US Senate passes 10-year extension of Iran Sanctions Act
Press TV – December 1, 2016
The US Senate has passed a 10-year extension of existing sanctions against Iran, sending the measure to the White House for President Barack Obama to sign into law.
Senators on Thursday unanimously backed the renewal of the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) by a vote of 99 to 0.
The House of Representatives voted 419 to 1 last month to reauthorize ISA, which was first introduced in 1996 to punish investments in Iran’s energy industry based on accusations that Tehran was pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
The Obama administration has expressed reservations about the utility of the legislation, but congressional aides said they expected Obama would sign it when it reached his desk. The act is set to expire at the end of 2016.
“If the sanctions architecture has expired, then we have no sanctions which we can snap back,” said hawkish Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, who opposed the nuclear accord between Iran and six major powers.
Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the United States, Britain, Russia, China, France as well as Germany – reached a landmark nuclear agreement last year, under which Tehran agreed to limit some aspects of its nuclear program in exchange for removal of all sanctions.
The two sides began implementing the deal, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), on January 16. However, members of Congress said they wanted ISA to be extended for another decade to send a strong signal that any US president would have the ability to “snap back” sanctions on Iran.
“Unless Congress acts, the congressional sanctions don’t exist after December 31,” Maryland Senator Ben Cardin, ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Tuesday. “The ability to snap back wouldn’t be there on the congressional side.”
“While we do not think that an extension of ISA is necessary, we do not believe that a clean extension would be a violation of the JCPOA,” a senior Obama administration official said on Thursday, according to Reuters.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, a hawkish Republican from Tennessee, said the extension of ISA ensures President-elect Donald Trump can reimpose sanctions Obama lifted under the nuclear agreement.
He said in a statement on Thursday, “Extending the Iran Sanctions Act … ensures President-elect Trump and his administration have the tools necessary to push back” against Iran’s “hostile actions.”
Iran has warned that the renewal of sanctions will be a violation of commitments under the JCPOA, and has threatened reprisal if the US extends the longstanding act.
In a public speech on Wednesday, Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei warned the US against the renewal of the Iran sanctions, noting that the Islamic Republic would respond if the US proceeded to renew ISA which expires at the end of 2016.
“So far, the current US government has committed several violations with regard to the nuclear agreement,” Ayatollah Khamenei told members of the volunteer Basij forces in Tehran, adding, “The most recent of them is the 10-year extension of the sanctions. If these sanctions are extended, it will surely constitute a violation of the JCPOA and they (the US) should know that the Islamic Republic will definitely react to it.”
“‘Initiating sanctions’ is no different from ‘renewing them after their expiration,’ and the latter is also [an instance of imposing] sanctions and violation of the previous commitments by the opposite side,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.
Last week, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said Tehran has made necessary preparations and is ready to respond if the US violates the deal.
In case of the final approval of ISA, it will “certainly be a violation of the JCPOA,” he added.
Salehi noted that Iran is ready to respond to any US breach of the JCPOA, saying Tehran, however, will make necessary decisions at the appropriate time and after the assessment and analysis of Washington’s moves.
Russia sets out its policy on terrorism, nuclear war & global ties in new Foreign Policy Concept
RT | December 1, 2016
President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree approving Russia’s new Foreign Policy Concept. The document specifies Moscow’s position on key global issues, highlighting its relations with the US, EU, China and other countries.
Published on Thursday, the concept is now in force, replacing the previous one from 2013. Moscow’s “views on core principles, priority directions, aims and tasks of the Russian foreign policy” are stated in the document of almost 40 pages.
Saying that Russia pursues an independent foreign policy based both on national interests and respect for international law, the concept states that Moscow’s policy is “open, foreseeable” and “shaped by centuries” of Russia’s historic role in the development of global civilization.
“Russia is fully aware of its special responsibility for maintaining security in the world both on global and regional levels, and is aimed at cooperative actions with all concerned states in the interest to solve common issues,” the document says.
Moscow calls for “creation of a broad international anti-terrorist coalition, firmly based on a legal framework, and effective and systematic cooperation among states,” the document says. No “double standards” should have a place in such a coalition, which should become the main force to fight global terrorism.
Nuclear war hazard low, but US missile shield threatens Russia’s national security
Moscow stands for the creation of “zones free of nuclear weapons and other types of weapons of mass destruction, especially in the Middle East,” the concept states, adding that “fighting international terrorism is key priority in international security.”
No country should use terrorist organizations to pursue its “political, ideological and other aims,” it says. Political and legal framework for nuclear and other weapons nonproliferation course is key, to avoid risks of such weapons landing in the hands of terrorist organizations.
Russia stays true to its international obligations in the arms control, and expects the same from its partners. Washington’s development of its global missile defense system is viewed as a “threat to national security,” with Moscow “reserving the right to take relevant counter measures.”
“Russia stands for constructive cooperation with the US in the field of arms control, with a compulsory allowance for an inseparable correlation between strategic offensive and defense weapons,” the document says. Global strategic stability should be the key factor in possible further arms reduction, it adds.
“Despite [the fact] that a threat of a large-scale war, including nuclear war, initiated between key states remains low, risks that [such states] may be involved in regional crisis, escalating them, are growing,” the new Foreign Policy Concept warns.
Russia-US dialogue possible, but only if US abandons its ‘restraining’ course
Washington and its allies have been pursuing a “restraining course” against Russia, aiming to “pressure” it both politically and economically, the document says, adding that such policy “undermines regional and global security.” It also harms long-term interests of both sides, and goes against a “growing necessity for cooperation” and joint counteraction to global threats.
Russia reserves the right to “harsh” retaliatory measures to “unfriendly actions,” including measures in toughening its national defense.
Moscow “is interested in building mutually beneficial relations with the US, taking into consideration the two countries’ responsibility for global strategic stability and the state of international security in general,” the concept stresses, adding that the two nations have significant opportunities in trade, investment, scientific and other forms of cooperation.
The development of dialogue on bilateral relations, as well as on other international issues “is only possible if based on equality, mutual respect and non-interference in one another’s internal affairs.”
In regard to contacts with NATO, Moscow plans to build its relations with the alliance based on its eagerness to be engaged in equal partnership. So far, Russia negatively regards NATO’s expansion, with its military infrastructure getting closer to the Russian borders. Such actions are considered as “defying the principle of equal security” and might cause new “division lines in Europe.”
Meanwhile, Moscow praises the role of the United Nations in “regulating international relations and coordinating world policies,” saying that there are no other options to replace the organization in the 21st century.
Relations with EU among Moscow’s priorities, abolishing visa regime will strengthen ties
Stepping-up mutually beneficial bilateral ties with European countries is named among one of Russia’s key priorities in the new Foreign Policy Concept.
The EU is Russia’s important trade and economic partner, the document says, adding that Moscow also regards Europe as its associate in foreign policy and is looking for “stable cooperation” based on mutual respect. Relations with Germany, France, Italy and Spain are mentioned as being key for the Kremlin in promoting its interests on the international arena.
“The strategic task in relations with the EU is forming a broad economic and humanitarian space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean,” that will unite and “harmonize” the European continent, the concept says.
“The visa regime remains one of the main barriers in the way of development of contacts between Russia and the EU. The gradual cancellation of the visa regime on a reciprocal basis will become a powerful impulse for strengthening cooperation between Russia and the EU in economic, humanitarian, cultural, educational and other spheres,” the document says.
Russia to strengthen ties with the East, presence in the Antarctic
Among Moscow’s other foreign policy priorities, the concept mentions developing further relations with its eastern neighbors. “Full-scale” partnership and cooperation with China is on the agenda, as well as “further deepening” of strategic partnership with India. With the latter, Russia has always had “privileged” relations, according to the document, which says that the two nations’ cooperation is based on corresponding foreign policies, “historic friendship and deep mutual trust.”
Japan and other countries in the Asia-Pacific Region are also mentioned as important partners to work with in the near future.
“Russia will also continue its work on preserving and widening its presence in the Antarctic,” the concept states, adding that Moscow is as well “open for building relations with Canada” to cooperate in the Arctic and other regions.
Russia’s position on Syria is also mentioned in the new Foreign Policy Concept, with Moscow standing for the Middle Eastern country’s “unity, independence and territorial integrity.” Representatives of all ethnic and religious groups in Syria should be provided with equal security and peace, and enjoy “equal rights and opportunities,” the document says.
Iran is sanguine about the fate of nuclear deal
By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | December 1, 2016
The Iranian official news agency IRNA carried a detailed summary of an interview given by the Speaker of the Majlis Ali Larijani to a Chinese TV network, regarding the fate of the Iran nuclear deal of July 2015 under the Donald Trump presidency in the United States.
These have been the most comprehensive remarks so far since the election of Trump, at an authoritative level in the Iranian leadership. Unsurprisingly, IRNA highlighted the interview. The salience remains to be that Iran is keeping an open mind on the incoming US president’s likely policies. (See my blog Iran keeps open mind on Donald Trump.)
However, Larijani’s latest remarks display a quiet confidence in Tehran that Trump’s campaign speeches regarding Iran will not translate as policies. Larijani is an accomplished statesman and when he flags that an American president’s policies ‘usually differ’ from his election rhetoric, it becomes a considered statement.
Tehran indeed should know. Ronald Reagan’s campaign speeches in 1980 in the middle of the hostage crisis were much more threatening than Trump’s. In fact, Iran was the leitmotif of Reagan’s campaign rhetoric against Jimmy Carter. Yet, some say the Reagan team didn’t want a denouement to the hostage crisis until the November election was over. (In fact, Iranians released the hostages soon after the election was over, but before Reagan moved into Oval Office.)
Reagan’s brilliant but devious campaign manager was none other than William Casey, who later had covert dealings involving Iran as head of the CIA in the new administration. It won’t be surprising if Iranians are jogging the memory. Only the other day Trump had shouted that Goldman Sachs had ‘total control’ over Hillary Clinton and yet his team already is stacked with Goldman insiders – Steve Bannon as chief White House strategist, Steven Mnuchin for the Treasury Secretary job and so on.
At any rate, Larijani pointed out that the US’ European allies (and Russia and China) may not go along with any US move to scuttle the Iran deal or reimpose sanctions. This is entirely plausible.
What Larijani left unsaid was about any back channel contact with the Trump team. He couldn’t have been explicit, of course. Interestingly, he also did not slam the door shut against the idea of Iran working with the US on regional issues. He merely said that so far American and Iranian regional policies have differed.
[Asked whether you are ready for cooperation with the US on regional issues, Larijani said, ‘We think that its policies in the region are against those of Iran’s.’
The US and the Zionist regime enjoy chaotic situation in the region, as they think their interests will be ensured under this condition while Iran has a different viewpoint as it thinks about a sustainable security in the region and believes that terrorism should be uprooted.
‘I think China and Russia are of the same attitude regarding the issues but the US and the Zionist regime think otherwise,’ Larijani said.]
Indeed, Trump’s move to work with Russia over the Syrian conflict cannot but involve Iran one way or another at an early stage itself. President Hassan Rouhani telephoned President Vladimir Putin on Monday and the Kremlin readout said the two leaders “highly rated the level of Russian-Iranian cooperation on the anti-terrorist track and agreed to work closely together to ensure the long-term normalization of the situation in Syria.”
What makes Iran an engrossing regional power is invariably the sophisticated intellectual underpinnings it gives to its foreign policies and regional strategy. So, how does Trump appear through the Iranian looking glass?
Glancing through the range of opinions in Iran, certain elements can be identified. First, in the excessive focusing on Trump’s colorful personality traits (which are, arguably, not more exotic than Reagan or George W. Bush’s), foreign observers have neglected the acuteness of the crisis within the United States, which has been steadily building up through recent decades.
Trump ultimately represents the class interests of the rich and the privileged and there is going to be a glaring shortfall in his ability or willingness to redeem his pledges to the marginalised and alienated sections of society. The seething anger is going to mount as it becomes clear that the ‘swamps’ which Trump promised to clean up remain an enduring fact of life. In sum, much of Trump’s attention will come to be trained on the challenges posed by the domestic political situation.
Second, Iranian scholars underscore the dialectics of the trans-Atlantic relationship. (The EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini visited Tehran thrice this year.) Trump is starting with a handicap since European opinion militates against his rise to power, not only in style but also in the content of his whole political platform. An unfriendly Europe will try to seek a new code of conduct, which in turn will compel Trump to trim his discourse.
Third, emanating from the above two factors, Iranian scholars assess that the US cannot afford to wage wars abroad. It neither has the money needed to spend on wars nor does it enjoy the political respite to take the eyes off the acute internal contradictions in the US’ political economy. Most certainly, an invasion such as the one in 2003 in Iraq is way beyond American capability. Europe will not join any US-led ‘coalition of the willing’, either. Thus, the limits to the US influence in the Middle East are already apparent.
All in all, therefore, a new concert of world powers is becoming necessary and unavoidable, especially with a major potential economic crisis staring at the world economy. Larijani’s cautious optimism can be put in perspective as the articulation of a rational assessment.
US Still Seeks Regime Change Across Asia
By Ulson Gunnar – New Eastern Outlook – 26.11.2016
While the US could accurately be described as a global power in decline, the ambitions of prominent special interests at the center of its economic and political power still pose a potent threat to global stability and national sovereignty worldwide. In Asia particularly, despite a clear shift in a regional balance of power that has persisted for nearly a century, the US is still actively involved in attempting to dictate which governments come to power in respective nation-states and how they rule and all in an attempt to create a balance of power in Asia that serves US interests.
From Myanmar to Vietnam, US Ambitions Still a Clear and Present Danger
US ambition to transform Asia manifests itself in a number of ways. In Malaysia, it has been fueling for years the so-called Bersih movement and its campaign for “clean and fair elections.” While the movement attempted to appear spontaneous and independent of any political party, it was quickly revealed that its core leadership was funded by the US State Department via the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and Open Society. It was also revealed that Bersih was in fact an auxiliary front of a political coalition headed by US-backed opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim who quite literally led the protests in the streets himself.
Extensive US support has been provided to the now ruling government of Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar, including the creation of Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy’s (NLD) entire media capabilities. Pro-NLD media platforms created and funded annually by the US government include the New Era Journal, the Irrawaddy, and the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). It was also revealed that Suu Kyi’s Minister of Information, Pe Myint, was quite literally trained in Bangkok by the US government-funded Indochina Media Memorial Foundation, which now co-occupies the Western media’s Foreign Correspondents Club (FCCT) office in Bangkok.
In Thailand, in addition to the substantial lobbying support the above mentioned FCCT provides the ousted US-backed regime of Thaksin Shinawatra and his also-ousted sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, the US government funds a large number of supposed “nongovernmental organizations” (NGOs) in a bid to create the illusion of a legitimate, pro-democracy opposition. The Shinawatra family also enjoys continued lobbying support from Washington, with influential firms having registered on their behalf every year since at least as early as 2006.
Currently, US lobbyists are still active in supporting the Shinawatra regime and their political supporters within Thailand. The Shinawatra’s themselves are still positioning themselves to retake power, and the US media is still turning out a large amount of content aimed at setting the stage for continued political conflict within the country.
In Cambodia, opposition leader Sam Rainsy has received years of support from the US government and America’s European allies, including regular political and media support from the US State Department’s Voice of America (VOA) network.
Indonesia strains under pressure put on the government and society by US and Saudi-backed groups capable of mobilizing large numbers of protesters both to augment their own political power and to put pressure on the current ruling government in a bid to roll back growing ties between Jakarta and Beijing.
And while Vietnam lacks any clearly visible, central opposition figure, the US has steadfastly built up an opposition movement with which to pressure the Vietnamese government.
Cultural Colonization via YSEALI
Collectively, across the entire Southeast Asian region, the US is engaged in what some analysts have called “cultural colonization,” particularly with a program it calls Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) in which the US State Department actively recruits, indoctrinates and directs young Asian students and professionals toward building a pro-Western opposition front. This includes a program called “Generation: Go NGO!” in which the US creates and directs a growing network of US government funded fronts posing as “nongovernmental organizations.”
Mirroring a modern day version of the very sort of imperial networks constructed by the British Empire across Asia, America’s reach into Asia seeks to reinvent and reassert Western domination across Asia Pacific. Not only does it seek to dominate the respective people, resources, economies and politics of nations in Southeast Asia, but it also seeks the creation of a united front with which to encircle, contain and eventually displace Beijing’s growing influence in the region.
Asserting Economic Hegemony via the TPP
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a decidedly US dominated project, sought to string Asian states together in an economic alliance opposed to China’s rising regional and global influence. The deal’s details were introduced and brokered in secret, contravening any sense of self-determination for those nations and people subjected to it. Ultimately, the inequitable conditions of the deal required coercion and bribery to move forward, and despite great efforts, it appears that it will not likely succeed.
Nations like Thailand have categorically refused to sign the deal thus far, and nations like Vietnam who had initially promised to sign it, have wavered. The US’ desperation in moving through deals like the TPP may also explain the expansive networks it has constructed and continues to construct to apply pressure on both Asia as a region, and each nation individually.
Combating US Primacy
Such aspirations are more than mere speculation, and are instead derived from the writings of prominent US policymakers, including Robert Blackwill who in 2015 penned an entire paper about reasserting US “primacy” over Asia. Blackwill, it should be noted, served as a lobbyist for the above mentioned US proxy Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand.
For Asia collectively, and for each nation respectively, the need for an international voice as Russia’s RT or China’s CCTV has granted Moscow and Beijing , is essential for challenging and overcoming divisive and destructive narratives perpetuated by the Western media. It is also an important factor in exposing and diminishing the influence of US-backed political opposition parties and the army of US-funded fronts posing as “NGOs.”
And while instinctively, building closer ties with China may seem to be a viable formula to balancing a US that seeks to reassert itself, such ties must be done within a larger regional framework to build a sustainable balance of power. Simply trading US hegemony in for Chinese hegemony, would fail to serve the rest of Asia’s interests well. For each respective Asian state, strong domestic institutions, economies, education systems and military institutions ensures not only America’s inability of asserting its interests over those of each nation’s, but also heads off China from filling in and exploiting the void left by a retreating United States.
EU Politicians are Convinced that Tanks are the Best Remedy for Social Disparity
By Jean Perier – New Eastern Outlook – 24.11.2016
Following in the wake of the White House policy, European political elites have been stepping up their groundless propagandistic rhetoric about the growing military threat of Russia, Iran, China, which is aimed at achieving further militarization of Europe at the expense of the social benefits of its citizens.
In his recent speech at an event hosted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, NATO‘s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that he expects a 3% real increase in defence spending in Europe and Canada, however, he added, other than the US, only four NATO members are currently spending 2% of GDP on defence.
Against the background of a string of upcoming election campaigns in the EU, it’s really not that hard to predict how Europeans are going to take the announcement that their governments are planning to increase their military budgets. The most likely scenario is that a number of EU states will vote for their own version of Trumpxit, which means that an outsider candidate will have more chances than those from the ruling elites. As the living conditions of an ever increasing number of Europeans continue to deteriorate, it’s highly unlikely that EU citizens are going to tolerate new military expenditures.
The data provided by the Eurostat shows that in 2015, around 25 million children, or 26.9% of the population aged 0 to 17, in the European Union were at risk of poverty or social exclusion. A total of six member states saw a third of all children being at risk of poverty or social exclusion, these are Romania (46.8%), Bulgaria (43.7%), Greece (37.8%), Hungary (36.1%), Spain (34.4%) and Italy (33.5%).
According to the Guardian, having a child while living in a rental accommodation has become unaffordable for young families in two–thirds of the UK. The most inaccessible place for those wanting to start a family was London, with a two-bedroom rental there costing 60% of the average income for someone in their 20s and 44% for someone in their 30s. This was followed by the south-east, south-west and the east. At the same time, the number of families with children living in emergency accommodations in England rose by 45% in the last 12 months, reaching the highest level in 12 years.
In turn, the Fabian Society says the Tory’s social cuts will increase the number of kids living in poverty by 75% over the next 15 years in the UK, the Daily Mirror notes. Moreover, Berlin has already announced that social disparity will be steadily growing throughout the upcoming decade in Germany.
The Finish Yle notes that the number of children living in poor families has tripled over the last two decades. What is striking is that even those families where both parents are employed full time are unable to earn an adequate revenue.
Ever since 2008, the deepening social crisis in the EU has been making local citizens feel increasingly frustrated with their elected officials. At the same time, local political elites are reluctant to address the most pressing problems of their population, instead they prefer to increase military spending and cut social benefits provided to the poor.
The chain of events, namely the Brexit and the Trumpxit shows the growing frustration of the hard-working people that are still unable to provide decent childhood for their children. And it doesn’t take a genius to know that the ruling elites are going to face a bitter electoral defeat in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Austria. There’s really no way they can win.
Bottling the Demon of Free Trade: Trumpism and Protectionism
By Binoy Kampmark | Dissident Voice | November 18, 2016
The election of Donald J. Trump on Tuesday, November 8 terrified many who consider themselves notionally progressive or traditional republicans. It also terrified free trade ideologues, and those who believe that opening borders to boundless consumer goods and services eradicates poverty.
There are few better exponents of this idea on trade than Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, whose insistence that protectionism remains an evil to be combated has sounded pious. Keep the markets open, while shutting borders to people desperately seeking refuge. In other words, keep such monsters as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement on the table for full implementation, while flouting the UN Refugee Convention.
This view is featherbedded by other leaders ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group summit taking place in Peru, all insisting with numbing acceptance that free trade is as natural as breathing air, axiomatic to the smooth functioning of a global economic and financial system.
Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski decided to make his opening address to the leaders of the summit a platform for his fears about how “protectionism” was “taking over” in the UK and the United States.
Rather than addressing the reasons for pro-protectionist movements, the glorious assumptions of free trade are presumed. “It is fundamental,” suggested Kuczynski, “that world trade grow again and that protectionism be defeated.” His solution was to make APEC the ultimate critic, rather than interrogator, of such movements.
Japan’s trade minister, Hiroshige Seko, was similarly inclined. “We agreed to push forward free trade to counter protectionist sentiments.” Rather than actually addressing the core shibboleths of free trade that have seen a spike of criticism of its tenets, Seko presumed it to be a non-starter as an argument.
Ditto his colleague in government, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida. “It’s time for APEC to show a strong commitment to free trade and contribute to sustainable growth and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.”
It never has been, nor will it ever be, but the politics of trade and the enriching of the corporate classes at the expense of social and public policy (medicine, environment) has taken place along one axis, ignoring the effects and views on those it supposedly benefits.
In Trumpland, and the world of Brexit, these supposed beneficiaries have roared their disapproval. They look at their bank balances and see diminishing returns. They fear the cost of increasing medication. Others are concerned about environmental degradation. All are concerned by surrendering sovereignty through the death of a thousand cuts.
The nonsense of free trade as a magic pudding of delight and gifts has populated the thinking of economic establishments for decades, and has only received a good bashing in recent years. Studies have been produced on specific free-trade deals showing that the trade engaged in is never that free, and never that competitive. No matter – ideology manufactures the necessary blinkers for free traders to insist on the virtues of such arrangements.
Amidst such Trump promises as the building of a defiant wall to keep unruly Mexicans out of the land of the free, or withdrawing funding from sanctuary cities who shelter undocumented immigrants, lies a promise to those not associated with the neo-liberal traditionalists. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, he promised, would be scrapped.
Once Hillary Clinton’s campaign effectively pulled the rug of calculation from under rival Bernie Sanders’ campaign, Trump intensified focus on the TPP and the notion of the unfair trade deal that would fail to deliver for American workers.
The response was not purely populist – the problems of such a trade deal provide a neat illustration on how modern governments treat their citizens relative to corporations. Notorious for unprecedented levels of secrecy, the entire base for negotiating a deal intended to influence countries through the Asia-Pacific rejected the very idea of civil society.
The message, in other words, is simply not getting through, despite the election result. The patrician classes feel they know better. Bloomberg View columnist Mihir Sharma provides a typical view, preferring to see trade in its global context: American workers bemoaning their returns from free trade, along with critics from the left, ignore “the obvious benefits of trade for workers in poorer countries, and thus barely deserves to be called progressive.”
Take the big view, and the long road, insists Sharma. That road, however, has become a vaguer one, with President Barack Obama admitting on Wednesday in Athens that the effects of globalisation on those “who feel they’re losing control of their future” had to be dealt with.
Despite such a statement, the status-quo, at least till Trump thunders into the White House, remains, shining a light on free trade enthusiasts. This can be gathered from the joint opinion piece by Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, published by the German daily Wirtschaftswoche: “Germans and Americans must seize the opportunity to shape globalization according to our values and ideas.” (Be wary of Chinese efforts to do the same, in other words.)
Furthermore, “We have an obligation to our companies and our citizens – in fact, to the entire global community – to broaden and deepen our cooperation.” The ease of universalising a local or national project is irresistible in such messages.
For Trump, this pompous assertion of universality needs to end. Be openly self-interested; keep things distinct to the American program. To make America great again may require bruising trade battles precisely done to preserve perceived values. If necessary, raise tariffs and toughen the stance on China’s currency policy. Many who voted for him will find such views hard to fault, whatever their tangible consequences.
Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne and can be reached at: bkampmark@gmail.com.
Hillary Clinton, The Vote, and Contemporary Feminism’s Class Blindness
By Julian Vigo and Jasmine Curcio | CounterPunch | November 18, 2016
The recent electoral victory of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton has led to a massive spewing of theatrics on social media whereby public “mourning” which verges on the sycophantic has given rise to a larger public momentum of mass neoliberal outrage as the surrogate for political activity. Even within feminist circles are the myriad Facebook groups devoted to discussing how Clinton was the arch-victim of misogyny, no mention of class politics or Clinton’s having turned her back on the mere mention of class. Now with the recent movement to utilise safety pins as a means to “indicate that the person wearing the pin is a safe person for those who might feel in danger, whether that’s due to their religion, nationality or other status,” we have fully entered into the age of absurdist politics whereby “safety” is demarcated through cheap political gimmickry and the real analysis of political failure is fobbed off by feminists as the inability of people to recognise the necessity of women’s political self-determination—or whatever that has come to mean nowadays.
Sarah Ditum in her recent piece, “Donald Trump has grabbed America by the pussy, and it’s women who will suffer,” writes, “Women do not “vote with our vaginas”, as a rule. Maybe it’s time we looked into that.” Likewise, Cosmopolitan has announced that the election result “is such a deeply felt insult to women across the United States,” and numerous other publications have insinuated the same: that Clinton’s loss somehow represents an “erasure” of women, with zero analysis as to how Clinton’s campaign failed to address class issues or, more poignantly, how class is directly related to issues of sex. Indeed, one must wonder if Ditum et al have even considered for a moment how women in Honduras, Haiti, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and Ukraine have been affected by her policies which lead to the murder and rapes of women throughout these regions after political instability was ensured by Clinton’s actions. Not negligible in this timeline is how Clinton utilised false claims of rape to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi or how Clinton refuses to address the coup in Honduras, instead naming it a “crisis” while assisting in the deposition of former Honduran President, Manuel Zelaya, which resulted in myriad documented rapes throughout the country.
If women must “vote with our vaginas” then, it would seem that the choice between two candidates where one grabs pussies while the other leaves them exposed to poverty, death, and rape, resulted in what would appear to be the least overtly violent figure. That is if you are not a white woman living outside the neoliberal dream of 401k or hedge fund accounts. To think that Trump could possibly have been the more class-conscious and feminist choice of the two might seem surreal to many, but the Realpolitik of this election demonstrates that Hillary Clinton was unable to mobilise support from the working class or women. As Lorna Garano notes: “One problem with the Bernie Bro myth: He had massive support from women. That’s because things like healthcare, education, and a liveable wage are women’s issues. You can’t eat symbolism.” Certainly, if the choice is down to women being targeted because of their vaginas and the assumption that they are unable to think beyond their anatomical parts, then women are truly, in all senses of the word, fucked. What seems to be missing from recent “feminist” analyses of political power is how class issues are most definitely women’s issues and it would seem that American women know this far better than liberal pundits. The larger question is how feminist analysis today might learn from this election rather than refract pussy politics onto all those “mindless, blondes” who voted for Trump.
Yet in spite of her extensive political record, not to mention her repeated choice to stand by Bill in the face of sexual assault allegations, Hillary Rodham Clinton was constructed by a vocal subset of liberal feminists as a quasi-divine figure incapable of (serious) wrongdoing, whose election as President would in an instant vindicate the struggles of our mothers and grandmothers, delegitimize all misogynist representations, liberate women from the lack of confidence we have accumulated over the course of our lives, and, to top it off, would smash the ultimate glass ceiling. A woman, leading the free world!
If this iteration of the culturally-overplayed narrative of fulfilling every girl’s dream of a female president seems too good to be true, it probably is. But dreams themselves are ultimately anchored to material situations – those who allocute the needs of females via mainstream media outlets are often blindsided by their own history, socialisation, and material wealth, universalising their particular interests in projecting them onto all women. Not coincidentally, the persistence, enunciated by many feminists today, that Clinton represents the best interests of females is driven by a uniquely Western perspective whereby these interests adopt a myopic aperture, relegating all that is important to female lives as restricted within a very narrow set of political and economic paradigms. Namely the needs of a neoliberal class of women for whom pussy politics is a luxury because money has allowed this brand of feminism to advance in an eerily similar trajectory to the Clintonian mandate whereby class is elided in favour of a happy feminism where those pesky, depressing issues of paying rent, bus fare, and groceries need not be on the table. Glass ceilings sound far more appealing and empowering by comparison.
But what would a Clinton presidency concretely offer women? This question was answered with the supercilious assumption that the “benefits” to women – whatever they were – would trickle down to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, in a fashion reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s economic plan for the masses. That if we let the privileged women at the top chase money and power, they, grateful for the opportunity, would commence giving a hand up to all women below. Given the US’s position as imperialist superpower, this was imagined to take place on a global scale. Aside from being dangerously close to essentialism, this assumption relies on a notion of there existing an organic feminist consciousness arising crudely and simply out of the fact of being a woman, able to manifest itself irrespective of pre-existing political commitments, policies or party lines. It ultimately condescends to all women by downplaying their intelligence and political acumen whilst inviting them to participate in a political arena curtailed by a predetermined narrative and naked class interests, telling them that the only way they could make a real impact on the world is, in fact, by voting with their vagina.
This sort of feminist politics is not new and is reminiscent of an earlier moralisation where the feminist movement was largely composed of middle and lower-class women who coalesced their power within the temperance movement, seeking political gains at the ends of moralist and pragmatic interventions. Where these first wave feminists advocated the development of moral integrity and exemplarity, Clinton’s politics represent anything but.
Feminist history, in particular the suffragist movement of the first wave and the image of hunger-striking suffragettes sacrificing for future generations of women, was cleverly utilised by the Clinton campaign to coalesce sentiment around the idea that Hillary was a direct successor of this tradition and that her presidency would represent an achievement of the same nature, a sort of capstone on the suffragist achievement. And the vote our foremothers gave us would have made it all possible. The campaign’s manifest ignorance of the political history of the first wave, in advancing a warmonger as representative of a staunch anti-war tradition, is embarrassing at best. First wave feminists emphasised the cultivation of female responsibility and the importance of moral character development via engagement with the wider world denied them, in opposition to the prevailing Victorian cultural worship of the “angel in the house” curtailed by her inferior feminine, childlike capacities, foreclosed from the ethical and political dimensions of truly-human experience and left to exercise her feminine wiles to procure anything she needed. How Clinton herself signified continuity with this tradition remains a mystery; if one is to go about the business of idealising a human figure, one would think that this process would first of all entail that they, at the very least, embody some noteworthy ethical characteristics or political principles. The cognitive dissonance in deifying a war criminal did not seem to diminish but further strengthened the desperate exhortation to women to simply believe (in Her). The Hillary campaign’s conviction that the suffragists’ work, ceaselessly campaigning throughout three generations for voting rights and just barely scraping forth that achievement for themselves, was ultimately carried out in order to execute a neoliberal program entirely antithetical to their values and aims, displays a deep hubris which verges on betrayal.
Alternatively, if those first wave principles so happen to trouble you by obstructing Hillary worship, you can reassure yourself in shooting the whole thing down. Sarah Churchwell devotes space in a recent Guardian article to the cultural examination of the female-president fantasy, in which she writes off the fundamental values of the first wave as a naive belief that “idealised women should cleanse American politics with their purity.” Purity, in the first wave lexicon, didn’t signify what we now come to know as moral puritanism, let alone the sexist double standard. A simple assessment of the meaning of the colours of the suffragist flag tells us the following: white symbolised “purity in public as well as private life, purple for dignity and self-respect and green for hope and new life”. A crucial conceptual distinction is made here that severs dignity and sexual “honour” from female ethical conduct in such a fashion that posits women, for the first time in history, as political beings to be judged by their principles. As for the crusade to clean up politics with the mop of feminine values, it is useful to remember that in campaigning for their en masse entry into political life by winning the vote, women had to put forth a pressing reason why their political contribution would be valuable, and strategically made use of the reasons for their exclusion – pacifism, maternal qualities – by transforming them into arguments for inclusion. You can only fight with what you’ve got, after all. It is similarly mistaken to directly equate negative representations of a female president in American literature with antipathy toward the idea as such; judging by the passages Churchwell has quoted it is apparent that a female presidency was used as a narrative device to make a general statement about women. Tales of women leaving the presidency behind for (grand)motherhood, displaying the monstrous, “masculine” characteristics of a human subject while in office, or admitting they fundamentally need men under the guise of mating with the last man alive, reflect misogynist male anxieties toward women in general. Churchwell nevertheless maintains that it is Americans’ deeply seated cultural fear of a female president that pushed a Trump victory. But if this line of argument fails to convince as to why Hillary Clinton was cheated out of the presidency she deserved, you can always cry conspiracy.
The amount of feminist energies poured into the Clinton campaign raises further questions on what the vote still means today for feminism. The idea that the vote empowered American women to definitively “choose” their liberation, as if an either-or dilemma, at the ballot box in 2016 seems fatuous. The narrative upheld by Hillary supporters with regard to the vote’s place as the lever that would lift her into the presidency, is surrounded by the politics of affect and the vote’s importance to feminism has been elevated to such an extreme level that it may not ultimately deserve. Again they neglect to take feminist history into account. The late Shulamith Firestone, author of The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (1970) and founding figure of second wave Anglo-American feminism, evaluated the trajectory of the first wave as a foundation upon which to rebuild a movement for women’s liberation. She was not prone to nostalgic idealism about the vote, which she saw as a political failure, not a victory, in the long run. In The Dialectic of Sex she writes:
The granting of the vote to the suffrage movement killed the W.R.M. [Women’s Rights Movement]. Though the anti-feminist forces appeared to give in, they did so in name only. They never lost. By the time the vote was granted, the long channeling of feminist energies into the limited goal of suffrage – seen initially as only one step to political power – had thoroughly depleted the W.R.M. The monster Ballot had swallowed everything else … The women who later joined the feminist movement to work for the single issue of the vote had never had time to develop a broader consciousness: by then they had forgotten what the vote was for. The opposition had had its way (22).
And in Notes from the First Year, published by New York Radical Women in 1969:
For what is the vote worth finally if the voter is manipulated? Every husband knows he’s not losing a vote, but gaining one. Today, some 50 years later, women still vote as wives, just as they govern as wives.
Despite the major flaw in her feminist analysis, of adducing women’s oppression solely on the basis of a fundamental biological capacity for childbirth, Firestone came from a strong left tradition which informed her feminism. Unlike her more liberal contemporaries such as Kate Millett, economic class was woven into the very fabric of her radical feminist analysis. In the chapter of The Dialectic of Sex on childhood, Firestone notes that bourgeois women and children possessed an economic patronage which partially offset their oppression. Theirs was a “privileged slavery”. This is a far cry from contemporary intersectional analyses which displace class not only as a separate axis from other oppressions (which suddenly becomes relevant when we have poor people to feel sorry for), but as a concept itself that would inform theoretical understandings of oppression and remove the need for a problem-solving legal theory concerned with the topography of the individual.
What intersectional feminism does for the bourgeois female subject today, Reaganomics did for the economic elite of the 1980s who were made to believe that by paying virtually no taxes, they were helping the poor. And such tactics work as long as everyone is complicit in keeping the fantasy alive. The recent Twitter storms and Facebook debates rage on as alleged feminists have, over the past week, made the claim that by disagreeing with Clinton’s policies one is necessarily giving a tacit nod to Trump, or that in critiquing the use of safety pins as meaningful political resistance one is “mock[ing] people who are scared.” The reality on the ground is that all Trump’s victory has accomplished, thus far, is that white liberals—both male and female—are living out a theatre of “fright” which speaks more to their own inability to read public sentiment about the economy and the reality of pre-existing and current racial politics in the United States. Meanwhile, the most cogent critique of both the Trump victory and white neoliberal reactions to the election was beautifully presented by David Chappelle and Chris Rock on Saturday Night Live as they made fun of this demographic’s shock over their “nightmare scenario,” Clinton’s “power grab” of three electoral votes in Vermont, and finally, the enunciation which causes both men to burst out into laughter: “This is the most shameful thing America has ever done!”
So, when the likes of J.K. Rowling can boast so gleefully about their social position and wealth, it is clear that feminism is heading towards an impasse where its own aversion to class politics will be its own undoing. Just as many feminists have bravely fought against the onslaught of identity politics demanding a historical materialist analysis of of the political landscape, feminism risks forming a new niche of identity politics given its inability to recognise class as central to contemporary life and its concomitant nexus to race and sex.
The 2016 presidential election has indeed been historic. If all the Hillary campaign was capable of offering the masses at the end of the day was symbolic value, it was therefore necessary to reconfigure the election as a contest of symbols, each candidate representing a set of values. Yet these values were anchored in identity divorced from political economy, which turned the Hillary campaign’s omission into the Trump campaign’s relevance. The discourse of this election demonstrates that, under late capitalism, representative democracy is in crisis: when “politics” is administrative assent to a neoliberal end-of-history consensus, identity becomes the primary ground of contestation, substantially transforming the previous meaning of political representation.
Ultimately, the election result has demonstrated that the majority of women have found the liberal feminist program of self-empowerment wanting. Lesser-evilism won the day, not positive support. We were sold a fabricated choice: between the Clinton campaign’s individualist ethos and false political narrative that warned of the horror show of trauma that would befall women if they didn’t vote for her, and the Trump campaign that catalysed the masses through misogynist and racist rhetoric—while also paying some attention to working class concerns. Criticism is forbidden. Left-liberal rhetoric instead implores us to trust the science of intersections stating that the white female establishment politician knows best and any opposition are just unenlightened pussy-grabbing fascists. The feminist fight for liberation has been sidelined into pussy politics.
Julian Vigo is a scholar, film-maker and human rights consultant. She can be reached at: julian.vigo@gmail.com. Jasmine Curcio is a materialist feminist writer and activist living in Melbourne, Australia.
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From the Archives
How 1960’s French Nuclear Tests Are Still Claiming Lives in Algeria
Sputnik – 15.02.2018
On February 13, 1960, France carried out its first nuclear test in Algeria’s southern Reggane region. According to official statistics, 17 nuclear tests were carried out in total over the next 6 years. The area remains affected, and local scientists say that radioactive contamination has caused genetic mutations and irreversibly changed the region.
There are no official statistics on the number of victims. The only figures can be found in the records kept by the French representative of the local church, which lists 42,000 victims of nuclear tests. Three years ago, the French Ministry of Defense issued a statement, putting the number at 27,000 people. The victims include French soldiers as well as local Algerians who lived in the surrounding areas. … continue
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