profit.”


https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/27/outrage-hhs-chief-azar-refuses-vow-coronavirus-vaccine-will-be-affordable-all-not

Migrant Misery = Torture

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The trauma Donald Trump’s administration caused to young children and parents separated at the US-Mexico border constitutes torture, according to the group Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). 



Most met the criteria for at least one mental health condition, including post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder or generalized anxiety disorder “consistent with, and likely linked to, the trauma of family separation”, according to the report. Not only did the brutal family separation policy create trauma, it was intensified by the families’ previous exposure to violence on their journey to the US and in their home countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

The report co-author Dr Ranit Mishori, senior medical adviser at PHR, told the Guardian, “It is beyond shocking that this could happen in the United States, by Americans, at the instruction and direct intention of US government officials.”



 Dr Stuart Lustig, a California-based psychiatrist and long-time volunteer said: “Part of the work is simply building trust in humanity again.”

London Public meeting (29/2)

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“What should socialists do now: Socialist principles and policy”



Saturday 29 February, 2.00 p.m.



Venue: Friends Meeting House, 

20 Nigel Playfair Rd (off King St, at Town Hall), 

London W6 9JF 

(nearest tubes: Hammersmith or Ravenscourt Park)

Divide and Rule in India

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Hindu-Muslim confrontations have begun to occur with sickening regularity in parts of India where the two communities co-exist. Unrest across India began in December with the passing of a law that makes non-Muslims from some neighbouring nations eligible for fast-tracked citizenship – a move many Muslims say is discriminatory and marks a break from India’s secular traditions. Persecuted religious minorities including from Hindu, Sikh, or Christian communities are eligible for citizenship, but those from Islam do not enjoy all the same advantages. 



Modi has pursued a Hindu-first agenda that has emboldened his followers, who account for about 80 percent of the population, and left India’s 180 million Muslims reeling. In August, it stripped Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, of its special status, a move which Modi defended as a way of integrating the region with the rest of the country. In November, the Supreme Court handed Hindu groups control of a contested site in the city of Ayodhya that paves the way for a temple to be built on a site where a mosque once stood. 



 From being Hindu versus Muslim, they have become Hindu versus Christian, Hindu versus Sikh, upper-caste Hindu versus lower-caste Hindu. It is just about everyone against everybody. The root cause of spreading endemic violence is economic: religious linguistic and ethnic differences provide the excuse and motivation to indulge in it. There is not enough jobs available. There are always economic and social divisions within society to be exploited by those more rich and powerful, particularly when the existing order is threatened. Religious perceptions in any class-divided society are not neutral, but a tool in the hands of the dominant class in its struggle to maintain its control over economic surplus. Religious and all manner of spurious ideological theories are contrived by the ruling class or its representatives in the intellectual community and church organisations to keep the downtrodden perpetually entrapped in the vicious circle of exploitation.



To create a good slave you must first kill his pride, his self-respect, his notion of himself as an ordinary equal human being. The slave’s body is needed – the man’s for labour, the woman’s for labour and abuse; but to control the body the inner spark which ignites anger must be crushed. There are many weapons in the arsenal, both psychological and physical  but the chief one is dramatically simple: hunger. Oppress by destitution. Keep a people on the permanent edge of want. And the last stage of hunger – despair. There is no hope left. 


The real trick is to destroy the confidence of a people: make them believe the caricatures you have created about them. The strength of the hoax lies, of course, in the fact that it is constructed on a malicious distortion of reality to give it a facade of believability. 



UK Inequality

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The gap between the best and worst paid people in Britain is greater than previously thought, according to revised government figures for income inequality levels across the country. The new figures dispel arguments made by the Conservatives that the gap between rich and poor – on official measurements of income inequality – has narrowed since the party entered power in 2010. Surveys do not always fully capture the incomes of the richest families, particularly those among the top 1%.



The   Office for National Statistics said the UK’s Gini coefficient – the most common international measurement of inequality which uses a score of 0-100%, whereby 100% would indicate one person controlling everything – should have been 34.5% in the financial year ending in 2018, rather than 32.5% as official records show.



It said the score would have been around 1.9 percentage points higher on average in the years between 2002 and 2018 if the latest revisions had been taken into account. Britain has one of the highest Gini scores for income inequality in the western world, after the divide between rich and poor ballooned in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It has remained relatively unchanged with a score in the mid-30s since the early 1990s.
According to the fresh analysis, income inequality rose sharply in the years up to the financial crisis, fell during the economic collapse, and has been broadly flat since.



It said the average income of the top 10% rose by 28.5% between 2001-02 and 2007-08. As the banking collapse damaged the earnings of the highest paid, incomes for the group which is likely to include bankers and highly paid professionals fell by 20.8% by the end of 2012-13. Before the revisions, official figures had shown little change over the period.

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2020/feb/25/uk-income-inequality-greater-than-previously-thought-says-ons

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