The French Labor Movement and Marxism

[Cf. NYT article after comment]

"The Communist Party and Mr. Martinez share a view of class struggle and unending worker exploitation, according to several experts on French unions." I can't help but think that if we had the level of class consciousness of the French we would not have to choose between HRC and Trump, and Sanders ( whose views have been likened to those of an Eisenhower era liberal Republican) would have been a shoo-in.

["I'm no more socialist than Eisenhower" -- Bernie Sanders, Time Magazine 11-15- 2015 online] Do we even have a Left left?

Thomas Riggins

Commitment to Class Conflict Drives Leader of French Labor Unrest

By ADAM NOSSITERJUNE 18, 2016 NEW YORK TIMES online

PARIS — All up and down the boulevard, store windows were smashed — at a Starbucks, a supermarket, a handbag store. Young men clambered on top of bus shelters. Even a children’s hospital was attacked. The police brought out tear gas and a rarely used water cannon.

Even for a country used to unruly labor protests, the violence on the streets of Paris on Tuesday was a shock. But days later, the man behind the antigovernment protests that have rippled across France was barely apologetic. If anything, he promised more.

Philippe Martinez, the mustachioed boss of one of France’s biggest labor unions, the General Confederation of Labor, known as C.G.T., has mobilized tens of thousands of workers and sent them coursing through the streets of French cities for weeks.

This past week, it was Paris’s turn. Mr. Martinez — 55, stocky, pugnacious and combative — ordered over 600 buses to ferry union protesters from the provinces to a march here, which drew tens of thousands of demonstrators on Tuesday.

The protests are aimed at stopping a government push for a new labor law that would make it slightly easier to hire and fire workers. But they are also part of a struggle between competing visions for France’s future, experts on French unions say.

For unions, the government’s proposed labor law is another step by President François Hollande to move France to the center in order to address the challenges of a global economy. Mr. Martinez, those familiar with him and his union say, has a different vision, shaped by decades of close ties between his union and the French Communist Party, of which he was a longtime member.

The Communist Party and Mr. Martinez share a view of class struggle and unending worker exploitation, according to several experts on French unions. Mr. Martinez, a Renault car factory worker, declined to be interviewed.

“He agrees that class struggle is the watchword of history, and that workers are necessarily in combat against bosses,” said René Mouriaux, a leading historian of the French union movement. In Mr. Martinez’s view, he added, between bosses and workers “there can be compromises, but no definitive agreements.”

Three weeks ago, Mr. Martinez’s workers went on strike to block the printing of France’s national newspapers for a day after newspapers refused to publish a commentary he had written. The Communist newspaper L’Humanité was the only one to print it.

“Philippe Martinez, the man who wants to bring France to its knees,” read a recent headline in the right-leaning newspaper Le Figaro. An article in the left-center newspaper Le Monde called him “the Lider Maximo of the protest movement.”

On Friday, Mr. Martinez angrily denied that the protest had been connected to the violence at the march through Paris, which left the Boulevard du Montparnasse, a main artery of the city’s Left Bank, looking like a war zone.

“The hooligans are there to discredit our movement,” he told journalists in the courtyard of the Labor Ministry, vowing to continue the marches until the government gives up its labor law.

But despite Mr. Martinez’s belated disavowals, violence, including serious injuries, has been a constant feature of his union’s protests over the past few months.

Paris’s police prefect has released photos of union members ripping up paving stones to be used as projectiles. Mr. Martinez said they had simply been defending themselves.

Philippe Martinez, center, the head of the General Confederation of Labor, at a protest against a proposed labor law last month in Paris. Credit Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

Shocked by the smashed windows at the children’s hospital, Mr. Hollande said a ban on future demonstrations was possible, provoking outrage among some members his own Socialist Party.

“There’s no reason for us now to back down from our days of mobilization,” Mr. Martinez told reporters on Friday after a fruitless meeting with the labor minister to end the standoff. “For three months, the government has been counting on us to lose steam. It’s been a bad bet.”

Mr. Hollande’s government is equally unlikely to back down. It is pinning its hopes of denting France’s chronically high unemployment on a law that would only slightly relax negotiating conditions between workers and management.

The change is considered mild by most economists, but has been deemed hopelessly pro-capitalist by Mr. Martinez’s union and even by members of Mr. Hollande’s party.

Months of protests have weakened the proposed law, and it no longer includes a mechanism to cap payouts to fired workers. The law would also define more precisely how companies could lay off workers — currently an arduous process in a country where workers are highly protected.

But the part of the proposal that most infuriates C.G.T. and a few other unions would allow labor agreements negotiated by individual companies — over such issues as hours worked, paid holidays and bonuses — to take precedence over agreements negotiated at the occupational sector level.

That change would weaken the power of unions such as C.G.T., and it has made Mr. Martinez see red. “You’ve got to respect the hierarchy of norms,” he told reporters on Friday, while leaving the door slightly open to possible exceptions.

Yet with each new burst of violence in the streets, the government is increasingly dismissive of Mr. Martinez and his motives. Some government officials say that the violence will backfire and put the French on the side of the labor law, and that Mr. Martinez is using the violence to shore up his base.

If so, the union leader is doing a good job. France has among the lowest rates of unionization in Europe, and C.G.T., which represents train workers, metalworkers, public sector workers, miners and others, has been losing members for years. Between 1975 and 1993, it lost nearly two-thirds of its members, and now stands at about 686,000.

Today it is made up of mainly hard-core militants, analysts say. The old-fashioned language of class struggle was much in evidence among the crowds at Tuesday’s march, underscoring how many of France’s contemporary struggles are rooted in both the language and facts of its history.

“I Am in the Class Struggle” was a sticker sported by many protesters. “Work Is a Crime Against Humanity,” read another. “Victory in Chaos,” someone had scrawled on a building. “The Struggle Is About Class Against Class,” read one billboard.

Mr. Martinez moves easily among these views. His father fought in the Spanish Civil War in the International Brigades against the fascists, and his mother was a housekeeper.

C.G.T. was founded in 1895, and its “explicit aim was to bring down the state,” said another historian of French labor, Nick Parsons of Cardiff University in Wales. “It still has that anticapitalist orientation.”

“This is a guy who was brought up in that sort of atmosphere,” Dr. Parsons added. “He’s imbued with that history and culture.”

Mr. Martinez has shown a willingness to compromise in negotiations as a metalworker representative in preceding decades, Dr. Parsons noted. But that side is not evident now, with polls showing that most French people are still opposed to the labor law.

The class struggle continues.

“It shouldn’t be called the ‘law on work,’ but the ‘social dumping law,’” Mr. Martinez yelled during a recent speech at a factory in southern France. “We’re not close to giving up. The stakes are high — for today’s workers, for the young, for our country.”

U.S. Should Ally With Russia To End Fighting in Syria

[Cf. New York Times report after the following comment.]

Like it or not the Syrian government is the internationally recognized legal govenment of that nation and is a fellow member of the UN with the United States (the UN was founded so that member states would not attack one another). It is outrageous that the U.S. is funding mercenaries trying to overthrow that government. The civil war would have long been over and peace restored if the U.S., Saudi Arabia and their allies were not funding the so-called rebels and keeping the war going as an excuse to feed money into our own military industrial complex. ISIS exists as a by product of U.S. and its puppet NATO's interference in the Middle East.
If the U.S. is serious in ridding the world of the baleful influence of ISIS it will call off the dogs of war it is funding in Syria and join with Russia to knock out ISIS and the NUSRA FRONT and other anti-Syrian govenment jihadists posing as "moderate" Islamists. The U.S. and Russia can then work with the Syrian government and the United Nations to rebuild that ravaged nation and help the millions of displaced and immigrant families to return to their homes. The major threat to the peace of the world, as everyone except Americans seem to know, is the U.S. drive to maintain world military supremacy and political hegemony over all other nations. All the conflicts going on in the Middle East (Including Israel/Palestine), the Korean peninsula, the South China Sea, Africa, and Central and South America, and our own streets for that matter, stem from this insatiable drive for economic domination backed by military threats and interventions. That fact we are about to elect HRC who is a firm believer in all of the above including a conflict with Russia over a no fly zone in Syria will put the American people at odds with the people of the world at large. We are digging our own graves if we can't create a political movement to counteract the imperialist dreams of our ruling class.

Thomas Riggins

NEW YORK TIMES

U.S. Tells Russia of ‘Strong Concerns’ About Strikes on Syrian Rebels

By MATTHEW ROSENBERGJUNE 18, 2016

Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, second from the left in the back row, visited the Russian air base in Syria on Saturday. Credit Vadim Savitsky/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, via Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Senior American and Russian defense officials held what the Pentagon described as an “extraordinary” videoconference on Saturday to discuss Russian airstrikes that days earlier hit a garrison manned by Syrian rebels backed by the United States.

The Russian strikes hit Syrian opposition fighters on Thursday at the al-Tanf crossing, which lies on Syria’s border with Iraq. The rebels there are battling the Islamic State, the Pentagon said, and are also supposed to be covered by a partial cease-fire that the United States and Russia brokered in February.

During the videoconference on Saturday, Pentagon officials “expressed strong concerns about the attack” on forces that are fighting the Islamic State, Peter Cook, the Defense Department spokesman, said in a statement.

American officials told the Russians that their strikes had continued even after they were officially informed of allied air support underway for the rebels and that this had “created safety concerns for U.S. and coalition forces,” the statement said.

Though fighting has tapered off in many areas since the cease-fire went into effect in February, there have been fierce clashes in recent weeks in areas of northern Syria where the Islamic State and the Nusra Front are strongest. American officials have accused Russia of failing to stop the forces of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, from violating the cease-fire and attacking rebel groups backed by the United States.

There was no immediate word on how Russian officials responded to the concerns expressed by American officials on Saturday. But the videoconference took place as Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, met with Mr. Assad in Damascus and visited the Russian air base in Syria, The Associated Press reported.

Since the Russian air campaign in Syria began in September, it has helped Mr. Assad’s forces reclaim territory, reversing the fortunes of a regime that at this time last year appeared to be in an increasingly perilous position.

American-backed rebel forces, in contrast, have continued to struggle on the battlefield against both Mr. Assad’s forces and the Islamic State, and more than 50 State Department diplomats recently signed an internal memo sharply critical of the Obama administration’s policy in Syria.

The memo pressed for American military strikes against Mr. Assad’s government to stop what it said were persistent violations of the cease-fire. American policy has been “overwhelmed” by the violence in Syria, the memo said.

The Saudis and 9/11

A Saudi Imam, 2 Hijackers and Lingering 9/11 Mystery: NEW YORK TIMES

By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE

To some, a classified section of an inquiry into the terrorist attacks points to Saudi involvement, while the country’s foreign minister says, “There is no there there.”

"To some, a classified section of an inquiry into the terrorist attacks points to Saudi involvement, while the country’s foreign minister says, “There is no there there.”"

Well, if there is no there there make public the 28 classified pages -- Snowden where are you? By the way, there is more evidence in this NYT report of Saudi complicity in 9/11 than there was of Iraq's (0 evidence) or Afghanistan's (0 evidence). We invaded Afghanistan because its government refused to "hand over" bin Laden not because it knew about or participated in 9/11. The NYT article makes it clear that Saudi govenment officials fed and housed and aided 2 of the highjackers. The Saudi government also sends money and material to the jihadists in Syria that we are fighting against! Some ally. So why does the US coddle and defend the Saudi's when every finger of suspicion that they were part of the 9/11 attack is pointing at them? Because fighting "terrorism" is just a lot of bunk that the US leaders (Democrat or Republican) feed to a gullible and ignorant American people to hide what is really going on -- namely a fight to control the world's oil and other resources and justification to spend billions, even trillions, of dollars on the military industrial complex -- i.e., the private corporations that the US military has been created to defend (normally referred to as "us"). We are now about to have a great election where "we" will choose one of two puppets of that complex to rule over us. Oops -- actually only one is a puppet -- Trump has upset the applecart, he is not part of the traditional Republican/Democratic military industrial complex -- this is why the Republican leadership is running around like a chicken with its head cut off -- they lost control. Clinton will be the next president: the Republicans have failed to serve their masters but the Democrats have proven their loyal submission to our rulers (they rejected  Sanders overturning their applecart ) and demonstrated that they are still capable of keeping the people's eyes covered with wool. Unfortunately for us Trump represents a crypto-fascist (maybe not so crypto) mass movement, which shows that, with the abominably low educational levels and political consciousness of our people, fascism has a better chance than socialism of coming to power.

Thomas Riggins

Andrew Cuomo's attack on the First Amendment

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Andrew Cuomo’s Anti-Free Speech Move on B.D.S. BY DANIEL SIERADSKI In trying to support Israel, the New York governor is restricting people’s rights.

Authoritarian attacks on the Consitution and Bill of Rights are not the sole preserve of Republicans and Donald Trump and his supporters; Andrew Cuomo, a so-called liberal democrat has launched his own war against freedom of speech and expression by issuing an executive order to use state power against those who advocate boycotting Israel to pressure its government to make peace with the Palestinians and withdraw from the West Bank. This is a massive violation of First Amendment rights and had Donald Trump advocated it the Democrats would be howling in protest about dictatorship (while at the same time praising Israel and condemning the boycott, they would not have ignored the illegality of the use of state power to deny citizens the right to express their opinions nor passed up the opportunity of exposing Trump's antidemocratic tendencies: will they protest against one of their own?)

Thomas Riggins

"The Sanders Campaign and the Next Stage of Socialist Agitation" Remarks

The Sanders campaign and the next stage of socialist agitation

Click on the above for an interesting article from Liberation News. Below are some remarks about this article:

What's right and what's wrong with this analysis? I think it is certainly correct about the class nature of the forces backing HRC (she represents the interests of the 1% more faithfully than either Trump or Cruz could do) but she is also subject to mass forces from the working class and can be pressured to support progressive reforms and allow more space for left wing political action. It is true that Trump is not leading a fascist movement and the capitalist class is rejecting him because they fear he will arouse more popular resistance than is warranted from their point of view. But the article overlooks the fact that with an unpredictable economy, and another depression lurking around the corner, fascist tactics may be needed to forstall the growth of a serious anti-Wall Street mass fight back. The author discounts the new left forces that have manifested themselves within the Democrati Party due to the Sanders movement and thinks the DP is unreformable. He ignores the possibility that a quantitative change in the base of the DP could lead to a qualitative change in its leadership and positions (this is what has happened in the Republican Party driving it far to the right and out of control of its traditional establishment leaders) or that the left of the DP could breakaway and join with millions of progressive independents and form a third viable political party or fuse with the Green Party making it a truly mass party. His call to break with the DP completely and support a microscopically small Marxist grouping in the coming election is politically unrealistic as there are many Congressional and local races that progressive Democats should be supported in so that truly reactionary Republican politicians can be turned out of office; and while HRC is no friend of the working class she is less reactionary domestically than any Republican running against her and advancing the goals of the working class will easier under a DP administration than a RP one. The duty of Marxists is to give critical support (where warrented) pointing out why she is the best of a bad lot and at the same time independently agitate to organize a progressive class conscious opposition within the DP against the neoliberal consensus of the current party leadership. If we do that we can make leftist lingo mean something even the White House (if not the Oval Office).

Thomas Riggins

Obama, Putin and the U.S. Election

Thomas Riggins

Why is  Obama deliberately stirring up old Cold War tensions with Russia by ordering saber rattling by the Pentagon and our puppet military alliance Nato? Professor Steven Cohen, writing in The Nation (2-29-16) says Obama is escalating the tensions with Russia in an unprecedented manner not seen since the days of Nazi Germany. These hostile actions are being basically ignored by the mass media and none of the presidential candidates in either party have addressed them in the debates except indirectly (Sanders and Clinton supporting NATO, Trump mentioning he wants to make a "deal" with Putin).

The issue is Obama's decision to increase by 400% military expenditures and deployments on or near the Russian border by the U.S. and NATO. Such a huge concentration of Western military power on the Russian border has not been seen in modern times -- not even at the height of the Cold War. Cohen says Russia will have to respond by its own build up including the positioning of advanced missiles. Thus the whole of Eastern Europe will become a tinderbox increasing the probability of a regional war or  worse if some minor incident flares up.

This is, I might add, wholly unnecessary and reckless behavior on the part of Obama and his generals (the type of behavior a future President Cruz or Rubio are characterized of being capable of initiating). Why is this coming at the very time Russia is trying to de-escalate tensions with the U.S.?

The Russians have cooperated with the U.S. on the Iran deal and in trying to bring about a truce in Syria (their intervention was provoked by CIA "covert" weapons deals with jihadists against their ally Assad the legally UN recognized government), and in calming down the situation in Ukraine by a cease fire (another intervention initiated by the U.S.- E.U. role in overthrowing the legally elected government in that country and the installation of an ultraright wing antiRussian

regime. 

Cohen says the mass media in the U.S. attributes all these international problems to Russian aggression and to Putin's megalomania ["Putin's Russia"]. So while we play around with farcical political debates and a news media that misinforms rather than informs Obama stealthily builds up the aggressive capabilities of U.S. imperialism and, consciously or unconsciously, further endangers the peace of the world and the future of humanity.

The Left is falling down on the job of warning the working class of the dangers it faces in the coming election. HRC has wrapped herself in the Obama legacy and will no doubt continue the march towards more wars and military adventures that the U.S. has embarked upon ever since Korea. The Republican candidates are no different in this respect. Whoever wins in November the big losers will be the working class and the minorities who will continue to be abused and exploited by the U.S. ruling Establishment. 

The Left has, however, done its duty in one respect. There is a slight possibility the dire consequences enumerated above could be avoided or alleviated and that would be the election of Bernie Sanders as president. This event would open up progressive political action outside of the control of the Establishment and could lead to a democratic renaissance in the U.S. The Left - Progressive movement has solidly backed Sanders (aside from some fringe elements).  Unfortunately, the Left cannot agree on a Plan B. HRC's election would be a victory for the Establishment and there is no Third Party that the Left is willing to unite behind. 

This military build up is part of the profit generating foreign policy of the Military Industrial Complex. It justfies the transfer of billions of dollars in "defense" spending to the private coffers of the 1%.  What are the chances that HRC will adopt a pro peace agenda and come out against the U.S.- NATO build up in Europe? Sanders is also weak on this issue but he can be more easily pressured to change as cutting the military budget frees up money for the progressive changes to reduce income inequality that he favors and he is not beholden to the Establishment. What is to be done?

Hillary Clinton on Cutting Drug Costs (Kick the Poor off Medicare)

Thomas Riggins

Forbes magazine ("the capitalist tool") doesn't  always paint a rosy picture  of capitalism, except (as does The Wall Street Journal) in its editorial and opinion fluff. But capitalists want the actual lowdown on how the system is working and where it's going and Forbes' job is give them the info they need to place their bets.

Working people and progressives can bet the capitalists are not betting on Bernie Sanders, the money bag crowds are betting on Clinton (with few exceptions) all the way. Some of Clinton's ideas are even too pro-capitalist for Forbes!

The magazine recently held a "healthcare summit" as big capital is aware the cost of drugs is getting out of hand and is ultimately unsustainable. They certainly don't want some social democratic president mucking around with their system so they want to control the proposals that will have to be made to make the system work for more people and still allow them to reap ill gotten gains.

Hillary Clinton has two proposals on the table which Forbes doesn't particularly like because while they make modest changes in the health care system they end up giving poor people the short end of the stick and benefit the rich. But that is the very problem that has to be solved! Creating a system that doesn't let people die because they are poor. As usual Clinton's supporters don't really understand whose side she is on, they are the same as Trump supporters in this respect; even some of those on the authentic Left -- Communists and Socialists -- don't understand she represents the interests of monopoly capitalism better than any Republican could.

Well what are her proposals to better the system (she totally rejects the Medicare for all ideas of Sanders)?. Her position is not "Medicare for All" but "Medicaid for More." Medicaid is cheaper and doesn't have all the benefits of Medicare so health care won't cost so much if poor senior citizens who are on Medicare due to their ages are switched over to Medicaid leaving only the wealthier seniors on Medicare. That's right folks, the first would be female U.S. President is a grinch!

Here is how Forbes puts it: "How do we fix pharmaceutical pricing? Hillary Clinton's idea of making drug firms pay a tax if they don't spend enough on R&D probably wouldn't lower prices. And her other idea of making seniors who are eligible for both Medicare (health care for seniors) and Medicaid (the program for the poor) take Medicaid would result in savings, but it could also mean giving rich people better health insurance than poor people." Forbes is being nice in using "could" for "would."

So there it is: Clinton the "progressive," the "realist," proposing the same old same old; let's "solve" our drug pricing problems by tossing the poor under the bus and not bothering the rich. Wake up dupes! We have one chance this year to actually make a change in the system and that's to vote for someone 90% of the political class and the corporate media oppose, the ONLY candidate that actually represents the vast majority of the American people and is not a cat's paw for then wealthy 1%. It's time for all unions and people's movements to turn their backs on their faux progressive leaderships who have sided with Clinton and the 1% and support Bernie Sanders -- your grandchildren will be grateful for having a future. 

Sanders: The Peace Candidate (Maybe)

Thomas Riggins

2 hrs · 

"The U.S. Senator from Vermont has opposed NATO expansion into Eastern Europe" - See more at: http://portside.org/20…/bernie-sanders-2016-peace-candidate…-- Unless I misheard him in the Thursday night debate with HRC he favored the NATO expansion to counter Putin's "aggression.'' In fact there is contradiction between his progressive domestic policies and his reactionary views on international affairs which reflect ideas generally in line with U.S. imperial interests. He is not the dangerous hawk that HRC is but he calls Iran a center of terrorism which it spreads around the world when it is actually Saudi Arabia that is playing that role financed by the U.S.; he says we must oppose the totalitarian communists in China and other such rubbish. He appears to be supportive of the general neoliberal bi-partisan consensus that Russia is now a major threat to the peace of Europe. The Democratic Party, of which he may end up being the presidential nominee (unless the DP leadership has a plan to deadlock the convention and then draft Biden as the compromise nominee) is not friendly to the kind of progressive anti-imperialist foreign policies that socialists favor (and that make any support of HRC problematic) and it would be disastrous to insist that Sanders adopt such views at this time (first things first) since getting Sanders into office is requisite for any possible progressive change (HRC is as much a representative of the reactionary patriarchal Establishment as the ultra-right -- only less open about it as there is no contradiction between rights for women, gays, and minorities, as can be seen by former progressive leaders of the women's rights and civil rights movement now aligning themselves with the pro-imperialist HRC, and the continuance of a vicious capitalist economic system). Agitating for and supporting Sanders is the first duty now of socialists both as an opportunity to educate the masses in a progressive direction and to prepare the way for the eventual elimination of the ultra right in all its manifestations.

Bernie Sanders: The 2016 Peace Candidate

In its statement endorsing Bernie Sanders, Peace Action praised his opposition to both Iraq wars, support of legislation to reduce spending on nuclear weapons, strong backing of the Iran agreement, votes to curb military spending, and championing of…

PORTSIDE.ORG

GIRLS DAMAGED BY CULTURES WITH PREFERANCE FOR BOYS

If a culture with a male preference has devastating effects on girls imagine living in one where parents sexually mutilate them and/or kill them if they get sexually abused! We have a long way to go before the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights is taken seriously by all (any?) of the governments of the world. Seriously, any government in violation of Human Rights should lose its vote in the General Assembly until it corrects or really takes meaningful steps to correct the violation. How about a female General Secretary?

Parental preference for boys damages girls’ self-esteem and happiness

While most studies of parental sex discrimination explore the devastating social and demographic effects of a cultural preference for boys, a new study examines its…

North Korea Launches Satellite U.S. Freaks Out

Thomas Riggins

9 mins · 

NORTH KOREA LAUNCHES SATELLITE U.S. FREAKS OUT

"Although North Korea can learn much about the technology to build ballistic missiles from satellite launches, putting a satellite into orbit does not guarantee an ability to deliver a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile. North Korea has never tested a ballistic-missile version of its Unha-series rockets. " Buried away in the article is the most important information. All the clamor over the DPKR space progra...

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Texas Republicans Continue the War Against Women in Their State

"It's a public health issue that Texas women struggle to achieve their reproductive goals." Mildly and diplomatically put since this is a study by a Texas state university. The real conclusion of the study is that the women of Texas have no rights to control their own bodies with regard to their reproductive functions except those granted to them by Republican men who run the state government -- and where the Federal government has protected these rights the Texas government will try and abort them. The women of Texas should rise up and cast these men into the toilet bowl of history and flush them away in the next election. Feel the bern.--tr

Study measures impact of removing Planned Parenthood from Texas women's health program

The public defunding of Planned Parenthood in Texas may have led to a decrease in highly effective forms…

SCIENCEDAILY.COM

Science News Round Up: Religion, climate change, and new problems facing pre-schoolers and the elderly point to the need for democratic socialism

Science News Round Up: Religion, climate change, and new problems facing pre-schoolers and the elderly point to the need for democratic socialism

Thomas Riggins

Links to some of the most interesting science stories reported this week relating to both political and social affairs and health news from which everyone may benefit. You can comment on these reports at the end of the round up.

Religious upbringing linked to less altruism

Humanists and other non believers will be happy to find out that mean spiritedness and selfishness are more pronounced in children brought up in religious versus non religious environments. Surveys show such children are less altruistic and to favor more severe punishments for those who run afoul of the law than other children. These results are just the opposite of the way the Sunday school meanies are usually portrayed.

California 6th grade science books: Climate change a matter of opinion not scientific fact

While 97% of climate scientists maintain the evidence shows human caused climate change is going on and threatens the planet school science texts give children the impression that the scientists are divided 50/50 on the issue and no special actions may be needed to combat the change. People need to demand that state educational authorities only purchase and assign textbooks that correctly present the scientific facts and don't miseducate children.

Human-caused climate change increased the severity of many extreme events in 2014

This article reports on 28 extreme climatic events which happened in 2014. Ten of these events

can be traced to human caused climate change. As scientific knowledge of climate increases more extreme events will be able to be explained in the future.

Preschoolers working memory forecasts teenage dropout risk

This is an important article. Preschoolers can be tested for working memory problems which makes it possible for the state, through its educational systems, to implement programs that can help improve the working memory of children and thus deduce the risk that these children will become school dropouts. The downside of the article is its emphasis on parental responsibility to solve this problem which should be a basic priority of the educational system.

Growing old can be risky business

This article discusses new ways that have been designed to cheat senior citizens out of their life savings. These are not the normal Republican ways -- slashing medicare, "entitlements, and cost of living increases, but new fraudulent schemes that get seniors to put their money in bogus investments. The capitalist system is most efficient in spawning new ways to exploit children, minorities and seniors. This exploitation will only end under socialism; electing Bernie is the first step!

Kids meals, toys, and TV ads: Three threats to child health: Science News Round Up

Kids meals, toys, and TV ads: Three threats to child health: Science News Round Up

Thomas Riggins

Links to some of the most interesting science stories reported this week relating to both political and social affairs and health news from which everyone may benefit. You can comment on these reports at the end of the round up.

Negative publicity reduces police motivation but does not result in depolicing

Well the FBI director and other right-wingers have had their say about the "Ferguson Effect" but the scientific study above shows how wrong they are. There has been no increase in crime as a result of protests against the police killing unarmed minority people and acts of racial profiling. If anything is specifically responsible for the statistically insignificant "crime increase" it's the cut in funding for public safety due to austerity measures in response to capitalism's ongoing decline.

Kids meals, toys, and TV advertising: A triple threat to child health

Despite the fact that scientists have shown that the foods provided at fast food restaurants are antithetical to children's health the government has failed to issue regulations preventing fast food companies from luring children to their dens by offering toys as incentives by means of ads aired on federally  regulated airwaves.

New research shows how to make effective political arguments, sociologist says

The gist is to use your opponent's moral system not your own when you frame your arguments to persuade them to adopt your position. This is not "new" it is an old lawyers trick as well as a technique of rhetoric and debate. If someone quotes the Bible to support his position, then find a quote that supports your position and try and convince him what you believe is really biblical. This article further expains how this method works. Socialists should bone up on Adam Smith.

Sitting for long periods not bad for health, suggest researchers

New hope for couch potatoes!

Global marine analysis suggests food chain collapse

This research indicates that as CO2 increases in the oceans the food chain will collapse from top to bottom.  Larger marine life forms will disappear along with animals that need shells to survive. Micro organisms will increase however. Future oceans will be thinned or without  life forms currently abundant. Every bit of gas, oil, and coal we use hastens the day!

The Inverted World of Niall Ferguson: On the Real Obama Doctrine

The Inverted World of Niall Ferguson: On the Real Obama Doctrine Thomas Riggins Niall Ferguson teaches history at Harvard. He has a very conservative world outlook which, when applied to the analysis of current social reality, has a tendency to so warp his perceptions that the situation he writes about becomes an imaginary inverted world where truth becomes falsity and falsity truth. But don't take my word for it. Just look at his article in the Wall Street Journal for 10/10-11/2015: "The Real Obama Doctrine." Ferguson's take on Obama can only be the result a profound ignorance of the historical reality he professes to understand. He opens his article by referring to ideas expressed by the revered, but morally reprehensible, Henry Kissinger in 1968.  Kissinger expressed the opinion America didn't really have a foreign policy. He might have noted the U.S. was too busy butchering Vietnamese peasants to pay attention to much else. Be that as it may, there was no real coherent strategic thinking going on and this for two reasons according to Kissinger. First, the president was not selected for his strategic thinking but his "will" to get elected, and second, there are just too many lawyers working for the government. Now lawyers are clever but they don't know enough about history and this deficiency has led to the adoption of a "minimum risk" attitude when it comes to policy. Well, Ferguson teaches history at Harvard; what better guide could we have to lead us to understand Obama's plans for the U.S. of A. Seeing that Obama was elected due to his will to win, has a passel  of lawyers at work in his administration, and doesn't support a "maximum risk" policy, he seems to exemplify just what Henry K was complaining about to a tee. Ferguson tells us, in fact, that he himself has "spent much of the last seven years trying to work out" just what strategy Obama was following. Here is what he found out. He read Obama’s 2009 Cairo Speech but wasn’t clear on how it would result in practical actions. The speech was full of good intentions and was met positively by those friendly to the U.S. and either negatively or skeptically by those hostile to it. The criticisms basically were that actions speak louder than words and that upbeat speeches were no substitute for a change in policies. Ferguson doesn’t go into much detail on the speech, but needless to say he should have known that Obama would not be able to quickly reverse fifty years of cold war policies and the fact that the Bush administration had left the entire Middle East entirely in flames or on the verge irrupting into chaos. Obama’s attempt to disengage U.S. ground forces in Iraq and strengthen Iraqi security forces is called by Ferguson “precipitate withdrawal.” The fact is that the damage done to Iraq by the Bush policies are almost irreversible and the sectarian Shia government the U.S. created is both corrupt and unwilling, or unable, to reconcile with the Sunni minority. Obama must either try to wind down American involvement or hunker down and prepare for an open ended American occupation. The American people definitely want to get out of Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, and they don’t want to get involved in Syria either. Obama cannot, no president could, put the Middle East back together again after the Bush folks so thoroughly smashed it up. The best he can do is respond to the will of the American people and try and limit the damage caused by the Bush gang. Besides not having a clue to the complexities in Afghanistan, Ferguson thinks Obama has become “indifferent” to Europe as a result of the attempted “reset” with Russia. It’s true the reset failed but only because it was predicated on Russia following American dictates against its own interests and there is no evidence that Obama has become indifferent to Europe. But Ferguson also discovered something more troubling than Obama’s failure to clean up the mess left behind by Bush. It is one thing to reject Bush’s policies, but the 2012 debate with Mitt Romney revealed, horror of horrors, that Obama was also “turning away from Ronald Reagan.” Romney held that enemy numero uno to our world wide hegemony was Russia and Obama dismissed this. And what happened? In March 2014 [as a result of U.S. and E.U. intervention in the internal affairs of Ukraine] Russia annexed Crimea returning it to Russian administration after it had been assigned by the Soviet Union to Ukraine in the 1950s. Historian that he is, Ferguson thinks Romney “prescient” in spotting that, in his words, Russia is “our number one geopolitical foe.” We had better move the Seventh Fleet to the Bering Strait in case Putin decides to reverse the Alaska Purchase. Ferguson also discovered, by reading articles and interviews given by Obama in the popular press, that it was his intention to “create a new balance of power in the Middle East.”  Obama said that he wanted to end the conflicts between the Shia and Sunni by trying to get Iran to abandon its (in his opinion) negative polices and to work with the mostly Sunni Gulf states in a common effort to build a positive future in the region. Obama hopes an international coalition, which could include Iran, might work together to solve the problems of Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya. Unmentioned is the fact that the crisises in all these countries are the results of Saudi and American actions and interference. It would be the U.S. and not Iran that would have to abandon its negative policies. It is unlikely to do since it profits from arms sales to the region. Ferguson, however, has other reasons for objecting to Obama’s Middle East policies which he says are based on the president’s “fuzzy thinking.” In his recent U.N. speech Obama indicated he was willing to work  with other nations “under the mantle of international norms and principles” and with both Russia and Iran (as long they agreed to eventually dump Assad) in solving the Syrian problem. Obama is “fuzzy” because, Ferguson says, neither Russia nor Iran are “famed” for operating under the “mantle of international norms and principles.”  One would expect a Harvard history professor to be aware of the fact that the U.S. is also not “famed” for operating under this mantle. In fact, even a slight acquaintance with modern history would show U.S. behavior is more egregious in this respect than that of either Russia or Iran. In fact, almost every crisis in world diplomacy since (and most of them before) the collapse of the Soviet Union has been the result of the U.S. flouting international norms. To blame Obama for trying improve this dismal record doesn’t say much in favor of Ferguson’s bona fides. Ferguson thinks Obama's policies are failing because, since 2010, terrorism and violence in the Middle East from North Africa (Libya) to Pakistan and Afghanistan have dramatically increased and we can expect even more violence to come “as the Sunni powers of the region seek to prevent Iran from establishing itself as the post American hegemon.” It’s true that American policies are not working out if peace is the goal. If, however, the goal is to sell billions of dollars worth of new weapons systems to the governments in the area as well as to ramp up military spending at home, these policies at least make some sense. After Bush/Cheney destroyed Iraq in the  east and the Obama/ U.S. supported NATO intervention in Libya (pushed by Secretary of State Clinton) effectively destroyed that country in the west the growth of terrorism was bound to increase as outside governments and their proxies moved in to take advantage of the chaos the U.S. created. It was the Sunni governments that moved to take advantage of the situation. The U.S. destroyed two major secular governments and both the Saudi Arabians, and Gulf Sunni states, representing the most backward “Islamic” radical ideology, funded Sunni terrorist groups, as well as Pakistan’s covert support of the Taliban, that has led to the impotence of U.S. policy on the ground. The U.S. still sends billions of dollars in military aid (much of it actually spent at home to support the military industrial complex behind our domestic deep state) to countries who pass some of it along to the very terrorist groups the U.S. is fighting. The truth is that Iran is not trying to become a hegemon. It was the Shah, installed as a result of a CIA coup against a democratically elected government and backed by the U.S., who was moving to both develop nuclear weapons and establish hegemony, as a U.S. client state, in the region until he was overthrown in 1979. The U.S. has been trying to get rid of the new Iranian government ever since. Iran’s actions have been purely defensive in nature. It supports its Shia allies in Iraq against the Sunni Islamic State, it supports its ally Assad in Syria against the Islamic state and the Sunni jihadists supported by the Saudis and indirectly by the U.S. under the covering myth of supporting “moderates.” All this puts the lie to Ferguson’s pseudo-historical analysis of “Obama’s failures.” Obama’s problem, such as it is, has been his inability to reverse the movement of Middle Eastern disintegration initiated by the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. But he has succeeded in preventing the implosion of half the Mediterranean world  by keeping boots off the ground in Libya and Syria, and thus not compounding the Bush/Chenny Iraq folly. Nevertheless his interventionist actions in these two countries threaten to create a wider area of war and destabilization which the next president will have to defuse unless he takes actions towards withdrawal and cooperation with the Iranians and Russians to limit Saudi and Pakistani sponsored jihadists. Finally, Ferguson concludes there are three major problems facing U.S. foreign policy; the Middle East, Russia’s meddling, and China’s ambitions. Obama, he says, is failing to properly address these problems. The reason for this failure is that he does not have advisors of the caliber  of Zbigniew Brzezinski (whose Afghan policies gave us  both Osama ben Laden and  the Taliban) and Henry Kissinger (whose war crimes against humanity gave us fascism in Chile and Pol Pot in Cambodia, among achievements of similar note). Both of these stalwarts, Furgeson says, have made intellectual contributions to strategic doctrine far greater than the advisors surrounding Obama. Perhaps, but more people around the world have died meaningless deaths and suffered injuries and loss of loved ones due to the strategic doctrines of Brzezinski and Kissinger than due to the policies of Obama (but he is running a close second with his Syrian policies). U.S. policy does have problems. In the Middle East it supports dictators and tyrants and its blanket support of Israel and Israel’s truly barbaric treatment of the Palestinians prevents it from having a policy that the majority of Middle Eastern people can live with. We create the very terrorists we seek to fight. Russian meddling is nothing more that its advancing policies that protect its interests and are usually just reactions to overt or covert U.S. provocations. There will be no reset of relations with Russia as long as the U.S. acts in bad faith. China’s ambitions are perfectly normal. They want to play a role in their part of the world commensurate with their growing economic and political strength. As long as the U.S. seeks to challenge them in this respect (such as U.S. air and naval provocations in the South China Sea) there will be no real cooperation possible nor any incentive for Chinese to trust the U.S. The above comments are just a reflection of the current Zeitgeist and it appears that the role of the U.S. is contrary to the movement that spirit is taking — a movement that is pointing us towards a world of better cooperation and understanding and is not subject to the negative destructive will of one rogue superpower. This, and not the views of Henry Kissinger, is what the next president must keep in mind.

Austerity Measures Linked to Rise in Suicides

Austerity Measures Linked to Increase in Suicides: Science News Round Up

Thomas Riggins

Below you will find links to some of the most interesting science stories reported this week relating to both political and social affairs and health news from which everyone may benefit. You can comment on these reports at the end of the round up.

Male suicide on rise as result of austerity, report suggests

"These results have profound health and economic policy implications and raise substantial questions on the prolonged application of fiscal austerity without any safety nets...." Thousands of young people (ages 10-24) as well as the elderly (age 65+) are killing themselves out of desperation due to the imposition of austerity measures on people in the EU. These measures cause a rise in unemployment, a cut in pensions and other effects bringing about extreme hardships. Capitalism's Profit Before People drive is causing widespread misery throughout the EU (and not only there).

Emissions targets are out of reach without a massive technological shift in Europe's basic industries

Unless there is a serious retooling the industrial base in Europe to halt massive pollution it will be impossible to reach the emissions reduction goals set for midcentury. It is possible to save the climate but will private profit driven industries actually make the changes needed? Will bourgeois governments force them to do so? If not capitalism will destroy us all sooner rather than later.

Preventive care drops when government cuts close women's health clinics, research says

This article shows that when women's health care clinics are closed as a result of the Republican assault on the constitutional right to abortion large numbers of women can no longer receive the preventive care necessary to detect cancers and other illnesses. The claim that other clinics and health services will cover those formerly receiving treatment at the closed clinics is not true. Republican politicians, in their attacks on Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, are engaged in  a massive assault on women's health, especially the health of lower income and minority women, and their policies will lead to needless deaths that preventive medical care could have avoided. These reckless unremorseful   mysogynists must be removed from power.   

Sobering picture of urban education in the US  

A study of 50 major cities shows that urban school districts are failing to provide

a basic education to many students especially low income and minority students.

It is the responsibility of the state to provide proper educational opportunities to all students and in failing to educate low income and minority students the state is perpetuating institutional racism. Parents, students, and teachers and their unions will have to organize to remove from office those racist politicians who refuse to fully upgrade and fund equal education for all.

Fracking industry wells associated with premature birth

“Expectant mothers who live near active natural gas wells operated by the fracking industry in Pennsylvania are at an increased risk of giving birth prematurely and for having high-risk pregnancies, new research suggests.” What else needs to be said to convince the state not to issue tracking permits! The scientists suggest that state officials “consider” these finding when giving out permits. Who can tell? Maybe it is just a coincidence.

Ancient genome from Africa sequenced for the first time

The first ancient human genome from Africa to be sequenced has revealed that a wave of migration back into Africa from Western Eurasia around 3,000 years ago was up to twice as significant as previously thought, and affected the genetic make-up of populations across the entire African continent. (Science Daily)