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February 2011

A substantial portion of the more than 1,600 State Department documents WikiLeaks has published recently refer to the ongoing efforts of U.S. diplomacy to isolate and counter the Venezuelan government.

Since Hugo Chavez won the presidency for the first time in 1998, Washington has engaged in numerous efforts to overthrow him, including a failed coup d’etat in April 2002, an oil industry strike that same year, worldwide media campaigns, and various electoral interventions. The State Department has also used its funding agencies, USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), to channel millions of dollars annually to anti-Chavez NGOs, political parties, journalists, and media organizations in Venezuela, who have been working to undermine the Chavez administration and force him from power. When these interventionist policies have been denounced by the Chavez government and others, Washington has repeatedly denied any efforts to isolate or act against the Venezuelan head of state.

By contrast, the State Department cables published by WikiLeaks provide clear evidence that not only has Washington been actively funding anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela, it has also engaged in serious efforts to convince governments worldwide to assume an adversarial position against President Hugo Chavez.

A “Formidable Foe”

In a secret document by current Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Craig Kelly and sent by the U.S. embassy in Santiago in June 2007 to the Secretary of State, CIA, and Southern Command of the Pentagon, along with a series of other U.S. embassies in the region, Kelly proposed “six main areas of action for the U.S. government (USG) to limit Chavez’s influence” and “reassert U.S. leadership in the region.”

Kelly, who played a primary role as “mediator” during the 2009 coup d’etat in Honduras against President Manuel Zelaya, classifies Chavez as an “enemy” in his report. “Know the enemy: We have to better understand how Chavez thinks and what he intends…. To effectively counter the threat he represents, we need to know better his objectives and how he intends to pursue them. This requires better intelligence in all of our countries.” Further on in the memo, Kelly confesses that Chavez is a “formidable foe,” but “he certainly can be taken.”

In 2006, Washington activated a Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Mission Manager for Venezuela and Cuba. The mission, headed by clandestine CIA veteran Timothy Langford, is one of only four such intelligence entities of its type. The others were created to handle intelligence matters relating to Iran, North Korea, and Afghanistan/Pakistan, evidence of the clear priority that Washington has placed on Venezuela as a target of increased espionage and covert operations.

Another suggestion made by Kelly in the secret cable is a recommendation to increase U.S. presence in the region and improve relations with Latin American military forces: “We should continue to strengthen ties to those military leaders in the region who share our concern over Chavez.”

Kelly proposed a “psychological operations” program against the Venezuelan government to exploit its vulnerabilities. “We also need to make sure that the truth about Chavez—his hollow vision, his empty promises, his dangerous international relationships, starting with Iran—gets out, always exercising careful judgment about where and how we take on Chavez directly/publicly.”

Kelly recommended U.S. officials make more visits to the region to “show the flag and explain directly to populations our view of democracy and progress.” Kelly also offered details on how Washington could better exploit the differences among South American governments to isolate Venezuela: “Brazil…can be a powerful counterpoint to Chavez’s project…. Chile offers another excellent alternative to Chavez…. We should look to find other ways to give Chile the lead on important initiatives, but without making them look like they are our puppets or surrogates. Argentina is more complex, but still presents distinct characteristics that should inform our approach to countering Chavez’s influence there.”

Kelly also revealed the pressure Washington has been applying to Mercosur (Market of the South) not to accept Venezuela as a full member in the regional trade bloc. “With regard to Mercosur, we should not be timid in stating that Venezuela’s membership will torpedo U.S. interest in even considering direct negotiations with the trading bloc.”

The cables published by WikiLeaks not only reveal U.S. hostility towards Venezuela, but also the requests made by a few regional leaders and politicians to work against President Chavez. One secret document from October 2009, referring to a meeting between Mexican President Felipe Calderon and U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, tells how Calderon confessed he was “trying to isolate Venezuela through the Rio Group.”

Several secret documents authored by the U.S. embassy in Colombia reveal efforts by the ex-president Alvaro Uribe to convince Washington to take action against Venezuela. In a December 2007 cable, the U.S. ambassador in Colombia recounts a meeting between Uribe and a delegation of U.S. congressmembers, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. According to the text, Uribe “likened the threat Chavez poses to Latin America to that posed by Hitler in Europe.” In yet another report summarizing a January 2008 meeting between Uribe and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, Uribe is quoted as recommending military action against Venezuela. “The best counter to Chavez, in Uribe’s view, remains action—including use of the military.” Later in that same cable, Uribe urged Washington to “lead a public campaign against Venezuela…to counter Chavez.”

In addition to regional politicians and U.S. diplomats urging plans against President Chavez, one cable reveals how, during a meeting between a Venezuelan Archbishop and the U.S. ambassador, the religious leader asked Washington to act against his own government. At that meeting in January 2005, according to the document, Archbishop Baltazar Porras told Ambassador William Brownfield that the “U.S. government should be more clear and public in its criticism of the Chavez administration” and that the “international community also needs to work and speak out more to contain Chavez.”

The plans and strategies revealed through these documents confirm what other evidence has already corroborated, i.e., that the U.S. continues to fund opposition groups that undermine Venezuelan democracy while escalating its hostile discourse and policies against the Chavez government.

Eva Golinger, winner of the International Award for Journalism in Mexico (2009), is a Venezuelan-American attorney and author of The Chavez Code (2005) and Bush vs. Chavez: Washington’s War on Venezuela (2006).

February 2011

Mark Weisbrot’s ZSpace Page

One area of U.S. foreign policy that the WikiLeaks cables help illuminate, which the major media has predictably ignored, is the occupation of Haiti. In 2004, the country’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was overthrown for the second time, through an effort led by the United States government. Officials in Haiti’s constitutional government were jailed and thousands of its supporters were killed.

The Haitian coup, besides being a repeat of Aristide’s overthrow in 1991, was also very similar to the attempted coup in Venezuela in 2002, which had Washington’s fingerprints all over it. Some of the same people in Washington were even involved in both efforts. But the Venezuelan coup failed, partly because Latin American governments immediately and forcefully declared that they would not recognize the coup government.

In the case of Haiti, Washington learned from its mistakes in the Venezuelan coup and gathered support for an illegitimate government in advance. A UN resolution was passed just days after the coup and UN forces, headed by Brazil, were sent to the country. The mission, still headed by Brazil, has troops from a number of other Latin American governments that are left of center, including Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay. They are also joined by Chile, Peru, and Guatemala.

Would these governments have sent troops to occupy Venezuela if that coup had succeeded? Clearly, they would not have considered such a move, yet the occupation of Haiti is no more justifiable. South America’s progressive governments have challenged U.S. foreign policy in the region and the world, with some of them regularly using words like imperialism and empire as synonyms for Washington. They have built new institutions such as UNASUR to prevent these kinds of abuses from the North. Bolivia even expelled the U.S. ambassador in September of 2008 for interfering in its own internal affairs.

The participation of these governments in the occupation of Haiti is a serious political contradiction for them and it is getting worse.

The WikiLeaks cables illustrate how important the control of Haiti is to the United States. A long memo from the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince to the U.S. Secretary of State answers detailed questions about current Haitian President Rene Preval’s political, personal, and family life, including such vital national security questions as “How many drinks can Preval consume before he shows signs of inebriation?” It also expresses one of Washington’s main concerns: “His reflexive nationalism and his disinterest in managing bilateral relations in a broad diplomatic sense, will lead to periodic frictions as we move forward our bilateral agenda. Case in point, we believe that in terms of foreign policy, Preval is most interested in gaining increased assistance from any available resource. He is likely to be tempted to frame his relationship with Venezuela and Chavez-allies in the hemisphere in a way that he hopes will create a competitive atmosphere as far as who can provide the most to Haiti.”

This is why they got rid of Aristide, who was much to the left of Preval and why we won’t let him back in the country. This is why Washington funded the recent “elections” that excluded Haiti’s largest political party, the equivalent of shutting out the Democrats and Republicans in the United States. And this is why MINUSTAH (the UN-backed military mission) is still occupying the country, more than six years after the coup, without any apparent mission other than replacing the hated Haitian army, which Aristide abolished as a repressive force.

People who do not understand U.S. foreign policy think that control over Haiti does not matter to Washington because it is poor and has no strategic minerals or resources. But that is not how Washington operates, as the WikiLeaks cables illustrate.

For the State Department and its allies, it is all a ruthless chess game, and the pawns matter. Left governments will be removed or prevented from taking power where it is possible to do so. The poorest countries—like Honduras—present the most opportune targets. A democratically-elected government in Haiti, due to its history, would inevitably be a left government and one that will not line up with Washington’s foreign policy priorities for the region. Hence, democracy is not allowed.

Thousands of Haitians have been protesting the sham December 2010 elections, as well as MINUSTAH’s role in causing the cholera epidemic, which has taken more than 2,300 lives. Judging from the rapid spread of the disease, there may have been gross criminal negligence, i.e., large-scale dumping of fecal waste into the Artibonite River. This mission costs over $500 million a year, when the UN can’t even raise a third of that to fight the epidemic that the mission caused or to provide clean water for Haitians. Now the UN is asking for an increase to over $850 million for MINUSTAH.

It is time that the progressive governments of Latin America quit this occupation. It goes against their principles and the will of the Haitian people.

Mark Weisbrot is co-director and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis, writes a weekly column for the Guardian (UK), and has written numerous articles on economic and foreign policy.

From:   Z Net – The Spirit Of Resistance Lives

23 February, 2011

Al Jazeera

Israel’s media presents Egyptian democracy as a threat, with one commentator lamenting the end of colonialism

Over the past three weeks the Israeli media has been extremely interested in Egypt.

During the climatic days of the unprecedented demonstrations, television news programmes spent most of their airtime covering the protests, while the daily papers dedicated half the news and opinion pages to the unfolding events.

Rather than excitement at watching history in the making, however, the dominant attitude here, particularly on television, was of anxiety– a sense that the developments in Egypt were inimical to Israel’s interests. Egypt’s revolution, in other words, was bad news.

It took a while for Israel’s experts on “Arab Affairs” to get a grip on what was happening. During the early days of unrest, the recurrent refrain was that “Egypt is not Tunis”.

Commentators assured the public that the security apparatuses in Egypt are loyal to the regime and that consequently there was little if any chance that President Hosni Mubarak’s government would fall.

Media switch

Once it became clear that this line of analysis was erroneous, most commentators followed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s lead and criticised President Barack Obama’s Administration for not supporting Mubarak. The Foreign News editor of one channel noted that: “The fact that the White House is permitting the protests is reason for worry;” while the prominent political analyst Ben Kaspit expressed his longing for President George W. Bush.

“We remember 2003 when George Bush invaded and took over Iraq with a sense of yearning”, Ben Kaspit wrote. “Libya immediately changed course and allied itself with the West. Iran suspended its military nuclear program. Arafat was harnessed. Syria shook with fear. Not that the invasion of Iraq was a wise move (not at all, Iran is the real problem, not Iraq), but in the Middle East whoever does not walk around with a big bat in his hand receives the bat on his head.”

Israeli commentators are equivocal on the issue of Egyptian democracy. One columnist explained that it takes years for democratic institutions to be established and for people to internalise the practices appropriate for democracy, while Amir Hazroni from NRG went so far as to write an ode to colonialism:

“When we try to think how and why the United States and the West lost Egypt, Tunis, Yemen and perhaps other countries in the Middle East, people forget that. The original sin began right after WWII, when a wonderful form of government that protected security and peace in the Middle East (and in other parts of the Third Word) departed from this world following pressure from the United States and Soviet Union… More than sixty years have passed since the Arab states and the countries of Africa were liberated from the ‘colonial yoke,’ but there still isn’t an Arab university, an African scientist or a Middle Eastern consumer product that has made a mark on our world.”

Fear and the brotherhood

While only a few commentators are as reactionary as Hazroni, an Orientalist perspective permeated most of the discussion about Egypt, thus helping to bolster the already existing Jewish citizenry’s fear of Islam. Political Islam is constantly presented and conceived as an ominous force that is antithetical to democracy.

Thus, in the eyes of Israeli analysts, the protestors- that Facebook and Twitter generation- are deserving of empathy but also extremely naïve. There is a shared sense that their fate will end up being identical to that of the Iranian intellectuals who led the protests against the Shah.

Channel Two’s expert on “Arab Affairs” explained that: “The fact that you do not see the Muslim Brotherhood does not mean they are not there,” and another expert warned his viewers not to “be misled by ElBaradei’s Viennese spirit, behind him is the Muslim Brotherhood.”

According to these pundits, the Muslim Brotherhood made a tactical decision not to distribute Islamists banners or to take an active part in leading the protests. One commentator declared that if the Muslim Brotherhood wins, then “elections are the end of the [democratic] process, not its beginning,” while an anchorman for Channel Ten asked former Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer whether “the person who says to himself: ‘How wonderful, at last the state of Egypt is a democracy,’ is naïve?”

The Minister responded: “Allow me even to laugh. We wanted a democracy in Iran and in Gaza. The person who talks like this is ignoring the fact that for over a decade there has been a struggle of giants between the Sunni and Shia with tons of blood spilled. The person who talks about democracy does not live in the reality we live in.”

Democratic threat

Ben-Eliezer’s response is telling, not least because it is well known that Israel supported the Shah regime in Iran and has not proven itself to be a particularly staunch supporter of Palestinian democracy. Democracy in the Middle East is, after all, conceived by this and prior Israeli governments as a threat to Israel’s interests.

Dan Margalit, a well-known commentator, made this point clear when he explained that Israel does not disapprove of a democracy in the largest Arab country but simply privileges Israel’s peace agreement with Egypt over internal Arab affairs.

Israel, one should note, is not alone in this self-serving approach; most western countries constantly lament the absence of democracy in the Arab world, while supporting the dictators and helping them remain in office. In English this kind of approach has a very clear name – it is called hypocrisy.

Neve Gordon is the author of Israel’s Occupation and can be reached through his website.

Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2011

A man is arrested by police in front of the Peace Cinema, where internet social networks were calling to join a “Jasmine Revolution” protest, in downtown Shanghai on February 20, 2011.

It has been fascinating to watch as Beijing traverses the tricky ground of revolution in the Middle East. Even as the United States is clearly struggling to find its voice on the dramatic changes underway, China’s leadership has found itself caught between the potential advantages that might accrue to the country and the challenges that it may well face.

In the early days of the protests, some Chinese commentators suggested that the U.S. loss would be China’s gain. As Mei Xinyu noted in the Global Times, “There is obvious complementarity between these countries and China. China not only has growing demand for external market and resources but also exports high-quality engineering services. After the pains of political instability, we can realistically expect these countries to seek more extensive cooperation with China in order to reduce their dependence on the West.”

Of course others weighed in with a different voice. A Caixin editorial noted, “Autocracy creates instability; democratic deliberations lead to peace. Support for the replacement of an authoritarian regime would only serve short-term interests. Only the establishment of democratic institutions in the Middle East will form a fundamental basis for long-term stability.”

But the early days are over. Now Beijing faces a different kind of challenge. Muammar al-Qaddafi has resurrected the ghost of June 1989, talking about fighting to the “last drop” of his blood and using the military to crush protestors like the Chinese government did in Tiananmen Square. It’s never pleasant to have others reference your bloody history, particularly when you have yet to come to terms with it.

At the same time, some pro-democracy activists in China have started calling for a series of peaceful protests to be held every Sunday across a number of Chinese cities—a jasmine revolution. The first Sunday of protests fizzled out, but the reaction from the Chinese government was instructive—thousands of armed police massed at the identified protest locations, university students were urged to stay on campus, and known political dissidents were detained.

Thus far, Beijing has surprised no one by its moves to block public mention of Qaddafi’s statements. However, it has surprised many with its agreement to sign on to a UN Security Council statement that discusses the necessity of Libya respecting “freedom of peaceful assembly and of expression, including freedom of the press.” The irony is striking, of course, but no more striking than the writing of Mr. Mei, who notes: “Under pressure from domestic audiences disgusted at the tales of corruption and repression emerging from the aftermath of the regime, the Western powers were forced to abandon their complacent pro-dictatorship stance.” Did he intend the irony?

24 February, 2011

Falls Church News-Press

It has taken two months for the contagion that began with the immolation of a fruit seller in Tunisia to reach the first significant oil producing nation.

As oil production in Libya grinds to a halt and Muammar Gadhafi clings to power amidst increasing turmoil, it is beginning to look as if it may be sometime before Tripoli resumes its normal oil exports. While the 1.6 million barrels a day (b/d) that the Libyans pumped in January may not appear significant in a world that produces some 88 million barrels each day, we should remember that those barrels are being consumed somewhere in a world where they are consumed just as fast as they are produced. If there is anything that we have learned in the last 40 years, it is that relatively small disruptions in oil production can lead to relatively large increases in oil prices.

OPEC, the International Energy Agency, and the Saudi oil minister are already rushing to reassure us that we have nothing to fear. The OECD has reserve stockpiles totaling 1.6 billion barrels of oil and OPEC is forever reminding us about the six million b/d of spare oil production capacity that they claim can be turned on as soon as it becomes necessary. This of course would be nice if the upheaval in Libya was going to be the only problem, but it isn’t. There are at least half a dozen major Middle East oil exporters with large numbers of digitally-connected underemployed youths and are run by heredity or less-than-democratic corrupt governments. In recent days we have seen flavors of the “Tunisian contagion” erupt in Algeria, Kuwait, Iran, and Iraq which are indeed very significant oil exporters. The upheaval in Bahrain, not a major exporter, has even had a, so far minor, reflection in the Shiite portions of Saudi Arabia with its 8 and maybe 10 or 12 million b/d of oil production. This week the King of Saudi Arabia announced $35 billion worth of government aid to the poorest of his subjects suggesting that someone in Riyadh is getting nervous.

The conditions that created the current upheavals can only worsen. Rising oil prices are bound to stifle tourism and foreign investment in the Middle East and a looming global food shortage seems likely to make life even tougher for the growing ranks of un- or underemployed poor. Governments that have massive oil revenues can afford to buy, or try to buy, the acquiescence of their peoples, but adequate food supplies could turn out to be a different matter. As we saw with Russia last summer, massive crop failures can easily shut down food exports as governments become more concerned about domestic food riots than the wellbeing of other countries. The bottom line is that it seems likely we shall be seeing disruptions, perhaps serious ones, in other oil producing states in the not too distant future.

Those closely watching the balance between worldwide oil supply and demand are well aware that getting the global economy through the next 18 months without a major oil price spike depends largely on two factors. First is a significant drop in the rate of increase in China’s demand for oil which has been growing unusually quickly in the last six months. Second is the existence of OPEC’s spare production capacity which will have to come into play to prevent shortages from developing. While the IEA currently puts this spare capacity at 4.7 million b/d, and the Saudis alone insist they can pump another four million b/d, other observers say this figure is likely to be too optimistic. No country, not even the Saudis, can or would want to pump up and sell its last possible barrel for long. Some well-informed observers believe that the Saudi’s effective spare capacity may be more on the order to two million b/d provided they decide to produce it.

Add the loss of all or a major portion of Libyan oil production for an unknown period and the likely more-than-forecasted increase in Chinese demand, to the possibility that the Saudis will never produce much more than 10 million b/d, and the world is in for some real problems. To avoid shortages, the price of oil will be moving significantly higher. This week we have already seen oil trade in London at $108 a barrel and analysts are already talking about oil moving beyond the $147 all-time nominal peak set three years ago – a notion that was widely rejected four weeks ago. Should oil get back in the vicinity of $150 or beyond later this year, recent history tells us that a violent reaction is likely to set in. Given the fragility of the US and other OECD economies, the demand for oil is likely to drop sharply and with it will fall much economic activity fostered by people moving around in cars and planes or spending discretionary money.

The question of the day, however, is whether or not the current political upheavals will come to be recognized as a major turning point in the history of the oil age. There is no question that the loss of Libyan production, if prolonged, will accelerate the day when global oil production begins its final decline towards the end of the oil age.

However, the optimistic case holds that any outage of Libyan production will be of short duration and the upheavals will not spread to other oil exporting countries. If this should be true much higher oil prices could be delayed for a year or two. The pessimistic case says that the Libyan outage will continue for a while; will not be replaced by a rapid increase in Saudi exports; additional shortages will develop if other oil exporters have significant domestic problems: and the current price increases continue steadily until the global economy falters. If this should occur the Tunisian contagion really was an inflection point in world history.

24 February, 2011

Al Jazeera

Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has said in a speech on Libyan state television that al-Qaeda is responsible for the uprising in Libya.

“It is obvious now that this issue is run by al-Qaeda,” he said, speaking by phone from an unspecified location on Thursday.

He said that the protesters were young people who were being manipulated by al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden, and that many were doing so under the influence of drugs.

“No one above the age of 20 would actually take part in these events,” he said. “They are taking advantage of the young age of these people [to commit violent acts] because they are not legally liable!”

At the same time, the leader warned that those behind the unrest would be prosecuted in the country’s courts.

He called on Libyan parents to keep their children at home.

“How can you justify such misbehaviour from people who live in good neighbourhoods?” he asked.

The situation in Libya was different to Egypt or Tunisia he said, arguing that unlike people in the neighbouring countrie,  Libyans have “no reason to complain whatsoever”.

Libyans had easy access to low interest loans and cheap daily commodities, he argued. The one reform he did hint might be possible was a raise in salaries.

Mustafa Abdel Galil, who resigned three days ago from his post as the country’s justice minister, spoke to Al Jazeera at a meeting of tribal leaders and representatives of eastern Libya in the city of Al Baida.

He warned that Gaddafi has biological and chemical weapons, and will not hesitate to use them.

“We call on the international community and the UN to prevent Gaddafi from going on with his plans in Tripoli,” he said.

“At the end when he’s really pressured, he can do anything. I think Gaddafi will burn everything left behind him.”

The United Nation’s Human Rights Council will decide whether it will send an international team to investigate the alleged violations of international human rights law in Libya at a meeting in Geneva on Friday.

‘Symbolic’ leader

Gaddafi argued that he was a purely “symbolic” leader with no real political power, comparing his role to that played by Queen Elizabeth II in England.

He also warned that the protests could cut off Libya oil production. “If [the protesters] do not go to work regularly, the flow of oil will stop,” he said.

Ibrahim Jibreel, a Libyan political activist, said that the fact that Gaddafi was speaking by phone showed that he did not have the courage to appear publically, and proved that he remained “under self-imposed house arrest in Tripoli”.

Jibreel said there were similarities between Thursday’s speech and one Gaddafi gave earlier in the week.

“The theme of people who have taken pills and hallucinations is one that continues to occur,” he said.

Jibreel noted Gaddafi’s reference to loans and that he would reconsider salaries. “I think that there [are] some concessions that he wants to make, in his own weird way,” he said.

Struggling

Gaddafi is struggling to maintain his authority in the country, as major swathes of territory in the east of the vast North African country now appear to be under the control of pro-democracy protesters.

Ali, an eyewitness to the shooting, told Al Jazeera by phone that soldiers began shooting at peaceful protesters on Martyrs’ Square with heavy artillery at around 6am and had continued for 5 hours.

“They were trying to kill the people, not terrify them,” he said, explaining that the soldiers had aimed at the protesters’ heads and chests.

He estimated as many as 100 protesters had been killed. Approximately 400 people had been injured and were now in the town’s hospital. He said he had filmed the bodies after the shooting had stopped, but was unable to send the footage because internet access has been cut off.

“The people here didn’t ask for anything, they just asked for a constitution and democracy and freedom, they didn’t want to shoot anyone,” he said.

Gunfire could be heard in the background as Ali spoke, and he said the protesters were expecting the soldiers to launch another direct attack on Martyrs’ Square later in the evening.

Despite the risk of more shooting, he said he and the other protesters would continue their protest, even if it cost their lives.

Mosque ‘attacked’

Also on Thursday, a Libyan army unit led by Gaddafi’s ally, Naji Shifsha, blasted the minaret of a mosque being occupied by protesters in Az Zawiyah, according to witnesses.

According to witnesses, pro-Gaddafi forces also attacked the town of Misrata, which was under the control of protesters.

They told Al Jazeera that “revolutionaries had driven out the security forces”, who had used “heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft guns”.

They said the pro-Gaddafi forces were called the “Hamza brigade”.

Similar clashes have also been reported in the cities of Sabha in the south, and Sabratha, near Tripoli, which is in the west.

Anti-government protesters appeared to be in control of the country’s eastern coastline, running from the Egyptian border through to the cities of Tobruk and Benghazi, the country’s second largest city.

Ahmed Gadhaf al-Dam, one of Gaddafi’s top security official and a cousin, defected on Wednesday evening, saying in a statement issued by his Cairo office that he left the country “in protest and to show disagreement” with “grave violations to human rights and human and international laws”.

Al-Dam was travelling to Syria from Cairo on a private plane, sources told Al Jazeera. He denied allegations that he was asked to recruit Egyptian tribes on the border to fight in Libya and said he went to Egypt in protest against his government’s used of violence.

Communications blocked

Libyan authorities are working hard to prevent news of the events in the country from reaching the outside world.

Thuraya, a satellite phone provider based in the United Arab Emirates, has faced continuous “deliberate inference” to its services in Libya, the company’s CEO told Al Jazeera.

Samer Halawi, the company’s CEO, said his company will be taking legal action against the Libyan authorities for the jamming of its satellite.

“This is unlawful and this in uncalled for,” he said.

The company’s engineers have had some success in combating the jamming, and operations were back on almost 70 per cent of the Libyan territory on Thursday, Halawi said. The blocking was coming from a location in Tripoli.

The Libyan government has blocked landline and wireless communications, to varying degrees, in recent days.

Some phone services were down again on Thursday. In the town of Az Zawiyah, phone lines were working but internet access was blocked.

Nazanine Moshri, reporting from the northern side of the Tunisian-Libyan border near the town of Ras Ajdir, said that security forces were confiscating cellphones and cameras from people crossing into Tunisia.

“The most important thing to them is to not allow any footage to get across the border into Tunisia,” she reported.

Capital paralysed

Tripoli, the Libyan capital, meanwhile, is said to be virtually locked down, and streets remained mostly deserted, even though Gaddafi had called for his supporters to come out in force on Wednesday and “cleanse” the country from the anti-government demonstrators.

Libyan authorities said food supplies were available as “normal” in the shops and urged schools and public services to restore regular services, although economic activity and banks have been paralysed since Tuesday.

London-based newspaper the Independent reported, however, that petrol and food prices in the capital have trebled as a result of serious shortages.

Foreign governments, meanwhile, continue to rush to evacuate their citizens, with thousands flooding to the country’s borders with Tunisia and Egypt.

24 February, 2011

Countercurrents.org

It dates from America’s 19th century industrial expansion when workers moved away from farms to factories, mines, and other urban environments, with harsh working conditions, low pay, and other exploitive abuses. As a result, labor movements emerged, organizing workers to lobby for better rights and safer conditions, pitting them against corporate bosses yielding nothing without a fight.

During unionism’s formative years, workers were terrorized for organizing. In company-owned towns, they were thrown out of homes, beaten, shot, and hanged to leave management empowered.

The 1892 Homestead Steel Works strike culminated in a violent battle between Pinkerton agents and workers. As a result, seven were killed, dozens wounded, and, at the behest of Andrew Carnegie, owner of Carnegie Steel, Governor Robert Pattison sent National Guard troops to evict workers from company homes, make arrests, and help CEO Henry Clay Frick’s union busting strategy. It worked, preventing organizing of the Works for the next 40 years.

The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions chose May 1, 1886 as the date for an eight-hour work day to become standard. As the date approached, unions across America prepared to strike. On May 1, national rallies were held, involving up to 500,000 workers.

On May 4, the landmark Haymarket Square riot protested police violence against strikers the previous day. Someone threw a bomb. Police opened fire. Deaths resulted. Seven so-called anarchists were convicted of murder. Four were executed.

Radicalized by the incident, Emma Goldman became a powerful social justice voice through writing, lecturing, being imprisoned for her activism, and finally emigrating to Russia after its revolution, then elsewhere in Europe. After her death, she was buried in Chicago near the graves of the Haymarket radicals she supported.

Led by American Railway Union’s Eugene Debs, the 1894 Pullman strike was the first national one, involving 250,000 workers in 27 states and territories. America’s entire rail labor force struck, paralyzing the nation’s railway system. At the time, The New York Times called it “a struggle between the greatest and most important labor organization and the entire railroad capital.”

At issue were unfair labor practices, including long hours, low pay, poor working conditions, and little sympathy from owner George Pullman. On his behalf, President Grover Cleveland sent federal troops. Hundreds of others were given police powers. At the time, unionists were seen threatening US prosperity.

The strike was broken, killing 13, wounding dozens and resulting in Debs’ arrest, trial, conviction for violating a court injunction, and imprisonment for six months. Radicalized by the experience, he became America’s leading socialist figure when released, later running five times for president, in 1920 while again in prison for opposing US involvement in WW I.

Founded in 1905, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies) had 100,000 members at its peak in the 1920s. Led by Big Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs, and others, it was committed to help workers against abusive management practices. It’s motto was “an injury to one is an injury to all.” It’s goal was revolutionary, saying in its Constitution:

“The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people. (The) struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the (unfair) wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth….It is the mission of the working class to do away with capitalism (for) a new society within the shell of the old.”

As a result, corporate bosses and Washington sought to crush it. In 1917, the Wilson administration used the Espionage and Sedition Act to raid and disrupt union meetings across the country, arresting hundreds on the grounds that they hindered the war effort by opposing it. In 1918, they were tried, convicted and given long sentences, except Haywood. Released on bail after conviction, he fled to Russia where he remained.

From 1918 – 21, the infamous Palmer Raids ravaged the union further during the time of the first Red Scare, effectively busting it, though it’s still around, a shadow of its former self. Visit its web site at iww.org to follow their latest activities, including comments on class warfare in Wisconsin.

In the early 20th century, Colorado labor wars raged, notably pitting mine bosses, National Guard troops, and strikebreakers against workers. In his People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn wrote poignantly about the 1913-14 Ludlow, CO coal strike and subsequent massacre, killing 75 or more strikers, strikebreakers, and bystanders for defying what he called “fuedal kingdoms run by (coal barons that) made the laws,” imposed curfews, and ran their operations more like despots than businessmen.

Other Union Busting Efforts

During the 1902 coal strike, 14 miners were killed and 22 injured in Pana, IL. In 1904, a Dunnville, CO battle between state militia forces and workers left six dead, others injured, 15 arrested, and 79 exiled to Kansas.

During the 1909 New York shirtwaist strike, female garment workers were arrested, a judge telling them, “You are on strike against God.” In March 1911, a fire at New York’s Triangle Shirtwaist factory killed 46, mostly women and young girls working in sweatshop conditions. They still exist today. Earlier articles discussed them, accessed through the following links:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/03/modern-slavery-in-america.html

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/02/global-sweatshop-wage-slavery.html

In 1912, the IWW-led Lawrence, MA Bread and Roses textile strike was largely successful. It was credited with inventing the moving picket line, a tactic to avoid arrest for loitering. Also in 1912, National Guard forces were used against striking West Virginia coal miners. In July that year, striking Brotherhood of Timber Workers were confronted by armed Galloway Lumber Company thugs, resulting in four deaths and dozens wounded, the incident called the Grabow Riot.

In 1913, New Orleans police shot three maritime workers, striking against the United Fruit Company. One died.

In 1914, Butte, Montana militia crushed striking Western Federation of Miners workers.

On January 19, 1915, famed labor leader Joe Hill was arrested in Salt Lake City, UT on bogus murder charges. Nonetheless, he was executed 21 months later. Before his death, he wrote Bill Haywood saying, “Don’t mourn – organize!” The same day, Roosevelt, NJ factory guards shot 20 rioting strikers.

In 1916, Everett (WA) Mills strikebreakers attacked and beat strikers. Police stood back without intervening, claiming the incident took place on federal land. Three days later, 22 unionists were arrested for speaking out. In October that year, IWW members were beaten, whipped, kicked and impaled for their activism. At their subsequent November 5 meeting, seven were shot and killed, 50 others wounded, and unknown numbers were unaccounted for.

Numerous other incidents at that time involved shootings, hangings, beatings, and arrests, unionists viciously attacked to disrupt them.

In 1919, nearly four million workers struck, including against against steel and coal companies. Management retaliated. The year’s Great Steel Strike failed. Company owners called workers dangerous radicals threatening America. Federal and National Guard troops again were used, resulting in violence, deaths, injuries and arrests. From 1919 – 23, numerous coal strikes also occurred, government again siding with management.

In 1920, the Battle of Matewan resulted in nine deaths, later sparking an armed rebellion of 10,000 West Virginia coal miners at the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest insurrection since the Civil War against which army troops intervened.

In 1922, the Herrin, IL coal strike massacre left 21 dead. In 1927, picketing coal miners were massacred in the company town of Serene, CO. In 1929, National Guard troops and armed thugs destroyed the National Textile Workers Union (NTWU) office during the Loray Mill Strike.

During the 1937 Little Steel strike, Youngstown Steel and Tube and Republic Steel employed hundreds of armed police who fired on strikers trying to prevent scabs from entering factories. On May 30, things exploded when Chicago police joined them, opening fire on picketing strikers and their families, killing 10 and injuring hundreds.

Earlier in the 1930s, unionists were convicted of criminal syndicalism. Vigilantes beat Harlan County, KY strikers. Police killed striking Ford Dearborn, MI strikers. Four cotton workers were killed on strike. National Guard forces killed two Toledo, OH Electric Auto-Lite strikers, wounding hundreds. Police attacked and fired on striking Minneapolis Teamsters. Other deaths, beatings and arrests occurred throughout the decade, even after passage of the landmark 1935 Wagner Act.

In 1932, the Hoover administration warred on WW I veterans, demanding promised bonuses. General Douglas MacArthur-led government troops burned their camps for marching peacefully for their rights.

In 1962, Jack Kennedy’s Executive Order 10988 established limited collective bargaining rights for federal employees. It spawned state and local efforts to expand theirs.

In 1968, National Guard troops were used against Memphis, TN sanitation worker strikers, days before Martin Luther King’s assassination, there to support them. Violence followed, including beatings. A young unarmed boy was killed emerging from a housing development.

Union busting post-WW II was mostly nonviolent, but just as determined to deny workers their rights after passage of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. It greatly weakened union clout, allowing stiff penalties for noncompliance.

It enacted “unfair labor practices,” prohibiting jurisdictional strikes (relating to worker job assignments), secondary boycotts (against companies doing business with others being struck), wildcat strikes, sit-downs, slow-downs, mass-picketing against scabs, closed shops (in which workers must join unions), union contributions to federal political campaigns (now freely given candidates), and more while legalizing employer interventions to prevent unionizing drives.

Serious erosion of union power to bargain collectively followed. As a result, employers can illegally fire union sympathizers and receive only minor wrist slap fines after years of expensive litigation to prove wrongdoing. Moreover, they can fire workers for any reason like incompetence or none at all. In addition, strikes are further neutralized because companies can hire replacements or threaten to move offshore.

Since the 1980s especially, earlier hard won rights significantly eroded after Reagan busted PATCO strikers, discussed in a previous article, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/02/wisconsin-ground-zero-to-save-public.html

From then to now, it’s been all downhill to where private and public workers face losing all rights unless mass activism resists. Despite Wisconsin heroics, national actions are sorely lacking, largely because union bosses collude with management and political leaders against their own rank and file.

“Confessions of a Union Buster”

In his book, Martin Jay Levitt describes from experience what happens, saying:

“Union busting is a field populated by bullies and built on deceit. A campaign against a union is an assault on individuals and a war on the truth. As such, it is war without honor. The only way to bust a union is to lie, distort, manipulate, threaten, and always (one way or another) attack. The law does not (intervene)….rather, it serves to suggest maneuvers and define strategies,” pitting media-supported companies, government, and corrupted union bosses against rank and file unionists, on their own, their grit, resourcefulness, and staying power alone for strategy.

Levitt also calls the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act a “union buster’s best friend” because “its complexity….presents endless possibilities for delays, roadblocks, and maneuvers that can undermine a union’s efforts and frustrate” members. The union buster’s key tactic is delay ahead of elections, buying time to organize “counter organizing drives,” targeting members and immediate supervisors to fear, not embrace, unionism as allied with their interests.

Efforts are also made to discredit unionists by “routinely pr(ying) into (their) police records, personnel files, credit histories, medical records, and family lives in search of a weakness” to use against them. When no dirt’s found, targeted workers are called gay or accused of cheating on their wives. It works in blue collar towns.

Other techniques involve “sackings,” even though illegal under NLRA’s Section 8(a)(3), prohibiting firing workers for urging others to join unions. Nonetheless, union busters know that reinstatement procedures take time, often years. The idea is to weaken support prior to elections, focusing heavily on winning over supervisor support, who, in turn, can influence rank and file members.

Learn more on Levitt’s web site, accessed through the following link:

http://www.unionbusting101.com/index.html

He also provides “Top Secret” information of what can and can’t be said on the issues, accessed through the link below:

http://www.unionbusting101.com/Top_Secret.pdf

He calls his purpose an effort “to inform and educate WORKERS and Union Organizers about what to expect from management in regards to Union Busting Terrorist Tactics used during union campaigns by management and their consultants in their attempt to defeat their employees from forming a union….or destroy (ones) that already exist.”

Nonetheless, the Wagner Act, though measurably weakened, lets workers unionize. Specifically, its Section 7 states:

“Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection.”

Levitt also provides information on union busting propaganda, tactics used by Walmart and other companies, labor union resources, for-profit union busters, and more.

Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and American Rights at Work Education Fund on Thwarting Union Organizing

On May 20, 2009, they cited a new five-year study, showing employer anti-union behavior intensifying. Cornell University Professor Kate Bronfenbrenner (a noted labor expert) said employers are more than twice as likely to use 10 or more tactics to thwart organizing efforts.

Titled “No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing,” it focused on coercive and punitive tactics against organizing efforts, including threats, intimidation, interrogation, harassment, surveillance, retaliation and firings to thwart it. As a result, most workers without unions who want them at best find their wish indefinitely postponed.

Even when workers successfully unionize, 52% have no contract a year later, and for 37% it’s two years. Moreover, besides intensive union busting tactics, employers are less likely to offer incentives such as unscheduled raises, positive personnel changes, bribes, special favors, social events, promises of improvement, and employee involvement programs.

In addition, private sector campaigns differ markedly from public sector ones, at least during the 1999 – 2003 period she studied. Recent events in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states show this very much is changing. Though most states let workers freely organize, current tactics show they’re subjected to similar private sector tactics to strip away their rights and leave them powerless.

As a result, unionists face increasingly hard times because companies, government, and corrupted union bosses use today’s economic environment against them, pleading hard times reasons for cutting back when, if fact, they’re exploiting current conditions to reward corporate favorites at their expense.

Joe Hill was right saying “organize” to fight back. So is imprisoned human rights lawyer Lynne Stewart, saying: “Organize – Agitate, Agitate, Agitate, Love Struggle!”

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

mongabay.com  February 09, 2011

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that a drought in China could devastate the nation’s winter wheat crop and further inflate food prices worldwide. Already, food prices hit a record high in January according to the FAO. Rising 3.4 percent since December, prices reached the highest point since tracking began in 1990. While many fear a food crisis similar to the one in 2008-2007, experts say the world has more food in reserve this time around and gasoline, at least for now, remains cheaper. However, if China loses its winter wheat that could scuttle any hopes of avoiding another price rise in crop staples.

“Although the current winter drought has, so far, not affected winter wheat productivity, the situation could become critical if a spring drought follows the winter one and/or the temperatures in February fall below normal,” reads an FAO Early Warning on the situation.

Usually winter wheat is protected against frost by snow, but in China, low snow cover and little precipitation has left the wheat exposed. Approximately 60 percent of China’s planted wheat is imperiled due to the drought. If China loses the crop, analysts say the massive country, which is largely self-sufficient in food, will be forced to import grain to make up for the loss, threatening to upset an already precariously balanced international food market.

Tibetans working in wheat field in China. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Wheat crops have already had a rough year: an unprecedented heatwave and drought in Russia and Eastern Europe raised wheat prices around 50 percent last year. Russia’s vast wheat yield was cut by nearly 40 percent and the country responded by placing a ban, which remains in place, on exporting wheat. Flooding in Australia has further raised concerns about wheat prices.

The extreme weather events, especially in Russia, have led to a number of experts to finger climate change as one cause behind this year’s rising food prices.

“I think we are seeing some of the early effects of climate change on food security,” Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute told Public Radio International (PRI). “If someone had told me that there was likely to be a heat wave in Russia in which the average temperature would be 14 degrees Fahrenheit above the norm—that’s pushing the envelope. I mean FOUR degrees would be a lot.”

The FAO agrees, a report last November reads “adverse weather effects are undoubtedly a primary driver of wheat production shortfalls and, with climate change, may increasingly be so.”

In addition to climate change impacts, experts have pointed to a number of other reasons the world could see a second food crisis in three years, including use of food crops for biofuels, growing populations, fresh water shortages, rising meat and dairy consumption, the commodity boom, and soil erosion. Last time around, high oil prices played a big role, however, while oil prices are rising, they haven’t yet hit 2008 levels.

According to many analysts, high food prices have already played a part—albeit amid many other factors—in the social unrest in both Egypt and Tunisia. In addition, countries like Somalia are facing an all-out famine after rains also failed in East Africa. An estimated 2.5 million Somalians are currently requiring food assistance.

“In Somalia alone, water prices have increased as much as 300 percent in the past two months, and families are selling their assets and going into debt just to get clean water and food for their families,” said Chris Smoot, program director for World Vision in Somalia.

The UN estimates that 1 billion people in the world suffer from hunger, but the current food crisis could push that number higher.

Accounting for the Human Toll in Iraq

We are now in the 10th year of the first decade of the ‘war on terror.’ So the inevitable anniversary assessments are beginning to appear.  Iraq reappraisals specifically are back in vogue.  They favor the drawing of balance sheets.  Most will be skewed in an alchemic attempt to put the face of success on an unmitigated disaster.  Even a more tempered approach at calculating cost/benefits, though, leaves something missing – something of paramount importance.  It is the effects on Iraqis themselves.  Not Iraqis in the abstract, not as figures in a statistical tabulation of sects.  Rather, as flesh and blood and feeling persons.  Frankly, most of the discourse about Iraq from day one has had a disengaged quality to it.  That is the norm for dominant powers on the world stage, and for the seminar strategist.  That was not always the norm by which Americans referenced war and violence abroad in the 20th century when we truly believed in our proclaimed ideals.

To illuminate the point, here are some too readily slighted facts.  100,000 – 150,000 Iraqis are dead as the consequence of our invasion and occupation.  That is the conservative estimate.  Untold thousands are maimed and orphaned.  2 million are uprooted refugees in neighboring lands.  Another 2 million are displaced persons internally.  The availability of potable water and electricity is somewhat less than it was in February 2003.  The comparable numbers for the United States would be 1.1 – 1.6 million dead; an equal number infirmed; 22 million refugees eking out a precarious existence in Mexico and Canada; 22 million displaced persons within the country.  We did not do all the killing and maiming; we did most of the destruction of infrastructure.  To all these tragedies we are accessories before and during the fact.

Digits make less of an impact on us than observed reality.  That is always the case.  And very few have been in a position to see the human effects of our actions first hand – or even second-hand given censorship on filming casualties.  So let me suggest a couple of ways to approximate that experience.  Step one.  Go to RFK stadium, imagine it full.  Do that 3 times and then imagine them all – men, women and children – in their graves.  Repeat the exercise – this time imagine them hobbling on one leg, lying crippled or blind on a cot in a cinderblock house.  Imagine them as Americans – men, women and children – who placed USA stickers on their cars, chanted USA! USA! watching the Olympics, eating hot dogs and drinking Coke.  Imagine them now six feet under.  Imagine them all as the victims of an invasion and occupation by Iraqi Muslims who were deceived by their lying leaders who hid their own dark purposes.  An occupation that featured the likes of L. Ahmed Chelabi IV and run amok Bashi Bazouks.  Imagine that these altruistic Iraqis keep a Vice-Regal Embassy on the banks of the Potomac, giant airbases scattered around the country, and 550,000 troops (proportional) – all out of concern for our health and safety.  Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Imagine your counterparts in Baghdad now drawing up balance sheets.

Step two: go back to the study and reconstruct your own Iraq balance sheet.

Does this imply that pacifism is the only ethically acceptable conduct?  No – but it does give us a better fix on the true meaning of our shameful adventure in Iraq.  Moreover, keep in mind that the Iraqis never gave us permission to do those things to them.  We willfully imposed ourselves on them, did so based on the accusation of a fabricated threat that never existed.

Who assigns value in the equation to the dead, the maimed, the orphaned, the distressed, the uprooted?  Who assigns value to being free of Saddam’s police? Who distributes the values among Shia, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians and Turcomen? Who decides on the relevant time frame? Who determines what constitutes sufficient evidence to support any of these judgments?

Who has the right, the authority, the legitimacy to do this?  To do so before the event?  To do so after the event in a post hoc justification of the acts that produced these effects?

Who is prepared to reach a definitive judgment? Is it God? Or is it those who instigated and supported those actions in the self-righteous conceit that they were acting as His surrogate?  Personally, I place myself in neither category.

“Let humanity be the ultimate measure of all that you do” is a Confucian admonition meant to guide the behavior of officials.  America today pays it scant regard.

Michael Brenner is a Professor of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.

25 February 2011

Counterpunch.org

Enter Governor Scott Walker. A month into office, he was keen to establish himself as the new sheriff in town by reprising in the state of Wisconsin a simulacrum of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Painting by numbers, Scott Walker, following Reagan’s first stroke, took on labour. But Walker’s Patco moment (the busting of the Air Traffic Controller’s union) has proved an overreach. Walker, who presents himself in a way that could be right out of Frank Capra’s central casting, may find that following Reagan’s recipe produces different results today. After 30 years of economic decline, workers in the United States are recognising the bankruptcy of these policies and are fighting back.

We have all seen the figures. While the American economy has grown the past three decades, labour has taken it on the chin. Meanwhile, CEOs and those in the FIRE sectors have seen their incomes grow by multiples, often subsidised at taxpayer expense, even as their reckless actions have left economic chaos in their wake. The whole while, labour has been repeatedly lectured that they are to blame for the country’s economic crisis and that the rich must capture ever more rents for the economy to prosper. Even if you don’t like it, workers are told, invoking Margaret Thatcher, “there is no alternative.”

This past week, however, public workers surprised everyone, including themselves and their union leadership. The rank and file took the lead in these demonstrations and forced their often conservative teachers’ union leadership to follow. Last Tuesday, teachers in the capitol announced their intention to hit the streets and take their students with them. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s biggest city, teachers defied calls from school administrators and their unions to stay on the job. They marched on Madison last Wednesday in such numbers that their union leadership was forced to follow. Thus, 35 state school districts closed, as teachers and other public workers trekked to Madison in the thousands.

Frankly, most protests the past few decades, while led by well-intentioned organisers, have been tedious. We turn out for good causes, but would rather be somewhere else, and we have secretly (and sometimes openly) doubted the effectiveness of the whole exercise. Not this time. For veterans of protests in recent decades, this had an entirely different vibe. The scene has been simultaneously creative, good-humoured, joyful, peaceful, yet angry. There were no spokespersons for this movement. People organised themselves, made decisions on the ground, and acted on them – with their actions and instincts proven right by subsequent events.

The scope of the movement is broad. Students and teachers and other public employees have been joined by firefighters and cops – whose collective bargaining rights are not, in fact, under immediate threat and are therefore there out of a remarkable solidarity. Together, they have embraced each other in a new alliance that has put the history of these 1960s antagonists aside. In this new world, cops deliver food and coffee to student protesters on the floor of the Capitol rotunda. Firefighters, arriving in their soot seasoned gear or Scottish kilts, bellow on their bagpipes and sound their support for their public employee and student brethren. Wrapping themselves in the flag – and who else can do it without looking cynical or silly? – firefighters have returned this powerful symbol to organised labour.

By Saturday, the numbers had swelled to over 60,000, while the governor’s Tea Party supporters could muster only a few thousand. This despite having billionaire financiers like the Koch Brothers creating astroturf websites, such as “Stand for Walker”, imploring Wisconsinites to hit the streets in support of the governor.

For all this good energy and success, however, all is not well. Labour is seriously divided. The political right has invested heavily in turning private sector employees against their public sector counterparts. And, it has worked. After three decades of war on private sector unions, only 7% of non-public workers are protected. Predictably, this has translated into an almost complete erosion of their previously held health and pension plans they once enjoyed.

Today, US private sector workers have been reduced to Japanese-like long hours. Their health plans consist of HMOs providing substandard care, often having to navigate numbing bureaucracies, only to be told “coverage denied”. They no longer have employer-paid pensions. Most are now on their own when it comes to retirement. Or if lucky, they may have a generous employer that gives half towards a 401k plan that merely feeds traders on Wall Street, while never delivering enough returns actually to fund their retirement.

In short, it has been a return of the mean season. Briefly, in 2008, this frustration was directed against the Republicans. Yet, the Democrats delivered no tangible gains for labour since taking power then, and now, the right has helped steer working-class anger away from Wall Street and back to Main Street’s teachers and public employees. Deftly executed, private sector workers without benefits now blame workers who do have them as the cause of their deprivation. Instead of seeing the gains unions can deliver, private sector workers now take the lesson that these gains have somehow been taken at their expense – all the while ignoring the trough-feeding that continues unabated on Wall Street.

The new class war, as it is actually perceived, is not between workers and capital, but between private and public sector workers, with the fires generously stoked by the billionaire Koch brothers and rightwing money generally. One can only imagine Mr Burns of the Simpsons hatching such a scheme in caricature of capital; but this is real, and few seem to recognise the irony as they play out their scripted parts.

Monday’s public holiday was likely the last of the big protests this week. Protests in the tens of thousands are not sustainable. Public workers are under pressure from their employers and teachers’ unions to return to work. If Governor Walker refuses to compromise, the only weapon left in labour’s arsenal is a general strike. Nobody knows if sufficient resolve exists to launch one. This movement began with Scott Walker’s actions and will likely end with them. Whether labour takes this next step toward a general strike depends on his actions in the coming days and whether he will seek compromise or further inflame workers by attacking their democratic right to organise.

Walker, the son of a preacher, has always been blind to shades of grey. His past actions suggest a fundamentalist path ahead.

Jeffrey Sommers is an associate professor of Africology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.  He can be reached at: Jeffrey.sommers@fulbrightmail.org.