The US federal debt [Photo: Federal Reserve Economic Database]
On Saturday, May 3, the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS.org) held the annual International Online May Day Rally. The event took place at a critical juncture in international geopolitics, which determines life-and-death questions of the working class—who, in recent weeks and months, have demonstrated growing militancy in their struggles against the capitalist establishment. WSWS posted both the video and text of the opening speech delivered by WSWS International Editorial Board chairman David North today (May 05). We are reposting the video here and we invite the workers, youth, intellectuals and all those who want to defeat austerity, fascism, dictatorship, genocide, war and social retrogression to seriously study this speech and the other speeches, and resolutely decide to join the international Trotskyist movement and build the ICFI as the only revolutionary leadership of the international working class to fight for world socialism.
The two priorities of the incoming administration are preparing for war with China and arresting and deporting millions of migrants.
In a rapid-fire series of appointments and announcements, fascist President-elect Donald Trump is assembling an administration in his own image. There are only two criteria for the nominees so far announced: complete alignment with the fascist policies Trump seeks to put into place and unquestioning personal loyalty to the would-be dictator.
President-elect Donald Trump with Florida Senator Marco Rubio [AP Photo/Evan Vucci]
January 20, 2025 will thus mean not merely the re-entry of the former president into the White House but the installation of a regime with his aides and stooges in charge of all the levers of power, committed to using these powers against all domestic opposition from the American people and against whatever countries Trump chooses to target for subversion, blockade or open warfare.
As Trump prepares to rapidly implement his plans, the Biden administration, which is in power for another two months, is doing absolutely nothing to alert the population, let alone take measures to stop the massive assault on democratic rights. Biden, who is welcoming Trump to the White House on Wednesday, is acting as if it is his responsibility not only to guarantee Trump’s succession but to help implement his policies.
The contours of the new Trump-led regime are demonstrated in the nominations made public or leaked to the media over the past three days. Nearly all of Trump’s top national security appointments have been made public:
For secretary of state, US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida
For national security advisor, Representative Michael Waltz, also of Florida
For Ambassador to the United Nations, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York
For CIA director, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, a Republican congressman from Texas before he joined the first Trump administration
For secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, former head of the ultra-right Concerned Veterans of America (funded by the Koch Brothers) and longtime co-host of the Fox News program “Fox & Friends”
From a policy standpoint, all are fervent advocates of confrontation with China and giving the US military a “free hand” in any open conflict: opposing any restrictions on the use of violence against targeted populations, including civilians and children.
This is particularly apparent in the surprise selection of Hegseth, who went unmentioned in media speculation about Trump’s potential pick to head the Pentagon. Now a major in the Army Reserve, Hegseth deployed to the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba during the Bush administration’s “war on terror,” then volunteered for the war in Iraq, where he commanded platoons in Baghdad and Samarra. He later served as a counterinsurgency instructor for the Army in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Having previously led groups of 50 to 100 soldiers, Hegseth is now being tasked to run the Pentagon, the largest military organization in the world, with 3.5 million people, including 2.1 million active duty and reserve soldiers, 750,000 civilian staff and 650,000 contractors. His qualification, however, is his role as an advocate for military war criminals.
In 2019, while on the “Fox & Friends” talkshow, the ultra-right program of which Trump is an avid viewer, Hegseth led a campaign for the exoneration of three soldiers convicted or awaiting trial before military courts for war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The crimes included the summary execution of unarmed prisoners and the murder of children and old men.
After meeting with Trump, Hegseth summarized the president’s approach as follows: “The benefit of the doubt should go to the guys pulling the trigger.” Trump issued pardons, called each murderer personally to commiserate with the “injustice” done to them, and boasted publicly of overriding the decisions of top military commanders, who had felt it necessary to mount a few token prosecutions to offset revelations of the avalanche of atrocities committed by US forces in both wars.
This will be the administration’s approach, not just to individual soldiers who commit war crimes but to policies that require war crimes for their implementation. The incoming president signaled this by announcing the appointment of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as US Ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is a Christian fundamentalist, who has provided religious justification for the crimes committed by the state of Israel, declaring in the past, “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.” He is an all-out supporter of the genocidal policies of the Netanyahu government, which seeks to make “no such thing as a Palestinian” a brutal reality.
The other group of nominees announced this week will be tasked with carrying out Trump’s planned war at home, which involves the rounding up of millions of undocumented immigrants, imprisoning them in concentration camps and deporting them as quickly as possible. The principal perpetrators of this dictatorial policy include:
For “border czar,” a new White House position, Thomas Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the first Trump administration and a longtime advocate and defender of mass deportations
For deputy White House Chief of Staff for Policy, Stephen Miller, who was responsible for immigration policy in the first Trump administration. Miller spearheaded such measures as separation of children and families, mass detention, and the “Remain in Mexico program,” which effectively blocked asylum seekers
For Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. The Republican governor, a one-time hopeful to become Trump’s running mate, is a vehement advocate of violence against migrants crossing the US-Mexico border, once sending dozens of South Dakota National Guard troops to Texas at the request of that state’s governor. She will be in overall charge of repressive agencies, such as the Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Secret Service.
The regime that Trump and Miller are devising and that Homan and Noem will enforce will make the detention camps used against Japanese Americans during World War II look like child’s play. According to Homan, the problem of separating children and their parents, which aroused fierce popular opposition during Trump’s first term, will be solved by deporting entire families, whether or not some of the family members are American citizens.
Trump aides were already reportedly drafting executive orders that he will sign on January 20, 2025, as soon as he is inaugurated, to establish a terror regime directed against migrants. This will include revoking Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Haiti and Central America, many of them longtime residents of the United States with American citizen children.
The incoming administration plans to use military resources in the anti-migrant campaign, meaning that migrants could be detained by military personnel on military bases, and that military flights could become a major factor in transporting migrants to their countries of origin or other countries willing to accept them.
Trump is also seeking to push through his appointments without Senate confirmation. The New York Times reported that “Mr. Trump insisted on social media that Republicans select a new Senate majority leader willing to call recesses during which he could unilaterally appoint personnel, a process that would allow him to sidestep the confirmation process.”
A report Tuesday in the Washington Post, headlined, “Trump is planning a border crackdown. Biden already started one”, traces the continuity between the two administrations:
Trump stands to inherit enforcement tools from the Biden administration that are even more powerful than the policies at his disposal last time. Biden administration officials, for example, have implemented emergency border controls this year that essentially ban asylum for migrants who enter unlawfully. While Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy provided asylum seekers with access to U.S. courts, President Joe Biden’s asylum restrictions afford no such process, allowing US officials to summarily deport migrants and threaten them with criminal prosecution if they return.
Just four years ago, the Republicans responded to the defeat of Trump with ferocious denunciations, followed by an attempted coup. The Democrats, in contrast, are doing everything they can to chloroform the population and prevent at all costs a popular mobilization against the incoming administration. On Tuesday, the day before Trump’s visit to the White House, Biden issued a few anodyne tweets on Veterans Day, while saying nothing about the fascists Trump is planning on putting in charge of the state apparatus.
From the standpoint of the Democratic Party, what Obama referred to as the “intramural scrimmage” within the ruling class is over, and it is the task of the Democrats to ensure, as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it in an interview with the New York Times, the “success” of the new president.
There is no suggestion that the Biden administration should take any action to defend the rights of the more 70 million people who voted against Trump, or for that matter the more than 70 million people who voted for him. Their sole concern is to ensure the continuation of the central policy of the Biden administration itself: the escalation of war against Russia in Ukraine.
Indeed, according to White House aides, the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine will be the sole focus of the meeting between Biden and Trump in the White House. The Democrats want to ensure that the pipeline remains open for billions in US military and economic aid, and continuing to permit the Kiev regime to engage in provocative strikes with US and NATO weaponry on targets deep within Russia, including Moscow, despite the risk of a widening and even nuclear war.
In the final weeks of the failed presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats would make noises about Trump as a threat to democracy, and highlight the threats of mass roundups, the targeting of political opponents, and the policy measures outlined by the Trump-backed 2025 Project, a 900-page manual for social counterrevolution.
Now that Trump is moving rapidly to implement these plans and has appointed two top aides, Stephen Miller and Thomas Doman, who actually contributed to the 2025 Project, the Democrats have dropped such protests and declared themselves committed to a “peaceful transfer of power.” This really means: We will do nothing to oppose the implementation of dictatorship against the American people.
There must and will be mass opposition to the policies Trump is preparing. But this opposition must not be straitjacketed by the Democratic Party, which like the fascist Republican Party, is an instrument of Wall Street and American imperialism. The opposition to Trump must be led by the working class, based on a socialist program, and spearheaded by the building of a new revolutionary leadership, the Socialist Equality Party.
[This article was originally published in wsws.org here Here on October 13, 2024]
The 2024 US presidential election is unfolding under conditions of unprecedented crisis and social breakdown. There is a pervasive sense that the political system is dysfunctional, incapable of responding to the needs of the people and heading toward violent domestic conflict.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally in Memorial Hall at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Monday, November 4, 2024. [AP Photo/Susan Walsh]
With Election Day only 72 hours away, the political climate is rife with rumors of conspiracy. There is widespread expectation that the result of the election will be inconclusive, and—whatever the vote totals—Trump and his fascist co-conspirators will not accept an unfavorable outcome. The level of uncertainty and menace that surrounds the election process reflects the extent of the breakdown of American democracy.
It is evident that the political culture of the United States has hit rock bottom. Trump’s semi-coherent stream of consciousness chauvinist filth is pitched to all that is debased and reactionary in American society. Kamala Harris epitomizes the cynicism and hypocrisy of a party that resorts to the platitudes, clichés and tropes of identity politics as a cover for the interests of the corporate-financial elite and the conspiracies of the intelligence agencies. Her defense of American imperialism, above all, the full support for the genocide in Gaza, exposes her as a representative of a criminal capitalist oligarchy.
The idea of a “lesser evil” in this context is an absurdity. While one candidate promotes fascism, the other is running on a platform that includes support for war and genocide. Under these conditions, the choice is not between greater and lesser evils but between two paths to catastrophe. For all the mudslinging, the divisions between Trump and Harris are insignificant compared to the gulf that separates both parties from the working class.
The profound issues that affect the lives of millions are systematically ignored in this campaign. This is because they all arise from a basic source, unconditionally defended by the entire political establishment: the capitalist profit system. Moreover, none of the central issues confronting workers in the United States can be addressed outside of a global movement of the working class. The 2024 election starkly poses the alternatives: capitalist barbarism or the reconstruction of society on the basis of socialism.
1. The escalation toward nuclear war
The elections are unfolding under conditions of escalating global war. Behind closed doors, there are discussions of massive expansion of war, whoever is in the White House. Prominent members of the oligarchy, like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, are declaring that “World War III has already begun.” The United States is investing an unprecedented $1.7 trillion in upgrading its nuclear arsenal—a bipartisan commitment that will advance regardless of the election’s outcome.
The central priority of the four years of the Biden administration has been war—first, the instigation of the war against Russia in Ukraine, then the genocide in Gaza, both fully backed by Harris. With unlimited US weapons pouring into Israel with the full support of both the Democrats and Republicans, the US is complicit in the slaughter of tens of thousands in Gaza and the West Bank. A major escalation of the war against Iran could take place even in the weeks between the election and Inauguration Day in January. The Pentagon announced Friday that the White House has ordered additional US military forces to the Middle East, including B-52 bombers, fighter jets and Navy destroyers.
The posturing of Trump—who has called for the “obliteration” of Iran and for Israel to “finish the job” in Gaza—as an opponent of war is nothing short of ludicrous.
World war requires the subordination of all of society’s resources to war. The lead article in the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs, a leading publication of US geopolitical strategy, appears under the headline, “The Return of Total War.” The author, Mara Karlin of the Brookings Institution, writes:
In both Ukraine and the Middle East, what has become clear is that the relatively narrow scope that defined war during the post-9/11 era has dramatically widened. An era of limited war has ended; an age of comprehensive conflict has begun. Indeed, what the world is witnessing today is akin to what theorists in the past have called “total war,” in which combatants draw on vast resources, mobilize their societies, prioritize warfare over all other state activities, attack a broad variety of targets, and reshape their economies and those of other countries.
The “prioritization of warfare over all other state activities” means the ruthless subordination of the working class to war. Everything must be sacrificed on the altar of war and the vast resources required to wage it.
2. Economic crisis, social inequality and oligarchy
A principal factor in the ever more ruthless operations of imperialism is the escalating crisis of American capitalism. US debt has exploded to nearly $36 trillion. The price of gold is at record levels, reflecting intense pressures on the dollar.
The ruling class has sought to stave off the economic crisis through a series of massive bailouts of the banks, including in 2008 and in 2020, the first year of the pandemic. This has only reproduced the crisis at a higher level, while contributing to an enormous increase in social inequality.
Wealth concentration in the United States has reached grotesque levels, with a tiny elite controlling more wealth than the bottom half of the population. The wealth of US billionaires is now more than $5.5 trillion, up nearly 90 percent since the beginning of the pandemic. The extreme concentration of wealth is defended by both parties, and the election campaigns of Harris and Trump are fueled with unprecedented sums of money from the rich.
Inflation has eroded real wages, making essential goods—from food to housing—unaffordable for millions. Close to one-third of all households and one-half of renter households spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Total consumer debt stands at nearly $18 trillion, a record high, including $1.75 trillion in student loan debt.
The working class is facing a massive social crisis that includes layoffs, school closures and a healthcare system on the brink of collapse. In education, the recent expiration of emergency funding has led to firings of educators and the shuttering of schools, affecting millions of students.
3. Fascism and the threat of military-police dictatorship
Through the Trump campaign, the Republican Party is developing a political movement that is acquiring a more openly fascist character. Alongside the normalization of genocide and nuclear war, fascism is being normalized in American politics.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Albuquerque International Sunport, Thursday, October 31, 2024, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. [AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson]
Indeed, Election Day on November 5 will mark only one moment in an escalating crisis of the entire political system. Trump is already promoting the narrative of a “stolen election.” He is inciting violence and conspiring to reject, through legal cases and actions by state and local governments, any result that does not lead to his victory. If elected, Trump has threatened to deploy the military against “the enemy within” and organize the deportation of tens of millions of immigrants.
In recent weeks, Harris referred occasionally to Trump as a “fascist,” but this was quickly dropped. The Democrats’ focus, as expressed in Harris’s “closing argument”this week, is on maintaining “unity” with the Republicans to suppress opposition at home and wage war abroad. Their central concern is not the growth of the fascist right but the breakdown of the whole political system and the danger of a movement from below.
Both parties are deeply implicated in the dismantling of democratic rights and the turn to dictatorship. The Biden-Harris administration has itself overseen a wave of arrests and expulsions of students protesting against the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Both parties support the militarization of the state to quash dissent, whether that means cracking down on anti-war protests or mobilizing the police against striking workers.
4. The COVID-19 pandemic and environmental collapse
It is now nearly five years since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the greatest social and health crisis in the modern period. In the last election four years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic was the central issue—the focus of the fascistic agitation of the Republicans and pledges to “follow the science” by the Democrats. In this election, the ongoing pandemic has been entirely ignored, referred to only in the past tense, even as hundreds of people die every day.
The death toll since the last election is staggering: Over 1.2 million Americans have died from COVID-19-related causes, including over 400,000 deaths under Trump (through January 2021) and more than 800,000 under Biden. This figure is part of a global toll of 24 million excess deaths in the past four years. Tens of millions of people in the US, according to official figures, have been impacted by Long COVID.
This colossal level of death and debilitation is the direct consequence of ruling class policy. The Biden-Harris administration fully implemented Trump’s criminal “herd immunity” policy, and in May 2023 allowed the expiration of emergency funding for COVID-19 relief, leaving hospitals and clinics overwhelmed, understaffed and underfunded.
At the same time, climate change is driving unprecedented ecological disasters, including two major hurricanes that have hit the United States over the past two months, producing devastating floods. Scientists warn of an escalating and existential crisis, but neither party will address the issue in a serious way, as any genuine response to climate change would threaten the interests of the corporations that fund both parties. The Democrats have abandoned even their token gestures, while the Republicans openly dismiss climate change as a hoax.
***
The political system in the United States is thoroughly sclerotic and undemocratic. Every aspect of its structure—from ballot access laws aimed at third parties, to the domination of money, to the role of the corporate media—is designed to systematically exclude any genuine expression of the interests of the working class.
Over the past year, there have been powerful demonstrations of mass social anger and opposition. Millions have protested the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza. Workers have launched strike action in critical industries, including the ongoing strike by 33,000 workers at Boeing, a major military contractor and aerospace company, which the trade union apparatus is working desperately to shut down before Election Day.
The central issue is the development within the working class of a socialist political leadership. The crisis must be addressed at its root, and the root of the crisis is the capitalist profit system. And in an era of transnational corporations, global imperialist war and a global pandemic, there is no national solution. The international working class is the most powerful force on the planet, but it must be armed with a political program that articulates its real interests.
The Socialist Equality Party, as part of the International Committee of the Fourth International, is spearheading the fight for the establishment of the political independence of the working class on the basis of a socialist program and policies.
The SEP insists that the only way forward is for the working class to break with the Democratic and Republican parties and build an independent political movement, based on an international, anti-capitalist, and socialist program. Opposition to inequality, war and dictatorship requires the conquest of political power by the working class, in the United States and throughout the world, and the complete reorganization of society.
[The above article was originally published in the WSWS.org here on November 01, 2024]
வடக்கு காஸாவில் எஞ்சியிருக்கும் 400,000 பாலஸ்தீனியர்களை வன்முறையில் இடம்பெயரச் செய்யும் நோக்கில், இஸ்ரேல் அதன் இனச்சுத்திகரிப்பு நடவடிக்கையைத் தொடங்கி இரண்டு வாரங்களுக்குப் பின்னர், இஸ்ரேலிய பாதுகாப்புப் படைகள் (IDF) தினசரி படுகொலைகள் மற்றும் வேண்டுமென்றே பட்டினி போட்டு வதைத்து வருவதற்கு மத்தியில், திங்களன்று ஜபாலியா அகதிகள் முகாமிலிருந்த மக்களை துப்பாக்கி முனையில் வெளியேற்றியது.
இஸ்ரேலிய இராணுவத்தினரால் ஜபாலியா அகதிகள் முகாமில் இருந்து நூற்றுக்கணக்கான பாலஸ்தீனிய பொதுமக்கள் வலுக்கட்டாயமாக இடம்பெயர்க்கப்படுகின்றனர். [Photo: Avichay Adraee on X]
இனப்படுகொலையை வழிநடத்தும், ஆயுதமளிக்கும், நிதியளிக்கும் மற்றும் மேற்பார்வையிடும் அமெரிக்காவின் பிரதிநிதியான வெளியுறவுத்துறை செயலர் ஆண்டனி பிளிங்கன், படுகொலைகளை நேரில் மேற்பார்வையிட இஸ்ரேலுக்கு பயணித்தபோது இந்த காட்சிகள் இடம்பெற்றன.
ஜபாலியா அகதிகள் முகாமின் இடிபாடுகளில் இருந்து வெளியேற்றப்படும் நூற்றுக்கணக்கான மக்களை நோக்கி இஸ்ரேலிய துருப்புக்கள் ஆயுதங்களை நீட்டுகின்ற ட்ரோன் காட்சிகளை, IDF திங்களன்று வெளியிட்டது.
“ஒழுங்கமைக்கப்பட்ட பாதைகள் வழியாக அப்பகுதியில் இருந்து பொதுமக்கள் பாதுகாப்பாக வெளியேற இஸ்ரேலிய இராணுவம் அனுமதிக்கிறது” என்று அதன் செய்தித் தொடர்பாளர் அவிச்சே அட்ரே டுவிட்டர் X இல் ஒரு இடுகையில் இன சுத்திகரிப்பு நடவடிக்கையின் வீடியோவைப் பகிர்ந்து கொண்டு பெருமை பீற்றிக் கொண்டார். உண்மையில், பல்லாயிரக்கணக்கான ஆண்கள் சுற்றி வளைக்கப்பட்டனர், அதே நேரத்தில் பெண்களும் குழந்தைகளும் துப்பாக்கி முனையில் தெற்கு நோக்கி நகர நிர்பந்திக்கப்பட்டனர்.
“நாங்கள் குண்டு வீச்சுக்களாலும், தாகத்தாலும், பசியாலும் மரணத்தை எதிர்கொள்கிறோம்” என்று ஜபாலியா முகாமில் வசிக்கும் ரேட் என்பவர் ராய்ட்டர்ஸிடம் கூறினார். “ஜபாலியா அழிக்கப்படுகிறது, குற்றத்திற்கு சாட்சிகள் இல்லை; உலகம் தன் கண்களைக் குருடாக்கிக் கொண்டிருக்கிறது” என்று அவர் மேலும் தெரிவித்தார்.
திங்களன்று 41 பேர் கொல்லப்பட்டது உட்பட, 17 நாட்களுக்கு முன்னர் தாக்குதல் தொடங்கியதில் இருந்து வடக்கு காஸாவில் இஸ்ரேலிய படைகள் 650 பாலஸ்தீனியர்களை இதுவரை கொன்றுள்ளன. “வடக்கு காஸாவில் இனப்படுகொலை அதன் தெளிவான வடிவத்தில், உலகின் முழு பார்வையில் கட்டவிழ்ந்து வருகிறது” என்று பாலஸ்தீனிய ஆணையம் ஞாயிற்றுக்கிழமை ஒரு அறிக்கையில் தெரிவித்துள்ளது.
ஆக்கிரமிக்கப்பட்ட பாலஸ்தீனப் பிரதேசங்களில் உள்ள ஐ.நா மனித உரிமைகள் அலுவலகம், இஸ்ரேலிய இராணுவத்தின் உத்தரவுகள் “கட்டாய இடப்பெயர்வுக்கு இட்டுச் செல்வதாகவும், காஸாவின் வடக்குப் பகுதியில் உள்ள பாலஸ்தீனிய மக்களை மரணம் மற்றும் இடப்பெயர்ச்சியின் மூலம் அழிக்கக் கூடும்” என்றும் அதன் மிக அப்பட்டமான வார்த்தை பிரகடனங்களில் ஒன்றில் தெரிவித்துள்ளது. “இது குறிப்பாக ஜபாலியா, பெய்ட் லஹியா மற்றும் பீட் ஹனூன் போன்ற இடங்களை சுற்றியே உள்ளது” என்று அந்த அறிக்கையில் மேலும் தெரிவிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது.
“அக்டோபர் 6 க்குப் பின்னர் இருந்து இரண்டு வாரங்களாக, இஸ்ரேலிய இராணுவம் வடக்கு காஸாவில் பாலஸ்தீனியர்கள் வாழ்வதை சாத்தியமற்றதாக்கும் நடவடிக்கைகளை எடுத்துள்ளது, அதேவேளையில் அப்பகுதியிலுள்ள ஒட்டுமொத்த மக்களையும் இடம்பெயரச் செய்ய மீண்டும் மீண்டும் உத்தரவிட்டுள்ளது.” மேலும், “இஸ்ரேலிய அதிகாரிகள் வடக்கு காஸாவிற்குள் அனைத்து அத்தியாவசிய பொருட்களும் நுழைவதை தடுத்துள்ளனர்” என்பதையும் அந்த அறிக்கை குறிப்பிடுகின்றது.
அது மேலும் “இஸ்ரேலிய இராணுவம் அனைத்து அப்பாவி மக்களும் வடக்கு காஸாவிலிருந்து வெளியேற வேண்டும் என்று கோரியுள்ள அதேவேளையில், அப்பகுதியில், குறிப்பாக ஜபாலியா முகாமிலும் அதைச் சுற்றியுள்ள பகுதிகளிலும் இடைவிடாது குண்டுவீச்சு மற்றும் தாக்குதலை இராணுவம் தொடர்ந்து நடத்தி வருகிறது” என்று குறிப்பிட்டது.
“பாலஸ்தீனிய ஆண்கள் இஸ்ரேலிய இராணுவத்தினரால் காவலில் தடுத்து வைக்கப்பட்டுள்ளனர். அவர்கள் தன்னிச்சையான தடுப்புக்காவல் மற்றும் சித்திரவதைக்கு உட்படுத்தப்படலாம் என்ற அச்சத்தை எழுப்புகிறது” என்று ஐ.நா. அறிக்கை குறிப்பிட்டுள்ளது.
UNRWA இன் ஆணையர் ஜெனரல் பிலிப் லஜாரினி, “முற்றுகையின் கீழ் உள்ள மக்களுக்கு மருந்து மற்றும் உணவு உள்ளிட்ட முக்கியமான பொருட்களுடன் மனிதாபிமான பணிகள் வடக்கை அடைய இஸ்ரேலிய அதிகாரிகள் தொடர்ந்து மறுத்து வருகின்றனர்” என்று கூறினார். “எஞ்சியுள்ள தங்குமிடங்கள் மிகவும் நெரிசலாக உள்ளன, சில இடம்பெயர்ந்த மக்கள் இப்போது கழிப்பறைகளில் வாழ வேண்டிய கட்டாயத்தில் உள்ளனர்” என்று அவர் மேலும் கூறினார்.
இஸ்ரேல் “இராணுவ நோக்கங்களை அடைவதற்காக மனிதாபிமான உதவிகளை மறுத்து ஆயுதமாக்குகிறது” என்று லாஸ்ஸாரினி குற்றம் சாட்டினார். “தப்பி ஓட முயற்சிக்கும் மக்கள் கொல்லப்படுகிறார்கள், அவர்களின் உடல்கள் தெருக்களில் விடப்படுகின்றன,” என்பதையும் அவர் சேர்த்துக் கொண்டார்.
கமால் அட்வான் மருத்துவமனையின் இயக்குனர் ஹுசாம் அபு சபியா இஸ்ரேலிய இராணுவம் மருத்துவமனையை முற்றிலுமாக முற்றுகையிட்டுள்ளதாகவும், அதன் ஊழியர்களை வெளியேறுமாறு உத்தரவிட்டுள்ளதாகவும் கூறினார். “மருத்துவமனையின் இரத்த அலகுகள் முற்றிலுமாக தீர்ந்துவிட்டன,” என்று அவர் திங்களன்று ஒரு அறிக்கையில் தெரிவித்தார். “நோயாளிகளுக்கு முன்னுரிமை சிகிச்சை முறையை நாங்கள் செயல்படுத்தி வருகிறோம். இதுதான் யதார்த்தம்” என்று அவர் குறிப்பிட்டார்.
வடக்கு காஸாவில் இந்தோனேசிய மருத்துவமனைக்கு அருகில் ஒரு செவிலியர் ராய்ட்டர்ஸிடம், “இராணுவம் மருத்துவமனைக்கு அடுத்துள்ள பள்ளிகளை எரிக்கிறது, யாரும் மருத்துவமனைக்குள் நுழையவோ அல்லது வெளியேறவோ முடியாது” என்று கூறினார்.
உத்தியோகபூர்வ இறப்பு எண்ணிக்கையின்படி, இஸ்ரேலிய துருப்புக்களாலும், குண்டு வீச்சுக்களினாலும் குறைந்தபட்சம் 42,500 பாலஸ்தீனியர்கள் கொல்லப்பட்டுள்ளனர். மேலும் 10,000 பேர் இதில் கணக்கிடப்படவில்லை. இஸ்ரேல் வேண்டுமென்றே பட்டினியை ஏற்படுத்தி, தொற்று நோய்களை பரவ விட்டதன் விளைவுகளைக் கணக்கிட்டால், நிஜமான இறப்பு எண்ணிக்கை 186,000 தாண்டக்கூடும் என்று தி லான்செட் ஜூலையில் அறிவித்தது—இதன் அர்த்தம் நிஜமான இறப்பு எண்ணிக்கை இப்போது நூறாயிரக் கணக்கில் இருக்கக்கூடும் என்பதாகும்.
இனப்படுகொலையில் அமெரிக்கா தனது நேரடித் தலையீட்டை ஆழப்படுத்தி வருவதால் வடக்கு காஸாவில் மொத்தப் பட்டினி மற்றும் முழுமையான இனச் சுத்திகரிப்பு (”தளபதிகளின் திட்டம்” என்று குறிப்பிடப்படுகிறது, இஸ்ரேலின் தேசிய பாதுகாப்பு கவுன்சிலின் முன்னாள் தலைவரான ஜியோரா எய்லாண்டால் உருவாக்கப்பட்டது) நடைமுறைப்படுத்தப்பட்டுள்ளது.
கடந்த அக்டோபரில் காஸாவில் பாலஸ்தீன மக்களுக்கு எதிராக இஸ்ரேல் அதன் நிர்மூலமாக்கும் போரைத் தொடங்கியதிலிருந்து அமெரிக்க வெளியுறவுத் துறை அமைச்சர் ஆண்டனி பிளிங்கன் திங்கள்கிழமை இஸ்ரேலுக்கு வருவது அவரது பதினொன்றாவது பயணத்தைக் குறிக்கிறது. அவரது வருகையானது, இஸ்ரேலில் 100 அமெரிக்க போர் துருப்புக்களின் இறுதி நிலைநிறுத்தம் மற்றும் ஒரு மேம்பட்ட ஏவுகணை பாதுகாப்பு பேட்டரியை இயக்குவதற்கு இடையில் இடம்பெற்றது. “அந்த ஏவுகணை அமைப்பு நடைமுறையில் உள்ளது,” என்று அமெரிக்க பாதுகாப்பு செயலாளர் லாயிட் ஆஸ்டின் திங்களன்று செய்தியாளர்களிடம் கூறினார்.
இஸ்ரேலிய தரைப்படைகள் வடக்கு காஸாவில் தங்கள் இனச்சுத்திகரிப்பு நடவடிக்கையை தொடருகையில், இஸ்ரேலிய ஜெட் விமானங்கள் லெபனான் முழுவதும் மாடிக் கட்டிடங்கள் மற்றும் பிற சிவிலிய உள்கட்டுமானங்களை தரைமட்டமாக்கின. பெய்ரூட் முழுவதும் திங்களன்று 13 இஸ்ரேலிய தாக்குதல்களுக்குப் பிறகு, திங்களன்று 24 பேர் காயமடைந்ததாகவும், நான்கு பேர் கொல்லப்பட்டதாகவும் லெபனானின் சுகாதார அமைச்சகம் தெரிவித்துள்ளது.
சாஹெல் மருத்துவமனையின் கீழ் ஹிஸ்புல்லாவின் ஒரு பதுங்கு குழி இருப்பதாக இஸ்ரேல் கூறியதை அடுத்து, பீதிக்கு மத்தியில் அந்த மருத்துவமனையில் இருந்தவர்கள் வெளியேற்றப்பட்டனர். காஸாவில் உள்ள ஷிஃபா மருத்துவமனை அழிக்கப்படுவதற்கு முன்னர், பொதுமக்களுக்கு பாரிய மரணதண்டனைகள் பற்றிய அறிக்கைகளுக்கு மத்தியில் இஸ்ரேல் கூறிய கூற்றுக்களை இது மீண்டும் வலியுறுத்துகிறது.
[This translation was originally published here at wsws.org/ta]
The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, has given a downbeat assessment of the global economy in her curtain raiser speech for its meetings, held together with the World Bank, this week.
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva at the Annual Meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2024 [AP Photo/ Markus Schreiber]
She began by saying that “we should cherish the good news”—that inflation levels were coming down, at least on official figures—because “we haven’t had much of it lately.”
Even this was tempered by the observation that while inflation rates may be falling, the higher prices people feel in their wallets are here to stay and “families are angry, people are hurting.”
In what has become a central preoccupation of the IMF in the recent period, flowing from the rise in global interest rates since 2022, Georgieva directed attention to the rising levels of government debt and the need for action to bring them down.
As always, this was couched in terms of needing to maintain a gradual approach to promote fiscal consolidation and seeking to maintain social safety nets, but words cannot disguise their essential content which is to undertake major attacks on the working class and some of the poorest people in the world.
Georgieva said IMF forecasts pointed to “an unforgiving combination of low growth and high debt—a difficult future.”
The rising levels of borrowing meant that a growing share of government revenue was being used to cover interest payments under conditions of lower growth. The IMF’s Fiscal Monitor Report, a summary of which was released last week, said global government debt was expected to reach $100 trillion by the end of this year. Some $36 trillion of this debt is in the US where one in seven dollars of spending is used just to pay interest bills.
The problem extends across the world as “fiscal space keeps shrinking,” Georgieva said. “Just look at the frightening evolution of interest-to-revenue over time. We can immediately see how the tough spending choices have become tougher with higher debt payments.”
And, she continued, “we live in deeply troubled times” in which military spending may well keep rising “while aid budgets fall further behind the growing needs of developing countries.”
In its report for the meeting, the World Bank warned that global poverty reduction had “slowed to a near standstill” amid economies damaged by the pandemic and war. It noted that poverty levels in low-income countries were “higher than before the pandemic.”
On top of the slowing down of aid, Georgieva noted that major economies, driven by “national security concerns” were “increasingly resorting to industrial policy and protectionism, creating one trade restriction after another.” Trade was not going to be the engine of growth it was before, and the situation was worsening.
In 2019, the number of what the IMF called “harmful new interventions” on trade was below 1000. It has calculated this will rise to more than 3000 in 2024.
Georgieva insisted that budgets had to be consolidated involving “difficult choices” over how to raise revenues and make spending “more efficient”—always a euphemism for cuts—while making sure “policy actions are well explained to earn the trust of the people.”
Under conditions where their living standards have been hard hit by inflation and cuts in governments services and subsidies that have already taken place, that is not going to happen. This is why there is discussion in ruling circles around the world, including in the US and other major economies, about the need for the use of state forces to impose the financial dictates.
So far as “solutions” are concerned, within the framework of the global capitalist economy, the IMF chief pointed to the advances in technology, saying there was much countries could do as members of an integrated economic community. The forces of trade and technology had delivered a “hugely valuable degree of interconnectedness.”
Then, without recognising it, she ran straight into the central contradiction of the present epoch, intensified to an enormous degree over the past four decades by the globalisation of production, between the integrated world economy and the nation-state system of capitalism.
While integration had taken place, she said: “Yet still, we live in a mistrustful world where national security has risen to the top of the list of concerns for many countries. This has happened before—but never in a time of such high economic co-dependence.” [emphasis in original]
The key issue here is not that this “mistrustful world”—more accurately characterised as a world at war and advancing to World War 3—has arisen despite economic co-dependence. Rather, it is a consequence of that very integration under capitalism.
It is the result of the intensification of the contradiction between this historically progressive process with the outmoded nation-state system, which each of the imperialist powers, with the US in the lead, seeks to resolve by means of war.
It cannot be resolved under capitalism unless world war is considered be a “solution,” but only by the advance to a new and higher form of society, international socialism.
Of course, such a perspective, the only rational solution, cannot be advanced by the head of the IMF, one of the chief defenders of the capitalist order and so Georgieva advanced a totally unattainable perspective.
She said the reality of “fragmentation” should not become “an excuse to do nothing to prevent a further fracturing of the global economy” and that her appeal at the meeting would be “to work together, in an enlightened way to lift our collective prospects.”
A similar, equally bankrupt, perspective marked an editorial by the Financial Times(FT) on the IMF-World Bank meeting. Noting the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the two bodies at the Bretton Woods conference of 1944 towards the end of World War 2, it said they had “filled a void where coordination was lacking.”
As the IMF and the World Bank gathered for the annual meeting, they confronted a new set of challenges that risked undoing what has been accomplished.
The conditions of intensifying trade war, a worsening situation in developing countries, problems of climate change, shocks from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and mounting debt problems, the FT said, underscored why global cooperation is such a “precious commodity” and that international problems “require international solutions.”
The world facing the IMF and the World Bank looked very different from today, it concluded, but the “spirit in which they were forged at Bretton Woods remains as important as ever.”
The deepening crisis of global capitalism is not “spiritual.” It is material, rooted in objective structural contradictions deriving from the private ownership of the means of production and the outmoded and reactionary nation-state system. They can only be resolved by the advance to a new and higher form of global society, that is, international socialism.
[This article was originally published here in WSWS on October 20, 2024]
One year after the start of the Gaza genocide, Israel, with the support of US imperialism, is only intensifying its extermination and ethnic cleansing of the civilian population of Gaza.
A Palestinian man holds the body of a relative killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip at a hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024 [AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana]
Between October 5 and 7, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from areas in northern Gaza as Israel continued its offensive near the Jabalia refugee camp.
Despite reports on social media that “Jabalia is being wiped out,” no death toll has been published, amid a near-total collapse of Gaza’s medical infrastructure.
“Attacks in northern Gaza, combined with mass evacuation orders, which are inconsistent with international humanitarian law, raise serious concerns about the forced displacement and forced transfer of Palestinian residents of Gaza,” the UN Human Rights office warned Monday.
On Tuesday, Israeli forces demanded the evacuation of the Kamal Adwan, Indonesian and al-Awda hospitals in northern Gaza within 24 hours.
“It is evident that there is a new plan to displace our people in northern Gaza by dismantling the healthcare system across all its sectors in this region,” said Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, in a statement. “We have informed everyone that the northern region is densely populated with a significant number of residents. We have the right to continue providing services to these people. We will remain steadfast, we will stay, and we will continue to offer medical services no matter the cost.”
He added in an interview with CNN, “What is happening is arbitrary and clear displacement of the residents from northern Gaza.” He continued, “Kamal Adwan Hospital is still the only hospital operating in the north, so putting the hospital out of service would be a big disaster for the people who need (it). There are still many patients in the hospital and there are many babies and children in the neonatal unit, so it is difficult to evacuate.”
The United Nations reported in its daily update that in northern Gaza, “more than 400,000 people are under pressure to move southward to Al Mawasi, which is already overcrowded and lacks basic services. Humanitarian access also risks becoming further constrained, particularly between southern and northern Gaza, and so are the accessibility and functionality of key humanitarian facilities within areas slated for evacuation.”
These ethnic cleansing operations are accompanied by constant bombing, artillery bombardment and shootings by Israeli troops.
The deliberate starvation of the population of Gaza is only intensifying. A report by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) found that the amount of food supplies entering Gaza in September was the lowest since March of 2023 and there was a major decline in the availability of food for children aged 6-23 months and pregnant and breastfeeding women across Gaza.
According to the report, “only five percent of pregnant and breastfeeding women had consumed dairy products, and six percent of children had eaten some meat, with these percentages plummeting to one and three percent in northern Gaza, respectively.”
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Chris Gunness, a former spokesman for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, accused Israel of carrying out a “slaughter” of the people of Gaza.
“In the last year, we have seen Gaza transform from the world’s largest open-air prison to the world’s largest concentration camp,” Gunness told Al Jazeera.
“Today, Gaza has been transformed into an industrial-scale slaughterhouse. And I use the word ‘slaughter’ advisedly because frankly animals in most abattoirs around the world are killed more humanely than the women and children of Gaza.”
In remarks on the first anniversary of the start of the Gaza genocide, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “The nightmare in Gaza is now entering an atrocious, abominable second year.”
He added, “More than 41,000 [Palestinians] have been reportedly killed, mostly women and children. Thousands more are missing and believed to be trapped under the rubble. Virtually the entire population has been displaced—and no part of Gaza has been spared.”
He continued, “We are witnessing a clear intensification of military operations by Israel. Residential areas have been attacked. Hospitals ordered to evacuate. And electricity cut off—with no fuel or commercial goods allowed in. Around 400,000 people are being pressed yet again to move south to an area that is overcrowded, polluted, and lacking the basics for survival.”
He concluded, “No place is safe in Gaza, and no one is safe.”
Israel’s assault on Gaza is being accompanied by an Israeli military offensive throughout the Middle East, with a direct attack on Iran under discussion with the Biden administration in the US amid active operations in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
In a speech Tuesday addressing the people of Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened the country with destruction “like Gaza.”
“You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza,” Netanyahu threatened, demanding that all resistance to Israel surrender.
Israeli strikes killed 36 people across Lebanon on Tuesday and wounded 150. Since mid-September, 1,473 people in Lebanon have been killed by Israeli strikes.
On Tuesday, Israel also carried out a strike in Damascus, Syria, killing seven civilians and wounding 11 more, according to Syrian state television.
[This article was originally published in WSWS here on 09 October 2024]
