Abortion Rights, Economic War on Venezuela, Iran Tensions & more -- The Week in News, Opinion and Videos May 19 - 26

This week's list of articles, news items, opinion pieces and videos that I see as a must if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.

This list covers the week of May 19 - 26.


1) We Spoke With a Rape Survivor About Alabama’s New Abortion Ban: “There Are No Words”

Carter Sherman, Vice News

When Sam Blakely first heard about Alabama’s plan to ban almost all abortions in the state, she was driving. She pulled over and cried.

2) Extremists Are Winning the War on Abortion

Vegas Tenold, Vice News

The rise of the radical anti-abortion movement has transformed statehouses, courts, and the White House. Experts worry violence will follow.

3) Abortion Limits Carry Economic Cost For Women

Scott Horsley, NPR

As Republican-led states pass laws restricting abortion in hopes the Supreme Court will overturn its Roe v. Wade decision, supporters of abortion rights are pushing back.

4) Andrew Scheer Told Anti-Abortion Group He’d Let Conservative MPs Reopen the Abortion Debate

Press Progress

Conservative leader Andrew Scheer wants Canadians to have “absolute confidence” he will never reopen the abortion debate, even though he said the exact opposite when he was running for leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

5) HERE ARE THE GOP’S SECRET TALKING POINTS DEFENDING ALABAMA’S ABORTION LAW

Daniel Newhauser, Vice News 

In the days since Alabama’s passage of the most restrictive abortion law in the nation, national Republicans have tried to distance themselves from its most controversial provisions that would outlaw abortion even in the case of rape or incest.

6) As the far right grows, its mask comes off

Phil Hearse, Green Left Weekly 

The brutal face of hard right and fascist reaction has been on vivid display on the issues of women’s rights and the climate crisis in the past few weeks.

7) ACLU and Planned Parenthood file lawsuit against Alabama abortion ban

Erin Durkin, The Guardian 

Civil rights groups have filed a lawsuit to stop Alabama from implementing a law making abortion a crime at any stage of pregnancy.

8) Federal Judge Blocks Mississippi Abortion Law

Antonia Blumberg, HuffPost US

A U.S. district judge on Friday blocked Mississippi’s restrictive abortion law, setting the stage for more court battles as conservative lawmakers continue to challenge Roe v. Wade.

9) Law professor 'very angry' with new manslaughter trial in Cindy Gladue's death

CBC News 

Beverly Jacobs, who acted as an intervener in the Supreme Court case, thinks it should be a murder trial for Ontario trucker Bradley Barton instead.

10) ‘The College does not care’: How the medical watchdog closed the door on sex-abuse complainants

Karen Howlett & Vjosa Isai, The Globe and Mail 

Women sought out a Toronto pain specialist in search of help. Instead, former patients allege, he abused their trust. When they complained to the province’s medical watchdog, they expected their allegations would be heard.

11) Moby's treatment of Natalie Portman is a masterclass in nice-guy misogyny

Arwa Mahdawi, The Guardian 

If someone had said the word “Moby” a week ago, chances are the first thing you’d have thought is “Dick.” That probably hasn’t changed – but now you’d likely be referring to the 90s musician rather than the 19th century whale. Over the past few days, Moby has been stress-testing the adage that “all publicity is good publicity” by repeatedly insisting that he and Natalie Portman used to be an item, even if she says they weren’t.

12) Brazil’s Military Police Kills 434 in Rio de Janeiro in 2019 

Telesur

Brazil's military police killed 434 in 2019, making it the most violent period in recorded history. Most of the killings occurred against Black men in favelas in Rio de Janeiro.

13) Italian dock strike blocks deadly cargo headed for Saudi Arabia

Steve Sweeney, The Morning Star 

Activists holds up a banner which says ‘Disobey Salvini’ as they protest against the Saudi Arabian freighter Bahri Yanbu docked in Genoa's port.

14) Organizing in the textile and garment sector in Thailand

IndustriALL 

IndustriALL organized the first workshop in Thailand on organizing in the supply chain for textile, garment, shoes and leather (TGSL) sector affiliate, Textile Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation of Thailand (TWFT) on 3-4 May in Bangkok.

15) Family of Jailed Saudi Feminist Loujain Al-Hathloul: She Was Waterboarded, Flogged & Electrocuted

Democracy Now

It’s been a year since women’s right activist Loujain Al-Hathloul was detained and jailed in Saudi Arabia for leading a movement to lift the kingdom’s ban on female drivers and overhaul its male “guardianship” system. Despite international outcry, she’s been imprisoned ever since. During that time, her family says, she’s been held in solitary confinement and faced abuse, including electric shocks, flogging and threats of sexual violence. The Saudi government has resisted calls from human rights groups and lawmakers from around the world to release Loujain and the other jailed activists. We speak with two of Loujain’s siblings, Walid and Lina Al-Hathloul.

16) Right-wing media defends Navy SEAL accused of killing Iraqi civilians, posing with corpses

Luke Barnes, Think Progress

Conservative media has jumped to the defense of Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, the Navy SEAL accused of war crimes against unarmed civilians, whom President Donald Trump is reportedly considering pardoning this week.

17) NDP MP Randall Garrison’s disgraceful anti-Palestinian politics

Yves Engler

Randall Garrison is an embarrassment to everyone who supports universal human rights. The Victoria area New Democratic Party MP’s anti-Palestinian politics are beyond disgraceful.

18) Human Rights Defender Paula Rosero Killed in Colombia

Telesur 

According to a recent count, after the signing of the peace agreements in Colombia, in November 2016, 596 social leaders have been killed.

19) Death squads in Colombia - paid for by big business

Oliver Dodd, The Morning Star 

OLIVER DODD exposes the role of wealthy groups, including multinationals like Coca Cola and United Fruit, in sponsoring paramilitary murder in Latin America.

20) China's electric buses are killing oil demand

Callum Burroughs, Business Insider 

A new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance suggests that China's electric-bus revolution could kill off oil demand in the future.

21) The U.S. Has a Fleet of 300 Electric Buses. China Has 421,000

 Brian Eckhouse, Bloomberg 

Plodding down DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn is a bus moving under the power of an eerily quiet motor. It looks newer than most buses on the route, with a vivid digital display facing the driver and doors that part with a futuristic pneumatic swoosh. Commuters trundling aboard at rush hour don't seem to realize this is one of the few electric buses—300 last year, to be exact—in America.

22) 126 cases and 0 criminal charges: Is Quebec's police watchdog doing its job?

Kate McKenna · CBC News 

There are still nights when June Celik wakes up crying, wishing she hadn't called police on her son Koray.

23) New Poll Shows More People in US View Socialism as 'Good'

Telesur 

The rise of congresspeople like Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, mirrors the shifting opinions of the populace.

24) The Federal Election 2019

Australian Communist Party 

If people attached importance to pre-election polls, the result of Saturday’s federal election would have come as a great shock. The outcome will be analysed at great length by the corporate media but at a very superficial level. Bill Shorten lacked “charisma”, the Coalition targeted their pork barrelling well and carried out an effective and misleading scare campaign about increased taxes, and so on.

25) How Australia’s Labor Party Lost an Un-Losable Election

Daniel Lopez, Jacobin

Pundits are blaming the Australian Labor Party's left-wing turn for its shocking defeat in Saturday's election. But the failure lies in the fact that this leftist program came too little, too late.

26) Labor was not radical enough

Sam Wainwright, Green Left Weekly 

Barely had we digested the news of the unexpected Coalition victory when the corporate media commentators and a number of senior party leaders were blaming Labor’s election loss for it being too left-wing — “too ambitious”, “a large target” and “bit off more than it could chew”.

27) New York-born GI who defected to the East back in USA

Cameron Orr, People's Voice 

“You know what today is?” Victor Grossman asks a gathering of 30 here during a stop on his book tour. He is coming to the end of his talk.

28) Should we fear for India's democracy?

 Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, Al Jazeera 

Weeks before the general elections in India, opinion polls were already showing that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a fair chance of returning to office. He was riding on the crest of militaristic nationalism which gripped the nation after the military escalation with Pakistan in February.

29) Outcry after Trump officials reveal sixth migrant child died in US custody

Oliver Laughland, The Guardian 

The Trump administration has been forced to reveal that a 10-year-old migrant girl died in its custody more than seven months ago, sparking further outcry after a spate of recent migrant child deaths while detained by the US government.

China and Cuba are teaming up to revamp the island nation’s railroad system. The ambitious program, which includes these beautiful bright blue train cars, will modernize the country’s railways, putting them on par with the best in the world:




30) The NDP Is Class Conscious, Just Not How You Think

Stuart Parker 

In my last post I suggested that the New Democratic Party of Canada and its ilk are not unprincipled as many on the left suggest but instead have ideologically changed over the past generation and a half. For some, the knowledge that former social democratic parties, Third Way parties like the NDP are no longer socialist in character is sufficient. But I think that we need to go further to understand our present predicament. As we can now understand that these parties are here to actively stymie efforts to redistribute wealth or arrest the extinction event, it is important to comprehend and anticipate their actions, not so that we can work in concert with them but so as to prepare ourselves for their next move against us.

31) Brazil: More than 1 million take to the streets

Brazilwire 

A nationwide education strike on May 15 became the platform for the biggest anti-government protests since President Jair Bolsonaro took power.

32) France’s ‘Yellow Vests’: 6 months of struggle

Richard Greeman, Green Left Weekly

I am writing from Montpellier, France, where I am a participant-observer in the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement, which is still going strong after six months, despite a dearth of information in the international media.

33) Shed No Tears for Theresa May

Dawn Foster, Jacobin 

Theresa May climbed her way up the political ladder by pushing policies that brought misery to others. Her ignominious fall is richly deserved.

34) Jason Kenney’s Economic Policies Would Eliminate More Jobs Than 2015 Oil Crash, New Study Shows

Press Progress 

Jason Kenney’s $3.7 billion corporate tax giveaways and deep cuts to public services would kill nearly 60,000 jobs.

35) UN poverty expert hits back over UK ministers' 'denial of facts'

Robert Booth, The Guardian 

The United Nations expert whose warning of deepening poverty in Britain was this week dismissed as “barely believable” by ministers, has said the government’s denial is as worrying as the poverty itself.

36) Kenya court upholds ban on gay sex in major setback for activists

Jason Burke, The Guardian 

LGBT campaigners have reacted with anger and dismay after judges at Kenya’s high court rejected a bid to repeal colonial-era laws criminalising gay sex.

37) Trump Threatens “Official End of Iran” Via Tweet If It Provokes the U.S.

Democracy Now

As tensions between the U.S. and Iran continue to flare, President Trump issued a threatening tweet Sunday, writing: “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!” He did not specify what threat he was referring to. On Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reiterated that Iran does not want war and that no country has the “illusion it could confront Iran,” according to state media.

38) Trump Says the Military Industrial Complex is Pressuring him Into a War With Iran

The Real News Network

With a thirty year Boeing veteran at the Pentagon, Patrick Shanahan as Acting Secretary of Defense, and with John Bolton and Mike Pompeo at the helm, war with Iran is likely says the former chief of staff to Secretary of State, Col. Larry Wilkerson.

39) Second Venezuelan Child Dies As US Blockade Stops Transplant 

Telesur 

Relatives of these chronic patients called on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, to intercede in the suspension of the blockade against Venezuela.

40) Venezuela: Maduro Proposes Early Parliamentary Elections as ANC Extends Mandate

Ricardo Vaz, Venezuela Analysis 

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro proposed holding early parliamentary elections as a way to defuse the country’s political crisis.

Denying Impact of Venezuela Sanctions is 'Like Climate Denial':



41) Timeline of Half a Decade of US Economic War Against Venezuela

Telesur 

As of Jan. 23, 2019 when the self-declared 'president' Juan Guaido attempted to lead a coup, the hostility of the U.S. blockade against Venezuela increased substantially.

42) Venezuela: Widespread Gasoline Shortages as Sanctions Take Toll on Oil Sector

Lucas Koerner and Ricardo Vaz, Venezuela Analysis 

Large parts of Venezuela are suffering acute gasoline shortages as US oil sanctions begin to take effect on the nation’s fuel supply.

43) Oslo To Host New Talks Between Venezuela Gov't, Opposition 

Telesur 

The Venezuelan government and the opposition will soon be reuniting for a second round of negotiations in Norway, said the Norwegian Foreign Ministry Saturday.

43) The U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open.

Kyle Swenson, The Washington Post

At 6:45 a.m. on March 1, 1954, the blue sky stretching over the south Pacific Ocean was split open by an enormous red flash.

44) ABC News spent more time on royal baby in one week than on climate crisis in one year

LISA HYMAS & TED MACDONALD, Media Matters for America 

Here's media misconduct in a nutshell: ABC’s World News Tonight spent more than seven minutes reporting on the birth of royal baby Archie in the week after he was born -- more time than the program spent covering climate change during the entire year of 2018.

45) A MAJOR COAL COMPANY WENT BUST. ITS BANKRUPTCY FILING SHOWS THAT IT WAS FUNDING CLIMATE CHANGE DENIALISM.

Lee Fang, The Intercept 

THE BANKRUPTCY OF one of the largest domestic coal producers in the country has revealed that the company maintains financial ties to many of the leading groups that have sowed doubt over the human causes of global warming.

46) B.C. can't impose environmental laws that could kill Trans Mountain pipeline, court rules

Jason Proctor · CBC News

British Columbia doesn't have the right to impose environmental laws that could kill the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, the province's Court of Appeal has ruled.

(Related: Blind partisan hypocrisy is not what we need to confront the climate crisis)

47) THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS DECLARING A FAKE EMERGENCY TO SELL WEAPONS TO SAUDI ARABIA

Alex Emmons, The Intercept 

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION chose the Friday afternoon before Memorial Day weekend to invoke an obscure state-of-emergency provision that would allow it to sell billions of dollars in weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates without giving Congress a chance to block the sale.

48) Injured workers face benefit cuts as compensation board assigns them ‘phantom jobs’ with ‘ghost wages’: Report

Sara Mojtehedzadeh, The Toronto Star

Permanently injured workers are having their benefits slashed because the provincial compensation board deems them capable of doing “imaginary” jobs with “ghost wages,” a new report says — even though the board’s own audits have identified significant barriers to finding real employment.

49) Ontario government slashes funding to children’s aid societies

Sandro Contenta, The Toronto Star

The Ford government is reducing funding for children and youth at risk by $84.5 million, according to an analysis of provincial spending estimates by the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies.

50) Low-income students to be hardest hit as TDSB looks to trim outdoor education programs, some warn

CBC Radio

As the Toronto District School Board looks to trim spending amid a $67-million shortfall, some are warning low-income children stand to be some of the hardest hit when it comes to outdoor education.

51) Ontario’s poverty reduction strategy is built on the idea that people deserve to be poor

Madeleine Ritts, Healthy Debate

As a community mental health social worker in downtown Toronto, I encounter the most extreme conditions of poverty and social inequality in the city. The people I work with are often forced to find shelter in profoundly undignified environments. Some pay upwards of $1,000 a month to share a shoebox-sized room with strangers in boarding homes where sickness is rampant and pest infestations are chronic. When I search for people in dangerously cramped city respite shelters, I’m struck by their resemblance to natural disaster relief centres. There is no privacy; there are rarely any showers; and leaving your “cot” means risking the few possessions you have to theft. I often reflect on how quickly my mental health would deteriorate should I ever wind up staying in one.

52) Ford government pulls the plug on electricity program in Peel

 Marta Marychuk, Mississauga News

Students from Judith Nyman Secondary School in Brampton are angry and disappointed after the Ministry of Education pulled the plug on funding for the school’s electricity program.

See also: Abortion Rights Under Attack, American Imperialists Push for War with Iran, Climate Change & more -- The Week in News, Opinion and Videos May 12 - 19

Notre Dame Fire Exposes Deep Hypocrisy, Ontario Austerity Attacks, Revolution in Sudan and more -- The Week in News, Opinion and Videos April 14 - 21

This week's list of articles, news items, opinion pieces and videos that I see as a must if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.

This list covers the week of April 14 - 21.

It starts with sections related to the Notre Dame fire and the ongoing austerity attacks of the government in Ontario.

1) The billionaires’ donations will turn Notre Dame into a monument to hypocrisy

Aditya Chakrabortty, The Guardian 

Not least among this litany of ironies is that it takes a Catholic cathedral to remind us that we have barely advanced an inch from the medieval buying of indulgences, when the rich could amass their fortunes in as filthy a fashion as they liked – and then donate to the Church to launder their reputations and ensure their salvation. What was it that old Friar Tetzel used to say? “As soon as gold in the coffer rings, the rescued soul to heaven springs.”

2) Reaction of the rich to the Notre Dame fire teaches us a lot about the world we live in

Carl Kinsella, JOE

The next time someone tries to pretend like you need to choose between homelessness or immigration, nurses' pay or a tax cut, a children's hospital or a motorway, remember this moment. The money is there at a click of a finger. It just isn't in our hands.

3) Normandy Yellow Vests Statement About the Notre Dame Disaster

Stalker Zone

When we triumph, when democracy – true, direct, without a state, leaders or representatives – will be there, when we will self-manage our lives and our places of life, so we will decide what is necessary, vital, and important. So the markets, profits and money will be distant memories.

4) Notre Dame fire: Alt-right conspiracy theorists are using the cathedral blaze to spread anti-Muslim rhetoric

Clark Mindock, The Independent 

The inferno that has engulfed the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris has been seized upon by far right provocateurs to spread anti-Muslim hate and conspiracies, even as officials said they have ruled out arson as the cause.

5) Ontario’s cuts to legal aid for refugees: Racist, xenophobic and possibly unconstitutional

Sharry Aiken and Sean Rehaag, The Conversation 

The recent Ontario budget included a 30 per cent cut to legal aid. This will cause hardship for many low-income residents of Ontario, who are disproportionately drawn from racialized communities.

6) Province slashes Ontario Library Service funding by 50%

CBC News 

Southern Ontario Library Service says it's facing a 50 per cent budget cut from the province, which would need to be absorbed into the current 2019-20 fiscal year.

7) Ontario budget cuts millions in compensation to victims of violent crime, advocates say

Alyshah Hasham, The Toronto Star 

Victims of violent crimes will get significantly less compensation after proposed changes in the provincial budget, including capping awards for pain and suffering at $5,000, advocates say.

8) Another 155 teachers receive surplus letters as Ford deflects questions about cuts

 Shanifa Nasser, CBC News 

Just one day after hundreds of teachers in Peel Region received word that they would no longer have permanent positions come September, over 150 more in neighbouring Halton Region learned they face a similar fate, the union representing them says.

9) Ontario’s Right-Wing Ford Government Advances Unconstitutional Bill To Silence Critics of Israel

Dimitri Lascaris

With the support of Ontario’s right-wing Premier, Doug Ford, a staunchly pro-Israel member of Ontario’s legislature is pushing a private member’s bill designed to silence critics of Israel.

10) Ontario slashes Toronto Public Health funds by $1B over a decade, board chair says

Lauren Pelley · CBC News

The Ontario government is slashing Toronto Public Health's funding by $1 billion over a decade as part of a plan to consolidate local public health units across the province, says the chair of the city's board of health — a move that's prompting an outcry from city officials.

11) Ont. university funding will be tied to graduates' earnings, minister says

The Canadian Press

Ontario's minister responsible for post-secondary education says institutions' future funding will depend on metrics such as graduates' earnings.

12) ACLU Warns of “Fascist Militia” Holding Migrant Border Crossers at Gunpoint

Democracy Now


The American Civil Liberties Union is warning that armed vigilantes are working directly with the U.S. Border Patrol to unlawfully detain hundreds of migrants at gunpoint along the U.S.-Mexico border. The ACLU cites videos posted on social media showing members of a militia group pursuing migrants in New Mexico’s desert west of El Paso, Texas, and effectively kidnapping them against their will. In one video, vigilantes armed with assault rifles are seen approaching a group of several dozen people seated on the ground, as the video’s narrator, a man named Jim Benvie, films.

13) The FBI Has Arrested The Leader Of An Armed Militia Detaining Migrants At The Border

Adolfo Flores, BuzzFeed News 

The FBI arrested the head of an armed right-wing "patriot" group that had detained hundreds of migrants at the New Mexico border on Saturday for being a felon in possession of a weapon.

14) Police Chief Rails At 'Nazis' Enforcing Laws After Girl Is Ordered Deported Without Mom

Mary Papenfuss, HuffPost US

An infuriated Houston police chief blew up Friday on Twitter after an 11-year-old girl was ordered to be deported without her family.

15) Defiant Resistance: The Venezuelan Crises and the Possibility of Another World

Jeremiah Gaster, Socialist Project Bullet 

Bob Dylan once said, “Let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.” February 23rd, 2019, was the day that Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed President of Venezuela, had “authorized” “humanitarian aid” to enter Venezuela, an attempt to force the Maduro government, and thus the Venezuelan people, to their knees. There is great urgency as an ever-increasing escalation of violence is being perpetuated by those who would destroy Venezuela, including several attacks on Venezuela’s electrical grid over the last few weeks. But let me be clear: the Venezuelan poor are resilient, and any change will be on their terms. Most importantly, Venezuelan politics is collective, and there is a deep form of solidarity across communities along with an abiding interest in building a different form of politics. In short, if one does not unearth this collective politics, one cannot understand what is happening in Venezuela.

16) Russia To Help Venezuela Probe Cyber Attacks on Electric Grid

Telesur 

Russian deputy foreign minister said Russia will help Venezuela in investigating the cyber attacks on the country which cause nation-wide blackouts.

17) Attendees of Secret Meeting for 'US Military Assault' on Venezuela Revealed

Eoin Higgins, Common Dreams 

A group dedicated to regime change in Venezuela held a secret meeting on overthrowing the country's government last week, according to reporting from The Grayzone Project.

18) US Pushing for War with Venezuela: Moncada

Telesur 

The President of the United States (US), Donald Trump, is secretly preparing for a war against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela's Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Samuel Moncada, said on his Twitter account.

19) With tightening of blockade, U.S. seeks to strangle Cuba…again

W. T. Whitney Jr., People's World 

“The Trump administration has declared the most severe new sanctions against Cuba since President John F. Kennedy imposed an economic embargo banning all trade with the communist island in 1962.” That was the assessment of William M. LeoGrande, a widely respected Cuba analyst, in reaction to announcements on April 17 by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton concerning new economic sanctions being imposed on Cuba.

20) Cuba just started giving PrEP away for free to those who need it

 Gwendolyn Smith, LGBTQ Nation 

A pilot program that began on March 6 has Cuban officials distributing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to those in need.

21) 'Pompeo has Lost His Mind': Chinese Ambassador to Chile

Telesur 

“There are numerous examples, including the relentless blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba for more than half a century, President Trump's construction of a separation wall along the border between the United States and Mexico, and the very little assistance provided by the United States to Haiti and Central American countries. Chileans are also well aware that Chile's development achievements are not the result of American charity."

22) Bolivian Lawmakers Ask for US Intervention in a Letter to Trump

Telesur 

A group of 10 deputies, two senators and three representatives of political and non-government organizations sent a letter to United States President Donald Trump asking to “intercede” in their country’s affairs, resulting in heavy criticism from Bolivian President Evo Morales.



23) The far right is trying to make crucifixes mandatory across Italy

Andy Hayward and Andrew Potter, Vice News

A northern Italian town in the heartland of Italy’s far-right League Party has adopted a new emblem, one that sends a clear message about the country's history: a Christian cross.

Cops in schools is the ultimate bad policing idea:



24) Contempt charges dropped against 14 protesters blocking B.C. pipeline project

Betsy Trumpener · CBC News

All contempt charges have been dropped against 14 people who were arrested at a blockade in northern British Columbia in January for barring access to a pipeline company.

25) Finland's Left Wing Party Scores Narrow Election Victory, Far-right Party Comes in 2nd

Telesur 

Finland’s leftist Social Democrat party (SDP) leader Antti Rinne has declared victory in Sunday’s general election after results showed his party winning by a very tight margin with 17.7 percent.

26) “Democracy has been hijacked in Guatemala”

People's Dispatch 

Daniel Pascual, coordinator of the Committee for Peasant Unity (CUC), speaks about the struggle for the rights of Indigenous and peasant people and for the defense of territory in Guatemala at a conference in Basque Country.

27) Man Charged with Hate Crimes over Fires at 3 Black Louisiana Churches

Democracy Now

A man accused of setting fire to three historically black churches in Louisiana was charged with hate crimes Monday. Holden Matthews, the 21-year-old son of a deputy sheriff, was also charged with three counts of arson after being arrested last week. The first blaze occurred at the end of last month, and the two others in early April. All three churches were in St. Landry Parish, about 30 minutes north of Lafayette.

28) Leaked Docs Show Saudis 'Overwhelmingly Dependent' on Western Weapons to Wage War on Yemen

Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams 

Leaked documents from France's military agency "show that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are overwhelmingly dependent on Western-produced weapon systems to wage their devastating war in Yemen," The Intercept reported Monday.

29) What Alberta’s new UCP majority government means for the environment

Sharon J. Riley, The Narwhal 

Regulations and renewables are on the outs and battles with environmental groups are in, as Kenney promises to accelerate approvals of energy projects, scrap efficiency measures and fund an ‘energy war room’ to fight anyone who criticizes the province’s energy sector.

30) Ultranationalism in Ukraine – a photo essay

Felipe Dana, The Guardian 

The growing presence of far-right groups in Ukraine leaves the west in a quandary. The ultranationalists have played a key role in fighting Russia-backed separatist rebels and are now challenging government corruption. But they are pushing for changes that go against democratic ideals.

31) Rethinking Ottawa’s Transit System

Julia Szwarc, Socialist Project Bullet 

During the week of February 4-10, Free Transit Ottawa challenged Ottawa’s City Councillors and Mayor to take the Transit Week Challenge. The idea was simple: To get the people who make decisions about public transit to experience the system firsthand. To the surprise of the organizers, the majority of Council chose to participate. Some, such as Shawn Menard, Laura Dudas, and Theresa Kavanagh, enthusiastically took the challenge.

32) Half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population

Rob Evans, The Guardian 

Half of England is owned by less than 1% of its population, according to new data shared with the Guardian that seeks to penetrate the secrecy that has traditionally surrounded land ownership.

33) ‘Citizens don’t feel safe’ as hate fills Edmonton’s streets

Omar Mosleh, Star Edmonton

Standing onstage, a man in a video recites a white supremacist slogan in Churchill Square — a place named after a world leader instrumental in defeating the Nazis.

34) Which has failed—capitalism or socialism?

Rick Nagin, People's World 

Although nearly every issue of The Wall Street Journal tries to combat growing public support for socialism, this only proves that Marx and Engels got at least one thing right when they wrote in the Communist Manifesto that the specter of communism continually haunts the ruling class.

35) Illinois Approves Ban On ‘Right-To-Work Laws’

CBS Chicago 

With the support of labor unions, a new bill prohibiting municipalities in the state from enacting “right-to-work laws” was signed into law by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker last week.

36) Sudan sit-in shows how ordinary people can run society and win real change

Charlie Kimber, Socialist Worker 

Sudan’s ruling class is desperately trying to reassert control as protests continue demanding fundamental change.

37) A First Victory for the Sudanese Revolution

Sungur Savran, Socialist Project Bullet 

Omar al Bashir, the 30-year long dictator of Sudan, the perpetrator of the massacre of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Darfour and South Sudan wars, the enemy of the working class and the poor of Sudan, the ally of the Muslim Brothers (the Ihwan), the collaborator of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP of Turkey, has been ousted. This is a result of the power and resilience displayed by the popular movement, the revolutionary struggle that has lasted for four and a half months. Blessings to the peoples of the Middle East and Africa! We owe a debt of gratitude to the people of Sudan for having demonstrated once again that despots are not stronger than a people in action. Our hearts beat for the success of the Sudanese revolution.

38) The Sudanese Revolution seeks unity against US imperialism and reactionary governments

International Communist Press

According to the statement of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Sudanese Communist Party, issued on 15 April, the forces for Freedom and Change, including the Sudanese Communist Party, continue to play a leading role in furthering and consolidating the unity of the masses in the streets.

39) Our leaders are ignoring global warming to the point of criminal negligence. It's unforgivable

Tim Winton, The Guardian 

Humanity survived the cold war because no one pushed the button. On climate change, the button has been pushed again and again.

See also: Ontario Austerity, Far Right Win in Israel, Libya & more -- The Week in News, Opinion and Videos April 7 - 14

The true seasonal message is that the monarchy has got to go

By Nathaniel Laxer

Christmas came and went, an 8 year old migrant child died in American custody on Christmas Eve and humanity still only has 12 years to limit severe irreversible climate change. But look on the bright side -- the Queen granted us her annual Christmas message! A statement that was broadcast live over CBC radio into my home, and the homes, cars and public places of millions of other people across Canada and across the Commonwealth.

During her statement -- made in a luxurious room that included an actual golden piano behind her -- the Queen stated that she believed “the power of faith, frequently inspires great generosity and self-sacrifice”, and that "With two weddings and two babies, and another child expected soon, it helps to keep a grandmother well occupied" Our poor queen! She is very busy.

Statements such as these are made particularly ironic and cuttingly cynical by the fact that the United Kingdom is instituting a campaign of -- as a UN report described it -- “mean-spirited and callous” austerity effecting it’s most vulnerable and destitute citizens. With “a 7 per cent rise in child poverty, a 60 per cent increase in homelessness since 2010 and exponential growth in the number of food banks.” The UN special rapporteur on the issue saying “'I have spoken with people who depend on food banks and charities for their next meal, who have sold sex for money or shelter, children who are growing up in poverty unsure of their future”. He only visited the country for 12 days.

While this campaign of vicious austerity was implemented, the royal family spent 2 million pounds, of their rather generous welfare state allowance on clothing for the royal wedding. The local council ordered the streets cleared of the homeless so that these new clothes would not be ruined by any unfortunate background. What a show of “great generosity and self sacrifice”.

Just like the great show of self sacrifice that the Queen will display when she will have to move out of her room in Buckingham Palace temporarily -- along with the 10,000 pieces of art in the royal collection -- while the palace undergoes a state funded 369 million pound renovation. Apparently this money couldn’t go towards her staff at places like Windsor Castle though. They almost went on strike in 2015 over their “appallingly low” wage of  as little as 14,400 pounds a year, or about 21,000 USD.

It would have only cost 293,000 pounds to give Grenfell tower proper fire protection, thereby saving 72 lives.

But none of this is a shock, the British monarchy has always been a parasitic leech. A leftover from the middle ages. A reactionary symbol of hierarchy, empire and a racist sense of superiority. A monarchy whose largest, most central crown jewel was stolen from India during its time as a blood-soaked colony.  A monarchy that has no reason to still exist in the United Kingdom, never mind here in Canada. This has long been true, but never more obviously so in this time of looming global ecological catastrophe and sickening growth of extreme economic inequality.

The real message as the world heads into the New Year is that we desperately need a fundamental restructuring of our society. The removal of the retrograde uselessness that is the monarchy will necessarily be a part of this restructuring.

See also: Of course we should get rid of the monarchy. And not because it is expensive, but because it is wrong.

NDP spending document creates more questions than answers

By Fraser Needham 

Committing to balanced budgets as the economy slows and recession looms, bragging about a lower corporate tax rate than the G7 average and the U.S., small business tax cuts, increased military and police spending and other social spending commitments buried or not even mentioned at all – sound like a Stephen Harper spending plan?

Well, it very well could be but it was actually Thomas Mulcair and the NDP’s spending plan released earlier this week. Ever since the NDP leader committed that his government would absolutely balance budgets regardless of the state of the economy if elected, he has been on the hot seat to explain how he would do this without raising taxes or cutting social spending commitments. Mulcair immediately moved to dampen expectations in terms of social spending by saying that an NDP government would only pledge to meet its biggest commitment, a $15 per day national childcare plan, by the end of its first term. This was later pushed even further back to perhaps a second term.

Remind you of anyone? This is the old Liberal government trick of pushing social spending commitments further and further back as you continue to cut taxes and spending. Eventually the government is defeated, as happened to the Paul Martin Liberals in 2006, and numerous social spending commitments remain on the table and never fulfilled. Including, as was the case with the last Liberal government, a long promised national childcare plan that was never met.

So, the NDP released its long awaited campaign spending plan on Wednesday and fear not, there are no substantial tax increases. As the party has promised throughout the election, there are no income tax hikes, not even on the very wealthy. There is a meaningless two per cent corporate tax increase which the party document lauds still puts Canada below the G7 average and U.S. rates – as if this is something to brag about.

To put this into context, Canada’s corporate tax rate declined under the Liberals to 21 per cent between 2000 and 2007. It has furthered declined under the Conservatives to 15 per cent. In 1980, the rate was 30 per cent. So, the NDP plan to raise the corporate tax rate to 17 per cent would not even restore revenue to 2007 levels, which of course are woefully inadequate. The current G7 corporate tax rate average is almost 30 per cent and the U.S.’s is 39 per cent.

If the NDP refuses to raise tax levels in any significant way, where are they going to find the money to meet their spending commitments? By closing stock option loopholes for rich CEOs, of course. The NDP document doesn’t say exactly how they plan to do this but the measure is supposed to generate $2 billion over four years – not very much either way. However, seeing as the wealthy employ high priced lawyers to help them take advantage of such stock option loopholes, it seems unlikely an NDP government would be able to crack down on the practice quite so easily.

The NDP plan also says it will generate $580 million over four years by reallocating unspent P3 funds to infrastructure spending. Again, not very much money but how easy would it be for an NDP to reallocate these unspent funds without paying stiff penalties, considering the current Conservative government may very well likely have reached preliminary agreements with private companies on how this money is to be spent?

The document also says $1 billion over four years would be saved by canceling fossil fuel subsidies. However, as a Globe and Mail article points out, finance department documents show no such gains would be made. The same article also points out that it appears somewhat dubious the $5.4 billion the NDP has put aside for health care will not only meet the party’s commitment to increase funding to the provinces by six per cent a year but also cover all of its other health care commitments made during the campaign.

The NDP will put $6.6 billion over four years toward its much-vaunted $15 per day national childcare plan. However, will this really be enough, even to get this program off the ground? Considering in order to make the program work a federal NDP government would likely have to take on more than 50 per cent of the costs in the poorer Maritime provinces.

And, of course, young people are not left out of the NDP’s spending plan. The party will slate $1.4 billion over a term to an area called “Opportunities for Young Canadians.” This money is supposed to go toward helping young people get jobs and help with the cost of post-secondary education. However, the document does not mention, and there is certainly no intention, of either freezing or lowering the skyrocketing cost of post secondary education – the number one obstacle that is currently limiting the economic success of Canada’s young people.

Several other promised spending measures are noticeably absent from the document. Such as the NDP’s promise to reinstate door-to-door Canada Post home delivery, instituting a carbon tax or any other environmental measures. At the NDP’s press conference to announce its spending plan, the party did admit it would have to eliminate its pledge to increase foreign aid by 0.7 per cent of GDP.

However, one commitment that is certainly not left out is the NDP’s pledge to increase spending on military and policing. In the first year of its mandate, an NDP government would spend $185 million to make Canada more “safe and secure” and this would increase to $398 million in the fourth year for a total of $1.4 billion.

Another spending promise that the NDP is holding true to is the party’s pledge to cut the small business tax from 11 to nine per cent at a cost of about $3 billion. As NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair has reminded us over and over again during this campaign, small businesses are the heart of our economy and the true “job creators.” So the NDP says the long-term benefits of the small business tax cut in terms of jobs and economic stimulus will far outweigh the initial cost.

Unfortunately, Mulcair and company will find few serious economists that agree with them on this point. For example, while tax expert Jack Mintz fully supports cutting the corporate tax rate as a means of stimulating the economy, he cautions against small business tax cuts. In a paper, he writes that roughly 60 per cent of the value of a small-business tax deduction accrues to households earning more than $200,000 per year.

The Globe and Mail calls the numbers used in the NDP spending document “fuzzy at best” and this is being very, very kind.

Quite frankly, this document isn’t worth the paper its printed on.

Fraser Needham is a freelance journalist living in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He has been working and writing in Saskatchewan for the past 15 years. Aside from the Saskatchewan CCF/NDP, he follows Aboriginal issues and politics closely.


See also: It appears the NDP strategists are stuck in the 90’s – again

See also: Raising Monuments -- How Corbyn may yet turn the tide

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Playing the progressive card -- Trudeau's cynical, but clever, "left shift"

Stephen Harper has no plan to grow our economy and no plan to help the middle class, so he's spending your money trying to convince you that I'm not ready. 

Here's what I'm not ready for. 

I’m not ready to stand by as our economy slides into recession. Not ready to watch hard-working Canadians lose their jobs and fall further behind. And I’m certainly not ready to stand by while this government continues to ignore hard-working Canadians, when it should be offering a plan for economic growth. 

I am ready to do what our opponents won’t: Ask the wealthiest 1% of Canadians to pay more tax so our middle class can pay less. And while they propose massive cuts and austerity, I’ll lead our country with a historic investment plan to strengthen the middle class, create jobs and grow our economy.

By now we have all likely heard one variation or another of this pitch being made by federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau -- a pitch that very directly seeks to outflank NDP leader Tom Mulcair from the "left" in progressive terms. This one was taken directly from a Liberal campaign email.

While Mulcair has made a fundamentally misguided, and likely untenable, balanced budget pledge, Trudeau has invoked the language and rhetoric of Occupy ("the 1%", "tax the rich") and sought to inspire with a plan that is interventionist and aims to create jobs and growth via stimulus -- something I suspect is far more appealing to many progressive voters than is Mulcair's rhetoric of austerity.

It will be made all the easier for Trudeau to portray himself as the "true progressive" now that Mulcair, grotesquely, has chosen to frame deficit stimulus spending as "immoral" -- even though both of the existing NDP provincial governments either have run deficits to maintain services, are running deficits, or in Alberta's case plan to do so also to stimulate the economy.

In Alberta Finance Minister Joe Ceci has announced an upcoming deficit stimulus plan very similar to the one proposed by Trudeau and using very similar fiscal and economic logic -- and this despite the fact that Alberta is starting from an already existing deficit:

Despite a deficit that will be the largest in two decades, and that the government has warned could grow to $6.5-billion, Finance Minister Joe Ceci says the province could borrow more to speed an economic recovery and create jobs. 

“Do we have the money? Yes. I think we would have the capacity to borrow some more for investments in infrastructure,” Mr. Ceci told The Globe and Mail on Friday. “We’re forecasting GDP to be on the growth side in 2016, so an investment in transit and other infrastructure would come at the time when it would bolster a brightening GDP. 

In fact, while there is a long way to go, there are some initial indications that Trudeau's pitch is working among the swing voters who actually matter -- progressive voters outside of Quebec (the NDP appears, for now, to be virtually certain to sweep Quebec again).

As the pollster EKOS put it:

Justin Trudeau has helped himself with his proposed deficit-funded infrastructure spending program. Thomas Mulcair, meanwhile, seems to be hurting himself with his promise of a balanced budget, suggesting that Canadians are leery of focusing on fiscal rectitude – rather than kick-starting the economy – when middle class workers have not seen a real wage increase in years. Furthermore, concerns with fiscal discipline are largely concentrated in the Conservative camp, which is largely unavailable to the NDP. At best, Mr. Mulcair may be making himself mildly less objectionable to those who won’t vote for him and ignoring the preferences of his available constituency. While we understand the importance of signalling fiscal prudence, the NDP may want to consider the potential fall-out more carefully.

The key point here being "concerns with fiscal discipline are largely concentrated in the Conservative camp, which is largely unavailable to the NDP" -- a point that NDP strategists of late simply do not seem to understand.

As Fraser Needham pointed out in a piece about the NDP's bizarre decision to campaign from the right, the party seems to be trying to mimic, in the critical NDP-Liberal battleground of Ontario, the tone of the disastrous ONDP campaign of 2014 that sought to appeal to a largely mythical "Rob Ford" swing voter and that resulted in helping to get the Kathleen Wynne Liberals reelected with a majority government in what unfolded as a strategic vote against the Hudak Conservatives.

That ONDP campaign failed for a reason. It alienated progressive voters by sounding very "populist" and right wing, while, in fact, not appealing to right-wingers who in Ontario (and elsewhere) are simply never going to vote NDP in anything close to meaningful numbers. The "Rob Ford" voter is largely fictional as his constituency was a mixture of actual conservatives and reactionaries and the disaffected who turned to or supported him not at all for his "policies" -- such as they were -- but for his grandiose personality and rhetoric. 

In fact Ford's polices were largely irrelevant to this second group of voters and as a result their voting decisions and directions outside of municipal politics were going to be all over the map. This can be demonstrated by the results in the various heartlands of "Ford Nation". All of Etobicoke, York and Scarborough were swept by the Liberals in the provincial election, and swept despite the very vocal calls by the Ford brothers at the time to toss the Liberals out of office!

Wynne, though she has predictably governed more to the right, campaigned from the left and directly and successfully sought to appeal to NDP-Liberal swing voters (the only swing voters who actually matter to the NDP in vote rich Ontario) while the ONDP tried to appeal to a group of "swing voters" that simply did not exist -- and did so in very reactionary terms.

Trudeau is doing what Wynne did while Mulcair echoes ONDP leader Andrea Horwath. Trudeau is clearly targeting the soft progressive vote that the NDP is either taking for granted or do not think they need.

Is this cynical on Trudeau's part? When he brings out austerity hatchet man Paul Martin, who launched the austerity era in Canadian federal politics, and when he praises Martin's disastrous and reactionary deep cuts to transfer payments in the 90's (while saying that he would not do anything similar) it certainly seems cynical.

But it is also clever. With Mulcair almost inexplicably -- given that it was his principled stance on Bill C-51 that shifted him from third to first place in national polls while Trudeau's pandering stance cost him dearly -- adopting a very cautious and even rhetorically reactionary approach, this was the hand that Trudeau had left to play. The Liberals exist to win, and if portraying Mulcair as a right wing austerity wolf in progressive sheep's clothing is the way to win, that is what they will do.

Trudeau can only take this approach and make this appeal to progressive swing voters, though, as it is at least in part true.

Mulcair and his strategists, and they alone, have made this possible and allowed him to be able to do this by taking a series of positions and adopting a tone that are both right-wing and wrong-headed and that will be perceived as such by the very voters that Mulcair needs and that were swinging his way.

There is still plenty of time for Mulcair and the NDP to avoid the trap they so clearly seem to be walking into. The soft progressive constituency that is willing to go either NDP or Liberal to both stop Harper and get what they hope will be progressive governance is still very much up for grabs.

But if the NDP continues down this track federally, there is a very real probability that the result in Ontario will be what came of the strikingly similar campaign strategies of Andrea Horwath and Olivia Chow that sought bizarrely to appeal to right-wing voters and that both failed miserably.

And without winning in most of the key ridings in Ontario no progressive party, Liberal or New Democrat, stands any chance of becoming government.

Mulcair and his strategists seem to need to be reminded of this.

See also: The follies of the NDP running a right wing populist campaign

See also: Game Over -- Turns out Mulcair is simply wrong about even today's NDP and deficits

Syriza capitulates

"The referendum results have shaken the EU elite and hopefully stiffened the spines of the more cautious SYRIZA leaders. The size of the NO majority makes regime change impossible and the Euro-group who were hoping to split and crush SYRIZA will have to think again.

Strike while the iron is hot, Greek negotiators." - Tariq Ali, July 5th

"61 percent of the Greek voters rejected the deal that Tsipras has now accepted. The consequences will be dire for Greece. The new Memoranda is worse than what previous governments were compelled to do. The chronicle of a tragedy foretold. The Left in Syriza is calling for demonstrations and will vote against the deal in parliament. A sad day."- Tariq Ali, July 11th

Two quotes that show what a terrible difference a few short days can make.

After the Greek people made an historic and heroic stand against austerity in a referendum a week ago, the very leader and party that called this referendum has capitulated entirely and shockingly to the European banks and Europe's mainstream political consensus. They have dashed the dreams, hopes and joy of people not just in Greece but worldwide.

Far from seizing the very real mandate for a radical departure that the Greek people themselves handed to them, Syriza and its Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras accepted an austerity "bailout" without any meaningful concessions of any kind except on the part of Greece! To stay in the currency union they gave-in on basically all fronts.

One has to wonder what the point of the referendum was at all.

Tsipras said last Sunday "the Greek people made a historic and brave choice". The same cannot, at this point, be said of him and his government in the days that followed.

I think that the negative implications of the capitulation of the Greek government  for the socialist left and for left anti-capitalists who believe in an electoral strategy or radical reformist approach to achieving transformative change within European or North American capitalist countries in this ongoing neo-liberal hegemony will be profound-- certainly in the short-term.

When Syriza was first elected I wrote that its triumph represented, potentially, a real challenge not only to the inhuman and cruel agenda of global finance capital, but also to the mainstream social democratic narrative of collaboration with and acceptance of it and to parties like the French Socialists or Canada's New Democrats who have all but abandoned any notion of an anti-capitalist economic and social vision.

The tremendously courageous statement made by the people of Greece in the referendum made the reality of a realization of that challenge seem to be truly at hand.

That potential challenge, certainly insofar as SYRIZA is concerned, is now basically over. The European political powers and the backers of austerity have won a complete and total victory mere days after they seemed on the verge of their first real defeat. The seeming alternative is now, they can claim, exposed as a chimera. The lesson, the "realists" and the powers-that-be will say, is very clear -- against them, a people expressing their democratic will cannot win and their elected representatives will be brought to heel.

In fact, the Germans appear to be using the Greek retreat to demand even harsher concessions! At this point who is to say they will not get them? Syriza's credibility or its previously perceived willingness to stand fast is certainly in tatters.  

What this says and what this means for any future anti-austerity left electoral coalition or government or for any strategy to create this -- and to then, once elected, actually implement the promised agenda -- in the countries of Europe or North America it is, of course, too soon to say or to speculate on.

But at the very least it certainly means and says nothing good.