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Annette T. Rubinstein
Celebrates 95th Birthday at the Brecht Forum’s New Headquarters
André Gunder Frank
(1929-2005) A Note on the Death of André
Gunder Frank (1929-2005) Dr. Baburam Bhattarai on the Royal Dictatorship and the Need For a Democratic Republic in Nepal The Future of Organized Labor in the
U.S.: Reinventing Trade Unionism for the 21st Century William H. Hinton
(1919–2004) Can the Working Class Change the
World?
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October 2005, Volume57 — Number 5 c o n t
e n t s The much-anticipated split in the AFL-CIO, the labor federation in the United States, took place in Chicago, at the federation's annual convention. Three unions-the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Teamsters, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW)-left the federation, and more will likely follow. The dissident unions call themselves the Change to Win Coalition, and they have suggested that what they have done parallels the formation of the CIO in 1935, which resulted in the organization of the nation's mass production industries. They will be holding their inaugural convention in late September.| more |. REVIEW
OF THE MONTH My subject—organizing ecological revolution—has as its initial premise that we are in the midst of a global environmental crisis of such enormity that the web of life of the entire planet is threatened and with it the future of civilization. This is no longer a very controversial proposition. To be sure, there are different perceptions about the extent of the challenge that this raises. At one extreme there are those who believe that since these are human problems arising from human causes they are easily solvable. All we need are ingenuity and the will to act. At the other extreme there are those who believe that the world ecology is deteriorating on a scale and with a rapidity beyond our means to control, giving rise to the gloomiest forebodings. Immokalee Workers
Take Down Taco Bell On March 8, 2005, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in Immokalee, Florida won a significant victory. In a precedent-setting move, fast-food giant Yum! Brands Inc., the world's largest restaurant corporation, agreed to all the farm workers' demands (and more!) if the CIW would end the four-year-old boycott of its subsidiary Taco Bell. (Yum!, a spin off from Pepsi, includes Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, A&W, Long John Silver's, and Pizza Hut franchises.) As United Farm Workers (UFW) president Arturo Rodriguez commented at the victory celebration, "It is the most significant victory since the successful grape boycott led by the UFW in the 1960s in the fields of California." Privatization at
Gunpoint The transfer of assets from peripheral states to international financial oligarchies is one of the defining tenets of the neoliberal counter-revolution. As a general rule, this latest form of neocolonial transfer of surplus to the industrialized core has proceeded relatively successfully in many peripheral states, with many Latin American states standing out as significant exceptions. In Pakistan, where the ruling state oligarchy has historically been the equivalent of a comprador bourgeoisie, this process has accelerated since it was initiated in the late 1980s. NEW THIS
WEEK! In developed capitalist countries, debates over the economics of socialism have mostly concentrated on questions of information, incentives, and efficiency in resource allocation. This focus on “socialist calculation” reflects the mainly academic context of these discussions. By contrast, for anti-capitalist movements and post-revolutionary regimes on the capitalist periphery, socialism as a form of human development has been a prime concern. A notable example is Ernesto “Che” Guevara's work on “Man and Socialism in Cuba,” which rebutted the argument that “the period of building socialism...is characterized by the extinction of the individual for the sake of the state.” For Che, socialist revolution is a process in which “large numbers of people are developing themselves,” and “the material possibilities of the integral development of each and every one of its members make the task ever more fruitful.” September 2005, Volume 57, Number
4 c o n t
e n t s More than a year after the supposed "transfer of sovereignty" the war of aggression that the United States is waging in Iraq shows no sign of abating. Washington's plan is to continue to occupy Iraq by force until it is brought securely within the American Empire. After that U.S. troop presence in the major urban centers can be sharply reduced and its remaining forces relocated to a few strategic military bases, with the new Iraqi government security forces stepping in to replace American troops in most parts of the country. | more |. REVIEW
OF THE MONTH The global actions of the United States since September 11, 2001, are often seen as constituting a "new militarism" and a "new imperialism." Yet, neither militarism nor imperialism is new to the United States, which has been an expansionist power—continental, hemispheric, and global—since its inception. What has changed is the nakedness with which this is being promoted, and the unlimited, planetary extent of U.S. ambitions. Hugo Chávez
on the Failed Coup Marta Harnecker: Since we are doing this interview in the same place that you were detained during the April 11 coup, could you tell me your strongest memories of those bitter hours? Hugo Chávez: We initially thought we would have several alternatives, including moving to Maracay, but the tanks I had sent for earlier, [that were] needed to make that move...had been sent to Fort Tiuna instead [under pressure from the generals supporting the coup]. That made our move to Maracay impossible. After consulting with some of my people, I finally decided to accept [the pro-coup generals’] demand to hand myself in. The FARC-EP in
Colombia: A Revolutionary Exception in an Age of Imperialist
Expansion The United States and the Colombian ruling oligarchy have, since the 1960s, repeatedly implemented socioeconomic and military campaigns to defeat the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP). However, this offensive, whose main purpose is to maintain capitalist accumulation and expansion, has resulted in an embarrassing setback for U.S. imperialism and the Colombian ruling class. In a time of growing and deepening U.S. imperialism, it is important to examine this failure. Over the past four decades, despite U.S. efforts, support has risen for what has been the most important continuous military and political force in South America opposing imperialism. I examine how the FARC-EP has not only maintained a substantial presence within the majority of the country but has responded aggressively to the continuing counterinsurgency campaign. I also show as false the propaganda campaign of the U.S. and Colombian governments claiming that the FARC-EP is being defeated. This analysis provides an example of how a contemporary organic, class-based sociopolitical movement can effectively contend with imperial power in a time of global counterrevolution. Left-Indigenous
Struggles in Bolivia: Searching for Revolutionary Democracy La Paz, the Bolivian capital, rests in a deep valley in the heart of the Andes. The geographical terrain of the city is marked clearly with deep class divisions and the racist legacies of Spanish colonial impositions and ongoing internal colonialism, present since the founding of the republic in 1825. The indigenous peoples-over 60 percent of the population according to the 2001 census-have suffered at the bottom of a wickedly steep social hierarchy that whitens in accordance with class privilege. Can
Germany’s Corporatist Labor Movement Survive? For seven years Germany has been governed by a center-left coalition. This government was elected in 1998 because a majority of the electorate was tired of conservatives promising that fiscal austerity, lower unemployment benefits and social security, and restrained wage growth would bring prosperity and full employment. However, the new government's program has made that of its predecessor look like neoliberalism with a human face. The new government, led by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), has launched the most severe attacks on labor and social standards since the establishment of a welfare state after the Second World War. Since, for most of its history, the SPD has presented itself as the main force pushing for expansion of the welfare state, its anti-worker actions have deeply disappointed its followers and surprised its opponents. |
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