Chronicling the Crisis of the Working Class http://mrzine.org Thu, 23 May 2013 16:28:01 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/cuba230513.html "I think that the freedom that we have . . . is the freedom not to repeat things, it is the freedom to discover what is the path we have to build within our context, our history and culture, our aspirations, our sense of belonging, our ideology, what we love most." -- Mariela Castro Espín Thu, 23 May 2013 16:26:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/grossman210513.html We finally arrived at our destination on the town's outskirts, a complex of eight handsome buildings comprising the unusual school known as Interdom, short for "International House," whose 80th anniversary ceremonies the mixed German, Spanish, and Russian group I had joined was here to share in. . . . Its original intention was to provide a home for children forced to flee, with or without their parents, from countries ruled by fascist or similar dictatorships. Among them were some whose parents became very famous, like Mao Tse-tung and Chu Teh of China, Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, Dolores Ibárruri ("La Pasionaria") of Spain, Palmiro Togliatti and Luigi Longo of Italy. Many were refugees from Germany, a large number arrived from Spain when the Republic was defeated by Franco, Hitler, and Mussolini, and there were children from Iran and Arab countries, from Latin America and Africa. The prevailing spirit was one of internationalism and was of course deeply "red" in nature. Its main sponsor was the Russian revolutionary Elena Stasova, for whom the school is named. Attempts in 2004 to replace Interdom with a military cadet school were defeated after a tough fight, supported by chess master Anatoly Karpov, the Russian Peace Foundation, and some pupils threatening a hunger strike. But the mission of the school has changed. The approximately 350 pupils, ranging from the first to the tenth grades, are almost all Russians, sometimes from other parts of the former USSR, including troubled areas like Chernobyl and Chechen-Ingush; less than a dozen seem to be of Asian or African background, but they may also be Russian citizens. Most of the children are either orphans or come from broken homes. . . . For me, visiting this school revived old goals and dreams -- of a world with no cutthroat competition, not swamped by billboards with tempting, irrelevant beauties and grinning, deceptive advertising, of a civilization without exploitation, without racism, sexism, bullying, violence and weapons, weapons, ever deadlier weapons. Where beauty in art, literature, and music was untainted by speculation, where sport did not profit from pushiness, where entertainment never included sickening lipstick sexiness by bumping and grinding 9-year-olds. Where no one was hungry or homeless, a dream of empty prisons and of wetlands and rain forests filled with healthy wild life. In those few days I could hardly decide whether Interdom was a small step in this direction. Was it rather a vain attempt to stand pat in the face of overwhelming odds -- or even an anachronistic, backward step to values that were never real -- or perhaps far worse from the very start? Would those who left this unusual island soon be lost in the swirling new life outside, glamorous for some, grinding for others, hollow for so many? Who could tell? And why had watching these youngsters, their happy manners, genuine achievements, above all their ways of living together stirred me so greatly? Was it because it vividly recalled those old dreams we had interred so deeply? Tue, 21 May 2013 16:43:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/day200513.html Thankfully, SF Pride Board President Lisa Williams has already yanked Manning off the roster, "repudiating" his selection as a "mistake" by an unnamed staff member. For making that announcement "prematurely," wrote Ms. Williams, this person was -- in what will prove an historic salute to the S/M community -- "disciplined." (Interestingly, Ms. Williams did not mention the use of a "safe word.") Lisa Williams, who organized campaign offices for Barack Obama and works for other Democratic politicians, wrote, "[E]ven the hint of support for actions which placed in harm[']s way the lives of men and women in uniform . . . will not be tolerated by the leadership of San Francisco Pride." Right on, Ms. Williams! I share your Obama-driven anger! For is it not President Obama who finally abolished the military's infamous "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy? Is it not Mr. Obama who is the first president to support, while in office, our right to legal marriage? Bradley Manning has done something horrible to LGBT-town -- far worse than revealing war crimes. He raises the question: Do LGBT people, in some way, owe our improving legal status to those very war crimes Manning revealed? Mon, 20 May 2013 13:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/weisbrot180513.html The International Crisis Group has a $20 million dollar annual budget, about half of which comes from the United States and allied governments who share the State Department's political agenda, with additional contributions from big oil companies including BP and Shell. So in some ways it is not surprising that it would take the position of the U.S. government, even when the U.S. government is, as in this case, completely isolated in the world. Sat, 18 May 2013 14:42:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/wilson170513.html Some 50 to 60 union meat cutters and their supporters turned out on the afternoon of April 6 for a noisy protest against what they said was a lockout by Trade Fair, a chain of nine small supermarkets based in Queens, New York. . . . "Who's a rat?" they asked and then answered themselves: "Trade Fair's a rat." "Don't shop here," they told passersby during breaks from chanting. The workers were mostly Latino, and at one point the chant changed to "Carniceros unidos jamás serán vencidos" -- butchers united will never be defeated. . . . Actions like this aren't unusual in New York City these days. Everywhere you look you see workers organizing: at supermarkets in Brooklyn, at restaurants and cafés in Manhattan, at carwashes in the Bronx. And over and over again this organizing is in the low-wage service industries that largely employ undocumented immigrants. . . . Saying that out-of-status workers can't be organized directly contradicts what we see every day on the streets of New York. Not only can the undocumented be organized, but as Brooklyn College political science professor Immanuel Ness wrote in a 2005 book, Immigrants, Unions, and the New U.S. Labor Market, "immigrant workers are currently more prone to self-organization and unionization than are native-born workers." In case histories of New York organizing drives in the late 1990s and early 2000s -- among Mexican greengrocer workers, West African supermarket delivery workers, and predominantly Muslim "black-car" drivers -- Ness shows how the very isolation of these workers and their long hours at the job help develop a sense of class solidarity that can overcome the restraining effect of harsh anti-immigrant laws. Fri, 17 May 2013 16:13:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/wolff160513.html Globalized capitalist competition destroyed the clothing industries of the former colonizing countries, for example, and relocated them in the former colonies and semi-colonial territories. Thereby, the kind of primitive capitalist industrialization exposed by Dickens in England exploded in Bangladesh among many other parallel locations. Such awful conditions are often punctuated by catastrophic tragedies such as Rana Plaza. Meanwhile, the former colonies remain dependent not only on exports to the former colonizing countries but now also on the latter's capital markets, distribution networks, etc. Once again, supporters of capitalism everywhere will portray all this otherwise. They will extol the gains brought by capitalist industrialization in former colonies. We will be assured that workers, however poorly paid, housed, and educated, are better off than they would have been without that industrialization. In other words, so terrible was the earlier capitalist colonialism that primitive capitalist industrialization since independence represents progress. US, European, and Japanese consumers will be directed to think about the benefit of lower prices they pay rather than the costs of lost jobs when capitalists relocate to low-wage former colonies and semi-colonial territories. Twenty-first century global capitalism thus rests on nineteenth century conditions for more and more of its core proletariat. The other sides of relocating production to former colonies are the declines of jobs, working conditions, and crises, as well as the austerity policies imposed on working classes in Europe, North America, and Japan. Everywhere, this uneven capitalist development displays growing inequalities of wealth, income, political power, and cultural access. Everyone moves closer to explosive social tensions and conflicts -- in China and India as in the US and Europe. Thu, 16 May 2013 00:02:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/adalah150513.html On Nakba Day, 15 May 2013, Palestinians will mark the passing of 65 years since the massive forced expulsion of Palestinians from their national homeland. The Nakba commemorations demand reflection not only on the "catastrophe" of the loss of life, land, and property in 1948, but also on Israeli policies that are still dispossessing Palestinians of their land today, 65 years later. Two Palestinian villages, Al-Araqib and Susiya -- one in Israel, one in the West Bank -- share a single story of struggle against forced displacement. The film below documents a journey between the two villages and two communities, whose very existence on their land is under threat today. It also demonstrates how, in the face of a single Israeli policy to forcibly displace Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line, the people are drawing on deep reserves of courage and steadfastness to remain on their land. Wed, 15 May 2013 15:44:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/ia150513.html We went on "Israeli Independence Day" to Rabin Square, Tel Aviv, to celebrate the "ethnic cleansing" along with the people of Israel. We distributed maps prepared by Zochrot documenting the dispossession and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the beginning of Zionism to 67. Reactions? The "best" you can find on the Zionist streets. Wed, 15 May 2013 13:34:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/dmello140513.html You are far away from the sterile atmosphere of much of academia with its politically correct but spineless professors. You are miles away from intellectuals who detest both the Indian state and those who live by the revolutionary ideal. Just as well to be nowhere near those who run with the hare and hunt with the hounds -- say they abhor the status quo but despise those who have embraced the political means necessary to get rid of the existing state of affairs. You are also insulated from propaganda of the kind that is around every day on the TV news channels. Their careful placement of the camera keeps the real, wholly different, story from reaching the public. In sharp contrast, Sanjay Kak's new film, Red Ant Dream, takes you right to where you've been denied access -- the political world of "those who live by the revolutionary ideal in India". Tue, 14 May 2013 21:03:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/bergfeld130513.html Bergfeld: Across Europe we have witnessed three strands of resistance to the Troika: mass strikes by workers, youth revolts like the indignad@s, and electoral revolts such as SYRIZA in Greece, Front de Gauche in France, or the CUP in Catalonia. In Portugal we have witnessed the former two but haven't seen an upsurge in support for the Bloco or the Communist Party for that matter. Why hasn't the Portuguese left been able to take advantage of a favorable situation? Louçã: The opinion polls indicate growing support for the left anti-Troika parties. Today they represent more than 20 percent. In order to elect a left government -- one which is anti-memorandum and calls for the end of the Troika's rule -- much more would be required. A left government would have to restructure and partially cancel the debt to regain the capacity for investment and employment. The million-strong demonstration on March 2 showed the readiness of a large section of the Portuguese people to fight for their wages and pensions as part of their democratic responsibility. Bergfeld: At the Bloco's congress in November 2012 delegates voted overwhelmingly to adopt the slogan for a "government of the left." You outlined some of the premises for a left government in your opening speech. However, a left government would only be possible with the participation of the Socialist Party who isn't explicitly against all austerity measures. What does the slogan mean and what can it achieve? Louçã: It is not a slogan. It is a proposal to all those men and women fighting for a viable left-wing alternative. In that sense, it is not a compromise with the Socialist Party. As long as they support or accept the memorandum and the IMF's blackmail, this party is absolutely unable to provide a solution. To accept the Troika simply means to pursue the policy of unemployment. A left government is defined by its popular mandate to break with the Troika -- just as SYRIZA has proposed in Greece. We do not abdicate responsibility or hesitate in the fight for a strong short-term solution. We advocate a rupture with the impositions of finance capital, Merkel and her associates. This policy represents the popular demand for a left government against the Troika. Mon, 13 May 2013 13:33:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/naeem110513.html A contrast between what has happened in South America since the beginning of this century and what has occurred in the Arab world recently following the overthrow of dictators there is instructive in getting a sense of Pakistan's predicament. In Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen, the removal of dictators by popular uprisings from below was followed by a tortuous process of remaking the constitution, followed by elections. However, there were no social movements with a social and political program powerful enough to capitalize on the successful uprisings, so the better-organized and better-funded (with Wahhabi cash) Islamist parties have now come to power in Cairo and Tunis and there resulted a Saudi-engineered outcome in Sana'a. While these parties lack imagination in terms of politics and culture, they haven't wasted much time in begging the IMF for tutelage, in continuity with the past. In Pakistan, too, Imran Khan might get a major share of the popular vote, but, as in the case of the Arab world, he is no Chavez, and his party is not a social movement with a coherent socio-economic program to address Pakistan's ancient problems via land reforms, desperately-needed interventions in health, education, employment, and poverty alleviation, and protection of minorities. He has also been very ambiguous about his cosy relationship with the Taliban and has refused to support the rights of long-discriminated minorities like the Ahmadis. Both Pakistan and the Arab world need to learn from South America, which is the only part of the world giving hope in these troubled times. Sat, 11 May 2013 17:41:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/leblanc100513.html Many prominent civil rights figures were socialists -- believing there was a link between racial justice and economic justice. As socialists they wanted decent jobs for all, an end to poverty, decent housing for all, decent education for all, human rights for all, rule by the people (democracy) over our political and economic life. Such values were contained in A "Freedom Budget" for All Americans that they put forward in 1966. Maybe it's time for a new freedom budget. . . Fri, 10 May 2013 14:28:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/cohn090513.html "I don't want these individuals to die," Obama told reporters. In fact, Obama has the power to save the hunger strikers' lives without torturing them. Eighty-six -- more than half -- of the detainees remaining at Guantanamo have been cleared for release for the past three years. Section 1028(d) of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act empowers the Secretary of Defense to approve transfers of detainees when it is in the national security interest of the United States. Fifty-six of the 86 cleared detainees are from Yemen. Yet Obama imposed a ban on releasing any of them following the foiled 2009 Christmas bomb plot by a Nigerian man who was recruited in Yemen. Obama must begin signing these certifications and waivers at once. Indeed, Obama said in his press conference, "I think -- well, you know, I think it is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe . . . It hurts us in terms of our international standing . . . It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed." In addition, Obama's March 7, 2011 Executive Order 13567 provides for additional administrative review of detainees' cases. The Periodic Review Board (PRB) would provide an opportunity for a detainee to challenge his continued detention. Yet Obama has delayed by more than a year PRB hearings at which other detainees could be cleared for release. Despite a requirement that the PRB begin review within one year, no PRB has yet been created. Obama should appoint an official to oversee the closure of Guantanamo and commence periodic reviews immediately so that detainees can challenge their designations and additional detainees can be approved for transfer. Moreover, as suggested by Lt. Col. David Frakt, who represented Guantanamo detainees before the military commissions and in federal habeas corpus proceedings, Obama should direct the attorney general to inform the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that the Department of Justice no longer considers the cleared detainees to be detainable. Obama has blocked the release of eight cleared detainees by opposing their habeas corpus petitions. "[W]hen the Obama administration really wants to transfer a detainee, they are quite capable of doing so," Frakt wrote in JURIST. Thu, 09 May 2013 19:57:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/philion090513.html As Wong suggests in the interview, the Hong Kong International Terminal (HIT) dockworkers' strike was followed closely and supported by labor activists and sympathizers in mainland China. The strike thus has potentially powerful implications for a global labor movement. . . . Q: Likewise what is the significance of this strike for China's working class? Wong: Wow, it's massive. And why? On the second day of the strike, I asked a friend who was more familiar with China's internet discussions if there was much information about our strike. He responded that the strike has already become a "hot topic" in internet chat rooms. Mainlander students and visitors have come to our strike line and donated to our strike fund. Q: Has the strike received any media coverage in China? Wong: Actually, Xinhuanet, China's official media station, reported on it and it was pretty fair in its coverage. I've been pleasantly surprised by the level of support from within China. It's partly a reflection of the hopes that Chinese labor supporters or activists have for our strike. They're paying attention to the developments in the strike. They've sent several thousand $HK to our strike. They might not have a great amount of money, but it's a way of expressing their belief in us. A Chinese labor activist has also written up an analysis of the significance of the strike for Chinese workers. It's quite well written, from a class struggle perspective. He argues that the Chinese working class movement also needs to develop similar types of strikes through an organizing process in lieu of the present trend of spontaneous short-lived strikes that don't develop organizational power. I also know that we have friends in Taiwan who have sent donations, along with Korea and Japan. In fact, the All Japan Dockworkers Union was the first to publicly show support for our strike with a public letter of solidarity. The ILWU has also sent a donation to the strike fund. Around the world Hutchison is known as a major terminal operator, so dockworkers internationally understand the significance of this strike. Thu, 09 May 2013 15:56:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/whitney080513.html Cuban sources indicate that U.S.-based terrorists have killed almost 3,500 people over 50 years, either Cubans or friends of Cuba. By contrast, U.S. military and intelligence officials now and then reiterate that Cuba represents no military or economic threat to the United States. Yet the U.S. government maintains Cuba on its list of state sponsors of terrorism. Apologists point to Basque separatists welcomed in Cuba and to sanctuary given leftist Colombian guerrillas. But Spain asked that Cuba take in the Basques, and Colombia embraced Cuba's offer to host government negotiations with the guerrillas. So, political refuge provided for Assata Shakur has long been cited. Having escaped from a U.S. prison, the black liberation combatant moved to Cuba. The United States recently simultaneously announced that Cuba will remain on its list of terror-sponsoring states and that, conveniently enough, Assata Shakur was being placed on the FBI's ten "most wanted terrorist" list, as well as that the bounty for her capture and return to the United States was raised to $2 million. Many legal observers, however, remain highly critical of the prosecution and trial in 1977 through which she was convicted of murdering a New Jersey policeman. Wed, 08 May 2013 22:49:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/venezuela070513.html August 12-21, 2013: While the mainstream media speculates about the future of the Bolivarian Revolution since the passing of Hugo Chavez, for the Venezuelan people, there is no question. Come learn about the process currently transpiring in Venezuela as the people, reinvigorated by the legacy of Chavez, deepen and further radicalize their struggle in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution. Come learn, connect, and show your solidarity at this critical moment for the Venezuelan process. . . . Cost for Activities: $1100. This will cover all lodging, all ground transportation, 2 meals per day, qualified trip leaders, and Spanish-English interpretation. Additional expenses during the trip will be low. AIRFARE NOT INCLUDED. Tentative Itinerary. Start and end in Caracas; visits to the states of Maracay, Yaracuy, and Carabobo. Day 1: Caracas -- Arrival; orientation/welcome; visits to social programs and discussions with community leaders and local authorities. Days 2 and 3: Visits to urban agriculture sites and other community initiatives in different communities in Caracas, including 23 de Enero, El Valle, and Petare. Days 4 and 5: Visits to rural areas in the states of Yaracuy and Carabobo: learn about agrarian reform and agroecology through visits to agricultural cooperatives, biological control laboratories, food processing coops, and agricultural education programs. Days 6 and 7: Visit to the Afro-Venezuelan coastal community of Chuao, known for producing some of the world’s best cocoa; learn about artisanal cacao production as well as artisanal fishing and Venezuela’s progressive fishing laws; enjoy beautiful beaches. Day 8: Caracas: free day for sight seeing, getting souvenirs. Day 9: departure. Tue, 07 May 2013 19:01:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/syria020513.html Former U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire from Northern Ireland are two of twenty participants from seven countries that will participate in an international delegation to Syria, May 2-10, 2013. The purpose of the delegation is to meet with communities affected by the fighting, with a view towards facilitating peace and reconciliation in Syria. . . . The delegates were invited by Mussalaha, a Syrian organization that tries to broker local peace accords in different parts of Syria and which provides humanitarian relief to all in need. Mussalaha, which means "Reconciliation," considers itself non-political and is one of the few Syrian groups that has good relations with most sides in the conflict. Although mainly Christian, Mussalaha includes persons from most of Syria's religious and ethnic communities. Thu, 02 May 2013 13:01:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/laal010513.html Laal is a revolutionary band from Pakistan. Wed, 01 May 2013 01:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/zweig300413.html Hassan Juma'a Awad, president of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, faces three years in jail and heavy fines for organizing workers in the Iraqi oil fields. They oppose privatization of Iraqi oil and demand fair treatment and respect at work. Meet Hassan in this short video and act in international solidarity as requested in the final screens. Tue, 30 Apr 2013 01:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/gl290413.html The critics of extractivism confuse technical system with mode of production, and from this confusion they go on to associate extractivism with capitalism, forgetting that there are non-extractivist, industrial, societies that are completely capitalist! Mon, 29 Apr 2013 01:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/solon260413.html Q: So, what's next, after this forum? PS: After this forum, we're going to have the Assembly of Strategies. And there is going to be a discussion. We think that it's not to build a new network, it's more to build a process. A process linking social struggles with environmental struggles. I am trying to find which are the concrete battles that we can win. Because, a movement, you don't build it if it doesn't achieve some concrete victories. So if we are going to build a climate movement we have to choose. There are too many battles -- we are not going to be able to solve the climate crisis in one year. But, if we are able to have concrete victories in the sector of fossil fuels or fracking or water privatization or land grabbing, that will help create and develop the movement. A movement is built by concentrating the energy on some specific issues at some specific moment in order to achieve a concrete victory that can galvanize the whole movement. Q: In terms of your perspective on the United States, what opportunities exist in the United States to move things forward on climate justice? PS: I think that the movement in the United States has moved a little bit backward because of the economical crisis. When the crisis came in, then the most important thing became to solve that and the environmental issue was put aside. I see that natural disasters like Sandy have brought back the issue and so I see a new moment, but it's just at the beginning. And also there was a lot of hope in relation with what could be done from the government, from Obama. So everyone was suspecting that he would take the lead. I think that now it is clear in the majority, that's what I see from outside, that it's necessary to do something, but if there is no pressure it's not going to be done by the administration. So in that sense I see a positive movement, taking into account how we were two years ago. Of course if you compare it with five years ago the situation was different because it was before the economic crisis. So I see a positive development but it's in its first steps now. And I see something positive about the movement in the US -- now there are concrete campaigns against the Keystone Pipeline that help unify the movement and help concentrate the energies on some concrete target, and that is positive. Now there is a long way yet to go, to move. I see also in Europe the problem is that many of the movements think that the main target is to achieve that -- to close that coal plant -- and when they achieve that they go back to their homes, so the key thing is how we are going to be able to achieve victories at a local level but to go to a second level which is how to continue the struggle because yeah we closed the coal plant but the problem has not been solved. So I think in that sense it's very important to build a movement because with only local struggles you can have the false impression that by doing that in your community everything will be solved and it's not true. Fri, 26 Apr 2013 18:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/chowdhury250413.html Bangladesh stands petrified as an unprecedented horror unfolds in Savar, near the capital city of Dhaka. In the morning of the 24th of April, a nine-story building crashed down in Savar Bazaar. Thousands of garments workers were in the building. The death toll, as of this writing, was more than 175, with over 1,000 injured, according to a Dhaka daily. Thousands are still trapped under the pile of concrete rubble. . . . The building was not approved by the RAJUK, the authority for capital city development. Nonetheless it was there. On the 23rd of April, the building developed cracks in some of its pillars which were considered fatal, and it was ordered to remain closed until further scrutiny by experts from Bangladesh University of Technology (BUET). A number of garments factories were in the building. Though ordered by the Industrial Police to suspend all operations, the factory owners decided to continue them. So, the workers were forced to remain in the building despite their protest. They were chased with clubs to join work, according to a number of Dhaka dailies. . . . Those workers, they came to the city from villages. They came to Dhaka to earn a simple living, to support their families. They wanted to earn, they dreamed to break free from poverty, they dreamed their children to be educated, they dreamed to live like anyone else. And, now, they can dream no more. The child who has lost his parents, the parents who have lost their child, the wife who has lost her husband, the husband who has lost his wife, they all had so many dreams. And now they are no more. They were cheated in life and now they have been cheated in death. And all they wanted was to live decently. Thu, 25 Apr 2013 21:54:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/kazakhstan250413.html On 22nd April, Roza Tuletaeva, one of the activists from the Zhanaozen oil workers' strike, started a hunger strike. She has taken this extreme step because she has been refused essential medical aid at the women's prison colony in Atyrau, where she is currently serving a lengthy jail sentence. She was arrested after the notorious massacre of Zhanaozen oil workers by government forces in December 2011 and sentenced to seven years in prison (later reduced to five, on appeal), on the charge of "organising mass disorder". Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:01:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/terrell240413.html In the final weeks of a six-month prison sentence for protesting remote-control murder by drones, specifically from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, I can only reflect on my time of captivity in light of the crimes that brought me here. In these ominous times, it is America's officials and judges and not the anarchists who exhibit the most flagrant contempt for the rule of law and it is to the malfeasance of the former that I owe the distinction of this sabbatical. As I share the perspectives gained from residing in the federal prison camp in Yankton, South Dakota, it is important to disclose that, as a political prisoner sent up on trumped-up misdemeanor charges for a few months, my situation is not the same as my fellow inmates'! All nonviolent "offenders," most by far are prisoners of the war on drugs and most are serving sentences of many years. I also try to avoid the temptation to exaggerate the hardships and privations I've suffered here. Certainly, doing time in a minimum-security camp is easier than in most other kinds of jails. If basic necessities are barely met, they are met. I am in good company and time is passing with little drama and without fear. For me, these months have been more a test of patience than of courage. Still, this is a hard place to be in many ways and it would be wrong to minimize what people suffer here. Among these are the basic humiliation of being numbered and then counted at intervals through the day, frequent shakedowns, random frisks (strangers' fingers fumbling with a lacerated heart, Solzhenitsyn remembered) and strip searches, separation from family and friends, severely limited visits, intercepted mail and interrupted phone calls, incessant noise and overcrowding, petty rules arbitrarily enforced. . . . One of many discouraging moments of the presidential campaign that ended just before I surrendered to authorities here in November was in a debate where Mr. Obama stated that Americans need to "decide for themselves" whose sanctions against Iran would be "more crippling," his or Mr. Romney's. This was an obscene and unacceptable choice. Sanctions are portrayed as a diplomatic alternative to war but in their application can be as lethal, warfare by another name. Sanctions that extend beyond trade in armaments to include embargoes on food, medicine, educational materials, and other necessities of life can constitute weapons of mass destruction in themselves. It is often said that such comprehensive and indiscriminant sanctions make prisons of the countries targeted by them. While the regime of sanctions against inmates here at Yankton is less severe than the brutal conditions I witnessed in Iraq in 1998 or that the United States imposes on the people of Iran or Gaza (by proxy), the comparison is apt. Sanctions and prisons are both about imposing economic and social isolation and both can raise levels of tension and fear when applied without conscience. Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:01:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/day230413.html Recently, at Manhattan's Baruch College, there was yet another panel on '60s radicalism. But this one was different: it focused on the experience of Black radicals. From the panelists, you got the idea that, unlike SDS and Weather kids, most Black youth in the '60s didn't wake up one day in a college dorm and realize their country was unjust: they began internalizing that reality in the womb. The fact of the Jim Crow South and the North's undeclared apartheid forced thousands of young Black people to see themselves "in a war," which didn't allow many options to discuss armed struggle versus nonviolence. In this war, and now on this panel, was Ericka Huggins. Her life, once luridly trash-compacted into forgettable tabloid headlines, is now largely ignored by popular history. In 1969, at 18, Ericka became, with her husband John, a leader of the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther Party. Three weeks after the birth of their daughter, John was gunned down on the UCLA campus by a member of the rival Black group, the US Organization. Although a Senate investigation would later reveal this murder to have been instigated by the FBI's Counter Intelligence Program, the public at the time easily dismissed it because, as Ericka noted, "Black men are supposed to shoot Black men." After bringing John's body to New Haven for burial, Ericka, with Bobby Seale, was charged (I can't say "framed" here because I'm trying to be objective) with the murder of another Panther member. Her daughter was taken from her and Ericka spent two years in prison, often in solitary confinement, until a massive legal campaign forced prosecutors to drop the charges. Today, Ericka Huggins says, people ask her, "After all your suffering, why, didn't you leave the Party, leave radicalism?" Because, she answers, she couldn't give up this fight for the fundamental humanity of people of color, for the vast -- and vastly ignored -- reality that every child of any color is welcome and needed on this planet. Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:58:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/ahmad220413.html Aijaz Ahmad: Ever since this young man [Kim Jong-un] became the president, the head of state, of North Korea . . . the West has been testing his will, to see whether he can be stared down. . . . Every year these very provocative war games take place, involving South Korea and the United States, very near, very, very close to the DMZ, the ceasefire line so to speak, between South and North Korea, but this time these war games have been of a completely different kind. And, before that, there were war games involving South Korea, the United States, and Australia. Those games were the first to simulate an attack on North Korea. Now, these new games have done it on a much bigger scale. These are simulating the kind of attack in which even tactical nuclear weapons may be used, in which North Korea may be occupied by the US, and so on and so forth. . . . So, there is a very distinct escalation [on the part of the United States government]. . . . In my opinion, it is in their [the USG's] interest to whip up this kind of war hysteria in order to create a climate, which is by now already created in South Korea, for a popular demand for the return of the US tactical nuclear weapons to South Korean soil which were withdrawn in 1991 as a part of a bilateral agreement with North Korea. The United States clearly wants to position those in [the Korean peninsula] . . . which is part of the containment of China. Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:18:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/ue180413.html On behalf of the officers and members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), we are writing to urge you to recognize the election of Nicolas Maduro Moros and to take steps to engage productively with the new government of Venezuela. Our International Affairs Director participated in monitoring the recent election. In doing so, she joined a delegation of over 130 international participants that included parliamentarians, former presidents, electoral commission members, journalists, and representatives of human rights NGOs from across the world. The monitors spent the day of the election in various states around the country. They were free to speak to voters, election officials and political party representatives and reported calm throughout the day, an efficient process, and virtually no problems. They were impressed both by the level of democratic participation and by the sophisticated and secure electronic system confirmed by an audit of 54% of the paper ballots. Unlike the system here in the United States, which is neither uniform nor trustworthy, the voting system in Venezuela is a unitary system that incorporates some 15 audits and is approved by the competing political parties at each step. Because the Venezuelan electoral commission or CNE has been the subject of intense criticism by the opposition, we wish to review in some detail the nature of the voting process. Prior to the election, machines are sent out from the assembly and service plant in Caracas. They are set up and tested to make sure everything functions properly. The morning of the election, each machine is once again put through its paces and, with the poll workers, party witnesses and soldiers present, it is unlocked with a code and generates a tape that indicates that no votes have yet been registered. For the rest of the day, voters follow a horseshoe shaped process: showing their credentials, then placing their finger in the fingerprint reader to generate their ID number and photo. This unlocks the voting machine, permitting the voter to continue on to the voting machine and press the picture of the candidate and party of his or her choice and then the vote key. The machine then issues a paper receipt with the name of the candidate, permitting the voter to double check that his or her vote was properly recorded. The voter places the folded receipt in a traditional ballot box. The final steps are to dip one's pinky finger in indelible ink and to sign and place a fingerprint in the registry as a final backup check. When the polls close, 54% of the paper ballots cast are checked manually against the final tally issued by the voting machines through a "citizens audit" of polling stations that have been randomly selected, in the presence of the party witnesses. The CNE waits to make its announcement of the results until the outcome was certain. This is the system that has been recognized by Jimmy Carter as "the best in the world." Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/nlg170413.html The NLG delegation found the following: advanced voting procedures that prevent fraud through multiple fingerprint and voter ID certifications; accurate and efficient digital and manual vote calculation; active participation by party witnesses and national and international observers. In addition, the NLG monitors found a reliable system in which 54 percent of all votes are randomly audited on Election Day. NLG monitors witnessed one such audit in Caracas in which the paper ballots matched perfectly with the electronic votes. As a U.S. organization, the NLG emphasizes that the margin of victory for Nicolas Maduro, while small, is comparable to close elections in the U.S., such as the margins of victory for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and for George W. Bush in 2004. The NLG calls upon the U.S. to honor the Venezuelan election as the nations of the world honor U.S. elections without question. Wed, 17 Apr 2013 18:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/beeton160413.html Opposition protests turned deadly yesterday, with at least seven people having been reported killed and over 61 others injured as opposition groups reportedly burned the homes of PSUV leaders, community hospitals, and mercales (subsidized grocery stores), attacked Cuban doctors, attacked state and community media stations, and threatened CNE president Tibisay Lucena and other officials. Violence is likely to continue today, as both Capriles and Maduro have called for their supporters to demonstrate in the streets. Maduro and other senior government officials have condemned the acts and have warned that the opposition is attempting a coup d'etat. PSUV legislators have suggested they may pursue legal action against Capriles for promoting instability. The campaign of violent protest, in conjunction with opposition candidate Henrique Capriles' refusal to recognize the election results, represents the first major extra-legal destabilization attempt by Venezuela's opposition since the failed coup in 2002 and oil strike in 2003. It is also significant in that the U.S. is backing Capriles' position, thereby helping to provoke conflict in Venezuela -- even though most Latin American nations and many other governments around the world have congratulated Maduro on his victory and called for the results to be respected. Tue, 16 Apr 2013 21:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/brazil150413.html Dilma Rousseff expressed her satisfaction with the climate of normality during the voting and said she stood ready to work with the new Venezuelan government. Mon, 15 Apr 2013 22:05:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/weisbrot150413.html The White House said today that a 100 percent audit of the votes in Venezuela was "an important, prudent and necessary step." . . . So why did the White House make this statement, which is also sure to greatly annoy the new government of Venezuela? The most obvious answer, unfortunately, is that they want to promote conflict within the country. That is not a good sign. In previous Venezuelan presidential elections, since the recall referendum of 2004, both Republican and Democratic administrations did not necessarily want conflict because these elections were very close to the U.S. national elections, and it is a general rule to avoid risks that might raise the price of oil before an election, and so they recognized the results. It would be a very bad turn indeed if they have changed their policy. Mon, 15 Apr 2013 22:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/gp120413.html If there has ever been any question that the FARC-EP (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) is essentially a political organization -- one that took up arms guided by a political vision and will abandon them when a new political strategy leads them to do so -- that question may be forever laid to rest by the words and conduct of the FARC's peace delegation that is now at work in Havana. There, in the sunny island which was the theatre of a revolution that changed Latin America and the world, the FARC has assembled a sizable team of negotiators. That group has been in conversation with representatives of the Colombian government since November of last year. The 30-member body shows the depth of the organization and the quality -- both in human and political terms -- of the individuals who have decided to stake their lives on forging a democratic and just Colombia. "The FARC has always wanted peace," guerrilla leader Ricardo Téllez explained to us in the lobby of the Hotel Habana Libre. "Since our beginnings in the distant year 1964, we've maintained that we are revolutionaries who seek peace for the country in the least painful manner, which the Colombian state has often violently closed off." Téllez's assertion that the FARC is an organization long committed to pursuing peace is backed up by the group's repeated efforts to bring the Colombian state to the negotiating table: in 1982 under the government of Belisario Betancur; in 1992 with the dialogues in Caracas and Tlaxcala; most recently in Caguán with president Andrés Pastrana. In none of these cases, Téllez explained, was there a genuine desire for peace in the government. In the Caguán process of 1999-2002, the government in fact chose to dialogue because of its difficult military situation and because of the rising social protest in the country. The establishment's real aim was to rearm, as they did with the notorious Plan Colombia, paid for and organized by the U.S. Fri, 12 Apr 2013 21:49:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/grossman120413.html The late, late snow has finally disappeared from Berlin's streets. Visible once again, here and there, are the "stumble stones" -- Stolpersteine in German. . . . They are small concrete blocks in the ground, 10 x 10 centimeters (about 4 x 4 inches), topped at sidewalk level by a brass plaque of the same size. Most are placed at entranceways to houses where people once lived -- people seized by the Nazis and sent to die in a multitude of death sites in all the conquered territories. Some were suicides. The message on the little plaque contains a name, a year of birth, the date of deportation, and, if known, the place and date of death. There is room for little else. But the scant facts can tell a tragic story. . . . The names, the locations of the stones, and more biographical notes wherever possible are now available in Internet. So it is possible to know more about some names on the stones, now scattered so widely around the country. For example, we can learn just a little more about two young men from Hoechst on the Main River. Friedrich "Fritz" Schuhmann, machinist and hobby mandolin player, was a Communist. The plaque says: Born 1906, fled 1933 to the Saarland, (not yet German-ruled at the time, VG), 1936 Spanish Civil War, Thälmann Battalion; Died July 6 1937, Brunete. We can read that he joined the fight in Spain even before the International Brigades were formed, and that he was one of fourteen men who died in that first day's battle for Brunete. Surviving relatives learned the facts only through this research. The other from Hoechst, Fritz Hartmann, born a year earlier, was a Social Democrat. After two arrests by the Nazis for his resistance he fled in 1933, also to French-occupied Saarland. When it voted to join Hitler's Germany he fled to France, continued fighting, but was caught in 1940 and sent to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. On April 13th 1945, only weeks before war's end, he was murdered. The other stones in Höchst, over 50 of them, are for Jewish victims. Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:20:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/jay-z110413.html "I'm in Cuba, I love Cubans / This communist talk is so confusing / When it's from China, the very mic that I'm using" Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/fjyj100413.html This video shows a panel discussion, moderated by Gayatri Gopinath, featuring the following scholars and papers: Katherine Fobear, "Queer Settlers: Exploring the Intersections of Colonial Violence and Settler Homonationalism With LGBTQ Refugees in Canada"; Colleen Jankovic, "Paranoia, the 'Untold Story' of Queer Palestine, and Non-Aligned Queer Solidarity"; Emrah Yıldız, "Alignments of International Refugee Law, Liberalism and Sex/uality on the Road: Iranian Asylum Seekers Through the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Turkey"; Fatima Jaffer, "Inside the Box: Homonationalist Discourses, the Media and Queer Organizing in Canada." The panel discussion was held on 10 April 2013, at the Homonationalism and Pinkwashing conference sponsored by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:46:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/lafontaine090413.html In the coming months a comedy will be staged in Germany. The piece is called "The Electoral Battle of the Two Camps." The leading actors are Angela Merkel and Peer Steinbrück. In supporting roles we'll see Horst Seehofer, Sigmar Gabriel, Philipp Rösler, Jürgen Trittin, and the other respective leaders of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Free Democratic Party (FDP), and the Green Party. . . . Years ago the sharp-tongued American author Gore Vidal observed: "Democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates." For Vidal, the USA does not have two, but only one political party, "with two right wings," which campaigns for the interests of big corporations. He considered the media to be instruments of propaganda for the preservation of social power relations. One might dismiss Gore Vidal's view as the literary embellishment of a writer, but the transferability of his assessment of American politics to the looming German national election is confirmed by journalist Heribert Prantl in the Süddeutsche Zeitung: "The battle of the two camps is an electoral battle that actually no longer exists. . . . It's an inappropriate term. . . . There once were opposing positions on basic policy issues: foreign, economic, energy, and immigration policies. . . . The fundamental differences between the parties (with the exception of Die Linke) have disappeared." . . . The unanimous approval for the debt brake amendment to the constitution, for the European fiscal compact, and for the various bailout packages, shows that the "left camp," consisting of the SPD and Greens, has not detached itself from their Hartz IV and Agenda 2010 policies. The fiscal compact represents the consolidation of these brutal austerity policies for all of Europe. . . . Because it is inherent in the system, it is also logical that both "camps" have chosen so-called "wars for human rights" as the central instruments of their foreign policies. In inimitable fashion Prince Harry captured the quintessence of the new era of German foreign policy on the front page of the Bild newspaper with his comment: "Take a life to save a life. That's what we revolve around, I suppose." It is telling in this regard that politicians from the SPD and Greens strongly criticized Merkel and Westerwelle for not letting Germany participate in NATO's war on Libya. . . . The fabricated battle of the two camps is a farce. Voters will have a déjà vu experience. After the election things will be the same in Germany as before the election, regardless which politicians or fractions of the German Unity Party form the government. Astonishingly, representatives of German business are quietly indicating a preference for an SPD-Green coalition government. The former head of the Federation of German Industry (BDI), Hans-Peter Keitel, recently said, "When a country needs to make political-economic reforms, it is better if the government does not have a political color that makes it suspect of favoring business." Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:57:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/wilson050413.html In reality, there's no evidence that the 1986 legalization caused any long-term increase in unauthorized immigration. The reasoning behind the amnesty scare starts from the patriotic assumption that everyone must want to be a U.S. citizen, or at least a legal resident. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) gave legal residence to about 2.7 million undocumented immigrants. Since then the undocumented population has more than tripled. So amnesties must "beget more illegal immigration," as the Times wrote in a February 2000 editorial. "Amnesties signal foreign workers that American citizenship can be had by sneaking across the border, or staying beyond the term of one's visa, and hiding out until Congress passes the next amnesty." But there are problems with this scenario. To accept it we have to believe that millions of people would leave their homes, pay a coyote thousands of dollars, and then risk their lives in the often-fatal crossing of the Southwest's deserts on the chance of someday getting a green card. We'd also have to ignore all the other incentives immigrants have had to come to the United States in the quarter century since IRCA was passed: the devastating wars in Central America, episodes of violent repression in countries like Haiti, and, above all, the economic dislocations in the global South following the debt crisis of the early 1980s and the implementation of "free trade" pacts like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). And we would have to ignore the fact that the 1986 legalization wasn't the first amnesty. Starting in 1929 immigrants were able to get legal status from a sort of periodic amnesty known as "registry" after they had lived here a number of years, and yet there was no sign that this caused any "tsunamis" of illegal immigration. The last registry date was 1972: the really distinctive feature of the period since 1986 is the absence of any amnesty. But the biggest problem with the amnesty scare is that the recent dramatic increase in the undocumented population started well before IRCA was passed. U.S. census data indicates that the number of out-of-status immigrants almost doubled from about 1.12 million in 1974 to 2.09 million in 1983. The undocumented population continued to grow at the same rate after 1986, roughly doubling every decade until 2007, when the current economic crisis began cutting the number of jobs available in the United States. Demographic studies have in fact found that the only effect of the 1986 amnesty was to produce an increase in unauthorized immigration in the late 1980s as family members came to join newly amnestied immigrants in the hope of getting legal status through family reunification. As demographers Pia M. Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny summed up their findings in the journal of the conservative Cato Institute in 2012, "giving an almost universal amnesty to unauthorized immigrants did not alter long-run patterns of illegal immigration, which some believed it would," although because of family reunification it "clearly led to large increases in legal immigration." Fri, 05 Apr 2013 00:02:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/af040413.html I said: "You are not willing to listen to our viewpoint. You are racist." He answered: "I am not racist. I am leftist." I asked skeptically: "Can you tell me what you mean by left? You are Zionist left. The left, as I know it, is against racism and is identified with universal values of equality between all human beings and with social justice. The Zionist left doesn't uphold those values." We both fell silent for a moment. . . . Finally, he stopped the search. It looked as though he had run out of things to say. I know very well the conflicted feelings of the Zionist left. Unlike the right and the far-right, who are clear in their views about the rights of the Palestinians, the Zionist left are trapped by their desire for democracy and their adherence to a Jewish state and the resulting apartheid regime. As he allowed me to leave, he gave me a look whose meaning I could not fathom. Thu, 04 Apr 2013 14:33:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/slaughter040413.html What can we learn from this ongoing story? It made a big difference that the leaders of this struggle were socialists, disinclined to sell out or give in, and mindful of the need to look for international allies. Without that leadership, this plant closing would have ended as so many others have. But once the co-op started: it's a pleasure to relate that workers really do run a factory better than the bosses. Not only do they control the plant floor, with no need for overseers, they come up with ideas to improve production in both senses: more and better tires, less scrap -- but also fewer backbreaking jobs. With about the same workforce, the plant is producing 50 percent more tires than before it was closed. Workers have introduced new machinery to boost productivity, but so do most enterprises. Corporations also use speed-up, pay cuts, and a total disregard for the environment. Those things won't happen at this co-op. Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:19:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/cockcroft030413.html Today's multi-pronged counterattack by the imperialists includes a new dimension of contemporary imperialism, another change-of-epoch symptom: reliance on the use of military force and the consequent militarization of societies. In "Our America" (Martí), new military bases and attempts at military and "civil" coups are being introduced. The US "Special Forces" budget has increased with unrestricted freedom for them to act in more than seventy nations. In addition, imperialism carries out cybernetic wars and dominates the mass media of disinformation. Simultaneously, it criminalizes protests and demonizes its opponents more than ever, even after their deaths (as in the case of Chávez). In Our America, the governments of the United States and Canada are beefing up the most reactionary governments, like those of the so-called "Pacific Alliance" (Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Panama). The United States continues controlling its colony of Puerto Rico and a part of Cuba -- Guantanamo, world symbol of modernized torture. France and the Netherlands maintain their colonies in the region, and Great Britain tenaciously defends its control of Argentina's Malvinas (Falkland Islands). Nonetheless, movements of popular resistance (often led by women and the original peoples) -- and to a degree the states they influence -- continue to combat imperialism's counterattacks. Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:05:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/grossman020413.html In 1990 it was Schäuble who negotiated the incorporation of the German Democratic Republic, the GDR, into the West German state and, with the aid of corrupt eastern accomplices, made certain that every trace of nationalized industry, every remnant of the once so generous social system, also the entire media, academia, administration, judicial system, yes, anything and everything with the least whiff of socialism was sucked up and eliminated. There were nearly ten million GDR jobs in 1989; four years later only a little over 6 million remained. Schäuble's formula for the GDR has been modified for European Union neighbors. Tue, 02 Apr 2013 13:50:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/wolff310313.html First, it's clear that profits as a percentage of total US GDP have recovered from the crash of 2008. Unemployment may still be over 50% higher than it was in 2007, and real wages may be below what they were then, and the benefits and security of jobs may have fallen, but profits have come back. And with them the stock markets. Hence also the upbeat talk about "recovery" yet again. Second, it's clear that profits have risen dramatically over the last thirty years. Before-tax profits rose from under 8 to well over 12% of GDP: a better than 50% real increase. After-tax profits did better still, rising from over 4 to 10%: more than doubling in real terms. Businesses made more profits while taxes took less of them. How nice for capitalists. How nice too that both parties agree that those profits should not be tapped now for any revenues needed to offset the crisis since 2007. Sun, 31 Mar 2013 19:05:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/dmello300313.html For political reasons, the government has been promoting the direct cash transfer scheme as an anti-corruption measure. But the real objective of the government is, of course, that it sees this as the way to reduce the "major subsidies" bill. On food, for example, given food inflation at more than 10% per annum, if the government keeps a check on the direct cash transfer payments, indeed, ensures that its real value per average household, ie, relative to consumer food price inflation rate, is not protected, then it will gradually reduce the major subsidies bill as a proportion of the gross domestic product (GDP). . . . Think of it, a whole centralised, national security database is being created that can potentially be used to monitor the people enrolled in the UID, all this with no democratic accountability. Besides, via the banks, the financial system, much of it private-profit oriented, will have in place access to this database and thousands of crores of rupees under direct cash payment transfers, in effect very large additional sums of money, routed through them. And, the increasing flow of such benefits will be accompanied by the gradual dismantling of the PDS. Sat, 30 Mar 2013 15:49:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/umar290313.html Shahbagh movement bloggers irresponsibly launched an anti-Islam propaganda. Exploiting that, Jamaat-e-Islami tried to divide the people as pro- and anti-Islam. This helped the Awami League immensely, because it in turn provided the AL with an opportunity to exploit the movement. Fri, 29 Mar 2013 22:21:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/sancar280313.html That's the very reason why an investigation was opened on seven academics at Ordu University for hanging on their doors left-wing education workers' union Eğitim-Sen's cockades and banners declaring "We Want a University for the Benefit of Humanity, Nature, and Society." The hastily prepared investigation minutes said only that the academics hung the banners without permission, omitting information about what the banners were about. On the same day, however, Assistant Professor Deniz Yıldırım, who is one of the aforementioned seven, learned that he was inflicted with a disciplinary punishment because of his speech on the draft law on the Council of Higher Education (YOK). The development at Ordu University may be seen as an indication of what is in store for academia, for whose neoliberal transformation the draft YOK law is to pave the way. On the other hand, according to academics speaking at the "workshop" held on February 2, organized by the "Academia Won't Be Silenced Platform," what happened to Deniz Yıldırım and his colleagues is only the tip of the iceberg. A much greater operation is underway in the depth below. Academics who are not liked by the university administrators who are in step with the trend of political power are exposed to many threats, such as getting denied tenure, disciplined, and fired. But it is not just dissident academics who are on a knife-edge; all universities are being subjected to adjustment. Among the victims are research assistants working under 50-D (contract positions) who have been forced to fight a long fight to get back to work. But there is more to universities than this dark picture. Every form of oppression inevitably provokes resistance organized against it. The METU incidents and 50-D research assistants' organizing brought together many platforms, initiatives, and unions, large and small, within academia. "What Is to Be Done?" was the title of one of the sessions at the February 2 conference mentioned above, expressing the need to come together. Soon afterward, as if to answer the question, it was announced that the University Solidarity Platform (UDP) was founded. It is a pretty significant development in terms of uniting fragmented forces. The UDP was initially composed of 31 member organizations, and the number is growing every day. The conference organized by METU students on March 16 was a result of students seeking to organize themselves as one of the UDP components. Universities are on the move. Thu, 28 Mar 2013 22:08:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/flaherty270313.html Tuesday's march traveled three miles from downtown Tunis to the Menzah stadium, with chanting in multiple languages and representation from a wide variety of movements from the Tunisian Popular Front to Catholic NGOs to ATTAC, a movement challenging global finance. At the Menzah stadium, an opening ceremony began at 7:30 pm with female social movement leaders from Palestine, South Africa, Tunisia, and the US taking the stage, including Besma Khalfaoui, widow of Tunisian opposition leader Chokri Belaïd, who was assassinated last month. According to Forum organizers, only women were chosen for the opening as a response to the rise of conservative religious governments in the region as well as patriarchal systems around the world. "We decided this because women are the struggle in the region," said Hamouda Soubhi from Morocco, one of the organizing committee members. "They are struggling for parity, they are struggling for their rights. The new regimes want the constitutions to be more religious, and we want to take our stand against this." Wed, 27 Mar 2013 10:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/bergfeld260313.html The latest announcement of further austerity measures will only translate into more policing under the banner of the "rule of law." Ruben Marques's death, the policing operation against the November 14 general strike, and the splits inside the security apparatus show how the "re-foundation" of the Portuguese state will increasingly replace consent by coercion, eradicating any hint of democracy. As the Troika's policies fail, Prime Minister Passos Coelho's motto might well become: police batons for protesters and rubber bullets for the kids of Bela Vista! Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/lebowitz210313.html Michael A. Lebowitz: Unfortunately, at the present time Marxism has little importance in terms of influencing left movements, mass labor movements, or the developments associated with the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement. In part, I think that reflects the extent to which Marxism was deformed in the 20th century. It ceased to speak to the needs of people as reflected in social movements and those things that people identified as most important to their lives. When human beings disappear from the centrality of Marxism, it cannot be considered surprising that Marxism does not appeal to the needs of people. So this was one problem. But there was another, and that was the problem of Marxist organizations which believed that they had all the answers to all problems in their back pockets and that accordingly all social movements needed to listen to them. It was precisely this kind of perspective that Marx rejected when he said: We do not say here is truth, now kneel here! In short, Marxist organizations forgot how to listen. Certainly people are suffering now. Certainly they are angry. And that anger grows as the result of neoliberalism, capitalist crisis, and now a crisis in food production (which is leading to rising food prices). People are responding against what they consider to be unfair. But they are not currently drawing upon Marxism. Indeed, in many places, anarchists receive far more attention. And, we have to recognize that, in the absence of a coherent left analysis which can be communicated, there is the threat that fascism will fill the void; this prospect can be seen most clearly at the moment in Greece. We have an enormous responsibility: we have to build on the sense that people have about unfairness to explain the source of that unfairness -- just like Marx insisted upon the necessity to go beyond the slogans of the 19th century of fair wages and a fair workday (which he described correctly as a conservative slogan) to stress the necessity to end the wage relation, the revolutionary slogan. But, to do that, we have to begin by listening and understanding. If we don't, fascism and religious fundamentalism will succeed. Thu, 21 Mar 2013 21:17:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/mosireen190313.html . . . This year nobody went out to celebrate the revolution. Instead we went out to finish what we started in January 2011. . . . "There's no food. Muslim Brothers, liars all! You tricked us in the name of religion!" . . . We came out because we had no other choice in dealing with a regime that imprisons, tortures, and murders our revolution while honoring and protecting those who oppress, kill, and exploit. Why are prices skyrocketing day after day while our wages stay the same? . . . Why is the army stealing people's land and killing them in Qursaya and elsewhere? . . . Tue, 19 Mar 2013 19:16:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/gilbert180313.html In the many homages to Hugo Chávez in recent weeks, there is an important element that suffers almost complete neglect. For want of a better term we could call it "Leninism." By this, of course, I do not mean the tired, formulaic (and basically anti-Leninist) doctrine that generally bears that name. It is precisely the hegemony of that surrogate doctrine, in addition to the intractability of the real one, that drives the neglect and is also behind the mostly conscious attempts to separate Chávez from what passes for Leninism. Think of it: "The revolution against Capital"! That is how Gramsci understood Lenin's work; this was Gramsci's shorthand way of indicating how Lenin and company threw off the evolutionist, progressive consensus of their moment which included the Second International (hence the reference to Capital) and the bourgeois intelligentsia. This was the "end of history" doctrine of the epoch. Fast-forwarding a century, perhaps we can say that the single most important thing that Chávez and the Venezuelan people did from the 1990s onward was to throw off -- in a revolutionary, Leninist way, if you will -- the "end of history" consensus of our moment, which had infected both left and right. Mon, 18 Mar 2013 22:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/we160313.html President Chavez and the people of Venezuela have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars of CITGO fuel assistance (their oil) to needy families on and near the White Earth Reservation as well [as] to other tribes in the United States. Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:37:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/magdoff130313.html Fred Magdoff: What I would end with is just a couple of ideas -- not to give you a blueprint of another type of system but a couple of ideas of what it might be like. I would say one in which basically the economy and politics are both under social control, under democratic social control. Right now the economy is not under social control at all, it's under very much private control, and I would say a good part of our political system is also under private control even though theoretically it's under social control. . . . So what you need is really a regulation of the economy and politics by the democratic process. Goods and services would be produced for the purpose of satisfying real human needs, not manufactured ones, and not for the purpose of profit. I think it was Richard Levins . . . who said: "Agriculture is not about producing food," agriculture is "about profit. Food is a side effect." The health care industry is not about producing health, it's about producing profits. Health is a side effect. So, what I'm saying is that we need a system where agriculture is about producing food for people, it's not about producing profits for Monsanto or any of the other companies. This really will necessitate an economic plan. If you are going to produce something for a purpose, you've got to have some system of planning. Wed, 13 Mar 2013 20:46:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/rm120313.html John Bellamy Foster's point underlines an essential truth that the environmental movement must embrace -- that just as we can't wait for the Democrats to champion the proposal put forward by Boxer and Sanders, we can't stop with solutions that leave the power to destroy the planet in the hands of a super-rich elite. Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:11:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/sader110313.html Hugo Chávez always said that a key book he had read during his prison years was Beyond Capital by his friend István Mészáros. The book was brought to him by Jorge Giordani, who later became Venezuela's chief minister in charge of economy under Chávez, the position that Giordani still holds today. . . . The intellectual restlessness of Hugo Chávez was always impressive. Given the conservative bent of a majority of the Venezuelan intelligentsia -- the largest university in the country, the Central University of Venezuela (or Universidad Central de Venezuela, UCV, in Spanish), is controlled by the Right -- when I was asked who was the most important intellectual in Venezuela, I used to say: "Hugo Chávez." Mon, 11 Mar 2013 17:55:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/rd090313.html "Check out the latest track from Rebel Diaz, a tribute to the recently-deceased Venezuelan President, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, perhaps the most important political leader of our generation. . . . The intro sample is from legendary Venezuelan musician and activist, Alí Primera. The words translate as 'Those who die for life cannot be called dead. From this moment on, mourning is prohibited.' The sample in the main beat is from Simón Díaz, one of the most important figures in Venezuelan folk music." -- Carlos Martinez AKA Agent of Change Sat, 9 Mar 2013 17:19:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/amin090313.html "The death of Chávez is a great tragedy that saddens the Venezuelan people and all those who are fighting around the world for the same cause as what inspired the Bolivarian revolution," said Amin. Though "President Hugo Chávez has died, the Bolivarian revolution continues," emphasized Amin, who sent his condolences to Venezuelan Vice President Nicolás Maduro and the people of Venezuela. Amin also praised the late Venezuelan leader's effort to put "Venezuela as a country and the Venezuelan people on the path of liberation from imperialist domination, the construction of the unity of the peoples of Latin America, and the establishment of genuine democracy that serves its workers." Sat, 9 Mar 2013 16:21:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/harnecker060313.html Chávez conceived of socialism as a new collective life in which equality, freedom, and real and deep democracy reign, and in which the people plays the role of protagonist; an economic system centered on human beings, not on profits; a pluralistic, anti-consumerist culture in which the act of living takes precedence over the act of owning. Chávez thought, like Mariátegui, that 21st-century socialism cannot be a "carbon copy" and must be a "heroic creation," which is why he spoke of Bolivarian, Christian, Robinsonian, Amerindian socialism. The necessity of common people's protagonism is a recurring theme in the late Venezuelan president's speeches and an element that distinguishes his from other proposals for democratic socialism. Participation, as protagonists, in all spheres is what allows human beings to grow and achieve self-confidence, that is to say, to develop themselves as human beings. But this would have remained mere words if Chávez had not promoted the creation of spaces suitable for participatory processes to fully come into their own. That is why his initiative to create communal councils (self-managed community spaces), workers' councils, student councils, and peasant councils is so important, for the purpose of forming a truly collective structure, which must express itself as a new form of decentralized state whose fundamental building blocks should be communes. Building with people, for Chávez, meant winning their hearts and minds for a new social project. And this cannot be done by preaching, it can only be done through practice: creating opportunities for people themselves to become the builders of the project and thus to understand the project as theirs. Wed, 6 Mar 2013 22:02:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/moore060313.html The masses make history, but particular charismatic men and women can play a pivotal role, especially when they believe in the people and mobilize the masses to take action on their own behalf. Hugo Chávez was one of those rare revolutionary leaders. He was especially important for Latin America and the Third World for taking the baton from Fidel Castro in Cuba of being a loud, fearless, and vocal opponent of Yankee imperialism. He was the extreme left of the "pink tide" in South America of new democratic governments that began to dot the continent in the early 2000s. Without his presence, most of those other leaders would certainly have moved even more to the center-left. Under him, Venezuela empowered workers and the poor in ways that no other government was doing, while most governments were gleefully beholden to the 1%ers. That's why they -- and the mainstream media who are their lapdogs -- hated him. . . . Venezuelan "Socialism for the 21st Century" was always a project lacking in definition -- and to define it better and fulfill its promise remains the task for revolutionaries in Venezuela. Reactionaries and imperialists are waiting to exploit any factional disputes in the post-Chávez era. However, more than details or a blueprint about how capitalism could be transcended, a mythic vision -- or what Alain Badiou calls a "Truth" -- was what was needed in those very dark times at the end of the last century. Hugo provided it. Wed, 6 Mar 2013 19:36:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/magdoff060313.html With the death of Hugo Chávez, Venezuela and the world have lost a leader whose primary concern was to bring a new system into existence -- one he referred to as 21st Century Socialism. This meant a lot of things to Chávez, including making sure that all people had access to the necessities of life as well as creating a new reciprocal relationship with other countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. The decline in poverty (especially extreme poverty) and the increase in access to food, health care, and decent housing have been important accomplishments. But perhaps the greatest achievement was the constant effort to devolve power to people at the local level. Wed, 6 Mar 2013 14:48:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/gilbert060313.html Hugo Chávez, who died yesterday afternoon, was something of an Emersonian hero. "Speak your latent conviction," said the sage of Concord, "and it shall be the universal sense." Chávez said things that other people thought, or at least recognized that they thought after he said them. . . . Chávez, after giving himself up in the failed military uprising of 1992, was permitted a couple of minutes on national television. He basically said that the uprising should cease, that everyone should abandon their arms. But almost unconsciously, without thinking much about it, really only to be true to himself (his latent conviction) Chávez slipped in the words "por ahora" ("for now"). That was the proverbial spark that set fire to the field. That fire continues to burn in Latin America and in the world, and will for some time. It is also true that a few more sparks of its kind are needed. Wed, 6 Mar 2013 11:19:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/bergfeld040313.html Last Saturday's "Que Se Lixe a Troika" (Fuck the Troika) demonstrations represent a qualitative as well as quantitative shift for the anti-austerity movement in Portugal. In more than 40 towns and cities across Portugal, 1.5 million people (800,000 in Lisbon) took it to the streets against the government's slavish submission to the dictates of the Troika of IMF, ECB, and EU. In the wake of the first "Que Se Lixe a Troika" demonstration on September 15, an ongoing militant dockers' strike, and a general strike on November 14 of last year, Saturday's demonstration is starting to tackle the unfinished business of the 1974 Portuguese Revolution. Mon, 4 Mar 2013 14:01:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/gw030313.html The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (S. 1348) of 2007, proposed by a "Gang of 12" (sound familiar?) in the Senate with the backing of President Bush, had the same essential ingredients as the current round of legislation. Then, as now, the restrictionist lobbies demanded enforcement "triggers," the business lobbies demanded guestworkers, and labor and immigrant rights advocates demanded, to no avail, legalization with a path to citizenship. "Remember this day if you vote 'no'," said Senator Graham (R-S.C.) at the time. It now appears that the political class has remembered all too well. The compromise bills now in the works on Capitol Hill comprise Act Two of the failed acts of 2007, with essentially the same cast of characters, the same motives, the same plot twists. Today, as in 2007, the Senate's bipartisan framework calls for a "roadmap to address the status of unauthorized immigrants" that is "contingent upon our success in securing our borders" (despite the fact that the border has never been so securitized). Today, as in 2007, restrictionists have been promised "an effective employment verification system which ends the hiring of unauthorized workers." Today, as in 2007, employers of both agricultural and high-skilled workers have been guaranteed that these "will be treated differently than the rest of the undocumented population," along with a new guestworker program that will "provide businesses with the ability to hire lower-skilled workers in a timely manner." Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee is paving a familiar path to permanent non-citizenship for millions of Americans, with partial legalization for some, instant incarceration for others, and naturalization for no one. In short, the same formula that failed in 2007 is being repackaged and resold to us today. It is time to rethink the possibilities for reform and redraw the parameters of the debate. Sun, 3 Mar 2013 00:41:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/grossman020313.html On February 28, delegates of all parties but one voted to send German troops to Mali. Both the two government parties, Merkel's Christian Democrats and the Free Democrats, and the two supposedly "opposition" parties, Social Democrats and Greens, voted in favor. One courageous Green delegate defied party discipline and abstained. But only the Left Party stood as a bloc against sending any soldiers -- and the party was therefore overwhelmingly outvoted. The two decisions, one to send 180 soldiers for training purposes, the other for 330 (already in action) to aid in transportation and air refueling well into northern Mali, are now valid for one year. After this first legal hurdle was surmounted, both time and numbers can easily be increased. As one Christian Democrat made clear, this "process . . . could last a long time." . . . What it boils down to is four traditional parties all cooking up the same stew. They try to sound different but are basically the same. It would really be like a one-party system -- except that the Left is still around, at least until September. The Left representative in the Bundestag, Christine Buchholz, used the short time granted her to say: "Mali has many problems, but none of them can be solved militarily. . . . Afghanistan proves that terror can't be fought by means of war. War is itself terror." She warned against supporting French bombing when the German government has no knowledge of how many are victims of these air raids. She questioned the motivation of France for intervening in Mali, where it seemed less a matter of fighting terror than securing its own economic interests, such as uranium. "What we really need is a major debate about the economic and social problems caused in the world by dealing in weapons." Germany has gained third place in the export of planes, warships, tanks, firearms, and other military "goods" -- large amounts going constantly to North Africa and the Near East. Perhaps her remarks provoked some people to do some thinking. Sat, 2 Mar 2013 19:57:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/cohn010313.html Bradley Manning has pleaded guilty to 10 charges including possessing and willfully communicating to an unauthorized person -- all the main elements of the WikiLeaks disclosure. The charges carry a total of 20 years in prison. For the first time, Bradley spoke publicly about what he did and why. His actions, now confirmed by his own words, reveal Bradley to be a very brave young man. . . . "I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general as it applied to Iraq and Afghanistan," Bradley told the military tribunal during his guilty plea proceeding. "It might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counter terrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day." . . . Before contacting WikiLeaks, Bradley tried to interest the Washington Post in publishing the documents but the newspaper was unresponsive. He tried unsuccessfully to contact the New York Times. . . . Bradley maintained his not guilty pleas to 12 additional charges, including aiding the enemy and espionage, for which he could get life imprisonment. . . . Fri, 1 Mar 2013 18:13:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/lm280213.html "The Third World Network and Jubilee are partnering today to stand up against vulture fund activity, stand up for Argentina, in this incredibly important court case that has massive repercussions for all countries around the world to be able to protect themselves from this kind of litigation in the courts by holdout vulture funds. The reason why we think this is so important is because countries aren't able to pursue sovereign debt restructuring, they aren't able to restructure debt successfully, if they are going to be under the thrall of this kind of court litigation by holdout creditors. . . ." -- Bhumika Muchhala Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/latuff260213.html Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. Cf. Salim Lamrani, "40 perguntas para Yoani Sánchez em sua turnê mundial" (Opera Mundi, 18 February 2013); Salim Lamrani, "40 questions à poser à Yoani Sánchez lors de sa tournée mondiale" (Opera Mundi, 19 February 2013); Salim Lamrani, "40 preguntas para Yoani Sánchez durante su gira mundial" (Opera Mundi, 19 February 2013); Salim Lamrani, "40 Questions for Yoani Sánchez" (Trans. Colin Brayton, CubaNews, 20 February 2013). Tue, 26 Feb 2013 18:05:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/day250213.html Every year about this time, since way back in 2013, the City of New York has bestowed its prestigious Hashmi Award upon a worthy New York resident who lives openly as an observant Muslim. The Hashmi recipient -- preferably of Asian, Middle Eastern, or African descent -- must have paid taxes, abided by Western law, held no criminal record, valued higher education, and demonstrated all-around Good Muslim Sportsmanship in the war against terror. The Hashmi, according to Mayor Christine Quinn, "is our way of saying, 'Thanks, observant Muslims, for allowing us to project our post-9-11 fear and hatred onto you. Your sinister hijabs, skullcaps, and beards, not to mention your wacky halal food, have justified years of the NYPD secretly monitoring your communities.'" Mon, 25 Feb 2013 10:32:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/kurshan230213.html Angola 3 News: You write that "not only did federal control unit prisons proliferate, but now virtually every state system in the country is capped off by a control unit. Whether they are called Control Units, Supermax, SHU (Secure Housing Unit), ADX (Administrative Maximum Facility), a skunk by any other name still stinks." Can you tell us more about how control unit prisons and solitary confinement in US prisons evolved since the mid-1980s when you began your work? Nancy Kurshan: When we began our work, Marion was the only control unit prison in the federal system, and there were none in the state systems. At the outset, the prison bureaucrats proclaimed that the control unit would allow the rest of the system to run more freely since it would remove the 'bad apples' from the system and concentrate them in the control unit. We countered that argument by predicting that the control unit would serve as an anchor, dragging the whole system in a more repressive direction. . . . Long-term solitary confinement has become a pillar of their 'correctional' policy. However, it seems that two serious challenges have developed. First, this form of imprisonment is expensive and our society is running out of money, thanks in part to our bloated military agenda. Secondly, in some places like California, prisoners have stood up in the thousands and said: "We won't take it no more." There have been hunger strikes of 6,000 or more prisoners and support on the outside that has helped give voice to their grievances. . . . Sat, 23 Feb 2013 00:01:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/moore220213.html Harvey Schwartz has collected a wonderful set of oral history interviews with members of the ILWU, past and present, in a book appropriately entitled Solidarity Stories. For a project on "proletarian internationalism" -- the historical knowledge of which I think badly needs to be resurrected now that we as a global social and economic justice movement are thinking once again about how a New World beyond capitalism might be possible -- I have been reading stories like that and memoirs written by a variety of working-class radicals in the 20th Century. Let me tell you about one of those memoirs, the remarkable story of Bill Bailey the red sailor. Bailey was born in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1911. A bright boy, he grew up hungry and shoeless in tough Irish immigrant working-class neighborhoods and was often in scrapes with the law. At age 14, he began working on ocean-going ships. His earliest exposure to revolutionary working-class ideas came on one of his voyages when he accidentally picked up and began reading a copy of the IWW's Industrial Worker that somebody had left behind. During the Great Depression, when sailor jobs were extremely hard to find, he rode the rails from one end of the country to the other with other hobos looking for work. In 1934 he joined the Communist-led Marine Workers Industrial Union (MWIU) and became an organizer for the union in NYC and Baltimore. To protest the imprisonment in Germany of an anti-Nazi American sailor, Bailey with some other sailor buddies made an international news splash by ripping down the swastika off the bow of a German passenger ship docked in New York. After more waterfront organizing in San Francisco and Hawaii, he joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and shipped off to Spain to fight alongside workers from other countries against fascism. Upon returning from Spain, he resumed work as an on-shore labor organizer and then volunteered to go to sea as a sailor on dangerous merchant supply voyages in the Pacific during World War II. Throughout it all, Bailey was motivated by his strong sense of class solidarity. Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:01:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/russia210213.html A terrorist car bombing in close proximity to the Russian Embassy in Damascus which occurred on February 21, 2013 and was carried out by a suicide terrorist bomber, resulted in numerous victims and wounded among civilians, including students of a secondary school. The chancellery and the housing compound of the Russian Embassy were significantly damaged. Given the gravity of the incident and based on the practice of the UN Security Council, the Russian delegation circulated a draft Security Council press statement condemning this heinous act of terrorism and extending condolences to the relatives of the victims. . . . Unfortunately, such an indispensable reaction by the Security Council to this terrorist attack has been once again blocked by the US delegation linking it with other questions. We consider unacceptable this search for justifications for terrorist actions. It is obvious that by doing so the US delegation encourages those who have been repeatedly targeting American interests, including US diplomatic missions. Thu, 21 Feb 2013 20:42:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/hattingh210213.html The series of strikes and protests that recently took place in and around farms in South Africa's Western Cape Province was fuelled by the deep-seated anger and frustration that workers feel. . . . In fact, since 1994, farm-owning capitalists have been on the attack. Approximately 2 million farm dwellers and workers have been evicted from farms since then in South Africa. Many of these people have been forced into townships in the rural areas, where they have become either unemployed or casual or seasonal workers on farms. Services in these townships are also of an appalling standard, with most people living in shacks or dilapidated Reconstruction and Development houses. Coupled to this, there has been a proliferation of labor brokers exploiting people's desperate need for work, and piecework has been re-introduced on many farms. Farm owners obviously benefit from this situation: many no longer have to provide accommodation for workers, and hiring people on a casual basis or based on piecework keeps wage bills low. . . . This article examines the issues surrounding the farm workers' strike, including the workers' actions and demands, and the responses of the state and bosses to the strike. It, however, also looks at the role that some union officials and local politicians played and how this impacted the strike, including the sometimes contradictory role of officials from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). . . . Although BAWUSA is a trade union and supported the strike, it was established by aspiring black capitalists within the wine industry through an organization called the Black Association of the Wine and Spirit Industry (BAWSI), to which it is still linked. The aim of BAWSI and BAWUSA, therefore, has been to ultimately push for greater black involvement in the wine industry across class lines. It is clear that BAWSI and BAWUSA officials saw the strike as an opportunity to grow the profile of their organizations and themselves. BAWUSA's agenda during the strikes, however, was to negotiate a settlement with the state and farm owners through dialogue. While it oftentimes led demonstrations in De Doorns, these often seemed to be a secondary tactic, with the primary objective being to enter into negotiations among unions, the state, and farm owners (the strike committees having no direct representation in the negotiations). So the demonstrations it led were often aimed at getting farmers to agree and enter into dialogue. The cross-class nature of BAWSI/BAWUSA was also evident in the figure of Pieterse himself. Pieterse is an emerging capitalist farmer, and through BAWSI he has an interest in one of the largest wine companies in the Western Cape, KWV. . . . COSATU officials also supported the strike, and through FAWU it had some presence in De Doorns. COSATU officials viewed the strike as a way of finally making inroads in terms of union membership on the farms. COSATU from the start, however, made it clear that it did not want a similar situation to what had occurred on the platinum mines, where workers took action outside of the unions and set up their own independent structures. COSATU made this explicit when it stated: "The unions are trying to avoid a Marikana situation where workers act without guidance from unions, and resolutions are not found in negotiations." Thus, COSATU wanted to gain leadership over the strikes, and its agenda was to push for a negotiated settlement, along with driving the strikes into the confines of the existing labor legislation framework. Indeed, Ehrenriech himself added: "When workers take their own action without direction and guidance, that is when the danger comes about . . . they don't understand the parameters of the law and all the other stuff." Hence, COSATU's interest was not to build a struggle based on direct democracy and militancy. So although it supported the strike, it pushed for dialogue between unions, the state, and the farmers' organization -- in the form of AgriSA -- to resolve the strike. In the process, though, the workers and their strike committees were excluded from the negotiations. The fact that Tony Ehrenreich is also a well-known ANC politician (the ANC is in opposition at the municipal level in Cape Town and headed there by Ehrenreich) with a high media profile gave him a major influence in the strike. COSATU and Ehrenreich used this profile to suspend the strike on a number of occasions and to ultimately call it off, without consulting or getting mandates from workers themselves. . . . The fact that COSATU could repeatedly suspend the strike unilaterally -- to follow a path of what amounted to social dialogue -- also reveals much about the strength of the fledgling strike committees. Although they initially played a major role in starting the strike in a number of areas, the strike committees simply did not have the strength to counter COSATU's calls to suspend the strike, and workers gradually drifted back to work when the calls were made. A strike coalition was also established during the strike by unions and progressive non-governmental organizations to build and bring strike committees together so that workers could control the strike. Some of the unions and organizations in the coalition, like the Commercial Stevedore Agricultural and Allied Workers Union (CSAAWU) and the Surplus People's Project (SPP), have a long history of attempting to build workers' committees and forums in the rural areas. However, while the coalition did bring some strike committees on board, and helped strengthen some on the ground, many areas remained without any such committees, and the coalition did not effectively become a platform controlled by workers themselves to coordinate the strike (despite the coalition's intention to facilitate this). This meant that there was no strongly-organized and effective counterweight to the COSATU and BAWUSA officials and their agenda. . . . Perhaps also playing into this situation was the fact that farm workers do not have a long history of organizing or undertaking major struggles, unlike mineworkers, in South Africa. When a major organization, in the form of COSATU, suspended the strike, most workers went along with it. Certainly many workers were confused by these calls to stop and start the strike and many felt disgruntled with it. Yet they did not effectively mount a challenge to it. This could be due to a lack of a history of sustained struggle and limited experience with workers' direct democracy and with the confidence that these bring. It could also, however, be due to many farm workers, although by no means all, still having some faith in the ANC, especially in the context of the Western Cape where the opposition, and racist, Democratic Alliance is strong. . . . Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:23:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/wolff190213.html The depth and length of the global crisis are now clear to millions. In the sixth year since it started in late 2007, no end is in sight. Unemployment rates are now less than halfway back from their recession peak to where they were in 2007. Over 20 million are without work, millions more limited to part-time work, millions have been foreclosed out of their homes. Those who retain jobs suffer declining real wages, fewer benefits, reduced job security, and more work. This year of "austerity" began with an increase in the payroll tax rate for over 150 million wage-and-salary earners from 4.2 to 6.2 per cent (a 48% increase from 2012) -- a far more significant tax event than the trivial -- but wildly hyped -- increase of taxes on those earning over $450,000 annually from 35 to 39.6 per cent (a 13% increase from 2012). Austerity deepens as Republicans and Democrats negotiate merely details of their agreements to cut government spending on social programs helping working people. . . . Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:16:00 EST