The Free

Turkey’s toxicity and Europe’s paralysis

from thefreeonline Sept 23, 2023 by Ali Dinçer * at Turkish Minute

People of Kobane bid farewell to 5 youths Murdered by Turkish drone… part of Erdogan’s Drone Marketing Program

Last week Turkish president and drone salesman of the year Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Turkey could “part ways” with the EU.

It was one of the most confusing breakup announcements of all time since most people didn’t even know that the two sides were dating.

Erdoğan’s remarks were a reaction to the European Parliament’s annual report on Turkey, which contained criticism of Turkey’s grim human rights record…

the arbitrary use of terrorism charges to silence dissidents,
political control over the judiciary,
ongoing invasion, ethnic cleansing and attempted genocide in Afrin, NE Syria..
mass incarceration,
denial of human rights for women
mass torture in police custody and in prisons,
restrictions of free speech
imperial expansion policy in Syria, Azerbaijan, Libya, Iraq..
ongoing repression and banning of Kurdish language, culture, music
refusal to comply with European Court of Human Rights judgments,
abduction of Turkish citizens from outside Turkey,
media censorship, online censorship,
toxic blackmail and bullying in international relations
daily murder of innocents in Syria by drones, artillery and assassinations
lack of access to a fair trial and a crackdowns on journalists,
social media users, opposition politicians,
academics, lawyers,
trade unionists and human rights defenders.
a few extras were added!…ed.

Or as Erdoğan calls it, “justice”.

It has almost become ritualistic for the EP to publish these reports every year and for Ankara to swiftly declare them “null and void.” In the past the publication was called the “progress report” because it was meant to document Turkey’s progress in terms of aligning its legislation with the EU’s legal standards as a candidate for membership.

As of 2015 Brussels appropriately dropped the word “progress” and began calling it the “Turkey report.” More recently, they renamed it the “Türkiye report,” giving in to Erdoğan’s childish caprice.

US Auto Workers: ‘Stand-Up Strike“Living paycheck to paycheck, scraping to get by? That’s hell.

from thefreeonline on September 22, 2023 By Malik Miah at Red Ant Admin

^{United Auto Workers members marched at a rally in downtown Detroit on September 15 after the union launched a strike earlier that day. Photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images}

What’s being called the “summer of strikes” (more accurately an upsurge of labor agitation) is inspiring more workers to fight back.

“We build those cars!” chanted striking auto workers.

On September 15, at midnight, the United Automobile Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain said rolling strikes against major US-owned auto companies were launched. Some 12,700 assembly line workers at three plants in Michigan (Ford), Ohio (Stellantis) and Missouri (GM) hit the picket line. The UAW represents 150,000 workers.

This is the first time the union has launched a strike hitting each of the big three manufacturers at the same time.

Fain was elected president in March against long dominant incumbent opposition. He said the strike was class warfare between the working class and the billionaire class.

Fain laid out the stakes days before the strike began:

“Living paycheck to paycheck, scraping to get by? That’s hell. Choosing between medicine and rent is hell. Working seven days a week for twelve hours a day for months on end is hell. Having your plant close down and your family scattered across the country is hell. Being made to work during a pandemic and not knowing whether you might get sick and die or spread the disease to your family is hell.

“Enough is enough. It’s time to decide what kind of world we want to live in and it’s time to decide what we are willing to do to get it.”

A Struggle for the Industry’s Future

“Enough is enough. It’s time to decide what kind of world we want to live in and it’s time to decide what we are willing to do to get it.”

The strike takes place as the traditional automakers invest billions to develop electric vehicles (EVs) while still making most of their money from gasoline-driven cars. The negotiations will determine the balance of power between workers and management, possibly for years to come. That makes the strike as much a struggle for the industry’s future as it is about wages, benefits and working conditions.

The established US carmakers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis (which owns Chrysler, Jeep, and Ram) — are trying to defend their massive profits and their place in the market in the face of stiff competition from non-union Tesla, owned by the world’s richest man Elon Musk who hates unions, and foreign automakers from Europe and Asia (including Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda, Kia and Hyundai) that are non-union.

Executives and business analysts have characterized what is happening in the industry as the biggest technological transformation since Henry Ford’s moving assembly line started up at the beginning of the 20th century.

They don’t mention that the auto workers in the 1930s organized sit-ins and pitched battles to build their independent unions. Their strike actions along with those of workers in many other industries forced the Federal Government to pass labor legislation favorable to most workers. At that time, the US ruling class feared a workers’ revolution against capitalism.